A Pretty Mess

by Carla Caruso

  She kept her voice level. ‘No problems at all. How we approach things is up to you. Would you like to show me a few of the rooms and I can come up with a quote?’

  Natalia waved a tanned hand in the air, body shimmer lotion glittering. ‘Nah, I’m happy for you to just bill me accordingly. I got your rates … So how quickly could you start? Is tomorrow too soon?’

  ‘Uh, no, that wouldn’t be a problem — I could do that,’ Celeste murmured as nonchalantly as she could.

  She. Had. The. Job. Possibly weeks of work. With a celebrity client. It had all happened so fast, her head felt like a spinning top.

  Natalia extended a hand towards Celeste, flaunting mauve-painted nails — probably polish from Ballet-Tastic’s cruelty-free makeup range. ‘Shall we make it a ten o’clock start tomorrow morning? The home office can be the first room.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ Celeste mumbled.

  Natalia beamed like a cheerleader. She really was as nice as she seemed on TV. ‘I look forward to seeing you again.’

  ‘Uh, me, too.’

  A little less of the fitness guru next time would be nice, though.

  Celeste virtually skipped down the stairs on her way out the door. Of course, she’d expected to see the extent of the damage behind closed doors first, but how bad could it really be? Excitement bubbled in her chest.

  Maybe taking a leap of faith in starting up a new business, with a sizeable mortgage hanging over her head, hadn’t been so loony. Even if the clincher had been seeing a bus shelter sign that read ‘Fate’, really advertising distance education courses. Along with the fact that she had spent more time tidying the houses of interior design clients in her previous life than prettifying them.

  She was halfway down the crunchy gravel drive when she heard a familiar growl through the opened front door. ‘Anyone seen my bloody tape measure? It was here five minutes ago, I swear.’

  Feeling decidedly perkier than earlier, Celeste swivelled on her loafer and headed for the entrance again. On the way, she swiped the offending item off the verandah, having spied it there when she’d arrived.

  A little way down the plastic-taped front hall, she stood in the doorway of the new ballroom — currently a mess of broken bricks and plaster — holding the black-and-yellow tape aloft. ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’

  Lenny, kneeling amid the debris, wiped his brow and turned. He was flanked by another not-quite-as-attractive tradesman. Working in Lenny’s vicinity was certainly going to be a challenge. He was heart-stopper, even with a dust-streaked face — her type or not.

  ‘That’d be it,’ he gruffly conceded.

  She tossed the tape in the air, which he caught one-handed. ‘You should invest in a tool-caddy. Having “homes” for things saves time and money.’

  Hey, he’d called her business crap in so many words and dirtied her blazer. She could give as good as she got. Lenny’s tradie pal guffawed in the background, quickly covering his mouth.

  ‘I do have one … someplace,’ Lenny grunted.

  ‘Then you’d do well to use it.’ Celeste moved to go, then paused, turning back. ‘Oh, and I got the job, by the way, so I guess Natalia liked me okay — and my business name.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Lenny deadpanned.

  Game, set, match.

  Smiling, Celeste allowed herself a jauntier swing to her hips as she waltzed out the door.

  2.

  Celeste pushed on the rickety, wooden gate to her father’s property. She’d made a detour past on the way home from Natalia’s. Well, it wasn’t really on her way home. Her dad actually lived several postcodes away in the northeast. But it was always better to visit him when she was in a good mood.

  Despite the white picket fence with the lavender bush sprouting through, theirs wasn’t the perfect, happy family you’d see in a catalogue. Not since her mum had died. Celeste had been eleven when her mum had been taken by ovarian cancer, as good a fight as her mother had put up. Her parents had had Celeste later in life, then, in so many ways, it’d been too late for any other offspring. Her dad had never really gotten over her mum’s passing.

  Celeste passed the shrub in the front yard she’d dubbed the ‘upside-down tree’ as a kid, because its branches naturally bent backwards like an inside-out umbrella. She knew her dad would either be in the bus or the shed — never the house. The place was too overrun by junk and was in bad need of repair. She could only imagine what her mother would think of its current state.

  Somehow her dad had gone from being a small-time collector to a virtual hoarder since Celeste left home seven long years ago. And the mess made her skin crawl. Which was why she couldn’t keep living with him, as lonely as she knew he might get. Maybe it was even why she’d gone so far the other way in keeping things orderly.

