by PJ Mayhem
He’s so caught up in it all he doesn’t register me, but he’s never as friendly when Ms Terse-at-the-Till is around. There’s something about her presence that interferes with our energies.
I can’t refute that the whole football thing is a blow of mine-blasting proportions. But ever since I’d noticed the bunny logo on Frankie’s shirt a while ago, I’ve been seeing them everywhere. Sammy had even had one on his hoodie on Sunday. Who would’ve thought the Universe would take it quite so literally when I put those two little red and green bunnies in my relationship corner?
But gratitude where gratitude is due. I have to count my blessings that I hadn’t manifested an ugly rabbit person.
‘Why didn’t you mention those football players—try to connect to him? It’s obviously something he’s interested in,’ Lionel says after I’ve filled him in on recent events.
I knew Spirit had provided me with a gift—the perfect time to have said, ‘Hey, Frankie, guess what? John Sutton and two other Souths players asked me for directions the other week.’ I only knew who they were because of Sammy, not that I’d ever be able to tell Sammy I’d seen them. He’d never forgive me for not getting their autographs, or maybe kids wanted selfies these days, but I hadn’t done either. The guys had seemed so set on not letting their heart rates drop as they jogged on the spot while I pointed to where they needed to go and I was pretty sure that the reason they’d approached me was because in my black outfit I looked like the girl least likely to know who they were. The guilt at not asking for Sammy’s sake was still eating away at me so I’d been trying to put it out of my mind.
‘I don’t really think I could sustain a conversation about football, Lionel, and why would I want to? I must’ve lost my mind. A football fanatic? Seriously!’
‘You’re overthinking it, life isn’t always logical. Remember that session we did on just saying the first thing that comes into your mind with Frankie? Actually, you need to stop censoring yourself full stop, not just around Frankie. That’s going to be your homework this week—well, forever, actually.’
Oh holy singing Hare Krishnas! Does Lionel have any idea what he would be unleashing on the world if I stopped censoring myself? Surely he knows how dangerous that could be!
I don’t do anything other than look shocked, or maybe amused. I’m not even sure which I feel.
Lionel continues, ‘No—it won’t be that bad. Just do and say what you feel, whether it be in words or in action—just be, Kismet, just be.’
‘I’m not sure …’ I stop, trying to find the right way to put it. I imagine Broomstick with a chopstick through her chest (or maybe a pile of unravelled paperclips fashioned into a weapon) and people hiding under chairs and tables in the office and on the street, cowering from all the things I currently keep inside. ‘I don’t know that it’s really a safe idea.’ My mind had moved on to the carnage I’d create on public transport.
‘I know it’s an unusual concept. You will have that negative voice inside you that tries to stop you but it’s not you. It’s your anxiety that puts you into this state of censorship. You assume you’ll fuck up because you think that just being you is somehow fatally flawed. Just say to it: “Fuck off, like you’re so perfect!”’
Lionel has me counting down into hypnosis before I’ve even come to terms with the fact he just used the word fuck. Twice.
Later, still with the same warm plasticine feeling that hypnosis leaves me with, I walk past the closed shopfront of PGGG. I slow down and look longingly at the store, thinking, Oh my fated one, why do you forsake me, my Singing Fruiterer? (Even Ms Middle-of-the-Road needs to get a little Jane Austen occasionally.)
Dharma it to destiny and back. BIG has taken time out from his buns and is on the street, observing my fascination with the PGGG doorway. Karmic curses to him and his cupcake- and cream horn–congested arteries. No doubt he has noted the look of longing on my face and will tell Frankie I looked like a bunny-boiling stalker!
‘I can see you’ve already been doing quite a lot of work on yourself,’ Marcus, the shaman that Phoenix recommended, observes as I enter his treatment room. My chakras are humming in their freshly re-harmonised state after my morning session with Amethyst. That’s how it is with deep spiritual work: to the untrained eye, progress isn’t necessarily obvious, but as a shaman, Marcus can spot it on sight. ‘It’s my unique combination of marrying the ancient energetic and spiritual-healing wisdom of shamanism and tribal insights with psychotherapy and working physically and neurologically that creates the vital potency of my healing techniques.’
