About the Author

BELINDA MISSEN is a reader, author, and sometimes blogger. When she’s not busy writing or reading, she can be found travelling the Great Ocean Road and beyond looking for inspiration. She lives with her husband, cats, and collection of books in regional Victoria, Australia.

Lessons in Love
BELINDA MISSEN

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright © Belinda Missen 2019

Belinda Missen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008330897

E-book Edition © 2019 ISBN: 9780008296919

Version: 2019-05-17

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Acknowledgements

Extract

Dear Reader …

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

Erin & Michael

Thanks for the laughs

Chapter 1

If Queen Elizabeth were to narrate my last year, there’s every chance she’d call it my annus horribilis.

While my castle hadn’t exactly burned to the ground, I had lost my job. There was also the tiny detail of my marriage falling apart. And by that, I mean my husband tripped and fell into my best friend, which meant she was also out of the picture. So was the mutual friend who was acting as sentry for their rendezvous. If only all love affairs came with a lookout, I may not have ended up here in the first place.

My dad had taken off on a European backpacking sabbatical, which had evolved into a spiritual hike of the Camino de Santiago. All of this without his girlfriend, who was less spiritual and more surgical. When her first reaction to his holiday plans had been, ‘Over my dead body’, his response was, ‘Tupperware forever’. She called time on their romance very shortly after that. As for Mum, well she hadn’t changed. She was still living it up in Sydney with her yachting weekends and Pantone apricot orange-coloured husband, Barry.

There was light at the end of the tunnel though and, by some miracle, it wasn’t an oncoming G-class diesel locomotive. It was a job. At home.

I was moving home.

Well, not technically home, per se, but within a few hundred feet of said residence. Despite his continual offers, I wasn’t prepared to move in with Dad, his pumpernickel bread, health supplements, or yoga retreats. I hoped that, one day soon, the Great Penis Drought would end, and that I’d get to bring a man home for a little health retreat of my own. There was little to no chance that I wanted to try and sneak a boy down a darkened hallway like a teenager, lest I get stuck for a lecture on contraception. No, Dad, it’s not just like putting a condom on a torch, no matter how illuminating the penis may be.

Instead, I was moving in with my cousin Penny and, for that, I was ecstatic. I honestly was. She was more a sister than a cousin and had been the first to call when she’d found out about the shit hitting the wildly spinning marriage fan. Live with me, she’d said. Pack it all in and get back to the beach.

While her offer had been tempting, I’d managed to resist for nine months. I was hellbent on the notion of proving to all and sundry, and then some, that I was perfectly capable of surviving without my husband, his bank account, or morbidly obese property portfolio.

During that time, I lived in a sixth-floor apartment in the centre of Melbourne with two other couples and a vertigo-riddled cat. Fast-forward to August, when I was made redundant from my job in the city library, and the decision to move home suddenly became a lot easier, and somewhat necessary, especially if I didn’t want to end up paying the landlord in that special nudge-nudge, wink-wink kind of way he initially suggested when I was twenty dollars short for rent one week.

When I was first married, I was the library teacher in a school of more than one thousand students. I eventually swapped that for the glamour of a public library, author speaking events, and working in the repairs room. Now, I was trading it all in again, leaving the bustling high-rise library for Apollo Bay Primary School, tucked neatly into Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. Not only was it my childhood school, it also had a much smaller library with one floor, and only a nth of the books I was otherwise used to. The fact Penny worked there as the receptionist was a welcome bonus.

The job application process began within minutes of receiving my redundancy slip and had been relatively painless. Several interviews and background checks later, I got the phone call I’d been waiting for – I wasn’t a criminal! Also, I’d been offered the job. There’d be less books, less people, less drama; all the things I’d been hoping for. I was also looking forward to being closer to family again, catching up like old times over a pot of tea, a back fence, or a passive-aggressive social media post.

It didn’t matter that I was leaving my so-called life behind. Most of my friendship circle had disappeared in the great marital purge, so I didn’t feel bad leaving any of that. Those who had clung to my friends list had either told me that moving was a bad idea or supplied a constant stream of unhelpful gossip. They said I was running away with my tail between my legs and admitting defeat. It was throwing the toys out of the pram.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I respectfully disagree.

Everything was going to be just fine. Mired in paperwork, I’d had addresses changed, mail rerouted, and I’d done the big social media call-out announcing my new address to the select few who might one day need it. Not that I was holding my breath – anything outside the City Circle tram route seemed a little too over the hills and far away for most of them. When everything was done, and all my bills were squared off, I began the drive home.

Now, as I sat in my car outside Penny’s house, all that was left to do was get on inside, unpack, and make it through my first day at my new job. By six o’clock tomorrow night, I’d either be celebrating with a glass of fizz, or re-evaluating my life choices.

Currently, that life was crammed into a few boxes in the boot of my car. There wasn’t a lot to show for ten years of marriage. All I had left were some clothes and shoes, and not even my best ones, a few precious books, and some bric-a-brac. The divorce hadn’t yet been finalised. In fact, it hadn’t even been filed, but leaving a marriage was no different to fleeing a burning building – I took the important stuff and made a run for it before the roof caved in.

I curled my fingers around the black leather steering wheel of my Audi convertible and looked up at the split-level unit. For a moment, everything was peaceful. With the top closed and window cracked, I could hear the crash of the ocean at the end of the street, the low thud of bass from a party a few houses over, and the static of my car’s radio station – no longer in range after three hours winding around the Victorian coastline. It was perfectly calm. I wound the window down a smidge further and let the sea breeze wash over me.

When my car door closed with a pop, the front door of Penny’s apartment flew open. She bounced down the stairs, past the lone palm tree decorated with twinkle lights, and a ‘Santa Stop Here’ sign that still hadn’t been removed from Christmas and had faded almost beyond recognition.

Twelve months younger than my thirty-six years and stylishly soft around the edges, she had deep-set brown eyes that were Disney large, a button nose, and a Milky Way of freckles across a lightly made up face. Her dark brown hair was pulled up in a messy but subtly styled ponytail. Today, she accessorised with a smile brighter than the Las Vegas strip.

‘Ellie!’ she squeaked.

‘Hello.’ I lumbered towards her, shaking out the hours spent in the driver’s seat.

‘Finally! I’m so excited!’ She threw her arms around my neck and I sank into her hug. There was no competition: she gave the best hugs in the world – and she never let go first. I could definitely get used to this kind of reception. ‘Not about the whole divorce thing, that’s very uncool and incredibly sad but, yay, housemates!’

‘I’m sorry I’m so late.’ I pouted. ‘Brunch ran on a little long.’

Penny dismissed my concerns like someone clears the air of an offending fart, with a quick waft of her hand and a curled top lip. ‘It’s fine, seriously, gave me time to clean your room, make it look like I wasn’t inviting Walter White for tea and powdered sugar. Oh, and I’ve grabbed some things for dinner.’

And here I was prepared to murder what was left of my credit card balance in favour of the local Thai takeaway. ‘Fantastic!’ I pipped, feeling the knot between my shoulders begin to unravel, glad to finally be here. ‘Gosh, it’s good to see you.’

‘You, too.’ She rubbed my upper arm. ‘Come on, let’s get you settled in.’

The boot of my car looked like the outtake from a Macklemore video, a jumble of clothes tossed on top of my belongings and wrapped around delicates. T-shirts threatened to twist themselves into knots befitting skeins of wool if not moved soon. I hooked an arm underneath what I could carry and trounced up the creaking stairs behind Penny.

As I crossed the threshold of my new life, it became apparent that my cousin lived inside a disused set of an Elvis film. In the corner of the living room, right behind a beanbag, was a fake palm tree doused in more drip lights. A ukulele rainbow lined the wall, and hula girls were dotted about the room, along with tikis and all things pineapple. One sniff, and you could almost smell the piña coladas and that coconut scented suntan oil everyone used in the early Nineties. Even the white dress she was wearing had multicoloured cocktail umbrella motifs dotted about the hemline. Then again, I was surprised it wasn’t a grass skirt.

Penny gestured to the first door on the right. ‘Okay, so you get the room at the front of the house. I don’t know why, but I just picked the other one when I first moved in.’ She tapped at her chin. ‘That’s right. If I squint, stand on my tiptoes, and stick my head out of the window and catch the breeze on my tongue, I can totally see the beach. The good news is, you get a bonus ceiling fan.’

Despite her assertions, my room didn’t seem to be the pick of the bunch. It was different shades of cream, beige, white, off-white and ivory, and I was sure a sauna crammed with sumo wrestlers had more airflow. I tossed my pile of clothes in the direction of the bed, and the breeze it created was officially the only one in the room. The window, trimmed with gloss white plantation shutters, opened with a tired yawn.

A salty sea breeze rushed into the room. After a morning spent driving the winding roads from Melbourne, the crash of waves and brackish sea air mixed to create a soothing balsam. It was quickly turning me from Ursula the Sea Witch to Ariel the Little Mermaid, but without the fantastic hair, banging bod, dingle-hopper, or seashell bra.

‘Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay here?’ I turned to face Penny, whose brows were raised, and lips pursed. ‘The landlord said it was fine?’

‘The slumlord was no problem at all.’ She bounced on her feet. ‘In fact, he only raised the total rent by one hundred dollars a week. He’s good like that.’

‘Slumlord?’ I narrowed my eyes. ‘Really?’

‘He hates it when I call him that.’ A facetious smile took hold. ‘It’s fine, I promise. I sorted the lease with him last week over a pot of tea and fruitcake.’

If you spent ten minutes listening to Penny talk about Patrick, you’d think she was describing a recently beatified saint of the rental world. He wasn’t greedy and kept rent to the lower end of the scale, he let her hang pictures, kept out of her hair, mowed the lawns, helped the local junior football team, and donated his business time and energy to charitable projects, all while running his own construction company. As if that wasn’t enough, this place was modern and clean, and had a soft homely charm about it. I felt at ease already – I loved it!

‘Now, what do you want to do first?’ she said. ‘Unpack? Drink? Do you need something to eat?’

‘No, hell no.’ I patted a full stomach. ‘Brunch was epic: bacon, eggs, black pudding—’

Penny gestured with her fingers down her throat. ‘You’re so gross.’

‘It was lovely,’ I pressed. ‘Seriously, you don’t know what you’re missing out on. Crusty sourdough toast, farm fresh butter, tomatoes, spinach, you name it, we had it. Oh, and bottomless cups of coffee.’

‘The coffee I can do.’ She finger-gunned me. ‘Want one?’

I pulled up a wicker stool by a Munchkin Land-sized breakfast bar in the kitchen. Railway tiles and modern appliances made the space look slightly less tropical than the rest of the house. That is, until I reached across the counter and flicked at a dancing hula girl toy. We watched her gyrate against a jar of Blend 43.

‘That’s Lula the Hula.’ Penny jiggled the plastic toy. Her head flopped about wildly and her painted-on smile stayed resolute. ‘I like her. She doesn’t talk back.’

I looked away and laughed into the palm of my hand. ‘It’s a bonus, I guess.’

‘It is.’ Two mugs landed on the bench with a thud. I was about to drink coffee from the top of Elvis’s head. Did that make it a coffee-flavoured lobotomy? A lobo-coffee? ‘So, tell me about your last night in Melbourne.’

