String Bridge

by Jessica Bell

  “Okay, then. Erm, well, I, well, we, asked ye in here to tell ye … Dianne? D’ye mind if ye put those down for a wee moment?” Jodie glares at Dianne’s noisy paper-stacking hands. Dianne looks up. Face as stiff as dried putty.

  “Right, yes, Melody, ye presentation. Congratulations! Ye got the job in London!”

  My breath comes to a halt on the inhale.

  “Yes, congratulations, Melody,” Dianne reiterates, her spurious smile lingering on the cliff of professionalism. “We were informed first thing this morning, by Mr. Richard Viadro, the academic director of UTD Publications in London. He said you gave an extraordinary presentation and that it would be an honor to have you as a part of their team.”

  Academic director? At the presentation? I thought they were just Board of Education representatives!

  “Melody? Aren’t ye excited? Ye got the job. The job ye’ve been working towards for over a year!” Jodie leans forward above her desk—her cheeks filled with rosy expectation.

  I don’t know what to say. I should be excited, shouldn’t I? But I feel trapped inside a cocoon of mixed emotion.

  “Um …,” An outward sniff moves a strand of hair from my face like a breeze to a flag. “Thank you. No, I’m excited, I’m just … in shock, I mean, I wasn’t expecting the decision to be made so fast. Wow! Um … so … what now?”

  I feel foolish. Unprofessional. I was just coming to the conclusion last night that I’d turn this down, focus on music, use the money my mother gave me to finally do something for myself, but now I feel like I shouldn’t. It would be irresponsible, right?

  “Well,” Jodie begins, “It’ll be a wee bit different than the work ye do here. The books ye’ll be producing won’t be for ELT—they’ll be college and university textbooks about English literature and history—”

  “—so you might want to do some Internet research and get familiar with the materials you’ll be working with,” Dianne adds, twitching her nose like an irritated rabbit.

  This could be good for my future. Maybe I should put the music off for a little while longer. No! Oh, Melody, what are you doing? I shift in my seat; it creaks as if I’ve just farted. The PMs flash a glance toward my chair.

  “Hold on a minute, Dianne, we haven’t even asked Melody if she’s going to accept the position. It’s a big decision to make. Shouldn’t we give her a wee bit of time?” Jodie gets out of her seat and sits on top of her desk. She pulls her stapler out from under her bum as casually as one would scratch one’s head.

  “Well, I’m afraid we’re going to need an answer soon. There’s not much time for her to twiddle her thumbs in thought,” Dianne replies with a stringent waver.

  How soon? Holy shit! How soon? My face burns.

  “Um, sorry to interrupt,” I croak, trying to swallow an imaginary lump the size of an apricot, “but could you tell me how soon?”

  “I’m afraid they need a decision by the end of the week in order for the appropriate arrangements to be made,” Dianne says. “And if you decide you’d like to take the position, you’ll be required to start work two weeks from today.”

  I can’t leave Athens in just two weeks!

  Jodie kneels down beside me and touches my knee with such maternal kindness I have an intense urge to hum and rock back and forth in her arms.

  “Melody, dear, I know this is a wee bit quick, but we have been anticipating this for a year. Ye do want this, don’t ye?”

  I nod, straightening my back, in the hope that I can regain some form of power and courage. Dianne looks at us with distaste. Right now I wish I could say something about her Tupperware fetish, tip her off her icicle.

  “Listen, if ye do decide to take the job, ye’ll have next week off, fully paid, to organize yerself, okay? So ye won’t be too rushed off ye feet, hmm?” Jodie adds.

  “Okay,” I sigh, trying to reassemble my mental list of priorities. I stand and smooth my shirt over my stomach. Buttons ping on my wedding ring. “I have some serious thinking to do then. Thanks for this. Thanks for everything, Jodie … Dianne.”

  “Well done,” Dianne nods with pursed lips and lowered eyelids as she gets up to leave Jodie’s office. Just as I open the door to exit, Jodie half-whispers with a satisfied grin and a wink, “Oh, and before I forget, ye annual income will be forty thousand pounds—if you accept, that is.”

