“So sorry,” the salesclerk said. “That’s the largest size we carry.”
“Come on.” I pulled Jill out of the store. “Shopping for bathing suits is rarely a good idea. In a beach town like this with a strip of fashionable shops, it’s a really bad idea.”
“They have no idea, do they?” she said, fanning herself. “She had to be all of what? Nineteen, maybe? I doubt she’s ever weighed more than a hundred pounds in her life. Young and thin and beautiful. They think they rule the world.”
“I know She’s probably a cheerleader, too.”
Jill paused and then gave me a glinty-eyed look. “Oh, that was low, Salerno!”
That’s when I remembered that Jill had been a cheerleader. I wasn’t referring to her; the words had just bumbled out of my mouth.
“Sorry!” I pinched my fingers together and pretended to zip my mouth closed.
“You don’t have to zip it, Kathy. I’m way beyond being offended. Let’s go do something else.” Jill pushed back her hair and flapped the collar of her blouse in an effort to cool off.
“We can still go back and enjoy the beach. Or if you want, we can shop like we did yesterday. That was fun. They have a lot of souvenir shops around here with cute stuff other than clothes.”
Jill fanned her rosy face. “I have to stick with my own rule on this one.”
“What’s that?”
“Shop till you drop or a hot flash makes you stop.”
I laughed at Jill’s hot flash joke as we walked back toward Manly Beach, where more balmy hours of the day awaited us.
Looking over her shoulder, Jill said, “Is that an ice cream shop?”
“Comfort food?”
“You know it.”
I led the way. “American comfort food beats Vegemite any day.”
We bought waffle cones with single scoops and strolled along the extended walkway that lined the immense stretch of beach.
“We could be skinny again if we wanted to be,” Jill said.
“Speak for yourself. I never was skinny.”
“I’m more concerned about staying healthy than getting skinny.”
We agreed and reviewed all the reasons healthy was better than skinny. Then we compared our health problems, scar tissue, and choices of vitamins and agreed that, when it came to stretch marks, we were powerless.
“Mine are all on my thighs,” I said.
“My belly is atrocious,” Jill said. “I can’t believe you almost talked me into putting on a bikini and exposing my stomach to the public. The notion was liberating for a few minutes, but maybe that little princess was right; bikinis shouldn’t be sold in mama-sizes.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the sand, sun, and soft ocean breeze. For dinner we bought fish and chips at a take-away place across from the beach and ate on the cement sea wall with our feet hanging over the edge.
“Before we board the ferry,” I said. “I have to buy one thing, if you don’t mind shopping with me for this souvenir.”
“Sure,” Jill said. “Are you going to buy one of those Manly Beach hats after all?”
“No.” I opened the door for her to a small shop. “I think you and I need matching Manly Beach towels.”
I got mine in yellow. Jill picked blue. We also bought some postcards and floaty pens that showed a Manly ferry rolling back and forth in the harbor every time the pen was tilted.
Then Jill found the best souvenir of the trip. It was a long stick with a trigger handle. On the top of the stick was a plastic shark. Every time the trigger was activated, the shark opened its mouth and snapped its plastic teeth. We bought matching sharks, too.
“So, what do you want to do tomorrow?” Jill asked while we waited in line to board our return ferry. “We don’t have all day since our flight goes out at seven that night. I wish now we had arranged to stay longer. There’s so much more to see here.”
“I know. I’d like to go to the Blue Mountains. Did you see that brochure?”
“Is that where the Three Sisters are? Those three big rock formations?”
“That’s right,” said an older man standing near us. His Australian accent sounded as if he had been gargling with gravel. “The Blue Mountains are two hours from here. You should see some of the outback while you’re here. Cleve’s Bush Walkers put on a fine tour. It’s an all-day tour, though.”
“Thanks,” Jill said. “I don’t think we’ll have enough time on this trip.”
“Well, you remember Cleve’s Bush Walkers then for your next visit. They’ll show you the sights and fix you up with some lizard for lunch.”
“Lizard?” Jill repeated.
“Goanna lizards are ’bout this long. Skewer it right on a stick over an open fire, and you’ve got yourself a meal. Cleve catches ’em and cooks up enough for the entire tour group.”
“And tourists actually eat …” Jill could barely say the word, “… lizard?”
“Aww, no worries. Goanna lizard’s not so bad. The way Cleve sautés it, you’ll say it tastes like chicken.”
I noticed that Jill had moved away from the helpful man.
“What’s wrong, Jill? Are you not fond of lizards?”
She lowered her chin and looked at me hard without answering. That’s when I knew I had her.
“So, would you say that you’re not fond of lizards, or would you say the way you feel about lizards is similar to the way I feel about bats?”
“Kathy, please.” She turned away from the guy in line and lowered her voice. “I beg you. Grace me on this one, will you? I’ll let you slide with the nasty cheerleader comment, but I can’t talk about lizards.” Her voice was so low she only mouthed the last two words.
