by Ros Baxter
I started to protest, then stopped. At least pretending to have a urinary tract infection beat being cajoled into trying on the sparkly frock Suse had draped across her arm. ‘Mm... Yes, for sure. Well, you know how it is.’
She smiled thinly and steered me towards the nearest pharmacy.
I ducked inside while she waited out the front, and filled a basket with headache tablets, fizzy hangover remedies and an extra large box of condoms. Suddenly, just as I was finishing up with the cashier, she was there, at my elbow, staring open-mouthed at the mega-box of Durex. Ribbed for her pleasure.
I momentarily considered a ‘Goodness, how did they get there? Please put those vie things away, sir.’ But I knew it wouldn’t wash. She was looking at me like I was Jezebel, sent to lure her unsuspecting son to his eternal damnation. She kept opening her mouth and closing it, like a puritanical goldfish. Finally, she spoke, venom dripping from each word.
‘You know, Lola, I’m sure my son won’t buy the cow if he can get the milk for free.’
That night, I traced the bold angle of Wayne’s face in the dark, savouring the familiar silhouette and picturing his father and mother.
‘Are you okay?’ His big, warm hand was stroking my back, slow and reassuring. ‘You know, I know it wasn’t funny at the time, Rocket, with my Mum. But it sure sounds it the way you tell it.’ He laughed loudly and I silenced him with a finger to his lips.
‘Shhhh,’ I chastised him. ‘They’ll know you’re in here.’
He laughed again. ‘I’m sure they already know,’ he said. ‘We’re just...different.’
I propped myself up on one elbow and studied him more closely. ‘What is it?’ I asked him. ‘You’re right. You’re different. I keep trying to work it out. Were they always...?’
I trailed off. What did I mean? Were they always religious? Intolerant? Hard work?
‘Ah, Rocket,’ he sighed, picking up one of my hands and kissing it. ‘I always meant to tell you, but it’s just one of those things I’ve always avoided talking about. To anyone really. I never saw the point.’ He ran my palm across the scratchy stubble on his chin, a gesture that had become habitual for him when we talked late into the night. ‘You see, they’re just as much mine as if they really were, you know? I’m responsible for them.’
My brain turned nervous circles, trying to keep up. ‘You mean...?’
‘Yep,’ he said, closing his eyes. ‘I’m adopted. But it doesn’t matter. It did more, when I was a kid. I was dying to get out of here, find someplace I fit. But eventually, you work it out: you can’t really run from anything.’ I nodded against his chest, where I’d placed my head down again, listening to his heart. I felt his next words before I heard them. ‘They are what they are. They tried their best. Who am I to judge them?’
As we packed the hire car and left his parents the next day, I hugged his mother hard, although she felt stiff against me. I felt like I had a new perspective on Wayne. Like seeing a beautiful painting from a new angle or a greater distance.
Nevertheless, we were both grinning as we headed for the Reef.
And from the moment I saw it, the way I thought I felt about the great outdoors changed forever. It wasn’t the hotel, the gorgeous bed, or the impossibly perfect weather. Although they were all pretty damn fine. It was the Reef itself.
On our first day in The Whitsundays, a string of tiny, heavenly islands scattered among the coral, I was lolling on a turquoise deck chair on the beach when Wayne loped up to me holding two snorkels aloft.
I shook my head. ‘Nope.’
He frowned at me, crinkly green eyes boring into mine.
‘Sharks,’ I reminded him, turning back to Probably Not: Great Minds of Chance Analysis.
He slumped beside me on the sand. ‘Good book?’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘A humorous take on probability analysis.’
He laughed his big, contagious guffaw.
‘Do I criticise your reading matter?’ I asked, turning from my book.
‘Yes,’ he said, muffled through the snorkel and mask he had just fitted. His big face looked at me hopefully through the Perspex, like a large, exuberant puppy.
Thirty minutes later, I was floating on top of a complex, azure world, holding Wayne’s hand like it was a lifeline. The water was warm and soft on my overheated skin as we paddled over a reef so packed with fish, coral and sea life I wasn’t sure where to look. It was quiet, but for the distant sounds of the shore and the noise our feet made in the water.
