I book a flight for Monday lunchtime, which is the cheapest fare I can find at the soonest possible notice. I experience a sense of satisfaction at having committed to something.
Even if that something is procrastination.
FIVE
Sydney is like a whole other world compared to Brisbane. Despite them both being busy cities, Sydney is definitely the grown-up sibling of the two. Which feels right, considering my own older brother lives here.
I arrive just before lunch and catch the train into Central station before heading over to Bondi. The last leg of the journey is a short bus ride. Normally, I’m happy to walk the half hour to Josh’s place instead of taking the bus, but I have a suitcase that I don’t feel like dragging all over town. Plus, it’s quite a warm day, despite it being the southern hemisphere at the beginning of July.
Josh has left me a key inside a little combination lock box around the side of his house. He’s a very organised person. I expect him to be at work until at least 6pm, so I have the afternoon to unpack and get settled in.
Josh’s house is a long, narrow, two-story building. On the outside, you can see all the original architecture, featuring red brick walls, white window sills and stain glass panels. But inside, it’s been remodelled to make the most of the space. Josh even hired an interior designer to give it that little something extra. My brother is too busy to think about things like feng-shui or what shade of white would look best on the walls. But he does appreciate nice things, so he hired a professional.
I find ‘my’ room and put my suitcase in the wardrobe out of the way. The bed is made up with a gorgeous patterned quilt I saw at Bed Bath n Table a couple of months ago. Its pale blues, greens and browns complement the timber frame and bedside tables.
I go out into the kitchen and switch on the kettle so I can make myself a cup of tea. While it’s sunny outside, it’s quite chilly indoors, and I anticipate having to turn on the heating soon.
I send Katie a text to say I’ve arrived and that I hope she’s having a great day. I still consider her my best friend, but I’m a tiny bit upset about how everything’s gone down. I understand her motivation, and it’s admirable that she wants to help her sister, but I can’t help feeling slightly abandoned. It never occurred to her to ask if I wanted to stay on. I could have maybe slept on the couch for a while, and even kept an eye on her sister when she wasn’t able to.
Ah, well. At least my brother wants me. And it doesn’t look like he’s seeing anyone at the moment, judging by the lack of female clutter around the house. Normally, if he has a girlfriend, there are things like chocolate in the fridge (Josh is weird and hates chocolate) and extra toothbrushes or cosmetics in the bathroom. Neither are present today. In fact, I can’t remember the last time he dated. I wonder if he’s working too many hours to have a life outside the office.
Katie texts back, saying all is fine and she hopes I have a relaxing break.
I flop down on the couch in the living room and stare at the ceiling. Now what? I ordered a small meal on the plane—I’m one of those rare people who actually enjoys airline food—so I’m not hungry. It’s only one thirty, so it will be ages before Josh gets home.
I know! I’ll cook him a fancy dinner.
I raid his cupboards to see what I have to work with. One other great thing about my brother is that even though he lives alone, he still appreciates good food. The fridge is well stocked with fresh vegetables and lots of yummy things like olives and gourmet cheese. And his food cupboard has all the tinned and dry goods I could possibly ask for.
I do a quick search on the Taste website for inspiration. Josh likes Asian food, so I choose a san choy bau dish with some dumplings on the side. It would be too much to expect that Josh would have the dumpling wrappers in his fridge or freezer, but he does have everything else I need, so I head out to a nearby Asian corner store to purchase the missing ingredient.
I’m not on any deadline, so I take a detour down to the beach and walk along the path around the bay. I pause at the edge of the sea bath and lean on the railing, looking out at the horizon. There’s no one in the water today, which isn’t surprising—it being winter and all. The breeze coming off the water makes me shiver, despite the sunshine overhead.
My gaze drifts over to the left, where old apartment buildings sit beside fancy new mansions on the side of the hill. It’s a very nice part of the world.
