Angela and I wound up offering our seats for the concert that night to Sarah and her boyfriend. Angela and I had all-access passes, after all, so we could roam around all we wanted. We just wouldn’t be able to sit right in the best seats in the field for the show, that’s all.
“It might rain tonight,” Sarah said.
“Yeah, that’s what the weather forecast is calling for,” I agreed. “And our seats are in the eighteenth row, smack in the center. If it rains, those seats will be wet.”
“You can get any seats you want- why those? Why not front row?” Sarah asked.
“Best sound,” Angela responded. “Right in the center of the audience is always where the sound quality is the very best. And besides, we don’t really need to be up close and personal with the performers during the show, right? We see them all the time.”
“Yeah,” Sarah agreed with a smile. “I guess you do.”
The rain started about sunset and the evening was cool but not cold, so most fans I saw streaming into the ANZ Arena had on rain gear but nothing too thick and heavy. It rained through the opening act, a power trio of what looked like typical soccer hooligans. I liked their rawness, their non-rock star looks and their attitude, but their music was a bit too ‘garage’ for me to really appreciate. Maybe hearing their recorded music would allow me to get a better feel for their abilities, but live they were just sort of loud and shouty. The only song I remember was their final tune. The rain was falling pretty well by that point and the singer made some crack about the night only being suitable for fish, and then of course their final song was something about a real big fish.
After the first band left the stage the rain eased up and by the time The Downfall took the stage it was nothing more than a very light drizzle- more of a lightly falling mist than a real rain.
Since Angela and I had given up our now soaking wet seats, we just stood by the rail in the terrace level bar and watched the tiny figures on the far-off stage.
The drizzle made the laser light show much more dramatic than usual, and despite what Emmy had complained about the sound was really pretty good, all things considered. I certainly enjoyed the show, and by the looks of it so did the eighty-plus thousand Australians in attendance, so I guess it must have been acceptable after all.
I begged out of the afterparty, which was going to be held at somebody’s house since they had some strange curfew laws in Sydney. I told Emmy and Angela that I wanted to get some sleep for the second day of the tournament in the morning and just walked back across the plaza to our hotel.
I fell asleep after a nice, hot shower. Glancing at my watch when Emmy and Angela rolled in at almost three in the morning I was grateful that I’d taken a pass on the party.
Unsurprisingly, Angela and Emmy asked if I minded if they skipped coming to Manly with me when I got up at five.
“Of course not,” I said, giving them each kisses. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see you later.”
Thankfully the rain had stopped at some point in the night, leaving the morning bright and clear, even if everything was still wet. The damp sand made it much easier to play, and the sure footing helped my game quite a bit. Sarah and I didn’t wind up winning the overall- we lost the final match to the same two girls from Gold Coast that we’d played against on Saturday. They had upped their game, or maybe had been sandbagging the day before, but they managed to edge us out when it counted. Maybe it was the lack of sleep Sarah and I both suffered from, but whatever the case, we lost the final.
I told Sarah that she could keep my half of the second place prize money, which surprised her for a moment.
“Yeah, you’re married to a rock star. Seven hundred fifty isn’t going to make much of a difference to you, is it?”
“No, not much,” I agreed, not bothering to tell her that we lost money on the whole rock star thing.
Back at the hotel I found Emmy napping and Angela working on her computer, so I took my shower and quietly pulled out my own computer to get some emails done while Emmy slept. It was nice in a strange way to just sit at the table with Angela, the two of us doing our different jobs while Emmy slept off the long, exhausting night.
Our last night in Sydney was really low key. We had talked about another dinner cruise, but when it started raining in the late afternoon we canceled those plans and just went out for a mellow dinner at a decent (but not really excellent) Thai place close to the hotel there in the Olympic Park area. Once again, we had a lot of tag-alongs. Pretty much everybody associated with the band came along, and the sixteen of us nearly overwhelmed the restaurant. Thankfully it was a slow Sunday night so there was seating for all of us, but we were scattered all over the dining room at different tables.
