I make my way to The Man’s house this evening, moving easily through the peak-hour traffic on my electric bicycle. I am assisting packing down his house by way of preparing him a meal. It is the end of October, almost. The Man will go away on Tuesday to visit the place we will next year spend ten months of empty luxurious time, maybe twelve if we play our cards right. He has asked me several times what leasing a home out fully furnished denotes exactly. I’m not sure why he is consulting me on this as I am not the owner of any kind of real estate. We agree the artworks, lamps, old pots and pans, cutlery and large essential furniture should stay, but not the ornaments nor the items in the kitchen he holds dear. And certainly not the books, I say looking at them stretched beautifully along the wall. He will consult a third party about the linen. It is tricky as the new residents, albeit temporary, will certainly have their own ideas of how to make a home. Though at the same time, they are temporary residents in Australia and may not have the means. I remain in the kitchen while he packs the books into large plastic boxes, he takes extra care like someone handling glassware. We have a common propensity to spend large portions of our incomes on books and dining out. These are indulgent desires, which we both find easy to rationalise. He opens and reads some of each book, sometimes projecting a passage aloud. In this way, the process is long, and dinner is late. He tells me he is making a separate pile of books I might enjoy. The first book he adds to this pile is one by Yanis Varoufakis titled, Talking to my daughter about the Economy. I roll my eyes and feel myself withdraw. I recall exhibiting a similar reaction when he bunny-eared a passage in The Barefoot Investor for me to read. It is moments like these that stretch the rings of the ladder that is our age gap too wide for my liking. My ego, it seems, does not enjoy being reminded of my naivety regarding the economy, about all things concerning money. Soon we will move into Anne’s granny flat. We will be two people and a bag of clothes, trying to save some money.
Damien, the driver of the car service, takes a slip road before the Westgate and brings the car to a halt. I look up at him, confused. It’s just over there, he says, pointing to a large complex across ten lanes of bisecting traffic. It is a cool November Saturday, grey and overcast, two hours before my third shift at The Restaurant Above the Beach. I get lost in the underground maze that is the Direct Factory Outlet searching for the comfiest and cheapest pair of leather shoes I can find. There are more people here than I anticipated, they move languidly yet with great force down the aisles. At one point I stand aside in the flanks to watch. They do not seem to be here in the same way I am, which is to say out of obligation. Instead, they appear to be here as a means of distracting or reinventing themselves by way of consumption. Standing in the flanks, one level below ground, I flag this moment, wondering if it might be the lowest in my year. I take a chance on a pair of faux-leather Adidas and B-line to ground level, to the living. After two hours, nobody at The Restaurant Above the Beach has said anything about my shoes not being appropriate and I relax a little from the knowledge I will not have to return to the Direct Factory Outlet anytime soon. Over a staff meal, I quietly confide in a colleague about my dissatisfaction with the mandatory shoe code. I am confused as to why The Restaurant Above the Beach does not provide funds for these shoes. He shrugs. You won’t mind when you’re on full-tips, he says.
Before Tafe, at the kitchen bench of our improvised home, The Man puts down his spoon. This is something I rarely observe mid-meal and is especially rare when it comes to Weetbix. I’ve been thinking a lot, he says. I can see that, I reply. I’m conflicted as to whether I should jump back in the rat race, he says. His lips are firmly closed and he appears to be staring up above me at something only he can see. There is a temptation, he explains, to jump back in and make all the money I can. Maybe then, he goes on, I can arrive at comfortable space and empty time briskly. I recognise any advice I provide will be taken lightly, maybe not at all, as I have not been privy to the race intimately. I’ve only observed it from afar. Though even from afar, I can feel its claustrophobia by way of sheer osmosis as I weave my way through peak-hour traffic. Prior to our lives colliding, The Man participated in this race for several years but left because the blues and disillusion, and normativity became too much for him. Though I also feel inclined to resist the temptation, he says, and linger in this mediocre stage of furniture making in the hope I one day become good. I imagine the path he is walking in his head looking a lot like one from a board game I was very fond of when I was younger. The board game was called The Game of Life. It was one full of chance, luck, decisions, and crossroads which, in real life, The Man likes to refer to as one-way doors. These are paths or decisions you cannot go back on once made. Though this would mean adjusting and learning to live a quietly frugal life, he says to the second option. There is a long and conflicted silence between us as the idea of quiet and frugal bounces around the living room. I feel relief when it is succeeded by a mutual burst of laughter.
