Grand Slam (11 page)

I drove along Dandenong Road, heading home, yawning, thinking about the weird day with Emilio and dinner and his lucky charm.
Guard it with your life, Emily. I cannot play without it.
Geez Louise. Seeing Jack tonight with Sharon Stone had been horrible. They
had
looked good together, the magnificent couple. And the Russian artist. I wanted to know what it all meant, but more than that, I yearned for my bed. Not even Jack's bed – that's how tired I was. It was just after nine o'clock, and I was done like the proverbial dinner. When I stopped at the lights, I checked my phone. Text from Lucy wanting to know about my dinner with Emilio. A million emails. One new voicemail, which I listened to:
It's your mother. Don't forget my prunes and your father's All-Bran.

Carnegie loomed, and though I was tempted to just go home and do it all tomorrow, I worried about what it might mean if Mum didn't have her prunes and Dad didn't have his All-Bran. And, God forbid, Tim Tams.

Woolworths at Carnegie Central was moderately busy. Other stupid people were shopping instead of being tucked up in blissful bed. As I approached the lines of trolleys, I took out my purse and the few coins in there fell out. I bent to pick them up. Emilio's lucky charm swung in my face. There were no one- or two-dollar coins among the lot on the floor, so, no coin for the trolley. ‘Bugger.' The service desk was unattended, so I couldn't get change. I fingered the charm. I wonder . . .

Can't hurt, I thought guiltily, as I pushed the trolley up the vitamins aisle. The gold chain swung from the coin slot, where Emilio's amulet snugly sat. A perfect fit, really. Despite my weariness, I managed a brief giggle at my audacity, although the chosen trolley was annoying, its sticky wheel forcing it to the right.

Vitamin D was on the list. I picked up a Mega B Exec Stress for myself and read the bottle.
Perfect for tired and stressed executives
. Lucy rang.

‘I'm at the supermarket, if that answers your question.'

‘What question?'

‘About whether or not I slept with him.'

‘I know you wouldn't be that stupid, hon. He won't marry you if you have sex with him.'

‘Quite apart from the fact that I
only just met him
.' I struggled one-handed with the wayward trolley, then I saw Mum's rear neighbour, the extra strange one. ‘Uh-oh. Mrs Booth's here.'

‘Ooh. Creepy.'

‘I know.'

‘What's she doing at the supermarket so late?'

‘I know.
So
weird.'

When we were kids, Mrs Booth wore her hair long and black, floor-length purple skirts with mirrors all over them, and sandals, even in winter. If she cornered me, she'd ask questions like, ‘How's school?' and the way she looked at me was like she knew something about it that I didn't. I always wanted to say, ‘What? What do you know?'

‘Ask her to cast a spell on Emilio so he'll marry you.'

I smiled when Mrs Booth spotted me. Through gritted teeth I muttered, ‘She's coming this way.'

‘What's her hair like?'

‘She's chopped it all off. It's short and frizzy. With grey bits.'

‘What's she wearing?'

‘
Matching
tracky pants and top. Aqua.'

‘Weirdo.'

As Mrs Booth approached I indicated the phone at my ear, giving her a look of regret that I couldn't stop and talk.

She nodded in understanding, mouthed, ‘Hello to Mum and Dad.' Then she turned and looked behind as if expecting someone to be there. I gave her a smile and wave and hurried on. Mum and Dad would rather move house than see Mrs Booth, I felt pretty sure of that.

‘She's gone.'

‘Remember how we thought she'd murdered her husband and buried him in the basement?'

‘Yeah. Steve and I went down there once.'

‘Really?'

‘It was so scary and dark but we didn't find a body.'

‘Maybe it's still there.'

‘Yeah. Maybe.'

I hung up from Luce but kept spotting Mrs Booth, who always looked like she was trying to find someone. Me? So I kept the phone at my ear and pretended to be talking. By the time I reached the checkout, I had a crick in my neck.

In the almost-deserted car park, I loaded up my boot. Just as I was finishing, Mrs Booth appeared with her trolley, and I squatted behind my car. I left the trolley, crept to the driver's door, opened it and crawled in. I could see Mrs Booth standing at her car, again looking around. I started my car, crouched low, and drove slowly out of my spot. I peered over the steering wheel. Mrs Booth was loading her bags into her car. I put my foot down, sped through the car park and checked my mirror. Mrs Booth was waving. I wound down my window and waved back. She wouldn't mind, I was sure. Maybe she wouldn't notice my rudeness. I hoped not. She might cause something horrible to happen. But I couldn't have stopped anyway. I had to get Mum's prunes to her. The ice-cream would have melted if I'd stopped. Mrs Booth would have asked me questions about my life, my boyfriend status, why I was living at Mum and Dad's. It would have been hard to know how to answer all those questions. Besides, I needed to get to bed.

