Wrish

‘Excuse me’… ‘Excuse me, do you know the way to Hawthorne street?’
‘No, no I don’t’
A map in her hand, exasperation on her face.
‘That’s Teneriffe, we’re not on this map, let me see…. Ann Street… Brunswick street, StPauls, here. Right here is where we are. So you just need to go down there and you’ll be fine.’
‘I think I’ll just turn around and…’
‘No, no.. you are heading the right way.’
‘Oh I don’t know I had my phone and I put it in, but it wouldn’t… and oh the little girl.. she’s so tired, she was so excited, and now she is falling asleep, she has been so patient. I just feel like telling them no, but we’ve come all this way.’
She was frantic, and accented. Her voice, I don’t know, it had something posh, not Australian. Later she’d mention London – where there is more work.

An odd green van, with a child in a seat in the back amongst a pile of bits and pieces, of rags and things. Her with an iPhone and deafening blue eyes. She blinked with precisely the right amount of despair, the lines on her face spoke of sun filled beaches and photographed moments.

‘Oh, could you… I could give you a lift, and drop you at your house on the way back, where do you live? Could you show me the way?’

And I couldn’t say no. Soccer Mum with lightning eyes asked me into her van and I couldn’t say no.

A short stop in my ‘beautiful’ street. ‘Go through the lights all the way to the next intersection.’ She told me of casting, and advertisements, she’d be in one soon, but it might not circulate in Queensland. ‘Turn right and keep going until you get to Ann.’ She told me of Coco, and looking at 4wd’s, of living in the Sunshine Coast. She mentioned her husband, in that subtle way that taken women do. ‘I think it is the next right, yes this one’ pointing to guide her. She’d get one of those things for the dashboard so she wouldn’t have to pick up strangers in future. The iPhone is good, but sometimes you need it to speak to you.

‘Ok, take the second left… this one here. This is James.’ She said how she’d gone to the old place, and they hadn’t told her that they’d moved. ‘Now turn left at the end.’ She told me how she sent in the shots and Coco should have gotten it, but no, there’s an audition. ‘And this is it, do you know which number?’ There was searching, and paging through diaries, and papers. ‘Well, could you call them?’ But her husband gave her the iPhone with the dead battery. Those eyes reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone and dialed.

‘Oh look, other families, this will be the place.’

Inside, surrounded by little blonde girls, and token Dads. Some well dressed and gay, some wearing safari shirts, others still with fauxhawks. ‘You never know what they want’ they told me. ‘You have to try and some times you get in’ Carol said. One of the girls has pink-eye and Carol offers sympathy to her mother. Carol and Coco go outside to do star jumps. ‘You don’t always get in, but some times you do!’ I talk to gay dad and safari dad. I explain these unusual circumstances and gay dad calls me a good samaritan.

There is small talk, and waiting, there is making jokes about origami, there is overtly gay talent agent with hipster jeans and hair to one side. And then we leave.

Carol is grateful, she doesn’t know what she’d have done, she nearly invites me to Noosa, but doesn’t.

I tell this story to three people in my week, each time they say that overtly gay talent agent should have seen me, he should have said ‘Odd looking hippie man-child! You are exactly what I want for my milk ad’ they say that he should have said ‘Where have you been all my life?’ they say that I should have gotten a part. They say ‘…that would be a story’

Life isn’t always a great story.

She shoved a wave my way, it was hard to see through the dark but it looked like a wave. I waved back, and she seemed to shrug, or wave again, or something. It was just a shadow that moved really… I had been waiting where the light was bright, where she could see me and choose to leave if she wanted. Another showing of insecurity, another weakness… Another wave and I was walking in her direction, in the direction of the dark haired shadow..

We’d both been late, and we’d both been early.

Pleasantries, and walking, and lamenting the cancelled show, then talking. Easy talking, about how I’d been an idiot for waiting on the peer, and she’d maybe just seen me as I walked onto it. Then about the Internet, Facebook and other sources of embarrassment. I think she laughed at my jokes, and I enjoyed it.

She was bright, and charming, and beautiful. Tall but not cumbersomely so, perhaps slightly insecure about it, I had an inch on her and I was making sure to keep it by standing tall.

We shared things that were tasty, and I apologised excessively for accidentally getting things with bacon. She eats fish and salad. There was finding toilets, drinking red wine. There was talk of Medicine, and Health, and placements, and family. There was talk of future aspirations, and down syndrome, and genetics and grafted flowers. Of appropriately worded songs about flowers that smell of poo, of handstands, and scrabble, and boardgames.

We played frisbee under a single light in the middle of the park, and we talked about people, and friends, and sex, and bush walking.

We did handstands in the wet grass and we talked about acrobats and cheer leading.

She had boardgames in her car. We played scrabble, and we talked about technique, and words, about SOWPODS, and blocking. ‘You can tell a lot about someone from the way they play.’ I was being meticulous, slow and losing, I did not wonder what that meant. By the time she beat me, I was smit.

I muddled some words in protest, but I was lost, from the beginning. So we drove, and we talked about being tired and traveling.

We stopped at my house, and I hesitated, and I left.

And we didn’t talk anymore.