Avoiding Mr Right

by Anita Heiss

  I was glad I did. Josie was friendly, and greeted me like family. She was free that afternoon, and so was I, so we arranged to meet for a few bevies down at the Esplanade, a pub in St Kilda. Josie said I had to call it the 'Espy' if I wanted to sound like a local; it was apparently a rock institution.

  'It's great to hear from you, Peta,' she said. 'Alice keeps asking me when we're going to catch up.'

  That was so Alice, to be saying the same thing to both of us. After we'd hung up, I emailed her.

  Hello there Missy – funny you should email me just now, I'm catching up with cuzin Josie later today, and looking forward to it. I'm adding the lesbian parking cop to the Greek-Australian vegan eco-poet and the Pimm's drinking, thong-wearing stockbroker who are my mates here. I think you'd like them. Gees, wish I could've heard all about the chocolate wheel and face painting . . . blah blah blah, it makes me laugh when Dannie goes from something serious like censorship in the media to what she's making for the kids' lunches the next day. It really is great, though, isn't it? Give her my love, and I'll email her soon too. Just been really busy, still finding my feet at work and locally. All good though. Say hi to Gary, and I'll call you soon for a good goss.

  Luv ya, Px

  I intentionally didn't mention James's property shopping. I was annoyed he'd been talking about it with my friends – I didn't want to disappoint him and Alice and Gary if in the long run it didn't work out.

  Josie called as I made my way to the Espy. We wouldn't be hanging out at the pub after all, because she'd been offered an extra shift. She couldn't turn it down, so she invited me to walk with her as she did the streets of St Kilda. It was a gorgeous day and I was still getting my bearings so it would be a great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone – learn about Josie and the local geography.

  Josie didn't look like a lesbian, just like people often said I didn't necessarily look Aboriginal.

  'I'm a lipstick lesbian, that way I have both men and women want me. It feels good.' Josie laughed and I liked her straight away.

  'Are you sure it's okay for me to walk with you?' I asked as we gathered speed along Fitzroy Street.

  'Yeah, no worries, it's a public place – you can do whatever you want. Who's to know this is a date.'

  'What? But this isn't a date!'

  'I know, just gammin, love. Be sure and tell Aunty Ivy that one, okay? She'll expect a story like that.' Josie winked at me.

  'Hey Josie, latte?' an old Italian man asked as we walked past Leo's.

  'Maybe later, had three already, thanks,' she replied, and blew him a kiss.

  'Three already, are you mental? How many do you have a day?'

  'Depends on how many they give me.' Josie shrugged.

  'They?'

  'The shop owners. I never buy food or coffee when I'm working, and even when I'm not working and I'm in the area. Shop owners are always getting things delivered and blocking the road and driveways and footpaths. They feed me and I don't see a thing. I'm like the parking cop mafia, and coffee, cakes and pasta is my protection money.' I wasn't quite sure if Josie was joking with me but either way she had clearly had too much caffeine already.

  'Watch this,' she said, as she went to a car parked in a disabled spot without a sticker. She started to write a ticket when a man carrying a coffee came running over.

  'Oh no, love, please don't, I was just getting a coffee.' He was puffed.

  'You think getting a coffee is an excuse for parking illegally? And parking in a disabled spot? It's not bad enough that someone ends up in a wheelchair but then they have to wait while you take your healthy spine propped up by two healthy legs and get a coffee. Sorry, that's not a legitimate excuse.' She handed him a ticket.

  'Dumb bitch.' He spat the words at her.

  'Actually, the name's Josie. Have a nice day.' And she walked back towards me slowly.

  'That's unbelievable! He didn't even try and lie – say he was sick, or busting to go to the toilet or whatever,' I said, gobsmacked.

  'Yeah, I know. No shame at all. But we're the bad guys; we're the scum of the earth because we ask people nicely not to park in spaces for people with disabilities when you can walk to get your coffee. You ain't seen nothing, though. It's Saturday afternoon – wait till we get on Jacka Boulevard.'

  I remembered my first trip to Jacka Boulevard and the coin machines. 'Actually, I do have something to say about the coin machines on that stretch of road.'

  'Go ahead. I'm sure you've got something to tell me that I haven't heard before.'

  'It's fine to ask for coins if you have a bloody change machine nearby as well. But not everyone carries bags of change with them, so if you don't have the right money you have to ask strangers or not park or get booked. Ah! Is that the council's strategy? Now it makes sense.'

  Josie shrugged her shoulders. 'It's a fair call. I don't know why we don't have change machines or machines that also take credit cards as well as coins. People suggest it all the time – but I'll note it in the office again when I go back.'

  A motor bike was parked on the footpath blocking everyone's way on Acland Street. The owner was dressed in all leather, despite the stinking hot day, and having lunch with his mates. Josie started to write a ticket and he came over immediately.

