Avoiding Mr Right

by Anita Heiss

  I looked at my phone and felt sick, not from my hangover but from guilt about James, about how I hadn't missed him enough, how I'd spent too much time with other guys, about how I couldn't even bring myself to call him then. I needed sympathy, but I knew I couldn't ask for it from him. He'd only be annoyed that I had a hangover anyway.

  I couldn't finish the burger and hardly touched the fries because I felt so queasy. Walking out into the morning glare, I hoped that no-one I knew would see me and that Josie wasn't on duty. I didn't have it in me to talk to anyone. I needed to go back to bed.

  My head hit the pillow and I didn't move. My shoes were still on but I didn't have the energy or inclination to take them off. If Shelley were home I'd call out, but I didn't even feel like I could speak.

  As soon as I closed my eyes I found myself on a Continental airline flight leaving Tullamarine. I'm not even sure Continental exists any more, and I really want to be on QANTAS so I can use the QC and cos they have a really good safety record, but here I am on this American carrier and the staff are all lovely, but I don't have the energy to astral travel this morning, and at how many weeks are you allowed to fly anyway when you're pregnant? I'm not sure and there's no-one to ask, really, because they're too busy pointing out exits and oxygen masks and handing out colouring books. I like flying Continental better than Virgin.

  My flight takes me to Vegas and I'm excited about the casinos even though I've never been a gambler. I remember Mike's text on Melbourne Cup day – no gambling, no losing – but before I have time to consider the evils of betting on anything I'm playing blackjack at Caesar's Palace and I'm in a red sparkling dress like they wear in the movies. I'm decked out in so much jewellery I'm wondering why I'm even trying to win money because I look rich enough not to need any more, and I don't even know how to play blackjack as I've only ever played snap and go fish with Maya and Will. I don't know which cards I should keep and which cards I should fold, and I'm not even sure what folding cards means, apart from the obvious. And then there's a man next to me and it's a young Robert Redford and I'm thinking, Don't bother making an indecent proposal to me, cos I'm celibate.

  'You are my good-luck charm,' he says in his sexy voice, and I just say 'okay'.

  A woman comes around and offers free cocktails, and I'm thinking, Wow, free drinks, a gorgeous dress and Robert Redford, I hope I never wake up. This is the perfect dream.

  Robert wins a lot of chips, which reminds me I'm hungry, but we don't have time for food, and my tight sparkly dress won't allow it anyway. He places his soft hand in the small of my back and leads me to a lift and to one of the three thousand rooms in the hotel. Will it be Roman, Centurion, Forum, Palace or Augustus, I wonder? But my chastity belt tightens under the dress and I take his hand off me. I can't do the deed with Robert, even though he looks as sexy as he did in The Way We Were decades ago.

  I walk off, not really knowing where I'm going, and I follow two characters who look like Caesar and Cleopatra and we're entering some Roman-style pools where goddesses and gods are handing out frozen grapes to cool people down. I don't take one. I don't want brain freeze as it might force me to wake up and I'm enjoying this trip into Roman history in Nevada.

  'Oh, you southern girls are full of virtue, aren't you,' Robert whispers in my ear from behind, as though I'm from a plantation in Mississippi or something.

  'Why yes, sir, I do believe we are,' I say in the best southern belle accent I can muster. 'But you do realise that when I said I was from the south, I meant south of the equator.'

  'Yes,' he says, leading me out of the front doors of the casino and into a stretch Hummer, which is not as elegant as I am, but it is the modern-day expression of manliness in America and I know that's why he has it.

  We tour Las Vegas Boulevard and I am in awe of the lights, the people, the colour, the carnival atmosphere of it all. I almost need sunglasses it's so bright. We pass Treasure Island and Circus Circus and we turn around and come past Harrah's, Flamingo, Ballys and MGM Grand – and it is grand, so grand I can't believe the size of everything and wonder how in the middle of the desert all this building goes on. Robert slides his hand up the split in the side of my dress and splits it some more. I don't care, because I don't even know where the dress came from. I couldn't see it in Melbourne – or Sydney for that matter. Maybe it would make it on Dancing with the Stars. He kisses my neck and I am weak with desire at the thought of the Great Gatsby fondling me.

  I see a drive-through wedding service chapel ahead and laugh.

  'Should we?' he asks, jokingly, seriously.

  'Oh yes, with Elvis too, please.' And I am laughing, jokingly, seriously. And the driver is listening to everything and is laughing too, jokingly, seriously, and drives us through the wedding tunnel, which has a starlit ceiling painted with cherubs. One of the cherubs whispers to me, 'Are you sure?'

  'Why not?' I whisper back, and he fires an arrow through a heart for me and my astral husband.

  We say 'I do!' as the car moves on and the glass window between us and the driver slowly hits the roof of the car. I don't know how old Robert is but it's clear that he has decades of experience of making love as he manoeuvres me expertly in the back of the car and without removing anything but my knickers we are moving in time to Marvin Gaye's 'Sexual Healing' and even though it's completely corny I don't care because it's so long since I've been touched, but he is in demand and has to be somewhere else, so we find the nearest drive-through divorce and we both laugh at the mockery Vegas has made of marriage.

