bar!”
“Rogerhhhh! Kylie loves free stuff!”
“So what are you going to do?” she asked again, knowing how much Kylie had wanted to work at MIM.
“Baby when I figure it out, you will be the first to know. Watch this space!” Kylie threw her arms around Anastasia and gave her a hug. “Thank you for playing our song!”
“Anytime. I’ve gotta go. Have a great night!”
‘Rogerhhhhh.” Kylie wiggled and waved goodbye.
By three o’clock, Sophia and Kylie had both had enough. They wandered outside to get a taxi each as they were headed in different directions. As the next taxi pulled up, they said goodbye and Kylie reconfirmed that she would take Sophia to the airport just after midday.
Kylie arrived early to pick Sophia up from her hotel. They chatted all the way to the airport and Kylie helped her inside with her bags. There were other people at the airport who Sophia recognised so Kylie said goodbye and was on her way back to the car park earlier than she thought she would be. The inbound flight had just landed and the passengers were picking up their luggage and making their way to the car park and the taxi rank. It was by sheer luck that Kylie ran into an old work mate. They had worked together at KFC while Kylie was still at school.
“Emily! How are you?” said Kylie.
“Hey Kylie, Wow, I haven’t seen you in years. How are you?” Emily replied.
“I’m great thanks, I’m at the Post Office still and working nights at the Irish Club, life is good.”
“Hey, did you know that BHP Cannington is recruiting at the moment?”
“Yes I saw something yesterday in the paper.” Kylie’s face lit up with excitement.
“I just finished working there because I’m going overseas in a week, why don’t you send your resume through to the Townsville office?”
“Okay, I will. Thanks. I thought they wanted you to send it to the mine site, that’s where I would have sent it?”
“No, trust me, fax it to the Townsville office first thing tomorrow, the number is in the white pages, look I’ve got to go but good luck.”
“Okay, thanks, have a safe trip overseas!”
And that was it.
Kylie got in her car, drove home, and immediately got her resume ready to take to work the next day. After phoning the Townsville office of BHP Cannington at 9.01 am to get the right fax number, she faxed through her resume immediately.
Within three weeks she had a phone call asking her if she was interested in attending a job interview with Cannington. The position was based at the Port. In Townsville. Kylie had thought her resume would be put forward for a site-based fly-in fly-out position from Mount Isa. Nope. Apparently her resume had arrived the same day that applications for the Port Administration role had closed. She hadn’t even been aware that this position was open. The timing of her fax meant that her resume wound up on top of the pile on the Human Resource Manager’s desk. Her resume was treated as a wild card applicant.
Kylie couldn’t believe her luck. She treated the first interview fairly casually and thought the flight to Townsville would enable her to buy three, foot-long Subway sandwiches, one to eat after her interview and two to take back home on the plane. Leaving the Veggie Delights with Cheese with reception on her arrival at her interview, Kylie walked into the boardroom with no expectations of wooing a job away from a Townsville applicant. But just by being herself, she won over both the interviewers with her charisma and charm. She also made them laugh so hard one of them started crying. When she was flown back to Townsville for a second interview, she realised as she taxied out from the Mount Isa airport terminal that she had this job in the bag and she was going to take it, and that her life truly was about to undergo a huge change.
Within six weeks, Kylie was organising her farewell party and saying goodbye to all her lifelong friends. How about that for getting your fifty bucks worth!
Leaving The Isa
“Be Strong, Look Ahead, but don’t forget about what is in your rear view mirror,” Kylie said to herself as she combed her shoulder length dark burgundy hair and then began applying eye shadow above her lovely blue eyes. After covering her light dose of freckles with some foundation and powder, she gave her cheeks a bit of colour and stood back in the mirror to view herself fully. She let out a deep sigh, very aware of the massive change she was facing in her life. Then she patted down her summer dress against her tall and slim frame and rested her hands on her hips as her head leaned over to her right shoulder and she got lost in her thoughts for a moment.
The job Kylie had accepted was not very exciting on paper but she wasn’t someone who saw the glass half empty. Yes, the awful fact was that half her job entailed cleaning the showers, washing and folding the laundry and cleaning the men’s urinal and toilets.
“I can do that, it’s not beneath me. Everybody poos. Everybody! Even cleaners marry mining magnates. This is just my little stepping stone: to better opportunities, to a new life, in a new town and who knows, this little step may lead me to one day finding my husband,” Kylie told herself.
Kylie had looked and looked, every time she went out her front door, every weekend, in every bar and under every bar stool, for the man who would be her husband. Yes, in a mining town like Mount Isa there was a glut and an oversupply of the male of the species on offer but even though the odds were good, the goods were odd. And so was Kylie to be quite honest. She was definitely a little bit different and as such not in very high demand so she fled what she thought was a ‘suitable for her’ man drought and headed 1000 kilometres east, to Townsville. Maybe someone there would appreciate her humour and crazy personality? But whatever her prospects, she had spent long enough looking in the wrong places for this mystery man. She had searched high and low, at times very low, in fact. Leaving no rock unturned, after all, it was a mining region. She had looked out at Lake Moondarra, at the Gregory River, at the Mount Isa Rodeo, the Quamby Rodeo, the Saxby Round Up, the Kynuna Surf Carnival, the McKinlay Races, the Julia Creek Dirt ‘n’ Dust, the Cloncurry Races, the Mount Isa Races, the Boulia Camel Races, and the Pentland Races. Yes, she had tried all the BnS events on offer – Bachelor and Spinster Balls – and always wondered why ‘bachelor’ sounds sexy and appealing whereas ‘spinster’ sounds dried up and on the shelf? Kylie had no luck at the infamous Cloncurry BnS, the Hughenden BnS, the Charters Towers BnS, the Mount Isa BnS, the Camooweal BnS. Nor did she find anyone at various friends’ weddings, or closer to home at the Irish Club, the Barkly Hotel, Boydies, Switches, The Kave, Diamond Lils or The Snake Pit. The Argent was boarded up by the time she hit the legal drinking age so it didn’t make the list. None of her many, many daytime occupations yielded any spoils and she even perved on a couple of her older brothers’ mates. But she found no leads, nothing, nuddah, zip, zero, diddly squat. There was no one she was especially interested in and they sure as shit weren’t interested in the long haul requirement of hanging out and being cool with her for the best part of forever. To say the least, she was bloody exhausted but she was out of options. So, when the opportunity presented itself, Kylie decided it was high time to act like a banana, and split.
The thought of leaving all her life-long girlfriends saddened her immensely. Though at the time, the selection
