The shame she used to feel just for drinking too much was now multiplied by sheer mortification at embarrassing herself in front of Kristin’s father.
Because of this, her headache felt worse, her limbs felt heavier, and she didn’t want to get up at all. But she had promised Kristin they would finally, after weeks of saying they would but never getting round to it, go to Darlinghurst, to that shop and all it stood for in their relationship. She couldn’t possibly blow Kristin off because she had a heinous hangover, not after ignoring her obvious signals to stop drinking the night before, and violating the unspoken code they had drawn up between them.
Chapter Twenty
“Can we turn the music down, please?” Sheryl asked. She groaned when Kristin lowered the volume. Sheryl had spent most of the ride yawning and sighing. Now it looked like her headache had intensified since they’d left home on their shopping venture. Kristin gladly ignored the signs of Sheryl’s massive hangover. She had done her very best to stop this hangover from happening at all, but as had quickly become the custom, Sheryl had again ignored her gentle prods to switch to water after a couple of drinks. Clearly the plan Kristin had come up with to curb Sheryl’s drinking wasn’t working, and the fact that she was even trying to was having an adverse effect on their relationship.
Instead of her usual spiel of profusely apologizing for drinking too much and saying inappropriate things, Sheryl was also saying sorry for ignoring Kristin. It wasn’t so much the fact that Sheryl had ignored her—because, really, that was to be expected of an inebriated woman with a strong will of her own—but all the endless apologizing she felt she had to do the day after.
Kristin was fairly sure Sheryl saw this entire trip to Darlinghurst as a way of atoning, because she sure as hell didn’t look in the mood for sex toy shopping. It was hardly the right atmosphere for a little excursion that was meant to inject some much-needed vitality back into their intimate life. This was supposed to be fun. They should be giggling like girls half their age—not that Sheryl was the type to giggle in a sex shop.
“This place has changed,” Kristin said, after she had struggled to find a parking spot.
“Gentrification,” Sheryl said in between groans.
Over the years, they had become very confined to their set neighborhoods. They had bought a house in Camperdown, close to the university, and Kristin worked in the Central Business District. Most of their friends, who were mainly people Sheryl knew from the university, lived in the same area. And somehow, Kristin had forgotten there was a whole city outside of their cramped circle. A city with up-and-coming neighborhoods like this one.
The street they’d parked in was residential with neat rows of houses with a cozy deck at the front. When they arrived on the main road, bustling with Saturday afternoon activity, they stopped at a real estate agent’s window.
“Bloody hell,” Sheryl said. “Can’t wait for Camperdown to gentrify. Our house will be worth a fortune.”
“When did we come here last?” Kristin asked. “This place is unrecognizable.” Kristin scanned the other side of the street. There was a coffee shop, the obligatory yoga studio, a juice bar, all squeezed in between restaurants offering the most exotic cuisines.
“I don’t know if we ever even came here. This was always too sleazy for you, babe.” Apparently Sheryl’s hangover had receded enough to give her back the ability to joke.
Just walking down the main street, examining the menus and inhaling the electric atmosphere, Kristin found a new bounce in her step. She’d been cooped up in the house and her own neighborhood and habits for too long. She already knew she’d be back in this area, to see what it was like on an ordinary weekday. She had all the time in the world to explore.
“You do know what gentrification equals, right?” Sheryl hooked an arm through Kristin’s. “Breeders and strollers.” Her voice dripped with cynicism.
Just as she said it, they had to make way for a mother pushing a toddler in a state-of-the art stroller. After a few more steps, they encountered a man with a baby strapped to his back.
“Oh yes.” Sheryl nodded vigorously. “They have arrived already.”
“But will they have already driven out the gays?” Kristin chuckled. “Or are they coexisting peacefully?”
“Peace is still upon us.” Sheryl tipped a finger to her forehead, the way she always did when she assumed she was crossing paths with a fellow lesbian, a habit that drove Kristin crazy with its presumptuousness as much as with its whiff of elitism.
“How is it elitism?” Sheryl had asked when Kristin had called her out on it once. “How can you even consider that word for such a suppressed subculture as ours?”