Lessons in Love

‘What on earth possessed you to come back here?’ he asked. ‘Returning for family?’

‘I heard you still made a great coffee,’ I teased. I don’t know that I’d ever seen him without a coffee cup in hand, either. ‘Plus, I thought you could do with checking in on.’

‘See, the coffee has fallen to Marcus now.’

‘Ah.’ I turned towards where Mick’s attention was held at the back of the room, three men scuttling at the realisation they’d been caught spying. It was a Monty Python sketch as they bumped, shuffled, and passed paperwork to each other like synchronised jugglers. Marcus crossed the glass-windowed office, mug to his mouth and watching from the corner of his eye. Busted.

‘Clowns, the lot of them,’ Mick said quietly. ‘And, if I point at them just so, they’ll think I’m talking about them. Egotistical little shits.’

I pulled the folder up over my face and laughed loud and free.

‘I’m sorry I missed the meeting this morning.’ Mick elbowed me gently. ‘I saw your name on the roster but wasn’t sure if it was you, or if someone by the same name just felt like orbiting the area for a while.’

‘Surprise.’ I grinned, throwing my arms out like P. T. Barnum on a slow morning, then scrambling to pick up a packet of crayons that tumbled from my hands and scattered to the winds. ‘How have you been?’

Mick gave a small shrug. ‘You know, just slogging around here, keeping kids out of trouble.’ He slipped from the table and nodded towards the office. ‘Speaking of trouble, come with me.’

I followed him into the small office, which looked like it had been used by the same four men for a few years. It had that old, comfortable look and smell that screamed ‘Keep Out: Boys Only’. Desks were well settled into, a coffee machine had its own small altar in the corner, and family photos lined desks and noticeboards.

‘Ellie, these gentlemen here – and I use the term ‘gentlemen’ loosely – are Tony, Roger, and Marcus.’

‘Hello.’ I gave a tiny wave at the three smiling faces, all seated around one desk in the middle of the room. One by one, they stood, introduced themselves again, and shook my hand. Roger was quick and jangly, much like his bony arms. Tony was limp and damp and looked like he needed to pat down his forehead with a handkerchief before heading back into battle. Marcus, despite being warm and solid, left me with the distinct impression I was being sized up. Did everything have to be a competition? I avoided his continued gaze and turned my attention at the others. ‘I’m just here to meet and greet and take requests.’

‘Kicking ass and taking names,’ Tony tittered.

‘Bingo.’ I set my belongings on the table and watched as they shuffled through papers and pulled out ready-made lists. It wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d stocked up on requests in anticipation of slipping things past the new girl.

‘How has today been for you?’ Mick glanced up from his seat.

‘I’m … yeah, just taking it all in again.’ I pushed myself up on the balls of my feet. ‘It’s making me vastly aware of the years that have passed, and I’m suddenly feeling rather … inferior.’

‘Try being me,’ he joked. ‘Not only is my past coming back to haunt me in the form of you, but Jack is now teaching here.’

‘No,’ I laughed. ‘He is? I don’t think I’ve met him today. I’ll have to go and find him.’

‘He is.’ He nodded. ‘He was probably in the meeting this morning. You’ll find him down in the music hut cultivating his beard and apparently fashionable man-bun. God knows it’s a mess, and his mother hates it, but you can’t tell him these things.’

I snorted. The last thing I’d have pictured him with was a beard. Jack would come in and help Mick on his days off school. As a teenager, helping involved not a lot more than supervising some quiet reading time, or re-enacting a Shakespearean scene to give Mick another ten minutes on lunch break. He was quite the rock star to the small handful of pre-pubescent girls in our class. I wondered if Mick ever understood that. Probably. It’s not as if twelve-year-old girls were renowned for their subtlety, after all.

‘I’ll make sure to tell him you’re here. He’d probably be keen for a catch-up.’

‘If he remembers me,’ I noted, looking around the table. ‘Now, does anyone need anything else from me?’

Silence. One by one, they shook their heads in turn. Only the scrawled lists I’d been given? Nothing more than pencils and glue? Good.

‘No … oh, wait. Yes.’ Marcus peered up at me, brow knitted. ‘I’d like to change my library session. I want a morning, preferably Monday. Could you make sure that happens?’

I blinked twice and stared hard at he who would be Clark Kent. ‘No.’

