You’ll never guess, I sent back.Sadie sat me down in the hotel bar last night and told me she’s thinking of leaving her husband???
Hilarious.Elias attached a GIF of an eye-roll.
Don’t worry, I followed your instructions. We barely said two words to each other. I’m feeling good.
He sent back a thumbs up.It’s the middle of the night here so I’m going to bed, but send me a message when it’s done and let me know how you went, ok?
Out of nowhere, a lump appeared in my throat.
Thanks so much for all your help, I replied.I really appreciate it.
He didn’t respond.
I dressed formally for the interview, tweed jacket over a shirt and tie, but I realised my mistake the second I stepped outside the air-conditioned hotel. It was much hotter than I’d expected – wasn’t Tasmania supposed to be perpetually freezing? – and the wind was so strong I instinctively grabbed at my glasses to stop them falling off my face.
‘Fisher!’ Sadie was standing beside a cab, skirt of her green dress held tightly in one hand in an effort to avoid a Marilyn Monroe situation. ‘Get in the car!’
I obeyed, sliding in beside her. ‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
Then she put her earbuds in again. Hostilities resumed.
The driver didn’t have the radio on, and without my own headphones, I could faintly hear what Sadie was listening to. She was clenching and unclenching her fist over and over again and mouthing along to ‘My Shot’ fromHamilton.
Oh God.
What if one of us really did get this job? What if one of us moved to Hobart and the other stayed in Sydney, alone in the house we’d shared for so many years? What if one of us got to be an academic and the other got forced out of the profession entirely? What if one of us finallywon?
‘Stop looking at me, Jonah,’ Sadie said suddenly.
‘I’m not – I wasn’t – I was looking out the window.’
Her nostrils flared, just a little. ‘I’m not going to let you psych me out.’
She went back to staring straight ahead, drumming her fingernails against her laptop.
I closed my eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. I should follow her example. No letting her psych me out. Focus on myself.
Focus on Fi.
The cab dropped us off at one of the campus gates, about halfway up a steep hill. It wasn’t a long walk to the lecture theatre where we’d be giving our job talks – and, thankfully, it was down the hill rather than up – but it was enough to get a sense of the campus.
It was wildly different from the universities we’d worked at. ESU and Bass were both classic city campuses, a mixture of new steel-and-chrome buildings and brutalist architecture from the 1960s and 1970s.
The Lyons campus, though, was sprawling, crawling up into dark green bush at the top of the hill and down to the Derwent River sparkling at the bottom, the buildings a mismatched combination of convict-hewn sandstone and 1980s brick. From where we stood, we had a panoramic view across the river to where Hobart’s other university lay in the shadow of the mountain.
‘Is my hair okay?’ Sadie asked me abruptly.
I glanced at her. She’d pinned her hair back tightly, much more severely than she usually would.
I didn’t like it. The last time I’d seen her wear this green dress, it had been at some ESU Faculty of Arts holiday party. She’d had her hair out then, fiery red waves rippling down her back, and it had made me want to find a dark corner to weep in.
‘You’ve got a pin sticking out.’ I gestured to the back of my own head.
‘Here?’
‘No, it’s… Can I?’
