Her lustrous fiery tresses flowed halfway down her back, loose curls swirling seductively around her shoulders and catching on the fabric of her pretty floral cocktail dress. Of course I knew who she was - it was hard to imagine there was anyone who wouldn't know - but this was the first time I’d seen The Muse in the flesh. And it was Valentine’s Day! I wasn't into romance, but I think someone was on my side this night.

Equally alluring to both sexes, The Muse is responsible for myriad Facebook memes, reality TV shows, cameo movie offers and her own hashtag: #themuse. But what piqued my interest as an anime-loving geek, was the glossy photoshoot of her dressed in a black leather catsuit that had spawned a new comic book heroine. When I wasn't working, I was reading comics. Or talking online about comics. The Muse was my favourite character.

While she loves to exhibit her obvious physical assets, The Muse herself is an enigma. Media outlets have offered monetary rewards to encourage someone to spill her real name, but nobody is willing to reveal that secret. I call her ‘Cherry’ because I like to imagine those fulsome lips biting into the equally curvaceous fruit. The purple/red juice runs to the tip of her chin, but I catch it just in time with my tongue. And then we kiss...

My boss Ed, a bad-tempered editor who thinks spicy salami and pickles washed down with stale beer constitutes a balanced meal, was the one who was invited to this swanky shindig. Instead, his date on this sticky summer afternoon was a few cold beers at The Printer’s Devil, an old English-style pub a block away from the office. Still, we needed to cover the story so that task fell to the lowly copy boy (aka office dogsbody).

“You,” he'd said, pointing his stubby finger at me.

“Feel like rubbing shoulders with the arty set tonight? Some bird they’re calling The Muse is making an announcement down by the harbour. Should be a few drinks in it for you. And it’s that day all the sheilas get soppy about, so you might get lucky,” he winked.

“Carol has got the deets. This Muse bird is supposed to be flighty, but get a few pics on your phone of her and some of the crowd for the social pages and Facebook, will ya?”

Ed gestured towards Carol, the newsroom’s administration clerk, with a non-committal wave and shuffled back into his office, slamming the door behind him.

When Carol handed me a printed copy of the email invitation, I scanned it with shaking hands. I couldn't believe I was going to see the woman I dream, or more correctly fantasise incessantly, about - and it was for work. I couldn’t get out of that office fast enough.

Cherry’s striking emerald eyes were perfectly framed with long, dark lashes. Her trademark scarlet lipstick made those plump lips so inviting, but it was the spider web tattoo that covered her entire neck and left cheek that fascinated me. Others say the tattoo detracted from her beauty, but each night, as I lay in the single bed I’d slept in since I was two, I traced the fine silvery threads of her web mentally with my finger.

Photographers, journalists and bloggers from newspapers, magazines, websites and all the television channels surrounded Cherry like bees swarming about a red flowering gum tree. I hung back, suddenly nervous and feeling out of place, as she announced the launch of a signature lingerie line.

My tie choked and I felt my short-sleeve shirt stick to my back. I pulled out my phone and took a few images that I knew would fit Ed’s brief, then recorded this stunning creature tossing her head back in laughter at one of the entertainment journo’s flirty comments, but then she turned and looked directly at me. Her eyes scanned across my entire body, from the sweaty hair sticking to my cheek, to my badly ironed shirt, all the way down to my scuffed shoes. I was paralysed in a combination of fear and desire.

Then our moment was broken. One of those TV idiots took her attention away from me and I heard her laugh at something inane he’d asked. A hint of acidic jealousy rose from the pit of my stomach. Annoyed at my inability to act when I should have, I mentally berated myself. However, I felt slightly better when I ran over the footage I’d grabbed before I turned into a statue. That video will get lots of likes on our Facebook page, I thought and smiled wryly to myself.

I stuffed the phone back into my pocket and turned to leave. As incredible as it was to see the object of my most vivid fantasies in person, this gig wasn’t my scene. And I certainly wasn’t going to get lucky just because it was February 14. Glancing back towards the throng for one last look at my siren, I was surprised to see she wasn't holding court any longer.