  'Hello gorgeous, what can I do to persuade you not to write that ticket? My pleasure is your pleasure.' I laughed to myself, Oh I don't think it is, mate.

  'Is this your very macho bike, with the very big engine?' Josie asked. He puffed his chest out and I'm sure I saw his bulge grow in his black leather pants.

  'Sure is, baby. You wanna ride?'

  'Well, you're parked illegally.' And she handed him a ticket.

  'Did you know that all this is Aboriginal land anyway?' He waved his arms along the street.

  'Really? Are you Aboriginal?'

  'No, but I'm an actor, and I played an Aborigine once, does that count?'

  'No.'

  'Bitch.'

  'Thanks.'

  As we walked off, I was surprised that Josie wasn't angry.

  'How can you be so calm all the time? I mean with their stupidity and their abuse? You've been called a bitch twice already.'

  'Yeah, but I've also been called love, gorgeous and baby. I love that men don't know I'm gay; they make passes at me all the time, look like fools and still get a ticket. You take the good with the bad.' I admired Josie's positive take on it.

  'Hey Josie, strudel!' A stocky woman walked out of a cake shop I hadn't been to yet.

  'Thanks, Sabina, but look at my love handles. There'll be too much to love soon. Maybe next lap!' If Josie didn't have a good relationship with the illegal parkers, she sure had one with the shopkeepers and maybe that was why she was so chirpy. Then she turned to me. 'Thank God my job is walking. I'd be a heifer otherwise.'

  Between Spencer and Chaucer streets, outside Luna Park, we saw a gorgeous blue Citroën convertible, roof down, double-parked, minus a driver. 'I can't believe some people,' Josie said. 'Probably in having a ride on the ghost train.'

  She walked over to the car, looked around the area for the owner and started to write a ticket. I stood on the footpath, just waiting for another dumb bloke to run up and offer sex or money and watch Josie shoot them down in flames. Instead two women strolled up to the car, denim and singlet clad.

  'Hey darl, don't be like that. Let me buy you a drink at Girls Bar instead.' The taller woman grabbed her girlfriend. 'The three of us can sort it out together, whaddya reckon?' Josie just handed her the ticket.

  'It's a seventy-five dollar fine for double-parking. If you've got any money left in your wallet after you pay the bill then, sure, you can buy me a drink at Girls Bar on Thursday night. Don't be doing it again – you're breaking the law.'

  'Oh, we've been naughty gals. Can't you just spank us?'

  'C'mon.' Josie gave me the head wave to move on, before it got too dirty, I think. I had never seen anything like it in my life. People everywhere offering sex to get
out of a parking ticket. There I was trying to avoid men, and Josie had both sexes throwing themselves at her. What a nightmare that must have been – or not.

  'It's hot, eh?' Josie adjusted her hat.

  'I think it's just you, love, with all that sexual tension around you.'

  'Hardy-har-har, I mean it's hot, must be thirty degrees. Let's get a juice.' We headed to a healthy juice bar on Acland Street and I remembered with a pang the days when I would show up at Alice's place with carrot and ginger juices and we'd debrief on the boozy night before.

  'They do the best juices here. Should I order for you?' Josie asked, and went to the counter. 'Hi Mary, can I get a Vegie Power Juice for my friend and I'll have the Detox Juice.' She didn't pay a cent. Everyone everywhere who didn't own a car, or wasn't near their car, loved Josie. Actually she was quite lovable, and I couldn't understand how Aunty Ivy could be so nasty to her.

  It was an hour before there was another incident. Josie had to book a car parked at the Sea Baths for twenty-four hours without a ticket.

  'Someone's obviously been drinking and got a cab home, which is great, but would've been cheaper to get the cab both ways,' she said as she wrote the ticket and placed it under the windscreen wiper.

  'Have you got your quota today, slag?' a guy said as he walked past.

  'Is this your car, mate?' Josie said calmly.

  'No, never seen it before.'

  'Then fuck off and mind your own business.' And I knew Josie had had enough for the day. 'I need a drink. You up for one tonight?'

  'Sure, but I don't really want to go to that girls' bar, if you don't mind. I'm avoiding men, but it doesn't mean I'm looking for women, if you know what I mean.'

  'Oh for God's sake, you're starting to sound like my Aunty Ivy. I know you're not interested in women. Alice gave me the lowdown about your perfect man in Sydney. And how you're having an early midlife crisis and trying to figure out what you want to do.'

  'It's not a crisis – I just want to be the Minister for Cultural Affairs one day.'

  'I'd say a self-imposed sex ban for a gorgeous young woman like yourself is a fucken crisis. And don't panic, I'm not hitting on you.'

  'Starving kids in Africa is a crisis. Now can we stop talking about me and start talking about tonight?'

  ♥

  Josie took me to Kanela on Johnston Street in Fitzroy for lots of sangria, tapas and flamenco dancing.

