Meet Me in Bendigo

by Eva Scott

  GoldfieldsGirl SAT @ 10:20 PM

  I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I wasn’t going to message you after you stood me up today but I can’t stand it. I have to know what happened. Why didn’t you come?

  GoldfieldsGirl SAT @ 10:22 PM

  You know the hardest thing? While I was waiting for you, the man who is about to destroy my business showed up. He’s my nemesis. We fought, right there in public. I’m not that type of girl. You should have heard what I said to him. I was horrible. While I didn’t feel bad about it then, I do now. I wanted desperately to talk to you about what happened but you’re nowhere to be found.

  GoldfieldsGirl SAT @ 10:24 PM

  I don’t know who I’ve become. I barely recognise myself these days. I wish you were here.

  GoldfieldsGirl SAT @ 10:25 PM

  I hope you’ve got a good reason for not showing up, for not getting in touch, because you don’t seem like the sort of person who’d ghost someone. I want to believe you’re better than that. I want to believe in you.

  GoldfieldsGirl SAT @ 10:28 PM

  I know we really don’t know each other, but I feel closer to you than almost anyone else I know. Our conversations have kept me afloat through some very tough times and I’ve come to rely on them. You made me laugh again when I thought the simple act of smiling was impossible. Don’t disappear on me.

  GoldfieldsGirl SAT @ 10:30 PM

  Where are you?

  ‘What do you think?’ Ed asked Ripley, who cocked his head from side to side as if considering his opinion. ‘What do I say?’

  Ed paced around the small guesthouse, tracing a path between the furniture, looping through what passed for a kitchen and venturing out into the garden in the hope the night air might clear his head. Ripley followed.

  ‘How about I tell her I was held up in a business meeting?’

  Ripley ignored him and sniffed at the herbaceous border.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. Who has an urgent business meeting on a Saturday?’ Other than maybe his siblings. ‘What would be that urgent you couldn’t shoot off a quick text?’ Ed pulled a leaf off the Geisha Girl bush and began to tear it into tiny pieces. Overhead the stars wheeled in their mysterious orbits, no doubt tracing his fate for him. If only he could interpret their message.

  ‘What if I say I got caught up in a family thing and my phone went flat so I couldn’t contact her?’

  Ripley looked up, an expression of disapproval reflected in his soft brown eyes.

  Ed sighed. ‘Right again. Things are bad enough without increasing the lies. What’s that you say? How about I go with the unvarnished truth? I don’t know, mate. Not sure she’s ready to hear all that just yet.’

  Something rustled in the bushes and Ripley let out a soft woof, the equivalent to a dog whisper.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Ed. ‘Be authentic. Tell her what’s in my heart even if I can’t identify it properly myself. Rebuild trust. All good advice,’ he said as he ruffled his dog’s ears.

  Ripley, his focus elsewhere, shot off into the undergrowth to investigate the source of the noise.

  ‘Good talk,’ Ed called after him. ‘Now all I’ve got to do is find the right words.’

  GardenerGuy94 SAT @ 11:45 PM

  I wish I had an adequate explanation. I can’t explain my actions to you because I can’t explain them to myself. Just know that it was never my intention to cause you any pain. I hope you can find a way to forgive me.

  GardenerGuy94 SAT @ 11:48 PM

  I’m sorry my confusion and absence landed you in an unpleasant situation, one that only made you feel worse. I’m sure that whatever you said to your nemesis was well deserved. Like I said before, no doubt he’s a big boy and he can take it.

  GardenerGuy94 SAT @ 11:50 PM

  You have a lot going on. Be kinder to yourself. The events of today would challenge anyone. Don’t be too hard on yourself. I’m sorry I added to your burden, that’s not how I wanted this to play out at all.

  GardenerGuy94 SAT @ 11:53 PM

  Maybe one day soon I will get the chance to explain myself to you. Until that day comes, I’m still here. I’m still your friend. You can talk to me.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Annalisa took in the small crowd milling in front of her store. The turnout validated her plans to protest at the Carpenter’s Warehouse grand opening. She’d spent the last month drumming up support for her demonstration against retail monopolies. With a little bit of help from Nonna, she’d managed to sign up a minibus full of people.