“Leaving so soon?” a voice purred behind me, causing the hairs to stand up on the back of my neck.

“Uh, I, um, I...”

“It’s no biggie doll, I won’t take it personally. I saw you snapping pics but you didn’t ask me anything. You’re not interested in my bra?" she asked and winked, her bejewelled lashes catching the fading sunlight.

“Lingerie isn’t really my thing, but I love your tatt,” I mumbled, looking up from the ground to meet her gaze briefly. Her taking the lingerie off was another matter altogether.

“So you like the body art more than the body, do you? That’s refreshing,” she said, holding out her hand to me.

“I'm Diana. What do I call you?”

My heart jumped into my throat as I heard her name - the same as the Roman goddess.

“You know my secret now, but you’ll have to decide what to do with it. Run back to your editor with your international scoop, or join me for a drink and I’ll tell you the story behind my tangled web,” she said, closing her long manicured fingers around my clammy hand.

My mind filled with images of Cherry’s face on our front page - my first front page - with the words “The Muse: Uncovered” emblazoned across her chest. The idea of knowing something only a handful of people knew was intoxicating, but the thought of sharing a drink or two with the object of my dreams was worth far more to me.

Ed didn’t care anyway, I thought as I smiled and said, “I can't wait, Diana”. Her skin was soft and slightly moistened as she took my hand in hers. Together, we slunk off behind the media scrum and found the darkest pub on the harbour. It was full of secret drinking nooks where, “we can share some more secrets,” she told me. I set my phone to record and put it back in my pocket.

During three generous gin and tonics (“with a slice of lime, Doll - it sends a shiver right through me when the bitter juice touches my lips”) and rum and Cokes (“no straw, mate”), Diana opened up and told me enough to fill a week’s worth of front pages.

An only child from a broken home, Diana left her mum at 16 and followed all the other aspiring starlets to Hollywood. She signed up with an agent the day she arrived. He hooked her up with a seedy flatmate who moonlighted as a pimp. When her first casting call for a porn film called ‘Schoolgirls Get Caned’ happened the same day she had woken to find her ‘flatmate’ taking photos of her, Diana knew she needed a new agent - and a new home.

Mentally exhausted and with fast-depleting funds, Diana wandered the less salubrious Hollywood streets hoping a solution would present itself to her. After hours of pounding the pavement and being rejected for four waitressing jobs (“You're too young for this area, honey”; “I know your kind. You'll just run out on me for the first acting job you're offered”; “Come back next week and I might have something” and her favourite: “I can't hire you, the chef will be ogling you constantly and nothing will get done”), Diana found a crate in a back alley and decided to rest for a few minutes and contemplate her next move.

She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, the smell of stale urine, rotting food and cigarettes filling her nose and leaving an acrid taste in the back of her mouth. Feeling defeated, Diana decided she had no other option but to walk to her apartment, pack her small bag of belongings and go back to her mum.

As she rose from the crate, the door to the shop opened out and a man stood in the doorway lighting a cigarette. Diana froze, unsure what to do, but knowing she wanted to get away as fast as she could. An imperceptible glance to her left gave Diana all the information she needed: the bearded man was well over two heads taller than her, very muscly and covered in tattoos.

Diana watched the man out of the corner of her eye and when he turned to answer a question from inside, she decided to make a run for it. Two steps into her flight and she felt herself being pulled back suddenly by a firm grasp on her wrist.

“Where do you think you’re going little lady?” the patterned man boomed.

“I was just heading home. I didn’t do anything,” Diana said, tears welling up.

“Oh sweetie, I didn't mean to scare you. Come inside and get warm. You look like a rabbit in headlights,” he said, his face softening.

With no other option, Diana threw herself at his mercy. But Papa Joe was like a big teddy bear. He took Diana inside, found her a blanket, placed it on her shoulders and made her a strong cup of tea, which she gulped down with two biscuits. Papa Joe owned the tattoo parlour and offered Diana a job as the receptionist, which also involved keeping the four tattoo artists in line. She lived upstairs with Papa Joe, his wife Evie and their Chihuahua named Princess.

