Lisa Heidke

up Max’s clothes, I check my email messages. There are none from Max, surprise, surprise, but there are two more from Dom. I don’t know how I feel about that, except that I remember I forgot to tell Gloria off for putting him in contact with me.To: LucySpringer@xbox.com
From: DomDelahunty@littlepond.net
Hey Lucy, okay, perhaps I was being too subtle with Hey Lucy, okay, perhaps I was being too subtle with my first email. Did you not get the hint that I want you to email me, or, better yet, pick up the phone?Gloria’s filled me in on what’s been going on and it sounds like you could do with the company of an old friend who knew you before The Young Residents and hasn’t seen you espousing the virtues of broccoli.I think that someone could be me. Come on, girl, call me. Dom xx To: LucySpringer@xbox.com
From: DomDelahunty@littlepond.net
Lucy, remember the end-of-year Christmas bash Lucy, remember the end-of-year Christmas bash where I knocked my head and you took me to hospital? Thought you might like to know I’ve still got a scar on my chin. Every time I shave, I think of you and smile. Well, not every time, but most . . . Call me. Dom xx
I don’t delete the emails but I don’t reply either.
Late that night, I toss and turn in bed, wondering, remembering and cursing. Dom probably has a wife and children of his own, and it makes me kind of sad that I missed out on all of that. Not that I wanted to be the mother of his children - I was never given the opportunity. Besides, I have my own. I’m just sad that more than a decade has sailed by and I don’t know him anymore.

Day 20
Patch arrives at 7.15 am. He’s wearing scruffy Levi’s, a faded red Chairman Mao T-shirt and brown Blundstones. It’s not his usual workday attire.
‘With all the damage the torrential rain has caused, we’re not going to be able to work here for a couple of days until after the rain stops,’ he says, looking at me expectantly. ‘It’s because your ground is made of clay and clay retains water.’
‘But we’ve got no kitchen,’ I say, bursting into tears.
Patch awkwardly puts his arms around me. He smells fresh. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and makes a hasty exit. It’s 7.18 am.
So now I’m mopping up the floors (again!) while my teeth whiten. Yes, I’m wearing whitening strips on my choppers - feels like chewing gum, looks much worse. Why? Because I’m insecure and have succumbed to the advice of Petrea, aka Ms September, the bronzed woman at the Actors’ Studio the other night who flashed her gleaming white teeth at me at every opportunity. ‘White teeth give you a competitive edge every time, Lucy.’ She looked like George Hamilton with boobs the way she was carrying on.
I have a feeling these strips aren’t exactly what Petrea uses to achieve that enviable look, but I can’t exactly embark on cosmetic dental surgery when I haven’t even trialled my three-thousand-dollar toilet.
‘Mum,’ Sam says, walking into the room, ‘Fred told everyone at school I have nits because I scratch my head a lot.’
‘Tho thtop sthcratching your head.’
Sam stands in front of me furiously scratching at his scalp. ‘I can’t. What’s on your teeth?’
I cover my mouth with my hand. ‘Thothing.’
I quickly examine his head. Relief. No lice.
‘Whoth Fred anyway?’
‘A new kid. He can drink chocolate milk through a straw up his nose.’
Tonight I’m having dinner with a group of school mums. Though I hesitated before accepting the invitation, not fancying having to tell people Max has left me, I decided to go because I really need to put in some effort with the mums. Morning conversations at the school gate aren’t much chop, Saturday soccer has deteriorated into a sombre occasion, and I really didn’t make a good impression at Sam’s concert.
As I still can’t reach Alana, I reluctantly agree to let Mum have Bella and Sam sleep at her house, which is probably a good thing. When Sam’s not furiously scratching at himself, he’s blaming me because soccer’s been cancelled due to rain.
‘It’s not my fault,’ I tell him. ‘Contrary to popular belief, I’m not God.’
Meanwhile, Bella’s becoming more agitated because her dad’s not here and hasn’t called.
I try distracting them by taking them shopping, but even new Nintendo games don’t keep them quiet for long. So yes, the break at Mum’s will do us all good.
‘Thanks for picking me up,’ I say to Nadia on the way to dinner.
‘Under the circumstances, Luce . . . I mean, with Max away and everything . . .’
We sit down at the reserved table for eight at the local Thai restaurant.
Emma is the next to arrive. She bounces up and gives me a big hug and kisses me on the cheek. ‘How you doing?’ she asks, her South African intonation unmistakable. Emma’s complexion is flawless. She’d have to be in her mid-thirties, but you’d never know it. I can’t find one wrinkle on her unblemished face and, believe me, I’ve searched.
‘Not bad,’ I say, now truly alarmed that the kids have been telling stories at school about me.
Within half an hour, seven women are drinking riesling and chatting about rostered sex lives. It’s a bit of a change from the actors’ party the other night, with people doing lines of coke at the bar and popping ecstasy tabs like they were peppermints. I notice there are more fat people here than at that party (or maybe there’s just a higher proportion of weighty people at this particular restaurant). There’s also a lot of conservative navy-blue skirts and sensible flat shoes. Black, of course.
‘I’ve told him it’s two nights off, one night on,’ says Lizzie, a buxom brunette whose clothing choices do little to minimise her enormous cantaloupes.
‘You actually schedule sex?’ Nadia asks.
‘Yep, that way he leaves me alone to read my book in bed two nights out of three.