I told myself these things happen for a reason. Maybe something better was just around the corner. A few niggling doubts cropped up, like who would foot the bill of my online shopping trips, and how the hell was I going to pay my rent, until I remembered my platinum credit card. All I needed to was to plan an escape strategy out of my tenth floor apartment when the MasterCard henchmen came a-knockin’.
I packed my lucky bamboo (thanks, Mum! Lucky my arse!) digital photo frame, cuticle oil, nail files, buffers, fluffy bunny slippers and a few paperclips for good measure, and strode past the other office minions with my head held high. I knew they were probably jealous that I was out of the sinkhole and they were stuck, going down, down, down. Insert evil laugh …
‘So long, suckers!’ I yelled to the crowd. I was sure Jonathan from Accounting had a tear or two welled up for me. I’d always sort of eyed him cautiously. He was cute in a bookish kind of way, but I imagined us going out for a date and him talking about tax and GST. I wink and say, ‘Howz about we talk spreadsheets, hey?’ and he totally doesn’t get it. You know, one of those highly educated stupid people. They’re everywhere. I was stuck talking to a molecular scientist at a party recently. Honestly, I think I was actually stupider after talking to him. Like my IQ had dropped a few notches. With one last lusty look at Jonathan, I was out of that musty hell-hole for good.
Breakfast at Toffany’s
Since it was only just after ten, I decided to treat myself to breakfast at Toffany’s. It was a small cafe owned by a seriously delusional drag queen named, you guessed it, Toffany. I was always a little terrified when Toff served me. A six-foot-five Amazonian with sparkly silver stilettos and a booming masculine voice was a little too much first thing in the morning, but it’s where all the cool people went so, of course, being cool, it’s where I went too.
I pushed the pink feather boas out the way and put my handbag down on a table in the ‘I’m late’ section of the cafe. This signified you wanted an omelette. Get it: I’m late – Omelette. Told you she was delusional. The cafe was sectioned into food. There was also a ‘Serial killer’ section, which was cereal served with vodka jelly shots, hence a real killer first up in the morning. If you sat in the wrong section and ordered something from another section, you were booted out in a very humiliating fashion. Once I accidentally sat in the Jews’ section, so I had to wear a yarmulke and could only drink juice. Needless to say, I was starving for the rest of the day, but I wasn’t about to be banned over it.
I strutted as gracefully as I could to the sequin-encrusted counter. The kaleidoscope of colours looked great from a distance but up close, you could see the sequins had seen better days. A lifetime of spilt coffee, dirty money and table dancing by big, burly drag queens had done them in. No one was brave enough to tell Toff she might want to consider some kind of revamp. I shouldn’t even use the word ‘revamp’. That was actually Toff’s ex-partner’s name. She was formerly known as Moan-a Lisa, but she changed it to Re-Vamp after a month-long holiday in Thailand where she ‘rejuvenated’ herself. It doesn’t take a genius to work out it wasn’t just sunshine and screaming orgasms (her favourite cocktail, before you go getting all prudish on me) that made her return to Oz looking ten years younger.
I gazed up at what should be a menu board, but was actually a photo wall of Toff with various celebrities. Before she settled down with the cafe, she lived quite the party lifestyle. As a man. She used to model for all those high-end underwear campaigns. I always felt a little uneasy looking at the photos of this gorgeous hunk of a man, barely clothed, one hand invitingly pulling at the front of his tight Y-fronts with a come-hither look.
I sort of fell a little in love every time. We’d lost Toff to the other side, so I crossed off another ‘maybe’ from my list. It’s true all the best guys are gay or look better in stilettos than you do. Life can be cruel.
I could smell wheatgrass juice, so I knew Toff was lurking somewhere behind the mirror balls that served as a curtain for the mysterious goings-on from the kitchen.
She stood all six-foot-eight (with her heels on) and glared down at me. ‘What section, Sweet Cheeks?’Her booming man voice startled me, but I was careful to show absolutely no reaction.
‘I’m late, thanks, Toffany.’
‘Which country?’
‘Spain, please.’ Each table in the ‘I’m late’ section was split into countries. You could have a Spanish omelette, Aussie omelette, Japanese (not recommended) or Greek.
She reached under the counter and produced a hat. ‘Here, Sweet Cheeks. Put this on so the staff know where to take your breakfast.’ She handed me the brightly coloured sombrero. Mortified, I trundled back to my table. I’d completely forgotten about the costumes in the ‘I’m late’ section. I should have been a serial killer. Cereal with vodka jelly shots sounded appealing since I didn’t have a thing to do all day. Everyone in Toff’s looked extremely busy and important-like, so I took out my iPhone, put on my ‘I’m terribly self-absorbed face’ and decided to text Kylie and tell her my news.
‘Hey, K, you’ll never guess what happened! Fired by Mr I-still-live-with-my-mother-even-though-I’m-like-a-hundred! Yes. Fired. He happened to dislike the skort I’m wearing and somehow sussed out my Twitter updates. Can you believe it? What are you doing? Meet at Toff’s?’
My omelette arrived in all its Spanish glory. I knew it was coming when the 90s dance music stopped and a flamenco tune came on. They definitely didn’t do things by halves. I ate with relish. After last night’s debacle, I was starved. Kylie had practically forced me to open two more bottles of red wine, so with the extra calories there all I could eat for dinner was a family-size packet of salt and vinegar chips. I shouldn’t beat myself up about it because tomorrow I’ll start the new diet Kylie suggested. According to her it was the next big thing, all the celebs were doing it. It was called the ‘Colour diet’. You picked a colour of food and only ate things in that shade. I was leaning towards red. Red strawberries, red daiquiris, red liquorice, red lollypops, red cordial, red wine. I had a penchant for pancakes, but Kylie said I could add red food colouring to the mix and it still counted as a diet meal, the red food colouring changed the metabolic structure of the pancakes or something. I couldn’t wait to see the kilos fall off. It would be tough-going, but I knew I could do it if I tried hard enough.
My phone beeped with a message from Kylie.
‘What? Oh my God! How are you going to live? You’re at Toff’s? Shouldn’t you be looking for a new job? And no, I can’t meet you. Like I told you last night, I am running my own business! I have appointments all day. I’ll come over tonight and help you look through the employment section if you like?’
Geez, what a killjoy. How boring could one person be? I needed to ramp up the search for a replacement BFF. The old one was becoming excessively responsible. She’d obviously been hanging around my crazy mother for too long. Running her own business! Wasn’t the reason people did that so they could take time off whenever they wanted? I began to lament the fact my so-called entourage had developed some serious character flaws. In the past, times like these were a cause for celebration. And now look, everyone was busy. Faux busy, if you ask me. I needed to move on, and fast. Time to go home and wrap myself in my kimono. It made me dream of another, more gentle world. Submissive, subservient, exactly what I needed in a friend.
‘Kylie, you don’t seem to have grasped the seriousness of the situation. I am in a crisis here and need some moral support. You’ve obviously neglected to remember when you were fired from the pet shop for murdering all those fish! You went to ground immediately and I was there to pull you up again. I took you to Underwater World to help you get over your fear of killing things. I took the week off for you! I’m asking for one lousy