‘I thought I told you to bring work boots?’ My dad glanced down at my feet, which were encased in gold Jeremy Scott for Adidas trainers with angel wings sticking out from the ankles. I’d been given them by a former boss who was a major-league basketball player.
‘But these are my work boots!’ I told him. ‘I’ve spent ten hours standing outside the Grammy awards in these without getting any blisters.’ My dad, who was wearing gumboots caked in orange clay, shook his head, but his eyes were twinkling. Then he held out his arms for a hug. ‘It’s so wonderful to have you here, Lindsay,’ he said. ‘Your mother and I have been worried about you.’
This was a statement that I’d heard a dozen times since I’d arrived the day before. It seemed that everybody, from my parents to the milkman, the postman, the bus driver and the owner of the local corner shop, was ‘worried’ about me. I wasn’t sure what I’d done to earn the entire town’s concern, but it was starting to make me feel uncomfortable.
On the day I arrived, as I dragged my suitcase up the mud track to my parents’ house, I was met by a slobbering pack of cattle dogs who leapt up and left dirty footprints down my white jeans. ‘Hi, Rowdy! Hi, Rusty! Hi, Bandit!’ I greeted my childhood family pets, who were growing grey around the temples. These were real dogs, not the little handbag rats you see carried around Hollywood wearing pearl necklaces as collars, with their claws painted pink. I was definitely home.
I had felt myself relax as soon as I buckled my seatbelt on the plane. I always fly home with Qantas airlines, because just hearing an Australian accent saying ‘Welcome aboard’ makes me instantly feel like I can let my guard down. I’d flown into Melbourne Airport and then caught a bus for the last stretch to Hamilton, pulling in to the bus station at 6 a.m. as the sun rose.
It was a strange contradiction, going from a first-class cabin where I was served caviar and smoked salmon to a rusting, rattling bus where I was given one biscuit in a plastic wrapper as the ‘continental breakfast’.
On the winding walk back to my parents’ house I stopped at a cafe and asked for a soya milk latte to go. ‘I’m sorry, love, we only have full cream milk here,’ the waitress told me, and I instantly felt like a diva for asking. I also instantly felt like a tourist, which was sad, seeing as I was born at the hospital just down the road.
It had taken me forever to pack for this trip because I didn’t want to look like an out-of-towner. When I travel with my bosses I usually have to dress to impress, but when I’m visiting my parents I have the opposite strategy. Last time I’d visited my mother I’d arrived in a turquoise Juicy Couture tracksuit.
‘You look like that girl from Legally Blonde,’ laughed my mum, which I don’t think she meant as a compliment.
I didn’t want to appear flashy and I didn’t want to look like a try-hard, so I left behind all my expensive accessories, as if I was visiting a crime zone rather than a country town in Australia. I also disregarded anything in my wardrobe that was covered in sparkles, had a designer label or cost over two hundred dollars. I was surprised to find this left me with very little. It was a good thing I was only visiting for three days.
My parents’ house is on the edge of Hamilton, right next to a patch of woodland where I spent my childhood building forts and tumbling my bike into ditches. When I was little, there was only one dusty highway leading into town, and my girlfriends and I would spend entire afternoons just walking up and down it, waving at truck drivers to see how many we could get to toot their horns.
For old times’ sake, I’d tried it on the walk home from the bus station, but the truck drivers had just nodded at me politely. It didn’t seem to have the same impact when you were a fully grown woman wheeling a Gucci suitcase, instead of one of a group of giggling schoolgirls.
I love the fact that my parents still live in the house that I grew up in. There’s something about sleeping in my old bed that soothes and settles me, even though my feet hang off the end. My old Singer sewing machine is still on a table in the corner. When I was thirteen my friends and I all had them, and used to spend our weekends making headbands and canvas bags from fabric we tie-dyed in my mum’s washing basin. I wish I’d kept some of my creations, because Alysha had recently ordered a bag from a new up-and-coming designer that looked exactly the same as one I’d made, but cost $6000.
My parents’ house no longer has a big plot of land, because they sold off their fields when I was a teenager. At the time I remember having a huge temper tantrum because it meant they pulled down my tree house, which was my happy place when I was younger. Now I suspect they sold the land to pay for our move to Melbourne, and I feel terrible for giving them such a hard time.