As part of the Farewell Ellie Tour, as if I were moving to the next country and never returning, my flatmates insisted on a Saturday night party. What began with crackers and beetroot hummus soon devolved into too much wine and Cards Against Humanity. We rounded things out with a late-night coffee and cake blitz through St Kilda, a stroll along the beach, and an early morning taxi fare home. After just enough sleep to take the edge off, we yawned our way into the closest café for breakfast at our regular table in the corner.

‘Can we go up to Melbourne one night? It’s been forever since I went. It might have been that day we did lunch and looked at the Myer Christmas windows.’

Also known as: The Week Before Everything Went to Shit. Ah, the ignorant bliss.

‘Really?’ I said. ‘Of course, absolutely. We may as well do an overnight trip, make the most of the drive.’

‘See a concert?’ she suggested.

I nodded, enthused. ‘Definitely.’

After a few moments of silence, she clicked the kettle on. ‘So, Ellie returns home, huh?’

There it was – that wisp of disappointment people tried so hard to hide, with a smile, a cup of coffee, or a gentle enquiry gift wrapped in a statement that sounded more like a question. Friends had hinted as much when I decided to leave Melbourne. Are you okay? Are you having trouble coping? Are you sure there’s nothing you want to talk about?

‘It’s not all bad news, you know.’ I folded my arms over on the counter. ‘It was months ago—’

‘Long enough for …’ She cradled an invisible infant.

Don’t think I hadn’t thought of that a thousand times over. Tick-tock-biological-clock. ‘Thank the gods we didn’t make it that far. Honestly, I’m fine. I’ve dealt with what I needed to, and I’m happy. Sure, it still stings a little, and it might look like I’m running home with my tail between my legs, but at least I have a job—’

‘Bonus!’

‘—and, really, it just felt like the right time to make a fresh start.’

It also didn’t hurt that I’d had several weeks without the responsibility of a job to simply enjoy life again. It had been a welcome break, a chance to re-evaluate life, and work through my plan of attack. Money was tight, but the rent was paid, and I had enough to see me through to at least the first payday or two. It really wasn’t the worst thing ever. After all, I’d been through worse.

‘Everyone at school is peachy keen to meet you. I caught up with some of the girls last weekend. We should all go out for dinner. Why don’t we do that tonight? Should we?’

I waved a hand. ‘Not tonight. I just want to rest.’

‘Good, good.’ Water sloshed up the sides of the coffee cups as she poured, one after the other. Milk, sugar, and sewing tin biscuits.

‘Maybe next weekend?’ I tried. ‘Let me get settled in first.’

‘Speaking of settling in.’ Penny slinked away towards the front door. ‘Let’s get you unpacked, that way it’s done, and we can relax.’

Squeezing past each other like rabbits in a warren, we ferried my belongings inside one box at a time. Initially, we stacked them neatly by the door, careful not to make too much of a mess. By the final drop, full of bric-a-brac, I didn’t care. I tossed my armful on the bed and hoped for the best.

The last battered cardboard box, held together by rounds of red electrical tape and a bit of luck, bounced a little as it landed on the bed. A picture frame spilled out onto the duvet, anxious to escape. Not today, Satan. He of wandering penis was not welcome in this bed or near this house, lest he curse this new life, too. I snatched the rose gold artefact up and, before I could stuff it back into the box or set fire to it like it rightfully deserved, I looked at the carefully posted photo.

It was nothing too dissimilar to your average, spent-way-too-much wedding photos. The suit and tie were worthy of Casino Royale, crisp and cut in all the right places, and the white dress that had been painstakingly made over weeks, months even. It was sleek and modern, no garish beading or bones poised to turn my body into a cocktail frank on the receiving end of a toothpick at a moment’s notice. It was all just perfect, blissful, happiness.

Until it wasn’t.

Penny appeared by my side, snatching the frame from my hand.

‘Why?’ She waved it about like a bag of freshly laid dog turd. ‘Just … why?’

‘I have zero idea.’ My shoulders hugged the bottoms of my ears. ‘There was probably a nanosecond in which my not-so-romantic-anymore heart thought things could be fixed. A brief second of weakness where, maybe, if he’d told me he’d simply tripped and fallen into her, I might have believed him, and things would be okay again.’

‘Tripped and fell into her?’ she squawked. ‘Ellie, you deserve better than a stupid excuse like that.’

Firm, but fair.

‘I don’t know,’ I tried.

I snatched the frame back from her and tossed it into the waste paper basket beside the bed without a second thought. The brittle glass finally gave way and cracked, feathery webs spread almost faultlessly down the centre of the photo, across smiles and up-dos, vows and promises. Perfection be gone.

‘Nice shot.’ She gave me an upside-down smile and left the room. ‘Well done, you.’

* * *

While I busied myself sorting belongings onto shelves, clothes on hangers and shoes into racks, Penny kept herself occupied with dinner. I thought of suggesting takeaway after all, but a quick check of my banking app suggested it may be best if I skipped the credit abuse and waited until payday.

As the afternoon sun dipped lower in the sky, we set ourselves up on our small deck. It was just off the side of the small dining area and sat smartly above the carport. In one corner, a single-serve barbecue, and a faded wooden table in the middle. All the rattling and cursing that came from the kitchen had given way to steak, garlic butter, and a pineapple infused coleslaw.

‘I do at least have a bottle of champagne.’ Penny gave the bottle a violent shake. I cowered as it popped with little more than the excitement of a dead toaster. Warm cola had more fizz.

‘Oh well.’ I took the glass from her. ‘It’ll do.’

‘Sláinte.’ Penny chinked the edge of her glass with mine.

‘Huh?’

‘It’s Scottish for health,’ she explained proudly. ‘Learned it from my Mr December, Richard.’

‘Your who now?’ I laughed.

She gave a wistful Hallmark sigh and gazed up at the heavens as if they’d suddenly part and drop this magical Richard back into her lap. ‘Richard, aptly named for what I was using him for, was visiting the area, surfing, travelling …’

‘Shagging,’ I laughed, glass pressed against my bottom lip. ‘You’re … I have no words for you.’

‘A multicultural woman of the world,’ she declared, finger poking at the air. ‘Speaking of which, let me catch you up on the people of our world.’

Had I really been gone that long? It certainly hadn’t felt like it. I still came back for Christmases, birthdays, Easters, long weekends when I could wrangle Dean away from his job. Then again, when you’re busy inside your own bubble, it can make the outside world a little hazy. Because, as Penny began rattling off happening and incidents, it became apparent just how much I had missed.

Our cousin Sam was married to Mary. I was sure I’d been at that wedding. It involved a rustic barn in Dean’s Marsh, hurricane lamps and an oversized Polaroid frame fit for the hashtag #SNMWedding on Instagram. Not surprisingly, it hadn’t caught on. But now he had kids? I really was out of touch. The realisation was sobering, and I quickly downed the contents of my glass.

‘One, with another on the way.’ Penny pushed her steak around the pool of garlic butter on her plate. ‘And Sophie, his sister, has had three boyfriends in the last twelve months. Each of them were “The One”, mind. We were rolled out every time for dinner to meet Huey, Dewey, and Louie.’

‘That old chestnut,’ I grumbled. ‘How about your parents?’

‘My parents are as they are.’ She shrugged. ‘Nothing really changes with them. Dad wants to retire, but I don’t think he wants to spend all day with Mum. Not that I blame him, of course. Mum has a new hobby every second week.’

‘What is it this week?’

‘Sewing. I’m not so secretly loving it, because she’s making me a heap of dresses.’

‘I would be, too,’ I agreed. ‘Do you think she would make me some?’

‘I think she would be thrilled.’ Penny refilled her glass and waggled the empty bottle about. ‘Want me to grab another one?’

‘No more tonight.’ I placed a protective hand over my glass. ‘I’m not sure bloodshot eyes and reeking like the back end of a wine barrel is a great look in front of the principal.’

‘Come on, he’s a lush from way back. You remember all those Friday mornings, watching teachers smuggling bottles of wine and slabs of beer into the staffroom. It was like a reverse walk of shame. No, kids, we’re totally not getting wasted after the 3.30 bell. No, siree.’

‘I do remember that.’ I nodded. ‘Very well.’

‘Are you prepared?’ she asked. ‘How are you feeling? Excited? Anxious?’

‘Positively shitting myself,’ I laughed nervously. ‘Please tell me it won’t be too painful?’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Penny soothed. ‘You’ve survived worse.’

She was right. If I had managed to get through the last nine months without having myself committed, this next week was going to be a walk in the park. I mean, I’d taught before. How hard could it be?

Chapter 2

‘Perry?’ Penny narrowed her eyes at the name scribbled on her takeaway coffee. ‘I didn’t say Perry,’ she whispered, thrusting the offending cup with orange marker scribble under my nose.

‘That looks like a Penny to me.’ It really didn’t. ‘And this says Eleanor, so it’s definitely the right order.’

‘And, look, he even drew you a car.’ She pointed at mine. ‘A car!’

‘Oldest trick in the book.’ I took a sip and checked my watch.

If I’d heard it once, I’d heard it a thousand times. It was a lucky year when someone didn’t question the origins of my name. No, I wasn’t named after a car. My Dad, however, had a massive political crush on Eleanor Roosevelt, so that was something. At least it wasn’t Eleanor Bradley, nude model. Imagine explaining that to people. At this point in life, I was happy to take the small wins where I could get them.

‘Come on, this looks like a penny to me.’ I pointed out the squiggles beside her name. ‘See, you have a coin there. He drew a coin.’

‘I thought it was a smiley face.’ She leaned in and whispered, ‘Do you think we should stay for breakfast?’

I shook my head. ‘Nah, I’m okay.’

‘All right then. Are you ready?’

I’d been ready for hours. Awake long before the rest of the world, I’d sneaked a few slices of toast and watched the sunrise while curled up in the egg chair on the deck. Breakfast television was out of the question; Penny’s Elvis obsession stretched to her television, which looked like it would have been new when the King ate his last sandwich. That meant subtitles were out, and I could not lip-read for shit.

Had my brain been in gear, I might have nicked the bathroom before she got out of bed. As it ended up, we squashed ourselves in front of the mirror, shoulders over elbows and hairdryers in each other’s eyes as we did our best to not look like Game of Thrones extras. Oh, and we agreed that perhaps it would be best if one of us showered at night, and not in the morning. I volunteered for night shift. A clean body in clean sheets? Yes, please.

My mousy-brown hair had more pins in it than an angry woman’s voodoo doll. One wrong move and I’d either scalp myself or pull my brain out through the back of my Nordic braid. But, combined with my very favourite navy wrap dress and heels, I was ready to take on the day.

School was a twenty-minute walk from home, thirty minutes if we went via the café. The first trickle of nervous sweat made its way down my back as we traipsed through the rippling bitumen of the car park. It had seen better days; shrubs had grown from weeds and created tectonic rifts in the surface, and the once vivid white lines were nothing more than faded rubble.

A time capsule to my youth presented itself in a carving on the trunk of a pinkish-grey eucalypt by the main quadrangle. What were the odds Josie Smith still loved Trevor Reeve, the kid who told everyone Superman was his uncle?

