Only in Spain

by Nellie Bennett

  The job was only ever meant to be temporary. I’d been hired to work through the busy Christmas season, but that was more than two years ago. I was asked to stay on because I was good at the work, and I accepted, always thinking it would only be a couple more months until something else took off in my life and I could leave the smell of plastic suit bags and the click of hangers behind.

  What that something else was I didn’t know. I wasn’t content to just do something for the sake of doing something, though if I’d agreed to fulfill my role in the social contract then I would already have been most of the way through a law degree.

  We all have a social contract, whether we’re aware of it or not. It lays out the terms and conditions of our lives, how we are to behave and what is expected of us at each juncture. No courts or judges are needed to see that it’s upheld; guilt and obligation work perfectly well. Simple comments like “after all your parents went through to get you a decent education” are usually enough to keep most of us in check.

  My parents had been patient. They had agreed that I should take a year off after high school to think about what I wanted to do. But as a year stretched to two my father’s face became increasingly pained whenever he asked the question, “Have you thought about what you want to do with your life?”

  What I want to do with my life?

  What I want to do with my life?

  I want to be wild and daring and dance till dawn beneath a full moon. I want to hitch my caravan to a star and live each day like it’s my last… But as far as I knew that wasn’t a job description, so what could I say?

  Maybe I’m a hopeless romantic. Maybe I’m just plain hopeless. But I wanted to live a passionate life. I wanted to feel a part of the world and be in love with the world. I wanted to live my destiny, and whatever that was, I knew it wasn’t nine to five, or a house in the suburbs, or a Birkin bag. And I wasn’t going to compromise. I didn’t want a plan B. I didn’t want anything to fall back on, because I was afraid that if I chased up a plan B, I might miss my plan A.

  I’m sure I’m not the only high school graduate to have an existential crisis, but all my friends seemed to have made a smooth transition from school to university life. We met up every now and again for happy hour cocktails, and they would talk about jurisprudence and negatively geared mortgages, and I’d go home afterward knowing that however crazy I might seem, I’d made the right choice, because there must be more to life than case studies and water views.

  It seemed that everywhere I looked all I could see was emptiness. There was emptiness in the excitement with which a woman bought a thousand-dollar outfit for a wedding. She’d wear it once, maybe twice, and then it would be forgotten in the back of the wardrobe. There was emptiness in the men who came in looking for a gift for their wives. They’d tell us what size and how much they wanted to spend and we would choose something and wrap it up, and the man would tuck the receipt safely away so she could come back and exchange it for what she really wanted. It seemed as though everyone was rushing and running and saving and spending and always trying to get that one last thing that would make their lives complete, whether it was Sascha’s gloves in the window of Hermès or the big job a customer needed a new suit for. But I never saw anyone who was actually truly happy with what they had.

  So while the other shopgirls fogged up the windows of Cartier and Tiffany, I stood gazing longingly at airfares. And for some reason I couldn’t get those images of the gypsy camp out of my mind.

  Why don’t you…run away with the gypsies?

  Why not?

  THE CALL

  Or

  Operator, give me flamenco

  In Retail Land, lunch is either before twelve or after three, or, on really busy days, not at all. I always preferred the late lunch, because if I stretched a three o’clock lunch to three thirty-five, that only left me with two hours before I could go home.

  You can always tell how unhappy you are in your work by the amount of time you try to waste during the day. For example, if you’re in the elevator and you accidentally on purpose press the button for every single floor just to make the ride go longer, you need a new job. And if you offer to pick up the clothes from alterations every day just for a chance to get away for five minutes, you need a new job. And if you’re in the bathroom washing your hands and you lather them up with soap, then rinse them, then decide to lather them up again just to make the most of your toilet break, then you need to get out of there. Immediately.

  I pondered this a few days later as I rode the escalator down into the depths of the food court. I stood slumped against the arm rail, too tired to bother putting one foot in front of the other until my feet slid onto the lower ground floor.

  I usually brought my lunch to work, but there were days when I was just too disorganized, or when the sight of the pot of brown rice in the fridge made me feel that a trip to the food court would be an elegant move. On these days I went to the sandwich stand.

  “Salad sandwich on rye, no butter, takeaway.”

  That was the guy behind the counter, not me. They knew my order. And by that I don’t mean to say that this was my favorite thing to eat. I would have loved to make it a cheese and salad sandwich with butter, salt, and pepper. But that would not do for a vegan.

  Yes, that’s right, I was a card-carrying, co-op shopping, chickpea-sprouting vegan. I’d always loved dairy. I loved butter and cheese, and hot chocolate on a cold night, but I had read so many books about raw food and macrobiotics with their horror stories of how milk clogs up your system and butter clouds your chakras and how refined sugar and white flour will kill you someday that I stoically gave them all up. I’d been a vegan since I was fifteen; of course I’d been on and off the wagon, often succumbing to the caramel embrace of a Magnum Ego, but the thought of all those free radicals ravaging my system would keep me up at night, so it was never worth it.