  Robert gets out at the Luxor, which is the shape of a huge pyramid. He has a charity dinner to go to, and I'm not invited. Another bride-to-be no doubt awaits him there. He tells the driver to take me wherever I want to go.

  'I'd like to go to a show, please,' I say.

  'Yes, ma'am,' my driver responds. And he takes me to the Las Vegas Hilton and I'm sitting there waiting for Barry Manilow to take the stage. Of all the gin joints in Vegas he brings me to this one, and it's perfect. Alice would love this place, she's always had appalling taste in music, but in my dreams it doesn't matter, no-one judges anyone. I'm having the time of my life, and I'm still glowing from the taste of Robert back in the car. And I know this is something I could never tell anyone back in Melbourne, where live music is at the country's best.

  I've forgotten my five-minute husband already and I've left my knickers in the car, but I'm by myself and having a great time, until a photographer approaches me.

  'Would you like a photo with your boyfriend when he comes back from the bar?' she asks, hoping for a sale.

  'I'm here by myself,' I say without hesitation.

  'Okay then,' she says, and walks off.

  'Hang on,' I sing out, pissed off. 'Can't I have a photo by myself?' I feel like telling her that I have a boyfriend when I'm awake and anyhow, I've just had sex with Robert Redford in the back of a Hummer and divorced him straight after. And I want to tell her how rude I think she is to suggest that it would only be a meaningful photo if I had a partner in there with me, and anyway, what if I was a lesbian? I could just as easily have had a girlfriend at the bar. She shouldn't be so presumptuous. But I don't say any of it, just tell myself in my head, until she says, 'Okay, if you want one,' like it's a really bizarre request I've made, and no-one ever asks for a photo by themselves.

  'Don't bother,' I say as I raise my gin'n'tonic cocktail to my lips and look up to see Barry walking towards my table singing 'Can't Smile Without You'. He stretches out to take my hand and suddenly we are flying together, leaving Las Vegas. I look down and it's just one bright light, and my mind's eye sees Al Gore crying over the amount of energy it must take to light up the city in the desert, because I'm sure no-one is using any energy-saving light globes.

  Barry is serenading me as we leave Nevada and he hasn't once asked my name, but instead starts singing 'Mandy' as if it were written for me, and when I frown, he lunges into 'Copacabana' and I have to tell him my name isn't Lola either, and I'm n
ot a showgirl, but I look at my dress and can see his confusion.

  Barry takes me to Los Angeles and leaves me on a street corner all alone in my red sequinned dress and he astral travels off, singing to no-one but himself about writing songs that make the whole world sing, and I think that it's time to wake up, but then I bump into a guy who looks just like Mike, but he tells me to call him Monday, and just like Barry I start belting out a tune myself, 'I Don't Like Mondays', but Monday's never heard of the Boomtown Rats so he doesn't get the joke.

  'My name's Peta,' I say.

  'I thought all you Ossies were called Bruce and Sheila. And that you all have pet kangaroos.'

  'Most Ossies are, but I'm Aboriginal, so we're really just sis and cuz. And we eat kangaroos.'

  Mike-Monday takes me to Disneyland and we visit Fantasyland, Tomorrow Land and Critter Country, but I really want to go on the cups and saucers. That's what I've seen on telly all my life and even as a grown-up it's the main attraction.

  'That's the Mad Tea Party,' Mike-Monday tells me.

  I meet Mickey Mouse and nearly wet myself with excitement, then I go on the Matterhorn and the Bobsleds and my sled flies off the tracks and astral flings me across the USA to New York City and the Metropolitan Museum and New York cabs and Broadway and giant slices of pizza and Central Park and the Rockefeller Center.

  I feel like I'm in every American movie and cop show and sitcom that I've ever watched. I go to Central Perk Cafe and see Monica, Chandler, Joey and Phoebe, but where's Ross and Rachel? I want to go to the Nazi Soup Kitchen and see Jerry, Elaine and Kramer, but I go to Katz's Deli instead so I can say 'I'll have what she's having!' and have a mock orgasm like Meg Ryan did in When Harry Met Sally.

  I'm walking around Soho and the Diamond district and I can see why some women want to get engaged – the rings are beautiful – but I still don't want to get married and even in my dream I know I'm on a public servant's wage and can't afford a rock, so I just accept I'll never have one.

  Someone on a street corner gives me some roasted walnuts and an American Express card, which I think is a particularly kind and humanitarian gesture, even for the Americans, who are still bombing the shit out of Iraq. But I take both and consider that I will at least do something positive with the Amex. And I do. I go shopping on 5th, 6th and 7th avenues. I buy boots and bags and clothes and I have big cardboard shopping bags with tissue paper sticking out slung on my shoulders and look like all the other shoppers travelling down the street.

