A bus, a train, a plane – in her early 20s, Debra Oswald made an urgent dash from Canberra to Sydney to cement her relationship with a man she loved.
In my teens, I was never the girl boys fell in love with. I was always the confidante, the friend. I figured my best strategy was to present an unquestionably strong on-paper application for the position of ‘girlfriend’, so that I would at least score the romance equivalent of an interview. I handed in my thesis and left him a message – I’d be on the Friday evening train.
“Now, please taxi driver, take me to the airport!” I instructed the increasingly wealthy cabby, then blew my precious student dollars on a stand-by ticket with a slim chance for a seat on the last flight out of Canberra. At the airport payphone, I fed my remaining stack of 20-cent pieces to leave a message on the young man’s answering machine. “I may not get on a plane. If I do, I’ll be at the airport coach terminal in Oxford Street at 9am.”