  Loss triggered hoarding, she knew that from her training. The junk helped her dad fill the wife-sized hole in his heart. Unfortunately, knowing this didn’t make it any easier to help him. He had to want to be helped first, to actually see what he was doing. But whenever Celeste offered a hand, he bristled. The walls went up like those pop-up security ones at the bank. So she’d given up trying, at least for the time-being. He probably didn’t even see the junk anymore. It was just part of the furniture. But for her, his living conditions were like her dirty, little secret. She could just imagine the magazine exposé on him if her work ever became well-known.

  In the backyard, overrun by old tyres, car parts and outdated TVs, she called out for him. ‘Dad, you there?’

  ‘Celeste!’ Her dad’s booming voice came back. ‘I thought you’d forgotten all about me.’

  The bus it was then.

  The old public transport vehicle had become her dad’s mobile home since moving out of the house, intending to do some much-needed renovations. Which he’d never quite gotten around to. Motivation was something he lacked these days, particularly since retiring from his job as a TV repair man. A reason for getting up in the morning. Her earlier good spirits already wavering, she began climbing up the bus’s steps.

  Her dad, who’d often been described as looking like Father Christmas, was sitting at his makeshift dining table — a folding card-table — amid the gutted bus. A rerun of the Irish soapie Ballykissangel played behind him on a small TV, perched on milk crates. Seeing Celeste, her dad, all snowy beard and jolly stomach, flashed a kilometre-wide grin. Guilt duly pierced her stomach. She really should visit him more often. Although the rosy cheeks indicated that port, at least, was keeping him company at night.

  ‘You must be psychic,’ he said. ‘I was just about to put the kettle on.’

  ‘Oh, no worries, I can do it. You stay there,’ Celeste insisted, heading for the makeshift kitchen area, trying not to flinch at all the chaos. Her dad’s knees also weren’t what they used to be. She shook the round, silver kettle. Good, it was full of water, saving time. She flicked it on, deciding against pulling on the plastic gloves she always kept in a pocket of her tote just in case. That would be taking things too far. Then she hunted for two unused coffee mugs amid the jumble. ‘So how’ve you been, Dad?’ she continued, her voice sounding unnaturally chirpy. ‘Been up to much lately?’

  ‘Oh, you know, same old. Just been down the street for a paper as usual each morning, saying hi to all the other old-timers.’ He winked. ‘Might have dropped into the odd garage sale in passing, that sort of thing.’ More junk. Marvellous. He pushed on, ‘What about you, love? How’s that new event-planning business of yours going?’

  The kettle shrilled. ‘It’s not event-planning, Dad. Remember? I help people get organised at home and at work.’ Celeste banged open and shut the kitchen cabinet’s doors, somewhat ironically. ‘Know where the coffee is today?’

  Her dad tapped his chin. ‘The laundry basket down the back, I think. The red one.’

  ‘Right.’

  It figured. His mess never made any sense to her, but somehow he always seemed to know exactly where things were. Celeste set about getting their
coffees organised. Finally plonking down opposite her father at the table, she passed him a mug, emblazoned with the words World’s best dad. Her mum had bought it as a Father’s Day present from Celeste when she was a kid. It probably had a chip for every year he’d owned it since.

  Celeste reached for a sugar sachet her dad had likely nicked from the local snack bar and tore it open. ‘Well, I’ve got some news, Dad. I’ve landed my first bona fide client. A big one, too. Just this morning! So I’m kind of in celebration mode. Her name’s Natalia Samphire. She’s this health and fitness guru, who’s somehow made high-cut leotards and leg-warmers from Olivia Newton-John’s Physical days all the rage again.’

  ‘Natalia Samphire?’ Her dad sat back in his seat, his meaty hands resting on the table. ‘I reckon I might have seen her on one of those morning shows. What wonderful news.’

  ‘Most likely you have seen her,’ Celeste said proudly. ‘She’s just moved to Astonvale, which is good timing for me and my business. It might even be a success yet, with the likes of her on my books. Not a bad way to start.’

  Colin Farrell’s young face filled the TV screen past her dad’s shoulder, back when the actor used to play a pig farmer. For some reason, Colin’s dark features made her think of that builder. Lenny. When her mind needn’t be wandering to such places at all.