Over the four years Diana worked at Papa Joe’s tattoo business Arachne, her confidence grew and she learned how to look after herself on the tough streets of Hollywood. Her workmates became her adopted family, but she was especially close to Juan, a talented artist two years her senior, whose work was so well regarded all the Hollywood A-listers asked for him.

In his spare time Juan illustrated comics, providing carefully wrought images to match words created by his best friend and neighbour, Isaac. Diana met Isaac for the first time a year after she started working at Arachne. He looked at her like she was the only person in the room - and treated her like a queen. But Papa Joe had other ideas for “his” girl that involved her name in lights. He didn’t let anything develop with Isaac beyond a solid friendship.

As Diana’s body found its comfortable mode in voluptuous curves, Isaac’s writing evolved from a combination of characters in each story to just one: The Muse. Respectful of Papa Joe’s wishes, but also desperate to make Diana his, Isaac wrote a series of comics that broke records around the world. The Muse Chronicles set up a comic franchise and associated merchandise that saw Diana become the smart, sexy superhero that men - and women - desired. Her identity as a beautiful shop girl changed to that of powerful seductress The Muse. And her character’s identity became hers.

When Diana was cast in her first television show, she asked Juan to paint her in silken threads. Now in Sydney on an international publicity tour for the show and associated merch, The Muse was starving for real human company, not a seething throng of sweaty fans.

“So, sweet cheeks, now you know my web of a story, what are you going to do with it all? Am I tomorrow’s front page, or what?” she asked, tilting her head to the side and challenging me with her piercing green eyes.

“Nah, I'll just give Ed those snaps from my phone and we can post a video on Facebook,” I mumbled.

“Thanks hun, I knew you looked trustworthy. Well trustworthy for a hack, anyway. What will you tell him you were doing tonight then?” she asked as she got up to leave.

“I'll just say I spent the night with Cherry.”

“She sounds delicious,” Diana whispered in my ear.

She grabbed my chin, pulled my face around to hers and then those lips I’d lusted after were on mine for a fleeting second.

“See ya round, Doll. Maybe text me some time,” she said, putting a card in my hand and closing my fingers around it.

I looked down at my hand and saw she’d scrawled her phone number and “Cherry XOXO” on the back of the Channel 10 entertainment reporter’s business card. Stuffing the card into my pocket, I ran back to the office, hoping Ed wasn’t going to be around. Thankfully the cool night air cleared my head because I’d been feeling a buzz building while listening to Diana’s story.

“Geez that bird must’ve been something, you’ve been gone hours,” Ed slurred as I walked into the newsroom, out of breath from my run.

“I hope you’ve got something good for me after all that time. Come ’ere and show me.”

I downloaded the photos and short video clip into the paper’s archives and sent the link to Ed.

“I’ve just sent you everything Ed. Do you want me to schedule the video to go live on Facebook?”

“Let me take a look first. Knowing you, we’ve got just her ear or the back of her head. Did you get anything worth reporting?”

“Nah, she was swamped by the TV guys and just talked about some new bra line she was launching.”

Ed grunted and started peering at his screen.

“This video is good stuff. Who were you standing next to? Whoever it was, she liked him. Or her,” he laughed to himself.

“She’s winking right into your frame. Get it on Facebook now son, we need to get all the 14-year-old boys’ hormones raging so they share it across the city. This is gold son. I reckon we’ll go viral with this. Look at how she’s looking right into the lens and then winks. She’s my kinda sheila.”

“This sexy bird’s gonna sell me some copies tomorrow. Shame you didn’t use your reporting skills and open your mouth to ask her name.”

Photo: Roksolana Zasiadko on Unsplash

#themuse #shortstory #creativewriting #valentinesday #fiction

Within my jumbled, early morning thoughts

The few moments before I am truly awake

Even before I am out of bed,

In those thoughts you are clearest

Dreams of you from the night before prick my memory

Of your mouth, your hands, your words,

Us together,

It is then that we are most connected.