‘That would be a negative,’ Penny explained. ‘Last Christmas was the season for cheating, or so it seems. Trevor took off with a barmaid and is currently living in Warrnambool.’

So much for “tru luv”.

The winds of time had taken a barren school oval and replaced it with a football field, used by the local team on weekends and training nights. An ochre running track encircled the field, and newly upgraded demountables were dotted around the main building – the Pentagon, as Dad used to call it.

It was neither five-sided, nor did it hold huge secrets. It was a giant red-brick square. A library, staffroom, and admin block sat at the heart of it all, and nests of classrooms branched out at each corner, creating bricked-in walkways that were perfectly cool on hot summer days.

‘You ready?’ Penny stopped, hand on the front door.

‘Nope,’ I squeaked. ‘Not in the slightest.’

She laughed. ‘Yes, you are. You’ve got this.’

After a hall lined with current class photos, we walked into the teachers’ lounge. The early Nineties décor remained, white tiles with crumbling grout and stucco walls, and a café bar that was miraculously still bolted to the wall. It was already feeling the effects of providing cheap coffee grinds for a horde of perpetually exhausted teachers, and brown grains littered the bench like ants across a picnic blanket. I made a mental note to bring my own coffee tomorrow.

A heavy grey door swung open to my left. Phillip Vine, the same jovial white-haired principal I’d had, and had come up against in several scrapes, stood before me with arms outstretched. ‘Eleanor Manning.’

‘Ellie, please.’ I leaned into his hug. He was still an Old Spice man. ‘It’s so good to see you again.’

‘And it’s nice to see you didn’t skip the country before the start of term,’ he teased. ‘Welcome to the team. Officially, anyway.’

‘Thank you so much.’ I wrung my hands and tried to take in as much of my surroundings as possible which, despite my history, was likely going to be very little today.

‘Or, should that be: welcome back?’ He fixed me with a curious gaze before laughing at his own joke. ‘I wasn’t entirely sure which one to run with.’

While Phillip launched into an explanation of what was going to happen over the course of the day, Penny disappeared towards reception, chirping excited greetings to anyone she ran into. Her bright infectious laughter could be heard through walls and doors and, when she returned, she was jangling a set of keys in my direction.

‘Let’s go check out your office.’

‘Please do.’ Phillip squeezed my shoulder. ‘Just make sure you’re back for the staff meeting in here in ten minutes?’

‘Sure.’ I wiped sweating hands against my sides. I angled myself towards Penny. ‘Lead the way.’

Like that, I was whisked out of the staffroom via the swinging door, and into the adjoining library.

Growing up, I’d always wondered what it would be like working in this library. I’d sit in class and daydream about having students of my own, stacking shelves and stamping the return cards in the front pocket of each book. I didn’t have to imagine any longer. Did this mean I was living the dream? I guess it did, except for the fact that return cards were now obsolete. Thanks a lot, technology.

After wading through an information technology degree at university, I shuffled into a teaching diploma and took up a position in the library of a central Melbourne primary school. Oversized classes, under available resources, and a handful of firebugs, who’d found joy in old books and magnifying glasses, gave new meaning to the term burned out. No matter how many times they tried, I couldn’t buy the excuse they were simply trying to rid the room of ants.

After that, the public library became my refuge. I worked in the repairs room, spent my days fixing broken spines and wrapping books in protective wrap. Solitude stopped being satisfying when I began feeling like I was wasting my brain. After all, I had a qualification and I knew I was a good teacher. What good was my university tuition debt when I was spending my days gluing books back together instead of teaching? I soon yearned to get back into a classroom, and this role popped up at the perfect time. Getting that phone call from Phillip had been one of the rare fist-pumping moments in the last twelve months.

Tucked away in the belly of the not-quite-Pentagon, with a door that linked to the staffroom, my new library smelled of tannins, vanilla, and dry-cleaned carpet. A small courtyard at the rear of the space still looked like an upscaled terrarium. Wisps of rubbish and overgrown weeds spun about in the warm wind like a bite-sized tornado.

Stacks I used to hide between stood solid like tin soldiers, now with a comforting beanbag at the end of each aisle. I not so silently wished we’d had them during my time; they would have made lunchtimes in the library much more fun.

Penny nattered excitedly as she unlocked the door to my office, a glass-fronted room tucked in the front corner of the library. It looked like the aftermath of an evacuation. Books were strewn across benches, blue and yellow streamers hung from the roof, and random football-themed drawings were tacked to the windows. My attention kept floating back to a caricature of a dark-haired footballer holding a trophy aloft.

‘I guess someone was in a hurry,’ I mumbled.

‘You’ve got no idea.’ The right corner of Penny’s mouth twitched into a smile.

I ran my finger along the spines of DVDs, in numbers heavy enough to cause sagging in the shelves against the wall. An empty table with a large roll of book covering held in place on a dispenser sat under the window. The old workbench brought back memories of lunchtime chats with Mrs Coates. Often, our debates descended into discourse over which Roald Dahl book was the best.

I never did understand her adoration of Royal Jelly until I was an adult. Sick, sick woman. I tossed my handbag under the bench, thrust my hands against my hips, and tried to take in this adult version of a childhood memory.

‘What do you think?’ Penny asked.

‘It’s a little surreal, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘We couldn’t wait to get out of here as kids.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she chuckled. ‘And for someone who was so desperate to get out of here, you spent a lot of time in detention.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘That’s the best you can do?’

It wasn’t my fault I kept scoring higher than Jarrod Sims on maths tests. For so long, he’d been ego-stroked into believing he was some sort of Pythagorean prodigy. When we ended up in the same class, it was a constant tussle every time he took offence. It made my last year of primary school interesting. It became even more tangled when he developed a crush on me in high school.

‘Anyway, time for me to play fairy godmother.’ Penny tapped my shoulder with a ruler. ‘Come, sweet summer child, let’s go make some new friends.’

Chapter 3

A tiny cheer rose from the sofa by the window as we entered the staffroom. Four women, all squeezed up against each other and inspecting phones, leapt to their feet like a choreographed greeting party.

‘Please tell me this is Ellie!’ A magazine-thin brunette pushed herself up out of the depths of the sofa and crossed the floor in loud heels.

‘This is she.’ Penny waved her arms about like a game show host. ‘Ellie, these ladies form the bulk of our junior class teachers. This is Grace, and we’ve got Emma, Gemma, and Jemima.’

They almost sounded like an Austen novel. I did my best impression of someone who knew what they were doing, stepped forward, and made my way along the couch, shaking hands and uttering greetings.

‘What’s happening on the sofa this morning?’ Penny asked.

‘The usual.’ Emma used a sole fingernail to tuck a lock of platinum blonde hair behind her ear, her mouth last seen on the back end of our neighbour’s cat. I’d seen that face before on numerous GIFs. ‘Just looking at You Know Whose Facebook, ogling football photos, the usual.’

‘Who what now?’ I looked between the two of them. Then again, did I really want to know?

‘I’ll explain later. We’re on a whirlwind tour of the isles. Bye, ladies.’ Penny grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me in the opposite direction. ‘They’re lovely girls, they really are, but their thirst is real, and their class is sometimes not. Come on, let’s go meet some more people.’

‘Who were they talking about?’ I whispered.

‘You’ll see,’ she muttered, tugging harder.

Where I thought I was going to hide in a corner – I even had a spot picked out at the corner table – Penny made like the amazingly sociable, bubbly person she is and introduced me to anyone she could get a word in with, pushing into twosomes and creating threesomes. With each new conversation, she remembered to include a helpful Brief History of Eleanor. Eleanor is a past pupil, she studied teaching and computing in Melbourne, and has recently returned home. She enjoys knitting, long walks on the beach and world peace, and she once played in an orchestra. Oh, and she’s my cousin. Ask her about the time I broke her arm.

I was both delighted and put at ease by the conversations this started. And the broken arm story was accurate. I was fourteen, and she was trying to demonstrate her best karate chop. With a stick. In hindsight, it may have been the offcut of a railway sleeper. Snapped that bone right in two, she did.

First lesson of the day: I could learn a thing or two from Penny about simply getting out there and being the life of the party. Whatever that special something was, she had it in overflowing buckets and then some.

Phil was busy in conversation with someone else, his bald head gleaming under artificial light, shining eyes lined in laughter. Others milled around and took their spots, echoes of tired greetings and holiday stories repeated ad nauseum while they waited. Eventually, somewhere around the sounding of the first morning bell, we all came to rest in seats and on table edges in some late-thirties game of musical chairs.

‘And a very good morning to my favourite team.’ Phil clapped his hands together, the only person ecstatic about the end of holidays. ‘Welcome back, commiserations if your chosen team lost the Grand Final, and all that buzz. We have one day before the onslaught of final term begins, so I guess it’s heads down today as we prep lesson plans.’

The room was so quiet you could hear stomachs rumble and coffees slurp. The Zip instant boil clung to the wall and sighed as the tank refilled.

‘Look at all that enthusiasm. It’s not that bad, we’ve got a curriculum, we know what to do. We’ve walked this path before.’ He glanced over as the door adjoining my library opened, and three men wandered in confidently late. Leading the pack was an irritatingly handsome man. He was far too attractive to be relegated to a classroom all day.

Around me, women sat up straighter. The mystery of who ‘You Know Who’ was had been solved.

Phil clapped his hands together. ‘Marcus, good afternoon, thank you ever so much for joining us.’

Marcus, who was met by a round of applause, bowed and made a beeline for caffeine.

‘It’s lovely to see you’re still raising our dress standards single-handedly after such a stellar performance on the football field. Well done on the trophy.’

‘I do my very best.’ He pressed his hand to his chest and took a sip of his coffee. He winced and stuck his tongue out in disgust. Yes, the coffee really was that bad.

The high-pitched wheezing I could hear was either the women at my table, gearing up like pressure cookers at a potluck, or the sound of the local fire station calling for help. Marcus, with his navy suit jacket stretched tight across his shoulders, looked like he’d leapt from the pages of GQ in a scene reminiscent of an old A-ha video clip, cuffs ready for shooting and shoes so polished I was surprised we couldn’t see up his inside leg. Not that that would be entirely offensive, it had been a while, and I was running out of options. Either that, or he was one Jimmy Olsen away from writing for the local paper.

He was beautiful in a way that was not possible. At least, not by any of the standards set by my life experiences. He was tall, so much so that most could use him as a maypole and still slip under his arm with room to spare, and I was sure I could stack bricks on those shoulders. Brown hair and bottle-green eyes were accentuated with laugh lines that he wore like some men wore suits – perfectly charming and wonderfully naturally. The glint in his eyes, and the squared-out shoulders told me he knew this, too.

‘And good morning to you,’ Penny mumbled beside me. I held my mug to my mouth in the hope it hid my laughter.

It didn’t.

Scanning the room looking for a place to land, Marcus turned, and offered a tight smile to our table. There was a mouthed greeting mixed somewhere in there, but I couldn’t quite make it out. I made the broad assumption it was aimed at everyone, and not solely at me, because we did not know each other from a bar of soap, and I bet he used expensive soap. It probably also smelled of fresh pine forest and sex. Really, really good sex. He and his two accomplices took the empty seats at the end of our table.