I was thinking all those things and it wasn't until I was almost home that I remembered Emilio Méndez's precious lucky charm — the one he can't live or play tennis without — that was, I prayed, still sitting in a supermarket trolley at Carnegie Central shopping centre.

I looked for my trolley, the one I'd abandoned at the back of my car. There were two stuck together near where I left mine, but no lucky charm, so I assumed neither was mine. Good old denial. Maybe someone had taken my trolley to the trolley-parking place where I should have put it, or maybe an employee collected it. I trawled the car park, looking for abandoned trolleys. I searched every trolley return and I went into the supermarket and searched there. I walked the aisles, peering at the trolleys people were using. I waited at the service desk for someone to come and I asked her, ‘Anything handed in to lost property?' She said no. I asked every employee in the store. I stood in every line and asked the checkout people. I returned to the aisles, harassed customers, asking about the lucky charm. I didn't believe them when they told me no, they hadn't seen it. Someone must have seen it. Surely if someone had found it, they would have handed it in? Why would someone take something like that? Why would someone steal another person's lucky charm? In the middle of the supermarket fruit and vegie section, I yelled out, ‘Has anyone seen a trolley with a lucky charm in the coin slot?'

The manager asked me to leave.

Back in the car park, I saw a young trolley guy pushing a mile-long line of trolleys toward the supermarket entrance.

‘I'm looking for a trolley I used before,' I told him.

‘What'd it look like?'

‘Um . . .'

‘Full size or half size?'

‘Full size.'

‘New or old?

‘How would I know that?'

‘Black or silver?'

‘Oh. Silver. Old. Actually, it had a sticky wheel and pulled to the right.'

‘Why didn't you say so in the first place?' He scratched his chin and looked around.

‘I left a . . . coin in the slot.'

‘Someone woulda grabbed it.' He continued pushing. ‘Kids are always looking for money in the trolleys.'

I followed him. ‘It was a special coin. On a chain. I really need to find it.'

‘Actually, have a look at that one.' He nodded at two stuck-together trolleys parked across the way. ‘I think that's old Bessie.'

They were the ones I'd seen before and checked already. My stomach churned. Shit.

‘Not that one?' said trolley guy.

‘I think so, but the coin's gone.'

‘She's a real bugger, that Bessie.' He continued on.

‘Okay, well, thanks.'

I slumped to my car, and the trolley kid called out, ‘Mrs?'

‘Me?'

‘There was a lady. I just remembered. I thought she was a bit weird.'

‘A weird lady?'

‘Yeah. She mighta nicked your coin.'

Weird. Right. Mrs Booth.

So, should I knock on Mrs Booth's door and ask if she took my lucky charm? I didn't want to. I definitely didn't want to. She had a black cat. Okay, so, Axle is black, but Axle doesn't do weird things. Okay, he does weird things, but he doesn't sit in the window and just stare at people like Mrs Booth's cat does. Maybe he stares, but he's not, like, Mrs Booth's.

As I sat in my car in the Carnegie Central car park, I called Lucy again.

She yawned as she answered. ‘Someone better be dying.'

‘Sorry, hon. I forgot you've been working shift.'

‘It's nearly eleven o'clock at night. You don't call people that late.' She yawned again. ‘What's up?'

‘You know how Emilio gave me his lucky charm?'

‘Uh-oh. What have you done with it?'

‘It was a perfect fit in the supermarket trolley.'

‘You left it in there.'

‘I did.'

‘And now it's gone.'

‘It is.'

‘Holy
shit
, Erica! You
always
leave the coin. Didn't you think you'd forget it?'

‘Of course not! It's too important!'

‘Oh my God. What are you going to do?'

‘I think Mrs Booth took it.'

‘That's
so
the kind of thing she'd do.'

‘I know.'

It was times like these I wanted Luce to just take charge and fix it. She's good at that. And she's so brave. Much braver than me. ‘Will you go to Mrs Booth's and ask her for me?' I said.

‘No!'

‘Please?'

‘No way!'

‘I'm scared she'll use the charm to put a spell on Emilio to make him lose the tennis.'

‘She might.'

‘Shit.'

‘Yeah.'

My mother's screeching woke me from the two hours' sleep I'd managed. The noise invaded my nightmare, getting closer and closer until it finally burst into my bedroom and sent Axle scampering with a howl. Mum hurled the newspaper at me. Some of it fluttered around the room, but most of it landed on me. The
Herald Sun
– a weighty tabloid. Mum had it delivered daily so she could finish the crossword before Mary up the road, who has to wait for jail-time newspaper delivery, giving Mum a distinct advantage.

‘What's wrong?' I yawned and stared cross-eyed down my nose. There was something on it. Peeling skin. I rubbed it.

‘You know very well what you've done! Imagine if Jack sees this! What will he do? He'll break up with you, that's what!'