  ‘Are you sure you still want to go ahead with this?’ Mel had been subtly trying to talk her out of this all week and now went in for the kill.

  ‘I’ve decided I’m going to do this, and that is that.’ She smiled at her best friend to take the sting out of her words. ‘I do appreciate you looking out for me all the same.’

  Mel sighed. ‘Come on, Annalisa. What’s the point of staging a protest when Carpenter’s Warehouse is built and opening? You’ll change nothing, you know that, right?’

  ‘Of course I do.’ Annalisa’s irritation bubbled to the surface. ‘But I cannot go down without a fight, even if I know I can’t win.’

  ‘Are you taking the fight to the Carpenters or to one Carpenter in particular?’ Mel raised her nimble, questioning eyebrow.

  ‘One and the same as far as I’m concerned. I want them to know not everyone in the community is happy about them moving in.’

  ‘So one Carpenter in particular then.’ Mel sighed again. ‘You should have taken the money and had a hot affair with that man.’

  ‘Don’t you start. I have my pride and I don’t want anything belonging to him.’

  The fight with Ed still smarted, salted by the fact GardenerGuy94 had stood her up on the same afternoon. As the days had turned to weeks, she could think about forgiving GardenerGuy94. She understood his hesitation and confusion enough to give him a second chance. Her own heart stuttered and stalled, fearful of getting hurt.

  As for Ed Carpenter, she was a very long way from letting him off the hook.

  All the same, he invaded her dreams at night and prowled about the corners of her mind during the day. Dream Ed wouldn’t leave her in peace, armed with his damn good looks and the magic that sparked between them whenever he came near. Her body wouldn’t let her forget what her logical mind wished to deny, only making her more determined to withhold her forgiveness a little longer.

  Not that Ed seemed to want her forgiveness. She hadn’t heard from him since the fight at the café even though he’d been in touch with the old guys and Lea mentioned that he popped into the bakery from time to time. He hadn’t come anywhere near her. Joe said it was probably because he was busy with the last arrangements before the warehouse opened. She knew that wasn’t entirely true.

  Underneath her pride lurked the knowledge she owed him an apology. She’d said some very mean and hurtful things, suspecting her words had done their work well. If only she could go back to that moment in the wildflower field when they’d first kissed, before everything got so complicated and fiery. She would hold on to that version of herself and Ed, all the sweet tenderness and the promise it had offered.

  Between the two of them, they’d managed to set fire to everything.

  ‘Anyone ever call you hot-headed before?’ Mel smiled.

  ‘All my life.’ Annalisa grinned back. ‘I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t make this last stand, not only for me but for my family.’

  ‘Okay, but if things get weird, I’m taking Luna and doing a runner, okay?’ said Mel as Luna regarded Annalisa solemnly, her large blue eyes reminding her of a kewpie doll, an image only highlighted by the fluffy pink tutu she wore.

  ‘I understand completely,’ said Annalisa. ‘It will be a very tame affair, I promise you. We’ll get off the bus, wave our placards around for a few minutes and leave. Simple.’

  ‘Is this everyone then?’ Mel gestured to the group standing in clumps on the footpath.

 
‘I think so. We’ve got Nonna’s mahjong friends and the old guys, of course. There’s a few other people in town who said they’d come along.’ Annalisa was hopeful she’d have enough protesters to draw attention to her plight and maybe even make the local news. There’d be a journalist or two there covering the grand opening so her chances were good.

  ‘This lot look less like protesters and more like they’re a bunch of day-trippers from the old folks’ home.’

  ‘Shh, don’t let them hear you say that or there’ll be a riot on our hands.’ Mel had a point. This was the best crowd she could drum up. What did the vintage of the protesters matter anyway? She had enough people to make some noise.

  ‘Here comes the bus,’ someone called out and all heads turned in unison like a bunch of seagulls on the scent of a chip.

