I gripped my seat, feeling verrrry complicit in a gross colonial fantasy, and also verrrry happy on this deck above the bay. The winds were the temperature of the human body. Someone had brought Moscato, wicked, cool and sweet. We drank through the quiet, and through the sudden screams of cars. I closed my eyes, carried away, no effort.

I’m done, I thought.

I whispered, ‘Are you done, Chris L?’

‘What?’ he asked me.

I opened my eyes. ‘Aren’t you just, like, done?’

His sunglasses, dull mirroring.

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Dan, aren’t you just done?’

‘Uh oh,’ he said. ‘He’s being romantic.’

‘Dan, you’re romantic,’ I said.

‘No I’m not,’ he said. ‘I’m tough.’

I sat up. ‘You’re capacious. Capacious enough to be tough and tender, both at once.’

We all looked at the sinking sky.

‘I guess I am capacious,’ he said.

I rolled my eyes.

‘Capacious,’ said Chris L.

The sun dropped like a bath bomb, colours blew through the sky.

‘Why do you guys talk like that?’ asked Chris L.

‘Like what?’ I said.

‘Capacious,’ he repeated.

‘Oh, capacious,’ I said. ‘Because Dan is capacious,’ I said, ‘and I had to point it out.’

‘Come on,’ he said, and I knew what he meant.

I made sure to look at him seriously so he knew I was being serious. ‘I don’t know, Chris L,’ I said. ‘Let me give it some thought.’

Did I talk this way because it made it easier to discuss things, like the non-burning question of Dan’s capaciousness-or-not, or was it just because I liked the way different language sounded, and glommed to it like Chris L had glommed onto his shawls? I definitely liked sounding smart, but everybody does; it would have been weird if I appreciated how much Chris L liked shawls but hoped he didn’t enjoy the way they made him look. ‘I don’t even know the definition of the word capacious. We both just kind of said it,’ I told him.

‘Capacious,’ said Lachlan.

‘I don’t know what it means either,’ said Chris L.

‘No but we do though,’ I said. ‘We can work it out.’

‘Capacious, capacious,’ said Dan.

‘You can’t really work it out if Dan keeps on saying it,’ I said. ‘But think about it. What does it sound like?’

So much quiet, so much dusk. Chris L pursed his lips. ‘Vivacious,’ he said.

Oh, I thought. ‘I wanted you to say “capacity”. Because capacity is how much room. And capacious means . . .’

‘There’s room,’ Chris L said. He looked very happy, and I noticed the strangest thing: Vivian was watching us with something like a sneer. It was not a facial expression I’d seen previously on Vivian, and I felt myself shudder without meaning to.