For a second, I entertain the thought of moving down here permanently. It would be nice to get away from Brisbane and start afresh, but I’ve tried the running away approach before and it didn’t work too well.
Besides, I don’t know anyone here except Josh, and I couldn’t ask to stay at his place permanently. I haven’t lived with my brother for more than a couple of weeks at a time since we were kids. Any longer and we get on each other’s nerves. Even though it’s the boring choice, I should probably go back to Brisbane at the end of the week. At least I know my way around there.
After inhaling my fill of fresh ocean air, I head back to the street containing the Asian supermarket. I easily find what I’m after and go back to Josh’s.
I spend the rest of the afternoon doing food prep, but also getting distracted by YouTube videos of Carpool Karaoke.
By a quarter to six, I have everything ready to start cooking. I pour myself a generous glass of red wine from a bottle in Josh’s cupboard and turn on the frypan, drizzling in some oil. I can already tell this meal is going to be delicious.
Josh is going to be so appreciative.
***
Well, he would be appreciative if he was actually here to see it.
It’s seven-forty-five and my dumplings are sitting on the kitchen counter, looking like little deflated breast implants. My san choy bau smelt amazing, but the filling is now a cold and oily clump sitting next to wilted lettuce leaves.
Where the hell is my brother? I’ve tried calling him, but he didn’t answer—and all my texts have been ignored.
At eight-thirty, I’m just about to phone the police to report him as a missing person, when I hear the key in the lock.
“Sorry, sorry,” he calls out before I have a chance to scold him. He hurries down the hall and finds me seated at the kitchen counter, the almost empty bottle of red wine sitting in front of me. “Are you upset?”
“You could have called,” I say, feeling like a fifties housewife. “I made you dinner and everything, but now it’s ruined.”
He kicks off his shoes and comes over to inspect what I’ve cooked.
“I’m sure it will still taste okay,” he says uncertainly.
“I don’t know. This kind of food doesn’t reheat well.”
He leans in and gives me a hug. “I really am sorry. I got stuck with this client who just kept talking and talking. I tried to kick him out around seven, but then we discovered a problem with his payroll, and if we didn’t fix it tonight, he would have been fined. I wasn’t even able to sneak away to call you.”
“It’s okay,” I say, defeated. “You want some wine?”
“Yes, please. Should I order pizza?”
“If you want.”
He retrieves another glass from the cupboard and I pour the rest of my bottle into it.
“I reckon that san choy bau filling would be good on toast in the morning,” he offers.
“Whatever you think.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry. It’s been a rough couple of days.”
“I can imagine. Well, how about tomorrow, I take you out to Billy Kwong’s so we can try the Chinese thing again? My treat.”
“You won’t be stuck at the office until after eight?”
“Nope. I’ll put it in the calendar that I’m leaving at five on the dot.”
“Okay. That would be nice.”
He goes over to his laptop and opens it up. “I’ll sort out the pizza online. Any requests?”
“Just the usual.”
“Cool.”
Josh and I
are the only ones in our family who like Hawaiian pizza. Our sister, Lily, is vegetarian, and our other sister, Taylor, hates pineapple. And our parents…come to think of it, they never seemed to eat pizza at all. Which I never thought was strange until now. Who doesn’t eat pizza?
I watch my brother type away and marvel, not for the first time, at how similar we look. Lily and Taylor are the actual twins, but Josh looks like an older, male version of me. Which sounds weird, but isn’t. We both have dark, almost black hair with a slight wave, and blue-grey eyes. We also share our mum’s pasty English skin. And we’re lucky, in that we don’t have to do much exercise to stay relatively thin. We also have good lips. I accentuate mine with my favourite MAC shade of Ruby Woo. It’s kind of my thing.
After Josh finishes paying, he sits down on the couch in the living room and makes me join him.
“So. Have you spoken to the twins lately?”
I smile grimly. “No. I don’t want to be a part of all the drama.”
“How long’s it been now? Six months?”
