Lessons in Love

Weekly school assemblies were a non-negotiable, a rite of passage for teacher and student alike. We mumbled through the national anthem, listened to Phil make rapid-fire announcements and, when my name was announced as a new teacher, a hand from behind propelled me towards the crowd.

When the word ‘Dismissed’ was finally uttered, it was like jamming a pin in an overfull balloon. Sound rose from the floor, a cacophony of shuffling feet and pent-up voices as bodies got lost in the scramble to stay in class groups. The mystery hand springing me forth into the world? That was Penny.

‘You can’t run now,’ she teased. ‘You’ve been officially introduced.’

‘The pet has been named,’ I teased. ‘And once they’ve got a name, they’re not going back.’

Beside Penny, someone laughed. ‘It’s good to see you again, Eleanor.’

Sandy hair in a messy bun, and a beard that hadn’t been trimmed in weeks? It had to be …

‘Jack!’ I exclaimed.

‘Oh, shit, you haven’t been introduced yet, have you?’ Penny bounced excitedly.

‘No.’ I looked at Jack. ‘Yesterday was mayhem, and I didn’t get around to your classroom.’

‘Okay, well, Ellie, Jack, Jack, Ellie.’ Penny waved her hands about. ‘Jack’s going to have a new piano delivered in a few weeks and, yes, he does remember you.’

‘You do? You have?’ I asked. My ears pricked up. ‘A new piano? What brand is it? Can I come and see it? When we’ve both got a free moment, that is.’

For some people, a new mobile phone or widescreen television gets their go-go-gadget fingers tingling. For me, new pianos evoked those feelings. From the tinkle of shining keys, taut strings under a gloss black hood, to the shy reluctance of new pedals, there was nothing I didn’t love about them. I longed for the day I had a place big enough to buy myself a new one.

‘Ah … it’s a Brodmann upright, and absolutely you can,’ he enthused. ‘My door is always open. But we should catch up before then. I think we’re all doing Friday night drinks, if you’re in?’

‘Yes! Friday night,’ Penny chimed in.

‘Okay, that sounds great,’ I enthused. ‘I’d love to catch up.’

We moved slowly with the tide, me towards my library, Jack towards his side of the school.

‘I’ll send you the details!’ he called. ‘It’ll be great!’

Chapter 5

Before I made it anywhere near the other end of a Friday night martini glass, I had to wade through the rest of the week. With only a few days’ grace before I began taking classes of my own, I didn’t have long to get myself in order.

For most of the week, I was pent up in my office. New folders, printouts, an overheated shredder, and an overabundance of spray cleaner and kitchen towel. So far, I’d torn down streamers, football posters, and artwork. A co-worker once remarked to me that a clean desk meant an empty mind, though I was sure that was just an excuse for his desk looking like a junk sale diorama.

I spent evenings working through curriculum and coming up with class plans. Late-night emails were distributed to teachers and, amongst the ones that bounced back telling me to go home, they were approved.

All of this happened in the shadow of catching up with Sally. Now that we’d swapped numbers, the text messages came thick and fast. We swapped stories of school and everything after, laughed at shared memories of boys and high school, and my inbox was soon filling up with photos of her happy family. It tickled me to know that she’d found her spot in the world and was thriving with a bustling household.

By four o’clock Friday afternoon, I’d found my groove. From my stool at the returns counter, I could survey my lands – a little like Simba in The Lion King. The courtyard, which earlier had tornadoes of rubbish, was clean. Weeds were gone, pavers swept, and rubbish removed. There were no books wandering about on return trolleys; everything was in its place. I’d discovered my borrowing computer, with the bash of a key and my tongue held right, sent overdue emails to parents. Once upon a time, I’d have been sending letters through the mail, so this was a nice step up in the world. In the corner, my little office was sparkling clean with windows yet to be covered in smeary, snotty fingers.

Everything was coming up Ellie.

Behind me, the library door crept open with a tired yawn.

‘Or, maybe not,’ I grumbled, spinning on my stool and tucking a flyaway lock of dark hair behind my ear. ‘Hello.’

Marcus came close to filling the doorway, at least with his height. He shifted from foot to foot and slid his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello,’ I echoed. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I hope so.’ Something on my desk caught his attention. ‘I just spoke to Grace over in the Prep unit.’