‘And before I forget, I want you all to welcome Eleanor Manning to the team.’ Phil recaptured my attention, imaginary spotlight burning up my face. What’s behind door number two? The new girl! As much as I expected it, warmth still pooled in my cheeks and my skirt ruffled up my thighs as I slipped a little further down into my chair. ‘Ellie is taking over from Cathy in the library who, as you’ll remember, took off like a bat out of hell at the end of last term. Ellie is making me feel incredibly prehistoric today, as I was her principal when she was a student here.’

Was that the sound of surprised gasping? It may well have been.

‘And, boy, do I have some stories,’ Phil chuckled.

‘Please don’t,’ I laughed, hiding my face behind my hands.

‘No, I won’t do that to you today. The Christmas party will be here soon enough.’ He smiled softly. ‘It’s good to have you back, Ellie. But, speaking of Cathy, has anyone heard from her?’

‘Currently sipping cocktails in the Bahamas,’ came a chirpy voice somewhere to our left.

‘Half her luck.’ Phil made a point of rolling his eyes. ‘The most I could manage was a glass of Passiona by the swimming pool after the Grand Final. Even had a little purple umbrella. Anyway, please give Ellie the support she needs as she settles in.’

I gave a quick wave and looked out at a crowd of expecting faces. On first inspection, they looked mostly bored. A few people were checking phones, and Penny was picking at muck under her cadmium-yellow fingernails. Marcus continued to peer into his coffee cup, as if its murky contents could read his fortune. Then again, it was a stroke of fortune to drink the coffee supplied and not die, so maybe he was on to something.

So far, so good.

When the meeting was over, I scuttled for my office, avoiding getting caught up in too much chatter. I was full of the type of nervous energy that either propelled you forward or paralysed you if you thought about it too much. I wanted to get moving before it turned into the latter.

Returning to primary school all these years later, it was an Alice in Wonderland moment to realise how small the furniture looked. Chairs that once felt like thrones now barely grazed my knees. My eyes caught spines of books I recognised and, besides the occasional hello from teachers who used the library as a thoroughfare, it was quiet and calm. It felt right; peaceful, even.

I switched on the office light, felt around the computer for the on switch, and wondered exactly where the hell I was supposed to begin. It was all well and good to have the lofty notion of returning to the classroom until I had to actually do some work. The not knowing was no better than bobbing about at sea, life jacket on, but nothing in sight but bright blue horizon.

‘How are you feeling? Ready?’ Phil appeared in the doorway, a bunch of well-worn clipboards clasped to his chest.

I took a deep breath, and felt a quiver climbing my spine again. ‘I think so? I was just planning on cleaning a bit before I got stuck into things.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that. Cath was feverishly excited about getting out of here. I hoped she might stay until the end of the year for handover, but nothing was convincing her.’ His eyes scanned the room quickly. ‘No idea why.’ He winked. ‘Now, we don’t have your password yet. Matt in IT will get you sorted at some stage today, so let’s get you introduced to everyone while we wait. Thankfully, Cath was a dab hand at record-keeping, so you should be able to check back through her stuff and work it all out easily. She’s organised everything for the Book Fair. I think that’s the only big thing on your calendar. All you’ll need to do is take delivery of the books and sort the displays out … oh, and deal with the mess on the day.’

To be fair, if I were Cathy, I’d take the tropical holiday over teaching the new girl, too. One of the positives of my redundancy was escaping that responsibility of handover altogether. I was out the front door so quickly I only had time to collect a few scant personal belongings and my coffee cup. It looked like Cathy had the same idea. Clever girl.

Phil and I had been in contact in the last few weeks, emails pinging back and forth, as he detailed the first few weeks of term, so I felt confident I wasn’t completely in the deep end. I’d done the teaching gig before. Hopefully everyone’s bike-riding metaphor was right, otherwise I’d be heading straight into a prickly bush of mistakes and mayhem.

Those exchanges pulled back the curtain of the theatre production. As a student, you don’t think of nearly half the things that need to happen in the education system. You see work and deadlines, but you don’t see the jigsaw puzzle of trying to get all your ducks in a row, teaching what needs to be taught, while still maintaining some semblance of fun. It was a challenge, but one that I’d always loved.

With blank paper, a pen, a heart full of hope, and a bladder full of coffee, I followed Phil down hallways, where we mused over murals, both the old and new, and reminisced over my years as a pupil. Things were simpler then, he explained, easier to handle with what felt like less rules and red tape.

We slipped into each of the classrooms, shook hands and mingled, until I had met almost everyone I could. Random jottings quickly filled my notepad, requests for films, documentaries, books, and stationery orders. Despite my brain feeling a little bogged down by the unrelenting pace, it was great to be useful again.

‘Ruddy hell, Ellie Manning!’

Our final stop for the day was the Grade Six block, where I froze at the sight of a familiar face. ‘Mick?’

Michael Buckley was arguably the best teacher I ever had. Big call considering the number of classes I’d taken in my time. In my final year of primary school, he was maths mad and perpetually grumpy, but made all of us feel important. Often, he would stay late to chat with someone who was slower to leave class or looking a little more anxious than usual. At one point, he called my dad to voice his concerns that I was ‘less rambunctious than usual’.

As it turned out, having a cold would do that to me.

I peered around my old classroom in amazement as he urged me to follow him. Tables and chairs formed a ring in the centre of the room. Thoughts and plans had been scribbled on the whiteboard and crossed out again. Last term’s artwork dangled from ceiling tiles and clung to windows.

Phil took his leave as we sat on the ledge of a table facing the centre of the room. I was more than capable, he reasoned, and I didn’t disagree. Mick was a familiar face. I had this.

‘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.

Weekly school assemblies were a non-negotiable, a rite of passage for teacher and student alike. We mumbled through the national anthem, listened to Phil make rapid-fire announcements and, when my name was announced as a new teacher, a hand from behind propelled me towards the crowd.

When the word ‘Dismissed’ was finally uttered, it was like jamming a pin in an overfull balloon. Sound rose from the floor, a cacophony of shuffling feet and pent-up voices as bodies got lost in the scramble to stay in class groups. The mystery hand springing me forth into the world? That was Penny.

‘You can’t run now,’ she teased. ‘You’ve been officially introduced.’

‘The pet has been named,’ I teased. ‘And once they’ve got a name, they’re not going back.’

Beside Penny, someone laughed. ‘It’s good to see you again, Eleanor.’

Sandy hair in a messy bun, and a beard that hadn’t been trimmed in weeks? It had to be …

‘Jack!’ I exclaimed.

‘Oh, shit, you haven’t been introduced yet, have you?’ Penny bounced excitedly.

‘No.’ I looked at Jack. ‘Yesterday was mayhem, and I didn’t get around to your classroom.’

‘Okay, well, Ellie, Jack, Jack, Ellie.’ Penny waved her hands about. ‘Jack’s going to have a new piano delivered in a few weeks and, yes, he does remember you.’

‘You do? You have?’ I asked. My ears pricked up. ‘A new piano? What brand is it? Can I come and see it? When we’ve both got a free moment, that is.’

For some people, a new mobile phone or widescreen television gets their go-go-gadget fingers tingling. For me, new pianos evoked those feelings. From the tinkle of shining keys, taut strings under a gloss black hood, to the shy reluctance of new pedals, there was nothing I didn’t love about them. I longed for the day I had a place big enough to buy myself a new one.

‘Ah … it’s a Brodmann upright, and absolutely you can,’ he enthused. ‘My door is always open. But we should catch up before then. I think we’re all doing Friday night drinks, if you’re in?’

‘Yes! Friday night,’ Penny chimed in.

‘Okay, that sounds great,’ I enthused. ‘I’d love to catch up.’

We moved slowly with the tide, me towards my library, Jack towards his side of the school.

‘I’ll send you the details!’ he called. ‘It’ll be great!’

Chapter 5

Before I made it anywhere near the other end of a Friday night martini glass, I had to wade through the rest of the week. With only a few days’ grace before I began taking classes of my own, I didn’t have long to get myself in order.

For most of the week, I was pent up in my office. New folders, printouts, an overheated shredder, and an overabundance of spray cleaner and kitchen towel. So far, I’d torn down streamers, football posters, and artwork. A co-worker once remarked to me that a clean desk meant an empty mind, though I was sure that was just an excuse for his desk looking like a junk sale diorama.

I spent evenings working through curriculum and coming up with class plans. Late-night emails were distributed to teachers and, amongst the ones that bounced back telling me to go home, they were approved.

All of this happened in the shadow of catching up with Sally. Now that we’d swapped numbers, the text messages came thick and fast. We swapped stories of school and everything after, laughed at shared memories of boys and high school, and my inbox was soon filling up with photos of her happy family. It tickled me to know that she’d found her spot in the world and was thriving with a bustling household.

By four o’clock Friday afternoon, I’d found my groove. From my stool at the returns counter, I could survey my lands – a little like Simba in The Lion King. The courtyard, which earlier had tornadoes of rubbish, was clean. Weeds were gone, pavers swept, and rubbish removed. There were no books wandering about on return trolleys; everything was in its place. I’d discovered my borrowing computer, with the bash of a key and my tongue held right, sent overdue emails to parents. Once upon a time, I’d have been sending letters through the mail, so this was a nice step up in the world. In the corner, my little office was sparkling clean with windows yet to be covered in smeary, snotty fingers.

Everything was coming up Ellie.

Behind me, the library door crept open with a tired yawn.

‘Or, maybe not,’ I grumbled, spinning on my stool and tucking a flyaway lock of dark hair behind my ear. ‘Hello.’

Marcus came close to filling the doorway, at least with his height. He shifted from foot to foot and slid his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello,’ I echoed. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I hope so.’ Something on my desk caught his attention. ‘I just spoke to Grace over in the Prep unit.’

The paper in front of me had been the victim of an hour’s mindless doodling. It was covered in musical notes, clefs, quavers, book titles, and my own name a hundred different ways. I reached for it quickly, screwed it up and tossed it into the waste paper basket by my feet. My breath caught nervously.

‘Okay.’

‘She said we could swap classes depending on what I could give her in return.’ He grinned.

‘You do realise that this is not life threatening, don’t you?’ I launched myself from the stool and landed with a little thud on the floor. Marcus followed as I rounded the desk and walked back to my office. His stride was slow, purposeful, and a little too sure of himself. ‘Nobody is going to die if you don’t get a precious afternoon session. I don’t understand what this obsession is. Are you just doing it to upset me? To try and assert some, “I’ve been here longer than you” type of authority?’ I waved my hands about. ‘Why can’t you just wait the year out?’

‘So, what you’re saying is that, even though I’ve met your conditions, you’re still not going to help me?’

‘What I’m saying is exactly what I said the other day. I’ve been here barely a week. I would appreciate being allowed to settle in before I go changing things. I’m sure you can last another few weeks on a Friday afternoon.’ I reached for my PC, listening to it burp and whir as it woke up. ‘And what’s so bad about you getting to start your weekend early? I would’ve thought someone like you would love an early start to the weekend.’

‘Right.’ He nodded curtly. ‘Thank you.’