And the colours. Purple, gold and pink, silvery-blue, orange-red like a sunset.
Tiny fish darted close to us, whispering against my face. Big, dark bad-asses with collagen lips lurked close to the sandy floor. Long things with dreamy tentacles floated by, oblivious to us. I felt like an interloper in some fairy kingdom, at once big and ungainly, and small and stupid and insignificant. The whole thing really touched me. Inside, you know. In some secret, quiet place I had been too cynical to know even existed.
Lying on our crisp, white sheets that night, staring out over the deck at the starry sky, I kept hearing that Louis Armstrong number, ‘What a Wonderful World’.
And then there were the whales.
On the drive back to Brisbane, we stopped at this place called Hervey Bay, where humpback whales hang out. Like slow, silent sea monsters, they came right up alongside the boat, making skyscraper-high mountains with their blowholes. The whale-watching ship we were on had a hydrophone, too, so we could listen to the whales singing under the water. Apparently several species of whales sing, but the humpbacks sing the most complex and beautiful songs of all. It was this deep, eerie song that sounded impossibly sad. I closed my eyes, listening, and felt them fill with tears.
Wayne held me close, salty arms wrapped around my waist.
‘Why are they so sad?’ I whispered.
‘Oh, Rocket,’ he said. He brushed tears away from my cheeks. ‘I could hazard a guess, but I’m not sure you really want to know.’
Before I knew it, we were home. The magic of the Reef was almost surpassed by the magic of Sydney. The harbor took my breath away, and the three-day orgy of seafood, wine and lazy days exploring made me almost reluctant to come home. It was like another world. A time apart, where I didn’t think or worry about what the future held.
A perfect bubble.
But all bubbles burst eventually.
Part Three: Transition Man
Meanwhile, back at the ranch — Sixth Precinct; March, 1998
Outside the sixth, I shrugged. Not meanly, but hopelessly.
‘Lola.’ Wayne’s voice broke as he said it.
Oh my God. Things must be serious. He’s using my real name.
‘I won’t go. I won’t go to Sierra Leone.’
‘Wayne.’ My brain whirred and strained. It hurt to try to work through all the pieces of this. ‘It’s not Sierra Leone. Well, it is Sierra Leone of course. I mean, honestly.’ I sighed and shook my head, trying hard to form words that would make sense. ‘You thought I could go? Just up everything and go with you while you go work for diamond merchants? They cut off kids’ hands, for god’s sake. What would I do? Knit?’
On my last word, his mouth twisted up into a smile, but his eyes got shiny. ‘What is it then?’ he asked.
‘Huh?’ I’d lost my train of thought, watching those eyes.
‘You said it’s not Sierra Leone. What, then?’
I needed to find some words for this.
‘It’s that you could go to Sierra Leone. It’s that you want to go to Sierra Leone. It’s that you think that’s okay. It’s not that you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up. Hell, I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. It’s that you actually are grown up, and this is what you do. You make money for people. For Hunter Monroe. And maybe now for some African assholes. We just live in different worlds.’
‘That’s not true, Rocket.’ He balled his fists by his sides. ‘And anyway, even if it is, I like your world better.
I want to live in your world. I could, you know. I can.’
I closed my eyes and imagined it. Wayne, with me.
‘You know,’ he continued, ‘I loved you from that first night we went out to dinner. You were so ferocious. Like plutonium. It made me feel like all the girls I’d known before were just…party crackers.’
I tried again. ‘Wayne.’ My voice cracked this time, and I swallowed and tried again. ‘I have no doubt I could be with you for a hundred years.’ I swallowed again, a couple of times. ‘And I could love you through every one of them. But I’m not sure if I could love myself, and who I’d become. I need to do things, and fix things…’
He picked up my hand and brought it to his jaw, to that predictable stubble, in that habitual gesture. ‘Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. Tell me what you want fixed in the world, and I’ll fix it.’
I closed my eyes again and imagined it. Wayne. His big, warm arms around me. On the picket lines. Having babies. Getting old. Wayne and me.
And Hunter Monroe. And the GOP.
What would I tell the children?