  Her dad’s loud voice drew her back to the present. ‘Good on you. You know, I always enjoyed being my own boss. And your mother, rest her soul, would have been so proud of you, too.’ His sparkling blue eyes grew moist, which made Celeste’s chin wobble on cue. But he hadn’t yet finished. ‘I remember her telling you that you could be anything you wanted to be in the world, the night she passed away. And look at you now.’ His gaze dropped as it always did when he talked about that night.

  ‘Yoo-hoo!’

  The trilling voice could only belong to Cousin Dolores, Flip’s grandma. She of the loud prints, even louder lipstick, and short, brassy blonde hair, worn spiky like a cockatoo’s crest. Despite Celeste welcoming an interruption right then, the form it came in was less welcome.

  Perhaps all the noisiness surrounding the sixty-something was to make up for her diminutive size. Clearly Flip got her long legs and sense of style from the other side of the family. The blonde divorcée was always dropping around Celeste’s dad’s since moving to the northeast a year ago, seemingly none too fussed with his mess. Celeste supposed she should be grateful that Dolores kept an eye on her father, even if she preferred seeing the woman in small doses herself.

  She wasn’t sure how Dolores and her dad was related on the family tree and didn’t really want to know. That day, Dolores wore a garish sleeveless floral shirt and pedal-pushers the same purple-blue as the jacaranda flowers blooming all over Astonvale that spring.

  Usually Dolores favoured animal prints, as she was also an avid animal lover. Which perhaps also explained the occasional, ahem, camel toe. A case in point was her giving Celeste an unreturnable present last Christmas: a screechy, attitude-filled Siamese cat, better known as Custard. Dolores herself had an Indian Ringneck parakeet, which ate from her plate and even slept on her pillow. Good grief.

  ‘Oh, Celeste you’re here, too,’ Dolores shrilled, edging over to the card-table. ‘How lovely to have time to visit your dad. And I thought you’d be too busy networking and shoring up business since branching out on your own!’

  Dolores’s words always had a way of putting Celeste on the defensive, harmless as she really was. ‘Actually I just secured a big client this morning, so I’m visiting Dad while I can. Work starts tomorrow.’ She eyed the older blonde. ‘I presume Flip will be there since she couldn’t make the meeting this morning.’

  Dolores’s amber eyes slid back and forth. ‘Meeting?’ She coughed. ‘Oh, yes, dear Filippa wasn’t feeling her best this morning. Getting out of bed was, um, quite the struggle.’

  Celeste bet it had been for Flip, likely due to partying rather than the state of her mental health. Obviously Dolores was just covering up for her lazy granddaughter. Flip had moved in with Dolores when she started uni, as her grandma lived closer to the campus. But Celeste suspected the rebellious brunette also liked being able to come and go as she pleased at her grandma’s, rather than answering to her parents. The part-time architecture student, who didn’t seem to have many contact hours — something about online lectures — was an enviable blend of beauty and brains. And she used each asset at her own discretion. Lucky for her, in Celeste’s case, she was family. Okay, and having another hand around did help with any heavy lifting.

  A sudden brainwave hitting her, Celeste got to her feet. Maybe thinking of Lenny had come in handy, after all. The combination of Dolores and the cramped bus was becoming a little too much to bear. ‘Dad, do you still have that old leather tool-belt you got at a Lions Club sale once? I remember seeing it in the shed not too long ago. It’s just I’ve got a, uh, friend who could use it. If you don’t need it anymore, that is.’

  It was the only way to move her dad’s stuff. He didn’t mind things being given away so long as they found a good home. In fact, it gave him a lot of satisfaction to do so. Too bad you’d have to pay people to cart most of his junk away.

  ‘I do indeed still have it,’ her dad boomed. ‘Try the top cupboard in the shed at the back on the right.’

  ‘Great. Thanks, Dad.’ Celeste enjoyed towering over Dolores for a moment as she sidestepped her.

  Inside the shed looked like one of those overrun places on that American Pickers show. A worst-case scenario. The space was packed to the rafters, the dust and filth making her sneeze. Good thing she’d gotten directions from her dad in finding the tool-belt. Just as her hand closed around it up high, while teetering on the edge of a stool, her mobile trilled in her tote on the ground. Chirping an annoyingly singsong tune she hadn’t gotten around to changing.

