Room 46 & Short Story Collection

by Helen McKenna

  ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  ‘He could be closer than you think,’ Adam murmured wistfully.

  Beth ignored the comment, having no desire to open that particular can of worms today. Waiting until Adam went up to make himself a coffee she tore the page out and tucked it into her bag. She had never believed in fate before but had to admit it was positively providential that she happened to come across that particular advertisement at this particular point in time.

  Beth headed back to her desk five minutes early so she could email Gordon the group co-ordinator and was thrilled when a reply pinged back almost immediately.

  “Thanks for your interest Beth,” he wrote. “Please find attached information about the group and our meeting schedule for the year. We’re a bit of an odd bunch and there are no airs and graces, but we’re always on the lookout for new members. Please feel free to email with any questions you may have. Looking forward to meeting you.”

  “Thanks Gordon, you too,” she replied then conscientiously dragged her attention back to the pile of work on her desk, as unappealing as it was.

  Even though the next meeting was still weeks away, Beth immediately found herself in a much better frame of mind at work. How was it that such a seemingly small step towards a dream could buoy up in her the kind of enthusiasm she hadn’t felt in years?

  Yet at the same time she didn’t plan to share her aspirations with any of her workmates. They were all so into accounting in a way that she just wasn’t and she knew they could not possibly understand.

  Beth almost died when she nearly let it slip at Friday night drinks. Having enjoyed a few wines, she was feeling nicely mellow and got as far as saying, ‘I’m joining a…’, before pulling herself up.

  ‘Joining a what?’ probed Josie, who always took it upon herself to give unsolicited advice on any topic.

  ‘A gym,’ she mumbled hoping that the interest would end there.

  ‘Really?’ Josie replied excitedly, not seeming to notice she had dropped a clump of salsa down the front of her white blouse. ‘I’ve been thinking about doing that for ages too, let’s go together!’

  ‘Uh, yeah, sure,’ Beth replied, knowing it would probably all be forgotten by the next week. Josie was notorious for embarking on fitness drives she never followed through with.

  Unfortunately, this was the one time Josie’s motivation was genuine. When Beth arrived at work on Monday morning she found a thick stack of brochures on her desk for all the gyms within a ten kilometre radius. Logging onto her computer she found an email in her inbox with an Excel attachment summarising all of the information in the brochures.

  On Tuesday Josie buttonholed her at morning tea and showed her a series of photographs on her phone. Beth expressed polite interest although she did feel she had to ask why they were all exterior shots of the various gyms in question.

  ‘So you can see what the car parks are like,’ Josie explained impatiently. ‘It’s one of the first things a woman is supposed to check out for safety reasons.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’

  On Wednesday she found a bound document with timetables for various classes arranged in alphabetical order and degree of difficulty.

  By Thursday Beth knew she had to speak up. She had no desire to join a gym and it was ridiculous to be forced into it just because Josie was nosey, and because she didn’t want her workmates knowing her personal business.

  Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone, then chickened out and started an email instead. “Hey Josie, thanks so much for all the info, particularly the price list you just forwarded. I didn’t realise gym memberships were so expensive! I have just realised I really can’t afford to join now. Sorry.” Just for effect she added a sad face.

  Josie’s reply was swift and blunt. “You earn more than twice what I do and I can afford it.”

  Beth stared at the screen but managed to refrain from typing what she really thought, which was something along the lines of “so get your degree you bossy cow!”

  Instead she took the high road and just ignored it.

  The idea of telling her family her secret was just as unappealing for Beth. To an outsider the professional pedigree of her parents and siblings – lawyers, actuary and systems analyst respectively – was outstanding. How could she risk messing up this perfect picture? It wasn’t that she didn’t love them, she just knew they would not fathom, or possibly even respect, the choice she was making.

  Fortunately it was easy enough to avoid the topic. As always, their weekly Sunday lunch date was full of talk about topics boring enough to lull a hard-core insomniac to sleep within minutes. Well, maybe that was a bit unfair, Beth acknowledged as she poured some more gravy over her roast pork. The rest of her family were technical and analytical and she wasn’t – it was as simple as that.

  ‘So Beth, I guess you’re looking ahead to Junior Partner now?’ her mother queried.

  Beth hesitated a second, but couldn’t bring herself to fess up. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘It’s on my five-year plan.’

  ‘Five years?’ her brother Nathan scoffed. ‘You could do it in three.’

  ‘Yeah, true enough,’ she agreed, hugging her secret to herself and smiling inwardly at the thought of where she would actually like to be in three years’ time. It certainly wasn’t at Lloyd and Morgan.

  The next near miss happened the following week. Trapped in the lunchroom during another summer storm, Beth was half-heartedly listening to the conversation around her when her manager Camilla tried to rope her into playing netball in the firm team. ‘It’s Saturday fortnight at two thirty,’ she said, ‘And I’ll put you as Goal Keeper so it’s not too strenuous.’

  ‘Sorry I can’t, I’ve got a meeting,’ Beth replied vaguely, as she continued to read her copy of Vogue. She immediately paled when she realised what she’d said.

