Call Me Kismet

by PJ Mayhem

  ‘Jesus, I’d prefer the golf.’ Catherine storms in a minute or two after the kids. A figure hidden by a tower of Tupperware follows: Brian.

  ‘I think it’s great, very efficient and no second guessing,’ Brian, the true Virgo, says of the edging.

  Mum straightens one of her pride-of-place family portrait studio shots that’s taken a hit from the Tupperware, then starts fussing over Brian, wrestling containers from him.

  All the talk of edging sends my mind wandering down the path of the fruitologist and his imagined whipper-snippering ways. In the week since the salad greens incident I haven’t seen him. He’s probably off whipper-snippering for some woman who doesn’t have a problem looking him in the eye or talking edges and hedge trimming and pretends she can’t get her own salad greens just so he’ll do it for her.

  ‘Now, you three go out and play,’ Mum says to Sammy, Sonja and me once we’ve all made our way into the kitchen.

  I’m not fazed about being sent out with the kids, I prefer it; they’re much more fun than the adults. But Catherine will be furious. It’s obvious Mum is going to do one of her Mumterventions, giving their marriage a health check after Brian’s absence last time.

  ‘Aunty Fee.’ Sonja wraps her arms around my hips.

  ‘Yes, honey?’

  ‘I’m not meant to tell you. It’s supposed to be a surprise, but guess what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘Can’t possibly.’

  ‘Try …’

  ‘Give me a clue.’

  ‘It’s red and green.’

  ‘Christmas?’ I ask, having no idea.

  ‘No.’ Sonja’s curls dance around her head, she shakes it so wildly.

  ‘Warm?’

  ‘Not even close. Ice cold, nearly freezing.’

  ‘Oh, can’t you just tell me?’ I plead playfully.

  ‘Aunty Fee, can you give me a push please?’ Sammy interjects, twirling and untwirling on the swing that his mother and I played on.

  I usher Sonja over to her brother. ‘I’ll need your help,’ I tell her, holding up my bandaged hand. There’s no time for talk of surprises—we’ve barely got five pushes in when Catherine flings the door open. I can almost see the smoke coming out of her ears.

  ‘You three come in here and do something useful.’

  The way Sammy, Sonja and I snap to attention and march inside, you’d think we’re in the army.

  Back home, I head straight to my bookcase and pull Feng Shui for a Fuller Life from between Living with Light and Awaken to your Spiritual Destiny.

  I need to find the best place to put the surprise from Sammy and Sonja. It turned out to be a couple of bunny candles—one red and white and one green and white. I guess there isn’t a whole lot of choice in aunty-appropriate presents at a school fete and anyway, I adored them for having bought me a present just because they were thinking of me. The candles are cute at least, which would have been Sonja’s focus. Sammy would have gone for them because they’re red and green rabbits—the colours and mascot of his beloved South Sydney Rabbitohs team.

  Oh, great Guan Yin, Goddess of Mercy, no wonder! One look at the practical square bagua (those octagonal ones are so hard to work with—how are you meant to tell where your wealth or whatever corner is when your room has four corners but your bagua has eight?) reveals why everything has been going so wrong with the fruitologist. My Feng Shui is totally up the karmic creek!

  Feng Shui for a Fuller Life is nothing if not clear: ‘Don’t ever have a single item in your relationship corner and nothing long, sharp or pointy.’

  How can I have been so oblivious? I have a single golf umbrella leaning against the wall, smack bang where it shouldn’t be!

  I sit the bunnies paw to paw on the power box in my relationship corner. As a tenant, I can’t do anything about the power box positioning, even though it’s obviously less than ideal. But intention creates the energy behind everything, so I transform my thinking, turning the power box from toxic, electromagnetic energy–field polluter to a symbol of zing and sparking electricity. I give the bunnies a spritz with some rosewater (energy balancing, an aphrodisiac and said to open one’s heart to love—a girl can’t go wrong), and whisk the umbrella away.

  I get an immediate text. Jane. Not quite the relationship I was aiming for but a positive start—the energies are shifting. I’m so relieved things are back to an even keel with her. I’m just going to need some time to come to terms with what she said the other night.

