Rule number one of chucking a sickie in a country town is don't go anywhere other than the chemist, doctor's surgery, or if it's genuinely required, the hospital emergency department. You don't go to the pub, club, shops or beach. You stay home or fuck off to another town and hide there.
But here I was in my dingy hotel room holding a picture of my ex-girlfriend Natasha with the word 'Surprise' as a caption on my phone. The message had been sent only 30 minutes earlier and by my reckoning she'd been in town for a good 20 minutes by now. What she didn't know is that rather than being at work, I was holed up in my room thinking of Raul and I fucking the teens Georgie and Erin.
I had to respond as if I was at work and that I would meet her later in the afternoon. A simple text was all it took to at least give me four hours of thinking time.
'Hi babe, wow, this is a surprise!' I wrote, "Of course, I'm at work so how about we meet this afternoon? There's a nice cafe near the bridge, they do a fair pizza, how does that sound around 4?'
'Sure, can I drop my stuff off at your place?'
Again, my capacity to lie on my feet had improved. 'Hey you're in luck, I'm actually getting the keys to my place later this afternoon so you can help me move, accommodation is really tight at the moment.'
At least the last sentence wasn't a lie, accommodation was hard to find in Coolamein.
'Oh wow,' she wrote back, 'I didn't know that. Lemme know when ur finished.'
She sent a row of kiss and heart emojis and I left her hanging for a good ten minutes before responding with a heart emoji and the line, 'Sorry, year 8 are being a bunch of dicks. See you at the Bridge Bar and Pizza.'
I closed that channel of messaging and immediately called Sharon and explained to her the situation, to which she responded, "You really are a total fuck-up, anyway that should put any Georgie and Erin plans to bed, so to speak."
She followed with the obvious advice of not leaving my room, not even for a drink downstairs or a trip to the nearby supermarket. "Go nowhere, do nothing until you go to meet Natasha."
"By the way," she concluded, "Marcus has found you a place, and it's not Natasha's, it's a six month rental of a nice old fully furnished home. It's Jenny's friend Emma's place. She's gone overseas for six months. Natasha will love it."
I didn't want Natasha to love it, I wanted her to just piss off back to her urbanite friends and let me fuck myself to either destruction or elation, or both.
But then, I did want her to love it. As much as I enjoyed the ludicrous amount of sex that I was having, kissing Jenny was nothing like kissing Natasha. Natasha came with a backstory that I was a part of. Jenny was a wild, wild fuck, don't get me wrong, but Natasha was different.
I hate getting soppy and all, but what I had with Natasha, despite her refusal to even visit Coolamein, was love. It had ended badly, but in the subsequent weeks I had really begun to miss her. I longed for her company, her sense of humour and how we could just talk about any subject for hours on end. She wasn't a bad root, not at all, but she was only really uninhibited when she'd had a few drinks too many..
Ignoring Sharon's warning to not go out I decided to make a quick dash to the nearby bakery and get a pie, a pastie and maybe a lamington to see me through the day. If needed I would limp all the way there and back again as if I had pulled a hamstring, but as soon as I reached the top of the stairs an all too familiar voice floated up the stairwell.
"Excuse me," Natasha said. "I'm sorry but I'm here to meet Julian Horneman, is he staying here because I just noticed his car in the car park."
With a belly full of crazed moths I leaned over the balustrade and could see the top of Natasha's head. Her copper red hair was as luxurious and beautiful as it had ever been. Soft, curly and at least another two inches longer than when I'd left. I wanted to wrap myself in it.
"I'm sorry," Erika, who I couldn't see, said, "But you are?"
"Natasha, I'm, well, Julian's partner."
To her credit Erika played along extremely well.
"Oh," she said, "Talk of the town school teacher, Julian?"
I saw Natasha's head nod.
"Yeah, yeah, we all know Julian, he actually helped us out here last night. He did well."
"Is that why his car is here?"
It was at that point I decided to call Erika on the pub's landline, a phone she always answered.
"Yeah, I suppose so, I didn't notice. He sometimes rides his bike to work."
The phone began its life saving trill behind the bar and I headed out of earshot.
"Could you just excuse me for a minute," I heard her say before in a weird delayed stereo she said. "Federal Hotel, Erika speaking."
"Erika, it's me Julian, I'm upstairs, please don't let Erika know I'm here,"
"Table for four at 7 tonight?" she said, "I'll just go and check. I'll put you on hold and swap phones."
The phone went dead before she quickly picked it up again in the kitchen.
"What the fuck?" she said. "Why didn't you tell me about her?"
"Well," I recalled our chat in the bar the previous night, "I'm pretty sure I did."
"No, you dickhead, about her coming here to see you."
"I honestly didn't know. She sent me a text message this morning."
"What are you doing here anyway?" She asked.
"I'll explain later," I said, obfuscating, "Just tell her that I have found a place to stay and in fact tonight is my last night here."
"That's bullshit though."
I had to delay for a moment before I said, "Well, actually I have found a place for six months."
Now she pressed pause on the conversation.
I could only hear her breathing before she said. "Where?"
"I have no idea, the agent just called me, someone's gone overseas. Apparently I'm going there tonight to check it out."
That was it. No response apart from the sound of the phone in the kitchen being put down. Needless to say, panic set in and I dashed back, as quietly as I could, to the stairwell.
"Sorry about that,' I heard Erika say as she came back into earshot. "We're very busy at the moment, you're not looking for work are you?"
"I don't know just yet," Natasha laughed, "That will depend on how things pan out over the next couple of days."
"Why? I imagine that Julian will be stoked to hear from you."