But now the renovations were complete. The diggers, trucks and jackhammers were gone. The car park was full every day. The café that had replaced the patisserie bustled. The hairdressers were back together and booked up six weeks ahead.
‘It’s now or never,’ her accountant had told her. ‘This next quarter will be make or break.’
Her accountant reminded her of her dad. He used to grab her by the shoulders and look her in the eyes. Leave it all on the court, Brooke.
She could not have her business fail at the same time as her marriage. That was too many failures for one person.
She was leaving everything on the court. She was giving it her all. She was being the best she could be. She was writing free articles for the local paper, doing letterbox drops, studying her Google analytics, contacting possible referring doctors, contacting every contact she had, even God, for God’s sake.
‘If it doesn’t work out, the door is always open,’ her old boss had said when she handed in her notice. New clinics failed all the time. Brooke had two friends who’d had to cut their losses and close up shop: one cheerfully, and one devastatingly.
She put her hand on the car door. Out you get.
She opened the door and her phone rang. At this time of day it had to be business-related. Friends and family didn’t call before nine.
She answered at the same time as she registered the name on the screen: Amy. Too late.
‘Hi,’ she said to her sister. ‘I can’t talk.’
Brooke once had a boyfriend who could always tell which family member she was talking to on the phone just by the tone of her voice. Amy, he would mouth if he heard her now. ‘When it’s Amy you sound pompous and put upon,’ he told her. ‘Like you’re the school principal.’
‘Is everything okay?’ She tried not to sound like the school principal.
The problem was that she didn’t really feel like the school principal at all when she spoke to Amy; what she felt like was the baby of the family, the one who always did Amy’s bidding, because Amy was the revered, adored boss of the family, and they all used to do what she commanded, even the boys. That was fine when they were children, when Amy was the best at coming up with ideas for games and finding loopholes in the rules set by their parents, but now they were grown-ups, or at least Brooke was a grown-up, and she was not taking instructions from someone with no career, no driver’s licence, no fixed address and precarious mental health. Yet as soon as Brooke heard Amy’s voice she could sense an involuntary reflex, as irresistible and unmistakeable as the knee-jerk reflex, to please and impress her big sister and consequently, in her fruitless attempt to resist and conceal that reflex, she ended up sounding like the school principal.
‘Why did you answer, then? If you’re busy?’ Amy sounded breathless.
‘I accidentally answered.’ Brooke leaned back against the car door. ‘Are you running for a bus or something?’
‘I just finished a run.’
‘Good for you. Did you stretch first?’
She knew her sister’s hamstrings as well as her own. Her family’s bodies were the first ones she’d practised on when she was studying. She felt a sense of ownership of all their problems: Amy’s hamstrings, her dad’s knees, Logan’s shoulder, Troy’s calf issues, her mother’s knotted-up lower back.
‘I sure did,’ said Amy.
‘Liar.’ She started walking towards the café with the phone to her ear. She was aware of an irrational but fierce sense of competitiveness because Amy had been for a run and Brooke had done no exercise this weekend thanks to the migraine. It made no sense. Brooke was younger and fitter than Amy. Yet as soon as she knew her sister was out for a run Brooke felt a wild desire to be running too: faster, longer.
‘How are you?’ asked Amy. Brooke heard a seagull’s squawk. She’d been running on the beach. Damn her. So typical. Brooke was in a suburban car park worrying about cash flow, and Amy was running on a beach, probably about to eat eggs Benedict for breakfast.
‘I’m fine,’ said Brooke. ‘Well, not great. I had a migraine on the weekend.’
A woman walked out of the café carrying a cardboard tray of coffees. She lifted the tray in clumsy greeting, and Brooke waved back. Right hip pain. Brooke monitored her gait which was unfortunately perfect. The patients who were diligent with their exercises got better and didn’t need her anymore.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Amy. ‘Did Grant look after you?’