  13

  It’s noon on Wednesday when Broomstick sidles up to my desk.

  ‘I’ll be back around 3pm. If Professor Emeritus Bartholomew should happen to call, tell him I’m on my way. He has my mobile, but just in case.’

  The week’s been so dull that I’m quite curious about what she’s up to with Professor Emeritus Bartholomew. Her pinned-up hair has wispy tendrils tickling at her ears, which have earrings (!), she isn’t wearing her trench and the top two buttons of her business shirt are unbuttoned. You don’t need to be a psychic to know what she wants to be up to with him.

  I have to get the thought out of my head—or into someone else’s at least. I can’t possibly ‘go deep inside myself and explore my inner workings’, as Lionel has promised we’ll be doing in today’s session, with that image in my mind.

  I get up to make my way to Desmond’s office to poke some fun at Broomstick but run straight into Marianne from Customer Service as I leave my desk.

  ‘Sorry, Marianne.’

  ‘Don’t be—I was just coming to give you this.’ She hands me the book she’s carrying. ‘I just finished it last night. I think you’ll like it.’

  We book swap sometimes, not that often, but I always enjoy the books she recommends. I’m about to tell her so when Desmond appears beside us.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, Marianne, I just need to see Fiona about something important.’

  ‘Sure. Happy reading,’ Marianne says to me. She’s so customer service chirpy.

  ‘Thanks,’ I call after her as Desmond gestures to my desk. He pulls out the chair from the spare desk next to mine and we both sit down.

  ‘Broomstick’s out, isn’t she?’ His eyes dart around the office.

  ‘Yes. You won’t believe where …’

  ‘Sorry Fiona. I need to talk to you.’ He leans in a little closer to me. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for ages.’

  Oh my Great Ganesha this has all the tell-tale signs of a car-crash moment. It’s going to make work so awkward if Desmond confesses he’s in love with me. I fan myself with the novel.

  But what if Desmond is ‘the one’? Perhaps the Universe only threw the fruitologist in as distraction so I’d focus on someone else and not block the love energy from Desmond by going all haywire around him. Oh no—‘love energy’ and ‘Desmond’ should not be combined in the one thought. I’m getting Broomstick and Professor Emeritus Bartholomew–type images about Desmond and they’re not pretty. Sure, I can think of at least ten traits from my What I Want and Need in my Next Male Love Relationship list that Desmond has—which is more than I can say for the fruitologist. But my destiny cannot be with a man whose mother still cuts his hair. Besides, Cancerians are so clingy that he’d drive me insane. I put a quick prayer out to the Universe.

  ‘I’m engaged.’

  ‘What? I mean—congratulations!’ I hadn’t expected the prayer to be quite that effective. Oh my Buddha—his mother must be mortified.

  ‘I was just skyping with Valeria, my fiancée. She’s still in her home country at the moment but she’s coming to live in Australia on the twenty-fifth of next month. I wanted to tell you first.’

  ‘Congratulations, Desmond,’ I say as I toss the novel on the pile of papers in my in-tray, where it lands face up. I catch a glimpse of the title, The Thirteenth Tale, as I lean over to give him a peck on the cheek. But he looks a bit panic stricken at impending physical contact, so I reach for my bag instead. It’
s time I was going anyway.

  ‘There’s this guy …’ I say to Lionel from the apricot leather recliner a while into my session. Even though not sitting in the same chair as last time goes against who I am, I’ve mixed things up to keep him on his toes and undo any assumptions he might have made from my previous choice.

  I hadn’t consciously decided I was ready to tell Lionel about the fruitologist. I was planning on talking to him about Jane. But I tell him everything—right down to the apple avalanche and rejection of the fruitologist’s salad green–bagging help, to him appearing as I went by this morning and giving me a smile. And the fact that, as I hadn’t braced myself to see him, I had no idea what to say or where to look and that I’d managed nothing but a ‘hi’ that was at a pitch and volume only a dog could hear. Plus I’d directed it at the ground, part automatic reaction and part embarrassment about my salad green antics.

