The hemsworth effect, p.1
The Hemsworth Effect, page 1
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To my little friends…
Sascha
Eva
Harry
Georgie
ONE
Nothing attracts rich white people like the Big Little Lies theme song. The long instrumental intro started playing over the speakers in the cramped bookstore and Aimee Maguire made a mental note to remove it from the playlist. This mental note was made every day. She didn’t know it was the Big Little Lies theme song when she first heard it – it had been automatically added into the Spotify mix one of her store casuals had set up to stream over the speakers. But she was quickly informed. Every time it played, the notes drifted out past the racks and stacks of books and the novelty toys into the street and, by the time the moody chorus hit, a steady line of wealthy city folks had stumbled inside, like zombies but with all-linen outfits and blow waves. On cue, one strolled in. She was accessorised with the summer’s oddest new trend, a $4,650 limited edition Louis Vuitton tote with the town’s name emblazoned across it: Byron Bay.
Aimee sighed. ‘They all end up going back to wherever it is they came from.’ She swiftly picked up a cardboard box of stock off the floor, placed it on the antique pine shop counter and used a Stanley knife to slice open the top. Her arms flexed and showed off the natural tone that came with having spent a lifetime swimming in the ocean. She flicked her warm brown shoulder-length hair out of her face and looked up to see the journalist opposite her scrawling the sentence down on his notepad. Ever since Vanity Fair profiled the town in a glitzy feature about its Hemsworthification, the streets had been crawling with media outlets trying to capitalise on the world’s new obsession.
They all end up going back to wherever it is they came from.
This sentence tumbled out of Aimee’s mouth with the same rhythm and ease of an ancient mantra chanted by monks during meditation at dawn. It almost had become a mantra for Aimee. She’d found herself repeating it in her head every time she walked down the main street. Sometimes even muttering it, a little too loudly, when she saw obnoxious teenage weekenders littering. Or influencers blocking footpaths while taking photos. Or wealthy out-of-towners jamming up intersections with their bumper-to-bumper Range Rovers and Bentleys and Teslas. It was a reassuring reminder that, by the end of the summer holidays, most of the intruders would be gone. They all end up going back to wherever it is they came from. Just beneath the jaded weariness, there was almost a sense of acceptance and surrender. Aimee had thought about screen-printing it on a T-shirt – a more cynical version of those annoying slogan tank tops from Lorna Jane.
They all end up going back to wherever it is they came from.
The phrase had also become Aimee’s go-to quote for the many journalists who’d started skulking into her store. They loved that quote. The reporter standing opposite her – in his linen shirt with the rolled-up sleeves, the typical uniform visitors seemingly thought was a requirement in the town – pushed his dictaphone across the shop counter and probed for more soundbites about the gentrification of paradise from a cranky local. Oh god, she thought. At thirty-six, when had she become a cranky local? It could probably be traced back to the day the town introduced paid parking meters. Cranky locals hated parking meters. Really, they just hated anything that stopped them from living their lives the way they’d always done. Cranky locals liked their routines. Cranky locals didn’t like change. Cranky locals got very worked up when other people who were not true locals told them what to do. But wasn’t that everyone?
She took a sip of her takeaway coffee and the journalist locked his eyes on the cardboard cup. She knew what was coming. In five, four, three, two…
‘No KeepCup?’ he asked.
Aimee kept sipping while shaking her head. She had tried KeepCups in the past and she knew she should use them but, every time she did, she’d take the cup home and it’d sit on the sink, unwashed for days. And the longer she left it, the more scared she became about popping off the rubber lid and seeing what organisms had started to grow inside. Eventually, she’d just throw it out and buy a new one. And then it happened again. After careful consideration, she’d decided her twice-daily single-use takeaway cardboard coffee cups were much better for the environment.
‘Oat milk? Hemp milk? Macadamia?’ He was desperately trying to pin Aimee to at least one Byron stereotype that readers could gleefully ridicule.