I am running late to today’s briefing after the maitre d’ yesterday stressed this is unacceptable at The Restaurant Above the Beach. It is customary for my colleagues to scribble in notepads throughout the duration of briefing, though I find I am too distracted by the structure they adopt; there is an explicit division of power that leaves me feeling prickly. These briefings routinely occur fifteen minutes prior to dinner service, therefore the restaurant is immaculately set – all the tables draped in white and dressed with silver. The managers, often three on shift dressed in black, sit in the comfort of the booth of an oblong table like a centerpiece. The sommeliers, two, sometimes three, on shift are invariably all men and sit at the opposing heads of this table. The bar manager for the night, also invariably a man, perches on a high stool to the left of the table, which he sits on the edge of with his legs spread and arms crossed. The chefs, both executive and head, stand in a sort of sham nonchalance at either end of this oblong table. I can feel their egos being enlarged with every additional briefing. The rest of us floor staff sit or stand far away from the white linen tables scoffing food or correcting our uniforms in the mirror hanging behind them all. All quietly pleased with themselves, they talk about the upcoming service as if they are discussing the fate of the country. When certain ‘VIPs’ are booked in, they stress everything must be a Yes. They instruct us to dazzle them, and explicitly remind us of the tipping capacity of the kind of people who frequent The Restaurant Above the Beach. I feel like a member of some kind of army. I imagine the various guests are enemies who we are strategically told to keep very close. The loud synchronised collision of their hands at the end of each briefing sends a chilling jolt through me. With this, I rise and search for a colleague who will allow me to copy down the specials.
There is an unusually long line at the market bakery this morning. The line forms opposite a newsagent. I become transfixed by the various comings and goings of the store, and the demeanor of the regular customers who are back again to try their luck at fortune. In this way, the line moves quickly. I purchase a dark, crusty loaf and the most overdone croissant in the pile as well as a Tattslotto ticket to stick to my fridge. For four days The Man and I manifest and touch wood, all of it. Our year abroad expands into something more in line with the scenes of a television show we recently started watching. It was when my brother expressed jealousy over our ‘White Lotus virginity’, remarking that he’d do anything to watch it again for the first time, that I decided I ought to. I cannot quite grasp the possibility of having this kind of indifference to money. I wonder what, if anything, would change. I recall the theory of the Hedonic Treadmill in second-year psychology, which proposes humans exhibit a baseline level of happiness that we continue to return to throughout our lifetime irrespective of events of extreme adversity or, conversely, prosperity. But it’s not the money I imagine would make me happy, rather, it’s the room in the mind that the money affords. In this, I recall a piece of advice I received from a creative writing tutor. She said nothing is more nourishing to a creative practice than space and time. You must find a way to annex this in your life, she said to me seriously. I go as far as to wait an extra day before checking our ticket, thinking that maybe exercising patience and restraint would mean we would be the recipients of some kind of prize. But no, on Thursday morning we wake to find we were not one of the 28,000 winners. I scrunch up the paper and toss it into the bin. It falls on top of the detritus of our lives – tea bags, strawberry tops, and vacuum cleaner dust. I pull on my starched white collared shirt for a double shift at The Restaurant Above the Beach, tucking a muesli bar in my pocket for later.