‘No? Is there a reason for the no?’ He rested his chin in the palm of his hand. I’ll bet that look worked on all the ladies.

‘I’ve been here not quite a day, and I have zero desire to turn this place into a snow globe just yet. I would like the opportunity and support of my colleagues as I settle in. I’m sure at the start of the new year, we’ll look at changing time slots.’

Tony snorted, then hid his mouth behind his hand quickly. My heart gave a bass drum thud, and annoyance prickled at the back of my eyes.

‘I’d really love a morning session though. Do you think you could get another class to shift?’ Marcus pressed on. It didn’t at all surprise me that he didn’t understand the word ‘no’.

‘You can try if you want, see if someone wants to swap,’ I said.

The office was so quiet you could hear my heart using my ribs as a xylophone if you concentrated hard enough. Please, do not put me in this situation, I thought. Not on day one. Yet, there was always one, wasn’t there?

‘Could you? Please?’ he asked. ‘I’ll be so busy with curriculum all day. It’s not like it’s a difficult request.’

I recoiled a little. Did anyone just see my shoulders curling in on each other? The words were so bloody familiar that it made me think the universe was just laughing at me. It was every night I’d ever tried to get Dean out of his office. Often, I was greeted with a combination of, ‘Can’t you see how busy I am?’, followed with a chaser of, ‘And what are you doing all day while I’m working?’ Anything further was met with, ‘Whatever.’ I wanted to turn around and walk out. Except I couldn’t do that here without looking like a total strop and not the team player that I’d prattled on about in my job interview.

‘Funny about that, so will I.’ I gathered my pile from the table. Papers slipped from my fingers and out onto the table. It felt like I spent the next few moments grabbing at air before Marcus took pity and handed them back. ‘If there’s someone you’d like to swap with, you’re welcome to ask them. If they say yes, you can have your morning. Otherwise, no.’

‘Ha!’ Roger clapped his hands in delight. ‘Boy Wonder doesn’t often hear that.’

‘Is everyone else done?’ I asked. ‘I also have work to do.’

Marcus huffed, hands clasped in his lap. Far from the polite and confident look he carried this morning, he’d now shown me an entirely different person. I stepped into the corridor, took a steadying breath and thought about tearing back in there and giving him a piece of my mind. But what would that prove? I decided to get on with my day. It was day one, something like this was bound to happen. Attitude clashes were the stumbling block of any new job, and he appeared to be a Lego in the middle of the night.

I shuffled back to my office to find a password tacked to the top of the computer screen. That was nice. Exactly where was I supposed to begin? I imagined my inbox would be backing up quicker than a toilet stuffed with paper and cherry bombs. I pushed my planner to the side for a moment to try and tidy the room.

As I moved about, familiarising myself with everything, my brain threw out questions. Was I supposed to fire up the borrowing system and run a report for overdue books? Maybe I needed to do a complete stocktake before doing that, just in case. But school wasn’t back yet, so it was kind of pointless. I thought back to what I’d done previously and decided I would do that tomorrow, once students were back and the school was alive again. Curriculum first, got it.

It was amazing how quickly things began snapping back into shape. Still, with each email I deleted, ten more popped up in their place. I almost wanted to kiss Grace when it turned out her four o’clock email was nothing more than a ladies’ lunch invite because, by that time, I’d started to reconsider every life choice that had brought me here.

I reached for Cathy’s reference guide and paced the office while I read. I scribbled notes and re-stuck Post-it notes, jammed a pen behind my ear, and repeated things aloud as if that would jog my memory. And that was how I spent the few hours I had left, quietly on my own – and not changing the library roster.

* * *

‘Okay, I’ll admit it.’ I pulled the last of the steak from the barbecue and slapped it down on Penny’s plate. ‘I’m curious.’

All the way home, I could smell the last of the school holiday barbecues. The only way to stop my mouth watering was to have my own cook-up. It was never going to be as elaborate as the ones we had on the beach as kids, around a hastily fashioned driftwood fire where everyone brought a plate, but with a supermarket coleslaw and pasta salad, we had Prosecco tastes on a Passion Pop budget.

Penny popped her last two bottles of beer and slid one across the outdoor table to me. Leaning back, she peered at me curiously, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. ‘About? Boys? Sex? Women? You should definitely try women.’

