Wedgie

Six

Three days alone and in total control of somebody else's life work, not to mention miles and miles outside her usual comfort zone of a corporate desk job, and Theo had only had one minor panic attack.

All things considered, she was killing it.

Having survived her first night by herself on Wednesday, experiencing a sort of power-tripping high, the following two days had been spent more humbly, as she busily ran around completing all the regular chores she needed to get done and ensuring that the various pick-ups Edna had left her with were handled seamlessly.

The two ducks, one cat, and three dogs who were tended to twice daily, and so far on time, all appeared to be thriving under the watch of their new, stand-in master.

When Friday afternoon came along she got to meet Gabriel, who was indeed a young lad just as Edna had described. During a convivial chat with him while she helped to load his little van, Theo discovered the local seventeen year old had finished high school only a few months earlier, started his own business, and was already doing impressively well for himself. Not only was he making a healthy income for someone his age but he was also taking any leftover produce, considered too imperfect to purchase by typical Farmers Market clientele standards, to a small community centre food bank that supported families struggling to put fresh fruit and vegetables on the table thanks to the current cost of living crisis. This conversation highlighted the impressive things that someone so much younger than she was, was doing with their life, and had been the ignition to Theo's one, minor panic attack.

Well, that, and a small incident in the Atherton Raspberry beds, because who knew that gently leaning on trellis, in just the wrong spot, would make almost ten metres of raspberry canes concertina collapse like a row of fallen dominoes?

As the rainforest birds started their cacophonous morning chorus, right before the sun came up on Saturday, Theo forced her eyes open. She rolled sleepily out of bed and, looking at her scratched and bruised legs made the decision that she would spend today at a more cautious pace.

She desperately needed to make a shopping list and go buy some food staples. Edna, being the generation she was, had every ingredient under the sun available in her pantry, but as Theo was a terrible cook, currently time-poor, and honestly a little lazy, she had zero idea what to do with any of it. A few jars of ready made pasta sauce, some meat and salad vegetables along with the obvious bread, milk and cheese, and she would be set. Oh, and she needed to buy a hat too. Her forehead was beginning to blister despite the copious amounts of sunscreen she was using.

Hobbling over the floorboards towards the open bedroom windows, her feet swollen from walking around so much more than she was used to, Theo took out and then re-tied her hair as high on her head as she could get it. If a single, stray strand touched the back of her neck at the wrong moment she would likely cut it all off in a fit of humidity-induced rage.

The very slight morning breeze that was blowing through the flyscreens grazed her flesh and although the air wasn't cool per-se, the movement of it flowing over her night-sweaty skin tingled pleasantly. When she looked down at her nude body, glowing golden in the reflection of a stunning, orange sherbet morning twilight, she laughed at how a bit of physical outdoor work, a difference in latitude and it's associated weather had both heightened her sensuality and increased her body confidence tenfold. There was something about taking a cool shower after a hard day, and going to bed naked in the muggy heat, that did more for her than Ben's impatient fumblings ever did.

Jeremy's deep, booming bark from outside snapped Theo back into the now.

"Alright, alright! I'm coming," she called out to him.

Flicking off the ceiling and pedestal fans, and throwing on some knickers and a singlet, Theo made her way to the front door. Unlocking it and holding it open, she let Jeremy in from the veranda so that he could bid good morning to the other dogs and Derek, all of whom preferred to sleep inside - Arthur under the living room ceiling fan, Derek on a chair at the kitchen table, and Roger on the laundry floor. Whether it was the cool tiles he liked or the fact that the dog biscuits were kept in there, was unknown.