Not Meeting Mr Right Read Free

as a single woman I was socially
permitted to be selfish .
    We'd reached a stalemate – but our time was up.
Neither of us bothered with a polite smile; I just stood
up and moved one seat to the left again.
    I persevered with the reunion chatter for quite some
time, fighting hard to find new adjectives to describe
each family portrait and baby photo I was forced to
look at over the course of the next hour. I tried to
expect the unexpected, as Aria had advised, hoping
that among all these women, there might be a Toni-
Morrison-reading, Koori-Radio-listening, Villawoodvisiting
mother who perhaps sent her kids to a Steiner
school or something, and taught ESL to refugees once
a week. Anything was possible, wasn't it? I mean, that's
the mother I knew I'd be.
    Eventually I found myself opposite Ronelle. She was
the one person I'd actually been looking forward to
speaking with. Obese at school, she was now the most
glamorous and healthy-looking woman at the table.
Softly spoken and relaxed, she told me she had three
kids, but didn't mention stretch marks or lack of sleep
or sore nipples or the need for more day care centres.
Instead she talked about her life as a yoga instructor –
she'd been to India, done a course, changed her name
to something like 'Swami' (I'd forgotten it five minutes
later). It was all going well until she asked if I'd like to
attend one of her classes 'even though they were for
new mums'.
    'You might still get something out of it,' Ronelle
said with one eyebrow raised. 'Your bust would look
better if you sat straighter, and yoga is fabulous for
posture. You'd learn to relax at the same time, too.' So
she thought that I needed yoga – that I had a drooping
bust line and that I was uptight? My bust was fine, and
I wasn't uptight, just annoyed at the lack of interesting
conversation so far that evening. I didn't need yoga – I
just didn't need to be at the reunion.
    'I have too short a concentration span to make yoga
work for me, Ronelle, but thanks,' I said, and moved on,
even though our time wasn't up, demonstrating that
what I said was true.
    After making a monumental effort to adhere to the
rotational rule, having spoken to almost everyone, I took
a break, leaning back in my chair. The metal was cold
on my skin. I looked around the pub. Jack's had been
gentrified, like all the pubs in the eastern suburbs had
been in the past five years. Dark wood tables and comfy
cushioned lounges had been replaced by streamlined
chrome tables and chairs. The antique-looking carpet
you still find in old people's houses had been replaced
with ceramic tiles. The jukebox and dance floor had
given way to a roomful of pokies. (I noticed they still
had Coopers on tap, though.)
    The space wasn't as warm as it had been when we
were young, and while the pub's owners had changed
its name, and spent millions on updating the interiors,
they hadn't really managed to change their clientele.
I scanned the room and saw the same private-school
rugby players who'd been drinking there ten years
before. They didn't seem as attractive now. Funny that,
everyone's a spunk when you're young. That thought
brought me back to our group. There had been more
of us back then, when we were teenagers. I looked
around and counted heads: we were a table of fifteen.
Why had only fifteen showed up? Probably because
the others were single and out having a raging time
meeting gorgeous men, not worrying about their
pelvic floors.
    Then I noticed it: each and every woman in the
group wore an engagement and/or wedding ring.
That's why I was on the outer. That's why I didn't fit in.
It was a clear case of 'Us' and 'Them'. I couldn't even
pull the race card this time; it wasn't about being Black
and white. It wasn't about being rich or poor, as it had
been at school. Rather, at twenty-eight it was about the
haves and the have-nots. I was definitely a have-not.
No wedding ring – not even an engagement ring. No
husband. No kids. Not even a date lined up any