‘Marcus,’ I said. ‘What’s his story?’

She took a swig and gave her head a delighted shake. ‘He doesn’t really have one. He’s just one of those impossibly lovely people.’

‘You’re not giving me a lot to run on.’ I peered down my nose at her as I tipped my head back. ‘He can’t be all sunshine, rainbows and kittens.’

‘All I know is he keeps to himself a lot. He’s not a bragger, he’s super passionate about his job, and is delightful to look at.’ She peered at me through narrowed eyes and an accusatory look.

I mimicked her look and gave my head a little shake. ‘Not really.’

‘He’s kind of that …’ she flourished her hands ‘… he’s a bit of an everyman. Men want to be him; women want to be with him.’

‘And I suppose you’re of that opinion, too?’ I asked.

I’d stayed back at work later than Penny. There were just too many loose ends for me to leave, and I didn’t want to risk the dreaded 3 a.m. wake up, eyes pinging open like a dancer at a rave while my brain worked overtime to process the list of what I hadn’t done. Just as I was packing up for the evening, blinds pulled low in the office, and lights switched off, a small dusting of women appeared from Marcus’s office. I’m sure he was somewhere in the middle of the cloud, his name held aloft on a palanquin.

She shrugged in defence. ‘I would not kick him out of bed.’

‘You sound like Nanna.’

‘And she was a smart lady.’ Penny pointed at me with her fork. ‘I loved her wardrobe.’

‘Anyway.’ I shook my head, savouring my steak-melting-in-mouth moment. ‘Like I said, just curious.’

‘He’s definitely gorgeous.’

‘More like a painful reminder,’ I said, scraping the last of the garlic butter from the tray. ‘With his suit and tie and the “I’m such a wonderful businessman” demeanour.’

‘No, Ellie.’ Her face fell. ‘If he was a dick, I would tell you. You know I would.’

I glanced at her quickly, silently.

‘Just give him a chance,’ she sighed. ‘It was your first day and, you being you, you’re probably running around with a chip on your shoulder, anyway.’

‘What?’ I scoffed. ‘That’s not true.’

‘The only way it could be truer would be if you crumbled like that rock-biting creature in The NeverEnding Story.’ She fixed me with a sardonic look. ‘What was his name?’

‘Rockbiter.’ I rolled my eyes and, though our beloved grandmother would be mortified, spoke with my mouth full. ‘What, so be nice to him because he’s a smug idiot who thinks people are just there to do his bidding?’

‘No, just let people into that gravelly little chest cavity of yours.’

‘A, it’s not gravelly, that was just a chest infection. And B, I’m not here for that.’

Of all the things I could be accused of, not having a heart was not one of them. It stung a little that it was the first thing Penny thought of. I reached for the pasta salad and dessert spoon, so I could stuff those feelings down with glue-tasting mayonnaise and carbohydrates.

‘Then why are you here? It can’t be just for my good looks and tropical tastes.’

‘It really can be,’ I said.

‘But it’s not, otherwise you would have done more about visiting while you were busy being a rich Melbournian.’

I winced.

Ouch.

That one hurt.

Chapter 4

People seem to have this idea that living by the beach is sun, surf and sand on constant rotation. They were joined by lifesavers with washboard abs and swim caps, ready to save the day at a second’s notice. Not so much this morning, though. It was the first day of school, and the weather was putting on a performance matched only by my stomach.

Grey skies rolled in over a fog-covered bay, light drizzle threatening a heavy downpour. If it was anything like the weather of my youth, it’d hang around until about nine o’clock. The sun would then come out, drying up everything in sight, leaving everyone to think they’d perhaps imagined this morning’s need for a thick coat. As for me, I ducked under the awning of the local bakery and stepped inside.

It was pure, yeasty warmth. The smell of sticky strawberry iced doughnuts mingled with the burned crusts of a raisin loaf that looked like it was going to be our breakfast for the next week. But, again, there were so many varieties of bread lining the racks now that I wanted to take them all home. I plucked a sample of apple scroll from the plastic box on the counter and let the cinnamon warmth come alive in my mouth.

‘That’s so good,’ I groaned in appreciation.