  ‘The issue,’ I tell Lionel, ‘is that my brain vacates and there’s nothing but static in my head when I see him.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He looks at me, all bear-like grey-bearded comfort. ‘I know what we’re going to do with you today, Kismet. Close your eyes. We’ll start counting back from ten and we’ll go into the scene. You can have a chance to relive it—change the outcome to what you want it to be.’

  Of course, under hypnosis my responses are warm but witty, the sort of lines that you only ever think of once you’ve walked away.

  After the session, Lionel attempts to reassure me by saying, ‘Just say the first thing that comes into your head when you see him. It’ll always be the perfect thing to say.’

  If only it were that easy.

  When I get home after a few more hours at work, my mind starts to roam from the centre of the road again. I fall back on my ‘what I know about the fruitologist’ routine to bring it back into line, doing an inventory against my What I Want and Need in my Next Male Love Relationship list. Given that I don’t know much beyond the physical, I focus on that.

  Fit—tick.

  Brown eyes—cross (even though I can barely look at them, I think they’re blue and there’s that slightly seagullish issue).

  Under 45—? But potentially on the wrong side of the line.

  Dark brown or black hair—cross, sort of mousy and not quite enough of it.

  Taller than me—tick, but that’s not hard, I’m only 163.5cm.

  Olive complexion—not overly.

  Nice smile—lopsided, not sure I’d categorise as nice; does smile readily (usually for people other than me).

  Stylish—not unless you’re into active wear.

  Reasonably hairless—unfortunately only the crown of his head, arms not too bad, legs have surplus and I can guarantee that there is quite a pelt on those well-formed pecs of his (best I don’t think about his pecs—nice pecs aren’t on the list anyway).

  ‘How’s work, Fiona?’ Jack says the next morning as I flick through the papers.

  ‘Please don’t make me think about it when I’m here in my happy place.’

  ‘Have you thought any more about my offer?’

  ‘What offer was that?’ I look up from the paper to focus on Jack and as I do I have a very disturbing realisation. The physical items on my list are undeniably, one hundred per cent Jack—apart from the hairlessness, but there’s waxing.

  ‘The one to work here.’ He tries to act as though he’s exasperated with me.

  ‘Oh yeah, sorry. Can’t afford it, unfortunately—love and coffee won’t pay the bills.’

  ‘You’d get food too.’

  It isn’t fair. Not only does Jack have all the physical attributes on my list, he’s sweet, playful, into me and can make coffee, and I’m certainly not repelled by his touch as his fingers wrap around mine when he takes my money. But there’s just no real zing and he’s so … so … What is it exactly?

  Eager and available!

  Swamped by confusion over Jack I’m practically on top of the fruitologist before I notice him. He’s on the phone, leaning against the PGGG doorway. Arrgghh. He’s so sexy—I think I may melt. This makes no sense. He’s nothing on my list and still, here I am, almost dropping with desire for him.

  I could easily put my head down and ignore him, but he’s thrown a complication into the mix: his lean is one of those madly seductive, casual ones that I can’t resist. Without any time to get anxious or analyse it, I fall head-on into the moment and just go with what happens next.

  He smiles and looks into my eyes—right into me. My natural, non-pained smile radiates from my eyes right back into his. We don’t break eye contact as I pass but I’m not checking his eye colour against my list. I have no recollection of what I see, there are no thoughts, no noise and no one else. I’m suspended in time—suspended in everything. I feel like I’m floating.

  14

  Saturday leads me to a session with Amethyst.

  ‘Could this dysfunction with men be some sort of genetic flaw I’ve inherited?’ I ask her from the spotlight of the Talking Chair.

  After last night my auric field is in desperate need of a cleanse. I’d gone around to Mum and Dad’s to go through old family albums—as part of my Lionel homework, I was to sift through my past and try to identify contributing factors for my anxiety. I’d expected my parents to be out at the golf club enjoying the smorgasbord with their friends the Smithsons, like they’ve done nearly every Friday night for the last ten years. But Johnny and Vonnie are away; a cruise apparently. ‘One of those Rhine things, not like an ordinary old Love Boat Pacific Princess one,’ Mum had explained.