Mum stood there with a cat's-bum mouth, arms crossed tightly, toe tapping wildly, while a slo-mo replay of the previous day trudged through my mind. I sat up and pulled the scattered bits of newspaper onto my lap. Mum snatched the front page off the floor and flung it at me. Front page. I flattened the paper across my lap. The headline read: E
MILIO IN LOVE . . . AGAIN
.

The full-page pic showed a photo of Emilio standing with his arm around me, his head bowed as he listened to whatever mushy thing I was whispering in his ear. A reversal of the last photo of us together, where he was doing the whispering.

A few pages later there were a couple of smaller photos showing Emilio and me holding hands at dinner – the photo seemingly taken from the middle of the river – and one of Emilio decorating me with his lucky charm. The one I'd had a nightmare about – that it was still in the shopping-trolley coin slot, but now, in my nightmare, at the bottom of the Yarra River.

‘You are such a hussy!' Mum wailed and stormed away.

‘It's not me! It's . . .' I checked the name in the paper. ‘Emily Jesus!'

On the bright side, there were also photos we'd wanted. Of Emilio's tennis match with Robbie Dick.

I sent Jack a text:
It's not how it looks
.

I waited ten minutes, staring at the phone. Nothing. I went for a shower. When I came back to my room, there was a reply:
What are you talking about?

Herald Sun
.

You know I don't read it
.

Well, if you do happen to see today's, just ignore the silly little article on the front, ok?

You mean the one about Emilio Méndez's new girlfriend?

You've read it!

No.

Bloody hell.
Ok. See ya
.

No response. Well, that was that. After last night's performance at the restaurant and then today's front-page thing, I'd probably done my dash with Jack. He'd surely run off to Switzerland with Sharon Stone. Or Paris. Mum was right. And that was the most annoying part.

My phone started ringing and didn't stop. Journos, wanting to interview Emilio Méndez's new girlfriend and wanting to know why I'd given a false name. They'd lost all interest in the oil-rig explosion. Mission accomplished, albeit not in the way I'd planned.
The Saturday Morning Show
wanted me to participate in a group interview with other WAGs of famous sporting stars. Mostly Aussie Rules football girlfriends, they said.

‘So can you come in on Saturday morning?' asked the producer.

‘No, I —'

‘Could you offer some fashion advice to our viewers as well?'

‘Fashion?'

‘Emilio seems pretty smitten. We're pretty excited about it here.'

‘Oh, no . . .'

‘See you at five thirty a.m. You know where our studios are?'

‘No, I —'

‘I'll email the details.' She hung up.

I checked the time. I needed to get to work. Lucy had left a message. I called her.

‘Geez,' she said. ‘You're all over the media.'

‘
The Saturday Morning Show
wants me to offer fashion advice.'

She laughed and wouldn't stop. I hung up.

She called me back. ‘Sorry, hon, what's happened?'

‘I don't know what to do about Mrs Booth.'

‘Just call and ask her if she's got the charm.'

‘I'm scared.'

‘Get your mum to do it.'

‘She's not talking to me.'

‘Why? Oh, the
Herald Sun
article. Well, you'll just have to do it.'

‘I suppose.' I hung up, sat on my bed and stared out the window at Mum's camellia bush. I didn't want to ring Mrs Booth. Instead I snuck out to the backyard via the laundry, to avoid Mum. Dad was in his vegie patch. I said hello as I picked my way through the towering tomatoes, and stood on the bottom rail of the timber paling fence. When I peered into Mrs Booth's backyard, shivers scuttled up my spine in memory of the childhood terrors of her house, which she and Mr Booth had built in the fifties. It was American style with a basement and attic. Steve and I had been drawn to it, in the way you're drawn to look at a car crash when, really, it's the last thing you want to see. We'd climb the fence and sneak around the garden, hiding behind the giant pine tree and getting stuck in the nasty rose bushes. We'd peer in the windows and sometimes we saw her having a seance with Ruth, her daughter, by candlelight. We'd watch as the cup moved around the ouija board. Ruth was hugely fat from eating so much chocolate and she had pimples and greasy hair that stuck to her face. I still wondered if Mr Booth was down there in the basement.

A shadow crossed Mrs Booth's kitchen. Dad farted. I dropped off the fence, ran back inside and called Lucy.

‘I can't go in there. It's too creepy!'

‘Call her!'

‘What would I say?'

‘Just ask if she took the thing.'

‘What if she didn't?'

‘You won't know if you don't ask.'

‘I wish I could just go to a shop and buy another one.'

‘Actually . . . hang on a minute.'

I could hear Lucy moving about. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Googling. There's a shop with imitation Emilio Méndez lucky charms.'

‘Really?'

‘Here we go. La Joyería at Chadstone. They're running a promotion for the tennis. They're good ones. Gold. Two hundred bucks.'

‘I'm going there now.'

‘You can't spend all that just to get a necklace.'

‘Watch me.'