The paper in front of me had been the victim of an hour’s mindless doodling. It was covered in musical notes, clefs, quavers, book titles, and my own name a hundred different ways. I reached for it quickly, screwed it up and tossed it into the waste paper basket by my feet. My breath caught nervously.

‘Okay.’

‘She said we could swap classes depending on what I could give her in return.’ He grinned.

‘You do realise that this is not life threatening, don’t you?’ I launched myself from the stool and landed with a little thud on the floor. Marcus followed as I rounded the desk and walked back to my office. His stride was slow, purposeful, and a little too sure of himself. ‘Nobody is going to die if you don’t get a precious afternoon session. I don’t understand what this obsession is. Are you just doing it to upset me? To try and assert some, “I’ve been here longer than you” type of authority?’ I waved my hands about. ‘Why can’t you just wait the year out?’

‘So, what you’re saying is that, even though I’ve met your conditions, you’re still not going to help me?’

‘What I’m saying is exactly what I said the other day. I’ve been here barely a week. I would appreciate being allowed to settle in before I go changing things. I’m sure you can last another few weeks on a Friday afternoon.’ I reached for my PC, listening to it burp and whir as it woke up. ‘And what’s so bad about you getting to start your weekend early? I would’ve thought someone like you would love an early start to the weekend.’

‘Right.’ He nodded curtly. ‘Thank you.’

As I watched him leave, my mobile phone began rattling across the benchtop. It stopped, then started again. Without looking, I picked it up and pressed it to my ear.

‘Eleanor speaking.’ I tapped a pile of papers against my desk and slipped them into the in-tray. I could worry about them tomorrow.

‘Eleanor!’ A wine-soaked voice puttered down the line.

My stomach tightened. ‘Mum.’

‘Don’t sound so excited,’ she clipped.

‘No, it’s not that,’ I lied, doing a very quick emotional stocktake and chirping up. ‘I’m just at work, that’s all.’

‘How is that all going?’ she asked. ‘Your father told me you’d started a new job.’

‘He did?’ I asked, surprised. Since when were my parents talking to each other? It was news to me. ‘When did he tell you this? What are you, like, pen pals now? He’s sending you postcards from the edge?’

‘Not quite,’ she said, the smile in her voice evident from the next state. ‘Facebook.’

‘What?’ I blurted.

How did it happen that my parents, who barely spoke to each other throughout my childhood, and who refused to be in the same room together, were now having regular catch-ups online? Had I missed something? If they told me they were planning on having dinner next week, I was going to start developing an oxygen sensitivity.

Also, how come I hadn’t had a friend request?

‘You deleted my request,’ Mum deadpanned, though I was sure I hadn’t voiced that thought aloud.

I scoffed. ‘I did not.’

Then again, maybe I did. Yeah, probably.

Explaining my relationship with my mother makes for prickly skin, especially in a world where we’re taught that Mother Is All because, sometimes, she just isn’t. The knowledge that she’d packed up and left before I was six months old had always sat in the back of my mind as a warning. We weren’t the stuff of Hallmark movies or cheesy greeting cards.

While Dad insisted that I saw her as often as possible when I was younger, which still wasn’t very often, it was still a whole lot of awkward. Visiting her often felt like that scene in Austin Powers where he’d got the jeep stuck in the middle of a three-point turn. That she kept me at arm’s length and shoved me in the corner with a colouring book or novel while fawning over my stepfather just added to the issues.

‘Anyway.’ She interrupted my train of thought. ‘What do you think?’

‘Sorry, about what?’ I stuffed my water bottle into my bag, retied my hair, and pulled my office door shut behind me, all with my phone wedged between shoulder and ear.

‘Spending some time together, silly,’ she laughed, while continuing a conversation with someone named Floss in the background.

‘I mean, I can, but can you give me a few weeks to settle in first?’ I asked. ‘I’ve barely unpacked my belongings.’

‘Okay, do you want to send me details of your flight when you book them?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I laughed. I didn’t mean to, it just kind of burst forth in the same way a broken pipe might split asphalt. One minute, everything is quiet; the next, there’s a raging torrent springing up from the street. ‘I don’t quite have the money for a last-minute flight. I could drive up, but it’s ten hours either way, so I’d be turning up for dinner and leaving early the next morning. It’s doable, but you’d want to be serving me up caviar and Dom Perignon for dinner, followed by five courses with a private chef and a lap dance from Paul Rudd … or Idris Elba. You know, either one I’d be fine with’

‘Who’re they? Do you have their numbers? Why don’t we do that for your birthday?’ she enthused. ‘What a great idea, Ella!’

