Chapter 3

Beth

While Elijah helped Mum finish getting lunch ready and Jarrah and Gran chatted, Dad and I searched through my parents’ drawer of ‘essential items’ for paper umbrellas for the cocktails.

‘How’s work going, Bethie?’ Dad asked as he fossicked in the sideboard cupboard.

‘It’s good. I’ve been working on a project to build a rope bridge across a major highway that has bush on either side, so possums can safely cross from one side of the road to the other. The bridges have been installed in other parts of Australia and the data shows that far fewer possums get hit.’

Like so many native species in the local council area where I worked as an environmental officer, possums had been severely affected by urban development. My job was to find ways to help conserve these native species before they became locally extinct. I was particularly excited about this rope bridge – I had researched and suggested it, and my manager had agreed to let me run with the project.

‘That sounds great, Bethie. Good for you,’ Dad said nonchalantly, before triumphantly producing the umbrellas. ‘I think Jarrah mentioned she rescued a baby possum when its mother was hit by a car the other day.’

Irritation prickled at me; I was leading a significant project that would likely benefit an entire species across a vast metropolitan area, and he was likening it to Jarrah driving an orphaned possum to a wildlife carer.

‘Luncheous est servo,’ Mum announced from the doorway. ‘Get ready for a Mexican feast.’

The ‘feast’ was nachos, cobbled together with some stale corn chips, salsa, a browned avocado and a few flakes of grated cheese that Mum had found up the back of the fridge.

‘Did you hear the news about the star signs changing?’ Jarrah asked, transferring a pile of corn chips from the communal bowl to her plate and then sucking the cheese residue from her fingers with a pop. ‘This could be the most significant thing to have ever happened to humanity.’

‘What do you mean the star signs are changing?’ Mum asked, offering the plate of nachos to Gran.

‘Apparently, NASA has found a new constellation, so there are thirteen star signs, not twelve. This means that everything we know about ourselves could actually be wrong.’ Her voice escalated in enthusiasm with every word until it reached a shrill crescendo.

Jarrah often made her decisions based on her ‘intuition’ and her daily horoscope. When she was sixteen, she registered for a service to receive text messages containing horoscopes and affirmations several times a day. Unfortunately, the horoscopes didn’t predict the shock you’d get when you received your phone bill and discovered that each message cost $4.95. By the time the bill turned up, Jarrah had amassed $750 worth of spiritual guidance.

‘Really?’ Mum asked. ‘What’s the new one?’

‘Let me check,’ she said, reaching for her phone and swiping at it until she found what she was looking for.

I rolled my eyes. Jarrah sought the meaning of life in everything from crystals to runes. She was superstitious from an early age; she compulsively avoided cracks in the pavement, dreaded Friday the thirteenths, and was forever searching for wood to knock on. She threw herself into the latest spiritual trend: she wore the red Kabbalah bracelet when it was in vogue; and swore by The Secret when it was all the rage. She regularly frequented clairvoyants and hijacked every camping trip and sleepover with her ouija board. She rearranged all the mirrors in the house during a phase with Feng Shui. I wondered what the new constellation meant for the living room furniture.

‘Oh, here it is … Ophiuchus,’ she whispered dramatically. ‘“The addition of Ophiuchus, for people born between 29 November and 17 December, has shuffled the entire zodiac chart.” Beth! This means your star sign has changed.’

My birthday – 27 December – was tucked away in the awkward week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve when the days are committed to cricket-watching, beach visits and leftover ham. People are usually recovering from their Christmas food coma and haven’t yet gathered the momentum that builds in the lead up to New Year’s festivities. It was pretty much an annual non-event.

‘Listen to this,’ Jarrah continued excitedly. ‘This is Beth’s star sign with twelve zodiac signs: “Capricorns are relentlessly ambitious and are known to be unforgiving, serious and boring. They are disciplined and practical, hardworking and pragmatic. They weigh up all their options before making decisions, which are usually based on reason and not emotion.” This is like reading your bio, Beth.’

Dad and Elijah chuckled.

‘Nawww, that’s not very nice,’ Mum offered in attempted solidarity.

‘I don’t see any of those as a bad thing,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong with being disciplined, practical, hardworking and pragmatic?’

‘But, listen. Now you’re a Sagittarius. “Sagittarians are optimistic and adventurous with a tendency to be restless. They are independent, honest and philosophical and are always ready to learn and have a spirit of independence and love the idea of finding freedom.”’ She beamed. ‘This is like an astrological makeover. All those years of being serious and boring, and now you can be your true self – optimistic and adventurous with a yearning for freedom—’

‘Jarrah,’ I said curtly, ‘I am who I am because that’s my nature, not because of some nonsense profile in a horoscope.’

‘But surely you’d enjoy a bit more adventure in your life? A bit more spontaneity? Leave some things to chance?’

‘A little less conversation, a little more action,’ Dad sang, doing a terrible Elvis impression.

‘Thorn – no,’ Mum half-heartedly scolded. She turned to me with sympathetic eyes. ‘We love you just the way you are, Beth,’ she said.

‘Thanks, Mum. But I’m not apologetic for the way I am.’

‘Of course you’re not, darling,’ Gran offered. ‘We’re all different, and that’s what makes families, and the world, so great.’

‘I’m just saying that you could see what life would bring if you allowed fate to take the reins for a while,’ Jarrah continued. ‘Like, have you ever trusted in the universe to decide which path you should take? Or placed your faith in a higher power? I mean, have you ever even bought a lotto ticket?’

‘I’m thrilled that you’re happy living out your destiny and making decisions based on how your tea leaves dry in the bottom of your cup,’ I said dryly, ‘but that’s just not for me. And I’ve got better things to spend my money on than the lotto. Besides, NASA studies astronomy, not astrology, so I don’t know what they’d be doing looking for new star signs. The zodiac signs date back to the Babylonians, who divided the zodiac into twelve segments and then picked twelve constellations, which they aligned to their twelve-month calendar. I don’t see how there can be a thirteenth one.’

‘Okay now,’ Dad said, reaching for a sour-cream-laden corn chip, half of which fell to his poncho as he tilted his head and inserted it into his mouth. ‘Let’s just enjoy this delicious meal. Elise, how’s it going at the herbarium?’

He wiped his face with the back of his hand and smeared his moustache over the bottom part of his face. He was a mess, but I was grateful for him shutting down the conversation.

Lunch continued in the typical way – conversations about bands I hadn’t heard, books I hadn’t read and movies I hadn’t seen. Once the last bit of dried cheese had been pried from the casserole dish (which I doubted had ever been used for a casserole for as long as it had been in this house) and the last drop of margarita was slurped from our glasses, I motioned to Gran that I was ready to go. I exchanged hugs and kisses with Mum and Dad and nodded farewell to Jarrah and Elijah.

‘I wasn’t really having a crack at you,’ Jarrah said as she followed me up the hallway towards the front door. ‘I just think you’d have more fun if you eased up a bit.’

How would I ever prove to her that I was content? Smile more? Wear brighter clothes? Update social media with #blessed posts? And why would I even want to? Having watched on the sidelines as Jarrah danced her way through party after party, loved her way through a series of passionate relationships and ricocheted through exotic adventures, I knew that her highs were a stark contrast to her lows. Her life wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, and at least I had a reliable forecast.