As I weave between the dream-like sleepy state

And the alert urgency of the day ahead

It is then that I feel your strength.

Separated by oceans

Kept apart by commitments

Reduced to stealing snippets of time

None of that matters when I am in your embrace,

Your arms wrapped around me

As if you will never let go

Your heart beating against my chest

Matching rhythm with mine

As it hastens in your presence

Gently whispered words

Make their way through me

And catch at those tightly bound threads

Working subtly, methodically at pulling me to you.

And now, as they finally unravel,

I am laid bare for you to love,

A love that spans generations

Time zones and my crazy ideas.

My restlessness abates in your strong arms

I want to stand still with you

To feel your energy

Let your words wash over me

And work their way in to me

I will reach down to the bottom of those deep pools

To discover what you see.

Your arms are the haven I seek

Throughout the day

Your lips, the smile I desire when

I have something to share

Your mind, thoughts and words

Challenge, encourage and temper my fire

And you, all of you, I desire

Beyond those dreamy thoughts,

But for now you are locked inside me

Hidden from view, a refuge for my heart.

#poetry #love

Photo: Simon Migaj on Unsplash

“This is over the top! Actually, no, it’s just plain weird.”

“Come on Annabelle. There’s nothing we can do but go through with it – it’s what she wanted.”

My sister was alternating between distraught and furious, tears streaming down her face. We stood, side by side, on the grey stone steps in front of the church’s heavy wooden doors.

A sea of whispers and exclamations erupted behind us, punctuated by the odd sniffle and one forlorn howl. I expected the howler was dad. I turned a fraction, hoping he was close enough that I could reach out and touch his arm. He was just a step behind me. My fingers flexed, seeking him out, and were enveloped in his hands. His grip was tight and needy, but his hands clammy. I loosened his hold slightly and tickled his palm with my fingertips, just like I had when I was small.

Our mum, his wife, died from breast cancer 10 days ago. Dad and I had watched her body wither and crumple over a year, or nine treatment cycles. Since that day, when the three of us has sat clutching each other in the oncologist’s neat office, my life had become a whirl of timed medications, green organic smoothies and nausea (hers, not mine). Two months ago she stopped treatment.

Still annoyed at mum for “giving up” before she was able to say goodbye, Annabelle had arrived from Perth last night, after being in transit for weeks. I’d contacted her at the orphanage in Bali, telling her to get home. Mum had told me “feeling alive, for however long I have, is better than having these poisonous cocktails finish me off”.

Annabelle organised caretakers for the orphanage and its 400-odd occupants within hours. After throwing an assortment of clothes in a bag she started the long trek out of the Balinese mountains and back to civilisation. But her journey was hampered by landslips and fallen trees so she was forced to wait out the monsoon in stages, zig-zagging from village to village down the mountain as roads became passable again. Her red-rimmed eyes sank under dark circles, her voice hoarse and shoulders drooping. I squeezed her hand. Fresh tears started.

“Why do we have to make such a fuss about getting into the church?” Annabelle muttered.

“Because mum wanted an event, a celebration of her life, not a sombre service. She told me to ask everyone to bring their dancing shoes,” I said, squeezing her hand again.

“Let’s get this party started,” I tried to call out, but choked on the words.

Walking in unison, Annabelle and I took the last two steps up, hand in hand. Cool, rigid metal made my skin prickle as dad pressed mum’s sewing scissors into my other palm. Shaking, I moved the scissors across my body to our clasped hands. My older sister and I opened the blades and cut through the thick purple velvet ribbon guarding the doors.

#flashfiction #shortstory #funeral

Photo by Sarah Wolfe on Unsplash

All the journalists I know say they would never want to be the story. We might be storytellers, but we are not the stories.

However, sometimes we are. This is about when I became the story; it’s about what it’s like to be stalked and how that changes your life.

Gone is the person who was confident enough to walk at night on her own — even in a foreign country, much to my father’s dismay. That independence — albeit enjoyed from inside a safe, mentally risk-assessed bubble — is now scuffed and tarnished, worn under a layer of fear.

