The Perfecting of Molly Gardner, page 1
The Perfecting of Molly Gardner
The Molly Gardner Series, Volume 2
Bernadette Eden
Published by Bernadette Eden, 2022.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE PERFECTING OF MOLLY GARDNER
First edition. March 31, 2022.
Copyright © 2022 Bernadette Eden.
ISBN: 978-0645146424
Written by Bernadette Eden.
Also by Bernadette Eden
The Molly Gardner Series
The Making of Molly Gardner
The Perfecting of Molly Gardner (Coming Soon)
Watch for more at Bernadette Eden’s site.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also By Bernadette Eden
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
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Also By Bernadette Eden
About the Author
For my community.
Both in the country and the hills.
Chapter One
The smell of the community hall was comforting as I took a deep breath in and then released it slowly. I repeated the breathing and closed my eyes for good measure this time.
No. It wasn’t helping.
I'd been doing a lot of deep breathing since Josh and I had moved to his childhood hometown in Cameron Valley.
It helped.
Sometimes.
But nights like these when I was sitting in a draughty hall on a fold up chair, surrounded by other members of the Country Women’s Association, it was near impossible to feel a level of calm wash over me.
Adding to my discomfort was the fact that one member Lana, insisted on bringing her son, Bradley to each meeting. Not that I wasn’t empathetic to Lana’s plight for a babysitter, it was more Bradley’s penchant for using the stage and belting out Dolly Parton numbers on the microphone.
"You’re nailing it, mate! Whoo!" Lana cried out to him now. She’d set herself up over at the drinks table surreptitiously sipping the wine that was meant for after the meeting.
"Shall we get started?” I said a little too loudly trying to be heard over Bradley’s rendition of ‘Joelene’. “Lana? Are you...?” I pointed at Bradley as he played up to the group, hoping she might rein him in. “It’s just we're already...pretty late."
Sitting next to me, oblivious to time was Glennis. She was swinging her little fat legs like a toddler and clapping along to Bradley, her face a wreath of smiles. Glennis was harmless enough but when she bounced up and yelled "What about 'Islands In The Stream'?" I nearly reached over and slapped her.
"What about we get started?" I snapped, yanking the microphone from its energy source. "Mick away again, Lana?" I added, trying to soften my tone as I took my seat and Lana arranged Bradley with an iPad, a can of soft drink and a packet of sweets. I tried not to twitch at what I knew Bradley would look like in an hour as Lana chased him around the hall while I packed up the chairs, smiling and saying things like, "Goodness, what energy you have, Bradley! You'll be pooped for school tomorrow!" I dreamed some nights of secretly dropping printed articles into Lana's letterbox on the impact of large amounts of sugar on children. Did she never learn? Then again, clearly not, as I watched her pour a bucket of wine and take her seat even though I had tried to instil that we only drink after the meetings. I saw everyone else eye her glass and the drinks table, but they knew the rules.
"Okay." I smiled at the rag-tag bunch in front of me who turned up religiously every Monday night for this Country Women's Association meeting. They must have all had their reasons. I knew Lana, for example, was here to get away from a house filled with more lunatic children and a husband who drove trucks day and night rather than be at home.
Then there was Jane, next to me, not quite secretary extraordinaire but she took notes when I told her, so it was a start. I smiled at her and she blinked back nervously, checking behind herself to make sure I wasn't smiling at someone else.
"Meeting of the Country Women's Association started at" —
I checked my watch — "Seven thirty-eight pm. So, we're getting better. We're really aiming for seven but, doesn't matter." I waved my hand at them all just to show how fine I was with the lateness.
Every week.
"And everyone is here." I nodded at Jane again, who blinked back. "So, perhaps pop that in the minutes, Jane. What time we started and who is in attendance."
Glennis shrugged her smiley shoulders in excitement and gave a little clap. "I used to go to school with a girl called Jolene," she said, swinging double time.
"That's nice, Glennis," I muttered, still looking over Jane's shoulder. Glennis was as wide as she was short and said nothing except to plop out these nuggets of unwanted information at random times. I had gotten used to ignoring them.
Next to Glennis was seventeen-year-old Saskia, who couldn't have been more bored. She slid her thumb up and down the screen of her phone like a twitch, probably begging her phone to ring and call her away. Saskia had arrived one meeting and told us, "Yeah, Mum said I have to come to get extra credit, otherwise I'm gonna fail high school and then I’ll have to work in the chip shop." She had added nothing more to the group since, but I assumed just her sheer presence here meant she was avoiding the chip shop career.
Battling Saskia for a bored look was Pat who only ever piped up to talk about the old days of the CWA and the indispensable role she'd played in everything that had ever happened in Cameron Valley. Although she loved talking about it, she didn't seem to have any juice left in the tank to do anything in the current CWA.