‘Seriously, this place is just amazing,’ commented the woman next to me. She was about my age, with rusty-red hair, and the toddler on her hip was preoccupied shoving a Vegemite scroll in his mouth. We exchanged pleasant smiles, until her face dropped. ‘Wait …’

‘Yes?’ I said slowly. I hoped like hell I wasn’t wearing half of the little apple scroll portion.

‘Eleanor Manning?’ Her smile was broad and bright.

My smile was a little slower to form. I could not place this woman standing in front of me, as many memories as I tried to recall. You’d think redheads would be hard to forget, but this woman did not register at all.

‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t …’

‘Sally Fairburn.’ Her only empty hand outstretched in something that might have been excitement. ‘I remember you so well. Mick Buckley’s Grade Six class.’

Her name triggered all kinds of memories. Sally Fairburn was part of our primary school posse that sat together at lunchtimes. We had our favourite spot picked out, under a teetering pink and grey gumtree in the far corner of the playground. She was one of two Sallys in our year level. Dad had nicknamed them Burnt Sally (Fairburn), and Long Tall Sally (Winters). After she ran into our front door, Dad changed her name to Blind Sally.

Excitement popped my mouth. ‘Sally!’

‘That’s me!’ she tittered, moving in for a bone-crushing hug. ‘This is wonderful. I heard you’d moved away. Are you just visiting?’

‘Nope.’ I shook my head. ‘Moved back here.’

‘Bring your husband with you? Surely, you’ve got kids now, yeah?’

I shook my head, smiled politely, and ordered a loaf of raisin bread. Ah, I thought, those lovely societal expectations of women in their mid-thirties. ‘Just me.’

‘Oh.’ Sally followed me out of the bakery and onto the sidewalk. Her curly-haired child buried himself in her neck. I didn’t blame him, that wind was awful. ‘So, what brings you back?’

‘I’m actually teaching,’ I said. ‘Term starts today at our old school, so there’s that. I’m really looking forward to it. How about you? I can see you’ve got your hands full.’

She jiggled her toddler about and smiled wistfully at him like he was the third coming of Christ. ‘Well, as for me, three kids. Barrel of laughs and fun. I married Ben Finlay.’

‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Ben, wow. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Used to play football?’

‘Still does.’ She clucked her tongue. ‘Makes for a busy weekend between the kids’ swimming and his sports, but we do what we have to do, right?’

‘Speaking of things we have to do.’ I drew my sleeve back. ‘I really oughta get going. Don’t want to be late.’

‘Oh, no, no, don’t let me hold you up.’ Sally rubbed at my upper arm before reaching for her phone. ‘I tell you what. Let me get your number. We should catch up. There are so many of us old girls still around. They’d love to see you.’

‘Sure, of course, yes, that’d be great,’ I enthused. I could see that as a very fun way to spend the afternoon. Memories, a few drinks, and old friends. What could be better?

With little more than a nervous wave to see us off, we swapped numbers, promised each other we’d catch up soon and got on with our mornings. Me, with an extra spring in my step, and I suspect Sally had one, too. Her first text message came through just as I walked into the administration block at school.

‘Where’d you disappear to this morning?’ I rounded Penny’s desk and made a beeline for my pigeonhole. Already on autopilot, my brain was screaming at me for breakfast, if only I could get all my chores done first. ‘I came looking for you as I left, but you were already gone.’

‘Mission from God.’ She unrolled a coffee scroll like a snail, dangling it above her mouth. ‘Want some?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve got breakfast right here.’ I held my bag aloft. ‘Toast.’

‘Butter’s in the fridge in my pineapple tray!’ she called after me. I was already halfway to the staffroom.

With toast dripping with butter and coffee strong enough to perm my hair, I egg-and-spoon raced myself to my office, which was already lit up and waiting for me to jump into the day. My computer whirred away as I sank into my chair and took my first desperate bite of toast.

After the whirlwind that was yesterday, I don’t think I’d registered just how much of a mess my office was in. The best thing I could do for myself, I thought, was to clean and start at the top of the list. I was already behind thanks to a lack of PC access for most of yesterday, but with a list to work through, I pulled a chair up to my desk and began.

‘Let’s do this.’ I clapped and rubbed my hands together.

I didn’t look up again until I heard the first book being dropped through the returns chute. Those were the magic books that had been found during school holidays. They’d either been buried at the bottom of a backpack along with old permission slips and squashed sandwiches or hidden in the darkness under a bed. If I didn’t have to wipe mouldy banana from the insides of Dear Zoo again, I’d happily take whichever books were being offered this morning.

