The hemsworth effect, p.33
The Hemsworth Effect, page 33
‘Thank you,’ she said.
And then she kissed him.
FORTY-FOUR
Aimee woke to the sound of plastic vibrating on timber but that wasn’t what made her open her eyes. It was the smell of hotel room mixed with Joop and cigarette smoke on the pillows. She inhaled deeply. It was the same smell Heath had left on her pillow the afternoon they first slept together at her place – the day he climbed over rocks and dived into the ocean to save Aimee’s Def Leppard cassette. She’d let that pillow go unwashed for a few extra days. At night, going to sleep, when she’d roll over and smell it, she’d get that feeling – the one she hadn’t felt for Tim in a long time. And it was better than that first hit of jasmine in spring. Heath had gotten in. Like smoke through the crack under the door. Aimee felt at ease. And then, for a second, she wondered if Jules would ever accept her the same way Heath had, if she ever let him into her real world. She stretched out and flopped an arm over to the other side of the bed, expecting to find him. Instead, it slapped down on the dense mattress – white sheets pulled down from when he’d gotten up. The phone vibrated on the bedside table again. Short, sharp rattles. A message alert. Aimee took a deep breath and rolled over to grab it. She squinted and held it up to her face. The auto-unlock facial recognition feature promptly rejected her but the message was still on the home screen.
Did I leave my laptop there? x
Aimee sat up and rubbed the corners of her eyes. She looked around the room at the matchy-matchy Scandinavian-style furniture. No laptop. She couldn’t be bothered wrestling on the jumpsuit that was flung over a chair in the corner, so she grabbed Heath’s blue shirt that was also in the tangled pile. Out in the living room, she squinted at the glare coming through the glass sliding doors. On her way to pull the curtains closed, she spotted the Mac on the coffee table. She was just about to snap shut the silver lid and text Heath that she’d found it but then she saw Tim’s face on the screen. The image made her stand still for a moment and assess it. Her brow furrowed. It was a video clip that was paused, which must’ve been why the laptop hadn’t auto-locked. She sat down on the couch and looked closer. From the frozen image of Tim, she could tell it was filmed on the roof of the surf shop. He was surrounded by construction mess and the big sign on top of The Dream Explosion poked up in the background from across the street. She hit the space bar and the clip began to play. From the very first few seconds, it was clear the footage was just a rough cut – like the clip of Freya that Heath had played her the night before in the office. It was a standard confessional interview – similar to the ones Aimee had done throughout filming with an off-camera producer asking questions. In the video of Tim, the producer’s questions had been cut out, so it was just Tim’s answers strung together in a chopped up monologue.
The time-out is to figure out a lot of stuff. I think… Our relationship is… complicated? We’d only been dating… maybe, six months, when her mum and dad and sister died. She was with me on a surfing comp – that’s why she wasn’t with them. And it hit her hard. Of course it did. She was only eighteen. I’ve spent most of my life since then feeling a bit guilty about it… Yeah, I was in comps – winning. I’d been training to do comps my whole life. It’s what I thought my life would be. Surfing, having a family in Byron, start the surf shop after I retired from competitive surfing. Just… livin’ the dream. Things didn’t end up that way.
Then the footage suddenly cut to Rozzie. Aimee’s body jerked at the harsh change. Rozzie was sitting in her living room with a painting of Buddha on the wall behind and a miniature Zen garden on the side table next to her. She was always talking about her miniature Zen garden. She loved it and claimed it soothed her. In the clip, she was dragging the mini gold rake through the sand, making a delicate pattern as she spoke.
As a counsellor, it’s my observation that Aimee has a lot of undiagnosed trauma from the death of her family. I think there’s anger that hasn’t been dealt with and depression that’s just… continued to develop and progress. She refuses to ask for help and then refuses to help herself. Then things spiral even further out of control and I have had to sit on the sidelines and watch it sink further – all while biting my tongue. My son gave up his career for her. He wanted to be a champion surfer, he was good enough to be a champion surfer, everyone in the industry told him he could be a champion surfer. And he gave it all away, everything he worked hard for – just because she needed him to take care of her after the accident. She begged him not to leave and live his life. And then, after sticking around, she ums and ahs for years about whether she even wants to marry him – and then refuses to give him an answer about whether or not they’ll ever have kids. It’s terrible what happened to her family. She has dealt with a lot in her life and I truly feel sorry for her. But a tragedy is not a ‘get out of jail free’ card that allows you to traipse through life, doing as you please and dragging other people down with you. I’ve told him: Aimee will not make you happy. Tim has told me several times over the years that he has wanted to end their relationship. And the only reason he doesn’t? He says he’s afraid of what Aimee’s going to do to herself if he leaves.
