Claudia's Big Break

by Lisa Heidke

  ‘Is there a but in there somewhere?’

  I shook my head. I was happy. It’s not like I cried into my pillow every night. Jack didn’t need to know any more.

  I distracted myself with the olives and Jack’s good looks. He looked like one of those rugged jackaroos from the outback I’d seen in magazines. Manly, virile and a bit scruffy around the edges. Tanned and muscular with broad shoulders and a great face. He wasn’t a chiselled work of art. Jack had a lived-in face brimming with character and expression, and he had a fantastic smile and a cute gap between his perfectly white front teeth.

  And so far he hadn’t done anything offensive. He’d been nice to the waitress, made eye contact when talking, eaten with his mouth closed; he hadn’t dribbled fish down his T-shirt, hadn’t belched or farted. Didn’t appear to be chauvinistic, too try-hard or so charming that he was creepy. He seemed, well, he seemed normal. There had to be a catch.

  I licked my lips . . . couldn’t feel any lipstick. My lipstick had worn off. I checked my glass. Red lipstick rimmed the edge of the wineglass. What happened to the lipstick with the supposedly stay-fast formula? The lipstick that only an efficient sandblasting would remove? Apparently, not that stay-fast because I was sitting at lunch with nude lips.

  ‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Brisbane, but I started out in Yackandandah.’

  That sparked my interest. With those arms, I could imagine Jack growing up on a magnificent cattle property, with stables, and maybe a show-jumping arena, and enchanted landscaped gardens . . . spending his days bareback on a stallion, mustering cattle in the wild and untamed Aussie bush.

  ‘As a jackaroo?’

  Jack laughed and shook his head. ‘Where did you get that idea?’

  ‘You’re from the country, so I assumed . . .’ It sounded foolish now that I’d said it.

  ‘Surprisingly, not all of us country folk are farmers or jackaroos.’

  Touché! I was a nude-lipped idiot.

  ‘I moved to Sydney when I started high school and boarded at Kings. Then studied engineering at Sydney University.’

  An engineer! ‘You like maths?’

  ‘Yeah. Working with formulas, solving problems, logical thinking.’

  Strike one. I wasn’t a fan of maths.

  I wanted to ask him about his personal situation. Was he married? Divorced? With a significant other? But I didn’t want to appear too nosy. I didn’t want him getting the wrong idea. I wasn’t looking for a new boyfriend.

  ‘Have you been to Santorini before?’ I asked.

  ‘Never. But the opportunity came up and I thought, Why not?’

  I smiled. ‘Same here. So, are you here alone?’ I couldn’t help myself.

  He nodded and suddenly I was more than a little interested. What had I told myself less than a minute ago? I could have slapped myself.

  ‘Tell me more about you,’ Jack asked. ‘Any family?’

  ‘Only parents and two sisters,’ I said, trying to flutter my lashes which probably looked more like an involuntary twitch.

  He nodded, seemingly unaware of my wonky eyes.

  ‘I’m the middle of three girls. Lizzie, the eldest, is a podiatrist.’

  ‘Likes feet?’

  ‘Yeah. Go figure. And Sarah, well Sarah’s a bit of a misplaced hippie. She lives in inner-city Sydney but calls herself Sunbeam and pretends she’s living in Nimbin. Just your average run-ofthe-mill suburban family.’

  ‘You sound disappointed.’

  ‘Nah, it’s just that we’ve never really had any dramas.’

  My parents weren’t religious zealots, like Tara’s parents. My father wasn’t a maniac, like Sophie’s dad. Mr Turner’s temper tantrums were legendary. Sophie said it was because he’d fought in the Korean War. Whatever the reason, I was terrified of him. He yelled all the time for no apparent reason. She told me she’d lost count of the number of times she’d fainted or vomited during one of his tirades.

  ‘Looking back on my teenage years, my family was incredibly normal. Not that you’d think it looking at some of our awkward family photos.’ A framed portrait of the five of us wearing matching high-waisted denim shorts sprang to mind.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Normal. I have my friends, my work. Sometimes I find myself asking, “Is this it?” and I feel like doing something crazy to inject a bit of excitement into my life.’

  ‘Like skydiving?’