It started with a series of phone calls — voicemails and hang ups — from a number I did not recognise around 10pm one night in May 2017. Confused, I ended up turning off the phone so I didn’t have to see the number flashing up on my screen over and over again.

Once I turned it back on again and listened to the messages I was unnerved. I didn’t know who this person calling me was, or how she got my phone number or why she was saying she was sleeping with my husband. Needless to say, I had many questions.

She had been reading my agricultural articles in the local newspaper and, as a dairy worker, she thought I did not know enough to be writing about the industry. Journalists are often confronted by angry readers or viewers who insist they know more about a subject so that in itself was not an issue for me after more than 20 years on the job. But, it seems, besides knowing more than I did about milk, she also had designs on my husband.

After that first night, when she called me 10 times, and the upheaval that followed, everything died down for a time. I was edgy and shaken but determined to get on with my life and not let this incident affect me.

But it wasn’t just one incident. Dissatisfied with the outcome and determined to do more damage, she started calling again. She left messages threatening not only me but also my children. She spent hours driving her little yellow car around the suburb in which I lived looking for my house and parked outside the building where I worked.

After the second run of incidents, I was advised to apply for a restraint order and block her number. I did both, squirming in discomfort as I explained my reasons for the application to the magistrate in a public court. Colleagues from my newspaper and competitor outlets were there. An interim order was granted, covering my workplace and the entire suburb I lived in so she didn’t find out my address, but it would be more than a year before that order was formalised.

Using a withheld number she continued to call me when she was high on drugs or during an alcoholic bender. I spent hours at the police station each time reporting her breaches. One night she called 22 times, most of those while I was at the police station to report her. In the end, I just handed the phone to the police officer, who told her who he was and that he was recording the conversation. Without missing a beat, she asked him to hand the phone to me because “I just want to talk to her”.

I changed my number, took all reference of my phone off the internet, including my freelance writing website and blog, White Pages and university contact page, and became a silent voter so she couldn’t find me via the electoral roll. Security requested I be dropped off and picked up at the door to my office. If I had an interview outside the office I had to be accompanied by a photographer or a colleague. My life ceased to be mine.

One morning I had a call from a detective requesting a meeting. I assumed it was about making the interim restraint order permanent. I smile wryly now at my naivety then. I had no idea what she was capable of.

My stalker had decided to amp up her efforts. She set fire to donated items outside a nearby charity shop. Picked up afterwards, she told the police she thought I would turn up to cover the story for the newspaper. The detective wanted to know what my involvement was with her. Even at this point, I didn’t even know what she looked like, save for a grainy Facebook profile picture, let alone have any involvement with her.

After hearing my story, the detective told me it confirmed what she had already told him and that it appeared she was “obsessed” with me. He also said they were planning to charge her with stalking, on top of multiple breaches of the restraint order and arson, but warned it would be difficult to prove and that there had not been any successful stalking convictions in my state. I knew this had all the ingredients of a newsworthy story.

Not able to get to me via phone anymore, my stalker found other ways: sending me an email via my blog, ending with details about how she had bought materials to kill herself at the hardware store; messaging the newspaper’s Facebook page; contacting a colleague via a dating app to talk to him about me. The police extended the restraint order to cover my family.

I’ve reported on court cases as a journalist many times, but nothing prepares you for being the person listed on the sheet outside the door. I’ve endured court date after court date as her Legal Aid solicitor argued the poor state of her mental health meant she needed to be assessed for fitness (this argument was used every time she breached the order adding months to the process), or that he had not had access to her so could not prepare her defence, or that matters in Supreme Court had to be finalised before my case could be dealt with in the Magistrates Court (she started stalking a Child Protection Services worker who had placed her two children in foster care and committed multiple counts of arson during a total fire ban while on community service for breaching my order).

It was in court, on one of these many occasions, that I saw her for the first time. It was also in court that she spat vicious words in my direction, telling me to get off my “high horse”. And it was in that same court that I had to walk out behind her, close enough to see the hair that had escaped her ponytail, after she was released from prison on time served following one of the many restraint order breaches.