Me and my big mouth. I pinched the bridge of my nose as she prattled on about hiring a yacht for the day. Twelve months ago, when that kind of lifestyle was the norm for me, I would have frothed with delight at that idea. Even with my mother at the helm, I would have considered it. Now, it just felt all kinds of pretentious, like something worse was hiding just below the surface. I walked into the staffroom and made a beeline for the coffee. Hopefully it would clear out the throbbing that was starting to wrap its way around my head.

From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Jack. He smiled and offered me that little close to the body wave he’d always had. I motioned for the bottle of milk in his hand. Instead of passing it, he poured, and put it back in the refrigerator.

‘What was that?’ I turned my attention back to my phone call. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t you think?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, what am I thinking?’ I asked.

‘I said I should come down for the weekend, while your father is still on his trip.’

Ctrl Alt Delete. ‘Sorry, say again?’

‘I could come down, spend the weekend,’ she suggested. ‘Go shopping, have lunch.’

‘Mum, we haven’t seen each other in almost eighteen months,’ I said. ‘And, can I just remind you that was because I came to you. The last time you were supposed to visit, you forgot and never showed. The last three times, in fact.’

My mother had this habit, and I wondered if it wasn’t just a game she quite enjoyed, where she would make plans to visit, and never show up. Her disappearance was always followed up by a quick, apologetic phone call that left me little room to move.

‘Oh, honey, I’m sorry,’ she cooed. ‘Won’t happen again, I promise.’

Just like it wasn’t going to happen last time, or the time before that. Really, my afternoon would have been easier had I just ignored my phone. Voicemail was the great technological filter. Even another round with Marcus was preferable to this.

‘You’re going to have to stay in a hotel. We don’t have room in the apartment,’ I said.

‘You know, I haven’t been back to that blasted town since you were a baby?’ she scoffed as if I was about to jump in and support her.

‘What a surprise.’ I smiled sarcastically.

Yesterday’s lunch box was languishing in the back of the communal fridge, which was kind of an office etiquette red card misdemeanour. Sidelined with side-eye. With nobody looking, I shoved it into my handbag and hoped it hadn’t been noticed. I closed the refrigerator door, screwed the lid on my travel cup, and turned to leave. The sound of laughter echoed up the corridor. As I yanked on the door, someone pushed against it, and I ambled straight into a wall of suit.

Everything slowed. The shuffle, the sidestep, the miss, the clash, and the crescendo of realisation. Caught between the two of us, an innocent coffee cup. Only ten seconds earlier, and it would have been full to the brim. Not so much now though.

‘Okay, Mum.’ I waited for her to take a breath between her words. ‘Mum, I have to go, I’ve just … I need to go. Now. Need to go now. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll call soon.’

Stabbing on the red button, I missed the tinny ends of her one-sided conversation. I held my phone out to my side, as if that would keep it safe from any further harm and peered down at my front.

I. Was. Sopping. There was so much liquid that it was dripping from the hem of my shirt and pooling around my feet. A milky brown bloom climbed up across my chest and over the toes of my shoes and, wouldn’t you know, there was my five-dollar Target bra making an appearance. At least it was white and fit relatively properly because, right now, I looked like I was starting a one-woman wet T-shirt contest.

‘Fuck.’ It was all I could muster. I pinched at my shirt and peeled it away from my skin.

‘Oh … shit.’ Marcus snorted, failing miserably at not laughing.

On what planet was this funny? My shirt was verging on translucent, at least everywhere south of my bra straps. To make matters worse, he’d managed to escape completely, except for a splash on his shoes. When I could focus briefly, it was definitely only on his shoes. I was incandescent with rage, from the acidic pit in my stomach to the bright lights sitting behind my eyes.

‘Is this funny to you?’ I shrieked. ‘Really? You … I have no words for you.’

My words were a starting gun, and he began faffing about, hands searching, darting across the bench to a roll of kitchen towel when it had been discovered that, for once, the cleaners were early and had made off with the dishcloths. He thrust a fistful of paper towards me, his arms bobbing about in suggestion that, just maybe, he’d like to be the one to blot me.

