A Dash of Reality

by Murray, Lee

  Five minutes in and the collective slap of trainers on the road dulls as we turn onto the trail. This is where I come across Carline surrounded by a joyous gaggle of girlfriends.

  ‘They’re my kindy mothers’ group,’ she says, as I come up level with her.

  ‘Hey girls, this is Mel. You know, she does the billboards.’ There’s a chorus of hellos after which they turn back to their conversations about little Georgia’s aptitude for mixed media art and Jamieson’s penchant for sardine and jam sandwiches. Perhaps they feel including me in their chatter would be a betrayal of Carline as they’re here to support her.

  Edging past Carline’s posse, I think of my own support crew at the halfway mark. After their initial gusto, the enthusiasm of my supporters has dwindled. Cushla and Marcus have cried off today in favour of the wedding of a daughter of an Omokoroa neighbour. The invitation had already been accepted before I wrote the Racing Feat proposal, so I can’t be too miffed by their defection. The wedding excuse works for Cherry too, as she’s doing hair and make-up for the bridal party (the only beauty therapist willing to drive out to Omokoroa.) Charlie planned to come and cheer me on, but two of his sous-chefs are off sick with the flu, leaving him short staffed for this evening’s food preparation. He’s that pushed, he even has Ben chopping zucchini. And Janeen and Caro have gone to see the medical equipment technician at Tauranga Hospital for an adjustment to Caro’s wheelchair, an appointment they’ve had for some time. So today, my support crew consists of just Jack, but that’s okay. I’m going for quality over quantity.

  After a couple of kilometres, my stomach starts to feel dodgy. I’ve got enough time for a toilet stop, but since I’ve already run past the first porta-loo, I duck discreetly into the bushes. Call it performance anxiety, but I can’t seem to pee. Hitching up my low-rise lime yoga pant, I emerge from the bushes, no doubt looking like an exotic caterpillar, and set off again.

  Carline and her entourage passed while I was in the bushes. I come up alongside them, say hello and pass them by again. I manage another kilometre, but my tummy’s still squiffy and these cramps are so crippling I have to slow down to a near walk. Up ahead in a clearing I spy the row of aqua porta-potties, but there’s a queue of people in front of each one, so I opt for another foray into the bushes.

  I don’t get it! Why can’t I go? I crouch for a while, listening to the runners going past beyond my clump of foliage and trying to relax myself enough to go.

  Nothing.

  Maybe it’s the cold air on my nether regions that’s the problem. I squat a few minutes more, ever hopeful, but then June Carter Cash sings ‘time’s-a-wasting’ in my head and I realise I can’t wait around any longer. I hitch up my lime green pants and make like Prince Charming, hacking through the vegetation back to the trail. I’ll have to push myself to make up the time. Maybe I’ll be able to afford another toilet stop at the end of the first circuit. I start up again, pushing the pace this time, and minutes later pass Carline’s mother helpers for the third time.

  ‘Hey! Haven’t you heard the one about the tortoise and the hare?’ one mother calls.

  ‘Problem with my pit crew,’ I reply wryly.

  ‘Ooh, bummer. Good luck with that.’

  I execute an overtaking manoeuvre and whip in front of her, but already my stomach cramps are back. I’m going to have to go bush again. I run on, looking for a suitably concealed lay-by, but as the trail turns sharply left at the edge of the lake, I glimpse the toilet block. It’s just a few hundred metres away. Determined to reach that block, I clamp down my sphincters, close my mind to the churning cramps, and slog my way through the distance. I run straight into a cubicle.

  What a relief!

  Except, once again, there’s none.

  What’s wrong with me? I pull on my caterpillar cossie. As I step out of the loos, I see the next toilet block at the far end of the beach, at the 5km marker. When I reach it, I consider running past, but in the end I relent. And this time, although it’s just minutes since my last attempt, it’s worth the lay-over. I’m rewarded with a thoroughly successful stop, complete with toilet paper, hand basin and liquid soap. I send up a little prayer.

  Jack’s outside the block as I re-emerge. He hands me a sports gel, which I wave away. He looks worried. I must be way behind my time predictions.

