Great White Molly looked me right in the eye and scream-whispered, ‘What the fuck, Erin? A customer just told me someone crapped in the change room.’
I flicked my wrists in outward circular motions, like I used to do when I was younger, and kept my gaze to the ground. I could feel my face heating up and my thoughts getting jumbled. The movement of my wrists helped a little.
She wouldn’t stop. ‘Erin? Why haven’t you cleaned it up? There are people queuing to use the change rooms. Get out there.’
And then before I could stop it, ‘You’re a shit’ jumped right out of my mouth and the words slapped Great White Molly across the face. But I wasn’t done. I told her she should clean it up. I told her she was the manager and she should be in charge of emergencies like this, not a casual staff member who was only paid $16 an hour and no overtime or holiday pay. I told her a lot more than that too.
I didn’t have any control over my words or my face or my body. That’s what outbursts do; they take over my brain and make me say the truth. I’ve read about compulsive liars, but when I’m having an outburst I’m a compulsive truth-teller and that’s probably worse. The truth packs a much meaner punch. I pushed over an accessories stand that was waiting to be repaired, pushed past Great White Molly and ran out onto the floor. I pulled off the cheap plastic lei that was part of my uniform and threw it on the ground. I legged it out of the shop towards the lift. My mind went into overtime, as it does when I have an outburst, and I cried all the way to the bus stop. I needed that job to pay for Schoolies, and I knew the rules, and I pushed my manager.
I texted Dee on the bus home, and she was waiting on my doorstep with a pink bag of donuts when I got home.
She was half-laughing but in a kind way when she asked, ‘What did you do, Brain? You big goofball.’
I told her: ‘I stuffed up, Dee, maybe worse than ever.’
She handed me the donuts: ‘Let’s go inside. Real Housewives is about to start.’
We watched two old episodes of Real Housewives of Beverley Hills, and I thought about how at least I’m not one of those women, and Dee said she’s going to go to LA one day, and I tried not to think about what had happened, and we didn’t talk about it, and we ate donuts.
Now Dee has gone home, Mum is meditating and Dad has ‘gone to pick up some messages’, which means he’s at the pub. Oliver is playing with his superhero figures and probably wishing he didn’t have an older sister who stresses everyone out so much.
Not everything can be smoothed over, you know. Some people are left to deal with the crap. So it would be great if you came home and sorted yours out, Rudy, because we’re all a bit sick of the smell.
From Erin
14 August
Dear Rudy,
I’m not apologising for that last letter. I know Mum would make me apologise if she’d read it, especially because of the swearing parts, but she hasn’t read it and anyway, I meant every word. These are my letters and if I’m going to write them, I’m going to do it my way and be honest about how I’m feeling even if that feeling is anger, because otherwise what’s the point? I could try Mum’s way, with all of the appointments and vitamins and drops and smoothies and yoga and no wheat or sugar or dairy. Or I could try Dad’s way with the pub and the beers and the barfly friends he calls his family, as though he doesn’t have an actual family here at home. Oliver isn’t trying anything because he’s six and he seems fine, like he doesn’t even remember, and I think that means he’s going to be the most fucked up of all of us. But I don’t want to try any of those things, so I’m trying the letters.
The last time I wrote to someone was to that pen-pal I had from Italy when I was eight and I was obsessed with owning a horse. Do you remember? The horse part I mean, I doubt you even realised I had a pen-pal. It was right around the time you got those blue rollerblades so you had more important things on your mind. I have never wanted anything more in my life than I wanted a horse when I was eight. I wanted it in my marrow and I thought I’d die if I didn’t get one.
I’ve still got those letters from Maria under my bed, in a box covered with pictures of horses cut out of magazines. Did you ever snoop under there trying to find my secrets, like I do in your room? You’d be very disappointed with my winter clothes in vacuum bags and my horse box with letters from an eight year old. They are the least exciting letters you can imagine, listing our favourite lollies and arguing over who was the cutest Jonas Brother. (Obviously it’s Joe.) Far less exciting than the time I found your weed and nudie mags inside a Nike shoebox.
It’s surprising how many times Woman’s Day has featured celebrities posing on or near a horse. My favourite picture is of a TV presenter in a flowing white dress sitting side-saddle on a chestnut Arabian. The blonde woman looks so glamorous and thrilled with herself, while the horse looks kind of pissed off. I guess I would be too, having chunks of metal drilled into my feet and being used as a prop for a fancy photo shoot in a women’s magazine. As soon as I was old enough to think about that, I stopped wanting a horse so much.
I don’t think the point is to write to you about horses, but no one specified what topics I should write about exactly, so I will just tell you what’s on my mind. Today it’s horses, and also being eight. Being eight seems preferable to being seventeen. Maybe it’s ages ending in eight that are the good years, because I think eighteen is going to be a lot of fun. All that freedom everyone keeps talking about, that’s got to be good. I can’t remember having any outbursts when I was eight, or at least not like the ones I have now. The things I loved most when I was eight were:
Horses
The Jonas Brothers
Swimming in our pool
Writing in my journal
Reading
Learning dances to old songs like the Macarena and the Nutbush
Watching afternoon cartoons
Going to the cinema
Dinosaurs
Hanging out with Dee.
You don’t have to read these letters if you don’t want to. I just have to try something because I was doing nothing and Mum is moving, all the time. She is trying very hard. I haven’t been trying that hard at all. I want to try, though, and I reckon that counts for something.
If it were up to me I would have spent the whole day revising my Schoolies folder and figuring out ways to trim my budget. Maybe meal-prepping would be the difference between affording it and not affording it. I don’t know, though, because Mum insisted on all of us helping her to replant the front garden bed even though it’s not spring yet. It looked fine before, and Dad seemed pretty grumpy about being asked to ‘do work’ on his precious Saturday off, but in the end it wasn’t so bad. Ollie focused on covering as much of his body as possible in soil—he called it sunscreen—and Mum tried to keep the conversation flowing. You know how she likes to ask questions, light and breezy with an agenda hidden just below the surface.
‘You must be enjoying having a Saturday off for once, are you Erin?’
What she really means is, how is the job hunt going? You still have to pay board you know. Get moving, don’t waste time.
Then she turned her attention to Dad. ‘You were up bright and early this morning, weren’t you, darling?’