  ‘Not that crazy.’ Maybe I wasn’t explaining myself clearly. ‘You know the movie As Good As It Gets?’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘Well, sometimes I find myself asking the same questions as Jack Nicholson. “Is this as good as it gets? Is this all there is?”’

  Heavy conversation for what was supposed to be a getting-to-know-you lunch. I needed to lighten up. Either that or slow down my wine intake. I glanced at my watch. Where had the afternoon disappeared? Marcella was right. Why was I so fixated on the time of day? What did it matter? I was on holidays in Santorini and time was fluid.

  ‘So no skeletons in the closet?’

  Odd question. ‘Not that I know of, though as I said, my sister calls herself Sunbeam. Who knows what she gets up to?’ The last time I’d heard from her she was squatting in a terrace in Newtown and protesting about melting glaciers in the Antarctic.

  Jack nodded and stood up. ‘It’s getting late. I should see you back to your apartment. Your friends will be worried.’ Suddenly he was all serious and businesslike.

  Friends? I thought absent-mindedly. What friends?

  I pulled myself up sternly. This was not allowed to happen. I’d sworn off men. There was no way I was about to fall for another handsome man’s charms. He said he was here alone but for all I knew he had a wife tucked away at home. That would be just my luck.

  11

  By the time Jack and I meandered back to Marcella’s, Sophie, Tara and Angie were sitting on the terrace enjoying pre-dinner drinks. The sun was warm, the breeze cool, and Jack was incredibly good-looking. And that wasn’t the wine talking. So what if he wasn’t a jackaroo. I was happy enough hanging out with an engineer. At least he wasn’t a dentist.

  I expected he’d stay for dinner but he hesitated.

  ‘I really should be going.’

  ‘You sure? My friends don’t bite.’

  As we stood awkwardly on the stairs, he seemed reluctant, somehow preoccupied. But just as quickly the cloud lifted and he broke into a huge smile.

  ‘Okay. That’d be great. Thanks.’

  While Jack and I retrieved chairs from inside, Tara poured two extra glasses of rosé. Good, I thought hazily, just what I needed, more wine.

  ‘I bought you both sarongs,’ I said to Sophie and Tara, tossing them one each.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Sophie. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Hey, there’s a baggage limit,’ said Tara, unfolding her gift. ‘Having said that, this is quite stunning. Thanks.’ She held up the green and blue piece of cotton for everyone to admire. ‘I’m not normally into sarongs.’

  After introducing Angie to Jack, we joined the conversation, which unfortunately was about work, careers and generally making something of your life . . . Topics I was desperate to avoid talking about in public, given I’d generally not made anything much of my life thus far.

  Still, Marcus’s offer of a ‘bonus’ posed an irresistible opportunity to reinvent myself. I hated being confined to an office eight and a half hours a day. I didn’t want to push papers around for the rest of my life, bound by four walls and a tiny window overlooking a filthy back alley in Fortitude Valley.

  But the looming reality terrified me. As long as I was trapped by debt, I had an excuse as to why I wasn’t moving forward with my life or embracing new opportunities. Once I was debt-free, I’d have no excuses and nothing holding me back.

  ‘At least you have a job, Tara,’ Sophie was saying.

  ‘Yeah, but I hate it.’

  ‘Why? Apart from working for
maniacal Melinda, it’s fascinating. Seeing the inside of those amazing homes and writing about them, being on the cutting edge of interior design.’

  ‘I’ve done it to death. There are only so many ways you can describe a pink wall. After all, pink is just pink, isn’t it?’

  Sophie looked horrified. ‘There’s light verona, coral, madras, poppy, starfish glow, sorbet, lipstick, watermelon, Priscilla, cherry, cranberry —’

  ‘I get the picture,’ Tara said.

  ‘Rose, plum, Persian red, bloom, Indian rose, parrot red —’

  ‘I’m sorry I even mentioned it. Either way, I’m sick of writing about it. I want to write my own stories.’

  ‘Like a novel?’ Angie asked.

  Tara nodded. ‘I’ve written a few short stories but my aim is to write a novel. I wrote a lot today.’

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ I squealed. ‘See, I was right. I knew you’d find the energy and inspiration here.’

  ‘It’s early days,’ said Tara, looking a little shy. ‘But I’m certainly more motivated than I have been in a very long time.’

