Girl in Between Read online

  ‘Sorry I’m not being very social. My hangover’s really kicking in now,’ I say rolling over to face Oscar and finding I’m unable to tear my gaze away from the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Thank God he’s asleep!

  I close my eyes too, and replace any inappropriate thoughts about this dozing Adonis with the squawk of swirling seagulls, and the laughter of Rosie and Ben drifting from the sea to our bodies on the beach.

  The sound of Roomba whirring down the hallway wakes me up at eight the next morning. I suspect Mum’s setting her off near my room on purpose. And it’s working; I get out of bed and dress.

  Sitting at the kitchen table after breakfast I take a deep breath and search on my mobile for Henry Billing’s practice, Pets and Vets. One of my pitches for a story on country vets has been picked up by R.M. Williams’ Outback magazine, and I’ve also decided it’s time to seriously consider alternative career paths. I’d tossed up doing vet science after finishing school, and if Oscar’s girlfriend Kate went back to uni, why couldn’t I?

  I dial the number for the practice and Henry picks up immediately.

  ‘Pets and Vets, Henry Billing speaking,’ he says brusquely, sounding like my dad.

  ‘Hi, Henry, it’s Lucy Crighton here. How are you going?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Um, I’m Brian Crighton’s daughter. We met a while back when Ruth was holding that disco at the—’

  ‘At the car wash! That’s right. Gee, that was a wild bloody night!’

  ‘Yeah, I never saw that slip ’n’ slide coming,’ I say. ‘Anyway, I’m actually in Rocky for a bit and I wondered if you’d mind—’

  ‘Well, we’re booked out for today, but it’s a kelpie you’ve got, isn’t it? What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘Her—but there’s nothing wrong with Glenda. Um, there’s actually something wrong with me.’

  ‘With you? Well, you need a doctor, mate. You called the wrong surgery. Your dad’d have the number for Ken Saunders.’

  ‘Sorry, Henry,’ I say. ‘I’m not explaining myself very well. I want to write a feel-good story about country vets for a magazine, and I also wouldn’t mind doing some work experience.’

  ‘Work experience?’ he asks, incredulous. ‘Why?’

  This is suddenly becoming excruciating. ‘Um, well, in the back of my mind, I’ve always thought that I’d be a good vet, and I figure there’s only one way to find out for sure.’

  He sighs down the phone. ‘Okay, Lucy. Come down this morning then. We’ve got a fair bit going on, so it’ll be good for you to have a gander.’

  ‘Okay, great! Thanks, Henry.’

  I end the call, chuckling to myself.

  ‘What are you giggling away at, Lucy?’ asks Mum, walking into the kitchen and repositioning Roomba under the table.

  ‘Oh, I just had the silliest conversation with Henry Billing,’ I say, raising my voice over the cacophonous vacuum cleaner.

  ‘Henry Billing?’ Mum shouts. ‘From Pets and Vets?’ Her forehead creases in concern. ‘Is something wrong with Glenda?’

  ‘No, Mum! I’m just going there to research a story and see what a vet does. I just want to have a look!’

  ‘You think she could be crook?’ she asks.

  I crawl under the table and turn off Roomba. As I glance around, I’m struck by a powerful sense of nostalgia. I remember Rosie and I sitting under this table with my brothers when we were little, eating Le Snacks by torchlight, thinking we were super cool to be hanging out with the big boys. Even now, being under the kitchen table feels like I’m in a cosy cubbyhouse, and so I decide to sit back on my heels, and stay there.

  Mum has turned on the taps and is clanging some dishes around. ‘What did you say’s wrong with Glenda?’ she asks.

  ‘Nothing, Ma. I’m going to Pets and Vets to do a story and I thought I’d combine it with some work experience.’

  The silence is deafening.

  Finally, Mum says, ‘Work experience? Lucy, I think it’s real work that you need. Just money coming in.’

  I look down at the floor.

  ‘Don’t you want to stand on your own two feet?’ she asks, exasperated.

  ‘My feet are tired!’ I yell.

  I hear Dad’s heavy boots on the lino.

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  ‘Nothing, Brian, nothing,’ says Mum furiously, splashing water about.

  ‘Where’s Lucy?’

  ‘Under the table.’

