Milk
Being the best friend of the potential Big M model is like having the TV on all the time. First, people are always coming up to her when the two of us are hanging out, gingerly smiling and interrupting our conversation with proclamations that they’ve just seen her on telly (when in fact they haven’t, hence the yet-to-happen nature of the word ‘potential’), and would she mind signing their serviette, writing pad, newspaper, ticket stub, cricket bat, or, in one recent case, the back of a girl’s hand. And two, it is noisy and distracting and exacerbates my already short attention span and irritable personality. Only last week I told a woman to go home and look up the meaning of the word ‘potential’ after she’d insinuated herself between us on a tram, right as I was making an important point about the merits of flavour diversity as a central component of total milk brand image, and asked if the potential (as inscribed in sequins on my best friend’s T-shirt, reading: ‘The Potential Big M Model’) related to my friend’s clearly inherent general potential to model for Big M, based on her natural good looks and fine physique, or whether it meant she’d be appearing in even more television ads in the future.
‘If she’s only a potential Big M model then she can’t already be a Big M model, can she?’ I said.
‘I suppose not,’ answered the woman and burst into tears.
After she’d stopped crying (eventually) and got off the tram, my friend pulled me aside and told me it wasn’t fair to blame the public like that. ‘They’re confused, they don’t understand, and it’s just plain mean of you,’ she said. ‘You can’t expect them to conform to your expectations any more than they can expect you to conform to theirs. Remember, to each his own, and to thine own self be true.’ Which is all fine and good, but essentially just another way of saying I should learn to be less uptight.
My friend and I always end up in this argument.
I don’t know if it’s because of her Big M model potentiality, or if she just happens to be like that and she also happens to be the Potential Big M model, but she is so much softer than me on all accounts (possibly with exception of her blind ambition, which is all-encompassing, yet even that takes empathic form). ‘It’s all about giving people what they want,’ she says. ‘This business, it’s one long wrenching of the heart.’
I find myself caught between envying her compassion and loathing her blanket acceptance of the way the general public chooses to approach her (in its myriad forms) when the two of us are out together on a jaunt. What is so wrong with wanting to have a simple conversation without being interrupted by the attentions of strangers? Where is the harm in desiring to have a quiet meal, for example, without needing to request a table at the rear of the restaurant, preferably one configured in such a way that my friend can sit, unnoticed, with her back to the main dining area?
My therapist says the T-shirt doesn’t help. ‘She’s effectively asking for it. If you’re going to go around with ‘‘The Potential Big M Model’’ in sequins across your chest, people are going to notice.’
‘But you wear a ‘‘The Therapist’’ T-shirt,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘But the situation is completely different. Namely, there’s a big difference between being a therapist and being a Big M model, and furthermore, I actually am the therapist, whereas she is only the potential Big M model, not the Big M model per se. It’s like comparing apples and oranges.’
When we were kids my best friend wanted to be a veterinarian. We would play make-believe, with me performing any number of roles from pony to kitten to giraffe. The game was usually the same: the said animal would wander off from the mother/veterinarian, becoming lost and confused in the forest, then tripping on a brush-covered tree root as blind panic set in; enter the mother/veterinarian who would comfort said pony, kitten or giraffe, and tend to their twisted ankle with much balm application and winding of bandages, rendering the world safe once more for the fancies and indiscretions of imaginary infant animals.
I was quite good as the pony, I thought. I could neigh and whinny and shake my mane and whimper with pain in a convincing baby-horsey-sounding tone. But compared to the quality of my best friend’s performance, mine was flat. She completely transcended the bounds of child-play (effectively becoming the veterinarian, as an acting coach would later put it), elevating our game from just that to the superior realm of promising junior theatre.
Which is how she was discovered at the age of ten (Sunday, 4 November 1990), playing at the park.
Her parents had it completely wrong. There she was, dressed in jeans, white runners, and a jungle-green army camouflage T-shirt that said ‘VET’ in capitals on the back (her father teaches military strategy at the business school and loves a double entendre), tending to me (as fractured-leg giraffe) on what looked like a standard kiddie-style make-believe jungle floor, and we later found out Rory nearly drove right by, figuring her (and quite rightly so) for the potential tomboy type rather than any kind of potential model, but there was something about her, Rory said, her composure perhaps, that compelled him to stop and give her his business card. The rest, as they say, is history.
Rory is an independent talent scout with an eye for youth. He signed her right away.
Before that day, I don’t think my best friend had ever really drunk milk. At least not straight up. Neither of us had. Yet milk tastes completely different when it’s cold with sweet-tasting flavours in it. Or so I am led to believe. My best friend’s current favourite is strawberry. Not only is it a pretty colour, which complements many of her outfits, but it balances well with her lipstick and blusher.