  ‘What kind of meeting?’ demanded Camilla, who saw herself as the star of the netball team and took offence when anybody who was asked to play refused.

  Beth had to think on her feet. ‘Trust me it’s nothing any of you guys would be interested in.’

  Adam gave her a sly smile. ‘Oh let me guess – secret women’s business, hey?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Beth murmured.

  ‘Hmm, sounds intriguing,’ Adam teased.

  Beth felt like rolling up her magazine and clubbing him with it.

  Of course her reply raised many more questions than it answered. The other women at the table continued to look at her with great interest throughout the rest of lunch. Later she heard two of them talking about her in the copy room.

  ‘Well I’d say it’s AA,’ Leanne whispered. ‘They’re not supposed to tell people about it’.

  Julia nodded sagely. ‘It’s always the ones you least suspect. You know I’ve often seen her looking blankly at things like she’s not really there. She’s probably got a hip flask somewhere’.

  And thus began a surveillance operation to rival ASIO.

  Staff began dropping into Beth’s office unannounced and appeared disappointed to find her completing tax returns or audits. Conversations stopped when she entered the file room or secretarial pool. Her name was deleted from the email list announcing a new wine club one of the partners was starting.

  She even caught Josie smelling the contents of her water bottle.

  ‘Should we have it sent off for analysis?’ she asked, eyebrows raised as she walked into her office, returning unexpectedly early from a meeting.

  It was the first time she had seen Josie lost for words.

  Refusing a slice of mud cake at Adam’s birthday morning tea started off the next round of gossip. As appealing as the rich treat looked Beth had the beginnings of a migraine and chocolate always made it worse.

  ‘I bet it’s Weight Watchers,’ Josie said triumphantly to Leanne as they stood at the communal filing basket later that morning. ‘You have to pledge to pass up the good stuff most of the time to save your points.’

&nbs
p; ‘Points?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, different foods have different points. Chocolate uses heaps of points but a carrot for example has hardly any. So you have a maximum number of points for the week and you use them how you like.’

  ‘Sounds complicated.’

  ‘It’s not that hard, and there’s a phone app. She’s always got her phone with her.’

  Josie either didn’t know or didn’t care that her voice carried into the surrounding offices quite clearly. Despite her amusement Beth was mildly insulted. Being tall meant she could get away with carrying a few extra kilos and like every woman she did want to lose two or three. But she wasn’t quite ready for weigh ins or the points system yet.

  Besides Josie was hardly one to talk. Everybody knew that while she publicly filled in her uniform order form as size 12, she secretly faxed the clothing company later amending it to size 16.

  Leanne nodded. ‘Could be I guess, but don’t you have to be kind of uh, fat, to go there? She has a nice enough figure.’

  Josie busied herself putting some reports in sequence to hide her blush. ‘I really wouldn’t know, I’m just going by what I’ve heard other people say about it.’

  Leanne nodded and let it rest. She didn’t have the energy to be harangued yet again about the thin genes she had been blessed with.

  * * * * *

  As the fourth Saturday of the month approached, Beth began working on her speech. Gordon had jokingly called it her “initiation” to the group and she was determined to get it right. She even started eating lunch at her desk so she could spend more time on it.

  Gordon had told her not to stress – that it was not make or break – but she didn’t see it like that. Beth had done enough public speaking to be able to gauge audience reaction quickly and she couldn’t bear the thought of pouring her heart out only to receive blank stares of disinterest or worse still looks of pity because it was so bad.

  Merrily typing away one lunch time, Beth finally understood the saying “in the zone”. It was like nothing around her mattered – the traffic noise outside, the constant hum of the printer just outside her door or the squeal of the fax machine. All she cared about were the words in front of her.

  So, it was a rude shock when her computer screen suddenly froze. She paused for a moment, waiting for it to come back to life. Maybe she had just been typing too fast, she thought wryly.

  After thirty seconds with no response, she started shaking her mouse. Still nothing. Getting a little more desperate she hit the home key and got the same result.

  Bloody hell!

  She had deliberately set the document to save only on her memory stick because she didn’t want any evidence of it on her work computer. But that was neither here nor there when said document was displayed on her monitor in a 16 point font for all to see.

  After five nerve-wracking minutes Beth yanked the memory stick out of the USB drive. There was still no response and her words remained stuck on the screen. Drumming her fingers on the desk she pondered her next move. IT had a strict policy that any computer problems had to be referred to them and under no circumstances were you supposed to reset your own machine.

  Peering out her office door Beth could see Josie approaching. Still miffed about the whole gym thing, of late she had been even more nasty than usual. Beth’s heart started to pound at the thought of the other woman discovering her secret and blabbing it to the rest of the staff.

  Too bad about IT policy she decided, and reached down and hit the power switch. Her screen went blank just as Josie reached her doorway, where she paused to direct a cool stare at Beth, before continuing down the hallway.

  Although she feigned innocence, the computer blip that caused the office server to crash was eventually traced back to Beth’s computer. All the staff watched as Adam strode down towards her office and closed the door with a resounding click.