The clip ended and froze on Rozzie glaring down the camera lens. Aimee was winded. Keys clinked and the door pushed open. ‘Hey, I texted you befor—’
‘Get away from me.’ Aimee shot to her feet and clutched her stomach, as if she was about to be sick.
Heath held his hands up in shock and tried to walk over but she shoved past him into the bedroom where she ripped off his shirt and grabbed the linen jumpsuit off the chair.
‘You know, she’s not even a real counsellor,’ she spat while shoving her legs into the outfit. ‘She’s done an online course and read some books about kinesiology. That’s it! And she has not just sat by on the sidelines while biting her tongue. The woman has never bitten her tongue.’ She tried poking her arms through the top but something was tangled and she kept having to yank her arms back out to realign it. ‘And, my god, that all just fell out of her mouth so effortlessly. I have no doubt she’s been rehearsing it every night in the shower for the past twenty-odd years. It was a monologue. I’m surprised she doesn’t perform it at events for money.’ The straps of the jumpsuit seemed to be getting more tangled the more she fiddled with it. ‘Jesus!’ She let go of the fabric and slapped her hands on her thighs.
‘Here, let me.’ Heath stepped forward.
‘Don’t,’ Aimee snapped. ‘Just… don’t.’ She held the top half of the outfit in place over her chest and slid her feet into her tan sandals while looking around for her bag.
‘Aimee, the video, it’s—’ Heath tried to explain.
‘I’m not a part of this show anymore.’ She pointed a finger at him as she walked past. ‘I will not be appearing in anything else and I don’t care if there’s a contract. I’ll give you back the upfront fee and don’t bother about paying the rest. You can sue me, I have nothing.’
She swung the door open and walked out into the hallway. ‘And your documentaries weren’t that good.’
FORTY-FIVE
‘You haven’t left me because you’re worried about what I’ll do to myself?’ Aimee was standing in the tangled white jumpsuit at the top of the steps on Tim’s shop roof. She’d stormed straight there from Heath’s – right through town. She didn’t care who saw. The morning humidity was hell but she’d been walking in such a rage she hadn’t noticed. Standing still, underneath the sun on the rooftop, her body was glistening in sweat while a shirtless Tim got more golden by the second. She raised her voice over the clashy music that was blaring out of a Bluetooth speaker. ‘What am I gonna do to myself, Tim?’
Tim threw the measuring tape he was holding onto a bundled-up canvas tarp and walked over to the speaker to switch it off. The music had just faded out and a lethargic-sounding radio announcer mumbled, You’re listening to Triple J, before it all went silent. He sighed and closed his eyes, already exasperated. ‘Aimee, what’s goin’ on?’
She crossed her arms and her bottom lip quivered. Where to start? There was so much going on. Aimee began with the most pressing issue.
‘Why are you listening to Triple J?’ she spat.
‘I’ve always listened to Triple J.’
‘Oh since when?’ she rebuffed. ‘Did you start listening to it around the same time you started wearing that ridiculous fedora?’ She nodded to the moss green wide-brimmed felt hat that was perched on her fiancé’s head. ‘You look like you’re in a really bad folk band for dads.’
Tim scoffed. ‘So I’m not allowed to wear a fedora but you’re allowed to wear an Akubra?’
‘Yeah, I wear it to remember my dead sister. Not because I’m pretending to be twenty. Did she buy it for you?’
‘Who?’ he played dumb, choosing to make her say Bree’s name.
‘The Hot Ew Girl.’