Even after she finally pleaded guilty and was convicted of stalking, as well as multiple restraint order breaches, arson, drug offences and breaching bail conditions, it didn’t stop.

In October 2019, a police officer called to let me know she was being released early. I was about to board a plane to join a group of girlfriends for a long weekend at the beach and this rattled me as I wondered if she would do anything to my children while I was away. By the end of the weekend, she was back in custody after driving through my suburb and setting a bin alight. And the whole process starts again.

It’s exhausting and demoralising and traumatic. It never ends.

More than 1000 days have passed since this ordeal began. That seems a long time, and I often wonder if it has been enough time to move on, but the fingers of fear and doubt and stress still find ways to creep in and wrap themselves around my neck. It doesn’t matter how comfortable I get, I still find myself checking a noise I heard when drifting off to sleep, thinking about when the next court date might be and whether I would need to attend, or watching a car I am unfamiliar with but seems to appear frequently. The protective mind does not rest.

However, this goes beyond my trauma. This story is also about mental health, a mother’s need to protect her children, the broken court system that favours the defendant with a hard-luck story, relationships, modern policing, support networks and so much more.

#stalking #trauma #resilience #court #policing #mentalhealth

‘Are the flowers on this dress too happy?’ Sophie asks, frowning.

‘What do you mean too happy? Seriously Sophie it’s a tiny print on a black dress. It’s not like anyone’s going to be looking at you; it’s mum they’re coming for,’ Alyse snaps at her younger sister and then bustles out of the bedroom to finish getting dressed herself.

Sophie looks at her reflection in the full-length mirror, one of her mother’s silk scarves obscuring her face. She picked up the scarf and tied it around her neck, but quickly pulled it off again, muttering ‘it’s not my colour’. She sat back down on her bed and held the scarf in her hands, letting the almost weightless fabric fall in folds on to her lap. And then she held one corner of the rose pink scarf to her cheek, feeling the smooth texture on her skin and drinking in the faint scent of perfume. Chloe was her mother’s favourite.

The memory of her mother dressing for dinner and grabbing the bottle for a quick spray as she rushes out the door brought the tears back. Sophie let the hot, fat, salty drops roll down her cheeks, the sadness enveloping her – again. She curls up into a ball and sobs.

‘Sophie are you ready?’ Alyse’s question has an exasperated tone, and makes Sophie sit up immediately.

‘We’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up Sophie! I know mum was always late, but we can’t be late for this; even in her honour.’

‘I’m coming! I was just thinking about mum,’ Sophie yells, wiping away her tears and grabbing the scarf on her way out.

~

Sophie and Alyse are sitting in the office of their mother’s solicitor, both with backs completely straight in the hard chairs. Bookshelves line two of the office walls and a faded print of Turner’s Battle of Trafalgar hangs slightly crookedly on the third wall, next to the window. The window looks out across the building’s car park to a shopping centre.

‘Not a very inspiring view,’ Sophie comments.

‘No,’ Alyse responds, ‘but it’s not like it’s an inspiring place to be.’

Neither sister had been to this office before. Its occupant had summoned them for 10am after catching them before they left the cemetery two days before. His appearance – black trousers, polished black shoes, a white shirt, navy blue and red striped tie, and side-parted mousy brown hair – just added to the uninspired, blank feeling both women were feeling.

‘I’m sorry to hear about your mother,’ the solicitor says gruffly as he skirts around their chairs to get to the other side of the desk.

‘Thank you. It was a shock,’ Alyse says, taking Sophie’s hand protectively.

‘But I’m not sure why we’re here. Mum left the house to Sophie and me and there wasn’t anything else, was there?’

‘Not really, Miss, um, Miss Thompson. She gave me two boxes to keep for you two years ago, so I’ve just asked you here today to fulfil her wishes,’ he says, finishing the sentence with an attempt at a smile.

‘I am not certain of the contents of these boxes beyond knowing they are items of sentimental, rather than monetary, value. There is one for each of you so I’ll hand them over and you can be on your way.’

