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“Mum.” I scrubbed my face.
“You’re wasting your life in that van.”
“I’m not wasting my life! I’m finding out what I want to do with it.”
“Beauty therapy in a country town with your hair stylist mother is a respectable career choice.”
Everyone was interfering with my life choices. “I have my own ideas of what I want to do.”
“Oh? And what are these ideas, Ari? Because all I’ve heard is you’ve got ideas, not what they are.”
“I … just …” I wasn’t ready. Not just yet. “I can’t tell you right now.”
“Well. Maybe wearejust trying to help.” Mum huffed. “What’s so wrong about that? Especially as you haven’t shared with your mother what you want to do.”
I took a deep breath. Maybe Jet was helping, not interfering. And even Mum, in her perverse kind of way?
Wes had undermined and discouraged me from doing different things with my life and always steered me to do the things that helped his career.
Could I tell the difference between helping and interfering?
“I just … I like the idea of …”
“Yes?” I could hear Mum’s false nails clacking on the salon counter, waiting for me to speak. “You’re almost there. Spit it out.”
“Kids.” Mum made a garbled noise, and I laughed. “I’m not pregnant, too, Mum. I meant I’d like to work with kids. Like, I dunno. Childcare. Or … teaching.”
“Teaching?” Her nails stopped. “Like going to university?”
I waited for Mum to say more but silence filled the conversation.
“Yeah, teaching,” I said, giving into the void. “I saw an ad for a nanny on a cattle station, and I applied and got it and start tomorrow. It’s four weeks, maybe as long as six, so the regular nanny can have a holiday, and I’m going to try it and see if I like it. I know it’s not a classroom or childcare centre or anything, but I’d be helping the kids with some schoolwork at the end of the contract and doing activities with them. If I don’t like thiskind of work with three kids, I figure I won’t like it with twenty-five in a classroom.”
I sucked in air, feeling giddy for finally admitting to my mother my fresh and new career interest.
“I think you’d be a great teacher, Ariane.” Mum’s voice was almost a whisper.
“Really?”
“You always had a talent with children. And you’re a smart girl. You can do more than pull beers and paint faces at fetes.” I could imagine Mum holding up a pointed finger in the air, commanding my silence from afar. “Notthat anything is wrong with that, but you have more to offer in the world.”
I sobbed, gulping air, and covered it up pretending to cough. Wes told me once I wasn’t smart enough to get into uni. No one in our family had gone to university. Somehow, that had got under my skin as something I couldn’t do. Would never do.
To have someone say I’d be good at something was a huge relief and overwhelming.
“Your road trip got me thinking about how I ran off to Darwin as soon as Ash finished school and you settled in Sydney. I just had to get away from the town that still asked after my ex-husband, even though it had been years since he’d stepped foot into our house and lives. And I’m glad I sold up the salon in Darwin and came back. Because I came back as Debra, not some man’s wife.”
“I walked past it last week. Recognised the shop front from the photos you sent. Salon has a new name, though.”
“Good for them. My business is doing very well here, too. Especially when I find a beauty therapist. Doing country wedding packages is what clients want. I had Rosie Zanetti in here the other day. The Zanettis have big plans for that winery of theirs. And I’ve heard rumours the Turners next door are goingto get into tourism and events, too. And we’ll be ready with our wedding packages for hair and make-up.”
Mum sounded so happy, so excited for her future.
“Ari, I ran to Darwin to find myself. Much like how you were driving off into the sunset away from Wes.”
“I wasn’t driving away from Wes, I was getting away from make-up and the salon. I needed space to figure out who I was if I wasn’t in film and TV holding a make-up brush.”
“And have you found that answer yet?”
