Up and In

Chapter 1

There it was again. That damned full stop. How does so much passive aggression fit itself into such a tiny punctuation mark?

Fine with me.

‘Fine with me, full stop.’

‘Fine with me full stop, no x.’

‘Fine with me full stop no x, no way am I ever going to let you think you are in any way deserving of the lathered-up, flattery-filled, signed-off-with-a-kiss kind of email I always send to everyone else on this email list.’

And there you have it. That is what she was able to say to me with one little full stop.

Of course, if any of the obsessively-stroking-and-simultaneously-self-aggrandising netball mums on this email list ever decided just to hit ‘Reply’ instead of ‘Reply all’ to the coach’s weekly email, I probably wouldn’t know that this little full stop means that I am absolutely, categorically, no longer in the fold. Unfortunately, because I am still on the email list, every week my inbox fills with messages ending with ‘x’ – not emails addressed specifically to me, just a plethora of inappropriately ‘Reply all’ emails sent to every woman with a daughter in the Red Rockets Under 10 Division 1 netball team. Every ‘x-ending’ email I have read over this netball season has served to reinforce the knowledge that if I were the object of Bea’s contrived affections her response to my offer to organise a group gift for our daughters’ netball coach would instead have gone more like this:

(Reply all)

Oh Maria, you are always so thoughtful. Of course I had been planning to find Linney the perfect gift – she has done such a stellar job with the girls this season! Sadly, I am just run off my feet this week. With putting the finishing touches on the gala, and having the nanny taking time off for her final exams, I just haven’t had a chance to even think! You are a life saver! Truly. I can’t wait to see what you choose – you have such impeccable taste! By the way, where did you get those absolutely to-die-for wellies you were wearing last week? I absolutely covet them. I just have to have some. Anyway, I must press on, I have a hundred emails to get through. I see another one just popped up from the Governor’s Office. Did I mention that the Governor and his wife will be joining us at the gala? I have known him forever, of course. Just adored his Christmas card last year! Remind me to tell you about it. Thanks again for organising the gift. You are an absolute gem! Bea x

I guess, in a way, ‘Fine with me full stop’ is in fact a lot easier than the alternative. Back when I actually gave a damn what Bea thought of me, the alternative would have filled me with insecurity. What kind of ‘perfect’ gift would she have chosen for Linney? Did she really like my wellies? Would she ever choose them over her Louboutin ballet flats to go to an Under 10’s netball game – even when the grounds were covered in mud like when I wore mine the previous week – or did she really just plan to sit them on the porch by way of decor at her thousand-acre ‘hobby’ farm up the coast? How would I confess that I actually bought them at Kmart? And shit, shit, shit, the Governor is coming to the gala? It was bad enough that I had to hide from Joe that it was costing us $500 a head just to be at the gala, but now I would have to somehow convince him to pay a grand for a decent new dinner suit as well?

I have to wonder, though, if it was really such a relief to open up her fine-with-me-full-stop email, instead of receiving one of the phoney rambling prop-ups she sends to all the other netball mums – the ‘lower-case beas’ – then why did it feel like I had just had my face slapped?

Admittedly, I cared a hell of a lot less than I once would have. Before I realised that my name had been wiped off the Bea-list, ‘Fine with me full stop’ would have spiralled me into days of tortured analysis. What did I say that I shouldn’t have? Is she upset that I invited Lauren’s daughter for a play with Kate instead of asking Mirabella? What is it? What did I do? Did she wave to me in traffic and I missed it? Did Kate do something to upset Mirabella? Is it because Kate got a better score than Mirabella at the eisteddfod?

After being off the Bea-list for almost six months now, though, I have started training myself to see things differently. When I think about what got me wiped off the Bea-list in the first place, my reaction to her flagrant snubbery is now more a mixture of amusement and incredulity, rather than feeling any sense of self-recrimination.

I remember the day well. It was the beginning of the netball season and I had somehow managed to drag myself out of bed after a sleepless night worrying about my sister-in-law. Susannah had remained incredibly composed as she told me the previous afternoon that she had received an abnormal Pap smear result, that it was a ‘high-grade’ abnormal result – that she may have cervical cancer. But even though her delivery of the words was calm and factual, I could still hear the fear in her voice and I felt like the air was being sucked from my lungs as she said it.

It wasn’t the first lung-draining feeling I had experienced in reaction to something Susannah had said to me. In fact, Susannah and her straight-shooting ‘observations’ had often left me gasping over the years. The whole ‘if you can’t say something nice …’ philosophy just seemed to escape her entirely, and sometimes I could have handled her being a whole lot less calm and factual. But she was also the closest thing to a sister I had.