The maitre d’ addresses me at briefing today, announcing that I will have my own table over lunch service. My stomach drops while my colleagues tip the crown of their heads, wink, and silently clap congratulations my way. She says it is a couple who are celebrating their anniversary and that assistance is all around me should I feel out of my depth. I preoccupy myself with the menu in the fifteen-minute grace period between briefing and service. It is unfortunate to learn the couple is early, in their thirties, and in the restaurant business themselves. I do my best to feign knowledge and grace as I run back and forth to the chef and allergy chart throughout their meal. At one point, the man sitting at my table pulls me aside. I think he is going to ask me to replace his empty grey goose martini with a full one as he had done this twice already in the short time he’d been sitting there. He is stopping me on my way to locate the floor manager. I need him to demonstrate how to serve a tin of caviar as I didn’t believe the garde chef’s advice that I should spoon it directly onto the skin concave between the guest’s thumb and index finger. Can you organise a round of caviar bumps and champagne for the table over there, he asks pointing to the oblong table in the middle of the dining room. I follow his index finger to a group sitting at a table the Restaurant Above the Beach reserves for our most regular and extravagant diners. They’re old friends, he explains lightly resting his hand on my forearm. I’ll take another one of these too, he says squeezing me gently. Later, after several more martinis, he insists I have a half-glass of their three-hundred-and-eighty-dollar burgundy. I agree and sip this half-glass from the safety of my station, which is concealed by a small patch of black wall. I experience a strange sensation move through me from my belly up to the crown of my head. I enjoy swiveling the purple liquid around the paper-thin glass, which my colleagues are not privy to. For a moment, the reality of my situation falls away. But then the wine glass empties and my colleague tells me the water glasses need attention. I straighten my apron and make my way around the dining room. I contemplate the heat of my saliva from the old alcohol and the smoky vanilla flavour of oak resting under my tongue. I find it is still there when I mount my bicycle to ride home at a quarter to one the following morning.
Sophie returns from the bathroom and hands me my bank card followed by an itemised bill. When I run my eyes over the paper, I see there is an error, that the bar has overcharged us. I tell her to wait a moment and make my way up to the thick slab of timber. The timber serves not just as a place to rest one’s arms and drink, but to distinguish employee from customer. In this way, I understand the timber as a division of power but where this power lies people may disagree on, I think studying three middle-aged men to my left who seem as though they might fall over were it not for the timber’s stability. The three men are probing the attractive, young waitress about the various whiskeys this bar stocks, which are all on clear display behind her. They are covered in various expressions of wealth, pinned to their body like a uniform. I do my best to experience their bravado as cheeky and endearing but find it difficult with all the car keys, collars, and heavy jewellery around them. I return to the bill: Riesling, IPA, Spritz, Gin and Tonic, Lager. I find the experience of these items is already lost on me and contained in a memory which will inevitably fade like a receipt left in your pocket for a long time. The content of the conversation is still fragrant though. We had been discussing the transition expected of our age, that is, the expectation to graduate from the identity of a student into one of a knowledgeable and hireable human that must play The Game of Life, that must possess capital to trade it for what we, for so long, have enjoyed for free. I am also just realising the price of space and time as well as the nature of the place we occupy, the elite class we belong to. There is a mixture of disgust and relief wrapped up in this. We are capable, skilled even, in thinking self-awareness on the matter exempts us. But this doesn’t exempt us, I know this, I think, as I stand among others of my kind to relinquish my $7. Eventually, the young woman swivels her attention to me and says she will need to grab the owner, who is just out the back. A young man appears who has the air of someone who is quite pleased with themself. As he draws closer, I notice he looks a lot like someone my brother was in school with.
On the tram journey into the city tonight, I look up from my book when we get to the section of streets along the light rail that does something to me. The disposition of the cosy, double-fronted, single-story homes, sandwiched between handsome double-story ones, issues a feeling of profound security in me as well as deep yearning. Sometimes, when walking on foot through this neighbourhood, I come face to face with individuals watering gardens, pruning hedges, and bringing in produce. I notice the way the sheer sight of them backdropped by the refined homes assumes a superiority about its occupants. This superiority, I recognise, is false but potent all the same. I walk, oscillating between longing and exclusion, longing, and exclusion, with every step. In this way, I look forward to passing this neighbourhood but feel relieved when it is over. At the border of the suburb, a woman slides into the empty seat opposite mine, so that our legs are almost touching. I stop reading to look at her. I notice other people on the tram doing the same thing. There is something about her composition that you cannot help but return your gaze to her in the same way a young child is enamoured by a moving image on a screen. She is exquisite looking, adorned head to toe in jewellery. Her body is covered in it as well as black material of different textures whose unbranded state makes them seem even more exceptional. Her perfume drifts over to me when she rearranges her body on the seat or swivels her head to look out the window. For the remainder of the tram journey into the CBD, I run my eyes over her noticing the way her composition renders me incomplete and juvenile feeling. I try to visualise the quiet, frugal life. Though, as I move past all the restaurants and bars, I cannot contain my desire – it spills out of me as I look up the cocktail menu of the bar I am heading towards.