‘Regular.’ Aimee drained the final drops of coffee into her mouth and tossed the cup into the recycling bin behind the counter. ‘I should be run out of town any day now.’
She’d lost count of how many journalists had come into her store over the summer – all covering the skyrocketing property prices and the celebrities and rich city people buying up the town. Every time, Aimee told herself: Don’t be the cranky local. The journalist opposite her probed further about out-of-towners trying to recreate the paradise they’d seen on Instagram. Aimee smiled.
‘If they’re not the soul that’s meant to be here, they get spat out.’ She winced slightly at the blunt statement and picked up one of the rubber fidgets she’d just unpacked. It fulfilled its purpose.
‘I just wanna live my life in the town I love,’ she said, pushing and popping the round buttons on the pineapple-shaped toy. ‘Take a dip in the ocean I’ve swum in since I was three. I just wanna be happy.’
‘What do you mean “spat out”?’
A seductive growl purred through the shop doorway and the glass in the display windows rattled as a sports car pulled up in the loading zone at the front of the store. That happened at least twice an hour all through summer. Aimee looked up at the clock above the entrance: Ten to three. She huffed beforerealising she probably looked cranky, so she tried harder to seem breezy but then she just felt stupid. ‘The town has a way of telling you it’s time to go.’
A middle-aged man talking loudly on his phone burst into the store and the timber floorboards creaked under the weight. His whole presence seemed at odds with the childlike fantasy land he’d intruded on. He didn’t belong. It was as if a grizzly bear had squeezed inside a cubby house.
‘I’ve always liked the old F355 Ferraris,’ he said, as if to impress the nearby plush toys with his yen for the collectable mid-nineties Italian sports cars that fetched upwards of $300,000.
Aimee called out from the counter, ‘You can’t park there.’
The man pushed through the mounds of costumes hanging from the ceiling and leant against a giant five-level doll house filled with hand-crafted miniature furniture that was nicer than the decor found in the real-life homes of most adults.
‘I have a stock delivery coming and the truck needs that space.’
‘Kids? Husband?’ The journalist carried on with his questions.
Aimee stared at the oafish Ferrari guy, trying to get his attention, and mindlessly answered, ‘No. Well, no kids. I’m engaged.’ She shook her head and fidgeted with the fidget before placing it down on the counter. ‘Actually, can you not include that?’ She walked away from the counter and started following the Ferrari guy, who was meandering around the store, pulling out random books from the shelves and barely glancing at the covers before shoving them back in the wrong spaces.
‘What do you think of the Hemsworths?’ the reporter asked, glancing over the top of his retro-looking horn-rimmed glasses, which added an unnecessary touch of gravitas to the topic at hand.
‘I love their music,’ Aimee called back.
Confused silence.
‘I’m joking.’
Aimee dodged around the Ferrari guy and stood in front of him. ‘Hi, you need to move your car, like, now.’
The Ferrari guy stopped mid-sentence, glanced at Aimee, and then turned around to continue the phone call.
‘I saw you pull up. Now please move it.’
He ignored her again. She tucked the front of her white tee into her faded blue skinny jeans and considered just walking away. Instead, she reached up and snatched his phone.
He scoffed and grabbed it right back. ‘Fuck off, you fuckin’ hippie.’
Aimee’s brow shot up and her jaw dropped. Fuckin’ hippie? Cranky local, she may be. But a fuckin’ hippie she was not.
She looked at the pyramid stack of acid green plastic tubs with hot pink lids in the front display window of the store. Walking over to the merchandise, she stared the Ferrari guy dead in the eye and plucked a container off the very top of the pile before heading straight out the entrance. The journalist scampered behind her.
By the time the Ferrari guy followed them outside, green slime was splattered on the hood of the coupe. Against the light grey paint, the neon sludge looked radioactive. Aimee stood in front of the car – the empty container in one hand and the lid in the other. A small laugh bubbled up out of her chest.
‘Whoever drives that car’s gonna be pissed,’ the Ferrari guy laughed from the doorway. He looked down the footpath.