  There were many reasons why I’d chosen to go vegan, so even when I managed to convince myself that one bacon-and-egg roll wouldn’t be the death of me, I would think of the poor little pig and all the karma demerit points I’d be clocking up if I ate it. My father was a Buddhist, and memories of the color-in karmic wheels I’d done as a child would come back to remind me that it’s wrong to take a life, even if it is in the innocent form of a five-dollar breakfast special.

  And there’s nothing like fitting room mirrors to make you want to go on a juice fast and slit your wrists for good measure. I don’t know why that is. I would have thought that stores would want customers to think they look good in the clothes they try on and that one of the easiest ways to boost sales would be to set up changing rooms with atmospheric lighting and fun house mirrors that make everyone look like Kate Moss. I was a small size two, but even so, each time I caught sight of myself in one of those mirrors, I was reminded of why I was the one who got to iron the clothes that Megan Gale would wear down the runway for Fashion Week and not the other way around. So I’d reaffirm my veganism and swear allegiance to brown rice.

  The lunchroom was on Level Three, Sleepwear and Intimates. When I walked in with my sandwich, Deborah from Armani was sitting alone at a table by the bare window, lending a sense of quiet elegance to the drab room. I imagined casually pulling up a chair next to her and starting a conversation about the season’s colors but didn’t dare.

  Retail is like high school all over again. The best table by the window overlooking the park was where the concession ladies sat. They were the sales assistants who were not employed by the department store but worked for individual designers who rented space inside the store. They made more money than regular sales girls, went to fashion parades and champagne launches, and got to wear clothes off the racks. They generally stuck together and looked at the rest of us with a mix of pity and disdain.

  The girls from Young Fashion all sat together and wore the same skintight black pants and low-cut tops. They shared th
e long table with the Level Three women, who always looked exhausted from a day of bra fittings and ringing up endless Spanx. I looked around the room, wondering where to sit. Seeing Liz sitting by herself, flipping through the local paper, I went over. Liz ran the Australian Designers section on my floor. By “ran” it, I mean she was the one who was always running around the floor every evening at ten to six wanting to know if anyone had seen the dress that was missing from her display rack.

  “How’s it going on your side of the floor, hun?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “We had two returns this morning and a rush at midday, but it’s quieted down now.”

  I took a newspaper from the table and flipped to the back, the classified section. I always checked the classifieds, though I never really knew why. I suppose I was waiting to see the ad that would read: Nellie, your destiny awaits you! Call this number NOW! Though it didn’t even need to be that specific. I also would have circled anything along the lines of Stowaway needed for icebreaker headed to North Pole—immediate start or International art thieves seeking new recruits. All training provided. Or any recruiting ad for an international association of adventurers who needed someone with my ironing expertise and unsurpassed gift-wrapping skills. But instead it was all ads for counter hands and sandwich makers and the old one that read: Fire your boss! Work from home and make $$$! And who actually answers those anyway?

  But on this particular day something leaped off the page at me as though it was written in neon lights:

  FLAMENCO DANCE.

  NEW TERM BEGINNING.

  Flamenco…the image of a model in a ruffled red silk dress from the Harper’s gypsy chic shoot jumped into my mind. Why don’t I?

  “Have you ever seen flamenco dance?” I asked Liz.

  Her eyes got all misty as she breathed, “Flamenco! I saw a performance in Barcelona, years ago. I was on a cruise to Italy and the boat stopped there overnight. It was in a little restaurant in the backstreets. There was just a small stage with one guitarist and a dancer in a red dress. She was so passionate!”

  I tore the ad out of the paper and promised myself I would call the number when Sascha went on her break. But first I needed to make a quick trip to the ground floor.

  • • •

  Here’s something else about me: I love stockings. Not tights, not pantyhose. Stockings. I love sheer black stockings with seams and squiggles and arrows and flowers and lace tops, and I’ll pay extra for buckles and ribbons and bows.

  I love stockings so much I don’t dare go into the hosiery section lest I be seduced by new limited-edition wartime-revival silk stockings that come in a tissue-paper-lined box and that I absolutely have to buy in case I never see them again.

  And that is a valid point, because it isn’t so easy to buy stockings in Australia. This is the land of bikinis and spray tan. I gave up on trying to get a tan before I was thirteen. The whole Aussie beach-belle look was never going to happen for me, so the only thing to do was go continental. And often when I lamented the limited supply and exorbitant prices of the stockings on the ground floor, I wished myself to Europe, where chic ladies rush to the powder room because they’ve popped a suspender in a fit of excitement over a particularly good coffee.

  But now that the idea of dancing flamenco in Dior stockings had been put in my head, I knew exactly the ones Harper’s was talking about. They had been featured in all the fashion magazines that season, and there was a sale in Hosiery… That was all the persuading I needed to exchange two hours’ pay for a couple of diaphanous wisps of nylon.

  Then, as soon as Sascha went off for her skim cappuccino, I picked up the phone and dialed zero. A familiar woman’s voice answered, “Switchboard, what number?”

  I read out the number from the classified ad and waited. My heart raced as the phone rang. It was as if somehow I knew that this one phone call would change my life forever.