My mind raced forward to the possibility that she may actually die from this … that she has two young children under five and that Joe and I would have to help my brother David look after them … that she is the same age as me, and that at any given time something like this could be my own bad news … that life is too damned short to worry about whether my eye make-up is perfectly coordinated with my Fendi bag.

And somehow, completely exhausted – both physically and mentally – that morning I had managed to pull on the clothes I had left in a heap as they fell beside the bed the night before. I had helped Kate to get organised and got her a breakfast of sorts, a cereal popper which she could sip in the car, and then driven to the netball courts in time for warm-up.

I was sitting courtside in my new purpose-bought folding chair, drifting between dozing and distress behind my sunglasses, when Bea floated past me, all glowing tan, designer maxi-dress and Miu Miu sandals. As usual, she had arrived right when the game was about to start, literally pushing Mirabella onto the court without her having had the chance to warm up with the other girls for the half hour before the game. It was all rush, rush, rush, my life’s so busy, I have so much to fit in with coordinating the nanny, the groundsman, the cleaners, as well as the P&F meetings, the specialty cooking classes, the shopping (Gerard will only eat organic), five hatha yoga classes a week and Pilates on Saturdays, it’s just not possible to get my daughter here any earlier.

And yet despite the fact that all of this frantic, last-minute-arrival, self-indulgent chaos is the polar opposite of my instinctive urge to always be on time, and to ensure that my daughter always arrives to her activities on time, Bea had somehow drawn me in. I am ashamed to admit that I felt strangely elevated by the cheek kisses, and by her lightly touching my arm while she told me ‘in confidence’ the latest gossip about this or that school mum, or even more compellingly, about some high-profile personality she had gone to school with/used to date/helped to select obscenely priced artworks – back when she was an assistant curator at her mother’s gallery in the period which intervened between successive gap years and marrying her old-moneyed orthopaedic surgeon husband.

This day, though, the whole first quarter of the game had elapsed before I even heard Bea’s voice. This in itself spoke of the peculiarity of my day, as other than the low-toned whisper she adopted when imparting the details of someone’s scandal-ridden back story, Bea’s high-pitched articulations could normally be heard easily by anyone within fifty metres of her.

At the beginning of the second quarter, Bea appeared at my side. Unlike the doyenne who stays put while her minions come to her, Bea always flitted around wherever she went, granting only a short audience of her time before she moved on to her next sycophant. Usually when I noticed Bea’s approach, I would feel foolishly flattered by her attention and almost involuntarily beam my delight at seeing her, but on this particular Saturday I didn’t even look up. Even as a beaconing waft of Joy Parfum descended, my mind was locked on Susannah.

‘Maria,’ she trilled, ‘would you like to buy some hair ties that Mirabella has crafted for the team? Two for twenty dollars. All money being donated to the club, of course.’

Before I could answer, the smooth soles of her Miu Mius pivoted at the sound of excited applause as our team scored their first goal of the season. Her throat then cleared audibly from its constriction as we both realised that it was not our star shooter, Mirabella, who had scored. It was in fact Kate who had scored the season’s first goal, playing Goal Attack.

‘Go, Kate, great goal!’ I shouted, probably a half-minute too late. I turned nodding towards Bea but refrained from any further comment as I noticed her pursed lips and wrinkle-free crossed brow were looking far from congratulatory.

I looked back to a beaming Kate as I tried to make sense of it. I mean, I knew she was capable of it. Ever since we had put the netball hoop up in the backyard we would rarely see her before dinner time, as she spent every spare minute shooting hoops while little Sarah held a broom up in front of her face to defend her, but I was surprised to see her playing Goal Attack in this game. There were three other girls in the team who took turns as Goal Attack, with the Goal Shooter position artfully filled by Mirabella every quarter. Throughout the whole early-start season, which the team had played over the summer, the GS bib was always attached to Mirabella, except when she arrived so late that the position had to be given to someone else. Even then, there was often a frantic swapping of bibs so Mirabella could resume her rightful position once she made it onto the court.

‘She’s incredible, she just never misses!’ Bea would declare with feigned amazement every time Mirabella shot a goal. It seemed to escape her attention that there had usually been at least three or four unsuccessful goal attempts by Mirabella before she scored. But Bea’s perception always triumphed over reality.

Mirabella’s – and Bea’s – attachment to the GS position meant that GA was always given to Paige, or Zoe or Georgia. All three were taller than Kate, and more assertive, so I could kind of understand why Linney always chose one of them and put Kate at Centre. By midway through last season, Kate never even bothered to put her hand up for GA, so it really had me wondering how she came to be scoring the first goal of the season.