  My scalp seethes like a tormented pressure-cooker. Damn. It. I have to take the job now, don’t I? But I don’t know if I really want to take the job at all. I don’t need to get away from Alex, or this dire domestic drudgery, anymore. I have my husband’s support to play music, and that’s all I really wanted, right? I don’t need this flash-hot job to mimic a socially acceptable existence. I’m allowed to be what I want to be now. Oh my God. What do I do?

  As I turn to go back to my desk, dizziness creeps up on me like a hot flush and I whack the right side of my head on the edge of Jodie’s door in a blurry daze. The entire editorial department cries, “Oh!” I’m too stunned to feel any pain or care who is watching me walk back to my desk with my hand over my right eye. Perhaps they think I’ve been fired. But who cares. I don’t. Should I? I’ve got more important things to think about.

  At lunch time Heather and I sit on the meticulously cut lawn outside our office during break, and the smell of sun—the perfume of happy childhood memories and growing pains—reminds me of the island. Would I really be happy in a place like London, where the sun doesn’t smell?

  We’re not really supposed to be out here, traipsing on the ornamental grass, but hey, no one’s told us not to—today. So bugger it.

  I look at the lawn and wonder who in their right mind would put so much energy, care and pride into maintaining a corporate garden. And what for? It’s fenced off. The public can’t see it, and we’re stuck at our desks, trapped indoors for the majority of the day. What’s the point? Pathetic.

  “Why did the gardener mow the sodding lawn? Didn’t he do it two days ago?” Heather asks. She squints, takes her lunch from a brown paper bag. I laugh at the coincidence. “What’s so funny?” The crunching paper accents her catechizing look which seeks answers she doesn’t ask for.

  “I was just wondering about the same thing, that’s all. What’s in your sandwich?” I add without taking a breath between sentences—staving off a twitch fueled with equivocation.

  “Fish paste,” she replies, holding it out in front of her like a limp vegetable. I contort my face to summon more information.

  “I made the kids their sandwiches this morning and didn’t leave anything bleedin’ decent for myself. We’re due for a trip to the super.”

  “Oh,” I reply, a little disappointed. I was hoping for an answer a little more exciting. Something to get my mind off things—to spark a conversation about something passionate, teenage angst, marital problems? I could contribute to that conversation.

  “And Chris took the last can of tuna, and I couldn’t find anything else that went with mayonnaise.”

  “Yuk.” I gag. “Fish paste and mayonnaise? You can’t be serious?”

  “No. There was no mayo left either. All I had left worth putting in a sandwich was a wrinkly old cucumber, but fish paste and cucumber didn’t really take my fancy, nor did just cucumber, ’cause it would taste too dry, so I just put fish paste in.”

  “I see.” My voice teeters off with a retracted giggle. “What bores are we? Huh? What kind of conversation is this?” I laugh, cupping my hands over my ears as if I might mute my own thoughts.

  “I’m talking shit again, aren’t I?” Heather sighs, nods at her knees as if they’re the ones to blame for her tendency toward hogwash.

  They say men think with their dicks. Well, I say women think with their knees. You see, there are two, perfect for multitasking. They’re separated, as opposed to a penis which is one solid area. In the female mind there is never one solid thought in one solid place at any one time. And this ‘jumping’ from knee to knee can cause us to talk gibberish on occasion. But the
knees are also our source of balance and they are the first point that leads to our source of power, our core, our center.

  We stare at the lawn, listening to each other chew, when I smell something a bit off and sniff the air like a detector dog.

  “What’s that?” I ask, nose toward the sky.

  “What’s what?” Heather turns to face me, chewing with her mouth open like an untrained child, pushing food through her teeth with her tongue.

  “Oh, it’s you,” I hold my nose and hang my head between my knees.

  “Whatcha mean?” Heather asks, nudging my shoulder and almost toppling me over.

  “The fish paste! That’s got a whopper of an odor!” I stand, trying to catch a breeze.

  Heather cackles and it sounds like a dozen people popping plastic bubble wrap—and runs after me with her mouth open. We end up on the flower bed outside the PM’s offices, giggling like little girls about to play a prank on the school principle.

