Page 14 of The Player in New Zealand
“Claire.” Iris took a deep breath in and then out. “Please, for the love of Pete, spend an extra twenty dollars and get yourself a better hostel.”
I picked a tiny fluff ball of lint off my sheets. “Okay,” I sulked.
“What? Okay? Did my sister just agree to something without an argument? It’s worse than you’re telling me, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not,” I quickly assured her. “I just... I don’t know, I feel like I hate other people right now.”
“Maybe don’t tell your boss that one.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Okay, well, I’m booking you into a new hostel.”
“Oh no,” I deadpanned. “Iris. Stop.”
“Har, har. I’m doing this because I love you.”
“I will pay you back. Add it to my tab.”
Iris mumbled something, half listening to me while she typed away. A minute later my phone buzzed against my face with a new email coming in. “It’s a fifteen-minute walk away. Go pack your things and get your ass in gear.”
“Thank you, Iris,” I said quietly.
“You are welcome. I am so proud of you and how brave you are to just pack up and take off. Yes, there are road bumps, but you’re a badass bitch who can tackle them. You just need the right environment.”
“Speaking of, how’s your environment?”
Iris sighed. “Donald asked me to send a fax again. Afax, Claire.” Donald was her boss, an old-school lawyer who was too stuck in his ways to realize what a gem he had in my sister. “He also had a meeting with one of the families we’re working with pro bono, a couple whose English isn’t great, and because I wasn’t there to translate, there was a miscommunication, and...” She trailed off with another big sigh.
Iris had studied Spanish and she hoped to teach it in high schools. But the move with Chris had meant she needed to be certified in Illinois, and she hadn’t been able to find a teaching job aside from substituting. And it all circled back to the pay again. Chris was adamant that they keep separate finances, so Iris couldn’t afford a substitute’s pay and bailing out her sister and getting a master’s, which was her dream.
“When I pay you back, you should put that into starting classes for your master’s,” I said.
“I don’t know. I’m having a hard time paying for things here. Chicago’s more expensive than I thought it would be.”
I ignored the comment I could make about keeping up with Chris’s lifestyle. “You deserve the job you want, Iris. And you would be a great teacher. Those high school twerps would be lucky to have you teaching them.”
“Aw, thanks, babe.” It broke my heart a little that I could hear the joy in Iris’s voice that even thinking about teaching brought her.
Iris said she needed to go to sleep, so we said goodbye, leaving me free to pack. When I had arrived in New Zealand, I had a backpack and a small duffle bag. But since then I’d had to buy toiletries and a giant fluffy towel and my work uniform, and none of those new things fit into my bags.
I must have spent too long staring at my stuff laid out on the bed. A guy on the bunk across from me offered his opinion.
“Put the heavier stuff in your backpack so it’s easier to carry. And get a plastic laundry bag from reception to bundle up your clothes.”
I saluted my hostel mentor and returned a few minutes later with two bags. With everything packed up, I waddled down to the front desk and checked out. I turned right outside the hostel doors and walked down toward the waterfront.
With my backpack on, the duffle bag slung around my chest, and a trash bag in either hand, I looked like I was homeless. I had to stop at the corners, set my stuff down, and whip out my phone, memorizing the next set of directions, but it worked.
Until one of the bags started to rip and make a slow descent as the weight in my hands succumbed to gravity. And then the other bag tried to slip out of my sweaty hands.
I pulled the ripping one against my body and tried to waddle faster. I took a right turn down a street that was much busier than the others—Lambton Quay, according to my phone. As I was checking the map again, someone bumped into my duffle bag, sending it rocketing off my shoulder. Everything slipped.
Yup. My dirty laundry was now all over the sidewalk. Black thongs and stinky sports bras and pants that smelled like I was an alcoholic.
And here was the thing about Wellington. It waswindy. All the time, it felt like. And some of my clothes, the lighter stuff that could catch some air, started to blow around.
There went one of my thongs, flying underneath a passing car.
