Chapter 11
The next morning, Katrina stood in the marshalling area of the Colville pool, sucking her teeth and tapping her pencil against her clipboard.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Katrina smiled and raised a hand to alert the starter. As chief timekeeper, she had to witness the end of each race, record the times of the main placeholders and keep the carnival moving along. It was a job that required careful attention and an upbeat attitude.
And if her friends did know, who else had they told? Not Craig, or he’d be using it against her. The boys hadn’t found out, she felt sure, and everyone else at Colville was treating her normally. Or were they?
She really had to relax, but the noise wasn’t helping.
Though the doors at the end of the pool were open, that wasn’t enough to dampen the sound of nine hundred excited teenagers echoing off the concrete.
The stands were jammed with kids in their house colours.
The keenest kids had painted their faces and were holding banners and screaming their lungs out.
Katrina thought she could just see the top of Justin’s head, way at the back of the Grenfell stand.
He was probably playing chess with his friends.
Despite her worries, Katrina smiled – Justin was such an old man.
She sighed as the starting beep sounded and the Under-13 boys exploded from the blocks.
They shot down the pool with eruptions of froth where their feet ought to be, like genies with smoke trailing behind them, while Katrina tried to focus on the task at hand.
Today was about these wonderful young athletes, not her.
Then Gabby, Nicola and Pauline sauntered into the pool area clutching takeaway coffees, and Katrina stiffened. Only the parents of serious swimmers bothered with the school carnival, so why had her friends come? Were they here – God – to spy on her?
No. Of course not.
As the Under-13 boys touched the wall at the end of their second lap, and the stands exploded with screams, Katrina ground her teeth.
Ostensibly, she was waiting for the lane timers to call out their results, but she was really watching the progress of Gabby, Nicola and Pauline as they strolled to the stand and settled themselves in the second row. They waved.
Katrina forced herself to wave back. Chill out, she told herself. She had no proof they knew anything. Perhaps they were miffed because Katrina was having coffee dates with Michelle at the QVB instead of spending time with them, or perhaps they just wanted to see their kids race.
‘Did you get that?’ someone asked Katrina, who snapped to.
‘Sorry, did you say Rhys Parkinson with 1.02.56?’ Katrina asked the lane-four mother.
‘No, it was Matej Hanna over here, 1.02.36,’ the freckled woman said from lane three. ‘Rhys was second.’
Katrina grimaced. She was as twitchy as a chihuahua.
‘Of course. Sorry.’ She needed to draw on her inner strength, the way she had last night with Shane Worsley.
Lifting her chin, she signalled to the starter and the Under-13 girls stepped forward for the 100m freestyle, windmilling their arms and adjusting their goggles.
She was just about to check her timesheet when a presence loomed at her elbow.
She turned to see Nick Jasinski’s mournful eyes trained on her face.
‘Nick! You’re not supposed to be in the marshalling area.’ She wagged her pencil at him, then faltered. At a distance, how would that gesture be read?
‘I need to tell you what’s been going on,’ he mumbled.
She swallowed the impulse to scream, Now? Nick was a decent guy who deserved her compassion; it wasn’t his fault that she felt like tearing her hair out. ‘Unfortunately, my hands are a little full at the moment,’ she told him, lifting the clipboard. ‘Can we talk later?’
The beep sounded and the girls shot off their blocks. Katrina turned to watch the action in the pool, hoping Nick would take the hint. Instead, he grabbed her elbow and began to steer her away from the water.
‘It can’t wait,’ he said in a low voice, still clutching Katrina’s arm. ‘You see, Chloe called me a loser and it’s stalled me. I’m a mess, Kat, she’s drained me of energy. I even had to take another sick day yesterday—’
Sensing that an avalanche was about to be unleashed, Katrina interrupted him.
‘That was a cruel thing to say to you, but this isn’t a good time.
Can we discuss it tomorrow night?’ Glancing around for an exit, she spotted her friends in the second row, sipping their coffees and watching her and Nick.
A spike of panic drove through her gut like a bayonet.
What were they thinking? She had no idea.
And they weren’t the only ones observing her.
She and Nick were copping side-eyes from the timekeepers, too.
‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to monitor this finish,’ she told Nick, tugging her elbow away. She returned to the blocks, but the Under-13 girls hit the wall a fraction before she arrived.
‘Jamie Tan in lane four at 1.05.21,’ one timekeeper called.
‘I have Evie Love with 1.05.20,’ said the father on lane five. ‘I might have stopped the watch a fraction early, though.’
