by Brandy Scott
‘Get some ice,’ she whispered. ‘Quickly.’
The compress provided a few seconds of relief, but the burning was soon back. ‘Oh my God,’ Lou breathed, rocking back onto the toilet seat. There was no blood coming through the tea towel, thank goodness. She inhaled deeply until the pain lost its white heat, settling into an aching throb.
Tansy hovered, uncertain, in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘No,’ said Lou wearily. ‘You never do.’
‘It was an accident,’ mumbled Tansy. She took a step closer. ‘Do you think they’re . . . broken?’
Lou peeled her hand painfully away from the towel-covered frozen veg. Her fingers were white, with ominous purple stripes, but they all wiggled when she forced herself to move.
‘Lucky,’ said Tansy.
‘Yes, you are.’ Lou stalked past her daughter and into the bedroom, hand curled protectively against her chest. There was an elastic bandage somewhere, from when she’d done her ankle at netball; that would probably work. She started rifling through her drawers with her good hand.
Tansy slunk in and perched nervously on the edge of the bed. Lou ignored her as she pawed through stretched-out bras, her six- pack Kmart undies. An optimistic lace nightie. The bandage was right at the bottom, with no sign of its little metal fastener, but she could probably tape it.
‘Let me help,’ pleaded Tansy, as Lou started winding the bandage around her hand, pulling it tight with her teeth. ‘I’ll do a better job than you will.’
Lou turned her back. ‘I don’t really want your help,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you just go out. That’s all you ever do anyway.’
There was a sniffle behind her. ‘I said I was sorry.’
‘Yeah, you’re always sorry.’ Lou didn’t bother turning around. ‘And then an hour later, you’re a nightmare again. Honestly, I can’t keep up with you. Yesterday you were really lovely, then you buggered off with no regard for me at all. And this morning, you’re screaming like a three-year-old and slamming my hand in the door.’
‘I’m a teenager,’ Tansy said, pathetically. ‘I’m supposed to be hormonal.’
Lou swung around. ‘You’re a pregnant teenager,’ she said. ‘And you need to start behaving like a grown-up, rather than a horrible little bitch.’
Tansy gasped.
‘Well, you do,’ said Lou. ‘You need to sort yourself out, and fast. Because you’ve got some big decisions to make, and possibly a baby to raise, and right now you’re not fit to do any of it.’
Tansy took a step back.
‘What, did you think we were never going to talk about it?’ Lou tucked her sore hand against her stomach. ‘Just ignore the whole situation until you were ready to pop?’
‘You did,’ whispered Tansy.
‘Shut up,’ said Lou.
‘Why should I?’ said Tansy, faux brave. ‘You can’t get mad at me for getting pregnant. You did exactly the same thing. I’m as much of a screw-up as you were.’
Lou felt her good hand twitching as it raised itself to chest height.
‘If you hit me, you’re just as bad as your parents,’ said Tansy, nervously eyeing the door.
She had no idea. Lou saw floating black dots in front of her eyes, felt the back of her neck grow hot. She bunched her good hand into a fist and swung.
‘Welcome to LoveFest!’ The woman manning the pop-up coffee shop snapped to attention as Melinda approached. ‘What can I get you this morning?’
‘Double espresso, please,’ said Melinda, glancing down at a flyer with her own face on it. ‘Actually — can you make it a triple? Is that even a thing?’
‘It can be,’ said the barista, already working the grinder. ‘Everything is possible, right?’ She handed Lou a cup of pure caffeine. ‘Here you go, Ms Baker. And congratulations. It all looks really awesome.’
It did all look really awesome. Melinda wandered slowly through the atrium of the Sydney hotel, admiring five months of planning made flesh. The welcome signs and goody bags, in LoveLocked’s signature gold and white; the green juice and herbal tea stands, ready to refuel those who’d come straight from the airport, like Melinda. Ideally, she’d have flown in the night before, but she’d wanted to be there for Lou’s birthday. Although that hadn’t exactly gone to plan. Melinda took a sip of coffee. She’d send Lou a message later, smoothing things over. Maybe suggesting a spa day, just the two of them. Lou loved a massage. She’d text as soon as she was in her room.