  'This place is great!' I said as our paella arrived in a large cast iron pan.

  'Yeah, it's run by two brothers – they're like two of the country's best flamenco artists.'

  We watched the show and it made me want to dance, or try to dance or to have a dance lesson at least, and it wasn't because of the sangria. The rhythm of the music and the hard soles of the shoes hitting the floor was mesmerising and everyone in the venue was entranced watching the couple dance their song of love. The woman was truly beautiful and the guy was hot.

  'How hot is that!' I said.

  'Yes, she is,' Josie replied, eyes fixed on the flowing black dress of the flamenco queen.

  ♥

  When I got home Shelley was already asleep, so I tried to make as little noise as possible but I was really drunk and had started to feel sick. The fruit in the sangria didn't taste as good coming up as it did going down. I had a shower and felt a bit better, but took a bucket with me to bed. I couldn't remember how long it had been since I'd done that – at least as long as I'd been going out with James, and maybe even longer. He would have been appalled. I closed my eyes and the room started to spin and spin.

  I'm at customs and the guy says I need a thirty-day visa and I explain that there is no way I will be there thirty days, maybe eight hours if I am lucky, and then I laugh and he laughs.

  'What is your occupation?' he asks, because now I have to fill out entry forms.

  'I'm the Minister for Cultural Affairs, on holidays,' I lie, because I can, and I know it doesn't really matter and he doesn't really care because he hasn't taken his eyes off my cleavage anyway. Then he takes me and my astral passport to a small room.

  'What are you doing?' I ask, only a little scared, because I know that nothing bad is going to happen to me. I'm in a dream and I am, after all, the Minister for Cultural Affairs.

  'I am going to strip-tease you,' he says and I laugh because I'm not sure if he means he's going to do a strip-tease for me, or that he's going to strip-search me, and I don't really mind which it is, because my self-promotion to minister has been an aphrodisiac, and I'm up for either because he's hot. And because I know I won't be there for thirty days and time is running out, we strip each other, starting slowly, unbuttoning clothing, undoing zips, unbuckling belts, but then getting faster and faster as stockings and boxer shorts are aggressively pushed down around ankles and our bodies are moving in time to the flamenco music and someone's clapping – not applauding, but clapping a dance – and one minute I'm on the plain table in the little room and then I'm walking along La Rambla in Barcelona and there are street performers doing acrobatics and flamenco dancing and busking. It's colourful and noisy and I love it. I walk and smile but soon I am frowning as I enter the Museu Picasso, which is like five large town houses joined together, all of them really old, 500 years old or more, and I'm walking in a bit of a maze and my confusion is exacerbated by the artwork; there's a portrait of a man in a beret and I get that painting, obviously, but I am not sure of others, like the Seated Man, who has a head like a horse but I read it's meant to be mask-like, it's supposed to be a symbol and fetish. No-one else seems to be struggling, rather they are talking about 'broad brush strokes' and 'a basic and brutal aesthetic'. I don't see it, though, and think Picasso must've been on some serious acid or something. But as the new minister I must try to appreciate the work; it is all part of my professional development. I step out of the Museu onto the street and I'm in Madrid but also Pamplona and there's bulls running and people cheering and I get caught up in the action and the red flags and matadors in the sexy outfits with tights and I'm thinking about the guy from customs and how I could strip-tease them but the thoughts subside quickly as I run past old churches and the cathedral into the Basilica de San Francisco, and ask for forgiveness from the God I don't believe in for my pornographic thoughts. I light a candle and hope for the best. I say a quick prayer for James too, because I feel I should.

  A gorgeous beggar on the street is asking for pesetas but I think he says 'potatoes' and miraculously, I pull some from my bag. The Lord provides in mysterious ways. I want to make creamed potatoes with the beggar but I wonder if that's me being too community-minded and I just keep walking until I become bored with my astral dream because there's no men, and no more strip-teasing and I want to go home, and for the first time in my life I am glad that I am about to vomit because it wakes me up.

  thirteen

  Facebook friends

  and a fundraiser

  It took me weeks to go through my hotmail account, my inbox was so full. I had a long list of emails inviting me to be people's 'friend' on Facebook. There were invitations from Alice, Dannie, Liza and even James. Apparently this phenomenon had been happening without me. I signed up and had too many friends in no time, all poking, super-poking, headbutting and kissing me. I was sent drinks and flowers and growing plants and invited to join causes and groups as my page had bling and bumper stickers added.

  I posted photos of the house, of my office and of St Kilda so the gang could all see how things were going for me. Likewise Dannie posted pics of the kids, Liza put up pics of the basketball team she coached and Alice had photos of her and Gary down at Coogee. James sent me things constantly and got a bit annoyed when I didn't respond immediately, but Facebook had been barred at work as the department had calculated the amount of hours lost every day to the fad, and I had to set a good example anyway.