My dad still gets his ‘nature fix’ by helping out at a friend’s farm down the road. On my first morning back in Hamilton he invited me to go with him to help repair some fencing. When I was little this was one of my favourite jobs, as I felt like I was assisting a surgeon when I passed him equipment from his tool kit.
It was a blast from the past visiting the Daleys’ farm. I used to spend most of my weekends there when I was younger, as I was good friends with their daughter Britney. She was one of six girls and we’d all help to milk the cows and drive around herding the sheep on quad bikes. Talking to her parents, I discovered Britney now lives in Sydney, works for a global advertising company, and lives in an apartment overlooking the Harbour Bridge.
‘You must be very proud of her,’ I said to her mother, as I sipped a chipped mug of strong tea in her kitchen. ‘She’s doing so well for herself. Living in Sydney must be really exciting.’
When we were younger, Britney’s mum was always the parent who led the standing ovation at our school plays and led the Mexican wave at our netball matches, so I thought she’d relish the opportunity to talk about her daughter’s achievements. But instead Jenny seemed to want to downplay them.
‘Well, Britney’s certainly very busy,’ she said. ‘To be honest, her dad and I wonder how long she’ll be able to last. She sends us emails in the middle of the night and she’s always working on weekends. It’s very impressive on her résumé but it seems very stressful. We do worry about her a lot. I’m sure your mum would relate . . .’
There it was again. That W-word. I wondered if my mother spoke about my career in the same way. I like to think she’d be proud of what I do—even boastful—but maybe she talked about me with pity, as Britney’s mum did about her.
‘You know who is doing very well for herself?’ continued Jenny. ‘Heidi McPherson, who was in the class below you at school. Do you remember her? She always had her head buried in a novel while you girls were climbing trees and rollerskating. She’s the manager of the local bookstore now. I always see her cycling to work . . .’
I did remember Heidi, although we’d never been close friends. She was a pleasant-enough girl with perfectly straight copper hair, whose parents had owned a farm just outside of town. I’d bumped into her in the corner shop during my last trip home, when I’d been buying a copy of Famous magazine and she’d been buying the local newspaper. She’d asked how Los Angeles was treating me and whether I planned to stay there indefinitely. I remember thinking that it was odd she was so interested, but put it down to a small-town mentality.
‘It’s funny how some girls just land on their feet,’ Jenny continued. ‘Heidi’s parents are so lucky having her close by. I met her mum in the supermarket the other day and she’s so excited about the wedding. That Will is a lovely lad. You’re close friends with him, aren’t you? Did you help him pick out the ring?’
It took a moment for her words to sink in. Did she mean my Will?
Getting married?
I was embarrassed to admit I didn’t know anything about it, so I nodded along as Jenny talked about how nice a spring wedding would be and how Heidi was wearing her mother’s old wedding dress. I stayed long enough not to appear rude, while blood pumped in my ears, and then I thanked her for the tea and got out of there.
‘Dad, I’ve got to go!’ I yelled across the field to my father, who was up to his elbows in mud. ‘I’ll meet you at home. There’s someone I’ve got to see right now!’
Then I ran at full pelt, taking a shortcut through the forest. It was a route that I’d taken countless times during my childhood. I raced past the rope swing where I’d got my first broken bone as a teenager, and the tree house where I’d had my first kiss with Will. We’d had our second kiss in the exact same spot, a decade later, when I was twenty-three. I’d flown to New York for a job a day later, and we’d never really discussed it.
As I ran my gold trainers slid on the mossy ground, and I cursed them for being all style and no substance. By the time I rounded the corner to Will’s house I was dripping in sweat, puffing and panting. His car was in the driveway, and Will was unpacking boxes from the back seat when he looked up and spotted me. He had the same expression on his face as he did the day his mum caught us pouring dish-washing liquid into the duck pond.
•
‘Will, why didn’t you tell me that you’re getting married?’ I didn’t waste any time. ‘Is this why you’ve been ignoring me?’
I noticed that the boxes on the ground were full of fake flowers, fairy lights and rolls of white and gold fabric. A smaller box that Will was clutching to his chest was labelled ‘wedding invitations’. As I stared, wondering if one had my name on it, he suddenly seemed to realise what he had in his hands and threw the box into the back seat of his car, like he was hiding the evidence.