  ‘Under the table?!’ exclaims Dad.

  I crawl out from my refuge, then stand and walk quickly out of the kitchen, grabbing my keys on the way.

  ‘I’ll see youse later!’ I yell, closing the door.

  ‘You’re Brian’s daughter?’ says Karen, one of the senior vets at Pets and Vets, squinting at me through her glasses as she scrubs in to operate on a German shepherd.

  ‘Yep.’ I smile at her.

  ‘You were on that show, weren’t you? The …’

  ‘The Headline Act. Yeah, I was.’

  Karen raises her eyebrows. ‘What on earth are you doing here then?’ she laughs.

  ‘Well,’ I reply sheepishly, ‘I’m thinking about a career change and thought I’d see what being a vet’s all about.’

  ‘How old are you?’ asks Karen, making an incision in the dog’s stomach.

  ‘Thirty-two.’

  ‘Mmm.’ She glances at me quickly. ‘Don’t do vet science now—not at your age. It’s too long a haul. Five plus years of intense study.’

  I feel my heart sink—not because Karen’s extinguished my overnight flame of becoming a vet, but because the reality hits me again that at thirty-two I mightn’t have many options.

  After watching the shepherd have her tubes tied and a boxer have his spleen removed, I jot down a few notes for my story, thank Karen and walk from the surgery into reception, where I almost butt heads with Henry.

  ‘Hello, hello,’ he says. He’s carrying a kitten in one hand. ‘How did it go with Karen? Get everything you needed for your article?’

  ‘Yeah, Karen’s amazing. She was brilliant to watch.’

  Henry nods. ‘Very experienced,’ he says.

  ‘It’s been fascinating.’

  ‘Well, it’s a good job. Particularly if you’ve got young kids at home. The hours are flexible and the pay’s pretty decent.’

  ‘Yeah, I think it’d be a great job,’ I say.

  ‘Well, feel free to come down again. Sorry, I’m flat out today. Got to get this one desexed.’ He holds up the kitten, then walks past me into the surgery.

  On the drive home, I contemplate my morning.

  Why did I just do that, really? I ask myself. Why am I continually looking for something else? Why do I think the grass will always be greener? Why can’t I just commit to one path and stick to it?

  As I near my old high school, I spot Mr Banks, my English teacher from grade twelve, crossing the road. I remember how he used to stand proudly at the back of the halls and classrooms when I competed in the interschool debating and public speaking competitions, and how cutting his words could be when he’d hand back a written assessment piece and tell me that, even though I’d topped the class, I could have done better.

  He always pushed me to try harder and knew what I was capable of achieving. I remember him telling me, before I graduated, that I would go far. I wonder what he’d say to me now. I wonder if he’d tell me that I was coasting, and that I could do better. I wonder if I’ve let him and that seventeen-year-old Lucy down. I watch him until the car behind me beeps and I move off.

  As I drive along, I think about how I’ll structure the article about the vet practice. Maybe I could write an article for one of the newspaper careers sections about people in their thirties who feel stuck and the value of work experience, I muse. Maybe it’s not too late to show Mr Banks that I haven’t given up on myself.

  Without being consciously aware that I was heading there, I find myself outside the unit where my grandma used to live.
She had such a wicked sense of humour. She was my hero. I stare across at the windows of her old bedroom, now home to a new resident. In my memory, I walk slowly behind her as she shuffles on her wheelie walker from her front door into her living room. We both sit on the couch and I remove her glasses and wipe the lenses clean on my t-shirt. She declares, ‘That’s much better,’ and I rest my head on her shoulder as the Sunday afternoon sun shines softly through the curtains. She always told me there was nothing so lonely as a Sunday afternoon.

  I blink the tears from my eyes and start the car. I’d give anything to be sitting back on that sunlit couch beside my grandma.

  When I nose into Mum and Dad’s driveway, Glenda paws at the gate in excitement.

  ‘Hello to you too! Aren’t you a good girl? Oh, you’re the best girl, Glenda!’ I scratch under her jaw as she stares up at me. She doesn’t care if she becomes a vet, or stays in journalism, or lives in Rocky, or writes a book; she’s just happy to be with me and eat chicken necks. I lower my face to her snout and kiss her between the eyes.

