“You look tired today, miss,” one of my year ten students, Emma, pointed out during fourth period. We were rehearsing scenes from A Streetcar Named Desire, and I wasn’t showing my usual enthusiasm for my work. Honestly, I didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm for anything lately.

After three months, I still hadn’t found Ben or my mother’s hairpin. I spent my nights visiting bars and nightclubs in Melbourne City and the surrounding suburbs, leaving no stone unturned. Not once did I lay eyes on a tall, dark and deliciously handsome man trying to take advantage of lonely women—I wished I could get that term out of my mind. The need to hunt him down possessed me, made me restless and agitated. Even singing had lost its lustre; every time I got on stage at a wedding, I felt more like pulling an Adam Sandler and singing about how life sucked instead of the love-soaked ballads the bride and groom had picked. I literally could not stop looking for him everywhere I went.

Every day that ticked by was another drop of disappointment in an already overflowing bucket. I’d even lost my appetite and dropped two dress sizes from not eating. Seemed the handsome thieving bastard of a man had also stolen my love of food. What kind of sick monster did that?

“I’m sorry, girls. I just didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.” I sighed, dropping down in my chair and closing the play book.

“Maybe some fresh air would do you good. We could rehearse outside,” another girl suggested.

I smiled and stood up again. “You know, I think that’s an excellent idea. We can do the final scene at the tables in the senior area.”

As the girls all filed out the door, my mind returned to my troubles. My insurance company had paid out and I’d replaced my car, my furniture and most other things I’d owned before, but there were so many times that I went to look for something as simple as a book I owned before realising it wasn’t there anymore. It sucked. It made me angry. Made me sad. Hurt.

Why couldn’t I find him? It wasn’t like he was a forgettable character. I’d even started taking the police sketch around, asking people if they’d ever seen him. The response I got to the sketch was mixed; some people said no and others looked at me like I was crazy and laughed. Weird. But the question remained—how did a man so large manage to remain so hidden?

I was tired. I was cranky. And I was beginning to lose hope. But I kept going, searching for him in every crowd. Stupidly—and embarrassingly—my unconscious mind couldn’t separate my obsession with finding him to get back my mother’s hairpin and the reason my vagina wanted to find him. I’d woken in a panting ball of sweat more times than I cared to admit. Honestly, the fact that he was the best sexual experience I’d ever had really messed with my head. Lust mixed with anger and sorrow—it was a terrible combination.

I wanted to hate him, but I also wanted him. A desperate, lonely woman. That’s why he’d preyed on me, right?

“This final scene really is the most important of the play,” I explained to my students as they gathered around the wooden tables outside. “Blanche’s behaviour reflects the way being raped by Stanley has scarred her. Think about her earlier scenes in which she performs for Stanley’s friends, seeking their attentions. But now she’s hiding and hoping they don’t notice her. She’s broken, crazy. Her tenuous grip on reality is long gone, and she spends most of the scene in the bath, preparing for an imaginary meeting with Shep Huntleigh when in fact, she’s getting carted off to a mental hospital because her sister would rather believe she’s crazy than believe her husband was capable of rape.”

I paced back and forth in front of them, the script open in my hand as I stared at the words and stage directions I’d looked at so many times before. The crimes committed against us were different, but I couldn’t help feeling an affinity with Blanche Dubois. I was struggling with my own grip on reality after having my illusions torn apart by a man. It was our trusting nature that did us in, our belief that the faces people showed us were honourable and true.

I stopped moving and stood in front of my students, who were surprisingly staring on in rapt attention. “It’s the culmination of everything these people have gone through, filled with tension, grief and guilt. I want you all to keep that in mind while we work on this scene, feel it as you deliver your lines, remember it as you interact with the other characters.” Placing my hands on my hips, I surveyed the area, deciding how to set the stage. “I want Blanche over there.” I pointed to the last table in a block of four. “Stella and Eunice sit here.” I pointed to the closest table. “And the poker players sit back there with Mitch and Stanley. We’ll keep the doctor and nurse waiting in the wings.” I pointed to a patch of grass. “Everyone else sit on the benches and follow along.”

As we worked through the scene, my chest grew tight and my blood pumped faster through my veins. Why did men think they could treat women any way they wanted? What gave them the right to take from us without guilt, as if they were literally owed something just for being born? What Ben had done to me shattered my trust in my own judgement. I’d believed him when he’d called me beautiful, was elated when he’d hinted at something more. But it was all a lie, a scam designed to trick me just long enough to clean me out. It made me look stupid, made me feel naïve. More than that, it felt so damn unfair. What kind of a person did that to another? I would never be able to trust a man’s interest in me again. Especially if that man was even remotely attractive. I’d always be questioning his motives and expecting the worst. I would never be fooled by a handsome face again.

Emily, who was playing Blanche, paused dramatically, ready to deliver her final line, and I held my breath, wrapping my arms around my middle as I waited for it.

“Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

I closed my eyes and nodded. You and me both, Blanche. You and me both.

And it made fools out of both of us.