“No worries.” I grinned. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Our source of outback lore had taken up with some Asian tourists, leaving Jill and me to make a dash for it once the next ferry started to board passengers. We scrambled up to the top deck so we could have prime seats to watch the dramatic approach into Sydney Harbor. The sun was beginning its fading act, slipping behind the landscape of tall buildings as the city lights were coming on. I thought it strange to watch a sunset that wasn’t dipping into the Pacific. Here, the sun rose out of the ocean.
“Look.” Jill pointed to the star-studded sky. “The Southern Cross. Did you recognize it?”
I’d never seen the Southern Cross. I stared at the night sky. Even the stars looked different in the lower half of the hemisphere.
Down under. Backwards. Upside down. Everything is different in this place.
“What a gorgeous night,” Jill said.
We wrapped our new beach towels around our shoulders for warmth and watched the harbor bridge come into view. The bridge’s lights, along with the lights coming from the Opera House on the far left, sparkled dramatically over the calm, teal waters that were fading to black.
“So, what are we going to do tomorrow?” Jill asked.
“Can it involve an animal?”
Jill didn’t look amused. “What kind of animal?”
Imitating the voice of the man in line, I said, “No worries, mate. I’m not talking about seeing a …” I mouthed the word lizard. “How about finding us a real, live kangaroo?”
“Yes, great idea,” Jill said. “We have to pet a koala bear while we’re here, too. I know they have a wildlife park somewhere, and a zoo.”
We settled back in our Manly Beach towels as the ferry approached the dock. This had been a fine day.
To make our fine day complete, upon returning to the hotel, we ordered room service and checked out a video from the hotel collection of Australian films. I was all set for Crocodile Dundee, but keeping Jill’s lizard and possible additional reptile phobias in mind, I agreed to a documentary on Ayers Rock.
However, as soon as we ate, we fell asleep. So much for showing documentaries at a slumber party.
When the phone rang at seven with our morning wake-up call, we both rolled over and moaned that we wanted to s
leep some more.
Jill got up before I did. Her turn in the shower gave me a chance to wake slowly. As I did, I thought of how, for so many years, my morning prayer had been along the lines of, “Please let my day go smoothly.” It struck me that such a prayer always came with the assumption that the day was “my” day, and the schedule was “my” schedule. All I was asking for was God’s nod of approval on my agenda, as if He were my supervisor. Figuring out life was up to me. I never invited His rearranging. Rarely did I enter into the ebb and flow of speaking and listening, which I knew was essential for any relationship, if it was to grow.
Reaching for the devotional I’d brought with me, I read the verse for that day. I was hoping the verse would speak to me the same way the Ephesians verse had started me thinking about extravagant love.
Today the verses were from Lamentations 3. It wasn’t a book of the Bible I’d turned to often, but I recognized the passage. “The unfailing love of the LORD never ends!… Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day.”
Sitting up in bed, I whispered humbly to the Great God of this universe, the God who rules all that is visible and invisible, upside-down and right side up, that I’d rather experience His extravagant love and mercy every day than to receive the check-off mark I’d been asking for all these years. I pictured myself laying aside my day and waiting for Him to offer His day to me as a gift.
When Jill stepped out of the bathroom I smiled. “Do you want to hear a great verse for us for today?” She sat on the edge of her bed towel drying her hair while I read the Lamentations verse to her.
Stopping abruptly, Jill looked at me. “There’s more to that chapter, you know.” She pulled out her journal and flipped to one of the pages in the middle. “These verses were sent to me in a card right after Ray died, and they hit me so hard it was as if I couldn’t swallow them. I wrote them here because I knew that one day I’d be able to read them, and they wouldn’t make me choke.”
She looked down at her journal and then back at me, as if she was looking for encouragement before taking a leap.
“Would you like me to read it?”
“No, I can do this.” Jill’s voice was tight as she read. “ ‘I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The unfailing love of the LORD never ends! By his mercies we have been kept from complete destruction. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each day … For the Lord does not abandon anyone forever. Though he brings grief, he also shows compassion according to the greatness of his unfailing love. For he does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow.… Can anything happen without the Lord’s permission?’ ”
I watched Jill’s expression as she tried to swallow the strong words. She turned to me with a hopeful smile. “It’s taken me two years to believe that God didn’t utterly abandon me. He does show compassion. It’s taken me this long to begin to believe that.”
“I admire you so much, Jill.”
“I don’t know if I’m to be admired. I still have a hard time with the last part of that passage. If nothing happens without the Lord’s permission, then why would such a compassionate God give permission for Ray to die? It doesn’t make sense to me. I keep looking for a reason, but there isn’t any.”
I still didn’t know how Ray had died, so I felt inadequate to offer any suggestions. Over the years I’d heard plenty of answers to that question from friends at church, but here, in this place of upside down, none of those reasons seemed to fit.