‘I’m pretty sure Jamie got it,’ the first timekeeper insisted.
‘Katrina, did you see who touched first?’ asked the freckled woman, and Katrina was forced to admit she hadn’t.
Glares all around. On her way to consult with the starter, Katrina once again bumped into Nick, who was lingering like an unpleasant bathroom smell.
‘Nick, you need to leave the marshalling area. Please?’
He cast her the look of a labrador deprived of a dog biscuit but trudged off towards the spectators’ stand. Relieved, Katrina scanned her clipboard, trying to regain her composure. Then she glanced up and gasped.
Nicola, Gabby and Pauline had shifted to make space on the bench and Nick was sitting beside them, mouth flapping, hands fluttering, while her friends nodded like chickens pecking at grain. Next thing, all four heads turned and four pairs of eyes focused on Katrina.
She wasn’t being paranoid. They were definitely talking about her.
Sick with panic, she turned her back to the stands and was trying to collect herself when she spied Justin in the marshalling area. He was raking through her handbag. I forgot to give him canteen money. She mentally kicked herself. I’m forgetting everything these days.
She hurried over, plucked the bag from his grip and pulled out her wallet. ‘How much do you need, sweetheart?’
Justin’s face was flushed and his eyes were shrouded. He seemed unable to look directly at her. When he mumbled something she couldn’t hear, she handed him a $20 note.
He took it without a word of thanks. Odd.
‘Are you okay, Jus?’
He hesitated, studying his fingernails, his shoelaces, a stack of pool noodles in the corner. Finally, he blurted, ‘Mum, what’s going on with you and Tabitha’s dad?’
Oh, God, Justin had witnessed the whole interaction too. Or had he heard a whiff of gossip about Dreamwives from Tabitha? ‘Nothing,’ she said, aware of the sweat dampening her T-shirt. ‘He was just trying to find out if Tabitha was swimming today.’
‘But Tabitha never swims.’
‘Well, I think Nick wants to reconnect with her. She’s refused to see him since the divorce.’ That wasn’t a lie – and it should resonate with Justin.
‘How do you know that, Mum?’ He stared straight into her eyes, a new, adult sharpness to his face. Frightened, Katrina felt him slipping away.
‘Well – um – these stories get around,’ she stammered.
‘Is Tabitha’s father . . .’ He swallowed and grimaced. ‘Your boyfriend?’
The relief! Justin didn’t know about Dreamwives after all.
‘Sweetheart, there’s nothing like that going on between me and Nick.’ She fought the urge to break into hysterical laughter. Her and Nick! It was ludicrous. And the word ‘boyfriend’ – it was so sweet and childish. Maybe Justin wasn’t all that grown up.
‘Tabitha says you went out with each other once. At school.’
‘Yes, but that was over thirty years ago. Nick is just a friend who’s going through a hard time.’
Justin simply hunched his shoulders and stomped off towards the canteen, as if he didn’t believe her.
Slumping onto the metal bench, Katrina remembered what the meditation guru on her app had said about slow breaths.
They were supposed to lower the heart rate and reduce the cortisol or cortisone or whatever it was that whooshed around inside you.
As she breathed in and out, her corti-whatevers gradually subsided.
Sighing, she stood up and straightened her cap. Back to work.
‘Hey Kat, when are my girls’ races?’ a voice blasted in her ear.
It was Nicola. Katrina swallowed a groan; she could feel the indignant stares of the nearby timekeepers and lane officials, who clearly blamed her for all these unauthorised entries into the marshalling area.
‘There’s a race list on the wall near the spectator stands,’ she said feebly.
But Nicola refused to take the hint. ‘We were just talking to Nick. Looks like you’ve been getting to know each other outside school, right? Positive strokes and all that?’
Speechless, Katrina blinked and blinked again, as if she were sending a distress signal in Morse code. What on earth had Nick said to her friends? And how was she going to get through this terrible day?
‘We saw him get right up in your face,’ Nicola drawled. ‘Very cosy.’
Very what? Katrina wondered if her friends, like Justin, believed that she and Nick were in a romantic relationship. It was preposterous, of course, but easily deniable. Certainly better than Dreamwives becoming public knowledge.
‘Does Michelle know? What does she think?’ Nicola pressed.
Oh, God. If Michelle was being discussed, then everyone must know about Dreamwives.
‘Why would Michelle care about Nick?’ Katrina asked, rubbing the nerve that was twitching near the corner of her eye. She managed to sound breezy, though it took a lot out of her.