Tim’s eyes popped out of his head. ‘Wow. Real nice, Aimee. Clearly I’m not the one pretending to be twenty. And remember – you’re the one who signed up to a reality show. Did you just come to tell me I’m an asshole in a fedora – or is there a real issue?’
Aimee didn’t even need prompting. She had no idea of the exact words she was about to say, but twenty years’ worth of resentment came tumbling out. ‘Your mum is awful. She has never been nice to me.’ Her voice started to shake and she didn’t fight it. ‘And you just… ignore it and make excuses and talk to her about me. And say horrible things.’ The tears started to fall. ‘I’ve seen the videos of what you said about me on camera. On the show. What you both said. I didn’t tell you to quit surfing. I didn’t make you give things up for me.’
Tim exhaled and closed his eyes, losing his patience. ‘You didn’t really give me a choice.’
‘I never asked you to do that!’
‘You did, Aimee. In your way.’
‘What’s my… way?’
He ignored the question and zeroed in. ‘Have you ever taken a moment to actually think about what I gave up for you? Even if you reckon you didn’t ask me to. The fact is that I did. Have you ever even noticed?’ He shook his head and chuckled a fed-up laugh. ‘It’s always about Aimee. Aimee, Aimee, Aimee. Is Aimee happy today? Why is Aimee cranky? What tiny, innocuous thing is gonna set off Aimee? These are all the questions I’ve gotta ask myself. Daily. Everyone watch out for the eggshells that we’ve all gotta tiptoe on around Aimee!’
‘It is not always about me!’ She raised her voice in frustration.
‘Nichelle,’ Tim blurted out.
‘What?’
‘Who we went to school with,’ he spat.
Aimee scrunched her face and cocked her head. ‘Narissa?’
‘That’s not her fucking name! God, Aimee! Can you pay attention to anything outside of yourself?’
Aimee gasped and held her arms out. ‘It’s a weird name! I’m not an asshole just because I forgot some chick’s name who we went to school with!’
‘The problem isn’t just Narissa.’
‘I thought you said her name was Nichelle,’ Aimee shot back.
‘Fuck!’ Tim kicked a pile of rubble. ‘You just always wanna be right,’ he dismissed.
‘What do you mean I just wanna be right? Everyone just wants to be right. You just wanna be right. That’s why you’re so pissed off.’
He let out a laugh. ‘I am not pissed off.’ He tried to do that thing again where he’d act calm, to make her seem irrational.
‘Then get pissed off! I want you to be pissed off! Tell me what you’re actually thinking instead of just… bitching about me to your mum and to the Hot Ew Girl and some TV cameras. What other stuff did you tell them about me? And what have you told… her?’
‘Christ, you’ve got issues, Aimee. Why can’t you just be happy? Why is it so hard for you to be happy? Sometimes I think you’re addicted to being unhappy. You just wouldn’t know who you are if you weren’t miserable.’
Aimee exhaled and walked over to the ledge of the rooftop, looking out over the street below. She wasn’t sure if she was addicted to being unhappy. But she knew she was addicted to the loneliness.
It was the big gross stupid fight she’d secretly been wishing they’d have for years. Petty grievances hurled. Old resentments used as ammunition. But it didn’t end with them both bursting into laughter at how ridiculous they were being. Aimee wiped her nose and looked up. The giant faded red sign on top of The Dream Explosion awning rested in view. She could finally ask the question that’d been burning inside. ‘Do you even like me anymore?’
Tim kept staring ahead. ‘Do you even like me anymore?’
FORTY-SIX
Piles of cash were strapped in rubber bands and lined up on the faded Persian rug of Aimee’s apartment while the Roomba hummed in the background, diligently zooming around the mess of scattered objects as it cleaned.
‘We can watch a movie?’ Rob kept counting the money as she glanced up at Aimee, who was sitting on the floor and leaning against the couch. ‘Double feature. Paul Blart: Mall Cop – one and two.’ She scribbled down on a notepad to keep tally of the dollars. ‘Or if you like… I can put in a call, finally get Luna to shit in Tim’s bed.’ She looked up and raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that a smile? Did I finally get one? I thought Paul Blart would do it but, of course, it was bed shitting.’ She waited a beat. ‘What about Rozzie’s bed?’