‘Don’t you touch me.’ I held an arm out to stop him moving closer. He placed the towel gingerly in my hand. ‘Or I swear to God, you’ll never ever have children.’

‘Well, that’s kind of important to me, so I’ll just throw paper at you from here,’ he teased. I watched in shock as he began folding a square into a paper plane. Was he serious?

‘Why don’t you just go away?’ I spat. ‘Flutter off into a cloud of mothers somewhere. I’m sure they’d be happy to have you.’

‘You really are an angry little onion, aren’t you?’ Marcus turned on his heel and left me, sopping wet in the middle of the staffroom.

Grappling for the kitchen towel as it rolled away, I unravelled another length and began dabbing it against my front. People came and went, curious onlookers joked about there being better ways to score a caffeine hit and, no, I didn’t really need any help. Thank you all the same. While it felt like I was there forever, the eyes of the world watching my embarrassing spectacle, it had only been ten minutes or so when the door swung open. Penny stood there looking both confused and worried.

‘Ellie?’

I looked up from my shirt, which I’d pulled away from me to better survey the damage. ‘Yeah?’

‘There’s someone here to see you.’ The waiver in her voice was not indicative of someone excited for the pub in about seventy-six minutes’ time. I, on the other hand, was already doing the mental maths of just how much I could afford to drink.

I groaned. Now what?

* * *

‘Eleanor Manning?’

Each step towards the office felt wobblier than the last and, by the time I pushed through the door, I’d imagined every single irrational thing that it could be. My brain was trying to juggle with the idea that my car had be stolen, or Dad having had an accident overseas. I’d have to roll up to a consulate somewhere and bail him out. Or, worse, Mum really wasn’t joking about visiting and had been sitting out in reception the entire time. Maybe my grandparents had risen from the dead and were about to serenade me with some ‘Thriller’ moves of their own. The last thing I had expected was a divorce lawyer.

Stupid, I know.

Looking every bit his serious self, dressed in an overpriced but under-tailored suit, was Bill Napier. He’d been by Dean’s side every time there was a deal to be done, hovering downstage with his billowing sleeves and sweat patches. Today was no different.

‘Is this a joke?’ I snorted. ‘Bill, you know who I am.’

He pulled a yellow envelope from his breast pocket. He wore enough rings you’d be mistaken for thinking they were knuckle-dusters. Then again … ‘Your ex-partner is applying for divorce—’

‘Hang on, hang on.’ I held up a hand to stop him. ‘Is this the done thing? We’ve only been separated nine months. Is this correct?’

‘Are you refusing to accept the paperwork?’

‘What? No, I’m simply asking a question.’ My breathing became shallow, more pointed with their anger. Was this guy serious? I’d done the Googling; twelve months apart and then you could apply for a divorce.

Bill placed the envelope on the bench beside me and repeated, ‘Eleanor Manning, your ex-partner is applying for divorce, and I am serving you with the divorce application. Your court date is listed for Friday, 9 November 2018.’

Apparently, he was very serious. Like another man I’d recently dealt with, he turned on his heel and walked away.

Chapter 6

‘Here, close your eyes. Let me do your eyeliner.’ Penny leaned in, the heel of her hand pressed into my cheek. ‘We’ll make you all beautiful so we can go out and forget all about this week.’

‘You know, I’m not actually upset about the divorce. That’s not what’s upset me.’

Penny stood back and looked down at me. ‘She says after draining the hot water because she was too busy in the shower crying.’

Okay, so that part was true. It had been a long week, and what else was a girl supposed to do? I trudged home smelling of old coffee mixed with the tang of deodorant and late-afternoon body odour, and I know of nobody who’d agree that that was in any way appealing. My shoes had felt two sizes too small, I hadn’t got through my To Do List, and the divorce papers were a metaphorical weight I couldn’t be bothered carrying. So, I did what any overly stressed girl would do – I slipped under the showerhead and had a good old-fashioned cry.

‘It felt good,’ I said. ‘Sometimes you just need to release those tears.’

‘I know.’ Penny removed her hand and switched to the other eye. ‘But, now, we dust ourselves off, we get ourselves fancy, we drink some cocktails, and chase some tail.’