  ‘Mel? You okay?’

  ‘I am now. Anyone still behind me?’

  ‘No.’ My blood runs cold. No one behind me! I’ll be eliminated. I need to move! ‘Carline went past while you were in the toilets, then Asteroïde and Karen and Julie…you could possibly…good luck!’ I can’t wait to hear the rest. Instead, I take off as fast as I can, but almost straight away I get stuck behind a crowd of recreational runners, talking and laughing and urging each other on. These tail-enders aren’t going to win any prizes and they know it. They’re there to have fun and finish the course, with fresh air and exercise thrown in as a bonus. Incredibly, they run for the pure joy of it, with nothing to look forward to at the end, sometimes not even a final drink station. They’re like the tooth fairy: you want to believe, but it’s hard.

  ‘You go on, Melanie,’ they say cheerily, as I weave through the group, ‘give it your best shot. You’ve got nothing to lose.’ Of course, they can’t know about my apartment.

  Now the road meets the trail. Here, the route narrows and runners are forced to jog in single file. Wherever the trail widens I move to the right and zip politely past people in the slow vehicle bay, my progress about as satisfying as a cervical smear test. My time predictions are shot. I can feel it in my bones. Still, I’m determined not to give up because, you never know, something might happen to one of the other contestants. Maybe one of them will make a wrong turn, get a big blister, or run into Dr Livingstone. I might still be in with a chance. I won’t give up until I get to the finish and they tell me definitively that I’m out.

  And then, abruptly, the abdominal cramps start up again. I want to wail, but I’m practically doubled over and it’s hard to spare the breath. It isn’t fair! I really, really need to go to the toilet. Luckily, the stand of porta-potties comes into view and this time there are no queues. I make a dash for the first stall. Inside, there are only a few sad squares of toilet paper left, a puddle of pee on the floor and a swarm of mosquitoes have taken up residence behind the bowl. I don’t care. It’s another highly successful stop. I manage to avoid getting bitten on my bum, and afterwards I feel much better. I’ve finally got the hang of the drawstring on these pants, too.

  Back on the course, I give it everything: leaping over roots, sprinting a stair here and there, stretching out wherever the trail slopes downwards, shouting ‘on your right’ and squeezing past as many slow runners as I can in a last gallant effort to stay on the show.

  But when I make it to the finish, I’m dead last.

  Mel-o-dramatic. By Ross Sully.

  Melanie Short’s reign over the NZTV-Sportzgirl show Racing Feat is to remain short and sweet, likely to end only three episodes into the popular running reality series. After a disastrous second event in which Short was the last contestant home, the lincoln-and-lime clad Short was less than merry as she slunk away from the scenic Blue Lake site in floods of tears, cutting short interviews with the show presenter and awaiting paparazzi. Short’s theatrics could be justified if recent insider reports prove founded. Sponsor and retail giant Sportzgirl is purportedly casting for a celebrity athlete to replace Short in their regular advertising campaigns. Mel-o-dramatic or otherwise, Melanie’s impending departure will undoubtedly leave the series devoid of colourful Shorts.

  30

  Reports are that Winston is pissed. Annalise certainly is. She’s been storming around ranting to anyone and everyone about how she knew this would happen, she knew it. Poor Martine’s like a beetle trying to squeeze under a rock, striving to keep out of her way. Nobody is saying much to me, although I’ve received one or two sympathetic glances and a couple of openly hostile glares. Well, Winston did say t
here’d be redundancies and he doesn’t make empty threats.