  ‘I’m trying to find a shot of Jane and me from second class, we were talking about it the other day.’ I’d been quite blatant in my deceit—I could never tell them about Lionel or having something like anxiety.

  The evening was one long, happy stroll down memory lane until something flicked Mum’s switch. Obviously to do with one of the photos but I had no idea what. She’d shot up from the kitchen table and gone to the laundry where she hurled Dad’s golf clubs around like a sack of potatoes, quoting Dr Phil: ‘If you wouldn’t do it in front of your spouse, it’s infidelity.’

  Dad looked even more clueless than me, like he did every time she went off like that, but he stuck by her in his solid Taurean way, not making any waves. He’d done it our entire lives.

  ‘What’s for dessert tonight, Bev?’ Dad asked, rather than take Mum to task over her abuse of his golf clubs. He knew exactly what he was doing; over the years Dad’s got this down to a fine art. Halfway through telling him the details of her ‘delectable’ dessert offering, she’ll slip into nagging him about his weight problem—completely distracted from whatever it was she was so upset about. It works every time.

  I didn’t hang around for the dessert drama, I had more than enough fodder to see me through a few sessions with both Lionel and Amethyst without that.

  ‘I think I know what you mean.’ Amethyst gives me her ‘I’m about to reveal a great insight’ smile. ‘One day you go to sleep full of youthful superiority over your mother and the next you wake up and she’s taken possession of your voice box. Things are coming out of your mouth that you’d promised the Universe you’d never say.’

  If my expression is true to my feelings, my face is a traumatised mix of disappointment and panic.

  ‘We all start to turn into our mothers at thirty, Kismet. It only gets worse the more years that pass. But, blessings for you, we can clear what you’ve picked up of your mother’s karma that isn’t yours. I’ll work on that when I get you on the table. Tell me what else has been happening.’

  I tell her about Jane and the night at Marrakesh on Moore, the conversation at the studio and her thinking about adopting and how it feels as though there’s been an earth tremor and the tectonic plates of our relationship aren’t sitting quite right anymore. Ever since those events our conversations have a little crack that we try to glue and polish away with some of our old banter, but it’s not the same. Well, not for me. I doubt Jane even notices. I
know it’s my fault—I monitor my words and wait for her reaction, no longer sure where it’s safe to tread.

  I don’t tell Amethyst that Jane’s words also made me question my direction or lack thereof and highlighted just how lost and adrift I feel, trying to work it all out.

  ‘Sometimes we have to let something go to let something new into our lives, Kismet,’ Amethyst offers without a moment’s contemplation. ‘I’m not saying that you can’t be friends but the question is whether there’s the energetic space for another relationship the way you and Jane are. Even when people don’t intend it, their responses are skewed to their needs. They have a vested interest in you staying the same—it’s all they’ve ever known, it’s comfortable for them if you don’t change. It’s a bit like how you feel at the thought of her adopting, but less extreme. Start by not telling her absolutely every single thing.’

  I nod but stay silent.

  ‘The amount you tell her, seeking her approval and answers, is a lot of pressure to put on Jane too. You need to trust your own intuition, call on your higher self for guidance. It will know what’s best for you, not Jane. And she’s got some big decisions of her own to make by the sound of things.’

  I can’t imagine not workshopping everything with Jane.

  As usual, Amethyst seems to see straight through me. ‘Just see it as the autumn of your friendship, a time for letting go of how it has always been so you can both have new growth in a way that is healthier for each of you. You’ll be OK, your love has strong ties, you just need to unknot the tangle a little. Like I said, it’ll also free you up to let other relationships into your life. On that note, what progress have you made with the fruitologist?’

  ‘I really can’t explain what it was and exactly how I felt because I don’t understand it myself,’ I say, as I tell Amethyst about seeing the fruitologist on the street the other day. ‘The other times I’ve been around him have been intense but this was something else—like I’d disappeared into another world. There was no way I could speak or react like I normally would. It’s kind of scary.’