"Oh!" said Gemma, the one person around my age and who I had once hoped could be my friend, jumping up and rummaging in her bag. "I brought some snacks."
If slumped shoulders could make a sound, the entire group would have groaned loudly.
"Something new I tried," Gemma continued. "They're sugar-free, nut-free, dairy-free and wheat-free."
"Taste-free," I heard Lana mutter to my right.
"And they're incredibly good for our gut health." She said all of this in a wispy voice and made a circular motion in front of her stomach as if she were going to pat her head at the same time. Gemma was very keen on gut health, but I didn't have the heart to tell her that my gut health revolted every time she opened a container of her snacks.
"Oh goodness, Gemma, I just had the biggest dinner," I jumped in first. But of course, everyone followed suit, unable to come up with their own excuses.
"Me too," Lana said, scoffing a handful of chips in her face.
"Me too," assented other murmurs as Gemma's face fell.
"Ah Gemma, I'd ah, love to have a go at your ah, what are they? Gut health goodies?"
Geoff.
Always Geoff, with his suave way of talking to save the day. He'd do anything to get into anyone's pants. Even if it meant being the only male member of the Country Women's Association and eating inedible biscuits and slices.
"Ha! Yes, that's what I will call them. Gut Health Goodies. What do you think?" Gemma sat with the container open in front of Geoff, who waved his hands to show he couldn't possibly comment on how good they were.
We watched in horror as his eyes watered and his gag reflex worked over-time. He pointed to the toilets and then one step further and mimed urinating all with a mouth full of food while Gemma shook the container at us one last time.
"Anyone? Geoff seemed to like them," she said as Geoff bolted to the toilets.
"Okay," I pushed on, tying my long hair in a bun as if ready for business. "Shall we take a seat? We've confirmed everyone's here." I looked around as if we had a huge crowd and I had to double check everyone, instead of a motley crew of six women and one man who I still wasn't sure should actually be a member of the Country Women's Association, but we were short on numbers, so who I was to complain? These were the Mighty Ducks I had been handed.
"So, we've been quite busy these last few weeks. Glennis, how did you go with chatting to Reg from the op-shop café about getting something a little more drinkable than International Roast in there?"
"Molly, I wonder if we need to start off with the oath?" Pat said, already on her feet.
I paused. I'd had firm debate with Pat in the past about the reciting of CWA values at every meeting, even suggested that we modernise it somewhat. While I liked the country women bit, the God and throne part held little sway with me. But
I stood, as did everyone else, and we opened our meeting. I made a mental note to double check with Home Office that there couldn't be some room for movement here.
"Honour to God, Loyalty to the Throne, Service to the Country, through country women, for country women, by country women," we intoned.
"Excellent, now back to you, Glennis."
"Hello."
"Yes, hello Glennis. I think we've already...actually, doesn't matter. How did you go with the coffee in the op shop cafe?"
"Good. Very good."
"Okay, great, so what are we talking? A coffee machine? Moccona? Nescafe even?"
"Oh no, oh no, oh no."
"No? Something else? Did you suggest the coffee machine?"
"No. No, I did not."
"Okay, so what went well about the conversation?"
"He said he would just stick with International Roast because he had a cousin who got him a good deal a few years ago and he's still got two tins to go through."
"Ah, right. So, no go on the coffee change?"
Glennis shook her head with a big smile, like she had achieved an A on her report card.
"Okay, Lana? Where's Lana?"
"Over here, just getting a stiffener in before we start."
"Right. Although, I think we decided to leave the wine until after the meeting. Because well...you know what happened last time."
We didn't talk about what happened last time. Mainly because none of us could really remember. Gemma had brought in some homemade Baileys that we were thinking of selling as a fundraiser, but we'd started with a couple of tastings and the next thing I knew, Josh was picking me up from the bowling green, on which I was running through sprinklers in only my bras and knickers along with everyone else. Alcohol was now a strictly after-meeting affair and preferably two wines only. Not that that was ever adhered to. There were some days I felt I was back at Wakefield Enterprises and instead of using brownies to get people to do work, I was using alcohol to get people to come to meetings.
"Lana, any movement with council on the upgrade of the skate park?"
"Nup. Didn't get a chance this week. The twins were chosen for state cricket and I've been running up and down the country getting them to training. There is a rumour going round that Council's going to update the cricket pitch though."
"Well, that is good news." Inside, I groaned. The council were prepared to pay any amount to make the finals in any sport. But they saw anything else as unnecessary.
"The problem is, Molly, we don't have any money," Pat piped up. "We used to. We used to be a solid branch of the CWA."
"Well, where did it all go?" I jumped in before she waxed lyrical about the good old days.
"This and that. Re-wiring the hall," she nodded around the relic we now sat in. "The toilets at the playground, they cost a pretty penny, let me tell you."