“Something like that. But you understand how it is. You did the smart thing and never got involved in the first place. I should have moved to Sydney like you and chosen a completely different profession.”
“I still talk to Mum all the time.”
“But not Dad.”
“Nah, and I limit my contact with L and T because they still think the sun shines out of his butt.”
I shake my head. I’ve spent six months trying not to think about everything that happened, but now I’m here with Josh, it’s impossible not to.
My mum and dad met just out of high school and had four children by the time they were in their mid twenties. And because neither of them were particularly academic, they both decided to sit their real estate licence and open an agency together. They did really well for about a decade, selling a fortune in booming Sunshine Coast property. They made it look so easy that Lily, Taylor and I all followed in their footsteps as soon as we graduated high school. But Josh wanted to be different, so when he was old enough, he moved to Sydney and enrolled in a business degree with a major in accounting. He stayed on to do a masters and then landed a job in a small firm. It grew quickly and he was able to prove himself worthy of being a partner by the time he was twenty-six. As the youngest child, I looked up to Josh, but I wasn’t brave enough to stray from my parents’ expectations.
And I was good at my job, which was evidenced by the fact I was able to save a substantial deposit to go halves with Josh in our investment property.
But then, six months ago, it emerged that Dad had been having an affair with our office’s rental property manager for five years. It completely destroyed Mum, who took an extended leave of absence and went to stay with her parents for a while, and Dad somehow convinced Lily and Taylor that the affair was Mum’s fault. The rental property manager, who was a severe-looking woman called Cecily, stayed on and felt it was finally okay to show Dad affection in public. And with Lily and Taylor constantly trying to convince me to join ‘their side’, I finally cracked. I didn’t want to leave Mum on her own, but she understood when I told her I needed to get away.
I moved to Brisbane to live with Katie, who I already often visited on my days off, and found the first job that would take me. I couldn’t bear the idea of real estate again—so I ended up at Loony Rob’s.
“Does Mum still hate me?” I ask.
“She never hated you.”
“She totally did!”
A month after I moved to Brisbane, Mum called me one evening. I suspect she was drunk, or on some sort of mind-altering medication, because she sounded a bit slurry. Anyway, she had this elaborate plan to open a new agency that was going to be bigger and better than Dad’s, and she wanted me to join her. She also wanted me to convince the twins to switch their allegiance. When I told her I wasn’t interested in being a pawn in her sick chess game, she told me to go to hell. I haven’t spoken to her since.
“I think it was all a big misunderstanding,” Josh says, trying to be diplomatic. “But I’m not going lecture either of you. You’ll both figure it out eventually.”
I’m about to argue that I didn’t do anything wrong, when the doorbell rings. Josh goes to answer it.
He comes back a few moments later with the pizza. I only just realise that I haven’t eaten since my flight. I am starving.
“How about I pour us some more wine and we’ll watch Brooklyn Nine Nine?” Josh offers.
“Sounds good.” I think we both need to shut off our brains for a while.
I grab a slice of pizza and switch on the TV.
The night might not have turned out like I planned, but it’s nice to be here with my brother.
SIX
When I wake up the next morning, Josh has already left for work. I know he didn’t invite me down in order for us to spend every waking moment together, so I’m not upset he’s busy. I’m actually grateful he invited me at all. And we’re still going out tonight, so we’ll have plenty of time to talk more then.
But I’m not really sure what to do with myself now that I’m here. I don’t feel like filling out any job applications or doing any apartment searches yet. And I want to make the most of my time here. I don’t get to Sydney very often.
A nice walk might help me focus on the day ahead.
I have a quick shower and put on my favourite teal and floral leggings with a black, form-fitting long-sleeved top. I tie my hair up into a high ponytail and put on a little BB cream and mascara. I don’t normally wear makeup before exercising, but people who live in this area of Sydney are exceptionally well groomed, so I like to do my bit to fit in. I read somewhere about makeup being social armour or something. I think that’s very apt, especially in this part of the world.
