‘I should tell you now,’ she said, ‘I’m not very good at this emotional stuff.’ She reached out a hand to indicate that I was the said ‘emotional stuff’ she was referring to. Ironic, given that I’d pretty much had to pick her and Tim off the floor of CreateSpace more than once. Like a porcelain doll, she reached up both arms in unison and awkwardly positioned them around my body. ‘I’m taking you for a drink,’ she said, equally woodenly, reaching into her Mulberry bag and placing a pristine tissue in my hand.
‘I don’t want to talk about CreateSpace,’ I said, through childlike sobs.
‘It’s nine p.m. on a Thursday evening and I’ve only just left the gallery.’ Olivia looked me dead in my tear-flooded eyes. ‘Do you really think I want to talk about CreateSpace?’
Olivia led me and my backpack into the beer garden of the Coogee Bay Hotel, a backpackers’ knees-up type place that I could never picture her enjoying. I sat at the wooden bench table, conscious of bumping into anyone else I wouldn’t want to in this state. Jamie, Sam, Joshua, Tim – the sheer volume of people to avoid was testament to my cock-ups. Olivia went to the bar and came back with two large glasses in her left hand, a bottle of white in her right.
‘Now, drink up,’ she said, placing the glasses down and filling mine to the brim. I took one reluctantly; this past couple of weeks was enough to put me off drinking for good. ‘And tell me why the hell you’re leaving?’
I looked at her pretty, pale profile. She must be the only person I’d met in Sydney who didn’t look like they lived at the beach; maybe because she was always with Tim at CreateSpace.
‘What?’ She looked at me, her slightly smudged eyebrows raised – imperfections I’d never notice if we weren’t close up.
‘Nothing, it’s just…’ I began, not knowing how or if to phrase it. ‘It’s just, you never seemed this feisty at CreateSpace.’ I thought back to her obedient clipboard-holding and her reluctance to speak up in front of Tim for fear of being shot down.
‘And you never seemed like a coward,’ she quipped in return. Ouch.
‘I’m not being a coward,’ I objected, lifting my glass to take a gulp, but stopping myself, remembering again that this was what had got me in trouble in the first place. Instead, I took a small sip. ‘You don’t even know what this is about.’ I shook my head at her, even though she was too busy looking down at my overfilled backpack, slung mercilessly to one side on the floor.
‘I can give it a good guess.’ She lifted her eyes away from it, full of disdain. Why had she invited me for a drink if she was just going to lay into me? With nowhere better to be and nothing better to do, I motioned to her to carry on. ‘My guess is that you came to Sydney thinking it would be easy to start a new life here, a new career, a new man. And now that it’s not, now that you’ve got caught out, got some push-back from a fifty-year-old prima donna and, I imagine, been swiped left by lunchtime mystery man, you’re running off again in search of something easier…’ She trailed off.
I really didn’t need this right now.
‘I don’t need this right now,’ I voiced out loud, edging my full glass of wine in her direction and standing to go.
‘Leaving again?’ She raised her eyebrow again in mock surprise. Bitch.
‘That’s not what this is,’ I objected, parking myself back down all the same.
‘So, it’s not about a boy?’ Olivia asked and for the first time in a long time I realised it wasn’t. It had been – or I thought it had. But it was bigger than that.
‘I don’t think so. Not entirely.’
‘No?’ Olivia softened a little, inviting me to carry on.
‘I’m just not where I thought I’d be right now, you know, in life. I was the sorted one, the one who was settled before I’d even left uni, and now…’ My voice trailed off. ‘I just keep hoping that I can work it all out, force my life back on track somehow.’ I looked across to her, perfection personified. ‘You wouldn’t understand; you’ve got it all together. I just feel like a mess.’
‘You think I’ve got it together?’ She let out a little laugh. ‘I’m a thirty-three-year-old gallery assistant who still rents in a houseshare twelve miles from the coast so that she can afford to keep up the appearances needed to get ahead in her industry. I don’t date; I don’t really have a social life because I work so damn hard, but if you think I’ve got it all together…’ She shrugged, taking another sip of her wine.
‘I… I had no idea…’ I said, taken aback by Olivia’s vulnerability, an openness I didn’t think she had to give.
‘You wouldn’t. Because when someone’s unhappy they tend to be a bit, well’ – she hesitated on the word and I nodded for her to say it anyway – ‘self-centred.’
‘Self-centred?’ I repeated the word, letting it settle, thoughts of Sam and Jamie and Zoe and my parents running through my mind.
‘Like Devon Atwood, for example,’ Olivia continued. Devon? ‘Tim told me what happened, and I know it’s shady that Sommers was forcing you out before she’d even found out you…’ Olivia paused.
‘Lied,’ I said, filling in the blank. They say the truth will set you free, but right now I still felt trapped.
‘Yeah well, you didn’t lie about Devon being pretty shit at her job from time to time,’ she continued, ‘that was true, at least.’ All the time, I almost corrected but had strength enough to stop myself. ‘But did you ever think that she might be drowning, ripping off everyone else’s ideas because she just couldn’t keep up with the pressure to perform, to stay reputable, relevant after all this time? That she might need help rather than your hate? You can only see it from your side. It’s okay, we all do it – but sometimes, I find it helps to, you know…’ She didn’t need to finish her sentence to make her point.
‘You’re right,’ I admitted, looking across at her dark hair pulled tightly behind her ears and her hand shaking slightly as she took another sip of her wine. I had never deserved to be promoted over her, even when they thought I was who I said I was, but she’d shut up and supported me all the same. She didn’t need to put me down to make herself higher.
‘Thank you, Olivia.’ I meant it. Neither of us needed to say what for. She shrugged away my kindness. If I’d known she’d been this feisty at CreateSpace we would have been out for drinks ages ago. ‘So why do you do it?’ I had to ask. ‘If work costs you so much, why do you even stick around?’
‘Because I love it.’ She smiled. ‘I love what I do. I know it might sound stupid, but for me, it’s worth the cost.’ She took another sip of her drink and looked around the courtyard, suddenly nervous about letting herself lose her composure. I guess she figured it would be me doing the talking.
‘Olivia, that’s great,’ I said, putting a hand across the table to rest on hers. She didn’t pull away. ‘And it doesn’t sound stupid.’ I shook my head. ‘It’s amazing that you’ve found something you’re really passionate about. I guess I’m just not sure I have that…’