08. Wet and caught. "Wake up, it's another beautiful rainy day!" Damn, how can that woman be so awake so early all the time, Ashley thought upon hearing Jennifer's voice. Every morning now Jennifer had been the first to wake up, and also the one to wake up the long-sleepers including Ashley. Ashley turned around, and put her arm around the body next to...
Phoebe opened the library the following morning with a smile on her lips, which relaxed the muscles that held her lips so tight and thin. Small children, who didn’t know her, actually approached her with questions. Instead of receiving a tsk, their questions were answered. One small child, particularly cute, actually received a kiss on the forehead, before b...
Friday reminded me why it is that I hate Sydney summers. Sydney doesn't get any hotter than Melbourne, but it's a horribly muggy kind of heat. I was already getting sweaty by the time I got to the train station, and the forecast looked ugly: thirty-eight degrees, ninety-eight percent humidity. I was glad to get into the cooler air of the conference centre....
An Anglo-Australian talking about "football" usually means Australian Rules football. Historically in Australia soccer was viewed as a game for middle-European immigrants, sometimes derisively nicknamed "wogball", although it's gradually become more mainstream. * The day after I got back from Sydney, Peter called everybody in the office together for an imp...
Word of warning: this is a slow-moving talky introspective story. Not all the chapters have sex in them. If you like stories where people are shagging by the fifth paragraph, this isn't going to meet your needs. * By the time I found the place I was pretty sure going to the work Christmas party had been a bad idea. If there's one thing worse than me alone...
75-year-old female, pathological fracture of the humerus with suspected osteosarcoma. Which is to say: Phoebe's yaya Kalliope, cancer growing in her arm, eating away at the bone until it became weak enough to break as she dug out a garden bed. Phoebe called me on Monday afternoon. I'd just sat down for a catch-up with my manager Susan, having spent the mor...
Phoebe was sleeping soundly when my alarm went off on Wednesday morning. I slipped out of bed, showered, and was about to head for the train when she woke. "Morning, you." "Morning. I didn't want to wake you." Phoebe gave an elaborate yawn. "Should get up anyway." She padded over to me in her PJs (blue with yellow hedgehogs, if you were wondering) and sto...
"Wog" = Australian slang for Greeks and other Southern Europeans. It used to be a racist insult, but it's been almost entirely reclaimed, and these days it's mostly used self-referentially by Australians of Mediterranean ancestry. * I didn't see Phoebe again before she went back to Sydney. She was doing family stuff. I was racking up overtime fixing a few...
Five days after the party — four days before Christmas — I sat in a cafe near my work, watching Phoebe walk in. She was wearing a light blue summer dress, suited to the warmth of the day; it didn't have quite the same zing as the Little Black Dress of the other night, but it looked good on her all the same. And when she spotted me in the corner, her face bri...
14. Phoebe was still there in my arms when morning came. Not that morning was much to speak of; it was grey and cold, rain drumming on the roof of her little flat, staying-in-bed weather. I felt her wake, and as she snuggled back against my chest I murmured "So, what do you have on today, love?" She yawned and stretched, then giggled as I reached around a...