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Wanda warns me she’s into smoothies for breakfast, and she grows sprouts on the windowsill. After the fish, these are foibles I can live with. But when we go to bed, she discovers that her new flatmate is into text messages in the middle of the night from her ex.
How’s your first night on the beach going? Any stalkers getting your knickers in a twist?
Then: I hear prostitution’s illegal in Hawaii. But doing it for food and lodgings might be OK.
Bastard. It’s never once occurred to him to ask me why I left.
Wanda looks across from her bed and sees my face lit by my screen. She sits up. “Let me guess. He misses his precious baby and can’t exist without you. That only means he can’t cook. Or use a vibrator. They’re not called jerks for nothing, you know.”
That makes me laugh. I read the latest messages to her.
“He’s one nasty piece of work. What you need, girl, is a shiny new SIM card.”
“I thought of that before I left Sydney. The techie in my office set me up with a plan. I’ve kept my number and I won’t pay too much over here.”
“But every time you look at Andrew’s words, it’s like drinking a dose of poison.”
“I know but I need to know what he’s up to, Wanda. He’s so full of himself, he crows about his every move.” I tell her about my hotel reservation. “If I’d ditched my old number, I would have walked up to reception at the Moana Majestic and found my room cancelled – then driven straight back to the airport with my tail between my legs.”
As Andrew planned.
“And you wouldn’t have ended up in Chinatown and found me.” She wraps her arms around her legs. Like a teen sleepover, it’s time to share some secrets. “But there’s another reason, isn’t there?”
“What?”
“I don’t think you’re telling yourself the truth. How long did you say you’ve been together?”
“Since I was sixteen,” I say. “I turn thirty-five in March.”
“So he’s not the only one who’s hanging on.” She lets silence do its job.
“You think I haven’t let go yet.”
“How could you?” she says. “You walked out with zero planning on a wave of sudden chances. He’s kept you under lock and key but that’s protected you. The world’s a scary place on your own.”
And his messages remind me how scary. They ping every time I feel free. “You think they’re a comfort? You think I like them?”
“Not like. Need. For a while anyway. To keep your options open.”
My whisper is fierce. “No way will I go back.”
“Keep your grass skirt on. Of course you won’t.”
In spite of my outburst, I giggle.
“Facing the truth gives you power,” she says.
I don’t want to get defensive five minutes after moving in. Wanda’s friendship is my new rock. “I guess. Thank you.”
“Next step in the walkout, Selkie. Turn your phone off at bedtime. His toxic notifications can wait till the light of day.”
*
The dream transports me back to my empty house – to make sure I’m no longer there – and I make a chilling discovery.
It’s full of women. Their faces give me a start.
The woman in the kitchen is wearing an apron and waving a wooden spoon over a bowl. The one in the bathroom is bending over the tub, brandishing a scrubbing brush and a bottle of spray cleaner. In the bedroom, a woman is draped across the bed I shared with Andrew, pouting her full lips and wearing only suspenders. In the laundry, a woman is ironing the wrinkles from one of Andrew’s shirts. There’s even a woman in the spare bedroom, leaning over an empty cot and mesmerised by a spinning mobile of animal shapes as if forever waiting for a baby. As they each look up at me, I try to scream but I’m as silent as they are. When I glance in the hall mirror, there’s a woman dressed in a business suit, combing her shoulder-length black hair. Like all the others, she has my face. Spiriting myself into the garden to get away from their frozen smiles, I bump into a clone at the clothesline, pegging out Andrew’s jeans.
Elkie Tabrett hasn’t disappeared, she’s fractured into an army of soulless cardboard cut-outs, each trapped in a different role. And in that moment I know that although each one looks like me, I was always the real woman Andrew couldn’t see.
Selkie Moon.
*
It’s obvious I won’t be running a seminar business from a spare corner of the Waikiki flat, so over a banana and coconut smoothie, Wanda suggests a building downtown that rents shoebox-sized offices.
