Odd One Out by Monica McInerney

here and now, thank you.”
    She found the slip of paper in seconds. It was in the center pages, folded in three. Sebastian had kept up the tradition of their childhood treasure hunts. There was a whole page of writing, all in jumbled letters. She looked up. Max was smiling at her.
    “Did you know it was here the whole time?” she asked.
    He nodded. “I put it there. Sebastian couldn’t reach.”
    “So I could have bribed you when I came in this morning?”
    “It would have been quicker. But look at all the practice you gave me making coffee. And now I’m an expert on the Murray River. That kind of knowledge can’t be bought.”
    He returned from the bar now with two glasses of wine. “Here you are,” he said. “A fine fruity shiraz from the Yarra Valley. Or perhaps it’s a spicy cabernet from the Clare Valley. Or a cheeky full-bodied merlot from the Hunter Valley. I can’t remember. It’s a glass of red wine, anyway.”
    “My favorite kind. Thanks, Max.”
    He settled into his seat opposite her again.
    “So, the trip to Melbourne is—” he said.
    “So do you like working in the—” she asked.
    They both laughed. “You first,” Max said.
    “I was going to ask if you liked working in the bookshop. And if you’re originally from Melbourne.”
    “Excellent questions, thank you. If you had asked them, I would have said yes to both before skillfully turning the conversation on its head and asking you what it was like to grow up in the middle of an artistic family like yours.” He paused. “And then I would realize from the expression on your face that you’ve been asked that question far too many times and that is, of course, one of the reasons you left Sydney, so I would hurriedly backtrack and ask you an innocuous question about the weather.”
    “Sorry. It was that obvious?”
    He nodded. “You’ve got one of those faces that gives a lot away. You’d make a good actress.”
    “If I could act, yes.”
    “You never tried?”
    She shook her head. “I can’t paint, make jewelry or design clothes either, in case you were going to ask.”
    “I wasn’t, but that’s good to know. I can’t either, as it happens.”
    She rubbed at her cheek, embarrassed. “Sorry, Max. That wasn’t fair.”
    “Dr. Max Reynolds, Family Therapist, is now in session. Would you like an appointment?”
    She wanted to talk to him about it, she realized. “Have you got a few hours?”
    “Days, if needed. And they’ve got loads of wine behind the bar. I checked.”
    “I don’t know how much Sebastian told you—”
    “Nothing too incriminating, I promise. He said he thought you were drowning in a sea of family, so he threw you a lifeline.”
    “That’s it in a nutshell. Embarrassing, isn’t it? Nearly thirty and still being looked after by my big brother.”
    “Not so big. What is he, five foot seven? A titch. A titch brother. And don’t be embarrassed about it. We need our families to drive us crazy. Otherwise no one would ever go anywhere and what would get done in the world?”
    “You think that?”
    “I know it.”
    “It’s the same for you?”
    He nodded. “I’m the oldest of three boys. Mum and Dad are both doctors, with their own practice. There were expectations, obligations really, that I would become a doctor too.” He’d enrolled for med school before he knew it, he told her. Graduated, worked in the practice, knowing the whole time something was wrong. “Then about four years ago I joined an amateur theater group and that’s when I realized what I wanted. Stage sets and scripts, not stethoscopes or charts. The production side, not the acting. The next week I enrolled to do stage management at the college of the arts. I’ve worked in theater ever since. It’s more precarious than medicine, but I love it.”
    “So the bookshop is a part-time job?”
    He nodded. “Three days a week. It keeps me going between plays. That’s how I met Sebastian. We worked on a production together last