Melinda continued through the hotel, rolling her carry-on past temporary manicure stations and blow-dry booths. She mentally added a haircut and colour to the spa day; Lou would look so much better without those Hensley highlights. Although she’d have to be subtle about that. Being subtle was not Melinda’s forte, she knew. Had she been too blunt with Lou last night? Probably. But it was just so frustrating, watching her carry on as though she had a giant red letter stuck to her chest. Lou’s parents might have punished her for getting pregnant, but Lou was the one who kept making herself pay. Denying herself anything nice, refusing to move on, make a fresh start. And what the hell was she thinking, moving into their house? Melinda had strong feelings about that as well. Yes, it saved on rent, but she could have sold the damn place, bought somewhere truly her own, rather than living in that mausoleum.
Melinda paused under a banner stretched across the entrance to the hotel ballroom. EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE, it declared — LoveLocked’s unofficial slogan. The problem was that Lou didn’t believe anything was possible when it came to her own life. Didn’t want to, because that would mean making a change. And Lou, no matter what she said, didn’t really want change. Melinda slugged back the rest of her mega-espresso. Lou didn’t need her friends to give her a passport; she could leave any time she liked. She just chose not to.
‘Good morning, Ms Baker!’
‘Welcome, Ms Baker!’
Melinda waved and smiled at the Pilates instructors and personal stylists jostling for her attention. Lou hadn’t even wanted to come to LoveFest, said it wasn’t her type of thing. And Aimee had pleaded off last night, claimed a headache after their fight and cancelled her ticket. So Melinda was alone, at the biggest event of her year. Even her dad had bowed out. ‘Think I’ll give it a miss, love. Couple’a hundred women selling jewellery to each other? Why don’t you just tell me about it later.’
Nearly a thousand, actually. Melinda sank into a gold sofa in what a little sign informed her was a REGROUPING ZONE and tried to get her head around the sheer size of the event taking shape in front of her. They’d had conferences before, but this was different. Nine hundred and sixty-three women were travelling from across Australia — across the Pacific some of them — to hear how the IPO was going to affect them. Melinda wanted to spoil them, to make sure they realised how important they were. Hence the gelato carts, the free massages. And the changes to the business structure. She hadn’t been sure about some of the new incentives, but Clint insisted they would reward those who’d been with LoveLocked from the beginning. ‘We’re putting them at the top of the ladder,’ he’d said. ‘It’s like promoting them, making them managers. Business owners, even.’
Well, Melinda was going to make sure all her curators felt special this weekend. She took a macaron from a large display next to the sofa, a gold-and-white sign urging her to ‘treat herself’ in LoveLocked’s patented font. Classy. She smiled approvingly at the hostesses arranging welcome snacks, all wearing LoveLocked jewellery, but in an understated way. The design team had really managed to reflect the LoveLocked ethos, what Clint called ‘dynamic elegance’. Women who were going places, but not shouting about it. Just gracefully moving on to bigger and better things.
Melinda debated a second macaron. She wouldn’t normally, but there was something fizzing in her today. She felt the same sense of giddy anticipation she’d had when she first started the company — the certain knowledge that she was on the cusp of something life-changing. Maybe it was bet
ter that her friends and father weren’t here; they didn’t really understand the scale of what was happening. And as for her mother! Melinda’s mum had somehow managed to react to the news of her public offering with condescension and sympathy. ‘I’m just glad you’re keeping yourself occupied,’ she’d said, with such a patronising look on her face that Melinda had to turn the Skype camera off. ‘I felt so bad for you when things with the Verratti boy didn’t work out. But there are other things in life than being married, aren’t there, darling? You’ve managed to make a different kind of life for yourself, haven’t you, sweetheart?’
Melinda crunched into a third macaron. There was no one she could really talk to about work any more. It was a strange sort of loneliness. She found herself filtering what she said to friends, downplaying things, even to Lou and Aimee. Because you could hardly run around saying to people, ‘Hey, my company’s about to raise millions. I’m going to have offices in London and New York, fly first-class everywhere. And I feel slightly weird about it, so would you mind listening to me talk about the pressures of being extraordinarily fortunate for a bit?’ Maybe there should be a support group: Success Anonymous.
‘There you are!’ Clint placed a document folder on the table in front of Melinda. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you. You need to sign these contracts before the delegates arrive.’
Melinda swallowed a sigh. Clint was supposed to be her IPO advisor, but he’d started weighing in on all aspects of LoveLocked’s business, from the sample sizes her curators received to what perfume Melinda wore at company events. ‘Investors are buying the whole package,’ he’d told her. ‘Everything needs to be classy as hell.’