  ‘We’ve been giving her advice,’ Sophie told Jack and Angie, as if we were Tara’s interfering parents.

  ‘Here we go,’ said Tara, rolling her eyes.

  ‘For example,’ I said. ‘I’ll say, “What about a cookbook? MasterChef is huge.” And Tara will say . . .’

  ‘I don’t really cook,’ Tara replied on cue.

  ‘In London, it’s all about vampires and zombies,’ said Angie.

  ‘Hmm, I don’t think they’ll make it into my novel either,’ said Tara.

  ‘But the main thing is you’re making progress,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. I had a real breakthrough today. Who knows, if I’m still feeling motivated in a couple of months, I might take more time off work to concentrate on it. I’m owed a lot of holidays and I’m sick of being a wage slave.’

  ‘Right on, sister!’ I said confidently, trying to embrace a more adventurous spirit. (Someone with less spirit would have fretted that she — ie, me — was destined to remain chained to a desk in a cramped, overpopulated sweatbox.) ‘Go for it.’

  We raised our glasses and toasted Tara. She looked suitably mortified.

  Then Angie turned to me. ‘And what do you do, Claudia?’

  I knew eventually the conversation had to shift to me, and were my ears deceiving me? Was Angie talking with a Hyacinth Bucket lilt? (Though I generally tried to avoid watching Keeping Up Appearances, it was one of Mum’s favourite shows. She had every episode on DVD.)

  I shouldn’t have sat down. I should have gone straight inside and joined Levi and Harry who were happily watching Toy Story 3 for the tenth time.

  ‘Yes,’ Jack chimed in. ‘What do you do with yourself when you’re not holidaying in Greece?’

  ‘I’m an office manager,’ I said dismissively. ‘But I’m thinking about changing careers.’

  ‘What? No more bringing home exotic oils and vinegars?’ Tara said.

  Jack raised his eyebrows.

  ‘I work for a company that imports food, oils mostly. In fact, most of it comes from Greece. But I want to make money. I’m sick of being in debt —’

  ‘You do spend a lot of money,’ Tara started.

  ‘Yes and I don’t want to feel guilty about it.’ Everyone was silent. ‘I know it’s not politically correct in these difficult economic times, but the truth is I don’t want to be a pauper, living in your house, Tara, for the foreseeable future. And I don’t want to be stuck in an office for the rest of my life. I’m not suited to that job. I’m usually asleep at my desk by ten-thirty every morning.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Sophie said. ‘You ring me just to keep yourself awake.’

  ‘It was only ever meant as a stopgap, it was never supposed to be a career. I want to do something exciting, work outdoors, travel, see a bit of action.’

  ‘And don’t forget, earn wads of cash doing it!’ Tara snapped her fingers. ‘You’ll land a job like that in no time.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I liked my job as an events coordinator, and I was good at it.’

  ‘True,’ said Tara. ‘And you did get us great freebies at fancy restaurants.’

  ‘Wine, too,’ Sophie chimed in.

  ‘Maybe I’ll look into something like that again when we get home,’ I said.

  ‘That sounds like a plan,’ said Sophie. ‘I know I need to get out more. Since having Levi, I’ve been defined by him — what happened to me? I can’t even remember the person I was before Levi came along. It seems like a lifetime ago.’

  ‘What did you do before Levi came along?’ Angie asked.

  ‘Corporate law. Litigation.’

  ‘Snap,’ said Angie, clearly impressed. ‘I love it. I love the drama, the pressure-cooker atmosphere, thinking on my feet.’

  ‘I don’t miss that so much,’ said Sophie, wrinkling her nose. ‘I couldn’t handle the pressure any more, but I miss the freedom. That, and eating lunch with adults.’

  ‘You miss working?’ Tara said, genuinely shocked.

  Sophie thought for a moment. ‘I guess I do. I miss the independence, miss having my own money. I miss having contact with people who aren’t mothers, you know, normal people who aren’t defined by how many children they have.’

  ‘I didn’t realise that,’ I said.

  ‘Why would you? We haven’t exactly seen a lot of each other in the past few months, have we?’

  Was she trying to tell me I was a bad friend, a distant godmother? I wasn’t sure but now wasn’t the time to ask. I’d file it away for further discussion on another day.