I snatched my hand away and it felt suddenly cold. ‘It doesn’t work like that. I don’t want you to do things because I do them. You have to find your passion. What makes you excited, or angry, or whatever.’
And then he was gone.
Well, maybe not exactly then, but it limped along like that for another few minutes.
Then I decided I just had to walk away. Straight to the bar across the road, where I called my mom and dad and told them all that I’d been released, and that I was fine.
Then I called Heidi and Steve and demanded they come and get me drunk.
Drinking to forget — Sweet Liberty Karaoke and Cocktails, NYC; March, 1998
Heidi and Steve were pretty quick, but I was still on my third cocktail by the time they arrived.
The bar was exactly right. Cheesy, lobby-style. Bad décor. This one was doing the whole jailbreak thing because of proximity to the precinct, and because of the clientele: cops, lawyers and the like. It was packed to the rafters with post-work revellers celebrating happy hour, although it was close to nine and happy hour was long since over.
‘Lolly,’ Heidi warned. ‘Don’t forget, bad things happen when you drink.’ I flapped a hand at her and she sighed. ‘I still can’t believe he was waiting out the front for you,’ she said for the five hundredth time. ‘How long do you reckon he’d been there?’
‘Well, he was pretty cold.’ I hiccupped. ‘You know Australians, never got enough clothes on.’
‘Yeah,’ said Steve mirthlessly, sizing up Monica’s spider web dress. ‘Crazy cats.’
I pretended to ignore him. ‘He said he’d been there since Mom called earlier in the day. But he kept seeing everyone going in and felt wrong barging through.’ I paused a moment, remembering. ‘His nose was cold too, like a dog.’
‘Hang on.’ It never paid to underestimate Steve’s brain just because his life was so disastrous. ‘How did you know his nose was cold?’
‘Um.’ I thought quickly. ‘You know, he kind of hugged me when he first saw me. Old habits, I guess.’
‘So, it’s definitely over, then?’ Steve was shredding a coaster.
‘Yes, Steve, it’s definitely over. He leaves for Sierra Leone Thursday. Why? Wanna go see if he’ll sleep with you instead?’
‘No. It’s just that there’s some guy at the bar making serious eyes at you.’
I resisted the urge to swivel around. ‘Too soon,’ I spat, feeling sick at the thought of flirting with some guy. ‘It’s only been two weeks.’
Heidi craned her neck so she could see the subject of the conversation from her spot in the corner of the booth. ‘Wow, cute. Don’t forget what you told me last time, Lolly. The only way to get over a man is to get under another.’
Steve rolled his eyes. ‘I always thought that was a bad idea,’ he said, eyeing Heidi quickly. She blinked at him and I felt that little spark fizz between them again. Then she shook her head, sucked some cream off her straw and turned back to me.
‘It was you who said it, Lolly. You said “don’t be choosy”. The transition man gets burned up in the heat of the moment anyway. Like rocket fuel. Don’t look at me like that, that’s exactly what you said. You said it just has to be someone.’ She turned to Steve. ‘What do you think? Lots of women have broken up with you this year alone.’
‘Well, maybe it is a good idea,’ Steve said, shifting in his chair. ‘For Lola, mind you. As my Grandma used to say, get back on the horse, or you’ll forget how to ride.’
It had been all very well for me to give Heidi that advice back then. I’d had no experience of men then. Let alone heartbreak. And anyway, could the transition man thing work when your heart was haemorrhaging in your chest? I doubted it. I swallowed the last of my Flaming Fuck-You and felt the heady buzz snake through my veins. I decided I was going to do something much more therapeutic. ‘You’re right, guys. There’s no point getting maudlin. I need to take action.’
‘Yeah! Alright!’ Steve thumped the table and upended his drink ‘Go get him!’
Like the hero in some cheesy Western, I pushed back my chair dramatically, stood up, and sauntered over to the stage.
It had to be Gloria Gaynor, of course. The ‘Cake’ version had nowhere near the sheer, lusty, diva impact of the original. I needed big notes. I needed high drama. I needed permission to wail like a banshee. And only Gloria Gaynor could deliver it.
I started soft and slow. ‘At first I was afraid, I was petrified...’