Except Clint himself, it seemed. Melinda wasn’t sure why, but there was something slightly naff about him. He was well groomed, but it all seemed a bit try-hard. The swished-back hair. The monogrammed shirt. The signet ring which, as far as Melinda knew, signified nothing.
She waved at a roaming hostess for another espresso and started signing. To be fair, Clint put in more hours than any of her staff, more hours than anyone other than Melinda. He’d been hinting lately that he’d like to come on full time, and she could see it made sense. He had a great track record. It was just that listening to him made her feel exhausted. Or maybe she was simply tired. In which case, having Clint as a second-in-command might take some of the strain off. Melinda squinted at him. He also made her want to wrap her company up in cotton wool and lock it in one of their display boxes. Although apparently that was natural. ‘No entrepreneur likes to hand their company over to investors,’ he’d told her. ‘Why would you? It’s your baby.’
‘You ready to go?’ he said now, bouncing on the balls of his feet. ‘Ready to wow them with the Melinda Magic?’
Actually, he was just bloody irritating. But he was good for LoveLocked, and Melinda could put her personal feelings aside if it meant a better deal for her company and her curators. She forced herself to smile. ‘Almost,’ she said. ‘Just one more coffee.’
Clint dropped onto the sofa beside her. ‘Hey,’ he said, gently taking the pen out of her hand. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Bit knackered,’ she said. ‘I had to get the six am flight. My alarm went off just after three.’
‘No, this isn’t tiredness. I can tell. What’s up?’
Irritating, but at least he cared. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘It’s not. What’s happened?’
Melinda shrugged. ‘I managed to fall out with both Lou and Aimee last night.’
‘What did they do?’ There was no love lost between Clint and her friends.
‘Nothing,’ Melinda admitted. ‘It was me mostly. I told them I was thinking about adopting, and it just turned into this big fight.’
‘But that’s great.’
‘What? No it’s not. My timing was terrible. They both walked out, and even Aimee’s pissed off.’
‘Ah, don’t worry, they’ll come round. They always do. But adopting — that’s brilliant news. I’m so excited for you.’ Clint grabbed Melinda by the shoulders and kissed her — actually kissed her — on the mouth.
Melinda resisted the urge to wipe her face. ‘It’s only an idea.’
‘But it’s a really great one.’ Clint wore the same look he got when he was talking about a new distribution centre, or a possible dual listing. ‘You’re at the perfect age and stage to do this. Building a family, sharing your wealth. Giving a child who needs one a real chance. Are you thinking an Australian baby, or one from somewhere else? China, the Philippines? Or what about Cambodia? That would be ideal, given the factories.’
‘Look, I’m not at all sure about it. I’m just trying the idea on for size.’ Melinda wished she hadn’t said anything.
‘But it would be so good for you. Give you something beyond work.’
‘It would be good for the brand, you mean. Give me a softer public image.’
‘Well, yes.’ Clint reddened beneath his fake tan. ‘I won’t lie, it would play really well with the press. But, Melinda,’ he said, squeezing her hand, ‘I’ve been working with you for over a year now. And you’re not happy. Not really. You need some love. You need a family. Adopting, raising a child — it’d make you a whole person.’
‘I am a whole person, thank you very much.’
‘I just mean it’s the only thing missing from your life. You’ve got everything else. So why not go for the full package?’ Clint picked up his folder; women were starting to stream into the conference hall. ‘Look, we’ll talk about it later. Just promise me you won’t dismiss the idea.’
‘And you promise me that you won’t mention it to anyone. Especially not a journalist.’ Clint had a bad habit of sneaking titbits to the press. ‘Do you hear me? Not a word.’ But he was gone, swallowed by the growing tide of LoveLocked curators surging towards their idol.
Aimee ripped a budding shoot from the ground and congratulated herself on taking action. Nick loved getting out among the vines, preferred to do a lot of the physical work by hand. For one thing, it allowed you to see what was going on with the grapes; you could spot an infection, a plant that wasn’t thriving, that you might not notice otherwise. But mainly, he said, it was meditative. This was where he came to get his peace.