The keyless entry on the car bleeped and all the lights blinked twice. Aimee stopped admiring the glowing mucus that continued to crawl out to the edges of the bonnet and looked up at the woman who was now standing on the driver’s side.
‘Is this your Ferrari?’ Aimee asked. Her eyes widened and her stomach started to ooze like the slime.
‘It’s a Porsche, but yes.’ The woman laughed as she replied, as if mistaking a $240,000 sports car for a $300,000 sports car was something to be embarrassed about.
Aimee stepped back. ‘I accidentally slimed your car.’
The woman walked around and took a perfunctory glance. She waved a hand in the air. ‘I don’t care, it’s just a rental.’
‘I’m Aimee, I can give you money for a carwash—’
‘Oh! Aimee!’ the woman interrupted. ‘Bookstore Aimee! Oh, good. I’m here to see you!’ She switched her tan leather handbag to the opposite arm, straightened her Chanel sunglasses and laughed as if she’d just unexpectedly run into her best friend from primary school. ‘Yeah, so Lang – he’s been your store’s landlord… forever? Well, he died. Yeah, so, I’m selling off all his properties. You’re gonna have to move out.’
‘Wait. What?’ Aimee shook her head like a cartoon character who’d just been hit on the head with a comically-large wooden mallet. ‘You’re a real estate agent?’
‘God no. I’m a lawyer,’ she scoffed. ‘And I’m Lang’s daughter. Or was. Anyway, I came down from the Gold Coast for the morning to deal with things. I’m selling everything off because he’s—’
‘Dead,’ Aimee finished the sentence with a nod. ‘I…’ She looked across the road at the surf store for a moment before returning her focus to the splat of green slime that had started to fry like an egg on the car hood in the sun. Gooey and bubbling in the middle. Crispy around the thinning edges. At one point, it may have even sizzled.
The woman was still smiling but her frivolous demeanour developed a tinge of awkwardness as Aimee remained silent. Reports of rocketing property prices had clearly soothed whatever grief she’d been feeling since her father’s death. She pulled a property flyer out of her handbag and held it out. When Aimee didn’t reach for it, she stepped forward and tucked it into the waistband of Aimee’s jeans. ‘Just… in case you want to know more.’ She waved a limp hand in the air as she turned and walked back to the driver’s side. A few seconds later, she ducked her head up over the open door. ‘Great song!’ The end of the Big Little Lies theme drifted out into the street.
Aimee looked up into the sun and closed her eyes as the engine of the Porsche thundered. The summer heat seeped into her cheeks.
The journalist was basically frothing at the mouth. He looked up at the shop awning and wrote down the name of the store: The Dream Explosion. ‘How would you like to be referred to in the article?’
Aimee lowered her head and opened her eyes just enough to keep the sun blocked out. ‘Aimee Maguire. Cranky local.’
TWO
The outside of Aimee’s apartment would’ve still been beautiful if one of those discount super-pharmacies hadn’t moved in below and painted the entire building clashy primary colours. She’d been living above the old pub since before it stopped being a pub. In the middle of town and on a sprawling corner, she’d wanted to live there since she was little. Now, she did. The murmurs and cheers of revellers packed inside until the early hours no longer drifted up through the floorboards, lulling her to sleep. And the glossy old bottle-green tiled walls that cladded the exterior had been covered up in red and yellow signs advertising cut-price incontinence pads and anti-fungal ointments and prescription deodorant. But upstairs, it had remained the same.
Aimee had shut The Dream Explosion early and ducked home to grab her swimmers so she could go dunk her body in the ocean. It’s what she did whenever something bad happened in her life. Lately, there’d been a lot of swims. Far out in the ocean, if she plunged under the water, sunk down to the sandy floor and held her breath, her problems wouldn’t find her.
