Free Perfect Skin by Nick Earls

eighties. Eighties songs should be left entirely alone until after the tenth beer on New Year’s Eve. At which time the words come back to you automatically and you can’t be held responsible.
    As I’m well aware. Don’t think I’ve forgotten New Year’s Eve 1989 and the large number of appalling songs you seemed to know word for word.
    It was a weak moment. I’ve been better since. You know I was about to go overseas then. It was justpre-departure nostalgia. I was kind of tense. I wouldn’t have sung more than a handful of songs on the last few New Year’s Eves.
    But on the platform at Central Station? In 1997?
    People liked it. Anyway, it was Roma Street. Besides, what about you on New Year’s Eve 1989, with most of the guests tripping over your tongue while you spent the whole night ogling one of my housemates?
    That wasn’t ogling. It was much classier than ogling. I dropped over quite a bit after that
–
after you left – specifically because of her. It was a crush, a proper crush, not just some lazy, drunken piece of New Year’s Eve perving, you know. I wanted her, all bloody January. Anyway, you’ve got us off on a deliberate tangent. Stop shirking the issue. Get back to the date. Tell me about it. Begin the date.
    Okay, I get to her place – this is happening at her place, like your scenario – she gives me a glass of wine . . .
    What kind of wine?
    I don’t want to argue with you about wine now.
    Yeah, but it’s not a chardonnay any more, is it?
    She gives me a glass of wine. And I can’t believe you’d dare fuss about the grape, when you’re playing such shit music on your date.
    Hey, that’s her, not me.
    Okay. She gives me a glass of wine. The whole thing is casual. No glory-box items involved. She plays – here’s the music part – maybe Jeff Buckley. That’d be okay. Ben Folds Five. If it was my place, she’d be getting some
Best of the Lemonheads
at the moment, or some Grant McLennan.
    And if you started singing along by accident?
    Oh, fuck, I really am doing that a lot, aren’t I?
    If you start singing along by accident, you just blame it on the Bean, like always.
    Thanks.
    Just getting you ready for it, champ.
    Okay. Wine, music, then there’s conversation. That’s when she dazzles me with her brain. Brains are good, George. I’m a sucker for a quality brain.
    And for the first time in ages, the concept actually finds a place for itself in my own brain, and seems kind of nice.
    See, you can do it. I’d go on that, on that kind of date. You wouldn’t have to ask me twice if that was on offer.
    And I suppose I could even take a passing reference to the eighties, if it was clear there was irony involved.
    Good. Very good. I like your prognosis, fella. Anyway, I’m shitting with you. Do what you want. I think we’re the generation that’s getting to invent the mid-thirties date. Think about it. thirtysomething and single used to be aberrant. Maiden-aunt territory. Now it’s what most of us seem to be, for one reason or another. And a lot of us don’t score enough dates to know much about what’s what, anyway. Look at me. Visibly not getting younger, and still I’m holding out for the right kind of offer. Call me fussy, but you’re nothing when you stop being fussy. Even if it means I’m the only person I know who buys condoms based on their shelf life.
    Later, I have an awkward moment when I realise I honestly couldn’t get involved with a person with eighties hair. Not that I’m seeking involvement, but eighties hair couldn’t end at eighties hair. It’s what it says. Katie goes to a lot of trouble for that effect, and what does thatmean? How far does it go? Eighties hair is a symptom, not a disease. What’s going on in her mind? How much of all the years since is she yet to notice?
    And then there’s the idea of the