He gave each woman a non-descript brown cardboard box, sealed tightly with packing tape that had started to flake off at the edges. Sophie recognised her mother’s messy handwriting, noticing the labels ‘Sophie’ and ‘Alyse’ on each.

Sitting in Alyse’s car in the car park, Sophie pulls at the brittle tape to see what is inside her box. She finds a pile of papers – some with drawings, others with words. Pushing aside the paper to see the bottom she discovers the bone china tea set decorated in tiny pink roses that she and Alyse had played with when they were young.

Sophie smiles, remembering the tea parties they held for their dolls and bears. Each girl dressed in her favourite outfit – a floral dress with a white lace collar for Alyse and a two-tone pink ruffle skirt and pink T-shirt with a glittery fairy on the front for Sophie – and their mother made tiny cucumber sandwiches and vanilla cupcakes with buttercream icing and sprinkles for their guests.

‘Come on Sophie, you can look at that at home. I’ve got to get to the gallery; I’ll drop you at the cafe on the way,’ Alyse says as she tosses her box on the back seat.

‘You can’t throw your box around; you don’t even know what’s in there! What if it breaks?’ Sophie cries.

‘It hardly weighs a thing so I don’t think it’s a big deal,’ she sighs. ‘But you’re right, I shouldn’t be throwing mum’s box around. I’ll have a look inside when I get home,’ Alyse says, putting the car into gear and driving off.

~

Sophie kept thinking about what else was in her box, wondering what stories were contained in the pile of papers. Fantasies about her mother filled her thoughts – a secret fortune, a brother, a villa in the Tuscan hills…

‘Sophie are you sure you’re OK to come back to work?’ a question disturbs her musings about writing a novel in Italy.

‘What? Oh sorry John, I was just thinking about mum,’ Sophie answers quickly.

‘I thought so. This poor customer has been waiting on his espresso for a long time. Maybe you should go home and spend a few more days with your sister. I know what it’s like to lose your mum,’ John apologises to the waiting customer for the delay, making Sophie wince at her tardiness. He then hands the man a steaming shot.

Sophie walks into the cramped room at the back of the café where everyone left their belongings, picks up her cardigan and bag and walks out the front door, waving absent-mindedly behind her.

‘Let me know when you’re ready to come back Soph. No rush, just take care of yourself,’ John calls after her.

‘Thanks John,’ Sophie mumbles through tears, remembering her mum called her “Soph”. ‘I should be OK in a few days.’

Running home, Sophie thought about what happened at the cafe. She had forgotten what good friends her mother and John had been. It was her mum who had asked John if Sophie could work at the café while she studied creative writing at uni.

The café was a focal point for her family – Sophie works and writes there, sipping soy lattes at the tiny table at the back as she makes notes of characters, scenarios and conflicts in her pink Moleskin notebook; Alyse picks up a skinny cappuccino every morning on her way to the art gallery she manages a few blocks away; and her mother spent hours sketching ideas for paintings and screen prints, drinking flat whites like they were glasses of water. This café was both the inspiration and the fuel for the Thompson women.

~

Sophie positions herself in the bay window, her silver tabby cat, Pewter, purring on her lap. She lets the vapour from her cup of plunger coffee envelope her and carefully opens the box marked ‘Sophie’. Pushing the tea set aside, she pulls out piles of her mother’s sketches, scribbled recipes and a few letters. Sophie puts the letters on top of the pile, anticipating what those pages might share about her mother.

Out of the corner of her eye she notices some red paper poking out from underneath a manila folder. She pulls at the triangle to reveal an envelope addressed to her mother. Studying the postmark, Sophie is gasps when she sees it was sent from Spain 21 years ago. Inside the envelope is a Valentine card with a simple red heart adorned with gold leaf on the front. Her heart pounding with excitement, Sophie opens up the card and reads the clumsily printed words:

’My darling Jane (Juana),

Sending all my love to you on Valentine’s Day. I’m sorry I can’t be there to shower you with all you deserve, but know I think of you every moment I am awake and my dreams are now brightened by your presence.

