Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer
Every New Year’s Eve my Auntie Maureen and Uncle Fred would have a great big party around the big kidney shaped swimming pool at their house. The ladies wore maxis and kaftans and the men safari suits. The end of one year and the start of the next was the best opportunity there was for a big celebration.
Us kids would stay up in the house most of the time, hanging in front of the television in the family room or playing games in the room next door. From there we could dart out to the kitchen where the maids were preparing the trays of food for the waiters to take out to the adults. We’d sneak a patty or vol-au-vent and beg for a glass of kool-aid. The maids would make a play at shooing us away but they were always good-natured and let us have whatever we wanted as long as there was a steady flow of trays making it out of the kitchen. Every now and then one of the waiters would bring a half empty tray back from the garden into the family room and we’d all greedily grab at whatever goodies were left on it. Even a cold patty was good when it was fancy cocktail size and you could eat heaps of them.
It was 1973 and I was 13 years old. This year, my mum and I had matching maxis. I was pretty excited about that because she was always so glamorous and getting to wear a long dress was an acknowledgment of my growing up. It felt like a real marker that I wasn’t just one of the little kids any more. Mum and I had chosen the style together from a magazine and she’d had her dressmaker recreate it especially for us. Loose and kaftan-y and ever so chic. The neckline and cuffs of mum’s were trimmed in three tones of blue. Mine in three tones of my then very favourite fashion colour: brown. I didn’t appreciate it then but now, in hindsight, I recognise it as the layers of a really good macchiato. You get the idea.
This year was different to all the others in so many ways. This year there was a boy I’d met for the first time just the week before. His family was out visiting auntie and uncle for the holidays. It was a big deal because they lived in America. But not just any America; they’d come from New York. I didn’t know hardly anything about New York, except it was some magical fantasy land that was somehow the most important and exciting place in the world. I knew that I really had no idea what it was about except that it was amazing and different to anything I’d ever known.
This year was different because I got to wear a maxi dress. Because at the party when I went down by the pool with the grown ups one of my uncles asked me to dance. It had never happened before. And when it did it was absolutely the single best and most important thing that had ever happened in my life. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was, well, not a grown up yet, clearly, but a person who was going to be a grown up. And that was thrilling. I felt I’d stepped into the foyer of the adult world and that beyond it was full of promise and new games and a new sense of being.
When another uncle asked me to dance, I knew that I had truly crossed a threshold and I would never be one of the kids again. Now I could boogie with the adults under the moonlight. I tossed my head and felt at once wild abandon and very serious responsibility.
And suddenly, as one track came to an end, at my shoulder was Jason and everything changed in ways I’d never even imagined before. His presence awakened in me something I’d had no concept of. Sure, I’d noticed boys before. But the guys my swim coach would have race against us girls to push us always seemed arrogant and obnoxious in their attempts to assert their physical superiority. And the older brothers of my brother’s friends were remote sporty or drama heroes.
Jason was real and close and interested in me. I’d never felt a boy interested in me before. That he was older and taller and handsome and New York-sophisticated made it all that more exciting.
We danced, apart, to a couple of whatever tracks were big that year. I don’t think I’ve ever remembered what they were. I was consumed by sensations of flying, tingling, excited confusion.
When a slower track started up, another uncle materialised beside us, asking me about school or something, pulling me into everyday reality. As I answered politely, I realised that Jason had slipped away.
We didn’t get close again that night. But as I crawled into bed I reflected on all the ways in which I’d grown up in the space of a few hours. I knew I was no longer the girl who had got dressed for the party. I knew this was the start of a new me. I fell asleep in awe of how different I felt and how full of full of promise this next stage of my life was. And of the excitement of Jason and his smile and his accent and the way he leaned forward when he talked to me.
Sometime in the early afternoon of the next day, my mum, dad, brother and I piled out of the car, back at auntie and uncle’s house. I’d fussed with deciding what to wear in a way I don’t think I ever had before. I’d chosen a favourite halter neck top and striped flares. I was quite sure I wasn’t carrying off the casual chic I was aiming for but I knew I had no idea what would be groovy in New York. I felt a bit of a try-hard klutz but I’d done the best I could with what I had and I was looking forward to seeing Jason.
We all wandered into the house, open as usual, through the entrance hall and into the big lounge room. Auntie and Uncle and a group of other adults were scattered around the room in animated conversations. I joined in the polite hellos as my parents settled in and then wandered outside as I usually did, always wanting to be near the pool.
My breath caught. Jason was in the water, face down, swimming intently. I wanted to wander away before he saw me. I wanted to stay and talk to him. Would it be awkward?
I watched as he got to the end of the pool, stretching out a muscled arm, then pulling his feet up under him and into standing position. He flicked his head and turned around, catching me eye.
I smiled. Nervous.
Languidly, seemingly with no effort at all, he swam over to just below me. He put his hands on the edge of the pool and pushed himself out of the water.
I remember now the rippling muscles in his arms, the droplets of water glistening in the midday sun. I bent down towards him as he pushed up towards me.
And I turned my head just as he pursed his lips. They brushed my burning cheeks just as uncle called out “Happy New Year, young people” and materialised beside me, an outstretched hand proffering an icy glass of Kool-Aid.