After Marvels, there were babies to look after and I let my career slide. Max liked the idea of me staying at home with Bella and Sam while he headed off each day to his work as a funds manager. And I convinced myself I liked the idea too. I was happy in the beginning, playing Earth Mother and cooking biscuits, muffins and apple pies. But it wasn’t long before I realised the store-bought versions generally tasted ten times better than anything I could come up with. And takeaway was often cheaper than home-cooked stuff. Domesticity never really was my strong suit.
So over the last year Gloria has been putting me forward for acting jobs. And the odd reality program. We’re both serious about me making a huge comeback. Last week I auditioned for a lead role as a femme fatale in a fabulously lavish new dramedy, and let’s just say I’m quietly confident.
‘Can’t talk,’ I say to Gloria. ‘Need to throw up.’
‘Congratulations on finally getting out and socialising,’ responds Gloria in that high-pitched girlie voice that’s so completely at odds with her appearance. I wouldn’t call Gloria a plus-sized person (not to her face, anyway) but she has ‘big bones’, as my mother would say. As well as her big bones, Gloria can be ferocious. She dresses in black, has jet-black shoulder-length hair and pale skin, and only wears Paloma Picasso red lipstick. An altogether intimidating package. Put it this way: I’m always glad she’s on my side.
‘I wasn’t out last night. I was drinking in bed, alone,’ I tell her.
There’s a brief silence. ‘You are joking, right?’
I hang up on her and, since she hasn’t called about an audition, decide to stay in bed indefinitely. Or at least for the rest of the day. Bella and Sam aren’t here, and I’m long overdue for some serious ‘me’ time.
I drag the covers over my head and invest in nursing my hangover.
The phone rings again some time later. My heart starts hammering. This time it has to be Max.
‘Lucy, I need to talk to you. But before I do . . .’ It’s Gloria.
‘What is it?’ I say grumpily. ‘I’m dying here.’
‘Can I just tell you you’re a wonderful person, a great woman -’
I feel sick. ‘Have you spoken to Max?’
‘Max? Of course not. Luce, look, I’ll give it to you straight. You didn’t get the part in Seasons.’
I say nothing.
‘Really sorry, hon. Life’s a bitch. But there’ll be other parts. Besides, who wants a role in an outdated soap anyway? Hey?’
‘Who’d it go to?’ I say.
‘I don’t really remember. Let me -’
‘For God’s sake, just tell me.’
‘All right, but don’t flip,’ Gloria says in a tone that screams, I know you’re going to flip. ‘It’s really no big deal.’
It’s clearly a big deal. A very big deal.
‘Gracie.’
I utter a strangled ‘Fuck!’ Gracie Gardener is my least favourite person in the world. THE WORLD. I can’t believe she’s still popping into my life. Gracie - or should I say, Darlene (her birth name) - and I were at NIDA together. Back then, as well as desperately searching for a more appealing moniker, she always snatched the lead roles from me. And she’s still bloody winning them.
‘To be honest, Luce, she’s lost a heap of weight,’ Gloria goes on, ‘her surgery scars have healed, and her boobs are -’
I hang up again.
Seasons was supposed to be my big comeback. My break. I should have been a shoo-in. The part called for a vibrant, fiery redhead. That’s me. Darlene/Gracie is talentless. And she doesn’t have a single red hair on her head.
Day 4
Still in bed, still wallowing in my private pit of misery, I think about the things that might have pushed Max over the edge. Forced him to abandon his Pad Thai and take off.
Could it have been the roofing disaster à la Spud?
Too much kitchen-cabinet talk?
Or maybe appliance shopping was the final straw.
A few days ago we went hunting for kitchen appliances. Max really wanted the Liebherr fridge with its bio-fresh compartment and MagicEye cooling. ‘Ridiculously excessive,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong with Westinghouse? Buy Australian.’ Besides, I reminded him, Patch, our one-eyed foreman on the building job - another thing I’d recommend against - had only allowed one metre for the fridge. The Liebherr was one point two metres wide.
Then there was the stove. I liked the Ilve Majestic because, as the name implies, it’s majestic. Okay, so it’s not Australian. Max insisted that the Titan - ‘a state-of-the-art iridium stainless-steel-finish oven with easy-to-use side opening doors and a retractable range hood with illuminating low-voltage halogen downlights’ - was the way to go. I ask you, what would you prefer - Italian design or Kiwi?
We even discussed our preferences at a subsequent dinner party.
‘Oh, the Titan,’ one guy said, eyebrow cocked. ‘We thought about getting it too, with its ten cooking modes -’
‘Which no one but a professional chef would ever use, you wanker,’ I muttered under my breath.
‘- but in the end we went for the Ilve Majestic because, well, it craps on everything else.’
Maybe he wasn’t such a wanker after all.
And I haven’t even mentioned the fracas over the toilet . . .
‘Bathrooms aren’t just about being clean,’ the sales assistant told us. ‘They’re a whole-of-life concept.’
Max’s patience was running thin by now, and his left foot tapped faster and faster on the grey vinyl floor as the sales guy went on and on and on.
‘Today’s up-market bathroom mimics the day spa experience, as busy people like yourselves seek pampering in the midst of their hectic schedules. The Magic Flush 4000 is unique. With its heated soft-close seat, it’ll be the centrepiece of any elegant bathroom -’
‘How much?’ Max snapped.
‘It’s state -’
‘I get that. How much?’
‘Three thousand -’
And Max exploded and stormed out of the store.
Was that the final straw for him? How could
