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On The Rocks

May 19th, 2011 by admin
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There was a nervy little gathering at Wazzer’s bar on Wednesday night. Wazzer’s had a tiring day, and she’d rather go home, but her landlady, Willow, is coming by. Wazzer had been ascribing the Friday-level crowds on a Wednesday to the sunshine outside. But it seems there was another reason behind all the white-collar eating and drinking.

“Make it a double, please, while I still have a public-service salary? The new national budget goes through tomorrow, and I’m certain that my head will be on the block,” says Winona.

“We’re all nervous at my Department, too,” says Willow.

“Yeah, but you do, like, actual science. With dirt. They’ll never fire you,” says Wayne. “Either contracting work is going to dry up, with all the “austerity” they’re talking about. Or they’re going to fire everyone and realize the work still needs to be done anyway, so contracting will boom. Bloody wish I knew which one it’ll be.”

Will shrugs. “In theory, my company is trying to sell IT to the government. It’s all too cutting-edge for them and they keep freezing in place. We’re relying more on overseas clients.”

“So drinks are on you, then?” Strained laughter, all around.

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Like A Refugee

May 17th, 2011 by admin
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When Wazzer arrived at work at eight, she noticed a small white sign in the window: HELP WANTED, Experienced Bar/Wait Staff, Inquire Within. Nigel, the owner, had warned her about this, and gloatingly shared his philosophy. “If they’re in before ten, we’ll interview them, even if what we have is last shift. Anyone waltzes in after noon and asks – especially when we’re in the lunch rush – forget it, it’s filled! I want someone who gets up in the morning, not a slacker who want to give his mates free drinks.”

By eleven, one young woman has remained waiting for an hour (another of Nigel’s tests) before he and Wazzer interview her.  Her application and “presentation” are both satisfactory. But references are a sticking point.

Her name is Rosie, and she ruffles her short hair and turns her blue eyes towards her toes in embarrassment. “If they aren’t answering the phone…all my experience is in Christchurch, but both the places I worked are behind the quake cordon.”

“You moved up here after the quake?” Wazzer asks. Rosie nods, while their searching glances rake her. Is she sensible? To be pitied? Or using the quake as a good reason to leave a bad situation – or a bad personality – behind?

“My flat’s still behind the cordon too. And my gran lives up here,” Rosie adds.

Nigel catches Wazzer’s eye and nods. “So you’re a real refugee from Christchurch, eh? Well, the two of us will talk it over a few minutes in the office. Want an L&P while you’re waiting?” says Nigel, expansively. Wazzer keeps her face impassive. Nigel wouldn’t ask Rosie to wait if he was blowing her off. A Christchurch refugee seems to be the latest accessory around town – there’s one being introduced at every party, from what Wazzer sees.  If Nigel wants to bring this girl on, that’s fine with her.  Could even be fun!

 

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Dining Out On It

May 12th, 2011 by admin
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Meanwhile, another mother and daughter scene is taking place, across the two gulfs of Wellington harbor and Wellington’s social strata.

Wilhelmina Wellington glances around the witty, luxurious restaurant approvingly. “Such a clever idea, bringing back high tea.”

“Happy Mother’s Day, Mummy,” says her daughter, Winona. Delicately, they click their champagne flutes.

Wilhelmina surveys the towering cake stand before them and takes a smoked salmon canape. “Don’t mind me if I just nibble; Helena gave us a huge brunch. And Karin sent this lovely necklace. But you help yourself; good nutrition is vital when you’re working on conceiving.”

Winona blushes. “Mummy! It’s not the right time in my cycle…you said Daddy was retiring, and you wanted to talk about the party for him?”

“Yes. Your friend who was in charge of your engagement party – what was her name?”

“Wazzer?”

“Yes, her. If her place can be done up a bit more, tablecloths and such, it would be just the thing. The location! She took such good care of everyone. A bit rough around the edges, with those tattoos and such, but she’s come up in the world,” says Wilhelmina.

Winona, nettled, says, “Really, Mummy, you can’t be that old fashioned nowadays. Wazzer’s got perfect manners and she reads books – that’s what I look for in my friends.” She snaps at her own canape.

“I’m sure she’s very intelligent to be as successful as she is, owning that restaurant.”

Brought up to never talk with her mouth full, several crucial neurons fire before Winona swallows and says, “Oh, definitely! Yes, she’s…definitely in charge.”

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Return To Wainui

May 10th, 2011 by admin
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Heading up the Wainuiomata hill, Wazzer grits her teeth and listens, keenly, to her ’92 Nissan’s engine. The car is dragging a bit, but it manages the great ascent all right, even weighted down with Wazzer, Wazzer’s mother, and Wazzer’s mother’s weighty presents for her grandchildren. “It’s Mum’s Day, Mum, we’re supposed to give you presents,” Wazzer had said.

