Rose said, standing up. ‘I haven’t known you for long, either,’ she paused, ‘but I know I can do better than you.’
‘You didn’t!’ Nicola said.
‘I did,’ Rose said, giggling as she kicked off the boots she’d worn on the failed date. On the computer monitor Nicola clapped.
‘I never come up with good one-liners,’ Rose said, carrying the laptop over to her bed. ‘I reckon if I’d looked back he would have been crying.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Nicola said, ‘he seemed like a nice guy at the polo.’
‘That’s his natural environment,’ Rose said. ‘He didn’t even know how to order a beer at the pub. Did I tell you he said that fluoro yellow wasn’t my colour?’
‘Wow,’ Nicola said, ‘you’ve really had a bad run of it. First Marco, now … Polo?’
They both laughed.
‘I promise I’ll find someone better for you next time.’
‘Can we put a hold on “next time”?’ Rose said. ‘I really just want to focus on my new job for a while.’
‘And what new job is that?’ Nicola said. ‘Fantasising about Dave?’
‘Hardly,’ Rose said. ‘I’ve only met him once.’
‘I’d believe that excuse more if you’d only mentioned him once,’ Nicola said.
‘Hey! You’re the one who brought him up,’ Rose said, almost believing it.
‘Fair enough,’ Nicola said. ‘No more Dave talk. But a new man would be good for you. Don’t you ever just wish for some strong arms to hold you?’
‘I’ve got my own strong arms,’ Rose said, hugging herself theatrically.
‘Yes, well, I’m sure your strong arm can satisfy you in the short term,’ Nicola said. ‘But I know you, and I know you need some love in your life. Someone who’s there for you, the way you’re there for everyone else.’ Nicola giggled. ‘Someone who can build you up, the way you build … stuff.’
Rose laughed. ‘You have no idea what I do, do you?’
‘Yeah, well, you have no idea what I do!’ Behind Nicola a Japanese man ran past, shouting.
‘Is everything okay?’ Rose said.
‘It’s fine,’ Nicola said, glancing briefly behind her. ‘The love robot tests didn’t go quite as well as we’d hoped.’ Smoke started billowing out behind her. ‘No big deal.’ The shouting man ran back into view, now holding a fire extinguisher.
Off screen someone shouted, ‘Tetsuooooooooooooooo!’
‘I’d better go,’ Nicola said.
‘Good luck,’ Rose said.
‘You too. Sounds like we’ll both need it.’
Getting out of her ute at the docks at lunchtime on Sunday, Rose knew the funk she was in would pass. Probably not today, though. She felt a little foolish that she’d ever hoped something would come of her job at The Dock. So why couldn’t she shake this sense of vague disappointment?
She’d quit Old Steve’s because he was never going to let her take charge of her skills and make things from start to finish. And while the conditions were better on The Dock, Rose was still doing the same kind of piecework. Of course, she understood that this was what working on a renovation show meant. The contestants would always get to do the fun stuff – and get the credit for it. But this job was never going to lead where Rose wanted to go.
It was dawning on Rose how naive she’d been. Without even really admitting it to herself, she’d been thinking of The Dock as a stepping stone to a new kind of career. Something more challenging, more exciting, than a regular cabinetmaking gig. She’d been lured in by the same TV dream that reality shows always sold – the magic of transformation. But now she was realising what DIY really meant: that if she ever wanted to run her own business, she’d have to make it herself.
The boatshed looked suspiciously empty. ‘Where are the tradies?’ Rose asked a passing runner.
He shrugged. ‘It’s elimination day. We only keep one tradie on for emergencies.’ He looked at her quizzically. ‘Guess you’re it. You might see the others later at the barbecue.’
‘Great. Thanks.’ The runner hurried off, leaving Rose looking for someone to report to. Over by the whiteboard, Bernie was going over the day’s shot list with a couple of the camera crew, and Rose hovered on the fringes of the conversation until the producer looked up.
‘Emergency tradie, reporting for duty,’ Rose said.
‘Okay, great,’ Bernie said, already bored. ‘Wait over by your station. We’ll let you know if there’s anything that we need done.’ He turned back to the camera crew, not bothering to wait for Rose’s reply.
Always good to know where you stand in the scheme of things, Rose thought, dragging a chair back with her across the shed’s concrete floor to where a stack of lumber was piled. Was every new job going to be like this forever? Being kept in the dark and doing all the shit jobs until someone new came along and she could dump all the boring work onto them?
She checked her watch; it was barely 1 p.m. She couldn’t really complain about sitting around doing nothing. If she’d stayed at home she’d be doing basically the same thing: sitting in silence, not wanting to wake up her sleeping parents and brother. At least at home she could play on her phone; she didn’t really think anyone here would care, but it was still her first week on the job and she wanted to give the impression she was paying attention. So she waited.
And waited.
And waited.
By three she could hear people gathering outside the shed, and figured it was safe to crack open a door and peer out into the afternoon sun to see what was going on. A smallish crowd had gathered on the other side of the chain-link fence that cut the dock off from the foreshore, clawing at the fence and rattling it like a horde of zombie football hooligans.
‘They’re angry today,’ one of the production staff said, seeing Rose’s expression of horror. ‘If we don’t get them some fresh meat, who knows what they’ll do.’
‘Fresh meat?’ Rose said. Surely he was joking. But no. ‘Fire up the barbecue!’ Bernie shouted.
A pair of grips walked towards the fence, carrying a hotplate; another grip trailed behind, wheeling the gas bottles to heat it up. A fourth grip had an entire fridge on a trolley. It was so stuffed with meat the door didn’t shut properly; plastic-wrapped packs of sausages and hamburgers spilled out as he dragged the fridge along behind the others. A lighting technician followed, paying out coils of extension cord from inside the shed to power the whole setup.
No sooner