  I breathe in the city that never sleeps, which is weird, given that I am actually asleep, and I marvel over the crowds and the colour and the lights of Times Square, on all day and all night, advertising music and running shoes and Broadway plays.

  What does Al Gore think about the electricity being used in New York City? Is it as bad as Vegas? I shudder to think how much energy is being consumed, but I know it's too much, too much, too much.

  There are lots of cops, so many cops on the streets, everywhere, and I feel safe. I think of Mike momentarily but I remind myself that I'm kind of on a holiday so shouldn't be thinking about home, I should just be worried about how much shopping and sightseeing and how many Broadway shows I can consume in one astral dream.

  I feel like Audrey Hepburn when I enter Tiffany's and I gasp when I see Mike-Monday standing behind a counter. Did he follow me from Disneyland? Is he astral travelling too? Or astral stalking? How does this work?

  'Can I try on that bracelet?' I say, pointing to some white gold under the glass. He gets it out from the cabinet and puts it on my wrist.

  'It looks beautiful. You look beautiful,' he says and I look down and I'm in a long black frock like Audrey's with a split above my knee. My hair is in a twist, I'm wearing black satin gloves and I've got a cigarette in a long elegant holder. And I do look beautiful.

  'I'm celibate,' I declare at a volume that almost wakes me from my sleep and everyone in the store turns and looks at me with a frown, as if I've just farted really loudly.

  'No, you're not,' he says and takes my hand and leads me into the plush Tiffany's toilets.

  'Audrey wouldn't do this,' I say out loud.

  'Ah, but you're not Audrey and I'm not George Peppard and we're allowed to do whatever we want.'

  Mike-Monday carefully manoeuvres me up against a wall as 'Moon River' is piped through the building. He kisses my neck and it makes me crazy with desire. 'You are so beautiful,' he says and I know it's just bullshit but the moment's not real so it's okay to believe him. Mike-Monday expertly lifts my dress and removes my knickers, not once taking his eyes from mine, and I think maybe it's not bullshit, maybe this is making love and not just sex in fancy, expensively designed toilets. I get carried away because Mike-Monday is touching me just right and I lose count of how many orgasms I have because I've never really been any good at maths but it doesn't matter as we're both panting and he's saying, 'You are so beautiful,' over and over again, and I almost start to believe it and then I hear a phone ring, but I don't have a phone with me, just my little blue Tiffany's bag and my cigarette holder, but the phone is ringing so loud now I wake up.

  'Peta? Are you okay?' James said down the line with concern.

  'Hello?' I replied, almost breathless, still recovering from Mike-Monday and talking into my mobile with my eyes closed. 'Oh hi, yes, I was just sleeping.'

  'But it's two o'clock in the afternoon. Are you sick?' He was worried and I knew it would be better to say I was unwell than to say I was hung-over from the night before and exhausted from multiple orgasms had in public toilets in my sleep.

  'Yes, I've got a bug or something, just feel a bit weak – probably a twenty-four hour thing. I'll call you back later.'

  I tried to go back to sleep, to find Mike-Monday, but I couldn't.

  ♥

  That evening Cousin Joe dropped off another food parcel. This time it was mutton bird he'd had flown in from Tasmania. Josie came round to help me eat it.

  'It's really fatty,' she said as she licked her lips.

  'And salty,' I added, doing the same.

  'But really bloody good,' we both said simultaneously.

  'It happened again,' I said and made like a kid pretending to be an aeroplane.

  'Fuck you.' Josie was starting to seriously get annoyed with my free international travel.

  'You wish.'

  'No seriously, where to this time?'

  'Las Vegas, LA and New York. Where else?'

  'It's not fair,' she sulked.

  'Hmmm, what's fair anyway?' I was being a bitch, and kept going. 'And I had sex with Robert Redford and a hot guy named Mike-Monday.'

  'That's a weird name. Was he out of Bold and the Beautiful or something?'

  'No, his name was Monday, but he looked like Mike, the policeman.'

  'Oh, Mike the policeman, who used to be referred to as "the cop"? So you're having sex dreams about him now? Let's explore those.'

  'Let's not. Monday, as I was saying, took me to Disneyland.'

  'Did you go on the cups and saucers?'

  'I did. And then he was in Tiffany's.'

  'God, you got it all sewn up, eh? He knows what kind of jewellery you like, and he can protect you too, cos he's a cop. Sis, if only you could make your astral dreams come true.'

  'My life's weird enough without living what goes on during my sleep. But let me tell you, not having much sex in my real life has been a bloody good idea, because it's been great in my dreams.'

  'So what's news on the cop front anyway?'

  'Don't you mean James front?'

  'No, I mean cop front. You haven't seen James for ages, and you hardly talk about him any more.'

  'I spoke to him this afternoon, so there, nah nah nah nah nah!'

  'Well that was grown-up, Peta. I bet he misses your childish ways, eh?'