The size of the yachts

She looked out over that water now, so glossy and harmless and lovely and she remembered the Westerly that came up after that morning of rowing. A westerly wind, they had said, would only blow them home. But, they hadn't thought about the waves it might generate, or the way the water could hide them in its valleys so that the bigger boats wouldn't see them. They hadn't planned that. And Sam, waving down a fisherman who towed them to Deepwater cove leaving them there with a 'Will you be alright to get on now?' where the wind was all up on the shore. Elise couldn't remember being afraid. Was that just because she had a foolish faith that Sam would never let her down? Or had she not let herself think through what she would do if they capsized under the big fast yachts that whirred in the wind and made their own waves as they passed.

Broken moment

But, then it was interrupted. Sasha's phone rang, it was her father. She glanced at Elise and got to her feet, taking her wine she walked quickly back along the pier and went up steps towards the cottage. Elise looked at her own small hands with their oval nails and then at the water and the boats. The corellas and lorikeets started to settle. The light got yellower and yellower. Elise waited there, but Sasha didn't come back.

Changel

Of course Sasha wasn't magic, but she did change everything. They walked and walked through the rain that afternoon, around the back-streets of Newtown across the Uni campus into Glebe and around the foreshore then back up Glebe Point Rd. Sasha left her car where she'd pulled it up when she'd seen Elise - somewhere near Newington Rd. She put up her large green umbrella and they continued arm in arm, heads together, at talking pace. And it was one of those conversations that covered everything and nothing. From high school boys to Sasha's father, from what happened when Elise met Eddy to how the rain was also talking to them from the umbrella. When she had dropped Sasha back at her car, Elise sat for a moment and tried to recall exactly what they had said. To her, it seemed what had been woven thought their talk was their disappointment in others. One after the other friends, lovers, bands and poets had let them down. Family proved little comfort, possibilities bubbled up in the air. They wanted to write and sing, give the world the gift of themselves. How was it then, that the world was so hard and so heavy and ungrateful? How did you win against such weight? You had to do it for yourself, because you loved it and then move from there. You had to ignore societal expectations and live for your art. You had to get the hell out of here.