I’m moving to Hawaii in ten days so about a week ago I thought it would be a great idea to begin training for a half-marathon. One hundred per cent to improve my standing in the local sporting community. The community here in Perth or Honolulu, it really doesn’t matter because this is actually mostly a bid to look better in a bikini.
I’d just panted back to my car after running seven kilometres around Lake Monger and down to Leederville so I was at my sweaty finest and absolutely expecting to be picked up by a single dad out of his mind and out of his depth after a weekend alone with his two little kids.
We’ll call him ‘Gary’. I didn’t ask his name but the situation seemed generic enough to warrant the moniker. Gary’s kids were running maniacally around a very tight car park. They seemed deeply involved in a pantomime about The King of the Ducks, but I could be wrong – I didn’t understand the context; their art form was highfalutin theatrical magic, their unencompassed maverick stylings were beyond my adult understanding.
Gary’s car was parked next to mine, or vice-versa depending upon your protagonist.
He was trying desperately to hook his bike onto the bike rack on the back of his car, sweaty and embarrassed because he knew I was watching. His kids were into Act Two of the play which apparently commanded the entire car park as a stage. I definitely didn’t want to run over them (paper work, guilt) and therefore be cast the villain of the play (especially for not following up on the paper work) so I waited to leave and stretched until it was sufficiently awkward.
About five minutes in, just when it seemed like I might be a child-snatching psychopath, I offered to help rig his three bikes up to the back of the car.
“Do you know how to do this?”, he asked, fumbling feverishly with wheels and pedals while I lowered the bike into its holder.
“Not really.”
The first bike fitted in place.
“It’s not mine, it’s my wife’s.”
Good, no one hitting on anyone here.
“Well, my ex-wife”
Dammit.
I’m an absolute novice at behavioural interpretation but had he just mistaken my attempt to hasten the removal of his children from the car park as some kind of inter-generational advance?
“Oh, I’m sorry”.
“Dad, that’s a girl’s bike!”
“Thanks, Lachlan.”
“…And a girl’s helmet!”
“Ok, thanks Lachlan. So… Do you run here often?”
He didn’t. He did. Really? Are those lines so worn they’re cool again? Was he being hyper-ironic? Was Gary a casanova hipster? Does it look like I run often? This is big news. If it does, the half-marathon training is over.
Lachlan’s little brother chimed in, “Daddy, did you really split with your girlfriend?”
“Yes. Yes, Harry.” Harry started decorating his dad’s car with impressive and original thespian flair, or, more accurately, hitting it with a rock.
Gary smiled at me. A seedy smile. A don’t-mind-the-car,-aren’t-they-adorable-at-this-age ‘new mum’ gotcha smile.
Suddenly I felt that I wasn’t really playing my role correctly, that I was supposed to be a disaffected divorcee with three wild children of my own who I didn’t really like.
Harry turned back to me and delivered my chance to escape, “Do you work?”.
“No, I don’t have to work now because I’m moving to America in two weeks.”
Gary pulled the strap on the final bike tightly in place.
“OK boys, in the car. You didn’t have to help.”
“I was afraid of running over your kids.”
He didn’t even wave goodbye.
yeahnahutah 