Keep thinking of our week in Venice. I am forever grateful I took that chance and asked directions from the beautiful woman with the pink scarf.

Andres’

Sophie reads the card again. And then again. ‘Who is Andres?’ she asks Pewter.

She paws through the piles of papers, thinking, ‘Mum didn’t mention anyone called Andres’.

The road stretched ahead like a thin ribbon disappearing into distant green hills. I peered out the window to get a bearing on where I was after hours of monotonous driving and the sun's glare deposited black spots in front of my eyes. As I refocused on the road I realised the pop music that was filling the void had been replaced by a crackling white noise.

How many kilometres had I driven, mindlessly staring at the bitumen unfolding ahead of me, subconsciously listening? As I pondered this, the crackle grew louder, almost to the point of a deafening crescendo. I turned the volume knob on the radio but the crackle only increased. Then, when I thought I couldn't stand the din any longer, it subsided, replaced with a voice chanting, "Gigi, Gigi, Gigi..."

Who was Gigi? I didn't know anyone called Gigi. I fumbled with the volume knob again and tried turning the radio off completely. The dial wouldn't budge and I realised I was stuck with this chanted intrusion until I stopped the car. But I couldn't stop; I was on my way to a book launch and any detour would make me late. I hadn't read the book, but the opportunity to participate in a cultural activity on this island made me determined to go. And the subject of the book intrigued me. The author, Rebecca Forrester, had written a memoir about her time as a fragrance chemist to the stars called Heaven Scent. My love of all things celebrity, coupled with the fact I was a perfume aficionado, meant I had to be at that launch.

I drove on, the chanted name itself becoming white noise as I climbed up into the hills towards my destination. The road wound around this steep mountainous terrain while the atmosphere took on a blue haze from the towering eucalypt trees. I opened my window and gulped in the freshening air, spying a strip of ornate terraced shops ahead of me. The middle shop sported an exquisite peacock blue facade, proudly displaying the name Bookish Emporium.

I quickly parked my car and walked towards this teal haven, a sense of anticipation filling me. As I walked inside I saw the Emporium's owner finishing up his introduction for Rebecca, and she started speaking as I sat down. I hung off Rebecca's every word, thrilling at the thought of her creating special scents for the film and music stars I knew by tabloid. I was first in the autograph line and Rebecca smiled at me as I handed my book over.

"Who should I make it out to?" Rebecca asked.

"Oh, um, Marisa please," my words tumbling out in my excitement.

I wanted to peek at what Rebecca had written, but made myself wait until I was in my car. Once sitting in the driver's seat, I opened the cover of my book and saw Rebecca’s words to me: "Hi Marisa, your signature scent is the flirtatiously floral Gigi. Love Rebecca."

Scene: Pelican sitting on a wharf

Character: Boy fishing

Time limit: 15 minutes

He pulled the line back in again, heart-breaking disappointment spreading across his sun-blistered face. The boy, who could not have been more than seven, had been fishing at this same spot every morning this week. And every morning he left after three hours, having spent his loaf of bread with no return on his investment.

Like me, a pelican had also been watching the scrawny boy’s pathetic fishing efforts each morning. I expect he was chuckling to himself, thinking fondly of the beak-full of fish he had enjoyed as the sun rose. From his vantage point on the wharf pylon the pelican’s black eyes watched on knowingly. He knew the secrets of the sea, and wasn’t going to reveal them to someone who didn’t even know what these fish ate.

The boy wasn’t from around here; that was obvious after the first morning he fished. His too-short T-shirt and ragged shorts looked like they were the only clothes he owned. I watched as he picked up his rod and empty bread bag, sighing with his whole body.

His small footsteps approached the doorway and I decided today I had to do something. This forlorn creature had been haunting my thoughts for five nights now. As the boy’s shadow approached I got up, grabbing my wallet from the bench beside me.

“Here,” I said, handing him a $10 note. “The fish are a bit temperamental this time of year.”

The small face, skin flaking from the freckled nose, beamed up at me, and the boy skipped back to the caravan park at the edge of the beach.