She opened the dark stained front door and exhaled. The afternoon light streamed through all the window-lined walls of the open-plan apartment that was piled high with a weird mix of chic antiques and bizarre finds. Her apartment was so cool it put nineties sitcom apartments to shame. A collection of art deco mirrors hung above an old workshop bench. A faded metal Coca-Cola sign stretched across an entire wall. On another was a neon light from a strip club: LIVE NUDE GIRLS. The pink cursive writing glowed. Aimee walked past a row of six red leather upholstered seats salvaged from an old theatre, and threw her satchel on one of the chairs. Her scuffed-up cream Converse sneakers squeaked on the hardwood floors as she walked through the living room, past the old dining table and into the bathroom to get her swimsuit. A few seconds later, she emerged empty handed. She walked to her bedroom, rummaged around, and then walked out – heading to the other end of the apartment to Charlie’s bedroom, where she upheld her end of the gay-guy-straight-girl housemate deal: Look, don’t touch – and for the love of god, don’t go digging through any drawers. From there, she whirled out and over to the spare bedroom before finding herself back in the kitchen where she picked up the receiver of the powder green rotary dial telephone on the benchtop. She knew the number off by heart.
‘Hey, is Rob there?’
As Aimee waited, she reached up into one of the cabinets for a glass and, when she went to place it down on the counter, she almost knocked something over. She glanced down. A KeepCup. She furrowed her brow, leant over and rested her chin on the beat-up stainless steel counter to inspect the matte black BPA-free mug. Her face was close enough that she could feel warmth coming off it.
‘Have you been to my house today?’ she said into the receiver, her tone matching the confused look on her face. ‘I can’t find my swimsuit. The navy one I always wear. I wore it this morning, came home and hung it on the shower rod like every other morning. Now… it’s gone.’
‘Do you think it finally just disintegrated away?’ Rob teased.
The years-old swimsuit had become a punchline for Rob and Charlie. Tattered and worn-out, Aimee refused to toss it. She’d tried buying new bikinis, but whenever she’d wear them in public, she always ended up self-consciously tugging at the straps. Her old one was just right. A little threadbare. But just right.
‘Maybe a breeze came in through the window and blew the final threads of it away, like pollen.’ Rob continued to amuse herself.
Aimee craned her head into her shoulder to hold the phone in place and used her free hands to fill up a glass of water at the sink. ‘Charlie never moves it.’ She chose to ignore Rob’s jokes. ‘And he left before me today.’ She picked up the phone base with her right hand and walked over to the dining table, using her left hand to pour the water into a tall glass vase with a giant cherry blossom branch in it. ‘Then I found…’ she walked back to the kitchen bench and crouched down to stare at the foreign object that had invaded her home, ‘a KeepCup. You know the deal with KeepCups in this household. And it’s… still warm.’
‘What’d the FBI say?’ Rob gasped.
Aimee grabbed the phone base again, walked across to the living room, moved one of Charlie’s acoustic guitars off the long peacock blue velvet couch and flopped into it. She pivoted her body until she was upside down – feet dangling over the back of the sofa, the top of her head resting on the floor.
‘Maybe everyone in town finally got fed up with your refusal to stop using single-use coffee cups and this is all part of a menacing campaign to scare you into using environmentally friendly drinkware,’ Rob chattered away before changing topics entirely. ‘Ooh! I almost forgot: Music Club tonight!’
Aimee let her body collapse off the couch and onto the vintage Persian rug. ‘I just want to go for a swim,’ she blurted with the jittery impatience of a recovering smoker who couldn’t quite find where they’d hidden their ‘in case of emergency’ pack.
On the other end of the phone line, Rob’s voice snapped to attention. ‘Oh god. I should’ve known – the obsession over a misplaced swimsuit and desperately needing to swim. What’s happened? Do I need to come over?’
‘Nothing, nothing.’ Aimee batted away the quick-fire probing about what big bad thing had happened. ‘No, don’t come over, I’m fine. I’ll tell you tonight.’
After hanging up, she ran her index finger back and forth over the intricately patterned teal and burnt orange wool carpet before getting to her feet and wandering back to the kitchen. There was only one thing that could replace an afternoon swim. She popped the lid off a bottle of tequila and poured it into a heavy crystal glass.