“You know how Shaz is,” said Wazzer’s mum, “I don’t like to give her money when I can get things for the littlies.” Wazzer’s mum found her calling late in life, domineering the staff at a call centre in Porirua, and distances herself as far as possible from the days when she, too, was eking it out in a council house with two children.

The car dips down into Wainuiomata’s basin, where mist and wood smoke hover over the houses. Wazzer’s mum looks around approvingly. “That McDonald’s looks flash. It’s come up so much since we lived here,” she says.  It’s true: Wainui’s socially engineered houses are now often bought by bright young couples or determined singletons who burn out their carburetors on the Hill commuting to Wellington. Wazzer bites her tongue on what her scientist flatmate said when asked why she hadn’t bought a more affordable place up there: “Oh, there’s smart people buying in Wainuiomata, it’s true. But none of them are geologists…”

They drive, and drive – the valley is strangely large, and the remaining council housing is, as ever, tucked away. Finally, Wazzer’s mum says, “Oh, how sweet – they’re waiting.”

On the doorstep of a modest  house, two children are bouncing up and down in the early twilight.

“Hello, possums, I’m here!” Wazzer’s mum waves, grandly, as she strides through the gate.

The children, a dark, tousled boy and a girl with silky dun hair, dart right past her, running to the car. “Auntie Waz! Auntie Waz! CAN WE SEE? We want to see!”

The little boy adds, “We want to see your tattoo!”

Laughing a bit, Wazzer peels back her jacket sleeve and leans down. “Don’t touch, just had it done yesterday,” she says.

Wazzer’s mum has rejoined them, fuming at being upstaged. “Auntie Waz has the prettiest tattoos out of anyone! Much nicer than Mum’s boyfriend’s!” the girl chirps.

Wazzer and Mum exchange a glance. “Your mum’s got a boyfriend?”

“He’s got a motorcycle!”

Wazzer’s mum sighs a sigh for the ages.

 

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Steaming Up

May 5th, 2011 by admin
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Wazzer is enjoying the novel sensation of lying on her bed on a Thursday night, reading. There is a small scratching at the door. Curious, she opens up. A pretty calico cat is sitting in the hallway. The cat head-bonks Wazzer’s calf.

“Hey, Cilla,” she says, scratching the beast behind the ears. “Where’s your mum?” She sticks her head out into the townhouse hallway. Her landlady’s voice floats up from the breakfast nook downstairs. As expected, Willow is at her most recent station: talking animatedly into her computer. This has been happening quite a lot since she met the steampunk engineer Owen from Omaru.

At first, they were having awfully long conversations about soil science. Then Willow got a web cam.  Tonight, Wazzer thinks, they’ve moved on to some other techy thing. Engineering, maybe. Willow is giggling, “Why, sir! I have no doubt that you have a most Prodigious Engine of Destruction! Adaptable for all the tightest situations!”

Whatever’s up, in the battle for her favorite human’s attention, Cilla has lost, and is bonking Wazzer’s ankle again. Wazzer retreats into her room, letting the cat follow her. She’s going to get white cat fur on her from letting Cilla nestle up next to her as she reads, but, eh, whatever.

They co-exist peaceably until a shrill shriek from downstairs sends Cilla bolting. Wazzer follows her to the door, to see Willow jumping up and down on the stairs.

“Oh, Wazzer! I’ve been invited to a ball!”

Wazzer’s eyebrows rise. “They still do that?”

“Owen’s invited me to the Steampunk Ball in Omaru in July! We’ll spend the weekend together, and maybe – oh, Wazzer – ” her radiant expression collapses into anxiety – “what am I going to wear?”

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Behind The Pub Lunch

May 3rd, 2011 by admin
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Wazzer is coming to terms with her promotion.

The bar/restaurant where she works is a large place on Cuba Street. At night, it was all about moving drinks, stopping fights, and forcing drunkards into taxis. Weekday daytimes is a different game. Bums are lured onto seats with lunches priced between ten to fifteen dollars, low enough to encourage them to have a drink or two into the bargain. With the ravishing, unseasonal weather today, they’re expecting a full house, especially at the outside tables.

Working days is a step up for Wazzer, but the wait staff are ambivalent about it. Instead of drinks and glasses, they have to deal with heavy plates and rushed diners asking if the aioli is gluten-free. As “the manager,” she is fielding many more complaints.

“You’ve got to take them seriously,” Nigel, the owner, warns her. “They’ll go back to their desks and cane us on DineOut.com if the chips are cold or someone forgets to put dressing on the side.” Involuntarily, Nigel leans out the doorway, not to smile at the sun, but to glare at a competitor’s street-side signboard, advertising rival ten-to-fifteen dollar lunches.

Nigel, she has learned, has a Cuba Street mortgage to pay, two stepchildren, and wrists still shadowed with mediocre inking even after laser tattoo removal. The wait staff rarely josh or play, because Nigel is around. She’s beginning to understand why the daytime position was available.

