‘Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who’s the biggest loser of them all?’

The answer is clearly the single, unemployed 47-year-old, disguised as a drowned rat, staring back at me in the public toilet mirror.

Clumps of hair stick to my forehead. One of my false eyelashes is missing. And my Zimmermann silk-chiffon dress clings to me like wet toilet paper. 

Not the look I was going for to impress my high-school sweetheart.

Mark and I had drifted apart at university in Sydney. I loved city life as much as Mark missed his beloved horses. Our last argument ended with me saying he needed to change. Soon after he moved to Scone to train polocrosse horses.

I heard he married the Beef Week Queen and had a couple of kids. While I married my job as a corporate lawyer. 

Then I came across a profile pic on my school reunion Facebook page. It was a black and white picture of Phar Lap, just like Mark’s poster from high school. His profile consisted of old campdrafting photos and his basic details; Relationship status: Divorced.

Soon we were sharing memories and inside jokes. I could almost hear his booming laugh in his words. For the first time in years, I felt alive. 

I quit my job in London and jumped on a plane to drive the five and a half hours to my hometown. 

It may have come to something if I hadn’t stopped at the National Park’s rest area to reapply my make-up, and discovered I had a flat tyre and no spare. 

So I’m stranded in torrential rain, 50km from town on an old disused highway, with no mobile reception.

This is what I get for chasing fairytales.

Then a car pulls up and a gorgeous woman in her mid-20s leaps out of the passenger seat and races to the toilet block. She stops in front of me and tilts her head. ‘You all right?’

‘Flat tyre. No spare.’

‘Maybe ours will fit.’ She runs back to speak to a man silhouetted in the driver’s seat. 

‘He reckons it will fit,’ she says on return, ‘which is good because it looks like you’ve got something special planned,’ she indicates my dress.

‘Not anymore.’

‘Huh?’

‘Have you seen me?’

‘Come on.’ She drags me to the mirror and in a flash, she has fixed my make-up and angled the hand-dryer to dry my hair and dress. When she’s finished I look halfway passable. 

‘All done,’ the man shouts. I go to the doorway and find my knight in dripping armour, grinning under a flickering fluorescent light.

‘Dad. You’re soaked,’ she says. ‘You’ll have to change if you want to impress that lady you were talking about.’

I smile back at the man and meet his steady gaze. ‘Any woman who needs you to change should have her head read.’

His booming laugh carries over the rain. ‘As should the man who let that woman go in the first place.’

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‘It’s over.’  

It felt good saying it out loud and finally putting an end to the torture. At the same time I know it probably comes as a shock to you.  

‘Don’t get me wrong, we had a great run.’ It wasn’t a lie. We have shared so much together. We travelled the world. We had some serious adventures.  

‘Do you remember that night in Times Square?’ I’m blushing just thinking about it. ‘And damn, we looked hot together.’ 

‘I’ll treasure our time together…forever,’ the words catch in my throat. 

What about you? I wonder how you’re feeling. I barely resist the urge to reach out and touch you. I can’t tell from your lack of response whether you’re hurting as much as I am. I want to fill the void. I have to explain but I need to look away as I speak. 

‘Can I tell you a secret?’ I don’t wait for an answer. ‘I never believed in true love or soulmates…until I met you.’ The whispered words are only for you. Words etched with longing and treasured memories. ‘We met exactly when we needed to. We transformed each other. Call it serendipity, destiny, fate…’ my voice trails off, the nostalgic moment evaporates as I return to the harsh reality of saying goodbye to you and my old life.  

I force myself to look at you again and steady my nerves. I remind myself of all the pain you caused me. Back then it didn’t seem to hurt as much, we were so young, but our time together now is agonising. I ache for weeks on end. It’s not worth it anymore. I have run out of tears. 

You remain unresponsive, so I ramble on, intent on justifying my position.  

‘We’re just no good for each other…at least not anymore. After two kids, I’m different. Even if I wanted to go clubbing like we used to, I couldn’t make it past 10pm.’ I switch to humour. ‘These days my idea of a great night is binge-watching old Veronica Mars episodes.’ My laugh sounds strained and hollow.  

You’ve never been one for words but your silence now is maddening. ‘Have you got anything to say?’ It seems you don’t. You just stand there looking as gorgeous as the day we met. My heart lurches. Am I ready to throw it all away? I take three deep breaths. Three…I can do this…two…I have to stay strong…one. 

‘There’s no longer a place for you in my life. And it’s selfish for me to hold onto you. 

It’s really over.’  

I’m torn between relief and heartbreak. I wonder what the appropriate way is to say goodbye for the last time. I extend my arms awkwardly and offer a hug. You don’t object.   

I take you in my arms for one final embrace and realise that I can never let you go.  

My Jimmy Choo four and a half inch heels and I were made for each other. 

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We all have one. You know, a frenemy. Mine was Natasha or Na-taaar-sha. The middle syllable is an elongated ‘ta’, as in ‘ta, ta, dahling,’ air kiss, air kiss. It’s not to be confused with the sound, ‘tash’, like ‘pash’, and you are to never call her just ‘Tash’.

