Chapter Five

LILY

 

Lily stretched out her legs and yawned, then lay back on her beach towel. From where she was laying, she could just spot Scott and Bodhi running through the water. Bodhi was giggling as Scott would dart in and out in an attempt to catch Bodhi, but Bodhi would always get away. Lily wondered if Scott was letting him, but she also knew Bodhi was getting pretty fast. She smiled and then picked up her book. She was having the most blissful week and really didn’t want it to end.

It felt like hours later when shadows appeared above her. “Where’s my towel, Mum?”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Your father is perfectly capable of getting you your towel, too, honey. ‘Mum, Mum, Mum,’” she mimicked, laughing.

Scott shrugged. He was lucky to get away without Bodhi’s constant nagging. Still, she couldn’t complain—Scott was a great dad, and Bodhi was mostly an easy child, she knew.

“Last day today,” Scott said, looking as disappointed as Lily felt. She nodded in response. She usually wasn’t one to get Mondayitis or sad at the end of a holiday, but she wasn’t looking forward to the next week with Bodhi starting back at school. Ugh, the school routine—making lunches, washing uniforms, and early bedtimes. They’d established a bit of a routine over their holiday, rising late, walking, returning and having breakfast, then relaxing by reading, watching TV, eating a light lunch, and heading to the beach or the pool til dinner time. They usually went out for dinner, but a couple of nights they’d done a poolside barbeque and board games. Bodhi had made a couple of young friends at the resort, and Lily and Scott had enjoyed watching him play with the other children. They now made a habit of annual beach holidays, and this trip, they’d discussed it might be important to return to the same resort each year to, hopefully, see some of the same children again.

Lily stopped pondering and glanced up at Scott, who was looking out at the ocean, wistfully. She smiled and caught sight of Bodhi, who was building a sandcastle nearby. He never stopped—not for a minute! She gestured to the bag and then said, “Shall we?” indicating to Scott that it might be time to pack up.

He understood immediately and nodded. “Yeah, I guess we better get organised to get on the road.”

“We’ll have lunch first though?” They’d changed up their routine on the last day in an effort to get on the road before too late.

“Yes, just something fast, and then we’ll get in the car and go so we don’t get home too late.”

Lily nodded. That sounded like a good plan. The trio set about putting all their belongings into the car. By the time they were ready to go, their swimsuits had all dried. Lily had thrown a dress over the top of hers and decided they could just do the drive home that way. They grabbed sandwiches from a little café near their beach villa, and then made the two-hour drive home. On the way to the beach, Lily had given Bodhi a bunch of activities—never fun entertaining an active eight-year-old in the car—but he must have been exhausted because on the way home he happily put his iPod earphones in and relaxed, finally falling asleep. Lily smiled—she remembered back when he was young and would fall asleep in the car. She hadn’t seen that for a long time.

“So back to school next week. I’m a little anxious. I always hate the start of a new school year.”

Scott couldn’t hide his amusement. “For you or him?”

Lily shrugged. “That’s just the thing, isn’t it? It’s probably me!” She was fully aware that she was a little over the top. “But, hey, he’s our only child.”

“True. Do you know which teacher he has?”

“No, apparently he has someone new to the school this year. I forget her name. I hope she’s nice. I really hoped he’d get Mr Stenlake. A nice male influence. He’s one of the other grade three teachers.”

“Oh! What am I if I’m not a nice male influence.”

Lily said, “Okay, but you’re his dad. You know what kids think of their parents.”

Scott nodded. “I think I get what you mean.”

*

A FEW EVENINGS later, Lily was anxiously packing Bodhi’s school bag. His return to school also meant Lily’s return to work, so she also planned her clothes out for the next morning. She always took the entire summer holiday period off work, and she wasn’t excited to get back into the swing of things for herself, either—rushed mornings, packing lunches, planning her wardrobe—but deep down she knew that once they got into it again, it would all be fine. She really valued the flexibility her job and financial situation provided, but she also knew she wouldn’t want to be at home full time now that Bodhi was at school. When he was younger, it was different. He had really needed her, and Lily had been a stay-at-home mum the whole time. Once he’d started at school, she had been excited about having something outside of the family. Something for her. Toward the end of that period, she’d almost been counting down the days, so she knew she shouldn’t begrudge the fact that she was working now.

When she woke up, she could hear Bodhi talking to Scott in the kitchen. Lily slipped out. “Hey,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “Oh, good, you’re having breakfast.”

“Yeah, Dad made me toast and cheese,” Bodhi said.

“How are you going?” Scott asked, smiling kindly. “Did you sleep okay? You were up pretty late.”

“Good, once I finally went to sleep, I was out like a light.” Lily added, “I’ll have a shower, get ready for the day. Back to the grindstone!”

Lily was acting like the return to work was awful, but she actually did love her work. She’d carved out an opportunity that worked perfectly for her, though the return to the routine was always a reality hit! When Lily had been ready to return to work, she’d spoken to her sister Jacqui about lots of different options. Should she manage an office, work in admin, work in sales? She didn’t really know what she felt like doing. Maybe she could train to become a florist or cake maker. Maybe she should study to become a psychologist—she did love people. There were plenty of options.