  ‘You’re bored,’ said Tara. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘I could hardly be bored with Levi around. It’s just I’d love to do something creative like you, Tars. Not writing, but maybe decorating —’ ‘Huh?’ said Tara, taking in her words.

  ‘I’ve even looked into doing a six-month interior design course at TAFE, two days a week. It’s doable if I put Levi into preschool one more day a week.’

  ‘Really?’ I said.

  ‘Why? Does that make me a bad mother?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Tara, jumping in. ‘But you haven’t spoken about this before.’

  ‘Because I don’t want everyone thinking it’s a stupid idea.’

  ‘It’s not stupid, Soph,’ I said. ‘You should definitely give it a go if that’s what you want.’

  Tara turned to Sophie. ‘Remember Bryan, the stylist you met the day we did the “New Glamour” piece on your home? He’s always looking for willing victims to be his work-experience slaves. If you’re interested, I could text him and see what he says.’

  I clapped my hands. It sounded like a great idea. As far as I could tell, stylists were people who got paid an obscene amount of money to shop. Perhaps it wasn’t that simple, but Sophie definitely looked the part. This evening she was wearing a groovy purple kaftan (another Santorini purchase) and skinny jeans. If ever there was a person crying out to be a stylist, it was Sophie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ started Sophie.

  ‘Stop! You’ve already said you’re going to start an interior design course,’ Tara said.

  ‘That might be the wine talking. Besides, I said that I was thinking about it.’

  ‘Not listening,’ said Tara. ‘Let’s send him a text. It can’t hurt.’

  That settled, we watched as the sun disappeared into the Mediterranean before tuning into Jack and Angie’s conversation.

  ‘So Jack, Claudia mentioned you’re from Yackandandah? Is that how you say it?’ Angie giggled into her wine. It was a girly flirty giggle and it annoyed the hell out of me. Yack-and-and-ah. You didn’t see me laughing like a hyena when I said the word.

  ‘Most people don’t believe it’s a real place when I tell them.’

  ‘Like when I lived in Woolloomooloo a few years ago,’ Tara said. ‘Try saying that after a few drinks.’

  ‘It must have been fascinating growing up in the outback,’ said Angie, dir
ecting one hundred and twenty percent of her attention to Jack the lad.

  ‘Bit quiet. Although we do have the annual toad races. That always brings the punters to town.’

  ‘Oh Jack,’ I giggled as I leant back on my chair and almost toppled over.

  ‘And that’s tame compared to friends of mine up north who travel hundreds of kilometres to attend the annual Hog ’n’ Dog pig-hunting gala day,’ Jack continued.

  ‘Imagine if ants were as big as tigers,’ Levi was saying to Harry as the two boys walked out onto the patio to join us.

  ‘Yeah and . . . and tigers were as little as ants.’

  ‘Or worms were huge like elephants. Mum,’ Levi asked, ‘what would happen if ants were as big as tigers?’

  ‘I’m not sure, darling,’ Sophie replied patiently. ‘But I do know it’s dark and that means it’s time for bed.’

  Despite their protests, Sophie and Angie managed to wrestle the boys into submission in Sophie’s room. Meanwhile, Tara and I rustled up sourdough, a variety of dips, salad and a freshly baked moussaka that Marcella had given us earlier in the day. Made from her grandmother’s secret recipe, it was apparently tradition that every visitor to the villas received at least one of Grandma Marcella’s moussakas during their stay.

  ‘The Greeks certainly know how to make good wine,’ Tara said after Jack had opened another bottle.

  ‘Except for that foul retsina,’ I said.

  ‘True,’ agreed Tara.

  ‘And some of the fashion over here,’ said Angie. ‘What the eff happened? I mean, are we seriously meant to wear those clothes?’

  I had it! She sounded exactly like Katie ‘Jordan’ Price during her time on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here.

  ‘Thank you,’ Tara was saying. ‘We were having a similar conversation the other day.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of the whole gypsy thing.’

  Tara smiled, Sophie fidgeted in her kaftan, and I pulled self-consciously at my comfy cheesecloth shirt.

  ‘I tried on one of those floaty white skirts this morning,’ continued Angie. ‘I’d have to say there’s no place on any body, especially mine, for a white horizontal panelled skirt.’