  Beth met his eyes briefly then looked down again. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled.

  Adam shook his head. ‘I’m supposed to be reading you the riot act you know,’ he said in a mock stern voice. ‘We could have lost vital client files and other office documents, not to mention the hour of wasted productivity.’

  Beth nodded. ‘Sorry,’ she said again.

  ‘As luck would have it, the backup had just finished so no real harm was done.’

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  ‘I guess that Word document must be something confidential then.’

  Startled, Beth looked up again, then nodded slowly.

  ‘I didn’t look at it,’ he assured her, ‘and I binned it before anybody else did.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Beth whispered.

  ‘Look I’m not sure what’s going on with you Beth, but people are starting to talk. You’ve always been well respected around here so whatever it is I just hope it’s worth it. You don’t want to mess up all your hard work.’

  Beth met his gaze for a long moment before replying. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘to me it’s definitely worth it.’

  ‘Well in that case, consider yourself officially chastised.’

  Beth nodded. ‘I’m self-flagellating on the inside.’

  They both laughed and Adam stood to leave. He had his hand on the doorknob when he suddenly turned back around. ‘So, how about that drink you’ve been rain-checking me for months?’ he murmured as colour flushed his neck and face. ‘I reckon you owe met at least a light beer.’

  Beth’s eyes met his for a moment. He really was kind of cute in a nerdy way and he’d just saved her skin. Why not?

  ‘Sure. Friday after work?’

  Adam couldn’t contain his grin. ‘Yeah, you bet!’

  Beth was startled by the sound of applause.

  Looking up she smiled shyly and was greeted with grins of encouragement in return as well as many compliments.

  ‘Great piece,’ Gordon said warmly. ‘We’re so glad you took the leap of faith and joined us here.

  ‘Fantastic,’ agreed Jeannie. ‘You’ve got a real knack with humour.’

  ‘You’re a writer all right,’ added Larry. ‘Don’t let them accountants drum it out of you any longer.’

  ‘Thank you!’ she said, still a little stunned.

  Clutching her sheaf of papers, she sat down and grinned again.

  Sure, it was just a small step. After all the Westlands Writers Group was hardly the breeding ground for the Pulitzer Prize. But it was the small step that just might lead her somewhere.

  The meeting had been a good reality check too, Beth acknowledged as she drove home. She knew now that writing was a tough gig and that beyond an absolute miracle she had no hope of earning anywhere near what she did in her current job. She would have to rethink her bold plans to immediately quit Lloyd and Morgan and leave the corporate world behind. But she was willing to make a start and dedicate at least a small part of her energy to the creative side she had locked away for so long.

  In just two hours today she had been energised by the ideas and tips that had flowed around her, the most important of which was to make time to write. She wasn’t sure yet which she would sacrifice – her lunch hour, gym visits, TV viewing or even sleep – but she was going to find half an hour a day to put pen to paper.

  Starting tomorrow.

  Because tonight she had her first official date with Adam.

  Pseudo

  Thanks to the timer on her De’Longhi, Isabelle woke each morning to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Stretching leisurely, she inhaled the decadent aroma and snuggled under the covers for a few minutes longer, safe in the knowledge her first lecture for the day wasn’t until ten o’clock.

  Ah, the luxury of student life!

  As always, Isabelle began her day by looking up at her image hanging on the wall at the opposite end of her bed. Her purchase, and subsequent framing, of an official print of her first and only front page article hung there as a constant reminder of just what she had managed to pull off.

  Even though she’d known it was coming
, seeing her image splashed across the front page of The Courier Mail had still taken Isabelle by surprise. Not only was it a much bigger picture than she had expected but she had also made the Saturday edition, with its much larger circulation!

  Isabelle could imagine her old school teachers and former classmates picking up the paper and their eyes widening in amazement as they read the headline ‘The Face of UQ’. They must certainly have wondered how Isabelle Mathers, a below average student with an OP in the twenties teamed with zero ambition, had managed such a feat.

  According to the article it was by way of hard work and soul searching. Isabelle had described herself as a ‘late bloomer’ who took some time out to explore the working world and ‘took the alternative scenic route’ to bolster her school results to gain entry to the institution of her choice.

  In reality it had been much easier than that and Isabelle still couldn’t quite fathom she had gotten away with it.

  The tiny township of Blue Moon Lake was dark and silent as Isabelle drove along the dirt road to her grandparent’s holiday shack. It was looking tired now – being almost fifty years old – but to Isabelle it would always be a magic place, filled with memories of idyllic childhood summer holidays. Grandpa was dead now and Gran had recently moved into a retirement village, but she refused to let the old place be sold – for which Isabelle was very grateful.

  During this, her twenty-first year, Isabelle found herself visiting the shack on a depressingly regular basis. Not that it was an awful place to go, rather it was depressing because she had so little else to do with her time. Using reasoning she had borrowed from an episode of Seinfeld, Isabelle theorised that if she went to the lake at least she was out of her flat. So while she may do as little at the shack as she would at home, she was ‘away for the weekend’ and thus not as much of a loser.