  The bus pulled into a double parking spot and opened its doors. Annalisa gave Chook, the driver, a wave. Chook had been driving the community bus for as long as she could remember. A rotund man with a perpetual five o’clock shadow, Chook never seemed to age. No one could remember how he got his nickname although rumours circulated about a Kentucky Fried Chicken eating competition that got messy back in the eighties.

  He climbed down out of his seat and stomped heavily down the bus steps. ‘Come on, ladies and gents,’ he cried. ‘Load ’em up and let’s hit the road.’

  The mahjong ladies moved as one towards the bus followed by the old guys at a much more leisurely pace.

  ‘Where are these signs of yours then?’ Chook rubbed his hands together as if he were talking about a batch of her brownies rather than a bunch of homemade signs.

  Annalisa had been making signs for days, loading them up with glitter and making sure the slogans stood out. Chook picked one up from where it leaned against the wall.

  ‘Down with retail monopolies,’ he read. ‘Catchy.’ He picked up the other signs and took them to the luggage hold of the bus.

  ‘Luna and I will follow in the car,’ said Mel, giving Annalisa a kiss on the cheek. ‘Don’t do anything rash until I get there.’

  ‘I promise we’ll wait for you before we storm the building.’

  Luna looked up at her, confused. ‘But, Aunty Annalisa, there aren’t any clouds in the sky so how can it storm?’

  ‘Don’t worry, darling,’ said Mel as she led her daughter to their waiting car. ‘Aunty Annalisa is clever. She can create a storm in a teacup.’

  Luna looked back at her with renewed respect.

  ‘I heard that,’ called Annalisa after them. ‘And you better believe that I’m going to rain righteous anger down on Ed Carpenter’s head.’

  She locked the door to the shop and went to take her place on the bus.

  A little over twenty minutes later, the bus pulled into the vast car park surrounding Carpenter’s Warehouse. Annalisa’s anger had dimmed at the sight of the crowd gathered to celebrate the grand opening. She could see a variety of entertainments laid out in the car park while a knot of people milled around the entrance of the store where a yellow ribbon waited to be cut. By Edward Carpenter, no doubt.

  The thought of Ed soured her stomach, not only because of their ugly argument and the things he said to her. Thinking about her own bad behaviour that day hurt like poking a fresh bruise. He brought out the worst in her. She didn’t make a habit of going around arguing with or kissing people. Those things happened only with him.

  Chook bumped the bus none too gently into the car park and found several spots he could take up simultaneously.

  ‘Right, folks,’ he called out over his shoulder as he pulled on the park brake. ‘The time is precisely ten-oh-five. I will be pulling out of here at eleven o’clock on the dot, before that time if the police turn up to arrest you all.’

  The busload of pensioners laughed, confident their seniors cards would act like shields of steel against the police. Annalisa hoped so.

  She stood up and addressed everyone. ‘The ribbon cutting ceremony is due to start at ten thirty so we’re a little ahead of schedule. We’ve got some placards to hand out so if you’d like to make your way off the bus, you can collect your protest sign on your way to the entrance. We’ll gather in front of the sausage sizzle stall at ten fifteen and protest until the ceremony is about to begin. We should attract the attention of the local press that way.’

  A dozen or so elderly heads nodded their understanding before they all began to chatter and shuffle off the vehicle. Everyone seemed to be in high spirits and Annalisa’s confidence began to return.

  Chook stood at the bottom of the bus steps and helped each of his passengers alight, avoiding the possibility of broken ankles or collapsing knees. He held out his hand to her, the last of his passengers.

  ‘I’m right,’ she said as she jumped down the final step.

  ‘I’ll get those signs out for you.’

  She followed him to the storage section underneath the bus. He unlocked it and began to pass her the signs which she leaned up against the bus. She looked up, about to start handing out placards, to discover that her protest crew had gone wandering and were scattered throughout the car park. She checked her watch. Still plenty of time for them to come back, get their sign and regroup.

  ‘Righto, love,’ said Chook as he closed the storage and locked it. ‘If there’s nothing else I can do for you, I’ll be off to get meself a sausage or two.’

  ‘All good.’ She gave him a smile of gratitude. ‘I’ll hold the fort here.’

  Chook surveyed the busy parking lot. ‘You’ll have your hands full getting that lot back.’