Jacqui was in marketing, and always had good ideas, so she wanted to pick her brains. Not once had it occurred to her to start her own business, but one of the ideas Jacqui had had stuck with Lily—they could create a local magazine for parents, with a large section at the back for discounts. Lily loved writing and networking and thought the service for parents would be a great idea. She got to work creating a business plan, and when she presented it to Jacqui, Jacqui was just as keen to set it up. “If we’re successful, I could work part-time and do the business the rest of the time,” Jacqui had said, excitedly considering the possibilities. “And if we’re super successful, I could give up my job and work with you full-time!”

That was all the motivation Lily needed to make this work. She got advertisers from all over Canberra. Each ad was linked to at least one discount voucher, and about half the readers bought the magazine just for the discounts. The others loved the articles, and Lily tasked people from all over the world to submit articles each month. Soon enough the magazine was successful enough that Jacqui could reduce her hours at work. The beauty of that was that Jacqui could cover all the summer months, and Lily would be a stay-at-home mum for Bodhi during the summer.

Jacqui’s kids were older and a lot more independent than Bodhi. Jacqui constantly said to her little sister, “Enjoy Bodhi wanting you around because it doesn’t last forever.” Her three girls seemed to want to do their own thing all summer long, so Jacqui enjoyed pumping out the work to get the first issue of each year on to the shelves. In the last year, Jacqui had resigned from her job completely, and now they had the pressure to really make it work. Jacqui was already considering new options to expand the business. She was the creative brains behind the business, while Lily was all about implementing, connecting people with the right project. It seemed to work really well.

It was forecast to be such a hot day and Lily had a few meetings lined up already, so she threw a red dress on, heels, and brushed her long dark hair. After she spritzed some perfume on and completed the look with vibrant red lipstick, she felt ready for both the return to the school gate and to the office. She went downstairs where Scott and Bodhi were now watching cartoons, breakfast over. “Kettle’s still hot,” Scott called. “I didn’t make you a cup. I wasn’t sure how long you’d be, but the tea bag’s in your mug.”

“No worries, thank you!” Lily was so lucky to have Scott. He was really considerate of things like that. She had just popped bread in the toaster when he called out again, “I put Bodhi’s lunchbox in his bag and got the drink bottle out of the fridge. Is that all he needed?”

“Oh, I wanted to give him one of the yoghurts from the top of the fridge.”

Lily heard Scott say, “Bodhi, go grab a yoghurt for Mum.” She spread peanut butter thickly on her toast and sat at the table munching on it while flicking through her phone. She glanced at her text messages—she had a few. Her parents, wishing Bodhi well; Jacqui, saying how excited she was to have her co-worker back; and one from one of the school mums saying she hoped Lily’s morning was going better than her own, and she would see her at school.

They travelled to school in two cars, Bodhi opting to drive with his father. It was a bit more of a novelty, Lily supposed, as she did most of the school runs in the morning. Scott worked in the public service and usually preferred to start early and finish in time to pick Bodhi up from school. This meant that Lily didn’t have to rush home, but she did have the flexibility if it was ever required. Lily preferred to do all the school pick-ups the first week back to school, to get to know who was in the new class, chat with the teacher, and get a feel for things. Then she’d relax into her more normal routine.

Each year, the school seemed to trial different strategies for managing the bottleneck of parents eager to see their little babies off on the first day. The year before, they’d all had to say goodbye in the playground. This year, parents were encouraged to visit their child’s classroom, greet the teacher, deposit school bags, hear any instructions, and then leave. Bodhi led the way to the grade three section. They walked past Mr Stenlake’s classroom, and Lily glanced in, a little sad to see that Mr Stenlake had the kids of some of her friends. She’d heard he was an amazing teacher, and as she’d said to Scott, she thought a male teacher would be good. On the other side of the hall, Miss Williams was setting up. Bodhi had Miss Kelly Williams back in grade one, and then she’d become a grade three teacher.

She popped out to say hello. “Does Bodhi have Ms Parker? Or Mr Stenlake?” Miss Williams asked.

“Not Mr Stenlake. He has the new teacher?”

“Yeah, Ms Parker. She’s really nice.”

“Oh, good. I always get anxious about new teachers.”

“I think you’ll be fine with her. She seems to know her stuff. I’ve just had a week of planning days with her, and we’ve had a ball.”

“Oh. That’s good to know.” Lily really valued Kelly’s opinion—she’d been impressed with her as Bodhi’s teacher. Scott then spoke up. “Should we go meet the teacher then?” He half smiled, clearly thinking they were spending too much time talking about the new teacher when they could be talking to the new teacher. Ever the pragmatist!

They made their way to the next classroom, and there was a crowd of parents and children placing bags down, claiming desks, and just making general, noisy chaos. Lily always hated this part of the return to school. Bodhi found a bag hook with his name on it and hung his school bag up. He took out his books. Lily noticed a tray of gleaming laptops with a sign for each child to claim one and place a name sticker on it—their device for the year. Lily had been involved in the P&C fundraiser to get enough money, along with a government grant, for each child to have their own device to use. She felt pretty proud to see them there for the kids. The bell rang, and each child took their seat at their desk. The parents moved to the sides of the room, and Lily looked up to get a glimpse of the teacher. Never in her wildest dreams had she expected to see Parker at the front of the class!