MAKING CHANGES
Jodie has practically thrown herself at Kelly in the carpark at Melbourne airport, but is she merely flirting or is this a genuine invitation from the older woman? Kelly feels very much as if she is punching above her weight until she meets up with an old acquaintance, Caroline who has some sage advice. Even so as the week progresses, Kelly is still unsure about the outcome. How would it work between them, if at all?
*
Time stands still in jail, your routine never changes and all that does change is the arrival of more people. Some are newly sentenced prisoners, others are visitors and the rest belong to community groups running programs in prison. The latter are collectively known as do gooders, jail slang for someone who is trying to help. Caroline fitted into this last group. She'd come into the prison once a week to run a dressmaking course.
I used to go to Caroline's course not for the dressmaking aspect but just for the camaraderie in the room. Caroline brought a sense of humanity inside, a breath of fresh air. She also brought in a selection of magazines that were left behind each week. An inmate would collect them at the end of the lesson and take them to a common room for everyone to read. Some women developed a crush on her as well, although she was in a straight relationship. I admit I too used to fantasize about her from time to time, she had a maternal quality about her but despite her willingness to befriend prisoners, she never gave out her contact details to anyone.
Thus I felt a little privileged to be invited back to her home in Croydon that afternoon. She bought the house from her sister in law, Louise many years ago after breaking up with her partner. She now has a new partner, Brandon who works for
The Age.
I learned a little more about Louise and her other sister in law, Melanie as we sat in her sewing room that day.
"Louise and Melanie are both married to my sisters," she told me, "Louise is with Sigrid and Melanie is with Elke but my sisters in law don't identify as being gay."
"How can that be?" I asked, "surely," I trailed away.
"For Louise and Melanie it was never about coming out or hanging labels on themselves," she flipped the page of one of her books, "it was about whether or not they loved my sisters. In the end it's about love not labels."
"Interesting concept," I looked down at the page. The book is one of several filled with her designs, she'd brought a few into prison a few years ago.
"It's a bit like dressmaking, when the dress doesn't fit, you unpick the stitches and add some more material. Expand your horizons and accept that not everything is going to fit you, but you have to adjust yourself to life. Louise and Melanie are two women with not a gay bone in their body, in long term relationships with gay women. In the end all it took was the willingness to change their outlook and accept things the way they were at the time."
It was a conversation that changed my life in ways that are still resonating today. The concept of fluidity, people are changeable, we change every day on a biological level as old cells die and are replaced by new cells. The primary reason why the human race was able to rise to the top of the food chain was because humans can adjust to changes in the environment. That afternoon I signed up for one of her dressmaking courses, because I too felt the need to change my outlook. When I told my grandmother that night she wasn't at all surprised.
"You're a creative person, it only makes sense."
I checked out Caroline's website that night after feeding Jack and taking him for a walk. She had an impressive array of outfits from the usual dresses and tops down to office wear. I'd just finished subscribing to the newsletter when I heard whining and scratching at the door.
"What's up with you now?" I asked Jack as I opened the door.
He pushed past me and walked into my bungalow and just laid down beside the bed. So much for Jack being an inside dog, his tail thumped against the floor slowly as I sat down to look at him and as if reading my mind, he got up and made his way over to me.
"So, you're a closet inside dog," I nuzzled his ear.
Thus, for the duration of the week, Jack slept in my bungalow and when I messaged a picture of him by my bed to Jodie she replied,
'cute!'
It was the week everything changed for me but at first I thought it was going to be just another week, until Jodie's parents turned up to collect her car. Seeing them brought back memories and it had only been two days since I'd seen them. We talked, Tom helped me fill out the application and told me it would be all right on the night. When they left I felt like something had lifted. For years I'd laboured under this impression that I was not quite normal, it goes back to my teenage years when I was ripping up the town, vandalising cars and getting in trouble with the cops.
I took Jack for a walk that night to post the application and we walked past the fire station, I know the fire chief quite well and when I told him what I'd done he slapped me on the back and said he hoped I was successful.
At the gym class on Tuesday night I met Louise and Sigrid, and through them got to meet the blonde woman Jodie had mentioned the previous week. Heidi is a twenty eight year old woman of German origin and I could see why Jodie fancied her, she's got a beautiful body and the face of an angel. Heidi was good friends with Louise and Sigrid and definitely played up to me afterwards as we chatted outside. She booked herself in for a tattoo as well. She works as a consultant for Chanel and happily provided samples from a bag in the back of her car some time later.
"If you want more samples, give me a call," she handed me a business card.
"You're in Belgrave," I squinted at the number.
"I work at Knox City, I'll drop some samples off at your studio on Thursday night."
I did think about Heidi later that night as I took Jack for another walk. It was truly bizarre that two so-called straight women were openly flirting with me. Jodie's texts were coming two or three times a day, short staccato blurbs on what she was doing and at least one selfie per day. The first one had been in her hotel room where she sat on a bed with her legs outstretched, she was only wearing a white shirt that covered her panties. The second selfie was outside the conference centre and this third one had her wearing a bikini top and a wrap around skirt, she had some kind of fancy cocktail in her hand and the message simply read,
'here's mud in your eye.'
I took a picture of a stubby and sent it with my message,
'remember this?'
Jodie: How could I forget Vic Bitter, what I wouldn't do for one of them, nothing but Tooheys up here and disgusting designer beers.
The last thing to change was my dress sense. I've always preferred jeans and tee shirts or shirts but my Sunday session with Caroline had me considering other options. I had a longer than usual lunch on Thursday and ducked down to Knox City where I picked up a leather skirt with a zip front. I was holding it in my hand when Jodie rang to say she'd be home Friday lunch time but that her dad would pick her up.
"Just bring Jack home on Friday night, dinner's on me, love you."
I sent a picture of the skirt to her and smiled when she sent back her reply.
Jodie: Can't wait to see you wearing that!
I got back to the studio just in time to catch Heidi who wanted to book her session. There were two guys waiting their turn and they couldn't keep their eyes off her. She was wearing a navy blue suit and white shirt, she picked out a flower.
"I want that flower on my legs," she indicated her front, "about here."
She was resting her hands just below her panties but had her back turned to the guys. I managed a smile that was returned in an instant.
"The same flower on both legs?"
"Yeah, and scrolls, Heidi's in one and garden in the other."
"Sure," I restrained a smile, "I can book you in for next week?"
"What time? I've got a day off so I'm flexible."
"Midday on Thursday?" I checked my book, "say half past twelve."
"Perfect," she smiled, "any suggestions?"
