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Georgia turned in a circle, knocking her hip on the edge of a tallboy dresser and didn’t care that it nipped and would bruise. She was dancing and no one could tell her she looked like an idiot and moved like a zombie on human meat ‘roids. She was dancing, in her own place, halfway around the world from Hamish and his new lover, Eugenia, and the grey, hesitant existence she’d lived since she’d married him for all the wrong reasons.
The song changed and she was just getting warmed up. She worked a shimmy into her shoulders. Did anyone shimmy anymore? Who cares? She did. In her own flat, where no one could see her, she shimmied and sidestepped and bopped her head, got a little tush action going and knocked over a box of new linen. If she kept this up she might need to strip off, dance barefoot in her mismatched Marks and Spencer’s underwear because she wasn’t scared and awkward, she was young still, and hot and desirable, about to set the local recording scene on fire with her stunning command of sliders, her dab hand at sequencing and her perfection with pre- and post-production.
Dancing made you sweaty. She should’ve remembered that. It made you a little light-headed and giggly. She pulled her t-shirt over her head and did the twist in her beige bra and her vintage 501s, using the shirt as a makeshift boa around her neck. Dancing made your breath come short and your chest hurt. That was peculiar. Was that normal? It made you feel a little panicked and burned your eyelids. But she was absolutely not crying, so it had to be the dust she was kicking up irritating her eyes, making water course down her face and drip off her chin, like it had that night in front of Hamish as she’d packed a bag and left him.
He’d done all the talking. She’d said nothing after all of it, the youthful love, the horror and blame, the stupidly hopeful bedside wedding and the years of trying to make something good from the disaster of feeling responsible.
She wiped her face on her t-shirt and closed her eyes. It wasn’t the loss of innocence and love that hurt. Hamish had cherished his mastery of her guilt more than he’d ever loved her and she’d been the one dumb enough to let him manipulate her into staying in the relationship so long. What hurt, struck the knockout blow, like walking into a glass wall you didn’t see, was the years she’d lost to putting his needs exclusively above her own.
So she danced in a whirl of flailing arms and jerky gyrations to crappy audio, in her cheap flat, surrounded by newly purchased credit card debt, while she sobbed for all the decisions she’d made that led her here, and resolved that everything in her personal life that came after this maddened prancing would be about independence, caring less and standing clear of being needed so she could learn who Georgia Fairweather was when she wasn’t the one to blame.
3: Lucky
Sometime between the rehearsal and the gig the jet lag really kicked in—hard. He thought going to the gym might stave it off, but now Damon felt all fifteen and a half travel hours, and the impact of the dateline in the heaviness of his limbs and how much worse than normal he played pool. And he normally played like it was chess, which is to say the only way he could win was to employ a strategy where he totally screwed with the other guy by making him fudge shots.
Character voices were great for that. He’d wait till the other guy was lined up then give him a blast of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jack Nicholson. Al Pacino also worked a treat to put a guy off his shot, and so did Buzz Lightyear.
But Jamie was immune to all that, so he’d tried Captain Vox, but that didn’t work either because he hadn’t created a voice for Vox. He was Vox.
He managed a decent break, but after that Jamie chased him all over the table; he might as well have been playing by himself. They both cracked up the fourth time Damon air swiped the cue ball, but Jamie, being Jamie, never said a word; he passed more chalk, as if that was going to make it easier to align white, red, pocket with more than fluke on his side.
The pepper steak and jacket potato with sour cream topping Angus put in front of him before they went on made a difference. All that protein woke his system up and the carbs refreshed him, but he still felt like he was sleepwalking.
“You okay?” Taylor. She massaged the back of his neck.
“Feel trashed. Worse than usual.” He moved his head side to side as her fingers found sore spots. Now that he’d vocalised it, he did feel like shit warmed up. The coming home jet lag was usually worse than the fly out version, but he was a master at managing it after so many years moving between Sydney and LA, New York or London. The Dystopian Outlaw movie read had been quick and intense, but the game had needed long hours over months; he was either more exhausted than he’d thought or he had picked up a bug. His throat felt tight and his eyes were gritty and wouldn’t stop watering. Maybe he was coming down with something.
Taylor’s hand went to his forehead. “You’re not hot.” He grinned; Umbria Starstarter thought he was molten lava. Taylor pinched his cheek. “Did you get any action this trip?”
He pushed his plate away and turned on the stool to face her. “Why would I answer that?” The bar had filled up in the time he’d taken to eat. There was a low-level buzz of chatter, the occasional shriek of laughter. He had to go get changed in a minute if he was going to bother. He could go on in his jeans, but bloody Sam had stretched the neck of his t, and Taylor had changed so he should make the effort.
She put her hand over his where it lay on the bar. “I think you’re lonely.”
He flipped his hand and clasped hers briefly before putting it back on the bar top. “Christ, where’s that coming from?”
“Just a thought.”
Just a thought that was going to make it harder to get her to accept the idea of moving in with him. It’d virtually convince her she was right if he asked now. “Umbria wanted me.”
“They all want you.” Taylor’s voice was all it’s hard to believe but true. “Was she as sexy as she sounds?”
“We only did two sessions in the studio together.” Umbria had wanted to go all method on his Captain Vox ass, ten minutes after they were introduced. “She was interesting.”
“Is that code for old, fat and
ugly?”
He laughed. “She was one of those instant clingy ones.”
Taylor put a glass of water in his hand. “Oh, you hate that.”
He shivered. It was an occupational hazard and he did hate it. “The only one allowed to cling to me is you, Tay.”
“But one day you’re going to want someone else to cling to you.”
He sipped the water and the ice in it made him cough. “Meanwhile I’ll stick to the non-cling variety.” By which they both knew he meant women happy to sign up for a good time, not a long time. He held out his hand and she took it. “I need to change.”
She went with him behind the bar and into the room they used as a green room. Sam and Jamie were already there. Still short-staffed, Angus stayed behind the bar pouring beers.