A hush fell over the crowd. The effect was like a shot of adrenalin in my arm.
They loved me.
With the benefit of hindsight, I suspect three possible reasons for the sudden attention — aside from the startling impact of Monica’s dress under the spotlights.
One: Gloria Gaynor generates a kind of religious respect in such places. She is to karaoke bars what ‘Auld Lang Syne’ is to New Year’s Eve. People feel compelled to participate.
Two: ‘I Will Survive’ is normally sung by people who are interesting to look at. We humans love nothing more than to watch a good tragedy play out in front of us. Especially when the actual singing of the song has been preceded by the spoken words: ‘This one’s for you Wayne. Good luck in Sierra Leone. I hope you choke on your okra’.
Three: I have a truly awful voice, second only in the lack of skills department to my cooking. It is a voice only a mother could love.
But it didn’t matter. By the time I got to the third round of ‘don’t turn around now, ‘cause you’re not welcome anymore’, the entire establishment was waggling their fingers right along with me, as well as screaming, thumping tables, hugging each other, punching the air and generally congratulating themselves on what a bunch of survivors they all were.
I descended the stairs into a mass of human bodies, all wanting to hug me or buy me a drink. Or grope me. Some men see an opportunity anywhere, and a girl with a broken heart is as good a target as any. But I was so filled up with the courage of the human spirit I didn’t give a damn.
I’d just made my way back over to a wildly applauding Heidi and Steve when I felt a tap on my shoulder.
‘Please, please, no autographs…’ I started. Then I realized who it was.
‘Oh, er…hi.’ I said, before reminding myself that I was a disco goddess. ‘What’s Superman doing in a seedy joint like this?’
‘Superman?’ He furrowed his brow.
‘You know, saving hapless souls from the evil NYPD.’
Clark Cooper gave me the nicest smile. Sort of boyish sexy — part early Bo Duke, part Huckleberry Finn. He looked even cuter than before, maybe because I was so hammered. Or maybe because I’ve always had a thing for messed up boys, and he’d gotten pretty messy himself in the last few hours. Obviously the birthday party was a live one. He had two big lipstick marks on his left cheek, streamers in his hair, and a chunk of refried beans on his tie.
Hei
di was clearing her throat like she had suddenly developed acute laryngitis.
‘Oh, look, sorry.’ Clark looked like he was about to scuttle off. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt. It’s just, you know, the party I mentioned before? Well, it’s here. And so are you. I just wanted to come over and tell you that our whole group was impressed with your performance just now. But…er… I’ll be off.’
Heidi almost sprained something clambering over the table to ensure he didn’t escape so easily. ‘Oh nooo,’ she cried, clutching wildly at his arm. ‘Stay, please stay. You haven’t met us yet. And we’re lovely and really quite civilized, aren’t we Steve?’
‘Huh?’ Steve had become preoccupied with a piece of ear wax he’d retrieved and was examining under his fingernail.
‘Steve, you filthy animal,’ Heidi prompted. Then, in a stage whisper, ‘Help me, you idiot, Lolly’s transition man’s about to bolt.’
‘Well, thank you guys for being so supportive,’ I drawled with what I hoped was sarcasm but given my intoxicated state probably came off, annoyingly, as genuine gratitude. ‘This is Clark Cooper, Public Defender. I met him over at the precinct.’
‘Wow…’ Steve breathed. ‘What a great name. Like a cowboy.’
Heidi was trying to surreptitiously look Clark up and down, but ended up coming off like a leery old man. ‘Hi ho Silver,’ she contributed lamely.
We really have known each other too long.
Even loaded, Clark had a great manner with scary strangers. Must be all that experience with felons. He talked to Heidi and Steve about his job, the precinct, the party he was with. And he had a really nice way of talking with his hands.
He had just slid into the booth next to us when a strident voice screeched out, ‘Clark, you selfish fucckerrr! Come back to my partyyy!’.
And I swear to God, we were suddenly looking at Fran Fine from The Nanny. A really, really pissed off Fran Fine. Clark’s aspect changed from that of a slightly drunk, charming Superman to a hunted animal.
He managed to squeak out, ‘Oh, Stella, there you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’