I’m slightly distracted by the way his middle-aged man ponytail bobs and swishes as he speaks but his words hold great promise. The hair is probably just to compensate for his very-sensible-for-a-shaman attire of relaxed business wear.
‘Oh no, no, no—this won’t do. We can’t commence yet,’ Marcus says as I lie face up on the treatment table. I imagine he’s just realised he’s forgotten his feather, and what of his dream catcher?
‘There’s no way I can get to any other issues until I’ve reset your body clock. It’s totally out of sync.’
I’m not surprised.
‘No, there’s still something else,’ he says ponderously after resetting my body clock. He rests his hands on my head, then my shoulders and then my feet. ‘Have you always felt different, like you don’t quite belong?’
Phoenix was right, he is very intuitive.
‘You landed in the wrong tribe, always on the outside. That’s created a sorrow pattern. It’s all around having no choice.’
I really had no idea I had so many layers of dysfunction until I started all my healing work—thank Buddha I came upon it.
‘I want you to imagine yourself being in a flirty situation with a man you find attractive,’ Marcus instructs, once my body clock is ticking in perfect harmony and I’m sorrow-pattern free and have had the chance to address some of the issues on my mind.
Naturally I begin to visualise myself opposite Frankie at the PGGG counter. Well aware that most women would go for something a little more sophisticated—at least a decent bar—I can’t help but put myself in the most likely situation. It’s only practical. And it’s a good benchmark for me to see the progress I’ve made from when I’d imagined myself opposite him in my Alex the Anxiety session with Lionel.
I do, however, become a little distracted, trying to focus on what song Frankie might be singing. I’m going for gold with The Killers but I can’t choose between ‘Change Your Mind’ and ‘Glamorous Indie Rock Roll’ and the clearing happens before I have time to conjure the image fully. No harm done.
Marcus assures me that the pattern he uncovered has been released.
I’m quite unsteady on my feet as I get up, so much so that I have to grip the bed.
‘Put yourself in silver light for protection till you get home,’ Marcus recommends as he sees me out to the reception area. I sit for ten minutes to return fully to my body before I feel ready to navigate public transport.
I’d intended to phone Stephanie when I got home. I hadn’t heard from her since leaving some brownies with James the day Mum and Dad had dropped me back. It was the only thing I could think to do to make things a bit easier, Stephanie was so busy running her mum to chemo and other appointments. I’d sent her texts to let her know I was thinking of her but I didn’t want to bombard her, or make her feel pressured to reply.
I’d thought about calling Jane too but as soon as I make it home I drop like a boulder onto my bed. I take painkillers for my throbbing head and close my eyes in the hope that it will ease the wooziness. It’s probably all the energetic toxins shifting out of my system and my unearthed foundations settling into place, I think, as I slide off my bed to the floor. I crawl to the bathroom. I’m too ill and exhausted to stand up so I have to crouch over the toilet bowl, vomiting.
Back in bed, I can’t sleep. Even though my skull feels like it’s been pierced with a red hot poker, I pick up The Thirteenth Tale.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Kismet,’ I tell myself. ‘You’re not going to be getting messages from Spirit via the crinkly pages of a borrowed novel.’ But before I get to the end of the page, the words I’ve just read are planting the seed of an idea that I can feel runs the risk of propagating into an out-of-control vine. I may not be big into whipper-snippering but I need to snip the thought right off at the roots and forget I ever had it. I don’t even let myself think it fully for fear of it wrapping its sticky tendrils into my brain. Still, it hovers there as I manage to drift back to sleep.
28
Sunday morning, my chakras settled, clear of my migraine and nausea, I wake from a dream that feels like déjà vu, so real I could swear I’d astro travelled and was back there again. ‘There’ being Shanghai, in the area I’d visited for my birthday a few years ago.
In the dream I relived it all, walking down the same streets, smelling the same incense from the popular temple, street food being fried in sesame oil, large trees creating the cleanest air in the city, surrounded by the same sense of comfort and familiarity—chatting easily, giving Chinese tourists directions in Mandarin, chatting to stallholders on the street and shopkeepers, completely at ease, happier than I have ever been. It’s probably just because I’m catching up with Bing and his family for yum cha today.