“Do you think God is fair?” Jill asked.
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. What came out of my mouth was, “He must not be.”
Jill looked surprised.
“I mean, I’ve never done anything to deserve the love and mercy He gives me each day. If He were fair, I’d be condemned.”
Jill looked down at her hands for a long pause. “I guess it does work both ways, doesn’t it? That is, if there’s a balance in life the same way there is in art, we don’t deserve all the good things He gives us, do we?”
“I know I don’t.”
“And His love is pretty generous, when you think of all the things that could go wrong every day.”
“I happen to have a verse about that.” I turned to the Ephesians passage I liked so much. “Tell me what you think of this. ‘Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.’ ”
“ ‘Not cautious but extravagant,’ ” Jill repeated. “That’s hard to do after you’ve been hurt deeply.”
I nodded even though I knew I’d never experienced the same deep wound that Jill had.
“Would it be okay if I copied that verse?”
“Sure.” I handed her the devotional book and headed for the shower. Turning at the bathroom door, I said, “I still believe what I said to you the day we had tea at my house. You are not invisible. To other people or to God. You are very much alive, Jill.”
Her smile broke the somber cloud she had been sitting under. “Thanks, Kathy.”
While I showered and finished dressing and packing up, Jill went to gather information from the concierge about where we could find a “real, live kangaroo.” The option she chose was a wildlife park outside the city, not far from the Olympic stadium.
Jill and I rented a car, this time directly from the hotel. The vehicle was equipped with a satellite navigational system that saved us from getting lost and driving around in circles.
The automated voice on the directional system said, “Turn right five hundred meters ahead,” and we turned right. It was a wonderful thing.
We pulled into the Olympic Park and drove around looking at the arenas. Jill found a parking place, and we walked to the main square. Seeing the structure where the Olympic torch for the 2000 games had burned so brightly choked me up. The huge Olympic “cauldron,” as they called it, was now a spectacular fountain at the center of a park surrounded by leafy fig trees. What got to me was the awareness that I was standing in a place where history had been made.
Jill was even more affected by the fountain. When I looked at her, tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry I keep crying all the time.”
“That’s okay.”
“It’s just that Ray came here. For the 2000 games. He and I were supposed to come for four days, but I had a sinus infection that went into my ears. I was afraid if I got on a plane my eardrums would burst. So Ray came by himself and had a wonderful time without me.”
She drew in a wobbly breath. “I never knew I’d regret losing four days with him out of the thousands we spent together. If I had it to do over, I would have chanced the burst eardrums.”
I paused a moment. “No, you probably wouldn’t have.”
Jill looked at me, surprised for the second time that morning by my quiet irreverence to her lament.
“I mean, maybe you would have done things differently, if given the chance. But, really, Jill, you made the best decision at that time based on the circumstances.”
She adjusted her sunglasses. “You’re right. When you think you have all the time in the world with someone, you focus more on yourself than on him.”
We walked around the fountain in silence, reading the names of the athletes who had received medals at the 2000 games etched in the pavement.
“Thank you,” Jill said as we got back in the car.
“For what?”
“For telling me what I needed to hear. It’s as if all these small doors in my heart keep opening and the closed-up hurt and tears come pouring out. You must be sick of this by now.”
“Not yet.”
“The only good is that each time one of those doors opens, I feel as if I’m healing. You keep giving me truth, Kathy, and I need that. When I’m left to my own imagination, I tell mys
elf all kinds of things. Not everything I tell myself is true.”
“We all do that. More than once you’ve given me truth, you know.”
“All I know is that having you here, right now during this time in my life, feels like God sent an extravagant gift to me. I mean, when I think about it, he brought you here all the way from my grandpa’s orange grove!”
“So what you’re saying is that you see me as a big fruit, is that it?”
Jill chuckled.
I tried to honor the seriousness of her observation. What I intended to say was, “I’ve benefited greatly from your friendship, too, you know.” But what came out was, “I’ve bene-fruited from your friendship, too, you know.”
That’s when we both cracked up.
“We make quite a pear,” Jill said between her laughter bubbles. “Get it? Pair? Pear?”
It took a few minutes for us to compose ourselves before Jill started the engine. I punched in the wildlife park’s address on the keyboard for the directional system, and a map with a red line showed up on the screen. We dabbed away our giggle-tears, and before long found ourselves winding through a hilly canyon that we both said reminded us of Trabuco Canyon in California. The eucalyptus trees were what made the connection for me.
The park wasn’t large, and only a few visitors strolled around. But our timing was perfect because we arrived five minutes before the feeding of the koalas. The fuzzy, gray fur balls draped themselves in the most humorous poses over a dozen tree stands. We stood only a few feet away from the open area and watched the sluggish snuggle bears while they did absolutely nothing but try to keep from falling off their posts.
A park guide entered the center area with switches of fresh eucalyptus. One of the eight koala bears opened his eyes long enough to pay attention to what was happening.