As I watched him leave, my mobile phone began rattling across the benchtop. It stopped, then started again. Without looking, I picked it up and pressed it to my ear.

‘Eleanor speaking.’ I tapped a pile of papers against my desk and slipped them into the in-tray. I could worry about them tomorrow.

‘Eleanor!’ A wine-soaked voice puttered down the line.

My stomach tightened. ‘Mum.’

‘Don’t sound so excited,’ she clipped.

‘No, it’s not that,’ I lied, doing a very quick emotional stocktake and chirping up. ‘I’m just at work, that’s all.’

‘How is that all going?’ she asked. ‘Your father told me you’d started a new job.’

‘He did?’ I asked, surprised. Since when were my parents talking to each other? It was news to me. ‘When did he tell you this? What are you, like, pen pals now? He’s sending you postcards from the edge?’

‘Not quite,’ she said, the smile in her voice evident from the next state. ‘Facebook.’

‘What?’ I blurted.

How did it happen that my parents, who barely spoke to each other throughout my childhood, and who refused to be in the same room together, were now having regular catch-ups online? Had I missed something? If they told me they were planning on having dinner next week, I was going to start developing an oxygen sensitivity.

Also, how come I hadn’t had a friend request?

‘You deleted my request,’ Mum deadpanned, though I was sure I hadn’t voiced that thought aloud.

I scoffed. ‘I did not.’

Then again, maybe I did. Yeah, probably.

Explaining my relationship with my mother makes for prickly skin, especially in a world where we’re taught that Mother Is All because, sometimes, she just isn’t. The knowledge that she’d packed up and left before I was six months old had always sat in the back of my mind as a warning. We weren’t the stuff of Hallmark movies or cheesy greeting cards.

While Dad insisted that I saw her as often as possible when I was younger, which still wasn’t very often, it was still a whole lot of awkward. Visiting her often felt like that scene in Austin Powers where he’d got the jeep stuck in the middle of a three-point turn. That she kept me at arm’s length and shoved me in the corner with a colouring book or novel while fawning over my stepfather just added to the issues.

‘Anyway.’ She interrupted my train of thought. ‘What do you think?’

‘Sorry, about what?’ I stuffed my water bottle into my bag, retied my hair, and pulled my office door shut behind me, all with my phone wedged between shoulder and ear.

‘Spending some time together, silly,’ she laughed, while continuing a conversation with someone named Floss in the background.

‘I mean, I can, but can you give me a few weeks to settle in first?’ I asked. ‘I’ve barely unpacked my belongings.’

‘Okay, do you want to send me details of your flight when you book them?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I laughed. I didn’t mean to, it just kind of burst forth in the same way a broken pipe might split asphalt. One minute, everything is quiet; the next, there’s a raging torrent springing up from the street. ‘I don’t quite have the money for a last-minute flight. I could drive up, but it’s ten hours either way, so I’d be turning up for dinner and leaving early the next morning. It’s doable, but you’d want to be serving me up caviar and Dom Perignon for dinner, followed by five courses with a private chef and a lap dance from Paul Rudd … or Idris Elba. You know, either one I’d be fine with’

‘Who’re they? Do you have their numbers? Why don’t we do that for your birthday?’ she enthused. ‘What a great idea, Ella!’

Me and my big mouth. I pinched the bridge of my nose as she prattled on about hiring a yacht for the day. Twelve months ago, when that kind of lifestyle was the norm for me, I would have frothed with delight at that idea. Even with my mother at the helm, I would have considered it. Now, it just felt all kinds of pretentious, like something worse was hiding just below the surface. I walked into the staffroom and made a beeline for the coffee. Hopefully it would clear out the throbbing that was starting to wrap its way around my head.

From the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Jack. He smiled and offered me that little close to the body wave he’d always had. I motioned for the bottle of milk in his hand. Instead of passing it, he poured, and put it back in the refrigerator.

‘What was that?’ I turned my attention back to my phone call. ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t you think?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, what am I thinking?’ I asked.

‘I said I should come down for the weekend, while your father is still on his trip.’

Ctrl Alt Delete. ‘Sorry, say again?’

‘I could come down, spend the weekend,’ she suggested. ‘Go shopping, have lunch.’

‘Mum, we haven’t seen each other in almost eighteen months,’ I said. ‘And, can I just remind you that was because I came to you. The last time you were supposed to visit, you forgot and never showed. The last three times, in fact.’

My mother had this habit, and I wondered if it wasn’t just a game she quite enjoyed, where she would make plans to visit, and never show up. Her disappearance was always followed up by a quick, apologetic phone call that left me little room to move.

‘Oh, honey, I’m sorry,’ she cooed. ‘Won’t happen again, I promise.’

Just like it wasn’t going to happen last time, or the time before that. Really, my afternoon would have been easier had I just ignored my phone. Voicemail was the great technological filter. Even another round with Marcus was preferable to this.

‘You’re going to have to stay in a hotel. We don’t have room in the apartment,’ I said.

‘You know, I haven’t been back to that blasted town since you were a baby?’ she scoffed as if I was about to jump in and support her.

‘What a surprise.’ I smiled sarcastically.

Yesterday’s lunch box was languishing in the back of the communal fridge, which was kind of an office etiquette red card misdemeanour. Sidelined with side-eye. With nobody looking, I shoved it into my handbag and hoped it hadn’t been noticed. I closed the refrigerator door, screwed the lid on my travel cup, and turned to leave. The sound of laughter echoed up the corridor. As I yanked on the door, someone pushed against it, and I ambled straight into a wall of suit.

Everything slowed. The shuffle, the sidestep, the miss, the clash, and the crescendo of realisation. Caught between the two of us, an innocent coffee cup. Only ten seconds earlier, and it would have been full to the brim. Not so much now though.

‘Okay, Mum.’ I waited for her to take a breath between her words. ‘Mum, I have to go, I’ve just … I need to go. Now. Need to go now. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll call soon.’

Stabbing on the red button, I missed the tinny ends of her one-sided conversation. I held my phone out to my side, as if that would keep it safe from any further harm and peered down at my front.

I. Was. Sopping. There was so much liquid that it was dripping from the hem of my shirt and pooling around my feet. A milky brown bloom climbed up across my chest and over the toes of my shoes and, wouldn’t you know, there was my five-dollar Target bra making an appearance. At least it was white and fit relatively properly because, right now, I looked like I was starting a one-woman wet T-shirt contest.

‘Fuck.’ It was all I could muster. I pinched at my shirt and peeled it away from my skin.

‘Oh … shit.’ Marcus snorted, failing miserably at not laughing.

On what planet was this funny? My shirt was verging on translucent, at least everywhere south of my bra straps. To make matters worse, he’d managed to escape completely, except for a splash on his shoes. When I could focus briefly, it was definitely only on his shoes. I was incandescent with rage, from the acidic pit in my stomach to the bright lights sitting behind my eyes.

‘Is this funny to you?’ I shrieked. ‘Really? You … I have no words for you.’

My words were a starting gun, and he began faffing about, hands searching, darting across the bench to a roll of kitchen towel when it had been discovered that, for once, the cleaners were early and had made off with the dishcloths. He thrust a fistful of paper towards me, his arms bobbing about in suggestion that, just maybe, he’d like to be the one to blot me.

‘Don’t you touch me.’ I held an arm out to stop him moving closer. He placed the towel gingerly in my hand. ‘Or I swear to God, you’ll never ever have children.’

‘Well, that’s kind of important to me, so I’ll just throw paper at you from here,’ he teased. I watched in shock as he began folding a square into a paper plane. Was he serious?

‘Why don’t you just go away?’ I spat. ‘Flutter off into a cloud of mothers somewhere. I’m sure they’d be happy to have you.’

‘You really are an angry little onion, aren’t you?’ Marcus turned on his heel and left me, sopping wet in the middle of the staffroom.

Grappling for the kitchen towel as it rolled away, I unravelled another length and began dabbing it against my front. People came and went, curious onlookers joked about there being better ways to score a caffeine hit and, no, I didn’t really need any help. Thank you all the same. While it felt like I was there forever, the eyes of the world watching my embarrassing spectacle, it had only been ten minutes or so when the door swung open. Penny stood there looking both confused and worried.

‘Ellie?’

I looked up from my shirt, which I’d pulled away from me to better survey the damage. ‘Yeah?’

‘There’s someone here to see you.’ The waiver in her voice was not indicative of someone excited for the pub in about seventy-six minutes’ time. I, on the other hand, was already doing the mental maths of just how much I could afford to drink.

I groaned. Now what?

* * *

‘Eleanor Manning?’

Each step towards the office felt wobblier than the last and, by the time I pushed through the door, I’d imagined every single irrational thing that it could be. My brain was trying to juggle with the idea that my car had be stolen, or Dad having had an accident overseas. I’d have to roll up to a consulate somewhere and bail him out. Or, worse, Mum really wasn’t joking about visiting and had been sitting out in reception the entire time. Maybe my grandparents had risen from the dead and were about to serenade me with some ‘Thriller’ moves of their own. The last thing I had expected was a divorce lawyer.

Stupid, I know.

Looking every bit his serious self, dressed in an overpriced but under-tailored suit, was Bill Napier. He’d been by Dean’s side every time there was a deal to be done, hovering downstage with his billowing sleeves and sweat patches. Today was no different.

‘Is this a joke?’ I snorted. ‘Bill, you know who I am.’

He pulled a yellow envelope from his breast pocket. He wore enough rings you’d be mistaken for thinking they were knuckle-dusters. Then again … ‘Your ex-partner is applying for divorce—’

‘Hang on, hang on.’ I held up a hand to stop him. ‘Is this the done thing? We’ve only been separated nine months. Is this correct?’

‘Are you refusing to accept the paperwork?’

‘What? No, I’m simply asking a question.’ My breathing became shallow, more pointed with their anger. Was this guy serious? I’d done the Googling; twelve months apart and then you could apply for a divorce.

Bill placed the envelope on the bench beside me and repeated, ‘Eleanor Manning, your ex-partner is applying for divorce, and I am serving you with the divorce application. Your court date is listed for Friday, 9 November 2018.’

Apparently, he was very serious. Like another man I’d recently dealt with, he turned on his heel and walked away.

Chapter 6

‘Here, close your eyes. Let me do your eyeliner.’ Penny leaned in, the heel of her hand pressed into my cheek. ‘We’ll make you all beautiful so we can go out and forget all about this week.’

‘You know, I’m not actually upset about the divorce. That’s not what’s upset me.’

Penny stood back and looked down at me. ‘She says after draining the hot water because she was too busy in the shower crying.’

Okay, so that part was true. It had been a long week, and what else was a girl supposed to do? I trudged home smelling of old coffee mixed with the tang of deodorant and late-afternoon body odour, and I know of nobody who’d agree that that was in any way appealing. My shoes had felt two sizes too small, I hadn’t got through my To Do List, and the divorce papers were a metaphorical weight I couldn’t be bothered carrying. So, I did what any overly stressed girl would do – I slipped under the showerhead and had a good old-fashioned cry.

‘It felt good,’ I said. ‘Sometimes you just need to release those tears.’

‘I know.’ Penny removed her hand and switched to the other eye. ‘But, now, we dust ourselves off, we get ourselves fancy, we drink some cocktails, and chase some tail.’