‘It just felt like one thing after the other this week,’ I said. ‘Niggling little things, but I’m sure Bill is what happens when the universe sends someone to laugh at me. She tends to do a lot of that lately.’

‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t mind the universe falling on him, to be honest,’ she mumbled.

‘I just feel like a failure.’

‘Ellie, the fact that you are upright and have found gainful employment suggests otherwise. You are smart, you are funny, and you’re a wonderful teacher of words.’ Penny stood back and admired her work with the make-up brush. ‘Fuck, you’re so cute. Who are you going home with tonight?’

I snorted. ‘Nobody I have to see over the coffee urn on Monday morning.’

‘How long has it been?’ she asked. ‘Am I allowed to ask that?’

‘Let me think.’ While she faffed about my hair and tossed me a lipstick, I tried to do the mental maths. ‘Uh, well, he kind of overshot the mark on his last attempt, so that was over before he even got his pants off.’

She passed a lipstick over her shoulder. ‘Are you joking?’

‘I wish I was.’ I peered into the bathroom mirror. ‘All right. Actually, my birthday before last.’

Penny snatched her phone up from the counter and opened an app. ‘Sweetie, that’s fourteen months, two weeks, five days.’

‘Well, then, so it is.’

‘Also, we’re super late. Let’s go.’

* * *

Today was always going to happen, whether I lobbed the grenade first, or he did. There was no point at all being naive about it. Perhaps my anger was more that Idiot Features had got in first, and I was just feeling a wee bit competitive about it all. After all, he was the one who’d done the wrong thing but there I was, being served papers at work like it was me who was the bad guy.

All I wanted to do tonight was have a few cheeky drinks and forget real life for a few hours, make some new friends and maybe catch up with some old ones.

There was one clear-cut memory of the pub that teased itself out from the others as we trounced up the stairs and in through the double doors. It was the last week of high school, and a group of us thought it would be great fun to see out the year with fake IDs, cheap wine, and hangovers. It felt like only yesterday and, here I was again, ready to throw another night the brew fairies’ way.

‘Isn’t this weird?’ My eyes zipped around the room, not sure whether I did or didn’t want to see any familiar faces.

Penny grabbed at my hand and pulled me up towards the bar. ‘Yes, but we’re much cooler now.’

A modern foodie flair had replaced the worn yellowing brickwork, Eighties architectural tubular steel, and dart boards. Still, the faces remained generically familiar. The more things change, right?

In an alcove, parents who were silently praying for no injuries or outbursts from their four children. Not quite outside their earshot, a hen’s party clucked to life with the appearance of the perennial favourite: the penis straws.

No, don’t do it.

The local football team had congregated around the bar, insular worshipping mixed with the scratching of heads and arguing about who did or didn’t have the best mark of their recent Grand Final. In the centre of it all, ensconced with back slapping and the odd hoot, was Marcus. Still dressed for work, he sipped from a wine glass and looked my way.

Our eyes met in a slow-motion moment that could have only been choreographed better had Baz Luhrmann turned up with a fish tank and a fancy-dress party. Taking that for the omen it was, I ignored the cotton candy feeling that filled my limbs and ordered a drink. The less I saw of Marcus and his beautiful, but irritatingly smug face tonight, the better.

‘Penis face,’ I grumbled, hoisting myself onto a sticky bar stool.

‘What was that, love?’ Mr Bartender, my new best friend, appeared out of nowhere. He looked cool, like he’d seen it all, blue and white check tea towel over his shoulder, and more faded tattoos than a middle-aged interstate truck driver.

‘Sorry, a glass of pinot gris, please.’ That’ll fool him. Ha. ‘Actually, make it a lemon meringue martini. I need something to really burn through this week.’

Glass in hand, I pirouetted through the crowd, and was spat out the other side into a beer garden. After today, it was just the tropical oasis I needed. With its overhanging green fronds, large palm in the corner, and synthetic turf, it was a fresh break from the monotony of desks, lost pens and a heaving inbox.

We were a small congregation split amongst standing benches and tiny booths made from recycled packing pallets, and mingling became the adult version of musical chairs. At one point, I got stuck with Glenn, Grade Three teacher, who enjoyed Humphrey Bogart films, and was desperate to get some vegan options on the canteen menu. I wasn’t sure our little school was ready for quinoa or tofish, but I wasn’t about to knock his enthusiasm either.