  THE CLASS

  Or

  Gallardos, escobillas, remates, oh my!

  It was the evening of my first flamenco class and I gazed up at the clock, watching the final minutes tick past. As soon as the bell rang, I pulled off my name tag and skedaddled down to the ground floor to grab my bag before the hordes of black-suited women descended on the bag check counter.

  In my bag I had everything I needed for class. A bottle of water, a long skirt that I’d found at the back of my wardrobe—okay, it wasn’t the red silk creation I’d been lusting after, but it would do for the first class. The one purchase I had made was a pair of black leather dance shoes the teacher had told me to buy before the class. I’d gotten them from a dancewear shop in the arcade across the street from work. I was served by a sixteen-year-old ballerina who had been demonstrating different models of pointe shoes to a young girl who was auditioning for the National Ballet Academy, and there’s nothing that makes me feel clumsier than seeing girls in leotards spinning around on their tippy-toes.

  I would have loved to be a ballerina, and I couldn’t help feeling envious and intimidated by the shop assistant as she lazily pirouetted in pointe shoes. Ballet dancers are so über-cool, with their elastic hamstrings and perfect posture, but I couldn’t even touch my toes, and just the word plié made me nervous.

  Was flamenco going to be like ballet? Surely not. But it occurred to me that I actually didn’t know anything about flamenco. Well, I knew that it was Spanish and smoldering and I’d heard once that Ava Gardner had danced it on a tabletop with no underwear on, but that was about it. I’d never been much of a dancer. In fact, I’d always had an aversion to physical activity, and the only cardio I did was my daily dash for the bus. Now that I was going off for my first-ever dance class I was afraid. What if it’s too hard? What if I can’t do it? What if I trip on my skirt and fall over and everyone points and laughs at me?

  I had to remind myself that I was on a mission from Diana Vreeland, and that there was no time for that kind of debilitating self-doubt. But still, it wouldn’t leave me alone.

  • • •

  The flamenco studio was located in the bohemian inner west suburb of Newtown, and it seemed to belong there among the African hairdressers, Moroccan and Turkish furniture stores, Chinese bakery, and the only Viking restaurant I’d ever seen.

  I took the street down alongside the railway tracks to the old converted grain silo that housed the dance school. Even before I saw the building I heard what sounded like thunder. At first I thought it must be a storm rumbling in the distance, but as I got closer I realized it was the sound of stamping feet.

  As I climbed the stairs to the fifth floor, the sound of stamping got louder and louder until it felt like the whole building was shaking. I stepped in through the open doorway of the school. The walls were decorated with black-and-white photographs of a woman in a long sleek dress dancing on stage. In each picture she wore an angry glare on her face. This was the teacher, Diana.

  Diana was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She had pale skin and arched eyebrows, like an evil queen from a Disney movie. The evil queens are the best—not like those prissy princesses who are always off singing to the birds. The queens are glamorous and stylish and have personality, because you need personality to pull off a cape.

  Standing in reception, I could see through the open doors of the dance studio as the advanced class was ending. There were three lines of dancers, all dressed in black. They twisted their bodies and curled their arms up above their heads, making shapes with their hands as though forming shadow puppets. Then, at a stamp of the teacher’s foot, they let their arms fall and drilled their feet into the floor.

  Most of the girls looked Spanish. They had dark hair pulled back tightly and beautiful dark eyes. And as they danced they looked so fierce and passionate, and angry.

  Like, really angry.

  I’d expected flamenco to be passionate, but these girls actually looked mad. One girl in the front row snarl
ed as she threw herself into the final turn. Wow. I couldn’t wait to get my shoes on and start stamping. After a day of First-Class Service Rule #1—Smile!, it was exactly what I needed.

  I tore my eyes away and went into the changing room. It was full of women who’d just come from work, like me. They pulled off suit jackets and loosened their hair, and as they zipped up their long skirts, they flicked the switch from daytime to their flamenco persona.

  The sound of clapping came from the studio; it seemed the advanced class was over. The changing room doors opened and the dancers streamed in. They pulled water bottles out of their bags and toweled off their faces and necks.

  The girl who had made that spectacular turn stood next to me at the mirror. She put her foot up on the bench and starting unbuckling a pair of forest green dance shoes. They weren’t anything like the ones I’d bought. They were made of thick suede and the sole looked like it was made out of wood. She took one off and put it down on the bench with a heavy clunking sound.

  “Where did you get your shoes?” I asked her.

  She had long black hair pulled up on top of her head in a tight bun and wore a pair of big hoop earrings that bobbed up and down as she spoke. “These are Gallardos. They’re the best. But you have to order them from Spain. The last pair I bought were made in Japan and one of the heels broke during an escobilla when I was doing the remate.”

  I nodded and pretended to understand what she was talking about, while my mind raced. Gallardos? Escobilla? Remate?

  I smoothed down my black skirt and stepped out of the changing room, nervous about what was ahead of me. A couple of the advanced girls were still lingering in the studio, going over the footwork and asking each other questions about “the new bit.”

  “Is that how you do it?”

  “No, the gólpe is on the one.”