Moving down the row, Aimee could see what he meant. It had been years since she’d done this, but she already felt better just being outdoors. She snipped off another lateral so the tractor would be able to get through. Her old doctor used to tell her to move whenever she could feel her head closing in. Trouble was, that was also the hardest time to make yourself do anything. But today she had. Aimee snipped off another vine tip in celebration. Well done her.
Grasshoppers sprung out of the way as Aimee worked her way along the vines, the long grass rustling as they landed. She waved her shears in the air to dislodge spiders’ webs, feeling slightly guilty as she did so. There was a pleasing repetitiveness to the work. January was all about maintenance: plucking and tucking, trimming and tidying. It was also a metaphor, she realised, as she reached over to snap off another sucker. You had to pull the new shoots out before they got established, like an obsessive thought. Stop them leaching energy from the rest of the vine. The universe was clearly trying to show her what she needed to do. Aimee tried not to put too much stock in signs — that way proper madness lay — but sometimes you had to take notice of the message that was right in front of you.
Because she’d scared herself last night, at Melinda’s. The compulsive need to keep asking for reassurance, to keep going over and over the same details; that was old behaviour. And she knew where it led. So here she was — rip, tug — making sure the thoughts didn’t take root. Weeding her brain, so she didn’t do anything stupid.
There were three grey kangaroos in the middle of the next row, lying in the shade of the leaves. Aimee moved slowly towards them, willing them not to scare and bounce off, but of course they did, staring at her reproachfully as if to ask what she was doing in their vineyard. My husban
d’s vineyard, Aimee wanted to tell them. And I’m the one who convinced him not to fence you out, so be grateful.
The day was starting to warm up; Aimee stopped to smear sunscreen on the back of her neck. Interesting how she still thought of it as Nick’s vineyard, not theirs. Even though she did all the admin. She knew the others didn’t think she really ‘worked’, because she didn’t deal with customers, didn’t go with Nick to Melbourne or Sydney to sell their wine to restaurants and professional buyers. But she kept the accounts and the family and the house all up and running, and wasn’t that just as important?
She came across him as she moved from the pinot into the shiraz. Collar up, hat down, the little pager that alerted him to bushfire and accidents clipped firmly to his shorts. The veins in Nick’s forearms danced as he moved his hands over the vines.
‘Hey,’ Aimee said, but softly, so as not to startle him while he was wielding clippers.
‘Hello,’ said Nick, surprised but pleased. ‘What brings you out here?’
‘Missed you,’ she said, popping a grape into her mouth. ‘And I was bored. Mostly bored.’
‘I thought you were going to Melinda’s thing.’
Aimee shrugged. ‘Didn’t feel like it,’ she said. ‘Too many people. Too much noise.’
‘But I thought she wanted you there?’
Me, thought Aimee. You’re supposed to worry about what I want. ‘She said she’d be too busy to hang out. I didn’t think it was worth the ticket.’ Even though Melinda was paying. ‘I thought I could be more useful here.’
He didn’t press it, just tipped his hat back and surveyed the row. ‘We’ll probably be able to get all this done by lunch then, if you’re staying out.’
‘I’ll take the left, you take the right?’
‘Just remember to leave the foliage a bit thicker on your side.’ He gave her a quick peck. ‘Don’t want too much sun on them. I reckon the shiraz has real potential this year.’
Potential, thought Aimee, as they both worked their way down the row, Nick quickly leaving her behind. Aimee had had potential. Top marks, better then Melinda even, grades that had won her a scholarship to university. Uni hadn’t suited her — too much pressure — but then she’d won a cadetship with a national newspaper, the only cadet to be taken on without a degree. Although that hadn’t quite worked out either. ‘It doesn’t sit right with me,’ she’d explained to Nick. ‘Intruding into other people’s lives.’ The university offered to take her back, make an exception as long as she repeated her first year — people were always making exceptions for Aimee, because of her potential — but by then she and Nick had other plans. ‘We’ll build the vineyard up,’ he’d said, ‘Open a restaurant, create a proper label.’ Which wasn’t exactly how things had turned out. The kids had arrived, so quickly, one after the other, before Aimee was even out of her maternity clothes. And now she had her community obligations, her poetry. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t working — Aimee snipped off a blind bud with a little more force than necessary — or that the vineyard wasn’t doing fine, just as it was. Not everyone needed to be CEO. Not every business had to be a world leader. What was wrong with staying small? Why did everyone always want to rush onto the next stage?