Page 8 of Love, Just In

Zac holds a hand over his eyes because the sky is so glary. ‘Billy Joel.’

Cody grimaces. ‘That’s old-people music.’

And there it is.

‘Thank you,’ Zac replies brightly like the comment was a compliment. And I guess maybe it could be? My dad always says the best era for music was the ’60s and ’70s. It seems a long time ago, but it might be true. Thankfully, Cody and his posse quickly get bored and wander off.

Zac nods to the music while the closing chorus of ‘Piano Man’ plays out.

‘Loneliness …’ he repeats. ‘Yet, they’re all people together in a bar, aren’t they?’

‘You can be with people and still feel alone,’ I suggest.

He turns to set his mossy-green eyes on me. ‘You’re smart, Josie.’

I just laugh because compliments are weird. But it’s the first time I’ve smiled all day. I wriggle a touch closer to Zac and press play on ‘Just the Way You Are’.

CHAPTER 4

Today

With a steaming mug of coffee in my left hand and my phone in my right, I’m Facebook-stalking the three potential housemates I’ve lined up to meet today. The only criterion to make my shortlist was that they weren’t put off by my staying only six months in Newcastle.

The guy in Cooks Hill is a social media ghost who I can’t find online; the girl in New Lambton’s profile pic is a close-up of a Rottweiler with foamy drool clinging to its jowls; and the girl in Wallsend is a tangerine-tanned brunette who can hold one leg vertically against her ear.Impressive.

The dancer has loose privacy settings, so I scroll down, creeping her page. The headline of a news article she recently shared fills the screen: ‘Young Mother Warns Others About Shock Breast Cancer Diagnosis: “I’d been told I had nothing to worry about”’.

My stomach flies into my throat. I hurriedly scan the article, each sentence burning my eyes.

‘… has stage 4 breast cancer that has spread to her spine and lungs …’

‘… the twenty-nine-year-old had an intuition that something wasn’t right …’

‘… dry coughs coupled with a shortness of breath can be a sign of metastatic breast cancer …’

By the time I reach the young woman’s GoFundMe link at the bottom, my palms are slick, my heart’s a bass drum, and I’m coughing like an eighty-year-old chain smoker.

Zac’s words replay in my mind.That cough doesn’t sound good.

I beat my fist against my chest with a sort of panicked fury, which exacerbates the phlegm attack. When I finally catch my breath, my eyes are glazed with tears.

What if my cough means I have breast cancer that’s spread to my lungs?

I’m not even thirty. I haven’t met my dream man, haven’t had kids, haven’t read the news on TV. I’ve done nothing with my life.

I jump as my phone vibrates with a call from Christina, my Sydney bestie of the post-Zac years. We met nearly two years ago when I joined Channel One News as a junior reporter. Because she was the network’s prime-time newsreader, I’d expected Christina to be intimidating and dismissive of my low-ranking status, but the first words she ever spoke to me were a warm compliment.

‘You’re a great writer, Josie,’ she said after prereading the intro I’d just written for a feature story. The unexpected praise from someone so accomplished totally threw me. I scrambled for something nice to say back, and while there were countless things I could’ve mentioned about Christina’s work, I blurted a compliment about her sixties-style sheath dress because it was honestly gorgeous. She brightened and leaned closer to me from her presenter’s chair.

‘Don’t tell the wardrobe team, but I got it from an op shop,’ she said with a wink. ‘It cost less than a cup of coffee.’

We exchanged snickers, and I confessed that half my clothing came from Vinnies, including the plaid blazer I was wearing. Christina then asked if I’d been to the giant op shop that had recently opened in North Sydney, and I said I hadn’t. She scribbled the address down on the blank side of a script.

Later that day, a funny meme about second-hand clothing hit my inbox, and I debated for ages whether I should forward it to Christina before I eventually clicked ‘send’. She replied right away with three laughing emojis and an even funnier meme about creepy op-shop junk. I cracked up and rose in my seat, finding Christina sharing my smile from across the newsroom. We ended up sending each other different memes almost daily, and a few weeks later, we met up in North Sydney to visit the op shop she mentioned. We’ve been meeting for treasure-hunt browses most Saturday mornings ever since.

I cough out what’s left of my hoarse breath and answer her call. ‘Hey, lovely. Sorry, I forgot to reply to your message yesterday.’

‘Oh yes, a shame about Justin, but hey—it’s a win for the eligible bachelors of Newcastle.’ A smile edges Christina’s velvety, TV-trained voice. ‘How are you finding it there so far?’

---