Page 114 of Power Moves
‘So tell me again what this Arabella Flint lady said,’ he says, speaking to me over the roof of the car.
I step out and close the passenger side door. ‘She wants to catch up for coffee,’ I say. ‘To discuss “future plans”.’ I use air quotes for the last bit.
‘Her future plans or yours?’ asks Archie, pulling his arm over his chest to stretch his shoulder.
‘I dunno.’ I shrug and lift my heel to my backside in a hamstring stretch. ‘Maybe both. She just reached out, out of the blue.’
Archie starts stretching his other arm. ‘It’s hardly out of the blue. She knows Harcourt lost. She knows you’d be looking for work.’
‘Maybe,’ I reply, quietly hopeful. I switch legs.
Archie smiles. ‘Stop being coy, Hatton. I knew you were destined for greatness. You’re going to be the next big star in the PMO.’
‘You think so?’ I ask, wincing at the audacity of even considering it.
‘If she doesn’t give you a job then I’ll streak across the field after the next State of Origin.’
‘Deal,’ I say, walking around the car to shake his hand. Either way, I’ll win. And so will Australia. The man has the most delicious buns of steel.
We’re standing at the bottom of Lane Cove National Park. Around us are hundreds of kilometres of mountainous cycling tracks, framed with acacias and paperbark eucalypts. Archie is wearing something clingy and navy-coloured with a bright pink stripe around the bicep. He assures me it is very suave.
‘Now don’t be nervous,’ he says, pulling two bike frames off the roof racks. ‘I’ll be with you the whole way.’ He clips a wheel into the frame of the bicycle he’s procured for me from some friend of a friend. (Larry’s niece, I think.)
‘Are we going up there?’ I ask, pointing to a road that coils up to the lookout.
‘That might be a bit steep for your first ride.’
‘I reckon we could try.’
He rolls the borrowed bike over to me and laughs quietly. ‘If you want to go straight up the mountain, let’s go for it.’
In that moment, if such a thing is possible, I like him even more. I want to wrap him in my arms and melt into him, absorb everything about him and fuse the two of us together so we can keep this game going forever.Find a guy who doesn’t doubt you. I should make bumper stickers about it.
Archie finishes attaching his own wheels. ‘How about we go around that,’ he says, gesturing to a wide roundabout about twenty metres away with a fountain in the middle, ‘and then go up the hill? It’ll give you time to get used to the cleats before we hit the incline.’
I inspect the cleats on the bike pedal which are supposed to attach to the weird clippy shoes I’m wearing (also borrowed from the same generous, sporty stranger who lent us the bike).
I nod. ‘Good decision.’
The shoes look and feel similar to the ones I use for spin class, but maybe they’re different.
I throw my leg over the bike and connect my shoe to the cleat on the pedal with a satisfying snap. Okay, turns out they’re exactly the same. This bodes well for me.
Archie raises his eyebrow. ‘You managed that easily.’
‘Mmm,’ I agree, a bubble of laughter threatening to burst from my throat.
It has been one week since the election. Everything has changed and nothing has. Kids are still going to school, teachers are still teaching, the government should still be doing more. I know that they can. Boss is apparently in linefor an executive directorship at a multinational conglomerate, and Alex is helping Dad to build a boat. Aboat! I have never been so proud.
Yesterday was Remi and Tyler’s rehearsal dinner, and Archie and I walked through the doors right on time.
‘Wa-wa-wa-WAIT!’ Remi exploded as soon as she spotted us. ‘Did you two arrivetogethertogether?!’
I looked at Archie, he looked at me, neither of us spoke, and then we both laughed. ‘You choosenowto be speechless?’ I teased him.
He shrugged. ‘I thought you’d prefer to control the narrative.’
I leaned my head against his chest and he wrapped his arm around me. ‘Yes,’ I said to Remi. ‘We arrived together.’ I feared I would blind her with my shining.