‘Lindsay, I wondered if I’d see you,’ he said, in a tone that suggested he’d hoped he wouldn’t. ‘When did you arrive? When are you leaving?’ I’d sent him an email when I booked my tickets, telling him my travel plans, although perhaps he was sending any correspondence from me straight to the spam folder. He hadn’t really changed since we met on our first day at school twenty years before. He had the same inquisitive blue eyes, flushed cheeks and butterscotch hair that curled around the base of his neck. He was just a taller—and more muscular—version of the schoolboy I had my first crush on.
‘I’m only here for a few days,’ I said. ‘Seriously, Will, it’s time to drop the act. Can we talk?’
I realised that I’d have to take the lead, so I walked past him into the house and motioned to him to follow me. Will’s parents had lived in this house until they had died. They both had heart attacks, four weeks apart. In the five years since then, decorating the house had become Will’s pet project. For a while he emailed me a photo every week, of a bookshelf that he’d varnished or a tree trunk that he’d carved into a coffee table. I noticed the bookshelf now had twice as many books, and there was a handbag hanging on the coat rack. I didn’t want to sit down, as I needed height to give me confidence, so I hovered in the kitchen, where there was an invitation for an engagement party stuck to the fridge. They’d held the celebration the night before I came home.
‘Is Heidi living here?’ I asked, looking around for clues. I couldn’t bring myself to say the word fiancée out loud.
‘Not yet,’ Will replied. ‘Her parents are very traditional. They don’t want us to live together until after we’re married.’ He had recovered from the shock of my unexpected arrival, and was looking more comfortable. ‘I’m sorry, Lindsay,’ he said. ‘I probably should have called you. I assumed your mum would have told you . . . and to be honest I didn’t know if you’d care.’
‘How can you possibly say that?’ I asked. ‘Why wouldn’t I care about such a huge development in your life? We’ve been friends forever. You know me better than anyone!’
His eyes flashed. ‘Are you kidding me, Lindsay?’ he cried. ‘I don’t know you. I used to know you. But I have absolutely no idea who this girl is. You’ve become a fully paid-up member of the superficials. Every time we talk you’re on some crazy new diet, and every time we meet you’ve lost more weight and become more . . . glossy.’
He picked up a lock of my hair and then let it fall onto my shoulders. ‘Tell me, Lindsay, is it difficult to come home and visit the common people?’
I couldn’t believe that my best friend was attacking me. ‘What are you talking about, Will? Just because I look a certain way and dress a certain way, it doesn’t mean I’ve changed. It doesn’t mean that I’m a bad person, or that I love my family any less.’
As the words left my mouth, I thought about Alysha and all of the mothers who I judged so quickly without really knowing them. Was I really any different, or any better? In Will’s eyes I was clearly just another superficial socialite with no grasp on reality. He walked to the front door and opened it, kicking my trainers that I’d left on the doormat into the driveway.
‘Gold shoes for a gold-digger,’ he muttered, and I felt like I’d been punched. ‘Just go back to Los Angeles, Lindsay. Go back to your friends and your celebrities and your parties. Isn’t that your life’s purpose? You clearly thought that was more important than staying here with me.’
He sounded like one of the children I cared for, who needed to learn that you couldn’t be in their sight every second. I suddenly didn’t have the energy to argue anymore. ‘If that’s really how you feel, then I’ll go. And don’t say my wedding invitation’s in the post, because we both know that’s a lie, and we both know I wouldn’t come anyway.’
I pushed past Will into the fresh air, not even stopping to put my shoes on.
My parents were both sitting in the living room waiting for me when I got home, but I told them I was jetlagged and going to bed early. My dad raised an eyebrow, and my mum looked up from her newspaper and asked, ‘I’m guessing that you went to see Will?’ I nodded but didn’t offer any explanation, and she didn’t press me for details.
All I wanted to do was get into bed and torture myself by replaying the conversation in my head, like a child pressing on a bruise to see if it still hurts. Yep, it still hurt. In fact, it hurt even more every time I thought about it.
I’m not proud to say that I spent the next two days moping, lying on the couch in my pyjamas watching romantic comedies. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as relaxing as I had hoped, as it’s much harder to lose yourself in a movie when you’ve worked for most of the main characters.