‘It just felt like one thing after the other this week,’ I said. ‘Niggling little things, but I’m sure Bill is what happens when the universe sends someone to laugh at me. She tends to do a lot of that lately.’

‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t mind the universe falling on him, to be honest,’ she mumbled.

‘I just feel like a failure.’

‘Ellie, the fact that you are upright and have found gainful employment suggests otherwise. You are smart, you are funny, and you’re a wonderful teacher of words.’ Penny stood back and admired her work with the make-up brush. ‘Fuck, you’re so cute. Who are you going home with tonight?’

I snorted. ‘Nobody I have to see over the coffee urn on Monday morning.’

‘How long has it been?’ she asked. ‘Am I allowed to ask that?’

‘Let me think.’ While she faffed about my hair and tossed me a lipstick, I tried to do the mental maths. ‘Uh, well, he kind of overshot the mark on his last attempt, so that was over before he even got his pants off.’

She passed a lipstick over her shoulder. ‘Are you joking?’

‘I wish I was.’ I peered into the bathroom mirror. ‘All right. Actually, my birthday before last.’

Penny snatched her phone up from the counter and opened an app. ‘Sweetie, that’s fourteen months, two weeks, five days.’

‘Well, then, so it is.’

‘Also, we’re super late. Let’s go.’

* * *

Today was always going to happen, whether I lobbed the grenade first, or he did. There was no point at all being naive about it. Perhaps my anger was more that Idiot Features had got in first, and I was just feeling a wee bit competitive about it all. After all, he was the one who’d done the wrong thing but there I was, being served papers at work like it was me who was the bad guy.

All I wanted to do tonight was have a few cheeky drinks and forget real life for a few hours, make some new friends and maybe catch up with some old ones.

There was one clear-cut memory of the pub that teased itself out from the others as we trounced up the stairs and in through the double doors. It was the last week of high school, and a group of us thought it would be great fun to see out the year with fake IDs, cheap wine, and hangovers. It felt like only yesterday and, here I was again, ready to throw another night the brew fairies’ way.

‘Isn’t this weird?’ My eyes zipped around the room, not sure whether I did or didn’t want to see any familiar faces.

Penny grabbed at my hand and pulled me up towards the bar. ‘Yes, but we’re much cooler now.’

A modern foodie flair had replaced the worn yellowing brickwork, Eighties architectural tubular steel, and dart boards. Still, the faces remained generically familiar. The more things change, right?

In an alcove, parents who were silently praying for no injuries or outbursts from their four children. Not quite outside their earshot, a hen’s party clucked to life with the appearance of the perennial favourite: the penis straws.

No, don’t do it.

The local football team had congregated around the bar, insular worshipping mixed with the scratching of heads and arguing about who did or didn’t have the best mark of their recent Grand Final. In the centre of it all, ensconced with back slapping and the odd hoot, was Marcus. Still dressed for work, he sipped from a wine glass and looked my way.

Our eyes met in a slow-motion moment that could have only been choreographed better had Baz Luhrmann turned up with a fish tank and a fancy-dress party. Taking that for the omen it was, I ignored the cotton candy feeling that filled my limbs and ordered a drink. The less I saw of Marcus and his beautiful, but irritatingly smug face tonight, the better.

‘Penis face,’ I grumbled, hoisting myself onto a sticky bar stool.

‘What was that, love?’ Mr Bartender, my new best friend, appeared out of nowhere. He looked cool, like he’d seen it all, blue and white check tea towel over his shoulder, and more faded tattoos than a middle-aged interstate truck driver.

‘Sorry, a glass of pinot gris, please.’ That’ll fool him. Ha. ‘Actually, make it a lemon meringue martini. I need something to really burn through this week.’

Glass in hand, I pirouetted through the crowd, and was spat out the other side into a beer garden. After today, it was just the tropical oasis I needed. With its overhanging green fronds, large palm in the corner, and synthetic turf, it was a fresh break from the monotony of desks, lost pens and a heaving inbox.

We were a small congregation split amongst standing benches and tiny booths made from recycled packing pallets, and mingling became the adult version of musical chairs. At one point, I got stuck with Glenn, Grade Three teacher, who enjoyed Humphrey Bogart films, and was desperate to get some vegan options on the canteen menu. I wasn’t sure our little school was ready for quinoa or tofish, but I wasn’t about to knock his enthusiasm either.

Grace was desperate for a husband and, after a failed engagement and an AWOL boyfriend, had her sights sets upon Marcus. Lucky for him, he was still busy inside with his football club. Her reasoning was the very solid, ‘He’s great with kids and he’s hot. What more could I want?’

Patience, a good heart, commitment, amongst other things.

I considered her words for a few sips of a cocktail as we peered into the bar. There he was, all wrinkly eyes and wide smiles, tie gone, and finally looking relaxed amongst friends. Moving around our group, I landed next to Jack, who had a small audience of his own.

‘I’ve been madly waiting for you make your way over here.’ He wriggled about in his seat and made room for me between himself and Jane.

‘Me?’ I joked. ‘Never.’

‘Yes, you. We were just saying we should play a little game of Get to Know Eleanor, because I think I’m the only one here besides Penny who actually knows you. And, really, I’m sure that doesn’t count because we were like twelve and fourteen at the time and I have a lot of years to catch up on.’

‘Wait.’ I spun in my seat. ‘I thought you were older than that?’

‘Thank you so very much.’ He did little to hide his disgust. ‘I was only ever a few years older than you.’

‘Consider my mind blown.’

‘I’m so offended.’ He sank the last of his wine with a cheeky laugh and a wink. ‘Anyway. Ellie, fast facts.’

‘Shoot.’ I rubbed my hands together and tried to ignore the fact that Marcus was beginning to orbit.

‘Favourite drink?’

I picked up my drink, making a display of it for those around the table. ‘Lemon meringue martini. At least tonight, anyway.’

‘Single? Married? Otherwise?’ Jane asked.

‘Harem,’ I joked, folding my legs underneath me. I waited for the laughter to die down. ‘I am single.’

‘If you had to pick one meal from the pub tonight, what would it be?’ Jack shrugged.

‘For quick and dirty, a ploughman’s lunch. I mean, if you can’t get a platter of cheese, meats and cornichons right, what hope have you got? It makes a perfect picnic, too.’ I could slam down some pickle juice right now, I thought.

‘And onions.’ Marcus’s voice cut across the outdoor space as he pulled a chair up opposite me. Grace shuffled aside to let him in but, with the look she was giving him, she was hoping to make room for him in her pants, too.

I said nothing. Everyone else offered up the best confused looks.

‘What about a long meal?’ Glenn looked glumly at his empty beer. ‘Say, if someone were to cook for you.’

I huffed. ‘Really? Anything I haven’t cooked. I mean, it’s been that long since someone cooked a meal for me, I’d probably settle for a Happy Meal and a sundae at this stage. Although, saying that, I do realise that is still fast food, but I’m sure you get the picture.’

On the subject of food, we ordered an assortment of share plates, all picked through the very scientific method of throwing bar nuts at the menu. Oh, and a ploughman’s platter. The night wore on, plates stacked higher, and every time Marcus came near me, I moved away, until I couldn’t move any further.

Penny, who’d earlier vanished into the throng, resurfaced in my inbox. She was leaving, her message said, with contact details for where she was headed. At least she was being safe, I thought as I scrolled through the length of her message. Still, I wanted to catch her before she vanished into the night. Excusing myself, I left the table, brushing past Marcus on my way through. He reached out, fingers slipping through mine as I placed a hand out to stop him.

When I couldn’t find Penny or her mystery man, I called an end to my own night. I’d had enough to drink, was suitably buzzed, and wasn’t keen on making a complete tit of myself in front of people I’d barely known a week. Good Vibes Ellie was ready to be tucked into bed. I said my goodbyes to cries of, ‘But it’s only just gone eleven, stay for one more drink!’ before making a beeline for the door.

Stepping out onto the street, I pulled my coat tighter around me and tucked my hands under my arms.

‘Eleanor, stop.’ Marcus burst out the front door, squeezing between two people, one arm wrangling his coat about his head. ‘Wait.’

I shot him a filthy look over my shoulder and kept walking.

‘Which way to your place?’ His jacket finally slipped over his shoulders with the soft rustle of expensive fabric.

My eyes widened. ‘I beg yours?’

‘I take it you’re walking home?’ he asked.

‘No, George Jetson was about to pick me up from the taxi rank.’ I swung my arm out and mimicked the noise of the cartoon flying car. ‘I was going to go home and have Rosie make me a pot of tea.’

‘Smart arse,’ he grumbled. ‘You’ve only ingested about half the bar.’

‘Oh, and I suppose you’re going to suddenly mine your stash of chivalry, are you?’ I kept up the quick walk along the main street.

‘Actually, I am,’ he argued. ‘Because I don’t think you should be walking home alone.’

‘You don’t want me walking home alone?’ I stopped on the spot, outside a pie shop that was in the throes of closing for the night, barely a light left on in the place. A teenager moved back and forth with a dirty old mop while a blue-light bug zapper burned brightly above the kitchen door. I turned the buttons on my coat. ‘I suppose you think you’re doing a community service, too. You’re so bloody conceited.’

‘Let me get this straight.’ He shifted on his feet and shoved a hand in his pocket. ‘I’ve just told you I’d like to walk you home to make sure you get there safely, because God knows where Penny’s gone. She obviously cares so much about your welfare that she left you alone in a bar. And you’re the one attacking me?’

‘Or maybe she understands that a woman in her thirties is more than capable of getting home safely.’ I pointed in the general direction of home. ‘It’s six hundred metres, at the most,’ I said, before grumbling, ‘maybe a kilometre.’

‘It may surprise you, but the places you think are safe are not always so, and a beautiful woman walking home slightly tipsy may very well become a target.’

I glared at him. I didn’t know whether to feel patronised or touched by the gesture. Lady Justice was having a hard time weighing up her options, too. I think she was about to shake her Magic 8 Ball.

Reply hazy, try again.

‘So, after the day we’ve both had, if my worry makes me conceited, so be it. Conversely, I have tried no less than six times to talk to you tonight and, on each occasion, you’ve either turned away, or simply ignored me.’

‘You’ve been keeping count?’ I shrieked.

‘So, who’s conceited now?’ Marcus folded his arms across his chest and drummed his fingers. He really was quite attractive. And tall. And pretty.

‘Men can get attacked, too, you know,’ I sputtered. ‘And I’ve been here for years. I know the ways.’

‘So, walk me home instead.’

‘Why? You lost your way?’ I laughed, snapping my fingers in his face. ‘Hold on … did you call me beautiful?’

‘I believe I did, yes.’

‘Right, then,’ I said quietly. ‘Thank you.’

‘You know, I might even kiss you if you’d stop arguing with me for three minutes.’

‘I do not argue with you,’ I said. ‘Anyway, three minutes is quick.’

‘Exhibit A.’ He waved a hand towards me. ‘I can’t even—’

‘So, do it.’ I almost wanted to backtrack immediately. Almost.

‘What?’

‘Do it,’ I said. ‘You’re so sure, do it.’