  At that moment, Dad walks through the gate, returning from the Jockey Club, no doubt. ‘You shouldn’t have your face that close to the dog, love,’ he says. ‘It’s unhealthy.’

  I kiss Glenda again. ‘We don’t care what he says. We’re good friends, you and me.’

  I follow Dad inside and find Rosie on the couch, nursing a bucket of KFC.

  ‘Rosie!’ I smile. ‘What are you—?’

  She shakes her head. ‘First of all, where have you been?’

  ‘At the vet’s, doing work experience.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ says Dad, walking backwards from the kitchen. ‘Are they very busy there, Lucy?’

  ‘Really busy. I saw a German shepherd get her tubes tied.’

  ‘Did you have a chat to Henry? How did he seem to you?’

  ‘Yeah, I had a quick chat to Henry. He was good.’

  ‘So, what do you think about it all?’

  ‘Nah,’ I say, sitting down next to Rosie. ‘Probably not for me.’

  Dad sighs heavily and walks back into the kitchen.

  Rosie crosses her arms. ‘Trent the Tradie called it off!’

  ‘Oh shit, why?’

  ‘He said he wants something long term. He wants to be in a committed relationship.’

  ‘I thought he was just as keen as you were for part-time!’

  ‘I know, so I said, “Well, how about I add in a Tuesday?” and he said, “This isn’t how it’s meant to happen, it should just happen organically. It shouldn’t be a structured thing, and if it was going to happen, it would have happened by now, and we’re just fooling ourselves.”’

  ‘Oh shit,’ I repeat. ‘Well, that sucks. It sounds like he wasn’t giving you a chance, that he didn’t really want something bigger with you.’ I look down at the coffee table. ‘But did you want something bigger with him, Rosie?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. Chook?’ She holds the bucket out.

  ‘No, I couldn’t eat a thing after seeing that dog opened up.’

  She nods her head and chews on a wing.

  Doing her rounds with the Aura Cleaner spray, Mum finds us grim and silent on the couch. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, girls! What’s wrong now?’

  She sits down between us and I relay Rosie’s news. Mum quietly takes it in.

  ‘Oh well,’ she says eventually, ‘it sounds like it just wasn’t meant to be. It wasn’t anyone’s fault; it just wasn’t right.’

  ‘Yeah, but he could have told her earlier,’ I say defensively.

  ‘That’s true, Lucy, but who knows what anyone’s thinking? Whenever I talked to you about it, Rosie, you told me how it was all a bit of fun and you didn’t know if you could see a future with him. He obviously wanted more.’

  ‘But maybe I wanted more as well, and now it’s too late. I should have added in the Tuesdays and Thursdays. He’s probably got someone else in mind now. I’m going to be sitting on this couch when I’m eighty-five.’

  ‘Well, it is a comfy couch,’ I point out, smiling weakly.

  ‘You girls,’ sighs Mum. ‘You’re as bad as each other. What are you both looking for? What do you expect? Why do you have these unrealistic fairy tales of the dream man and the dream job and the dream life? They don’t exist!’

  Now my eyes are welling.

  ‘They just don’t,’ says Mum, looking from Rosie to me. ‘But you have to choose something and make it work, or you’ll end up choosing nothing—or, worse, you’ll end up choosing this!’ She gestures to the lounge room. ‘Do you girls want to be sitting here, with old farty Brian coming and going from the Jockey Club, and me doing jazz aerobics, when you both could be out there, enjoying life and meeting people?’

  We examine our laps in silence.

  ‘It’s times like these,’ continues Mum, ‘that I ask myself, “What would Cher say?”’

  I begin to smile. As soon as Mum mentions Cher I can’t take her seriously anymore, and I know if I look at Rosie I’ll laugh.

  ‘“Are you strong enough?” That’s what Cher says,’ Mum tells us.

  ‘I thought it was, “Are you brave enough?”’ says Rosie.

  ‘I thought it was, “Do you shave enough?”’ I giggle.

  ‘Oh, you two are impossible,’ says Mum crossly, getting up. ‘That’s the last time I try to talk any sense to you. You’re incorrigible.’

  We’re both giggling now, and Rosie stretches her arms above her head. ‘I feel a lot better actually,’ she says brightly.