After a quick slick of my trusty lipstick, I slide into my Nike trainers, steal a mini backpack from Josh’s cupboard and load it up with my purse, keys, phone and a bottle of water. I step outside and lock the front door behind me.
It’s a gorgeous morning, clear and crisp. Josh bought his current place two years ago, and I’ve only visited three times since then, so the surrounding geography is still relatively new to me.
I’m not in the mood to go back down to the beach, so I head west, in the direction of the park precinct. I stay on the footpath beside the road that runs alongside Queens Park, before entering Centennial Park and walking right through the middle, past all the duck ponds and perfectly manicured gardens.
I’ve accompanied Josh on the occasional morning jog through here, but I’ve never ventured out the other side. When I emerge onto the road, I see I’m on the edge of the old Sydney showground. I check Google Maps on my phone and see that there are a couple of cafes around the corner. Perfect. I could really use a coffee.
As I reach the main road leading into the retail and hospitality square, I notice a whole bunch of signs mounted on a nearby wall advertising movies and TV shows for NBS. Oh my God! NBS produces MultiDate! And there’s one of their posters! A quick look around reveals the sign for their headquarters up ahead. I stand there for a moment, staring at it with a kind of awed reverence. I can practically feel the electricity of being close to TV magic and all its stars.
I am definitely going to check it out. I’ll find a coffee shop near the studio entrance and maybe catch a glimpse of someone from MultiDate. And if that someone happened to be Reid Martinez, the show’s host, I might die. He’s so dreamy.
I’d started to feel a little fatigued by the end of my walk, but now I’m all re-energised. Maybe I shouldn’t have coffee—it would make me too jittery.
As luck would have it, there’s a Starbucks directly opposite the studio. I go in and order a grande soy chai latte. While I wait for my drink, I peer out the window and across the street, trying to recognise anyone coming or going.
It’s a bit disappointing, actually. All I see are couriers, men in suits, and the odd stressed-out intern running errands. I don’t spy anyone famous, but then
people like Reid Martinez probably wouldn’t spend much time at the studio during the off-season.
“Lauren?”
I blink. Was that only the first time the barista called my name? I was so wrapped up in my daydream of accidentally running into Reid and dazzling him with my wit that I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings. I quickly collect my chai and sit down on a stool that gives me a good vantage point of the studio.
Fifteen minutes pass, and I still don’t witness anything even remotely fun. To be fair, Reid is really the only person I’d be interested in seeing right now.
I gulp down the rest of my drink and head outside, slowly making my way across to the big glass doors at the building’s entrance. I get out my phone and pretend to type something, but I’m actually studying the reception area.
A harried young guy is sitting behind the counter, talking to someone on the phone. Another line is ringing obnoxiously beside him, and three people are standing in front of him, presumably waiting to check in for appointments. Are guys still called receptionists? Or do both men and women who answer the phone in an office now have fancy titles like ‘front desk co-ordinator’ or ‘front-of-house staff’?
I observe for a few moments. The receptionist seems agitated about being stuck on the phone and not able to serve the people in front of him.
I make a split-second decision and stride on over. I march behind the counter, sit down in the vacant seat next to the receptionist and face the first customer.
“Hi, sir. Welcome to NBS Studios. How can I help you?”
Both the receptionist and the guy in front of me look slightly taken aback. The person in front of me regains his wits the quickest.
“Yes, I have an appointment with John Bailey. Can you please tell him I’m here?”
“Sure.” I quickly glance around for a directory of some sort. The receptionist seems to understand what I’m looking for and brings up a screen on his computer. He points to the search function. I type in John Bailey and a bunch of contact details appear. I pick up another phone and click the spare line. Thankfully, I’m familiar with this type of switchboard from my work at Loony Rob’s. I figure the receptionist can answer the other line when he’s finished with his current call.
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