“You look like absolute shit,” Aunt Maya said when I turned up on her doorstep after work that night. She was already wearing her pink dressing gown, pantyhose still on her legs but slippers on her feet. Her brown hair was in a neat French roll, and her make-up was almost perfect despite it being the end of the day. She worked as a corporate secretary in the city and couldn’t stand wearing her business wear for a moment longer than was necessary. It was my strongest memory of her growing up, looking exactly like this every night. And since I couldn’t face another night searching pubs and clubs, finding her this way was a sight for my sore eyes. I needed comfort food and family.

“I feel like shit,” I sulked, falling into her warm embrace, inhaling her familiar scent—Coco Chanel, her favourite. She’d been with me for every moment since my parents’ passing, held my hand through the good and bad, dealt with my teenage drama and listened to my adult woes. She was my everything.

“How about I whip up a batch of my mac and cheese? That always cheers you up.”

Pouting, I nodded. She made the best mac and cheese, with four different types of cheese, full cream and crispy bacon. It was pure comfort in a bowl. If anything could bring back my love of food, it was Aunt Maya’s cooking.

With an easy smile, she gave my shoulder a squeeze and moved aside so I could follow her into the house.

“Want to tell me what’s got you so down?” she asked, pulling out pots while I grabbed ingredients from the fridge and pantry.

“It’s just the search for Mum’s hairpin. It’s not turning up anywhere, and I can’t seem to find the guy who took it.” I set everything on the kitchen counter while she filled a pot with water and set it on the stove.

“I still think it’s a terrible idea for you to go looking for him. What if he’s dangerous?” Aunt Maya had made it abundantly clear how crazy she thought my idea was when I first told her about the robbery. But she also knew how stubborn I was, so there wasn’t much she could do to stop me. She’d learned years before to support my choices whether she liked them or not, knowing I’d just do it anyway. But if she rallied against it, I’d do it and not tell her about it. Supporting me was safer.

“You sound like Alesha. But I really don’t think he’s dangerous. Of all the things he could’ve done to me, he chose to rock my world and then send me to sleep. He’s not vicious, he’s just a thief.”

“Still, I don’t like the idea of you traipsing around town looking for him. Anything could happen to you going to all those random clubs. I really wish you’d just leave it alone and let the police find him.”

Taking a seat on the other side of her bench, I rested my chin on my hands. “Pfft. How hard can it possibly be to find a six-foot-six man with bulging muscles? It’s not like he can hide in a crowd.”

She shrugged. “Maybe you’re all looking in the wrong place. You said he’s muscular. Maybe he’s hiding in a gym.”

“A gym?” Oh my God. It was the light-bulb moment I needed.

Nodding, she handed me the block of cheddar and a grater. “He has to get those muscles from somewhere, and if the police sketch has been on TV, he might be lying low for a while—although, based on that sketch, Hugh Jackman should also lie low.”

“That sketch does not look like Hugh Jackman.”

“Yes it does, sweetheart.”

“It does?” She nodded. “Well, I guess that explains why people kept laughing and looking at me funny whenever I showed them.” I did compare his looks to Jackman’s several times during the sketch artist interview.

“You know, he probably doesn’t even live around here,” she said after she’d finished chopping up the bacon. The pan sizzled noisily when she dropped a handful in.

He doesn’t live around here. Why didn’t I think of that?

“You are so smart, Aunt Maya. I could kiss you!” Suddenly my eyes were open, and I had a whole new method of searching for him.

She laughed. “I’m even smarter than you think. Take a look in that bag over there.” Her eyes directed me to the hutch in her dining room.

“What’s this?” I asked, pulling out a white box with a small plastic rectangle pictured on it.

“It’s a GPS card. You put it in your purse and if anyone takes it, you can ping it and it’ll tell you where it is. I thought that since you insist on hunting this man down, there should at least be a way of finding you when I can’t sleep because of the worry.”

I grinned, then got up and hugged her. “Aw, Aunty, you do worry about me.”

“All the bloody time, girl. Now get off me and grate that cheese. We’ll never eat at the rate you’re going.”

When I got home, my belly full and my resolve strengthened, I opened my brand-new laptop and channelled my inner Sherlock. I remembered smelling salt air on his clothes, so it made sense that he must spend a lot of time near the sea—that or he had an amazing fabric softener. Chewing my lip, I tried to recall something that would narrow it further…. His tan! Salt air plus the outdoors equalled the beach. Tall, muscular, scruffy men who smelled like the sea and had a great tan? A surfer. He had to be! Melbourne beaches were fairly sheltered, which meant surfing was non-existent anywhere within Port Phillip Bay. The closest surfing beach was over an hour south, and it made sense that he didn’t shit in his own backyard. It also explained why I’d had zero luck searching for him in Melbourne. He doesn’t live here!

Taking Aunt Maya’s advice, I googled gyms in the closest surf suburb I could think of—Torquay. By the end of my search, I’d narrowed my list to fifteen gyms around the two most popular surfing beaches. There were about to be a lot of early morning drives in my future, but it was a starting point that gave me renewed strength and direction.

I slept like a baby that night.