  Frank in Purchasing is especially nice when I hand back the GPS. I tell him he’ll have to wipe the memory of runs I’ve recorded because I can’t work out how to do it. He pats me on the back, saying I’ve done my best and that’s all anyone can ask. I leave him bent over the device erasing my running history and I return to my cubicle where I cram bits and pieces of my seven years at Sportzgirl into a cardboard biscuit box. Since then I’ve been hiding at my desk checking out the employment pages. I’m wondering whether fifth form biology will be sufficient to get me a job as a dental hygienist when I hear Derek and Annalise outside my cubicle. They’re talking contingency strategies. He’s all for phoning around the other Racing Feat competitors to see if they’ll agree to wear Sportzgirl gear in subsequent episodes, but Annalise is dead against it. She insists there’s no way Simon will look good in pineapple yellow and Carline doesn’t have the boobs to fill out a crop. She contends if the company can’t display the products in an appropriate way, that is, on someone with model looks and a decent cleavage, then it simply isn’t good advertising. Hunkered down in my cubicle, I realise Annalise has paid me a back-handed compliment. Ordinarily, I suspect she’d rather rip out her ruby red fingernails with a pair of pliers than offer me praise. She must be feeling sorry for me.

  ‘Using those others would be worse than displaying the garments on hangers,’ I hear her remark, ‘I’m telling you now, Derek, they’ll look as exciting as a flaccid penis.’

  There’s a tiny pause and I imagine Derek flushing scarlet.

  ‘If you step into the stockroom, I’ll demonstrate,’ commands Annalise.

  ‘Uhm.’ Perhaps Derek realises of the two of them, only he has the comparative appendage.

  ‘This way, Derek.’ They move away, Derek’s soft loafers drowned out by the clatter of the stylist’s steel-tipped stiletto boots.

  It occurs to me Sportzgirl will be forced to run at least one supplementary catalogue now, if they’re to generate sufficient demand for this season’s stock, but since my contract only extends until the end of my involvement in the series, I won’t be the model.

  In the paper, I spy a marketing opportunity in a major retail conglomerate, which I circle boldly in black with my Sharpie: Supermarket tasting counter.

  I put the pen down, rest my head in my hands and tell myself I will not cry again. I’m absolutely done crying. After the event I cried inconsolably in the car all the way home to Jack’s place. I curled myself into the foetal position on his bed and cried some more while he made me soup and toast, and then I cried some more while I ate it. Then I felt mean, because Jack was trying hard to comfort me, so to make him feel better I let him rub my feet. While he massaged my feet, he made soothing noises as I grumbled on about the crippling stomach cramps which disappeared the instant I crossed the finish line. As if I was faking it! Sully’ll have a field day. I can almost hear him, scratching out his malicious little article in his hack’s attic somewhere. Except Sully probably lives somewhere posh: there’s money to be made in bringing down other people’s careers.

  Bastard.

  Mostly, I cried over losing my big chance to break into show business and become a celebrity. I’m doomed to banality. Ordinary Melanie Short, cashier, or Melanie Short, accounts clerk. Jack reminded me there’s nothing wrong with these jobs. They’re solid honest jobs done by good people and I sobbed some more because I know that.

  I’m not a horrible person.

  I’m not trying to belittle other people’s work.

  But no-one ever heard of a supermarket checkout girl rising to become a major celeb, did they? Yes, okay, there was that British church choir lady with the unfortunate face and stunning voice on Idol. She made it to the big time. For a moment I think I should’ve auditioned for Idol myself. I did consider it once, but Cherry was right: even with practice, I suck at singing. The high school performing arts teacher kindly suggested I might like to consider pursuing some of my other creative talents, although at the time she omitted to say what those might be. That was right after she gave the role of Roxy Hart to Casey Eaton.

  Is it so bad to want to be noticed? Truly noticed, not glanced at during a cursory flick through a catalogue before being chucked in the recycling bucket. To have people sit up and think, ‘There’s Melanie Short. She’s Someone Special. Her time is important.’ Wouldn’t that show Cushla and Marcus and Daddy’s Little Girl?

  Too right it would.

  And my real dad, Colin, would be immensely proud of me, because he knows what it’s like, doesn’t he, living in the public eye, where your time is never your own? I want to show him this little caterpillar can emerge from its shabby brown cocoon having morphed into something spectacular. I want to show Colin I can be Someone. Of course, I’m devastated. Who wouldn’t be, after cherishing a dream for years, then holding it briefly only to have it ripped away?