  ‘I am not worried in the least,’ she said bravely, feeling completely the opposite. She’d already lost sight of Joe and the other old blokes, not to mention Nonna and the mahjong ladies, none of whom she’d be able to recognise in a crowd.

  As Chook meandered off, Mel and Luna appeared.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Mel gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Good turnout.’

  ‘For the grand opening, but I’ve lost my protesters.’ She slumped back against the bus.

  ‘Where did they go?’

  ‘Somewhere in there.’ She gestured to the marquees in Carpenter corporate colours dotting the place.

  ‘Do we have time to go and find them?’ Mel checked her watch, ready for action.

  ‘We can try,’ Annalisa sighed, wondering how she was going to round up her wayward flock.

  ‘Come on.’ Mel hooked her arm through Annalisa’s. ‘We’ve come this far. Don’t fall at the last hurdle.’

  ‘Weren’t you trying to talk me out of this half an hour ago?’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m your best friend and I’m one hundred per cent behind you, especially if you’re determined to go ahead and make a fool out of yourself.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  ‘Anytime. Let’s split up and see how many of the old folk we can find.’

  ‘I can’t remember all the mahjong ladies,’ Annalisa wailed.

  ‘Where you’ll find Nonna, you’ll find the mahjong chicks; I’ll take care of them. You go find the old guys.’ Mel took Luna’s hand. ‘Ready, my love? Let’s see if we can find where Nonna is hiding.’

  ‘Before the storm comes,’ said Luna.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much, darling,’ Annalisa heard Mel say as she walked away. ‘I think all we’ll get is a gust of hot air.’

  Despite Mel’s show of support, she clearly didn’t think the protest would amount to much. Right at this moment, Annalisa was forced to agree with her. She had a pile of protest signs and no one to carry them. Her crew had wandered off, more interested in free coffee and hotdogs than in fighting retail giants. Maybe she’d made a mistake in coming today.

  She followed Mel into the crowd. She had to at least try.

  It was not hard to find the old guys. All three of them stood next to the sausage sizzle stall, a hotdog in each hand, munching blissfully.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she cried.

  ‘What does it look like?’ said Joe wit
h his mouth full.

  ‘I know what you’re doing. I mean what are you doing here and not over at the bus like we planned?’

  ‘Is it time already?’ asked Dave, who’d managed to get tomato sauce on his chin.

  ‘Of course it’s that time,’ said Terry. ‘She waits until we’re mid breakfast.’

  ‘I told you what time I wanted to start. If you wanted eating time, we should have come earlier.’ Why did it feel as if she were losing ground?

  ‘Let us finish up and we’ll be there,’ said Joe. ‘You can’t ask a man to give up his sausage mid sizzle.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake.’ She threw up her hands. ‘Okay, as long as you come back over to the bus when you’re finished.’

  ‘I could go a coffee after this,’ said Dave. ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘Yes, I’d mind.’ She could scream. ‘Let’s do what we came here to do and then you can drink as much free coffee as you like. I’m going to find Nonna.’

  Annalisa pushed through the growing crowd. ‘Where did all these people come from,’ she muttered.

  ‘Annalisa, hi!’ One of the girls she’d gone to school with stopped her.

  ‘Lacey, so good to see you here.’ Annalisa hugged her friend, grateful she’d shown up to support her.

  ‘Um, yeah, about the protest thingy.’ Lacey looked deeply uncomfortable. ‘You know Trent has been out of work for a while, right?’

  Annalisa nodded, suspecting what was coming.

  ‘Well, he got the call about a job here at Carpenter’s and I don’t think it would be right of me to protest against the people who are going to be paying us, you know what I mean?’

  Annalisa crumpled a little with disappointment. ‘Of course. I understand,’ she said, determined to put a brave front on. ‘You go and enjoy yourself and don’t worry about us.’

  ‘I knew you’d understand,’ said Lacey, the relief written on her face. ‘I mean, it’s only a token protest anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, token.’ Whatever buoyancy Annalisa had remaining hissed out of her like a balloon deflating. Did Lacey’s attitude mean no one else took her protest seriously?