  Jumping down, she dumped the tool-belt and rummaged inside her tote — sitting on a cardboard box — for her phone. Maybe it would be Natalia wanting to check something or a new client-to-be. Her hand closing around the device, she checked the screen. Nope, it was just her best mate, Betty-Lou.

  ‘Betty-Lou, hi!’

  Apparently her friend’s mum had been going through a country-and-western phase when she’d named her, stealing the moniker from a song. And it suited Betty-Lou with her long, dark waves — often adorned with a flower — homely curves, and penchant for ’fifties-style fashion. Celeste and Betty-Lou were like chalk and cheese, but somehow worked as friends.

  ‘Hey! I was just ringing because I was thinking of making lemon cheesecake cocktails tonight, and the matching cake. The triplets have been driving me absolutely batty today—Hang on a second!’

  There was a muffled sound, signalling Betty-Lou covering up the mouthpiece. The subsequent yelling could still be heard, though. ‘Milla, Martian or whatever your name is, those scissors are not for cutting your brother’s hair. Or the moodle’s, or the cavoodle’s! Please put them down. Now!’ A crackling noise sounded in Celeste’s ear and Betty-Lou was back on the line. ‘Sorry, are you there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m still here. Sounds like you’re having fun,’ Celeste said mildly.

  Betty-Lou was a nanny for a high-flying Elle Macpherson lookalike named Peta, who needed help wrangling her trio of three-year-olds in between heading up her own international makeup brand and attending crack-of-dawn boot-camp sessions. Yep, the woman still had a rock-hard stomach, defying having carried multiples.

  But, despite Betty-Lou’s moaning, she adored the triplets. In fact, she liked to surround herself with children as much as possible, even volunteering at a toy library in her spare time. Most likely because she couldn’t have any kids of her own. Betty-Lou wasn’t ‘blessed’, as she put it — an odd-shaped uterus, the reason. Which was utterly cruel, because Celeste knew she would have made the best mum. As for Celeste herself? She considered looking after her dad children enough for the moment. And maybe forever.

  Betty-Lou was also a cont
radiction: the queen of spontaneity and a self-confessed nana. Her idea of having cocktails on a school night wouldn’t stop her from being in bed by eight-thirty. The cake was because she was also a devoted member of the local cake decorators’ association.

  ‘The cocktails sound wonderful,’ Celeste replied hesitantly, ‘but would there be any chance of meeting up tomorrow night instead? It’s just I’ve got my first official day with Natalia Samphire tomorrow, and I don’t really want to do it with a sore head.’

  ‘Hold up! You got the Samphire gig?’ Betty-Lou let out a high-pitched squeal, which would rival anything the triplets could unleash. ‘I so knew you could do it.’

  ‘I know! I still can’t quite believe it.’

  ‘Okay, in light of these very special circumstances, we’ll leave the cocktails until tomorrow, with much to celebrate. And I’ll tell Araminta to come, too.’ Araminta being their hair-salon-owner friend. Betty-Lou pushed on, ‘I’m so, so excited for you, even if I really don’t understand what the big deal is with health gurus these days — from Lorna Jane to Michelle Bridges.’ She lowered her voice. ‘The last time I did anything close to a cleanse I had Bali belly. And chia seeds give me gas.’

  Celeste chuckled. ‘You truly have a way with words, BL.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear.’ A loud sneeze ripped through the earpiece. Celeste could a rustling noise, like her friend scrabbling for a tissue, then she was back again. ‘Darn hayfever. I hate this time of year. Just because the darn plants want to have sex and throw their pollen around. Thankfully, the triplets are too busy with their iPads now to hear me! Give me the cosiness of winter any day.’

  ‘I love spring,’ Celeste chirped, the excitement of landing a client zipping through her once more. Maybe she’d even be able to upgrade her car someday soon.

  ‘Only because it’s your birthday season and you like spring-cleaning, you sick sod,’ Betty-Lou grumbled. ‘Typical Virgo. Anyway, I’d better go before the three amigos stop being computer zombies and it turns into Fight Club again. I’m also meant to be hunting down fabric scraps for some playgroup project of theirs. Anyway, see you when I’m looking at you. Tuesday!’ The dial-tone sounded in Celeste’s ear.