I called her that once in fourth grade and she ghosted me for two weeks. A sucky punishment considering there were a total of 11 kids in the grade and we were the only two girls.

Natasha invites me and my husband, Tom, a couple of times a year to her sprawling, architecturally-designed house with city views, just to remind us how amazingly successful and rich she is. 

Natasha greets us at the door in a full-length, green silk gown. I’m blinded momentarily by her Swarovski swan crystal earrings.

I feel dowdy in my jeans and T-shirt. I should have known casual BBQ meant a fully-catered, four-course teppanyaki dinner. Natasha’s husband, Greg, shakes my hand formally, his grip as stiff as his starched dinner-suit collar. 

Over dinner Natasha bemoans the difficult decision of whether to spend Christmas at Aspen or Whistler. Even Greg stifles a yawn, prompting Tom to keep both their glasses of single malt whisky topped up.

After dinner Natasha suggests a game of charades. I suppress a groan remembering the last time we played. Like everything else, Natasha and Greg are ridiculously good at charades. In one round, Greg merely indicates zipping up his lips and Natasha immediately guesses – correctly – ‘The Secret of My Success’. 

Not so for us. I mime ‘Edward Scissorhands’ by making scissor-like motions with my hands. ‘Alien?’ Tom suggests. I gesticulate big hair and cutting.

‘Hairspray?’

I then produce a real pair of scissors, to which Tom offers ‘The Dressmaker’.

We run out of time.

Sensing my frustration Natasha suggests we switch up the teams, ‘Boys against girls.’ 

Tom is first up. He points at Natasha.

‘Pretty Woman?’ Greg says enthusiastically though his words are a little slurred.

Tom points again at Natasha and indicates ‘smaller’ with his thumb and forefinger.

‘Little Women?’

Tom shakes his head and makes a series of wild gestures, pointing at Natasha, then the night sky and moon out the window, then his ears and back to Natasha. He is truly terrible at charades.

Greg rattles off movie titles in quick succession.

‘The Stepford Wives. Clueless. Mean Girls.’

‘Greg,’ Natasha squawks.

‘Lighten up, Tash,’ Greg says. Her mouth opens and closes like a fish but Greg is undeterred. ‘The Witches of Eastwick. Fatal Attraction.’

‘Greg!’ Natasha’s shrill voice slices through the air.

We make our goodbyes, with me smothering a smile, and get out of there faster than Greg’s Maserati GranTurismo. In the Uber home, I ask Tom, ‘So what was your movie?’

‘The Dark Crystal. Didn’t you see me pointing to her earrings?’ he sighs. ‘I was pretty bad, wasn’t I? It would be good just to win once.’

‘But this time, hon, you did win. We well and truly won.’

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‘Supervisor!’ The officious sounding voice rings out over the incessant dinging of the bell on the counter.

I pop my head over the top of the cubicle, startled to find my shire council colleagues have vanished into thin air.

‘You there,’ the owner of the voice points at me. Other words follow at breakneck speed but they’re lost on me. I’m entirely distracted by what she’s wearing. From her hat, and skivvy tucked into her pleated, tweed skirt, and her handbag and gloves, to her petticoat peeking out below the hemline, and the thick stockings and crocs, she’s covered head to toe in brown – a thousand different shades of brown. Incredibly none of them match. Her rapidly moving jowls and colour choice give her the appearance of a bloodhound. 

‘Are you listening? What’s wrong with you?’

There is a collective sniggering sound behind me, presumably from the rest of the council staff hidden in the back room.

‘I’m sorry, Madam. What were you saying?’

‘The neon sign at the general store. It’s completely offensive. Ruins the whole ambience of the village. And frankly, it’s just common.’

‘Yes, those kinds of signs are quite common for retail shops.’

‘You dimwitted boy. Common as in coarse, crass,’ she leans in close – her heavy lavender perfume smacks me in the face – she whispers the last word, ‘it’s vulgar.’ 

‘I see.’ I’m not sure how to proceed. ‘I suppose I could check if the appropriate approvals are in place.’

‘The sign buzzes you know. You can hear it over the traffic.’

I decide not to point out that a couple of utes an hour and occasional tractor hardly constitutes traffic.

‘You live nearby then?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She lifts her chin and elongates her vowels. ‘I live on the hill. The large white house with the triple award-winning rose garden.’

‘Of course, my mistake.’ As someone new to the town I’m not familiar with said ‘hill’ but I’m not about to let on.

‘I could hear it buzzing when I was returning a carton of milk. The milk was out-of-date by two days, you know, and they wouldn’t give me a refund.’

‘Well that’s not right.’

‘Exactly. The owner, a dreadful woman, refused because I’d purchased it a week ago. Then she had the hide to ban me from the store.’

‘I’m not sure I can do anything about that.’

The woman released a protracted sigh. ‘Are you sure you’re all there? Really! I’m reporting that matter to the police as soon as I’m done here.’

‘Right,’ I shuffle some random papers around. ‘If you could give me your details. I’ll get right onto the matter of the sign.’

‘My name is Mrs Snoop. Everyone knows who I am.’

‘I’m sure they do,’ I think to myself.

Mrs Snoop bids me good day and starts to leave. I exhale with relief but freeze when she turns back and says, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

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