‘What just happened to you?’ Farida whispers.
‘I don’t know.’ I turn to her with a Munchian scream-face.
‘It was like a total shut-down,’ she says. ‘Like I could actually see a spinning wheel of death appear on your face.’
‘You. Shut up.’
‘How does your dad know him?’
‘My dad knows everyone.’
‘But he’s so hot.’
‘He’s not that hot,’ I lie, pretending to busy myself with the organisation of ribbon.
‘I love that you have a crush on a hot carpenter.’
‘I do not. Also, we very clearly just made his partner a bunch of flowers, Farida.’
‘Maybe they’re non-monogamous.’
‘As if.’
‘More people are than you think, Cleo,’ she says, leaning in the back-room doorway. She’s wearing another homemade T-shirt with the word Gucci painted messily in thick red letters across her chest.
‘Married people?’
‘Yes.’
‘Really?’
‘The patriarchal structure of relationships as possessive and propertied doesn’t work, Cleo. Exhibit A,’ she waves at me, up and down, and I give her the finger, which makes her laugh.
‘Meet your Prince Charming and wash his clothes for the rest of your life, yes?’ I look at her, disgusted, as she goes on:
‘Exactly. There’s more than one success model. The sooner the mainstream recognises that we are all pleasure-seeking beings with many needs that are incapable of being met by just one person, then the better and more satisfied we’ll be.’ Her eyes sparkle as brightly as her sequinned bomber jacket.
‘I thought you were just scared of commitment,’ I joke, but also that’s genuinely why I thought she was always dating a lot…
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