I wake on a Monday to find a hangover in every part of me. Alone these hangovers are psychologically crippling, though in the company of The Man they are almost fun in the way I take his hand and lean in. It occurs to me this is the first day in a while we have spent consecutive daylight hours together. We are what he likes to call ‘ships in the night’. We joke about the situation, but there are undertones of apprehension, even resentment, wrapped up in this as the disparity of our means of income becomes more explicit with every exhausting shift. After driving across the city for various forms of carbohydrates and saturated fats, we lower the blinds to watch a film. He proposes we watch Crazy Rich Asians as it is light, entertaining, and interesting. I am quickly made to see the characters of this film belong to the same species of people I interact with at The Restaurant Above the Beach. In this way, I am completely absorbed in Crazy Rich Asians and spend the following days reading about its formation by the author, Kevin Kwan. Watching the film, I experience similar feelings to when I am working, which is to say I am simultaneously intrigued and affronted by the individuals who nonchalantly order rounds of caviar tins and four-digit bottles of wine. For as long as I can remember, I’ve experienced an urge to ask the strangers around me on public transport how they spend their days and what place of work it is they are heading towards or returning from. It is as if to ask, how do you get by, stranger? Tell me about your space and your time? This urge is amplified at The Restaurant Above the Beach. From where I stand, I am only able to observe the outcome, the destination. I would like to know what bad deeds were done; what blood was spilled, and how many, exactly, missed out because of the nepotism that has invariably arrived them this success. I am surprised The Man enjoys Crazy Rich Asians and wonder if it is for the same reasons I do. I have not spoken to my preoccupation with this kind of luxury, only of small anecdotes I take from my shifts that reveal moments where they have behaved particularly alien.
On my break between lunch and dinner service, I reject the Sunday roast offering and seek out sushi instead. It’s 35 degrees out. I ride past my local beer hall and spot friends drinking gin and tonics in the sun. They do not have to exert themselves to convince me to stay for a gin and tonic. Just one, I say. I feel conflicted towards my friends at this moment who are aware of the basic facts of my situation: the establishment, the white tablecloths, the long hours. But are unfamiliar with the quality of this situation, the acute pain in my body. So when they ask about The Restaurant Above the Beach, I can only shrug. Daisy’s boyfriend asks me if I’ve heard about Daisy’s new plan. I am going to enter real estate, she says. I look back at her blankly. Daisy has spent the past three years studying to become a midwife and is supposed to begin her graduate year in two weeks’ time. Daisy says has just been made aware of her salary, which is low and not subject to much growth. I stand up, explaining I must leave for dinner briefing. The mixture of fatigue, heat, alcohol, and dread overwhelms me with the feeling I am going to cry. That evening, at 11 pm, I descend the staff staircase with the remains of my dinner, which I have been advised to strategically save for this precise moment when all of you hurts and you are far from going home. I sit at the bottom of the stairs, which are suspended symmetrically opposite the customer staircase, to eat the refrigerator cold roast. The outside world looks melancholy from where I sit because the glass of this staircase is tinted so passers-by cannot see in. I begin typing out an email draft in my phone notes, Resignation with Thanks.
Money is a country all of its own, the wealthy man sitting beside Fay says. It is a Monday and I have returned to the comfort of an old favourite: Rachel Cusk’s Outline Trilogy. I put down the book and contemplate the swell of my legs, which are only now beginning to decompress. It’s been two days since I gave up on the job at The Restaurant Above the Beach. I feel a mixture of shame and relief, of incompetence and liberation, regarding this decision. My wallet is presently full of half-rate tips, tomorrow my last paycheck will arrive. The sum, I know, will be handsome. I consider the board game of my youth and wonder if I have made the correct move in swiveling my body this way. How am I ever supposed to make it in the rat race, I think. When I wake the following morning, I am relieved to learn my exhaustion is warranted, that COVID-19 has taken up residence in my body. Despite this fact, I feel the best I have in weeks. When I spoke with my mother before I sent the email off, I was surprised by the sound of her encouragement coming through the phone, and her advice that life is too short to be stressed over white tablecloths. The Man agreed from where he was standing in the kitchen dragging vegemite over a second crumpet. I also agreed and thought about the notion of the white tablecloth, slightly ashamed of what occurred to me next. It wasn’t so much a problem with the white tablecloth. It was that I was on the wrong side of them, without the option to rest my elbows.
Yellow Days 