Initially she was a banana girl – apparently many younger female drinkers are (something to do with the ideational continuity of banana-like flavours from childhood to early teens – mixed lollies, Barney Bananas, etc.) – but after the long hours she spent strolling back and forth along the footpath outside the home of the head of the advertising agency’s creative development team, dressed in her banana yellow capris and matching stilettos, sipping her banana Big M, she went right off anything yellow.
And who could blame her, especially as no one ever actually came out of the house (in fact the curtains were drawn the entire time, so it doesn’t look like that specific initiative will ever really bear any fruit), but Rory maintains she was magnificent nonetheless and often asks her to speak with his much younger clients about the importance of a total commitment to their goal of securing their stated modelling contract, and also ways to bandage aching blistered toes so the dressings won’t show beneath the lacy strappings of high fashion summer sandals.
My friend gives such impassioned speeches, easily switching from potted snatches of contract law to the inestimable value of properly maintaining one’s Dettol supplies, it is not uncommon to see tears form in the eyes of her little protégées. I am so intolerant, even that annoys me.
This is when my therapist tells me to use my noggin. ‘She’s shagging the bloke,’ he says. ‘She’s shagging her agent. Of course she’s going to do it. He’s her meal ticket. You’ve got to wise up here. This isn’t nice. It’s self-interest.’
‘I’d prefer if you didn’t use that kind of language during our sessions,’ I say.
‘Well, he is her meal ticket,’ says my therapist. ‘Do you have some kind of issue with that?’
On reflection I have lots of issues with that, I suppose, but none I intend to go into right now. And I’m not going to get started on their age difference either. Many a younger woman has been captivated by the perceived comforts and spoils afforded by the successful older gentleman, so there’s nothing more to say on that subject. But I will say this: as the potential Big M model, I think she could do better.
Last week at their house, I watched as my best friend prepared dinner – walnut chicken with pomegranate sauce – while Rory at first lounged in front of the six o’clock news sipping his chocolate Big M and Kahlúa cocktail on ice, and then, without pausing to ask if she needed any help, changed into his lime green and yellow caftan and did a set from South Pacific on their karaoke machine, including ‘Bali Hai’ and ‘Happy Talk’, looking for all intents and purposes like a giant singing and dancing pineapple.
When he was done he came into the kitchen, poured himself another drink (rum and banana Big M this time over crushed ice with a sprig of mint), hopped up on the bar stool beside mine and asked if I was still in therapy.
‘Rory,’ said my best friend, as she stirred the sauce, her pink slingbacks and matching pink ‘The Potential Big M Model’ apron coordinating beautifully with the crimson juice of the pomegranates.
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I can handle it.’
‘I should think so,’ said Rory. ‘I heard about this morning. You’re so very quick with the tongue, Ice Lady, but oh, so very angry.’
‘Are you talking about the tram incident?’
‘If that’s what you want to call it.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Superstar,’ sang Rory, using his swizzle stick as a microphone. ‘Do you think you’re what they say you are?’
‘Is that a real question?’
‘To sing is to speak,’ crooned Rory.
‘He’s right,’ said my best friend. ‘Music. It’s a straight road to the soul.’
‘Are you suggesting that instead of telling the woman to go home and look up her dictionary, I should have put the suggestion in song?’ I sang.
Rory waved his finger at me. ‘I’m suggesting that instead of telling the woman to go home and look up her dictionary, you should have showed some support for your good friend here by stepping aside and letting the product speak for itself, so to speak.’
‘But we were talking. We were right in the middle of a conversation. Is it honestly your position that if ever anyone ever wants to speak with your client, no matter what we’re doing, I should just shut up and move out of the way?’
‘I wouldn’t have put it like that exactly,’ said Rory. ‘But essentially, yes. This is the way public opinion works. You’ve got to build a groundswell. If we’re going to grab the attention of the advertising honchos, we need as many unsolicited testimonials as we can get. Each day that passes only makes our job more difficult. We’re facing greater competition, diminishing resources, product depreciation.’
‘Lovely.’
‘I shouldn’t have to explain this to you. You’re studying marketing.’
‘Information management.’
‘I thought it was marketing.’
‘No.’
‘Well, either way. This has got to be a team effort. Otherwise, what have we been doing all these years?’
At the shopping centre, ELO’s ‘Telephone Line’ is playing, bouncing around the building like we’re trapped in an enormous elevator. My best friend goes back and forth from the Big M promotional stand, helping herself to countless samples of the new choc-honeycomb flavour, which she transports to me beneath the yellowing palm, where I sit on the white circular wooden bench, waiting.
‘What do you think?’ she says.
‘It’s fine, I suppose, though you know, milk’s not really my thing.’