Marcus shook his fists towards the sky and, with one fell swoop, stepped forward, took my face in his hands, and kissed me. As his thumbs drew against my cheekbones, all I could think was, Oh my God, oh my bloody God! We were the last two people to succeed at getting along with each other this week, so why were we chasing this so far up the hill I was about to fetch a pail of water?

And why the hell did it feel so unbearably good? Heat bloomed in my chest, sending any and all common sense fluttering towards the sun on a trajectory last seen by Icarus. Let’s not forget how well that all ended.

With fingers drawn through my hair, and a tug so gentle it barely registered, my ponytail unravelled and tangled through his fingers.

He drew breath. ‘Not bad for someone who’s always so wound up.’

‘And you’re so stuck up.’ I kissed him again. This time, I fumbled with the front of his shirt, the thick expensive fabric, the tiny translucent buttons that felt colder than the night air, and the soft silk of this tie. My fingers drew a line up his chest, past his collar, and came to rest at the nape of his neck.

‘You wanna just come home with me instead?’ he mumbled against my mouth.

‘Why, so you can save me from the dragons?’

‘Something like that.’

* * *

The Great Penis Drought ended exactly thirty-seven minutes ago.

‘Should we perhaps define this?’ I asked.

Marcus shifted his weight, rolling over to face me. His breath came in tiny puffs that tickled my cheeks. For a moment, I simply enjoyed looking at him, at the self-satisfied smile that barely registered, at the sleepy eyes, and the arms he folded across his chest. A lock of dark hair flopped down into his eyes. I pushed it back and waited.

‘Before I go home and we’re both still scratching our heads?’ I continued in the face of his silence.

There was no dictionary definition for what had just happened. All right, so maybe there was, and I’m sure the thesaurus would have something to say, too. Sex. Sex had just happened. Very sexy sex. I’d have jumped and run for the bathroom if it weren’t for the fact there was a distinct Haven’t Seen Use in a While pain tickling my hamstrings.

‘I suppose we probably should,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper.

‘What do you want to call it?’ I asked.

‘I’m not entirely sure,’ he said.

I tucked hair behind my ear and curled further into the pillow. ‘Do you want a relationship from this? Is that what this is?’

‘How about we don’t call it anything?’ He propped himself up on an elbow. ‘Just … I don’t know right now. Whatever.’

Whatever? What kind of word is that to use in a situation like this? I detested it. Even my woozy brain, which was plummeting to Sober Land (Icarus, remember?), knew that was bad news. It was the word of choice whenever Dean wanted to dismiss my excitement or devalue me in front of his friends. The worst part about it? It worked every single time.

A beloved author popped in to the library for a quick visit? Whatever.

Great day at work today! Whatever.

I’m moving out. Whatever.

Apparently, I’d just slept with Coastal Edition Dean and, as much physical joy as his naked body may have brought, none of it was worth going through that kind of humiliation again.

I was so, so angry at myself.

‘I’m going to have a shower.’ Marcus rolled out of bed and strolled across the bedroom, everything on display, as if being intimate with each other were something we did regularly and not just at the end of a drunken night. His body was every inch the footballer, taut muscles, definition, and legs for miles.

‘Okay,’ I whispered, pulling the duvet up around my chin.

‘You all right?’ The corner of his mouth drew up into a smirk. ‘You don’t want to join me?’

I shook my head and, trying to look coolly casual, picked a clump of mascara from my eyelashes. ‘No, thank you.’

I watched him disappear behind a glass-doored en suite. Shifting, I tried to reconcile his words with a body whose muscles I hadn’t used in far too long, and lady parts that were feeling the aftereffects of a decent seeing to. Finally.

I sat up and took in my surroundings, a room I’d been too preoccupied to look at earlier.

A low-lit bedside lamp gave the room some decent ambiance at least, hiding all the lumps and bumps, and anything else nobody wanted to see. A box of condoms, which had been torn at in desperation, was doing its best impression of an origami flower on the bedside table, and my clothes were strewn from one end of the room to the other, though I was sure my dress was still on the bannister somewhere.

Mixed feelings were something I’d experienced a lot lately, but this was taking the cake and using a blowtorch to light the candles. Earlier, I was oozing confidence and full of those loose-limbed, sated, post-orgasmic feelings. Now, I was panicked. I was a ‘whatever’ again, and reality was coming home to roost. My head was set to wash, and my stomach was on tumble-dry. This was the dumbest idea in the history of my ideas. I had to work with this man. I had to look him in the eye and act as if we hadn’t just had the most incredible toe-curling, back-arching, name-screaming, hair-pulling sex ever.

And he wanted to define it as ‘whatever’.

I was a complete goose.

With the safety of Marcus in the shower, I ran. I threw back the sheets, shimmied back into my underwear, slipped on my shoes, and raced down the stairs for my dress. My handbag and coat had been discarded by the front door and, just as the water upstairs stopped running, the front door closed with a gentle click and I disappeared into the night.

Chapter 7

Part of me expected Marcus to come racing out his front door, six-pack on display and towel wrapped around his waist, that finely carved V-shape shown off perfectly. The other part hoped like hell I made it home before he realised what had happened.

Reality had other plans.

I’d barely rounded the corner before I was on my knees in someone’s gutter, depositing my dinner and adding a whiff of lemon meringue martini into the local storm-water system. I had to wait for my stomach to stop heaving before I could pick gravel from tender kneecaps and limp home. My walk of shame was complemented by shoes dangling from fingers, and a sweaty sour mess of hair.

None of this was going down in my list of life achievements I was proud of.

I was relieved when I arrived home to find the house empty. It gave me just enough time to shower myself back into human form, and a modicum of privacy to freak out on my own. As my head hit the pillow, I hoped to wake up the next morning and find everything had been some multidimensional Marvel universe style dream.

It didn’t. It wasn’t. This was not Doctor Strange and his mirror dimension. Or, maybe it could be if I made sure not to tell anyone of my late-night escapades. Hiding from daylight the next morning, I made a very snap decision that I was not telling a soul about my night. What strange magic had been there was not being put up for public consumption. I pulled on some comfortable clothes and shuffled out into the kitchen, and the new morning.

I switched on the kettle and searched for a mug through barely open eyes.

‘And a very good morning to you,’ Penny said through burbled laughter. She had a frying pan in one hand and a fat old spatula in the other. ‘Are you of the genus grease this morning, or the genus carbo-starchy-coma?’

‘Both. Both is good.’ I slipped onto a stool by the counter and held my head in my hands. Even though I’d showered and double washed myself last night, I could still smell lemon meringue. My stomach lurched.

‘Big fat fluffy pancakes?’ Penny presented me with a plate stacked high. ‘We have not particularly authentic maple syrup, lemon and sugar, or whipped butter.’

‘Butter,’ I groaned. Something rose in my throat at the idea of going anywhere near lemon. ‘And maple syrup. All of it.’

‘Alrighty then.’

A leaning tower of pancakes appeared before me, along with butter and syrup, which I poured until I had a small moat on my plate. I shuffled across to the dining table and hugged my coffee cup. I’d have closed my eyes again if it weren’t for the fact I got a frame-by-frame replay of my not so best moments from the last twenty-four hours.

‘How are you feeling this morning?’ Penny stood back from the pan while bacon sizzled and spat at her.

‘I feel like I’m never drinking again.’ I held my face. While I felt like death, Penny looked like she was enjoying every minute of this. For once, it was me on the wrong end of the bar tab and not her.

‘And, where, pray tell, did you disappear to last night?’ she asked.

‘Uhhhh.’ I tucked my napkin under my plate and chewed ultra-slowly. Not even Penny was exempt from my decision not to tell anyone. ‘I went for a walk.’

Her brows disappeared beneath her fringe. ‘For a walk?’

‘I was so drunk,’ I tried, fingers fanning out from my temples. ‘And I thought the cold air would do me good. All I ended up doing was throwing up in the gutter.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘You?’

‘Me.’ I pouted. ‘What a waste of good martini, right?’

‘Jesus, Eleanor. If you’re not careful, you’ll be having random cheap sex.’

Pancake stuck in my throat. I coughed.

‘And herein, you are shooketh,’ she chuckled. ‘Ellie, you crack me up.’

I grinned. ‘Glad to help.’

After breakfast, I beat a hasty retreat to bed, where my only companion was going to be Harry Potter and his magic wand. He was going to be far less trouble. Plus, it was my tenth read through of the series, and he was at least a known quantity.

Still, there was only so many magic spells that would keep reality at bay. My hangover tapered off with a thumper of a headache, which was soon replaced by waves of embarrassed realisation. It arrived slowly at first, but then rushed in like a high tide in a monsoon. My life had an egg timer in the top right-hand corner. Less than forty-eight hours until I had to deal with Marcus again.

Penny suggested a day of shopping, but I couldn’t process the idea of perhaps running into him on the street. I didn’t want that awkward ‘How about that, huh?’ one-two shuffle on a street corner while neither of us knew what to say. So, I opted for a weekend inside. The couch and a DVD box set were calling my name. I needed to recharge, I argued, and disappeared into a pile of cushions with half the confectionary aisle and another set of What Ifs to be anxious about. I powered through a box of Lindt balls, balls, and broke apart a block of Cadbury Fruit and Nut … nuts.

Chocolate! Marcus was the chocolate bar I stole from the milk bar when I was fourteen. While the shopkeeper was busy stacking fruit and veg, I slipped a single-serve Cadbury Snack bar into my pocket and raced out the door. Only, this time, I’d been caught. And what did we learn from that episode? There was not thrill in getting away with the crime, and it wasn’t ever going to happen again. There, brain. Sorted. Illicit. Illegal. Not happening. Never again.

By the time my alarm went off on Monday morning, bright red and screaming like a banshee, I was well prepared. I’d been awake for hours, pondering what exactly it was I was going to say during the inevitable discussion. I’d rationalised how I was going to get my point across without sounding like a clingy girlfriend. To him, whatever may have only been a word. To me, it was a matter of respect. How the ever-perceptive Penny hadn’t picked up on my agitation was beyond me.

I kept my head down and thoughts to myself as I walked through the school gates. If I couldn’t see the looks in people’s eyes, then they didn’t know, and I could sleep easier. We slipped into the reception area together, where Penny opened the safe and booted her computer, and I checked my pigeonhole as per my shiny new routine.

My heart thumped in time with my footsteps and my stomach was stuck on spin cycle. They dropped it down a notch as I ventured into an empty tea room. It was one hurdle I’d cleared. It all felt a little like Mario trying to get to the castle to save Princess Peach, except I was the Princess trying to avoid Mario, so maybe that wasn’t the best analogy.

I shouldered my office door as it swung open.

‘And it’s a very good morning to Usain Bolt!’

As it turned out, I was not prepared.

Marcus sat, legs dangling from the desk, bearing coffee and a greasy bag that I took cautiously and with minimal eye contact. Inside the bag, a Florentine – only my favourite biscuit ever. With its sweet chocolate base, crunchy nuts and candied fruit, Penny and I would walk laps of town as teenagers, fuelled only by idle high school gossip and the sugar in these biscuits.

‘I thought, seeing as I didn’t get my morning after breakfast that I’d improvise,’ he continued.

‘How’d you know these were my favourite?’ I asked.

