A mostly normal Friday evening in the Rusty Bore Takeaway: four regulars; no new virus apocalypse; two grey nomads in search of the highway. Then an impressive sunset, accompanied by one of Best Street’s finer dog-howl symphonies.

I scrubbed down my grill to a dull gleam and considered closing early. I had a date, a very overdue one, with Leo—and hopefully this time it’d be an actual date date instead of an argument. But before that, I needed a shower—there’s nothing quite like womaning a rotisserie of barbeque chickens for building up a sweat.

My shop bell rang. I glanced up, thinking it would just be Vern with another update on his Sunset Over the Silos series. Vern’s General Store and my shop constitute the CBD of Rusty Bore. Along with a row of galvanised steel silos much photographed…at least by Vern.

But it was a woman. Tall and slim with short, dark, spiky hair. Oversized sunglasses. She was wearing a pinstriped black trouser suit; white shirt blazing under the jacket. Long elegant legs, made even longer by soaring red heels.

‘Helen?’ I just about dropped my Jex.

My sister left this joint when we were in our teens to go to uni and never once looked back. Of the many places she’s lived since Luxembourg, Colombia, the Cayman Islands—none have featured much in the way of red-orange dust.

‘Hey Cass.’ Helen closed the door and scurried over to my counter in a clack of stilettos. I patted my hair, smoothed down my floral apron and cranked up a welcome smile. Tried to pretend I wasn’t feeling like a sweaty frump.

I’ll admit I sometimes toy with the idea that my life could still turn out to have a touch of Helen-glamour travel the world, learn a language, spend my evenings learning to salsa on a sun-kissed Latin American balcony…

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