  ‘Me too,’ I agree. ‘Ah, don’t worry about Trent, you always had doubts about him.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Rosie, ‘he wasn’t the one. I think deep down I knew that, but I just couldn’t face the effort of meeting someone new.’ She pauses. ‘And I’ll miss him as a handyman.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I think he just hit on a few raw commitment nerves.’

  We sit in silence until Rosie pushes the bucket of chicken across the coffee table. ‘There’s a reason I only get KFC when I’m a bit down … it’s disgusting. Luce, how long do people feel like this for?’

  ‘If you’re a guy, six months. If you’re a girl, six years.’

  ‘Six years!’ she exclaims. ‘Fuck, I can’t eat that much fried chicken.’

  ‘Do you think we should get some hobbies, Rosie?’

  ‘What, like play chess or something?’

  ‘Maybe—or gardening, or learning a language or the ukulele?’

  ‘What’s got into you?’

  ‘I don’t know … I just wonder if I’m boring.’

  ‘You read too much, that’s your problem, Lucy. You read those Monthly magazines, and MiNDFOOD, and ‘Body and Soul’ lift-outs, and you see all those fabulous people doing amazing things and it makes you feel inadequate.’

  ‘Well, I’m not entirely sure that’s it. I do read a lot, but—’

  I’m interrupted by a knock at the door.

  ‘I’m not getting that,’ says Rosie.

  I smile at her and walk to the front door, where I find myself face to face with Oscar. He grins at me just as his mobile begins to ring. ‘Sorry,’ he says, looking down at the screen. ‘I have to get this.’

  ‘No worries,’ I reply, opening the door. ‘Just come on through when you want.’

  As I walk back inside I hear him say, ‘Hi, Cynthia. What’s the latest on the pasta salad?’

  ‘Who was it?’ asks Rosie as I flop down beside her.

  ‘Oscar.’ I’m careful not to catch her eye.

  ‘Wonder why he’d be coming round,’ she says breezily.

  ‘Don’t know,’ I reply, picking up the TV guide. ‘He probably wants to talk shop with Dad.’ I flick through the pages uninterestedly before a glossy photo causes me to stop and stare.

  ‘Check it out, Rosie.’ I flip the magazine around to reveal a double-page spread of Tiffany Bloxsom leaning from a food truck, spilling out of her low-cut apron as she ladles sauerkraut onto a Germa
n sausage. MEALS IN WHEELS DELIVERS SWEET RATINGS FOR TIFFANY BLOXSOM! hollers the headline.

  Rosie glances at it. ‘No respect.’

  ‘Hi, Rosie,’ Oscar says, walking into the lounge room.

  ‘How are you going?’

  ‘Good. Hey, I wondered if you both might like to come fishing this afternoon? Kate has a group assignment due so she had to cancel her trip. I’m flying back to Sydney tomorrow and thought I at least needed to chuck a line in before I left.’

  ‘Oh cool, where are you thinking of going?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, I thought I might just head to the Fitzroy; I heard there’s barra.’

  ‘True, but you might need a boat. Sometimes there’s crocs on the banks of the Fitzroy.’

  ‘Really?!’

  ‘Uh-huh, but we could go to the farm, if you like. You know the beach we went to yesterday? You can just stand in the sea and catch decent whiting and bream.’

  ‘Well, that sounds a lot better than my plan. Does your dad want to come?’

  ‘I’ll ask him,’ I say. I stand up and go to the door of the lounge room. ‘Dad!’ I yell.

  ‘What?’ he bellows from the back of the house.

  ‘Do you want to come fishing at the farm?’

  ‘No, I’ve got a board meeting with the Jockey Club—but if you do go, make sure you shut all the gates.’

  ‘Alright.’ I sit down. ‘He’s not coming. What about Ben?’

  ‘Ah, Ben’s gone back to Sydney early. Left this morning.’

  I glance at Rosie. She crosses her arms. ‘Look, I apologised to him for yesterday. I don’t know what came over me, but I thought we made peace playing Marco Polo.’

  ‘Oh, I think you did, don’t worry about that, Rosie,’ Oscar assures her. ‘He had to go back for work.’

  ‘Do you want some chicken, Oscar?’ Rosie asks.