“It’s so ugly, there are always vacancies. Especially on the top floor because there’s no elevator. Before you choose, make sure the air conditioner works.”
In answer to my email enquiry, the landlord says he’ll meet me on site and I catch the bus into the city. Just as Wanda described, the flat red-brick façade laughs at surroundings that are a mixture of concrete and glass with a few colonial buildings holding their ground.
When the landlord greets me in the shabby foyer and hears my accent, he asks for six month’s payment in advance. I haven’t even seen what spaces are on offer and I’m not sure he hasn’t just doubled the rent as well. But before I left Sydney, I arranged a loan from Dad. Even though my stepmother accused me of ‘taking the easy way out’ of my marriage, Dad offered me the money in private. Stella turned him into a lapdog long ago, but he has his quiet ways.
The landlord shows me a cubby-hole on the top floor. Emboldened to stake my claim on my own place, I sign up on the spot and arrange a transfer of the money. Then standing in the doorway, a mountain of advertising leaflets at my feet, I survey my new office. It’s barely bigger than a cupboard but it’s mine. I can hear Andrew sneering that I’ve run away to paradise, but ended up with a bed in a scruffy shared flat and an office with a view of a laneway full of dumpsters. Not a palm tree in sight. But for the first time in almost twenty years I’m making my own choices. A frisson of raw pleasure trickles all the way down to my painted toes.
It looks like the last tenant departed in a hurry, leaving behind a small filing cabinet without a key and a kettle. I just need a desk and a chair and I’m ready to go. Fuelled by the sudden sense of ownership, I rummage through the stack of leaflets for any that look new and get lucky. Office supplies. A company that imports flat-pack furniture from Sweden.
Selecting a compact desk with drawers on each side and an office chair, I ring through my order and ask for payment-on-delivery. They even throw in a free potted plant for first-time customers. A palm tree?
In a closet at the end of the communal corridor, I find a broom and get to work tidying my new space. It takes two trips to the lane to dispose of all the leaflets. After washing up in the ladies room and locking up my almost-office, I try out the café across the street where I send a quick text to Gretel to tell her I’ve arrived safely. Then I open my laptop to begin researching how to set up a business name. What will I call it?
*
After an early night to catch up on jetlag, I make my second bus trip downtown – my new routine. In my business suit and heels, I stand out from the flip-flop and capri-wearing crowd, no grains of sand sprinkled on the kneecaps below my pencil skirt. In my tote bag I have a few more cleaning products to keep me busy until the desk and chair arrive.
They’re delivered around midday. After I’ve signed and paid for them, I remove the plastic wrap from the chair before gazing at my next challenge.
“The kettle’s slow but it works.” The voice makes me jump.
I look over my shoulder at a guy of about forty, his dark hair swept back from a face that bears a lopsided grin.
He looks at the flat-pack box as my feet. “You just need a mug and an allen key and you’re fully furnished for action.” He puts out his hand. “Derek Delaney. Your neighbour.” He dips his head at the office next door. “I’ll lend you a mug. The coffee’s on me.”
I smile. “Selkie Moon.”
“Selkie?”
“It’s a name from Celtic folklore.”
“The selkies are seals who slip off their skins and dance like humans. Right?”
My mouth drops open. “You know the story?” I’ve been called Elkie for so long, I’ve rarely had to explain it.
“No. But I’m a folklore tragic, so I’ve heard of selkies. You’ll have to tell me the tale sometime. A job for a bottle of red.” He looks at his watch. “Another time. I try not to drink before happy hour.”
He unlocks his office and returns with two mugs and a tin of coffee. While the kettle takes its time to boil, he asks about my accent, and why I need an office.
“I’m here from Sydney to start a seminar business.”
He’s intrigued by my green card. He always thought such lotteries were a scam.
Then my phone chirps loudly with a text. “Excuse me.” As I read Andrew’s latest message, my face must be giving my reaction away. Derek watches me, his expression so concerned I spill my story. “My ex says the forty-eight hours are up since I walked out. Now he can report me missing.”