As I looked around the court, I realised that Paige wasn’t even there. I then remembered Lauren’s ‘Reply all’ that they were going to Fiji that week. A more observant look revealed that Zoe was playing as Goal Keeper with a bandaged hand, and Georgia was sitting on the sideline with tear marks lining her reddened face. I was not sure what I had missed while my mind was off with Susannah, but with only six Red Rockets on the court, I thought Kate was an even greater star for getting that first goal.

‘So, Maria, the hair ties …?’ Bea pretended to ignore what had just happened, but my later recollection of her barely parted teeth as she spoke should have made me realise that this was no time to be non-compliant. I really should have known that fawning indebtedness was the only appropriate response to her question.

‘Oh yes, Bea, they’re beautiful. Is it alright if we buy six?’ Twelve words that could have changed everything. And if I had thought to add a dash of ‘sorry, Bea, I was just distracted watching Mirabella – she moves so well,’ I am pretty sure that my emails from Bea would still come sealed with an x.

But no. Nothing like that came out of my mouth that day.

‘Actually, I just bought Kate some new ones from the club when I got her winter uniform, so I think she’ll be right for a while, thanks.’ I said it completely without thinking. I did not think about the fact that it was no doubt Bea’s own handiwork for sale, not Mirabella’s. I did not think about the fact that supporting Bea’s ‘charity’ work was a pre-condition to our – for want of a more accurate term – friendship. On this particular morning, my mind was far from netball team hair ties.

‘Very well, suit yourself,’ she pitched back at me in clarion tone, eyebrows arched high, and smile stiffened into place like she had just been injected with an overdose of Botox.

I was too preoccupied with my own thoughts about Susannah and her two little boys to really absorb the gravity of my infraction at the time, but on reflection, there is no doubt in my mind that that was the moment that I was unceremoniously, and seemingly irretrievably, struck off the Bea-list.

Chapter 2

The ‘Reply all fine with me full stop’ email from Bea obviously signalled to all the lower-case beas that it was okay for them to respond to me. It was ‘fine with her’.

The first, within no more than twenty seconds, came from Sonya. Given the length of her response, she obviously already had the email composed, sitting in her drafts folder, waiting for the green light from Bea. After my more frequent exposure to Sonya this season, I think it would be a comfortable bet that she actually had two responses prepared. One in case Bea liked my idea, and one in case she didn’t.

Sonya is a former solicitor who really needs to go back to work. She is a textbook Type-A personality. And a wannabe team manager. I am not quite sure how I actually landed the position of team manager, given she has tried desperately all season to carry out all the duties expected of me, and then some. As I recall, Linney asked at our first training afternoon if anyone was interested in being the team manager. When no one, including Sonya, volunteered, I said I would do it. And yet for some reason it seems that ever since, Sonya has taken it upon herself to show me what I should be doing. Her email about Linney’s gift was yet another example:

(Reply all)

Thanks for your email, Maria, I am happy to contribute to the gift for Linney. She has done a great job with the girls this season. The for-and-against statistics are outstanding. I have done a spreadsheet of all of their results to date, which is attached. I have also done a spreadsheet that details the shooting accuracy percentages for Zoe, Georgia, Paige and Mirabella. I did not include Kate’s, as she only shot for those couple of quarters in the first game and the one last week. I have separated out their results depending on whether they were playing as Goal Shooter or Goal Attack. There is also a bar graph which shows goals scored each week, each bar coloured according to which girls were in the shooting positions. Congratulations to Mirabella who is by far our most successful shooter for the season.

I should also say, of course, Maria, if you would like me to purchase the gift and collect everyone’s contributions, I am happy to do it. I still have the account that I set up for the contributions for the class Christmas gift for Mrs Davison last year. That makes it so easy for everyone just to make an internet transfer and also far easier to keep track of who has paid and who hasn’t.

If you want me to take care of this, please advise by no later than Sunday.

Thanks,

Sonya

(And no ‘x’ from her either …)

Seriously? I mean seriously?? A bank account to keep track of eight twenty-dollar donations for a coach’s gift? I wonder which one of us she thought she needed to keep track of? And a bar graph? Who has the time for this stuff? When does she do it? Why does she do it? And then of course she just had to make a special mention of ‘our star shooter’. I could just see Bea lapping this all up.

Then came Jen’s response:

(Reply all)

Thanks Maria. And Sonya, you really do set the bar too high for all of us! I wish I could get done even half of what you do in a day. You need to let Maria take care of this now that she has offered. Remember you are heading overseas the week after next. You and Tom just need to take that trip and relax. Promise me!

Jen x

In this reply there was an ‘x’, but given there were two words in reply to me, and the rest was really to Sonya, I don’t think I can really count that ‘x’ as being for me. And what was the whole ‘now that she has offered’ bit about? Did they really think that as team manager I would not offer to organise Linney’s gift?