  Jodie and Dianne peer through their windows like timed machinery, countenance identical—which is pretty amusing because they can’t see each other—and gesture for us to get off the flowers with the same flick of their hands and stretched lip movements. We do so in haste, still laughing and mouthing the word sorry over and over, trying to resurrect the flowers we trod on.

  Heather and I return to our desks as soon as the rest of the editorial team has traipsed upstairs to eat around the kitchen table like civil well-behaved employees. I tell Heather about the big career decision I have to make, Alex’s pledge to get me gigs, and of course, our domestic disabilities. She doesn’t say much except “shit,” while poking a fingernail into her dessert—one Rusk with honey. I really appreciate her support. She (s)hit the nail on the head.

  “Hey, Melody. Let’s go out tonight. Might make you feel better.”

  “Yeah,” I nod, trying to mentally grasp what ‘go out’ means to people other than Alex and me. “Okay. Where would you like to eat?”

  “Um, well, I was sort of thinking of doing something a bit out of the ordinary,” she replies, valor intensifying her cheek bones.

  “Oh, yeah, like what?”

  “Let’s go clubbing!”

  “Clubbing? You? Clubbing?” I roll my chair backward so I can see her properly. “I never thought of you as—”

  “The type? I’m not the type. Hence the phrase out of the ordinary. You’re not the type either. Can’t imagine seeing you out of your comfort clothes.” Heather waves her hand indistinctly. “That being said, what’s with the flip-flops?”

  “Uh … my thongs?”

  “Yeah. Sorry, thongs,” Heather repeats, attacking the Australian twang.

  “Pure and simple laziness. They were beside my bed this morning.”

  “Well, don’t wear them tonight; you’ll get your toes squashed. So, whatcha think? You in?”

  “Um, okay. Let’s do it. Oh, wait … what about work tomorrow?”

  “It’s Tuesday. Annual Book Exhibition, remember? Of-fice is clos-ed,” Heather sings, wriggling in her seat with ebullient moxie.

  “Oh, yeah. Forgot.” The prospect of reliving a little teen spirit brings to mind a pink bear and my sixteen-year-old exploratory lesbian relationship with a classmate who painted her eyebrows with magenta glitter and ended every sentence with a whine—and Nirvana—the grunge band which made dressing like a construction worker in flannel shirts and blundstone boots a fashion statement.

  “Dress up,” Heather whispers as the girls wander back to their desks, dragging their feet like sloths on speed. “I wanna see a completely different person when Oi see you git on that trollee.”

  Different person. I think I already am one.

  Twelve

  The vehement whoosh of the stove fan and bubbling chicken soup puts me into a trance. I stare at steam being sucked away into noise, a truck swimming through a giant whirlpool. A school of singing plankton amplified to human frequency. What am I going to wear?

  Ring ring … ring ring … ring ring …

  Alex brings me the phone. Taps it on my upper-back, looking at the floor. I take it. My wedding ring clicks on the plastic like acrylic nails to a table top. I hold the phone to my left breast. It vibrates against my nipple. Alex walks out of the kitchen, hitching up his quarter-length shorts. Has he lost weight? Am I turned on? I have to tell him about the job.

  “Hello?”

  “Oh, hi! I’m so glad you answered, I was beginning to get worried,” Mum says with a sigh.

  “I’m in the middle of cooking. I couldn’t hear the phone over the fan. Is everything okay?” I hold the handset to my ear with my shoulder, so I can stir.

  “Oh, yeah, but I think I’m going downhill again. Headaches—nerve pains down my arms. You know, I fell onto a rock yesterday while trying to take some photos and really hurt myself. Bloody James just gazes into the sky pretending that he can’t hear me while I ask him to help me get up.”

  “Er—”

  “Do you think he has a problem? You think he’s becoming senile?”

  “Mum—”

  “No. No, that can’t be it. He’s always been like this. He’s just plain selfish.”

  “Um … so have you sold any more packages this month?”

  “Yeah. I have to attend some board meeting Friday before we get on the ferry. The company wanted to hold it on the weekend but I kicked up a stink. Why does everyone want to book my time when I’m not here?

  “Oh? Where you off to?”

  “Don’t tell me you forgot. I asked you to book a hotel room!”