“Because he loves you? Loves you so much, he’ll send the cops after you? Instead of grabbing the first plane over here himself?”
My time with Andrew was never about love but his control confused me for twenty years.
After five minutes’ acquaintance, Derek isn’t confused. “You didn’t get away from him too soon.”
It’s a moment of clarification. I’ve been afraid of Andrew turning up here and dragging me home. It’s not going to happen when a barrage of text messages will do it for him.
With an extra chair from Derek’s office, we sit down over coffee. After laying bare my recent history, I ask him about his.
“I’m an escapee too. A few years ago, from stateside. The lifestyle suits me. When I’m not drinking all night and couch-surfing, I collect ghost stories for fun.”
Ghost stories. He thinks they’re fun. And what’s in his background that he needed to escape from?
“And I write about anything that pays the bills.”
Bills. It’s the kind of pressure I’ll be under soon.
“Today it’s a brochure about plumbing.” He puts on a Shakespearean voice and waves his arm with a dramatic flourish. “Through passionate commitment and inspirational design, Planet Bathrooms will transform this formerly functional space into an uninhibited wellness zone.”
When he treats me to his lopsided grin, I’m reminded of the techie in my Sydney office. Intelligent, gentle and slightly goofy, he listened to my woes about Andrew. If Derek is even a little like him, it explains why I’m feeling at ease.
“What kind of seminars?” he asks.
“Business development. Wrap a seminar in a holiday. That kind of thing. It’s a dream I’ve had for a while, to go out on my own.”
Derek nods towards the plant that came with the furniture. “The Hawaiian Ti plant will bring you good luck. The leaves have spiritual energy.”
Not sure about anything spiritual, but I’ll take all the luck I can get. “That’s good. Andrew always laughed at my idea. He said no-one would take me seriously.”
“Well, let him take you seriously now ’cause he’s no longer the boss of you. And while the truth is spoiling his day, we’d better put that desk together.”
We. A friendship word. In less than a day I’ve met two people I like, and they seem to like me. Wanda – and now Derek.
He turns out to be a whizz with an allen key, standing back to admire his work. “Look. No pieces left over.”
I can’t speak. Feeling an unfamiliar tremble of ownership, I find a pen in my tote bag to put in the top drawer. Stationery! Then I place my laptop on the pristine surface and stand back, suppressing a flutter in my chest. Pride? These emotions that others experienced years ago are new to me. A giggle escapes.
Derek gives me space. He bundles up the packaging and takes it down to the dumpster in the lane. I wave to him from the window. The orange-striped leaves of the Ti plant that I’ve perched on the window sill inspire a surge of connection to this foreign place.
Back upstairs, he invites me into his office that’s a mirror of mine and shows me his website, suggesting a contact who built it for him. Patrick. “You could build it yourself with one of the platforms, but that takes time. And to stand out from the opposition you’d be better to spend some money. He’ll also arrange your domain and hosting and give you some tips about marketing.”
After firing off an enquiry to Patrick, Derek – ‘call me DD’ – asks about my business name and I admit I haven’t thought of one.
“It’s what I do.” He turns to his screen and begins a fun session of brainstorming. I settle on one. Moonshine.
Derek approves. “Just the right amount of spirit,” he quips.
Then he guides me through the registration process.
At last I return to my own office and leave him to his bathroom brochure. When Patrick calls and outlines his fees, I accept a modest package. Until the site is ready, he’ll mock up a logo and build a simple landing page for browsers to register their interest. At the thought of a mailing list of potential enrolments, I almost swoon on the spot. The next step is to create a couple of seminar topics, with titles and short descriptions.
Thanks to Derek, my new business is already close to reality and I can’t quite believe what a mix of focus and friendship has achieved in such a short time. It puts Andrew’s negativity into sharp perspective as I bathe in the radiance from my own ‘moonshine’.