How to be a Good Veronica. Michael K Freundt
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completely.” He looked at her as if she was incompetent, lacking a skill that he finds easy. He looked away and back to his computer game as if this was the only way to deal with disappointment at this particular time and in this particular situation.
“Well, please don’t say anything to Mrs. Danuta,” he said as an afterthought.
“She should’ve told me.”
“I made her agree not to say anything.”
“I see”. And she suddenly felt as if she was intruding. Perhaps he was right about his oft announced maturity. But he still wasn’t even ten yet. “Well, your room looks very nice,” she said as she backed out and closed the door. She had forgotten why she wanted to speak to him in the first place.
7
Next day was for her. She had no appointments that afternoon, nothing to prevent her from attending the meeting with Mrs. Verlarny, but she checked her schedule anyway, in the hope that she may be wrong and that some appointment had mysteriously appeared. She smiled at herself and her own wishful delusion. She liked looking at her schedule. No, Thursday afternoon was free. She sent a text to Mrs. Verlarny asking for details of where and when and got an immediate response, as if Mrs. Verlarny was hovering over her screen waiting to pounce on Veronica’s and judge her every move. The School Library, 3pm. “Fine,” she curtly texted back, put her phone in her bag along with her iPod and ear-phones, and left for the gym.
The vast expanse of durable duff carpet peppered with metal equipment of every shape and purpose - sweaty bodies, all in their own little world, was not as familiar to Veronica as it was to some of her generation. She found it all a bit of a chore and the only reason she had come was because of some vague notion that that was what a woman of her age should do especially if she was single. Veronica was no cynic, she was also there to keep her body in shape because its shape was good for business. People either listened to music, news, stock market reports, or podcasts about self-improvement via their mp3 devices, while some just listened to the sound of their own thoughts while they put themselves through heart-racing exercises all in the name of health. She knew no-one at the gym, had never met anyone, had never introduced herself to anyone: she was never in the situation of having someone say, “Hi! I’ve seen you at my gym.” Nor had she said such a thing. And she had never wanted to meet anyone; she even travelled over to the other side of town, to Surry Hills; because the gym was better equipped? No, so she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew. It was also closer to her office but she never really ‘worked’ in her office; it was more like a change room. People stuck to their own little worlds at the gym, it was a place of very internal reflection; besides no-one looked their best at the gym.
Anyway today, she had decided, would be different. She plugged herself into her iPod with a Missy Higgins compilation and took to one of fifteen treadmills. There was mild duff-duff music playing but it was soft enough so as not to distract anyone from whatever was playing in their head. Each treadmill also had its own TV screen suspended from the ceiling, no sound, just heads talking. The absurdity of this pierced Veronica’s defences for the first time. There was just so much to distract you from what you are doing to your body. Today Veronica turned off all the stimulation on offer, even Missy Higgins; she let it all wash over her like neon light. Was it because of what Diane and her mother said yesterday? Was it Mrs. Ver-bloody-larny or Rosemary’s inside information? Or was it her worry about Jack or her disillusion with her own life choices? Perhaps it was just to distract herself from these niggling thoughts. But today she ignored the vast array of aural distraction and concentrated on the visual. She just looked.
There was a woman who, like Veronica, was looking and she was the only woman who was wearing makeup; makeup of the trowel variety and under the overabundance of white fluro light she looked harsh, hard but available. This woman was obviously here to be seen. She was sitting on a bench press with the smallest weight possible in each hand moving them up and down distractedly. She was watching a large man on the rowing machine who like all the other men in the room was watching himself in the mirror. None of the women were doing this. Ms. Makeup was actually watching the reflection of Mr. Rowing and when he caught her eye, she smiled; not an obvious smile, but warm and inviting which was, given the tone and texture of her makeup, remarkable. So that’s how it’s done. There was also a man whose musculature looked overdone, as if sketched by an over enthusiastic amateur. He should stop now. His head was completely shaved except for a tuft at the front that flopped over his brow. Was this the remnant of an Elvis fringe, a reminder of a time when he thought he looked his best? He was sitting on a bench facing the mirror raising and lowering each arm loaded with a huge adjustable weight. He was slow and methodically focused on making his upper arm even bigger. Veronica wondered about the limits to exercise and decided she definitely didn’t want to touch those arms; unlike Ms. Makeup who was now talking to Mr. Rowing and feeling his upper arm. Veronica couldn’t see all of her face but she amused herself imagining what she would be saying: Ooo! My! You are strong, or My, they feel so hard. The scenario was obvious and her amusement waned: she looked away. Her attention moved to another woman, middle-aged and red headed who was on a recumbent bike. Wires ran from her ears to her bum bag and a broadsheet was spread out precariously across the control panel in front of her. How much distraction does one person need? This woman obviously lived alone: her thick wavy hair on the back of her head was flat and a little matted: bed hair. Veronica automatically felt the back of her own head and consoled herself fleetingly that she does not live alone, she lived with Jack and he would never let her go out the door with bed-hair. Would he? She closed her eyes for a moment admonishing the self-delusion: yes, she lived alone. She was a single mum, a statistic. The red-head pumped up the speed and her newspaper fluttered to the floor. She was breathing fast staring at the gauges watching numbers flash and flicker; counting grams lost? centimetres reduced? hopes re-built? Veronica made up her mind there and then; by the time she had to leave home to meet Mrs. Verlarny at the school library she would register on three dating websites. She had discounted their use in the past but, just like the people who register on her website, she needed help. This analogy, occurring to her for the first time, seemed obvious and satisfying and she wondered as she collected her things and headed to the showers, why she hadn’t thought of this before. Once she got to the change room she realised that she wasn’t sweating, hadn’t sweated at all; so she simply got dressed and went home.
8
The school library was smaller than she had expected with an alarmingly small collection of books. The reason for this became obvious as she then saw a bank of, at least, twenty computer screens. The open space had a few small windowed meeting rooms in the corner and in one of them she saw Mrs. Verlarny who waved. Veronica didn’t wave back but headed in that direction. Sitting with Mrs. Verlarny was another woman, the mother of Cinnamon Carmody she assumed - but wasn't the meeting with her father? - and therefore weighed her up as she approached the glassed-in room. The woman was brown-skinned, conservatively and elegantly dressed and about thirty years of age, although her conservative clothes looked a little strange against her severe haircut: extremely short and streaked set off by very large loop earrings. The hairstyle suited her, the clothes did not. Mrs. Verlarny seemed to be watching her approach and not paying attention at all to what the woman was saying. The woman obviously noted this too and turned around to see what Mrs. Verlarny was more interested in. Veronica smiled at her: a smile she hoped was one of understanding and camaraderie but given the distance and the angle it was probably lost.
The door was open and Mrs. Verlarny rose as Veronica approached but hesitated out of politeness for Mrs. Verlarny’s guest.
“Veronica, Hello! Come in!” said Mrs. Verlarny as she beckoned her in and held out her hand.
“I can wait,” called Veronica, as she stood outside Mrs. Verlarny’s door.
“No, no, come it. It’s OK. So glad you could make it.”
Veronica entered and took the hand and said, “Hi! Yes, working freelance does have its perks,” insinuating a lie: that she had had to move appointments to accommodate this one.
“This is Mrs. Fonseka,” said Mrs. Verlarny indicating the other woman