“Ohh, fuck me.” I groan as I run a palm down my face, realising I texted our group chat instead of one with just Lee. Maybe Jem didn’t notice I asked about a woman. He has some weird radar when it comes to this shit. He plays the aloof jokester, but really, nothing gets past him. Especially when it comes to women.
JEREMY:
Wait, go back. New manager? Why u asking? She hot?
JEREMY:
No response. Interesting.
ME:
Fuck off. I’m driving.
JEREMY:
Then stop being a naughty boy and put your phone away.
ME:
FYI I was bringing beignets, but the third one has somehow gone missing…
I toss my phone on the passenger seat and start to pull away. When I look across the road again, I swear I can see the silhouette of a woman staring right back at me.But maybe my mind is playing tricks on me.Shake it off, West. She was just unexpected, that’s all.And beautiful. Intriguing.There’s no need to lose your head.
I won’t rush things ever again with a woman; slow and steady is my focus. Won’t get caught up in a whirlwind. Next time, it needs to be somethingreal.
3
“In conclusion, those are my reasons for exemption from participating in all future sporting events. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.”
I’m barely containing my laughter as I push an assortment of green vegetables around in the saucepan, having listened to Aurora’s shining example of why, though she is brilliant, she’s highly uncoordinated and embarrassed herself spectacularly during today’s gym class.
She’s just survived her first two days of high school, and yes,survivedis the proper term we’re using, according to her. She’s adamant she should be excused from physical activity, since her debut into hurdles resulted in clipping the first hurdle and making the whole line go down like dominoes, somehow managing to get the second hurdle attached to her gym shorts and finally folding herself like a lawn chair over the third one.
“It sounds like, in the interest of everyone’s safety, the teacher may ask you to sit out anyway, babe.”
Aurora shakes her head with conviction. “No! You should have seen the look in her eyes when she told me she’d have me running hurdles with my eyes closed by the end of the term. The woman needs hobbies. Honing my non-existent athletic abilities should not please her this much.”
A snort slips out as I push diced chicken off the chopping board and into our stir-fry. Aurora groans as she slinks back fromthe island bench and wanders into the lounge room, dropping onto the couch with an exaggerated sigh.
“Please, Mum. It happened in front of literally the whole school,” she calls out.
“I think the whole school is a bit of a stretch,” I say as I measure out two servings of rice.
“Okay, the whole class. But by the end of the day, the entire year heard about it. Some of the guys started calling me ‘hurdles’.”
I can’t help the bark of laughter. No one tells you how hard it is to stay in parent-mode when your kids do hilarious shit. Like when they’re four years old and innocently drop their first F bomb. You’re meant to remain stern and unimpressed when you calmly remind them that those words are adult words. Not laugh when you end up side by side at the traffic lights with the fucking dickhead who cut you off moments earlier, and your daughter decides to wind down her window and tell him just that.
“Sorry, Superstar. High school embarrassment is a rite of passage. Barely any of us manage to avoid it.”
Aurora pouts as she leans forward, collecting her crochet supplies off the coffee table. I smile as I continue making dinner while glancing at my daughter as she easily moves the needles through the yarn of her next creation. I think we’re into sea creatures this month. I surely defied some laws of reason in raising someone so polite, mature, and creative, considering her only source of inspiration was me.
“Liv said she’s happy for you to come over again this Friday while I’m working if you want?”
I work Monday through Saturday at Parlour Tricks—with Wednesdays off—which is my main source of income. But Friday and Saturday nights are my shifts at The Matchbox, where I dance. I’ve been at this club for almost two months, and dancing for eight years. Even though I don’t need the extra money I earn there, they pay me in cash. After years of running, you never know when you need to drop everything and run again. Moreimportantly, dancing makes me feel free, beautiful and confident and that was something I chased growing up just as much as safety.
When Aurora and I first started over, Royal managed to get me jobs in motels and servos doing overnight shifts, where the owners didn’t mind if I had a toddler who slept in the back office for the night. It was by chance that he sent the wrong information to me one day, meant to go to someone else, that led me to the office of an older woman with auburn hair in big Hollywood curls and a voluptuous figure that was the envy of every ambitious pinup model. She realised the mix-up but made me stay and talk to her anyway.
After that, I realised the tips were way better, and some of the other dancers had similar stories to mine. Runaways. Single guardians. Women chasing a dream or digging themselves out of a ditch.
