Page 9 of Chasing Blue
“Sorry, I’m just tired. Thanks for having my back, but I’m a big girl. I can handle Matt.” I sit up and shrug. “I’ll just tell him straight that nothing’s changed and there’s no going back.”
She studies me, wearing a look of concern for a long moment.
“You’ve a good heart, Scarlett, just don’t let Matt smooth talk you with his lawyer speak and convince you he’s right and you’re wrong. Anddo notlet him convince you to meet in person. Cut him off with a text, then block his number.”
I pull a smile from somewhere and send it in her direction. “I won’t, I promise.”
“Good girl, but I’m here if you need me. You know that, right?”
“Yes, shut up being nice else I’ll just cry, and we’ve got shit to do.”
“Love you, bitch,” she tells me with a smile.
“Love you too.”
There’s a moment’s silence between us before Zoe slaps her hand against her desk and says,
“Right, the golf club refurb down at Point Leo was finished over the weekend. The painters can have access from Wednesday. The fabric for the Sheridan’s curtains has finally arrived, and you’ve got an on-site visit to a place out at Portsea back beach.”
Zoe’s brows pull down into a frown, and she shrugs when mine do the same.
“What?” I question.
“Why’d you need an interior designer for a surf shack? Perhaps it’s a bit more upmarket than we’re thinking?”
“Maybe, but there’s nothing except a couple of coffee shacks at Portsea back beach.”
“Yeah, there was. Apparently, a couple of them have been refurbed, and there’s a new surf school, bar and restaurant opening, and they’re looking for design ideas for the bar and restaurant fit-out . . . I thought coming from where you do . . .” she trails off and shrugs again.
“Fair enough, I’ll have a drive out there and take a look, see what they need. When did you book it in for?”
Zoe looks at the Fitbit on her wrist and screws her nose up. “In about an hour, sorry. They wanted someone to get started ASAP. The builders have finished sooner than expected, the painters have finished undercoating, and they’re keen to get going on the fit-out.”
With a sigh, I close my laptop that I’ve only just set on my desk and opened.
“Who am I meeting?” I question, not really minding attending the appointment. Driving beside the water chills me out. Being raised in a beach town, after my move to Melbourne five years ago, it’s no coincidence that I agreed to set up business in one.
Aside from the Matt drama, life is good right now. I live in a beautiful part of the world, I get to work with my best friend, and our brand-new business is already thriving, so I’m unsurewhyI’ve had this deep sense of unease these past few days. Despite everything life has thrown at me, I’ve never suffered from anxiety, not when I moved away for Uni, and everything went down the way it did. Not when I moved interstate, not even when I left a secure, well-paid job, took out a massive loan, and set up an interior design company with Zoe six months ago, but anxious is the only word I can think of to describe how I’ve been feeling the last week.
“The bar manager’s called Milly,” Zoe interrupts my thoughts, “that’s who I spoke to on the phone, so I’m assuming you’ll be meeting her.”
“Did she give you any idea of concepts? What they might have in mind?”
I’m still not quite sure why a surf bar would need an interior designer. Foamies, my brother’s surf bar I worked in back in Palmers Bay, was a spit and sawdust kind of place. A couple of timber booths, a surfboard-shaped bar top with a few mismatched bar stools set against it, and random surf paraphernalia haphazardly adorning the walls. Nothing that required the input of an interior designer, so I’m curious as to how I can offer my services to this place.
* * *
Just over an hour later,I pull up to what still looks like a construction site. There’s just a narrow two-way street that separates the building works from the sandy beach and open ocean. With Tones & I’s ‘Dance Monkey’ blaring over the radio, I look out at the crashing waves of Bass Strait hitting the shoreline. Wiggling my arse in my seat, I dance and sing along to the song, the waves stirring memories of the place I once called home. I love the life I’ve built for myself here, but I occasionally yearn for the simplicity of the life I had growing up.
My original plan was to go ‘home’ after graduating Uni and find work locally, but life happened, and that was the last place I wanted to be.
Growing up, my dad had and still is, as far as I know, a high-functioning alcoholic. I never understood why my mum put up with his shit for so long. They separated multiple times through my childhood, eventually divorcing when I was sixteen.
My mum then decided she wanted to start a new life up in Far North Queensland, not giving a single shit about how that might affect me or my schooling. That’s when I moved in with my brother and eventually ended up working at his bar.
With no real ties to Palmers Bay and wanting a complete change, I took a job in Sydney after graduating, but never really felt settled. After working for four different companies in eight years, I decided to make a complete change. I applied for and was offered a position with one of Melbourne’s top interior design firms and moved there almost six years ago. Working on high-end apartment buildings, offices, and hotels, I learned a lot. But the work was soulless, formulaic, generic and killed my creativity. The best thing about that job was meeting Zoe. We eventually rented a house together in Elwood, a town although on the outskirts of the city, had managed to retain a villagie vibe. It was also close to the beaches of Port Philip Bay. Being close to the water, the beach, and the bay was my happy place. It’s where I felt both chilled and buzzed, focused, and so very alive. So, when Zoe suggested we go into business together and set up shop in her hometown down on the Mornington Peninsula, I was all in. The area is filled with not only wealthy locals but holiday homes owned by celebrities and rich Melbournians, all of which have kept our little business busy since we first set up six months ago.
A flash of lightning across the water pulls me back to the here and now, and I cut the engine of my Evoque as the first fat drops of rain hit my windscreen. Grabbing the bag containing my laptop and design pad, I exit my car and make a dash for the gap in the temporary fencing and through to the open door of the building. I come to a stop in a wide corridor with openings to the left and right. I turn left, heading towards where I can hear music playing, and into what is obviously going to be a bar. Timber bi-fold windows run along the entire front of the space. Some are floor-to-ceiling; some start a few meters from floor height. I instantly note they’d look great with a ledge in front of them made from the same timber as the bar top, which runs along three-quarters of the back half of the space. With a couple of stools set at them, they’d be a fantastic spot to sit, drink a beer, and watch the world go by, or simply observe the crashing waves and beauty of the ocean.