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More Eurodrama

April 27th, 2011 by admin
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Six hours later, Wazzer is lying in bed, listening to the rain. Tomorrow, her last lover from the summer, Otto, is getting on the plane back to Amsterdam. But she’s cheerful nonetheless. It’s still a day off. And Otto is beside her in the bed.

Otto is gazing at the ceiling, compulsively crumpling one of the condom packets in his fingers. “This weather…it is almost like winter now…the bleakness and the rain. It haunts me. Summer in Europe, it is more gentle than here, but it is still summer. That is why I must go, even though it is less free there. Do you ever feel the late autumn slide into your heart, and turn into sadness?”

“Nope,” she says, half-touched and half-amused at his Eurodrama.

Otto turns to her. “You mean you are happy all the time?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Otto smiles in amazement. “So lucky. People pay their doctors to feel like that…”

“Not me, mate. I just get out and do shit, y’know?”

To her surprise, Otto goes beyond agreeing with her. “You want to come to Holland?”

Wazzer blinks.  “I….me?….I”ve always wanted to – I really like you – but here, I’ve got…” She trails off, thinking. “Ya know what? Let’s stay in touch. When I get this tattoo finished, ” she gestures at one arm, “if we’re still into it, I’ll let you know.”

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A Flat Holiday

April 26th, 2011 by admin
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Wazzer had spent her newly free Saturday night out partying with some of her old flatmates. Their past quarrel was washed away on a tide of pinot gris. Sunday morning found her somewhat bleary on the couch of their new abode, a slightly shabby villa on an Island Bay side street, while the household bustled about. “We’re having flat Easter brunch!” said a curly-haired guy she hadn’t met before.

This did not mean that they were having a brunch of super-thin omelets, crepes, and minimal melon slices. They were celebrating Eastertide as the quasi-family household they called “the flat.” It’s a very disorderly quasi-family, in its late 2os and early 30s. Wazzer is having a hard time identifying “the flat mum,” the person who snaps first and draws up the dishwashing roster, but who also buys the other flatmates orange juice and tissues when they’re sick. There’s got to be one -  each place at the table has a chocolate Easter egg, a sign that there’s a flat mum somewhere in the picture.

Soon, the flat mum outs herself by brightly inviting Wazzer to join them. “We’ve got heaps,” she says. The two young blokes in the flat have a show-offy chef streak and are whisking plates heaped with eggs, bacon, sausages, and pancakes to the table. Wazzer is happy to demolish a plateful. “Great tucker! Mind if I grab the last pancake?” she asks the flat mum.

One of the lads grins, “You don’t have to ask her for pancakes! Demand them! With a boot to the head!”

“Pancakes in your face, mate!” brays the other one.

“Pancakes…for your mom!”

For five minutes, this is the funniest thing they have ever heard. Then someone cracks a Cadbury creme egg over his pancake stack, setting off a frenzy of disgusted squeals and cellphone photo-snapping. Wazzer laughs until she coughs, even though these shenanigans aren’t helping her hangover.  She’s bloody glad she’s not the flat mum to this rowdy lot.

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Fancy Meeting You Here

April 18th, 2011 by the_lifer
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“Hello! Hello! I haven’t seen either of you in ages!”

“Oh, hey, mate, how’s it going?”

“I say, this is nice, how are you?”

The three women cluster on the rain-slicked corner of Grey and Featherston street. It’s an odd place to collect on a Saturday night – usually this part of town is between asleep and dead. But explanations spill out easily.

“I’m on my way to the roller derby…some of my friends from work are going,” says Willow. “Er, were you going there, too?”

Winona is sleek in her red trench coat. “No, we’ve just been at the Asean Night Market, I’m just on my way to meet Will with the car before we take some Asian goodies to his nan.”

“Friend of mine’s in the burlesque contest at the hotel,” says Wazzer, with a more satiny shrug than usual.

Winona coos over her formal-ish attire, then says, “Why haven’t you been at the bar? We were there on Friday and they said it wasn’t you there anymore!”

“I got a promotion, mate. I’m on day shift now. Ordering, office groups event management, more of the restaurant side.” Wazzer watches Winona process this, then adds, “It’s a promotion.”

Winona promptly squeals congratulations and asks “Do you get more money?”

“Yeah, a bit. I also get most of my nights free now.”

“So you’re on the same schedule as the rest of us – and you can join in things more – that’s wonderful – oh, there’s Will! Catch you soon!” She dashes off, just as Willow starts toeing the sidewalk and um-ming about getting good roller derby seats. “No, yeah, you go on,” says Wazzer. She joins the skinny-jeans clad crowdlet about to cross the thoroughfare, leaving Wazzer on the sidewalk.

As she turns around to find the entrance of the hotel, she glances at the well-turned-out middle-aged woman heading the same way. Leggy under a dark coat, tired eyes behind her eye makeup, nice heels. Then Wazzer glimpses the triple-threat ear-piercings, and realizes she’s looking at her own reflection in a black glass window. To herself, she mutters, “Fuck! When did I turn into…a grown-up?” Then, she dives for her powder compact.

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