I closed the laptop. God, what was wrong with me? Why did I think about this all so much? I so wished that I could just read these emails without making my brain hurt. Or – even better – that I could just ignore them completely. I opened the laptop again just as another email came through.

(Reply all)

Wow, Sonya, you and Tom are going overseas? Where are you off to? I can’t wait to hear all the details.

Heidi x

(Reply)

Thanks Ri, sounds great! Nic x

I could feel my tightened chest loosen as I read it. Nic is the only mother in this group of women with whom I feel any real connection. It confused me for a while that someone so down-to-earth and, well, ‘real’ could be so friendly with these women, but I have come to the conclusion that it was probably more about business than pleasure.

Nic has long been hairdresser to the beas. They are all clients at her boutique salon at the end of Queens Road and she seems to know everything about every one of them. Even though she didn’t grow up within a two-kilometre radius of her salon (like all the beas did) she knows where they all went to school, which bea was voted ‘most popular’ and which bea was suspended after she vomited her underage vodka and orange all over the dance floor at the Year 11 formal, how they met their husbands, where they shopped for their designer clothing and often how much they spent, who had moved on from IPL to Botox and whose breasts had had ‘a little lift’, which funky little hotspot a bea or two would be trying out next and even which bea was currently miffed with which other bea and why.

Nic’s bea trivia knew no bounds. And even though there wasn’t a malicious bone in her body, she would often share little titbits with me here and there. It usually started with an earnest ‘Now you absolutely mustn’t tell anyone, not even Joe’ as we opened our second bottle of Pinot Grigio during one of our regular weeknight catch-ups. I would then promise to faithfully zip it as I laughed off the idea of trying to get Joe to be even the slightest bit interested in Nic’s bea stories.

Oh, if only they knew what I know about them. Every now and then I have mischievously imagined wiping those plastered smiles off their cosmetically altered faces by dropping a little bombshell or two. But I would never do it. I would never want to make things difficult for Nic. Apart from the fact that she is my greatest source of entertaining and sometimes scandalous bea fodder, I have always genuinely liked her and would not risk losing the only school-slash-netball mum who I could truly call a friend.

My momentary relief brought on by Nic’s typically cheerful tone was short-lived.

(Reply all)

Do you think $20 is enough? I was thinking $50 each might be better.

Caitlin x

Really, how does a kiss tie in with that statement? Is it just a reflex every time they type their name? This utterly misplaced ‘x’ thing was really starting to bug me. And even more from that stupid Bea-adulating Caitlin.

(Reply all)

I agree Caitlin! $20 each just doesn’t allow for a decent gift. I’m certainly happy to pay $50. Bea x

And so it flowed on:

Good idea, Caitlin. Count me in for $50. Jen x

$50 is a much better idea. I was thinking that myself. Heidi x

Thanks everyone. I am happy to pay $50. Thanks for organising Maria. L x

Lauren could usually be relied upon to be polite to everyone, including me, and so I am pretty certain she meant to put a comma in there between ‘organising’ and ‘Maria’.

And then there was Sonya again. Did I really have time to read this?

I agree that $50 is more appropriate. Linney has spent a lot of time with the girls this season, and over the summer. With all the work she has done with them, even $50 seems inadequate but I understand we need to be inclusive. I was thinking we should get her a nice piece of handcrafted jewellery from my friend Joanna’s collection. Linney is always commenting on the pieces I wear, and I think it’s probably a little pricey for her to buy for herself, so it’s the perfect gift. I can arrange for Joanna to open the shop just for us. Let’s take a couple of bottles of Veuve down and make a night of it.

Sonya x

Coming to the end of yet another of Sonya’s long-winded emails, I laughed out loud as it occurred to me how comprehensively frustrated she must be by twitter. Cutting through the verbiage, though, I could see that she was really very keen to take this over. Perhaps I should have just let her. One less thing for me to worry about. But I couldn’t let her take over again. I don’t know why, but something about her just made me want to stand my ground.

Twenty minutes of self-preservation-strategy-contemplation later, I ‘replied all’ while making a mental note to self: $160 is an entirely inadequate amount to spend on a gift for an under 10’s netball coach.

Okay then, $50 each it is! I’ll see you all at the game on Saturday. Thanks for the offer, Sonya. Perhaps we can toss some gift ideas around while we watch the game. Maria

I hovered for a few moments over the ‘x’ but concluded it wasn’t needed. My email was exactly what I wanted it to be. Diplomatic, democratic, and putting Sonya back in her box all in one sentence.

Bing – another email.

(Reply all)

I’m always keen for Veuve, Sonya. Sounds fabulous! Name the date! Bea x

And with that, Sonya was back out of that box and I was reminded, once again, that my days on the Bea-list were well and truly over.

Chapter 3

I