Jackson sat with the three of us at our table in the back corner. In some ways it wasn’t the best table in the place, but it was good for us since it kept Emmy away from the rest of the restaurant’s patrons, some of whom asked for selfies anyway.
“That was some shit last night,” Jackson said after the waitress brought our drinks and took our food orders. “Eighty goddamned thousand people, putting up with the rain like that, just to see us play.”
Emmy smiled at the memory. “That is more people than live in some cities,” she said.
“I’m starting to think there might be something to this whole rock star gig,” Jackson said with a smile as he poured a bunch of Sriracha on his spring roll. “Funny stuff, this,” he said, holding up the plastic bottle with a bright green cap. “They love it all over Asia, but it’s made in Los Angeles from chiles grown in Southern California. A Thai friend of mine says the stuff made in Thailand is better, but…” he said with a shrug. “This is the stuff you can find all over the world now.”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Even in Sydney, Australia,” I agreed.
“Used to be that Tabasco was the number one selling hot sauce in Japan, you know that?” he asked. “But I bet this stuff kicks its ass by the end of the decade.”
“They are very different,” Angela said, taking the plastic bottle from Jackson. “Different flavor, different feel, different consistency… I like Tabasco on some things more than Sriracha, but Sriracha is better for other things,” she said, looking at the label.
“They are both good, but I only like them in tiny little amounts,” Emmy said.
“I guess it’s what you’re used to growing up,” Jackson said. “Me, I like really hot dishes.”
“Colombian food is not usually very spicy,” Angela said. “Mexican food was a shock to me when I first had it.”
“For me, too,” Emmy agreed.
“You know, my idea of Mexican food is very, very different from Jackson’s,” I said. “Californian Mexican food and Tex Mex have some overlap, but not much.”
“What’s with carne asada burritos, anyway?” Jackson demanded.
“The true staff of life,” I responded seriously.
The flight to Melbourne was only an hour and a half, but our plane sat on the tarmac for nearly an hour waiting for the gate to open before we could disembark. It wasn’t a great first impression of the city, but the airport itself was O.K. (well, after Singapore’s airport every other airport is a shabby mess, but whatever). The limo bus ride to the hotel took nearly an hour and poor Angela hadn’t used the restroom back at the airport, so she was nearly bursting by the time we got to the grand old Victorian-era hotel we were staying at.
I don’t think Emmy was all that impressed by the grand entry or the ornate lobby, classic stairwell around a light well, or any of that- I guess growing up fabulously wealthy in Europe that’s all old hat. I’m pretty sure Angela noticed none of it in her rush to find a ladies' room the moment we stepped from the bus.
As for me, though, I do have to admit that the place knocked my socks off. The tiles, the polished wood, the ornate plasterwork- this was grand luxury from a hundred and thirty years ago and still looked amazing.
Our suite was on the top floor overlooking the house of parliament across the street. The rooms were nice and bright, the windows larger than I would have expected from a Victorian-era building.
Angela and Emmy had no desire to go out and do anything that night, so we ate dinner in the hotel’s tea room and went to bed early. Well, Angela and Emmy went to bed early. I took advantage of the fact our suite had a separate sitting room with a desk and chair and did some work for a while before joining my two sleepyheads in bed.
While I was dealing with emails and reading proposals I took a few minutes to search for fight gyms in Melbourne and found one less than a mile away, so I determined that I’d get up early and head over there to check it out and maybe get a week’s membership if it seemed O.K. enough. The few days of doing nothing really physical in Sydney left me feeling like a slacker.
Finally clocking out at around eleven, I slid into bed. Emmy turned in her sleep and snuggled up against me, mumbling something unintelligible.
“I love you,” I whispered, kissing the top of her head and breathing in her scent.
I walked the handful of blocks to the gym at six thirty the next morning carrying my duffel over my shoulder. The gym looked promising- it was open on time, which was good, and it was roomy enough inside despite the small frontage it occupied in the old, low brick building.
The chirpy girl at the counter asked if I wanted a complimentary session with one of their trainers to go along with my trial membership but I just waved it off.