  ‘Get a grip, Melanie,’ I scold myself. So Racing Feat didn’t work out. That’s too bad. There’s more than one road to fame and celebrity. I’m going to have to think of some other way. That’s all. And here’s an opportunity right here. Picking up my Sharpie I circle the advertisement with a thick black oval, emphasising my determination with a couple of bold exclamation marks.

  Children’s Birthday Balloon Artist!!

  31

  Tonight we’re watching Racing Feat at my apartment. It’s just me and Jack, our friends having declined to come, crying prior engagements. They probably assume I’m about to melt-down faster than butter left out on the bench in February.

  O Ye of Little Faith!

  But even Jack is running his hands through his hair, a sure sign he’s nervous. I guess I can’t blame him. After all, his tender loving girlfriend did morph into an enraged dragon after the Cherry interview in the pilot show. And this time he expects to see me eliminated from the very show intended to hurl me into the ranks of the rich and famous. Given the magnitude of my failure, he could infer I’m about to commit hara kiri with the cheese slice, but honestly, it’s not going to happen. I’m a grown adult, mature enough to cope with life’s ups and downs. I am. I’ve resigned myself to the fact I’m about to be cast off, and since the filming’s wound up I’ve had time to come to terms with it because, as Frank said, I gave it my best shot.

  Sometimes, shit happens.

  Smiling encouragingly at Jack, I snuggle up to him on the sofa.

  Today’s show format includes a montage of each of the male contestants as they complete the course, followed by a boys-only interview conducted in the studio after the event. The men’s interview has finished and now Good is introducing the women’s segment.

  It starts with images of Carline. Here she is on the start line shaking hands with the other competitors, then running and chatting with friends as she navigates the bush trail, and now waving happily to her daughters, the vivid turquoise of the lake behind her. Here she is crossing the finish line with her ladies-in-waiting, followed by congratulatory hugs and kisses from her adoring courtesans. Here comes her husband, Greg, striding over and taking her in his arms to the sound of Abba’s Winner Takes it All. And now, a masterful kiss from said husband. Anyone would think we’re watching the sequinned finale of Dancing with the Stars, rather than a sweaty running show. Back on her feet, Carline blushes, giggles, and gives her man a playful slap on the shoulder.

  And then the screen blurs and clears to become a montage of me.

  Oh no!

  I was afraid this would happen. Here’s me on my first excursion into the bushes. And here’s me coming out of the bushes. And ducking into the bushes. And out. The soundtrack is the tune made famous by comedian Benny Hill, the ditty they played when buxom babes chased rude, naughty fellows all over pretty English commons. The one that goes doo dee dodee dodee dodee dodee doo… Actually, it’s rather funny. I stifle a grin. And there’s me, popping into the toilet block this time. And out. Porta-potty stop. And out. I catch myself holding back
a giggle. I steal a look at Jack from the corner of my eye. He can hardly keep a straight face either. I think he may be trying to avoid looking at the screen. I give him a nudge. Permission to smile. The two of us fall about laughing.

  ‘Oh God, Mel. I’m sorry,’ Jack gasps. ‘That was funny!’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t at the time!’

  ‘It could’ve been worse. At least, you made people laugh and, if my recall serves me correctly, I believe you promised to move into mine and become my devoted sex slave…’ He rubs his hands together and does the laugh of the evil genius scheming to take over the world.

  ‘Hey, shhhh…they’re already on to the interviews.’

  On screen are two vibrant Fanta-orange sofas arranged in a V-shape. Karen, Julie and I are seated on the one to the left, while Good, Carline and Asteroïde sit on the other.

  Carline: ‘…and we’re basically social animals so it helps to run with friends. If you make an appointment with someone to exercise, it’s harder to say ‘I can’t be bothered today.’ It forces you to run when other people are expecting you. I recommend finding a group of friends who share your interests to run with. It helps.’

  I wonder if Carline is on to something there. I did see a small ad in the newspaper promoting a weekend running group and considered joining. Not that it matters, because from now on I’ll be enjoying another hour of delicious warm sleep while the stupid crazy joggers drag themselves from their cosy slumber and take to the streets in the wee small hours of the morning.