Spinning out

I walk down the stairs by the church, fully immersed in a message I’m sending to my partner.

“Careful you don’t fall!”

A man and a woman are at the top of the stairs, a can of Coke beside her and a packet of cigarettes near him. A couple of clothing items are spread around them. They look nested, like they’re on the living room floor of their home.

The man smiles at me, he’s the one who spoke. I look up briefly, give him half a smile, and quicken my pace.

Once I pass them, I put my phone away and notice my name badge is still on.

“MAISEY” large font, so the elderly I work with can easily read my name.

“And so random homeless people can see it too,” I think to myself, taking it off and sliding it into my pocket.

I press “cappuccino, large, strong” and wait for the machine to pour my drink.

I smile at the girl at the counter and make polite small talk.

As I climb the stairs by the church to head back toward work, I take out my phone again and get lost in my message. I walk past the man and woman again.

The following week, I’m at the servo again. Today, two men are using the coffee machine.

I notice a man by the ice cream fridge, mostly because he’s singing along to the radio.

He’s wearing an Iron Man shirt — I wonder if he got it from the op shop.

His hair is scruffy and unkempt, and he has stubble. He’s not short, but shorter than me (and I’m quite tall). He’s wearing a flannel shirt open over the tee, mismatched baggy shorts; mid-forties, maybe.

I don’t want to stare, and I don’t mind that he’s getting lost in the music while he browses.

I’ve got one earbud in and open Netflix to start watching the season finale of *You*.

“It’s all yours,” says a man with a grey buzz cut, dressed in neat office clothes. He gestures with an open hand toward the coffee machine and smiles.

I smile back, close the show, and make my way over.

“So, you work over there?” the man in the Iron Man shirt asks, nodding toward the aged care facility.

“Yeah,” I say, flashing him a look and a small smile.

“I worked in a hospital once,” he says.

“What did you do?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“I was a wardy. Did some care work too. I was thinking about working in aged care.”

He pauses. I keep waiting for my drink.

“What is it you do over there?” he asks, still standing near the ice creams. I wonder what he came in to buy before I get lost in my own thoughts.

“I’m a registered nurse,” I say “But I work with the funding.” I add, with less enthusiasm than intended. I’ve learned that too much detail about my job makes people’s eyes go distant.

“But I did work as a carer too,” I offer, tying it back to him.

“Yeah, I think I’d like to do that,” he says with a smile.

“It’s challenging,” I say. “I did it for some time, but it’s rewarding.”

“Can’t be as bad as the hospital,” he counters, his lip curling and his brows knitting into a slight frown.

The hospital, the one place I haven’t worked. The place I once aspired to work in. But I couldn’t take another failed interview.

“I did my placement there, in the operating theatre,” I say, unsure why I’m trying to prove myself.

He doesn’t really react.

“Theatre, huh. That would be interesting too,” he muses.

Okay, time to circle back and wrap this up.

“Aged care is really great,” I say. “Just being able to do something small and know it makes someone’s day — like a warm face washer. That meant a lot to me.”

I genuinely did love that part of the job.

“Well, you have a good day,” I say and head toward the register.

The girl who works there every morning smiles at me. We’ve chatted before, but never as much as I just spoke with that man.

As I pay, I awkwardly smile back, wondering how much she overheard.

Her long brown hair is in a ponytail today. Mid to late twenties, I guess. The age I still feel. When I once asked her if she had kids, she looked embarrassed and said no.

So, probably not mid-thirties like me. No fine lines or white hairs yet another clue she’s still in her twenties. I had been thinking a lot lately about how quickly my mid thirties had seemed to approach.

As I walk up the stairs by the church, I see the woman is there alone today and not the man. Was the man I spoke to at the servo the same homeless man? I never looked at them too closely, so I can’t say for sure.

I think back to our conversation and wonder why he wanted to talk to me. Did he think I could help him get a job? Was he testing to see what kind of person I was?

I check behind my shoulder. No one’s following me.

Since returning to the office after maternity leave three years ago (two of which I worked from home), there’s been a noticeable change in the surroundings.

I walk down the ramp toward my car and nearly trip over two men sitting on the ground. It looks like they’re shuffling money, but I make a point not to look too closely.

“Oh, sorry love,” says one of the men. They both leap up to make room for me.

I stand tall, acting unbothered. I avoid eye contact, so I can’t even recall what they looked like.

“No worries, I was in my own little world,” I say confidently as I walk away.

When I get to the car, I make sure to press the lock button.

One morning, I nearly reversed into a man sleeping in a sleeping bag in the car park.

Abandoned trolleys decorate the front of the facility.

That morning, I mention the homeless to the facility manager, and her face softens.

“It’s sad, isn’t it?”

I feel like I’m being overly sensitive, so I match her sympathy.

“Oh, absolutely, he’s likely harmless,” I say quickly.

“I’m the last person to judge,” I think to myself. I think of my brother. I give my head a small shake and move on.

“Maisey, you’re in the meeting room today,” Gayle from admin tells me. She’s moving fast, avoiding eye contact, her mouth pressed into a straight line.

“Also, could you please not leave your stuff in a mess? I had to clean it all up for you.”

My heart starts to race. Yesterday, I left when I started having a panic attack. I ended up parked by the river, calling the crisis line. I had a doctor’s appointment too, where I sobbed through our session and we created a mental health care plan and increased my medication.

I didn’t go back to work because I couldn’t stop crying.

My partner found me on the couch, hands pressed to my eyes.