I’ve got just enough time to get to the second closest bedding supply store and back before I’m due to meet them in Chinatown. Going to the closest would obviously be more convenient, but it’s in a shopping centre. Shopping centres must be avoided at all costs—they bring me out in hives, agitate my aura and play havoc with my energetic equilibrium.
I run down the street via Jack’s.
‘Woo hoo—look at you. I’ve definitely never seen you in that shirt before, Fiona.’ To my surprise, Jack is there to greet me.
His comment heightens my self-conscious state because I’m standing out like a beacon in my red checked shirt. A bright colour and a pattern—normally I wouldn’t be seen dead in either, let alone both simultaneously, but it’s desperate times where my washing is concerned. I had planned on doing that last night too. I’d pulled the shirt off the hanger it’s called home since I unwrapped it on my birthday two years ago and forced myself to button it up, as though I were taking medicine.
‘I thought you weren’t working Sundays?’ I don’t want to make any more of a big deal about my shirt than it’s making of itself.
‘What’s it matter? I didn’t have anyone to go out with me last night.’ He sighs dramatically and waves his ‘I couldn’t ever fall in love with you’ forearms around, his face all sad puppy-dog eyes.
‘I’m sure you have a hundred girls to go out with, Jack. I’ve seen the way you chat to all your customers.’ I take a stab at not censoring myself. I won’t be guilted into feeling bad about not wanting to go out with him. It’s not my fault fate hasn’t set our paths to cross in a seriously romantic way.
Speaking of fate, I’m still in a bit of a state over looking like a human beacon when I see Frankie sitting out the front of PGGG.
‘Hi, Frankie,’ I say in a perky voice that doesn’t seem to be mine.
‘Hi, Fiona,’ Frankie says, just before he pops a spoonful of yoghurt in his mouth.
I slow down. I’ve no doubt that both the yoghurt and being on my way to get new bed linen are a sign.
He gives me a restricted smile. A few words tumble out of my mouth, I’ve no idea what they are. I’m back on board the rocket to Planet Swoon.
‘Have a good day, Fiona,’ Frankie calls after me as I speed off.
‘You too, Frankie,’ I throw flirtatiously over my shoulder. Twisting back to look at him lowers my guard and my smile comes more naturally, bigger, brighter. I’m sure I feel his smile follow me down the street.
I wish I could be mad at him for not calling me Kismet but I’m just so dharmaed happy seeing him and hearing him say my name in any form. Although it’s going to be tricky to ever correct him now. But like Bibby said—no one’s perfect.
An hour later, laden with five large Bed Linen Wonderland bags, I hail a cab. If there’s going to be someone new in my bed (which Marcus assured me there would be soon), energetically, it’s only fitting to have new sheets … and a new quilt, pillows, pillow cases, doona, doona cover. And throw cushions don’t ever go to waste! This morning’s Lovers’ Oracle card—Success—all will work out—helped me rationalise the expense.
There’s quick kisses and hugs with Bing, Jie and Lulu when I run up to them at the restaurant but today I’m more focussed on Bibby. I stand back from her and smile expectantly. Bibby turns the bundle containing Bau Bau—their cute, chubby-faced new addition—towards me. Bau Bau gurgles and burbles as I take him.
‘Aiya!’ Bing and Bibby say in playful shock, laughing at Bau Bau. He normally doesn’t like going near people and cries if anyone comes close to him, they tell me.
I slip into Bing’s family like it’s a second skin, cradling Bau Bau, nattering to Bing, Bibby, Jie and Lulu as we wait for our yum cha number to be called.
One thing about most Chinese I’ve known is that they pride themselves on being the perfect hosts. ‘Mei Mei, have you tried this?’, ‘You might like this’, ‘You should eat this, it’s good for you’, ‘I remember once before you said you like this.’ There’s isn’t a trolley that passes that Bing doesn’t choose something from. There’s barely time to chew before he’s thrusting another dumpling or sticky rice triangle in my bowl.