“Are you sure? Larry can show you how-” she protested, but I interrupted.
“I’ll be fine, thanks,” I said.
I saw her look at me when I emerged from the locker room, wrapping my hand as I walked towards the heavy bags. I waved and she looked away, embarrassed to have been caught.
As I warmed up on the bag a fit-looking guy wearing a tank top with the gym’s logo across the chest approached. He watched me for a minute or two, then signaled for me to stop so he could talk.
“Kitty said I should come to show you around, but I don’t think it’s really necessary, do you?” he asked, eyeing me up and down.
“No, probably not,” I agreed.
“You look like you know your way around a gym,” he said. “D’you fight?”
“Yes,” I said, not in any hurry to volunteer information.
He seemed as if he wanted to ask me more, but then just shrugged. “If you need anything, let one of us know,” he said as he left to go do something else.
I got in a nice, long workout, pleased that the gym had all the equipment I wanted. Since most of the other gym users were taking the scheduled classes, I never had to wait for anybody to finish their sets. I found it interesting that everyone in the classes, instructors and students, were wearing gis rather than the loose boxing shorts or tighter-fitting wresting gear like me.
After I finished I went back to the front desk to pay for a week’s membership. Kitty was still there, along with an older guy with a shaved head wearing a gi, making me think he was one of the instructors.
“Just a week?” Kitty asked when I told her what I wanted.
“I’ll only be in Melbourne for a week,” I told her. “But my hotel doesn’t have a gym.”
Shrugging in a ‘what can you do?’ sort of way, Kitty handed me the class schedule. When I saw what it was, I handed it back to her.
“I won’t be taking any classes,” I said.
“Kit, she could teach classes,” the older guy said. “You watched her work out. She’s- well, I don’t need to tell you to look at her, since that’s all you been doing since we opened.”
Kitty (whose name was probably Katharine or something like that) looked embarrassed again, but she soldiered on anyhow.
“It has our hours,” she said, pushing the paper back towards me across the desk. Humoring her, I took it. I was about to toss it in a trash can on way back to the hotel when I noticed that she had written her name and her phone number down on the back. “I’m off at 4” she’d added.
Amused, I hung onto the paper, figuring I’d show it to Angela and Emmy for a laugh.
Slightly disappointed to find a note saying they’d gone out to do some shopping, I showered and changed into a T shirt and jeans and settled down to catch up on work. I ordered room service so I could keep going through lunch. I was busy reading though a VC proposal when Emmy and Angela came back, followed by Tiny carrying a load of shopping bags.
“Just around the corner is a great shopping street!” Angela said after giving me a kiss hello.
“We got you a present,” Emmy said, taking the bags from Tiny, who looked relieved to hand them over.
“I hope you like it,” Angela said, thrilled to give me a gift. Emmy found the correct bag and dug around in it, finally coming up with a box about the size of a grapefruit.
“TAG Heuer?” I asked, looking at the box she handed me.
“Open it!” Angela urged, practically bouncing with excitement.
“We knew we needed to buy it for you when we saw it,” Emmy said as I opened the box and pulled out the watch.
“It is a vintage Carrera,” Emmy explained as I fastened the black leather band on my wrist. “1968. It was designed for race car drivers,” she added.
“It is named after the kind of car you just bought,” Angela said, and I didn’t have the heart to correct her and tell her that both the car and the watch were named after a race in Mexico.
“I love it,” I said, and it was true. It looked good on my wrist, with a certain sort of style that only a classic can exude. Sure, my Patek Philippe was much fancier and way more expensive, but the Carrera was cool in a Steve McQueen type of way. It was old enough that it pre-dated the trend towards gigantic watches for men, so it fit well on my wrist, too.
I thanked Emmy and Angela for the great watch and gave them both hugs and kisses. Noticing that Tiny had left and we were alone, I told them both, “You guys are definitely going to get laid tonight.”
Angela turned to Emmy and said, “See? I told you.”
“And I agreed that you were correct,” Emmy said with a laugh.