  The wooden spoon slips from my hand and clatters on the floor. As I bend down to pick it up, Doggy wanders in, licks up the splattered broth, and I hit my head on the edge of the stove.

  “Ouch! Mum, I have to go. I’ll call you back later.”

  Alex shuffles in on his slippers as if they’re skis, shorts hanging halfway down his bum. He takes the phone out of my hand as I obliviously hover it above the pot.

  “What’s up? You okay?” He winks, massages my neck—talks in cartoon.

  “Yeah, just whacked my head on the damn—”

  “Who was it?” He jiggles the phone.

  “Hmm?”

  “On the phone.”

  “Oh. Just Betty the bloody Banter-ress.” I hold my breath, cheeks puffed, as I turn the heat down on the hot plate. I put the lid on the pot, leaving a small gap for it to simmer down a little, and then gesture for Alex to turn around. “Um … have you lost weight? Your shorts are … kinda loose.”

  “Don’t think so.” He pulls them back up above his hips with a frown.

  “You have. You’ve lost weight. Have you been … exercising?”

  “Of course not,” he snaps, looking blank-faced at the stove. “What are you cooking?”

  “You know exactly what I’m cooking.”

  Alex nods at the floor and turns to leave.

  “Hey. Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Where are you going?” I ask, in the most non-threatening voice I can possibly muster. I look him up and down, pause on the patch of bald smooth skin on his right calf, where he pulls his hair out whenever watching TV, rolls it and flicks it like snot. Fur balls. But no cat in the house.

  “Back to my desk. Why?”

  “No reason.” I stare, trying to smile.

  Alex’s eyes shift toward the greasy cupboard handle, to the floor, to my knees.

  “I’m just wondering what’s going on with you,” I add.

  “Nothing’s going on!” The tone of his voice shifts into defensive mode and he throws his arms in the air and storms out. I want to grab him by the ear and drag him back in; threaten to cane him if he doesn’t speak up.

  “Okay. Whatever.” I shake my head.

  I squeeze lemon-scented detergent into the sink and run the hot tap. It reminds me of the time my mother filled an old foundation bottle of hers with no-frills washing up liquid, made a wand from a wire coat hanger and blew bubbles with me in the drivewa
y until the mixture ran out.

  She didn’t care about tidiness then. She didn’t cry or scream, insult my father, or threaten to kill herself. She even baked me cookies once in a while. I must have been about three or four years old. Before bipolar took her away to a place I never want to revisit.

  I wish I could recall the memories my mother cherishes so much; like when she would throw me in the air and catch my limp, trusting body seconds before I would have hit the ground. I’d do anything to remember flying for those few fantastical seconds—being greeted back to Earth with ardent tickles, on the green lawn of our suburban Aussie backyard. I want to remember her lifting me to reach the Vegemite on the top shelf, and giving me butterfly kisses until putting me back on my feet. I want to remember being carried for hours around The Queen Victoria Market, snuggled in my mother’s arms, with my face nuzzled in her warm, Estee Lauder-scented neck. But I don’t remember these things—my mother does. All I have are photographs and my mother’s word.

  But if I roll them up—Mum’s words—into a tight sacred ball in my palm, I can almost feel the innocence we once shared; I can almost taste our love and her memories as if my own. Until she makes that call. Selfish little bitch. Selfish little bitch. And I begin to wonder: Why do I only remember bad things?

  I’m rinsing the last of the dishes when Alex comes back in. I dry my hands on an overused tea towel which smells of garlic, onion, off yoghurt. Embedded in this stench is something warm and wet. And white. Cappuccino froth.

  “For Christ’s sake, Alex, can’t you use the paper towel to wipe up your—”

  “I lied.” Alex leans against the door frame, hanging his head.

  “And you don’t know why.”

  Alex smiles, sniffs, pushes nose hair up a nostril. “Sorry,” he says, stepping forward. He kisses me on the forehead.

  “So, what’s the truth? Why you acting so out of character? And how did you lose all that weight?” I stretch my arms around his waist and lay my head on his chest. Please don’t lie. Please.

  “I’ve been feeling, er … unattractive?” he whispers, as if seeking approval for his response. He rocks me back and forth, lips planted on my temple like a statuesque kiss.