I may like to leave yum cha full and groaning but this is a safety hazard—I’m sure the table is about to collapse, plus my stomach’s started to press against my diaphragm and it’s getting hard to breathe.
‘Come on, girls, help out here before I explode,’ I say to Jie and Lulu. They’ve been holding back—taking their cue from Bing and Bibby. As lovely as it all is, them treating me like a guest, and the distance the formality creates, brings a slight itch to my second skin.
29
Monday has become my regular early-mark day and by ‘early’ I mean 6pm. If I were blessed with the ability to form a forty-three-word sentence around Frankie what I’d say tonight is: ‘Frankie, excuse me, it’s not easy to concentrate and maintain my Ms Middle-of-the-Road composure when you launch into “I Wanna Be a Cowboy”, full of chirpiness and swinging an imaginary lasso—particularly when the song isn’t even on the radio!’ But after a minute or two, he stops—as though he’s remembered something he doesn’t want to think about.
I don’t understand his sudden change of mood but I do understand that this is about yesterday’s bloody red shirt. I knew a pattern and a colour were trouble. In my state of confused fluster, I go to the beverage section.
I feel Frankie’s eyes on me as he comes bouncing by, singing 10cc’s ‘I’m Not In Love’.
My Spiritual Support Pit Crew sessions are really paying off. Twice in a matter of weeks Spirit has sent me this sort of test. I don’t imagine Frankie belting out the line about keeping the picture on the wall is a sign he has a shrine out in his dungeon, with chains and a yoghurt pot ready for the whole sex-slave scenario. I don’t even flinch.
In fact it’s me who has a shrine, of sorts. It’s not like I’m collecting strands of Frankie’s hair or anything (I would’ve felt compelled to return them to him given his slight deficit); when I got home the other night, I realised I’d thrown my change from our nicest interactions into the bowl of crystals I keep in my creativity corner for good Feng Shui. What can I say? I’m sentimental.
I try to muster a cool, calm and collected exterior but all my energy is going to trying to contain my laughter at his wildly out-of-tune singing. I feel like I’ve fallen into the centre of that volcano I’d been imagining.
By now I’m at the fridge. He’s come to a stop next to me. I’m back to that item on my mental list of Endearing Things About Frankie of him having no sense of humiliation.
‘Hi Frankie, great singing.’ I smile. ‘Are you practising for The Voice?’
‘Do you like my chances?’
Oh great Goddess of Mercy, what does he mean by that?
‘If you don’t give it a shot you won’t ever know.’ I grip the fridge’s handle, my smile widening.
‘Maybe Australia’s Next Top Model,’ he says enthusiastically.
I have to look down to hold in a snort. ‘Why not?’ is all I manage when I look at him again. ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I think you have a really beautiful energy,’ is what Amethyst or one of the Goddesses-in-Training would be saying right now. I can virtually hear Amethyst screaming at me to say it but those aren’t the sort of words that form in my mouth. It’s just not me to actually come right out and say something like that to anyone, let alone try it with Frankie.
Almost composed but not quite, after Frankie has zipped off again and I’ve spent a moment or two leaning against the fridge to calm and cool myself down, I head to the counter.
Frankie does his bustle-in thing when I get to the till (it’s definitely a thing now). He and the young guy working in tandem to serve me sends me all atwitter. Frankie is more than enough male energy for me to cope with.
‘You don’t normally buy avocadoes, Fiona,’ Frankie observes.
I’m pulling items out of my basket as though they’re rabbits out of a hat. Some of them, like the avocadoes, are a mystery even to me. Seriously, avocadoes? The mere thought of eating them makes me ill. But I can’t be expected to maintain Ms Middle-of-the-Road and know what I’m buying with Frankie carrying on the way he had been. This revelation of him knowing what I buy is almost more than I can take.
‘Thanks, Fiona.’
I get a full, unrestricted smile from Frankie as I pay. We hold our look for a millisecond. It’s not a deep meaningful glance. Before I can set off on my journey to Planet Swoon, he pogos off, back to whatever he was doing before I got to the counter.