Melt - Lisa Walker

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of person Cougar is. I’ve been in meetings with her and bought her juices and organic tofu rolls, but I don’t know her. On television she comes across as a friendly, girl-next-door type. If you happen to live next door to a multi-talented adrenaline junkie. But who is she really?

      Sitting up in bed, I pull my laptop towards me and type Cougar Gale into Google. Her standard publicity photo comes up. She is paddling her kayak over an apparently bottomless waterfall. Our toilet wall life is not a dress rehearsal poster had a photo of someone doing exactly that.

      Cougar is wearing her usual quick-dry singlet and leaning backwards in the kayak. Her thick, black hair is flying out behind her. She looks ecstatic. Does she look like that when she has sex with Adrian? Perhaps not. Sex with Adrian is more like finding a great parking spot than plunging over a waterfall – satisfying, but not exactly transcendent.

      I read the blurb beneath the photo. Cougar Gale has solo kayaked from Australia to New Zealand. She has climbed the six highest mountains in the world. She has a PhD in glaciology from Cambridge.

      ‘And she looks amazing in quick dry shorts and singlets,’ I add.

      If I had a publicity blurb, what would it would say?

       Summer Wright doesn’t like exercise much, particularly if it involves contact with nature. She has a Bachelor of Arts from a university no-one has ever heard of and is a self-taught project manager who aspires to be a soap opera scriptwriter.

      ‘And I look comfortable in track pants and T-shirt,’ I say to my imaginary biographer.

      Cougar: flowing hair, rippling muscles.

      Me: functional brown bed shirt. Functional body. Functional hair. In one year I’ve refashioned myself from spunky hippie chick to nerdy project manager – I thought it was what Adrian wanted.

      Cougar. Adrian. Adrian. Cougar. Even with the addition of the hair wax, leather jacket and rock-climbing, Adrian doesn’t seem like Cougar’s type. Unless she is attracted by the Cone of Certainty?

      I turn on the radio and lie down again. Sometimes when I’m restless, background noise helps me sleep. ‘The state is a tinderbox … worst year for bushfires on record …’ I lean over and turn it off, but it’s too late. Marley’s voice is in my head. I turn on the light again and pick up my laptop.

      To: Marley Lennon Wright

      From: Summer Dawn Rain Wright

      Subject: Remember?

      ‘Our garden has a greater diversity of snakes than most national parks, Summer Dawn,’ you used to say.

      Like that was a good thing. Remember that snake book you showed me? There were night tigers, small-lipped snakes, green tree-snakes, brown tree-snakes and carpet pythons. These ones I didn’t mind much. Not dangerous.

      I wasn’t so happy the day I found a brown snake on the verandah, or had to leap over a rough-scaled snake that emerged from under the fridge, or almost sat on a death adder which had curled up for a snooze on the couch.

      ‘We’re having a bumper snake season,’ you said, like a farmer expecting a good crop.

      They had come for the bats apparently.

      Our house was like a tree. In the top level, the roof, lived the bats. They were tiny, smaller than my hand, and chocolate brown. During the day they squeaked and scuffled in the roof. It was hard to imagine they slept soundly with all the snakes slithering around. At dusk they took off in a cloud. Often one or two got lost and ended up inside the house.

      You’d pick them up off the curtains or corners where they landed and escort them gently outside. They bit and clawed you, but their mouths were too small to do damage.

      Not many of my high-school friends visited me at home. Their parents didn’t like them going to the commune. The valiant souls who made it out were scared off by the wildlife. The snakes and bats were bad enough, but it was the ticks and leeches that sent them running.

      The funny part is you and I roamed for hours without a problem. Bring in an outsider, however, and they couldn’t step outdoors for more than fifteen minutes without being mobbed by blood-sucking predators.

      ‘They sense weakness,’ you said, as we waved goodbye to my friend Madeleine, who’d arrived unblemished but departed with blood trickling down her ankles from leech bites and at least five separate lumps where we’d removed ticks.

      I felt the truth in that. You and I were strong. But I didn’t want to be different from my friends, Marley.

      Marley’s An Antarctic Mystery is over on the bookshelf. Throughout all those years of travelling I never opened it. Looking at its creased spine, I picture him reading out loud, a mug of tea in his hand:

      Not a single iceberg is to be seen on this fantastic sea. Innumerable flocks of birds skim its surface, among them is a pelican which is shot. On a floating piece of ice is a bear of the Arctic species and of gigantic size.

      I smile, remembering Marley’s face. It used to be like looking in a mirror when we were kids – before the hormones kicked in. But my life is the opposite of Marley’s. I’m heading for the top of the Cone of Certainty – the pointy end where there are no surprises.

      There are no trippy ‘go with the flow’ friends at the point of the Cone. You don’t wake up to find your drug-dealing boyfriend has taken off with your life savings and was last seen strumming his guitar on a yacht bound for Hawaii. Or that he’s crashed your un­­insured car after an all-night party. No, it’s stable up there at the point. You start each day with a sense of purpose and the satisfaction of knowing what lies ahead. You have life insurance and car insurance. You are the master of your destiny.

      Adrian nudged me off the top of the Cone last night but he’s not going to derail me. With or without him, my life is running according to a plan.

      I think of what he said – You’re not achievement-focused, Summer. He had a point. While my task management has improved, I’m a long way off perfection. The unmade muesli, the daydreaming … I didn’t think he’d noticed. But it seems he had. Not to mention my lack of interest in running, Bikram yoga, art-house movies and wine-tasting. Who can blame him for deciding Cougar is a worthier acolyte to induct into the ways of Gantt?

      I blink away tears at the thought of Adrian telling Cougar about the Cone. This seems like the worst betrayal – the Cone is our special thing.

      I take a deep breath. I will try harder. Surely if I improve, Adrian will return. Cougar is a test. I’d been pretty half-arsed about it all. No wonder he was disappointed.

      My eyes wander back to the bookshelf. Adrian has left some books here for me – ‘Essential reading,’ he said, but I’m yet to open them. Was he waiting for me to discuss them with him? I walk over and inspect them. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Elegant Accounting, Manage for Success, Extreme Project Management … This one sounds like it might be what I need.

      Picking it up, I flick through the pages. It’s enlightening. I thought I had a handle on this project management thing, but there’s a lot I wasn’t aware of – the history, for one thing. Apparently the 1950s were the beginning of the modern project management era (MPM). Before that (BMPM – the Dark Age!), projects were managed on an ad hoc basis. I’m not sure what this means, but it sounds loose, very non-Cone of Certainty. Imagine – all those centuries of ad hoc project management before Gantt came along … People bumbling around doing whatever they pleased.

      I turn the page. Where would project management be without such tools as Gantt’s famous Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)? Not to mention the Gantt chart – a revolutionary tool of project management, developed in 1910 and used during the First World War to control shipping movements.

      How did the pyramids ever get built without these tools? I bet there was a lot of waiting around for blocks to be delivered and extra slaves sourced. What about the Great Wall of China, Stonehenge, the Easter Island statues

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