He shrugged and lifted his feet onto the seat of a chair. ‘A little bird told me.’

‘A little bird in a tiki dress?’ I asked.

‘Is that what it is today?’ He smirked. ‘I can never keep up.’

My gaze shifted from the contents of the bag to him. Panic drummed a beat in my ears.

‘Relax, I didn’t tell her,’ he assured me. ‘She certainly seemed completely oblivious to it when I rang for some insider information, so why feed the gossip train?’

‘What’d you tell her?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘I told her I wanted to do something nice for you for breakfast. Something about welcoming you into your first proper week on the job.’

I placed his offering beside my computer, twisted my hair up into a bun and shoved a pencil through the middle. Until then, I hadn’t noticed I’d left it loose this morning.

‘Can I … I need to know what happened,’ he said, hesitant.

Our eye contact was brief. Marcus picked at the edge of my bench, and he swallowed more often than a drowning rat. This wasn’t helping me. My heart sank under the weight of guilt and embarrassment, and all the words I’d prepared over the weekend marched out the door two by two. I grappled for them, but they were gone.

I pressed the door closed with a quiet click, keen to sort this out and move on for the day. I crossed my arms, fearing that if I rubbed my hands against my hips one more time I’d tear my skin clean off. Pressing at an invisible spot on my forehead didn’t seem to work either. As I paced about, Marcus sat on the edge of my desk and waited patiently.

‘I’m not here to argue with you,’ he ventured. ‘I just want to know what happened. Everything was going great, at least I thought it was. I got out of the shower, and you were gone.’

‘You don’t think that might have something to do with you at all?’ I asked. ‘Let’s not call it anything? Whatever?’

His head dipped back slightly, frustration lining his face as his words came back to haunt him. He rubbed a hand across his mouth. ‘I did say that, didn’t I?’

‘Yes. Yes, you did.’

‘What if I said I wanted more?’ He clasped his hands in his lap. ‘What if I’d spent all weekend thinking about that night and thought maybe we should do that again, and soon?’

I pursed my lips and I shook my head.

‘No?’ he asked. ‘What, so, you’re upset because I said “whatever” and, now, you’re upset because I want to take it back?’

‘I’m not upset about you wanting to take it back.’ I smiled softly. ‘I’m upset that I was stupid enough to go home with you in the first place. That I put myself in that position again when I promised myself I wouldn’t, that I’d be more careful.’

Eyes wide, his mouth formed a shocked ‘O’. ‘Christ, okay. There’s a spare spot on my back if you want to dig the knife in again?’

‘And how do I know you don’t try this on with all the girls?’ I asked. ‘Maybe I’m just flavour of the month.’

‘It may surprise you, but our school is not exactly the Baskin Robbins of the dating world.’ He stood straighter. ‘What happens now?’

‘What do you mean what happens now?’ I asked. ‘You’ve got a job to do, go and do it.’

‘Are you usually this cold?’ he asked.

‘Cold? How is this a me issue?’ I laughed. ‘I asked you to define it, and you blew me off with little more than a “whatever”. Realistically, it was never going to be more than a one-night stand because we need to work together, and I’m not dragging a relationship around the office like a petulant toddler, but “whatever”? Do you understand how devaluing that is?’

‘That’s certainly not how I intended it to sound,’ he said. ‘Not at all. I simply expressing that I didn’t think we needed to label anything, that it could just be one fantastic night as it was.’

I glanced up over my shoulder. ‘Look, we need to be in class in about five minutes. You need to leave.’

‘So that’s it?’ he asked again. ‘I use one wrong word, and I’ve blown my chance?’

‘Do you teach your students to choose their words carefully?’ I opened my office door and swept my arm towards the outside world. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it didn’t happen, and it’s not happening again.’

‘So, what you’re saying is just rewind to four o’clock Friday?’

‘Exactly. None of it happened. Whatever, right?’

‘All right then.’ Marcus backed out of my office slowly. ‘Onion.’

‘Smug bastard.’ I reached for my lesson plans.

So, that didn’t exactly play out how I’d hoped. For all the imaginary arguments I’d won over the weekend, I suddenly had about as much bite as sweet tomato relish. But I didn’t have time to worry. In fact, I didn’t even want to worry about it. The bell had barely rung when Jemima appeared at the door of the library.

‘Everybody say good morning to Miss Manning.’ Jemima held the door open for her small army as they raced through the door, elbows akimbo, already fragile friendships teetering on the fall of seating arrangements. They sang a sweet greeting and, before I could grab her, she’d vanished. Fair call, I thought.

‘All right.’ I clapped my hands and looked out at the faces before me. Kids. They were so readable I could tell their level of disinterest a mile off. ‘Today, we’re going to be reading one of my favourite books. Then, I want you to use the tools in front of you to retell the story of that book back to me.’

They looked bored stiff. Great.

‘Miss Manning, are you going to take the roll?’

Fuck.

‘Just testing.’ I grinned and shook a finger. ‘Good pick-up.’

Thankfully, things got better. I remembered roll call at the beginning of classes, worked through retellings with younger students, character profiles with some of the older ones, and word associations with the ones in between. I pushed my return cart around at lunchtime and, on Wednesday, Penny and the Prep teachers (that really should be a band name) took me for lunch at the closest sandwich shop we could find, where I avoided any and all questions about my love life. I did not have one, no matter what secrets the universe was keeping for me.

On my way back, I walked into the library with a fist-sized blueberry muffin in tow to find Phil waiting for me. He looked deep in discussion with Mick, both wearing expressions that told me they were plotting someone’s demise; likely mine. I hoped like hell Marcus hadn’t said anything. Surely, he wouldn’t.

‘Eleanor.’ Phil held out a hand to stop me before I could disappear too far into my office.

‘Phil.’ I backtracked cautiously. All I wanted right now was to destroy this muffin and ride the sugar wave out for the afternoon. I peeled back the paper patty case and nibbled as I waited for him to finish mumbling at Mick.

‘How’s everything going?’ he asked. ‘All under control? Settling in well?’

I nodded slowly. ‘I think so, yes.’

‘No problems at all?’ he asked. ‘Getting along all right with everyone?’

I froze. Throat, meet vomit. Vomit, sit back down. ‘Sorry?’

‘It’s just, I’ve got you in mind for a project. I was just wondering if there were any issues I wasn’t yet aware of?’

I shook my head and glanced at Mick, who offered nothing but a nervous smile. ‘No, everyone’s been great. Very supportive. Thank you.’

‘And you’re ready for the Book Fair coming up? That’s always a huge day.’

Not really. It was still weeks away. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Excellent. Good.’ Phil rubbed his hands together, surveying the library like he was looking for something out of place, then disappeared with Mick in tow.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what they were planning.

Chapter 8

If anyone were to ask me to sum up my first two weeks at Apollo Bay Primary School, I’d probably tell them it had been a bag of Allen’s Party Mix. Friendships with most colleagues came easily, helped by shared stories of class tantrums and breakdowns over the death of fictional characters. As a book lover, I could sympathise with that far too easily.

We bemoaned workloads that held hands with a lack of funding and, just when I thought I’d climbed to the top of my To Do List, I’d received so many boxes of books for this upcoming book fair that I wished I’d seen them being delivered. Watching them arrive would have looked like that meme with the Amazon truck; oh, look, my book order has arrived!

When it came to Marcus, we had no need to see each other. Like a clip from Yellow Submarine, he’d walk in one door, I’d leave from another. I might have thought keeping him out of sight was the key to keeping him out of my mind, but it was only going to last for so long before I had to deal with him, and his class.

On Friday afternoon, with his Grade Six students in tow, he walked into the library. His navy suit and grey tie brought my winning streak to an end. I sighed so heavily my fringe tickled and left me scratching my forehead.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Manning.’ He grinned so hard, so smugly, that I thought his head might tip back and reveal he was secretly a PEZ dispenser. If he then proceeded to spit out a couple of chill pills, I’d be more than happy to deal with him for the afternoon. Instead, he left nothing more than large handprints on my freshly Windex’d door, because using door handles was so 2005.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Blair. So positively wonderful to see your face again.’ I smiled coquettishly and turned away.

His class stampeded past him like wild brumbies, dispersing in every direction known to woman and proceeding to tear up the landscape. They were way too boisterous a bunch for a Friday afternoon. I don’t ever remember being so intense when I was their age. My friends and I were more likely to be dragging knuckles and yawning out the last of our jam sandwiches but, here they were, raucous and large as life.

‘All right, remember what I said.’ Marcus strode across the learning zone. ‘Let’s mix up our reading style a bit and step out of our comfort zones. Max, that means something other than comics for you and, Sarah, get off the Sweet Valley High.’

‘Nothing wrong with Sweet Valley High,’ I grumbled.

‘And I’d like to see a few of you in the non-fiction section. Caroline, I know you’ll just love to read about French revolutionary history. Napoleon is not just an ice-cream flavour.’

He wasn’t even that. What on earth was he teaching these kids?

I cringed. ‘What?’

‘That’s it, every corner. Spread on out. That way, when Miss Manning puts all these books back tonight, she gets to familiarise herself with the library, and we do want to help her get acquainted with Mr Dewey and his system.’

I glanced up from the small piles of books forming on the returns trolley. ‘I’ll have you know I’m very familiar with Mr Dewey and his system. We’re old friends, dinner on Friday nights.’

Marcus leaned back against the loans counter, and I wondered if I could slap his elbows from underneath him with a ruler. Funny bones were never comical when on the receiving end of a sharp stick or doorframe.

‘A refresher never hurt,’ he said.

Hell, I’d worked in libraries for the last ten years. If I knew one thing better my own monthly cycle, it was the Dewey Decimal System. It had got so bad in my previous job that, at one point, I could direct other staff to the aisle number and shelf location.

Looking for a book about Mozart? Somewhere around 780’s, aisle twenty on the second floor, right-hand side. I sighed. Oh, for the simple days.

I watched as Marcus ambled around the room, ducking and weaving between children and stacks, congratulating them all on their fine reading choices. ‘Concorde plane? Well done, Danny.’ ‘Tudor History for Children? Good on you, Emily, you’ll love it.’ I gave him a filthy look and retreated to my office. The sooner I got rid of him, the better. If only he thought the same. He wasn’t done, and followed me straight through the door, his aftershave following him like the slightly appealing smell of lazy Sunday mornings in bed with a man who knew his way around a woman’s body.

Urgh.

‘Do you have the lesson plans I emailed you?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ I picked one of the display folders from beside my PC. ‘See? I, the capable teacher that I am, are prepared.’

He plucked the folder from my hand and flipped through the contents. ‘That was grammatically incorrect, just so you know.’

My eyes widened. ‘Sorry, what?’

‘You basically just said, “I are prepared”.’

‘Oh, sod off,’ I grumbled.

‘Let’s not fight in front of the children, hmm?’ He smirked. ‘Not good for their mental health, is all.’

‘What?’ I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Now, do you want me to stay and take this first class? Or have you got things under control?’ he asked.

‘Of course I’m capable. I just said I was, didn’t I? Go away.’

‘Ooof! Bitey like cheese.’ His tongue rolled about in his cheek pocket. ‘Cracker barrel.’

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