‘Not the beverage,’ she says. ‘The models.’
‘Oh, the models. They’re okay.’
‘What do you mean they’re okay? They’re not okay. The redhead’s chubby and the brunette’s got her hair all wrong.’
‘It’s hard for me to tell from this distance.’
‘Fair enough.’ My best friend edges down beside me and yawns. Today she is wearing a ‘The Potential Big M Model’ singlet over a denim mini-skirt and stiff thigh-high boots. She sits with her legs extended straight out in front of her. ‘The boots,’ she says by way of explanation.
A young man approaches us. ‘Excuse me,’ he says, ‘but shouldn’t you be over there with the other Big M models?’
My best friend points to her singlet and smiles. ‘Potential,’ she says.
‘That doesn’t seem right,’ says the man and asks for her autograph anyway.
She signs his new Powderfinger CD.
I notice the music has changed – Britney Spears chiming about some departed boyfriend. Outside House two small children are dancing.
‘It’s a crazy life, isn’t it,’ says my friend as the young man walks away.
‘You’d better believe it.’
‘Yet still the children dance.’
We sit quietly for a moment watching them cavort across the slick tiled floor, until the little boy (I think he’s a little boy) slips and starts to cry.
My friend yawns again. ‘It’s so exhausting, this business,’ she says. ‘I’m completely worn out. Last night Rory was talking about a catalogue spot, some new discount complex on the Central Coast, and as he was laying out the details I realised I just can’t do it. I’m too tired. I said, “Hang on, Rory, this is going to have to wait. I’m cleaned out. I need a break.”’
‘Wow. How did he take it?’
‘You can imagine, he wasn’t exactly pleased. But he also understands. The two of us, it’s go, go, go really, all the time. And the eternal not knowing. It plays havoc with your stamina.’
‘I bet. So are you going to take some time off?’
‘Yeah, well, kind of. Actually, I didn’t know how to bring this up, but now that it’s on the table...’
‘What?’
‘I’ve signed on for a cruise.’
‘You have?’
‘Uh huh. Ten nights. The Caribbean. It turns out the key players in the national dairy foods sector are taking a little joint R & R. Rory got a hot tip.’
‘So you’ll be working.’
‘Call it business and pleasure.’
‘I don’t see how you’re going to be able to relax and unwind if you’re constantly trying to impress a bunch of Australian dairy industry representatives.’
‘Don’t be like that. We’ll only be gone two weeks. It’s not like we’re moving interstate.’
‘Yeah, but I’m concerned about you. You just said you need a holiday.’
‘Oh, aren’t you so sweet. My dear, dear friend. You know, Rory said you might get a little clingy. He did. But not to worry, it’s called separation anxiety. Apparently it’s perfectly normal. And you know what, when we’re away I’m going to leave you our “Potential Big M Model & Co” embroidered pillowcases so you won’t miss us so much. Good deal?’
‘Gosh.’
‘It was Rory’s idea.’
‘Seriously?’
‘True. Look, you’ve been there for me through thick and thin, and he knows it. He’s got his quirks, but in his own way he really loves you.’
My therapist is wearing a new T-shirt. ‘The THERAPIST’s Therapist’. He’s been away in the country at some wellness seminar and has returned with a stack of up-to-the-minute techniques for aligning ‘the heart’ (‘the real you, what’s going on inside’) with ‘the body’.
‘It sounds a little unorthodox,’ I say. ‘The body thing – is Elle Macpherson involved?’
‘See, there you go again, the same cynical response. That’s what’s been tripping you up in your life. You know that, don’t you? You’re too shut-down. Instead of erecting a wall, why don’t you think of it as an opportunity to try and break down some of the old barriers.’
‘Interesting,’ I reply. ‘Tell me more.’
‘Superficially, we’re talking a reformulation of some fairly standard stuff, role-play mixed with a touch of breath control and behaviour modification. But what’s important about it, what’s new, is the attention the therapist brings to the work. It’s a whole other energy.’
‘Let’s not get sidetracked.’
We spend fifteen minutes or so pinning down some key details from the past – the characters, the context, the dynamic – then the two of us get down on the floor and begin the re-enactment. What we’ve selected is the Rory drive-by day, but my therapist will perform the part of fractured-leg giraffe, leaving the role of mother/veterinarian to me.
As is consistent with his new training, he takes a moment to centre himself before we begin. I sit cross-legged on his lamb’s wool rug listening to his rapid breathing (‘a self-induced form of dizziness that enables one to more easily relinquish the ego,’ he explains), taking in the office from this lower vantage point. It looks much the same.
‘Okay, I’m ready,’ he says after a couple of minutes of noisy hyperventilation. His face is still red, but his eyes have refocused.