"So, you could say you had to spend a penny to spend a penny, eh Pat?" Lana quipped. It took a while for the metaphorical penny to drop, but once it did, everyone got the giggles, losing the slightest bit of momentum we had.
Pat wiped her eyes and went on. "The problem is people dropped off. It's hard to raise money when you're a group of" – she counted heads – "seven."
"So how did you get money before?"
"Fundraising,” Lana said. "And I got a tell you, Molly, I don't have it in me to bake a tonne of scones just to raise – how much was it we made at that garage sale, Jane?"
Jane flipped through her folder. "Umm, twenty-four dollars."
"Yeah. Twenty-four bucks, and I can tell you that didn't go into the kitty. It went to a bottle of wine that we all had a thimble full of and then we went home. I don't know about you guys, but I cried that night."
"Well, come on, that was a couple of years ago. We just need to re-think it a bit. Find something that isn't backbreaking and that we can manage with a small band of people. Or maybe we need to focus on recruitment? Perhaps that's our first step. Then we can do things like re-vamp the skate park. I'm sure it looked great when it was first done, it just needs a bit of love and care." Same as the main street. Most of the shops just needed a coat of paint.
Everyone looked doubtfully at their shoes.
"Well, if we don't think of something, then what's the point of coming every Monday night?" I looked around the group.
"Free booze."
"A night out."
"School credit."
"Be good if we could just get a few more to our meetings, then we might have, you know, a bit more force to get things done." I chewed on my pen. And when I meant more people, I didn't mean bored teenagers, or reminiscing retirees, or single men looking for love. I wanted someone my age with some common interests even. Maybe I should ask Alice, Josh's sister-in-law, to join.
"Well, I hear Pippy Henderson is coming back to Cameron Valley. She'd be the force you're looking for," Lana said.
"Pippy who?"
I noticed a few eyes skit around the room. Even Saskia put her phone down.
"Umm, Philippa Henderson. Everyone calls her Pippy for short. She was on the CWA a few years ago," Jane squeaked.
Lana snorted, "Yeah, and she's the ex of your man, Josh."
"Sorry, what?"
"Pippy Henderson. Her and Josh used to go out in high school. I was a couple of years younger. Hoo-wee, they were pretty hot and heavy back in the day. Golden couple they were."
"Oh, Pippy Henderson." I felt eyes on me, as if testing my reaction. "I thought you said...Bippy. Which...I've got a..." – I glanced around the room grasping for something, anything and landed on the dustpan – "Cleaner, called Bippy. I thought you were talking about her."
"Hmm, Bippy?" Geoff scrunched his face up. "Is she a local girl?"
"No, she's from...India."
I saw Geoff's face scrunch even more as he tried to work out how this Bippy from India had been working as a cleaner in Cameron Valley and slipped through his net.
"Look, it was a long time ago, when I lived in the city. Anyway, yes, Josh has told me all about Pippy. And I'm looking forward to meeting her."
Lana smirked while Pat pulled back and lifted her arms under her breasts. "Beautiful girl, she is. Inside and out. I mean stunning to look at but also a heart of gold. She was the backbone of this community until she left two years ago to work on a station. Never married. Although there's been plenty of interest" – she re-shuffled her boobs – "I wonder if she never got over Josh."
"Oh, well...I'm sure..." As everyone started packing up, I trailed off and left it there because suddenly I wasn't sure of anything.
Chapter Two
The next morning, I lay in bed clutching the quilt cover to my chin. The news of Josh's gorgeous and kind hearted ex-girlfriend arriving back in town swirled around my head with no place to land. Not even the sound of birdsong outside our window or the light playing across our bedspread was enough to cheer me.
"Molly?"
I jumped a foot as Josh grumbled from the other side of the bed. "You're talking to yourself."
"No, I wasn't. You must have been dreaming. Go back to sleep."
I heard him sigh heavily and pull back the covers. "I'm not going back to sleep. It's seven o’clock. Besides, you only talk to yourself when something's on your mind, so why don't you save time and just tell me?"
He sat on the edge of the bed waiting for me to go on, but I felt quite frozen with where to start. There was no way of asking your current boyfriend why he didn't tell you his ex-girlfriend was back in town without sounding whiny and interrogative. Plus, what if I didn't get the answer I wanted?
After some time, Josh pulled on his baggy jeans and a flannelette shirt. He then matched them with a pair of pilled socks and shuffled out to the kitchen. In moving back to the country Josh had slipped from the crisp shirt and suits of his city investigative work to standard country boy fare of jeans, Blundestones, untucked shirt and a ripped cap that had seen better days back in 1984. Don't get me wrong, he still looked good. In fact, I'd quite taken to the flannel. Even the woollen jumpers and the stubble he wore gave him a slightly rough, roguish look.