“I’ve saved these numbers,” I told him. “If I get worse, take me here.” I sent him the addresses of two crisis support places.

“I had to leave in a rush yesterday, I’m really sorry that’s not usually like me,” I say quickly, hoping I don’t sound desperate.

Gayle is the only one who’s warmed to me since I came back to the office. I don’t want her to think less of me.

“It’s okay,” she says, attempting a smile as she sits. I know I’m lingering.

I don’t believe it’s okay. Her tensed shoulders give nothing away. She’s not the type to take crap from anyone.

I set up in the meeting room and close the door.

“At least no one can see what I’m doing,” I think as I pull out my phone and restart *You*.

I silence my guilt by powering up the audit and going between that and Netflix.

“Just one episode,” I tell myself.

***

“Maisey!” Iron Man raises his hand as he gets up from his spot on the church stairs.

Suspicion confirmed. He was the homeless man.

His companion eyes me warily.

“Do ya think you can get me a job!” he giggles hysterically. His words are slurred today.

I try not to flinch.

“Hey,” I smile, continuing to walk but avoiding eye contact. I hope no cars are coming. I hope he doesn’t follow me.

I begin to cross the road. I sense someone behind me. My body tenses. My mind goes back to the man who once followed me at the plaza, wearing a tradie shirt, probably bought from the op shop to seem friendly.

I glance over my shoulder. No one is there.

***

“Sorry, Mase,” croons Gayle.

“Meeting room again?” I ask, trying to act unbothered.

“Yeah,” she gives me a sympathetic smile.

Later, I hover by her door as she talks to the clinical manager.

“Hey, are there any other spaces I could work? I’ve started relying on that second monitor…”

“No,” Gayle says. “Sorry, there isn’t.”

“You could try level one or two,” Lorna suggests.

“It’s just that I’ve become so reliant on the second screen—it makes life so much easier.” I thought I sensed annoyance on Gayle’s face, and I didn’t want to put anyone out.

“Oh yeah, I get that,” she says, indicating her two big-screen setup. She’s in the office I used to have before I went on maternity leave.

Later, I feel like I’ve finally tidied and decluttered my space on Level Two. I made sure to ask the nurse if anyone ever used that area, and she said no.

I looked at the filing cabinet.

“I’ll empty that next,” I thought, “and ask the maintenance man to find a key for me. Like when I used to have my own locked cabinet.”

I settle into the chair and almost cheer out loud at how easy it was to start the second screen.

I look up, and the new clinical nurse is awkwardly standing there.

“Is this your space? I made sure I asked first,” I say, embarrassed.

I’ve noticed he doesn’t come by me or ask for my advice anymore.

“You can sit here,” he says with a smile, clearly uncomfortable as he shuffles his feet.

“No, no, you’re okay,” I say, getting up and trying to play it cool.

I think about the stuff I’ve thrown out or put away and feel a bit panicked.

I pick the phone numbers that were taped to the screen out of the bin, smooth them out, and hand them to him.

“You probably use these,” I mumble, and he takes them from me, observing the space.

“Wow, it smells so fresh,” he remarks.

I had spent a lot of time wiping down the dusty desk with disinfectant wipes.

“Er, yeah. I like a tidy space to work so I can concentrate,” I say, making my voice overly cheery.

Before I walk away, I think to add:

“Hey, you should ask the maintenance man for a key for that filing cabinet.”

I go back downstairs, unplug the monitor from my usual space, which is again being used for new staff orientation and plug it in in the meeting room. I close the door.

I open up Netflix and start watching a new true crime documentary, making sure to fire up my audits as well.

***

I’ve read about noisy nose blowing, but I’ve never been the kind of person to do it in front of anyone. I can’t even recall ever doing it to that extent during my seven years of psychologist appointments.

“And then,” I sobbed after trumpeting into the tissue, “I felt like I couldn’t go home. I didn’t know what to do.”

The lady looked taken aback. I feel suddenly very self-aware.

“What was it the lady on the phone told you this service was about?” she softly asks. She looks concerned, incredibly concerned and for a moment I panic, so I do my best to compose myself.

“A service that you can go to in a crisis to talk to someone face-to-face?” I squeak out.

“Well, yes.” She looks again at the clipboard, where we’ve only managed to write my first name so far.

“But I think I might see if Trace can talk to you.”

She gets up and goes into another room.

A medium-sized woman with closely cropped blonde hair, probably in her mid-fifties, comes into the room. As I follow her into the next room, I hope, I truly hope, she can help me out of this spin.

**A year later**

There’s a light tap at my open office door, and I look up from my desk, away from the two screens I’ve set up.

“Jared!” I say, standing up. I look him in the eye and smile warmly.

He grasps my hand and smiles warmly back at me.

“Maisey! My favourite nurse,” he beams, taking a seat in the chair across from my desk. Settling in, shoulders relaxed, I notice his tremors have eased off.

“Day 31, huh?” I smile as he nods.

“That’s right, sweetheart.” I try not to flinch at the term of endearment.

He’s harmless. I’ve worked with Jared for around six months now, but he’s not shy when it comes to being flirtatious.

I notice he’s wearing his favourite Ironman shirt again, his lucky shirt, he’d told me. His greatest accomplishment before things really started to spin out of control.

“Back to running again?” I ask him. It was one of the goals he set the last time we met.

His smile lights up his whole face, and I can’t help but mirror his expression.

“You know it! So Maisey, how about you help me get a job?” he asks.

I smile and look to my screens.

“Absolutely, Jared. Let’s get to it.”