‘No one’s bed,’ Aimee mock scolded. ‘But I’ll take you up on your earlier offer to crimp Rozzie’s fringe next time she comes into the salon.’
‘What salon?’ Rob commented dryly.
‘Right,’ Aimee remembered. There was no more salon.
‘I can’t believe what she said,’ Rob switched the conversation back to Rozzie. ‘The fact she even thought it is bad enough. And then to go on camera, knowing you’ll eventually see the footage… it’s psychotic. The woman is a psychopath. I mean, we always suspected it – but this is proof. All of it – the podcast, the on-camera interview. And for Tim to have even had those conversations with her about you—’
‘For years,’ Aimee interrupted. ‘To have those conversations with her for years. Acting like I trapped him. Like I’m a mental patient who needs a twenty-four-hour supervisor – and he was just lumped with the job. Oh, how kind of you to sacrifice everything and save me from myself. It’s such an excuse. He was just too scared to end it. We were both too scared to end it. Things weren’t great between us – but what if we split up and our lives just got worse? That was the real thing that stopped either of us from ending it. By staying together, we could just blame the other for why life sucked. But if we split up and life still sucked? Well… no one else to blame.’
Rob paused. ‘Your life doesn’t suck.’
‘I know my life doesn’t suck.’
‘Tim’s life will probably suck.’
Aimee fought a smile. ‘OK.’ She inhaled. ‘No more Tim talk.’ She was sick of talking about Tim and thinking about Tim. She needed to think of herself and what the hell she was going to do with her life. Looking down at the piles of cash on the floor, she wondered when she’d stopped feeling physically ill about the fact she’d done something illegal. The shock of everything – losing the store, the TV show dramas, Freya and now the break-up – had numbed her. Compared to all the other incidents that had happened over summer, her little illegal act didn’t even seem like that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. To Aimee, it felt like the only thing she’d actually had a choice in doing. Should she have felt more? Probably. But she’d started to treat all uncomfortable events in her life the same way she treated swimming in the ocean. Take it one stroke at a time, breathing in between. Eventually she’d be back at shore.
‘Just one more question.’ Rob bit her bottom lip and hesitated a moment. ‘When’s he picking up his stuff?’
Aimee took in a breath and looked around the apartment she’d shared with her fiancé for close to two decades. ‘In a few days. It’s not much.’ She realised how small Tim’s presence was in their home, even when he lived there. The weird antiques and collectables and cassettes piled high. All Aimee – just stuff he tolerated. ‘He’ll come by, put his remaining pairs of boardies and T-shirts in a reusable Coles bag and then leave,’ she said. ‘The rest of his stuff’s already at Rozzie’s.’
‘And just one more question, but I swear it’s not about him.’
Aimee looked up.
‘Where are we gonna go?’ Rob flicked her eyes around the half-packed boxes crowding the living room.
‘Maybe we’ll all have to crash on Charlie’s drummer’s couch.’ It was a joke but also a likely reality.
The sound of the humming Roomba and Rob flicking through the fifty-dollar bills filled the silence.
‘You know the guy I’ve been hooking up with? I think it might be… something,’ Aimee said. Twenty-four hours before, this could’ve meant two people. Now, one. The beggy texts and phone calls from Heath had gone ignored. Aimee didn’t want to hear what he had to say. She felt like a fool. Like the TV show, Heath had been a mistake. Realising that made her see Jules a lot more clearly. And by telling Rob about him, all the secret moments she’d enjoyed with him suddenly became something real and she finally let herself consider what their time together could be if she just let him in. The final alarm had sounded on the time-out, and whatever she had with Jules could be whatever she wanted it to be.
Rob dropped a wad of fifties in her lap. ‘The guy who sent the almost-peen pic?’
Aimee gave her friend an unimpressed look.
‘You were gonna let me sit through Paul Blart: Mall Cop one and two when we could’ve been talking about almost-peen pic guy?’
‘Jules.’ Aimee pushed a stack of cash to the side so she could stretch out her legs. ‘It’s… nice. Easy. All the good things that come with hanging out with someone who you haven’t been with for decades.’