Like popcorn in a microwave, the closer we got to nine o’clock, the more books appeared. One at a time, and then all at once. Clap, clap, clap went the steel door on the returns chute, and I took that as my cue to get up and head outside for assembly.

Holiday exhausted children were filing into the grounds, uniforms freshly pressed and stain-free. Parents dawdled in behind them. Though they yawned through gossip, their eyes said they were secretly ecstatic that their bundles of joy were now someone else’s problem between the hours of nine and three-thirty, and that they could now enjoy their coffee while still hot.

‘Eleanor!’ Phil had appeared from the admin block, dragging a lectern along behind him like a dead body. He yanked at the cord trailing behind him, and the buzz from the public address system died. ‘What do you know about these damn things?’

What did I know about lecterns? I knew that I set them up about four times a week at the city library, in cases of public talks and author visits. Some people just loved to hear themselves speak, but my small collection of autographed books was proof that some people made sense when placed in front of a microphone.

‘We got this last term,’ he admitted. ‘At least I don’t look like Letterman delivering a monologue anymore.’

I grinned. Phil was far too nervy to ever be Letterman, but a boy could dream. I plugged in the power, swapped a cable over, and stood back as he tapped at the end of the microphone. The sound of tapping fingers echoed loudly. Success.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ his voice boomed across the school from a series of speakers dotted around buildings and grounds. Like the Pied Piper, more children raced into the quadrangle. Parents dotted themselves on seats around the edges, and teachers tried to herd their students, though it was quite like watching them try to herd cats.

I stood back on the sidelines and enjoyed the fact I didn’t have a designated class of my own.

‘Mr Blair, what did you do on your holidays?’ a voice came from behind me.

‘Well, they weren’t really holidays,’ Marcus explained. ‘I marked all of your assignments, got some new work ready for you, and then I worked for my friend Patrick.’

‘The builder?’ asked another. A small crowd of students had gathered around him, each of them eager for a sliver of his spotlight. It was a tiny push and pull, give and take of attention as they swarmed him like moths to a lamp, barely feet away from me. After yesterday, he could stay in his corner.

Marcus sat on a bench seat as his audience closed in, some of them jostling for the prime real estate of space either side of him.

‘That’s him,’ Marcus said. ‘Good memory.’

‘Did you take your dog for a walk?’ asked another.

‘Daisy went for plenty of walks down by the beach, which meant I had to wash sand out of her coat quite a bit, too.’

‘But she loves the beach.’

Marcus chuckled. ‘She does love the beach. She loves swimming while I run.’

‘Did you get pictures of her in the water?’

‘I got a few.’ Marcus was quiet for a moment. I didn’t dare look at him for fear of being drawn into the conversation. From the cooing that resulted, there were plenty of dog photos being passed around his students, who seemed to multiply in number with each new question that was asked. So did the mothers around him. ‘And that’s … yeah, that’s a house we were painting, just at the end of the main street … and, yep, that’s my mum making a cake.’

‘Did you get a girlfriend over the holidays?’

Marcus laughed. ‘They’re not like a bag of crisps. I can’t just go to the shop and pick one out.’

‘That would be easy,’ said a boy with sandy hair.

‘It would be,’ he agreed with a quick sniff. ‘But, no, I don’t have a girlfriend.’

‘What happened to Lady X?’

I snorted. If anyone was going to refer to his girlfriend as Lady X, it was going to be Marcus.

‘Lady X moved to Adelaide for work, so that’s the end of that.’

‘Very sad,’ chirped another voice. ‘You know, you really should get married, then she can’t move away. Unless she’s like my dad, but Mum says he’s an arse. You have enough suits to get married. You could wear this one, and she would think you’re pretty enough to not leave. And your mum can make the cake. My mum makes all my cakes.’

‘Good morning, Mr Blair,’ a mother chirped as she, and her crowd, began circling his general area.

‘Morning.’ He nodded politely amidst the teasing laughter of his class.

I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing and, despite myself, chanced a look at him. In classic black and white, he could very well have turned up to the church at recess and be married by the first ring of the bell. I was sure any number of the fan club now hovering about his area would line up for the honour.