I think about regrets, which I have in
abundance and the useless role they play in life if we do not learn from them.
I think about the day The Litigation
Partner gave me a performance review, during which I cried. Do less of dumb stuff, and more of the good
stuff he said.
Can
you please give me one compliment Tim?
I left the office amid a ball of hurt,
shame and recklessness. By coincidence rather than design a glamorous and profligate boyIusedtoknow was
in town, asking me to hang out and chill in a big glitzy hotel room.
Lets
have some fun he said over the phone and I remembered his grin, the way we once washed the world away in a cocktail of insouciant mischief, way back.
I call my luxurious, fabulous and useless therapist, Lydia, ‘the
doctor or sex and drugs,’ a self awarded moniker, after a few years of lecturing
in addiction at University of Sydney.
I’m
really good at this she said when we first met. Really good. I can fix you.
She then proceeded over the course of 10
sessions to give me bizarre advice on interior decorating and how I need a
boyfriend. She breaks her leg at one point which for some reason makes our meetings a little more comical.
Men
are like crutches Caitlin. You use them. Lean on them for a bit till you feel better.
I tell my friends and Crouching Tiger
Hidden Dragon says stop seeing that
idiot. F*ck crutches and grow wings. It was some of the better advice I was
given that year.
I finally stop seeing her because we are
not getting anywhere and she seems to think I am exaggerating when I tell her
how things are. I present well. For an hour at a time, I appear and speak eloquently in her charming rooms on
Macquarie street, surrounded by vases overflowing with lillys. I drew the line when I went in one day and she had, on the back
of her own initiative, written me an online dating profile. Abhorrent as the very gesture may be, the clincher was seeing that she had listed my
favourite film as Titanic. She then surfed the net for a while checking out
chaps aged 25-35. He’s alright! she
exclaims. Look at this one. What do you
think of him? He says he can cook and has a boat. Do you want him as a boyfriend? Or what about Mr board-shorts over here, he looks ok.
I am glad I called her that day however.
Hi. Um, I
just had a terrible performance review. I am thinking of getting bent out of
shape with an old flame who is in town, escaping Anais style.
No.
Now you listen to me. You go straight home and take some valium. You stay on
the phone to me until you get home. You do not hang up and you do not go and
meet him. You need to trust me on this. You do not go and meet him.
But
Lydia, I could escape, for a few hours, for a night. It seems like a half
decent idea to me. I start crying again. Thought they were crutches...
No, not tonight.
Now get in a cab and get moving. Are you in a cab? Tell me about your shopping
list. And your favourite dress.
The Litigation Partner was not a bad guy
and took me to lunch the next day. It was my last day in his team, thank
Christ.
Did
you expect me to show up all surly, show up sunny like nothing happened or not
show up at all? I asked.
One
of the latter two he said with a sideways glance, trying not to look amused. He
had perused my resume at some stage and said You got 82 in the HSC? Why? It should have been 99.
Unexpected. I didn’t believe in school.
Did
you fail because you didn’t try? A suppressed smile
plays at the corners of my mouth. Don’t
be proud of that he says firmly. To
say you failed because you didn’t try is the refuge of cowards. Do you want to
hide in the refuge of cowards?
No I say, and I mean it. But he is correct, which makes me always a
coward. He reads my mind.
Well
coward, drink up! He orders another bottle of champagne.
We go back to the office and I am three
sheets to the wind, a 50kg woman trying to keep up at a long lunch with a 80 kg
man who lunches a lot. He spins around in his chair a few times,
looks out the window, knocks over a pile of files and leaves the office. I wait till about 4.30pm. The erstwhile lover has left town with his glitzy debauched promise of escapism and I am safe for tonight at least.