‘What do I do?’ I ask.
‘What do you want to do?’ he says.
‘Well, Mr Giraffy. I want to inspect that leg,’ I say. ‘I have reason to believe it may be fractured.’
And so the game begins.
I revisit some of my prepubescent ‘not good enough’ trauma (such as, why, after my best friend was signed, didn’t my parents get me the ‘Potential Sunnyboy Model’ T-shirt I wanted instead of the stupid ‘Sidekick’ one? And why wasn’t I encouraged to practise walking around the house in stilettos balancing a book on my head like my best friend was after her mother saw a picture of air hostesses doing precisely that in a ladies’ magazine? And of course, the obvious, namely, why didn’t Rory pick me? etc., etc.), but mostly it’s just plain, old-fashioned fun.
When we’re done my therapist asks how I feel.
‘Pretty good,’ I say. ‘The knees are a little stiff – I don’t know the last time I spent that long crawling around on the floor – but otherwise no complaints.’
‘That’s what I wanted to hear, Dr Animal Doc. Nice work under stressful imaginary-jungle-like conditions. And you know what they say, improvisation is the mother of necessity. Well, time’s up. See you next week.’
‘Of course. Though next time can we do Airport Technician Meets Mechanical Engineer? I love all those jet-sized motors.’
‘You know,’ he says in his new being the valley, let it all flow to you voice, ‘that’s really up to you.’
In addition to minding her ‘Potential Big M Model & Co’ pillowcases while they’re away, my best friend entrusts me with the care of her new miniature schnauzer puppy, ‘God’. She and Rory think this name is hilarious and take great pleasure dressing him for walks in his little ‘God Dog’ bib. I am not really a dog person, but I agree to do it because if I don’t then she’ll have to ask Rory’s crazy half-sister Melanie, and it’s just not right to leave an animal in that kind of situation. Also, any resistance on my part will only be interpreted by my friend as proof that I really am intractably stubborn. I am probably more recalcitrant than stubborn, which is why I prefer to agree to mind the dog than to confirm her assumptions (however justified) about my brittle personality. I refuse to call him God, though. As soon as they’re out the door I rename him ‘The Canine Love Object Substitute,’ immediately shortening it to ‘Clos’ for general usage (pronounced ‘close’, as in ‘when one door closes another opens’) both because it sounds less weird, and is much easier to say. ‘Close’ then gets shortened to ‘Clo’, which to most people sounds like the abbreviation of a socially acceptable pet moniker, and is therefore simple to lie about when the odd punter queries its derivation.
Like most dogs, he drinks water, in spite of Rory’s tireless attempts to interest him in milk.
Clo likes to be walked at four pm. I check the letterbox on our way out. There is a postcard waiting from Martinique. I take it with us to the park.
‘Bonjour,’ writes my friend in her best high school French. ‘Happy news. We have been signed for “a look” as soon as le bateau returns to port. Rory secured the deal at the breakfast buffet. Over cantaloupe! He says not to get ahead of ourselves, there are no guarantees, but I can’t help it. I am TRES excited. Will celebrate ce soir with unveiling of new “The Potential Big M Model on the Verge” frock. Hope all is well with you and Le Divine Pooch. Moi XOX.’
‘Mummy’s good,’ I tell Clo before taking off his lead. He barks (if you could call it that), and paws desperately at my leg.
Several weeks ago now, my best friend and I were sitting in a restaurant having lunch when a girl approached our table and asked my friend for her autograph. At the time neither of us thought twice about it: we were talking, the girl came up, my friend signed her name (in texta on the back of the girl’s hand: The Potential Big M Model, one word per finger, her signature in the centre, a big heart above the i) then she turned back to me and we continued our conversation. A little later, however, I came across the girl again in the bathroom. She was showing the autograph to her friends, who were all very excited, gathered around her, gawking at her hand, which I could see via the mirror was now swathed in a protective transparent plastic glove.
That’s when it really hit me: the enormous responsibility that comes with actually BEING a Big M model. After all, so far my friend had only been playacting; what would her life be like if she was given a real part? There would be so many more auto graphs to sign, and all those scheduled appearances. Not to mention the health and wellbeing of the fans, that bevy of fragile souls whose dreams she would be charged to inspire and protect.
Thinking of that young girl now and her carefully gloved hand, I have to admit I find myself wondering (woe, the disloyal moment) if my best friend can really handle it, if indeed she does have what it takes, and what she will do, and what will happen to our relationship, if the Big M modelling contract does finally come off.
Clo dances around my feet, oblivious to everything but the promise of my arm.
‘All right then. Go,’ I say, hurling the ball as far as I possibly can.
He almost backflips as he takes off across the grass, a great mess of freshly mown lawn clippings flying in his wake.