Belinda Missen - Lessons in Love

Currently, that life was crammed into a few boxes in the boot of my car. There wasn’t a lot to show for ten years of marriage. All I had left were some clothes and shoes, and not even my best ones, a few precious books, and some bric-a-brac. The divorce hadn’t yet been finalised. In fact, it hadn’t even been filed, but leaving a marriage was no different to fleeing a burning building – I took the important stuff and made a run for it before the roof caved in.

I curled my fingers around the black leather steering wheel of my Audi convertible and looked up at the split-level unit. For a moment, everything was peaceful. With the top closed and window cracked, I could hear the crash of the ocean at the end of the street, the low thud of bass from a party a few houses over, and the static of my car’s radio station – no longer in range after three hours winding around the Victorian coastline. It was perfectly calm. I wound the window down a smidge further and let the sea breeze wash over me.

When my car door closed with a pop, the front door of Penny’s apartment flew open. She bounced down the stairs, past the lone palm tree decorated with twinkle lights, and a ‘Santa Stop Here’ sign that still hadn’t been removed from Christmas and had faded almost beyond recognition.

Twelve months younger than my thirty-six years and stylishly soft around the edges, she had deep-set brown eyes that were Disney large, a button nose, and a Milky Way of freckles across a lightly made up face. Her dark brown hair was pulled up in a messy but subtly styled ponytail. Today, she accessorised with a smile brighter than the Las Vegas strip.

‘Ellie!’ she squeaked.

‘Hello.’ I lumbered towards her, shaking out the hours spent in the driver’s seat.

‘Finally! I’m so excited!’ She threw her arms around my neck and I sank into her hug. There was no competition: she gave the best hugs in the world – and she never let go first. I could definitely get used to this kind of reception. ‘Not about the whole divorce thing, that’s very uncool and incredibly sad but, yay, housemates!’

‘I’m sorry I’m so late.’ I pouted. ‘Brunch ran on a little long.’

Penny dismissed my concerns like someone clears the air of an offending fart, with a quick waft of her hand and a curled top lip. ‘It’s fine, seriously, gave me time to clean your room, make it look like I wasn’t inviting Walter White for tea and powdered sugar. Oh, and I’ve grabbed some things for dinner.’

And here I was prepared to murder what was left of my credit card balance in favour of the local Thai takeaway. ‘Fantastic!’ I pipped, feeling the knot between my shoulders begin to unravel, glad to finally be here. ‘Gosh, it’s good to see you.’

‘You, too.’ She rubbed my upper arm. ‘Come on, let’s get you settled in.’

The boot of my car looked like the outtake from a Macklemore video, a jumble of clothes tossed on top of my belongings and wrapped around delicates. T-shirts threatened to twist themselves into knots befitting skeins of wool if not moved soon. I hooked an arm underneath what I could carry and trounced up the creaking stairs behind Penny.

As I crossed the threshold of my new life, it became apparent that my cousin lived inside a disused set of an Elvis film. In the corner of the living room, right behind a beanbag, was a fake palm tree doused in more drip lights. A ukulele rainbow lined the wall, and hula girls were dotted about the room, along with tikis and all things pineapple. One sniff, and you could almost smell the piña coladas and that coconut scented suntan oil everyone used in the early Nineties. Even the white dress she was wearing had multicoloured cocktail umbrella motifs dotted about the hemline. Then again, I was surprised it wasn’t a grass skirt.

Penny gestured to the first door on the right. ‘Okay, so you get the room at the front of the house. I don’t know why, but I just picked the other one when I first moved in.’ She tapped at her chin. ‘That’s right. If I squint, stand on my tiptoes, and stick my head out of the window and catch the breeze on my tongue, I can totally see the beach. The good news is, you get a bonus ceiling fan.’

Despite her assertions, my room didn’t seem to be the pick of the bunch. It was different shades of cream, beige, white, off-white and ivory, and I was sure a sauna crammed with sumo wrestlers had more airflow. I tossed my pile of clothes in the direction of the bed, and the breeze it created was officially the only one in the room. The window, trimmed with gloss white plantation shutters, opened with a tired yawn.

A salty sea breeze rushed into the room. After a morning spent driving the winding roads from Melbourne, the crash of waves and brackish sea air mixed to create a soothing balsam. It was quickly turning me from Ursula the Sea Witch to Ariel the Little Mermaid, but without the fantastic hair, banging bod, dingle-hopper, or seashell bra.

‘Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay here?’ I turned to face Penny, whose brows were raised, and lips pursed. ‘The landlord said it was fine?’

‘The slumlord was no problem at all.’ She bounced on her feet. ‘In fact, he only raised the total rent by one hundred dollars a week. He’s good like that.’

‘Slumlord?’ I narrowed my eyes. ‘Really?’

‘He hates it when I call him that.’ A facetious smile took hold. ‘It’s fine, I promise. I sorted the lease with him last week over a pot of tea and fruitcake.’

If you spent ten minutes listening to Penny talk about Patrick, you’d think she was describing a recently beatified saint of the rental world. He wasn’t greedy and kept rent to the lower end of the scale, he let her hang pictures, kept out of her hair, mowed the lawns, helped the local junior football team, and donated his business time and energy to charitable projects, all while running his own construction company. As if that wasn’t enough, this place was modern and clean, and had a soft homely charm about it. I felt at ease already – I loved it!

‘Now, what do you want to do first?’ she said. ‘Unpack? Drink? Do you need something to eat?’

‘No, hell no.’ I patted a full stomach. ‘Brunch was epic: bacon, eggs, black pudding—’

Penny gestured with her fingers down her throat. ‘You’re so gross.’

‘It was lovely,’ I pressed. ‘Seriously, you don’t know what you’re missing out on. Crusty sourdough toast, farm fresh butter, tomatoes, spinach, you name it, we had it. Oh, and bottomless cups of coffee.’

‘The coffee I can do.’ She finger-gunned me. ‘Want one?’

I pulled up a wicker stool by a Munchkin Land-sized breakfast bar in the kitchen. Railway tiles and modern appliances made the space look slightly less tropical than the rest of the house. That is, until I reached across the counter and flicked at a dancing hula girl toy. We watched her gyrate against a jar of Blend 43.

‘That’s Lula the Hula.’ Penny jiggled the plastic toy. Her head flopped about wildly and her painted-on smile stayed resolute. ‘I like her. She doesn’t talk back.’

I looked away and laughed into the palm of my hand. ‘It’s a bonus, I guess.’

‘It is.’ Two mugs landed on the bench with a thud. I was about to drink coffee from the top of Elvis’s head. Did that make it a coffee-flavoured lobotomy? A lobo-coffee? ‘So, tell me about your last night in Melbourne.’

As part of the Farewell Ellie Tour, as if I were moving to the next country and never returning, my flatmates insisted on a Saturday night party. What began with crackers and beetroot hummus soon devolved into too much wine and Cards Against Humanity. We rounded things out with a late-night coffee and cake blitz through St Kilda, a stroll along the beach, and an early morning taxi fare home. After just enough sleep to take the edge off, we yawned our way into the closest café for breakfast at our regular table in the corner.