by Sean Kennedy
It couldn’t be!
“Uh, Declan Tyler?” I said hesitantly.
“Do you always have to say my surname? You can just use the first, especially when talking to me. I know my last name.”
Oh, it could be.
“Hi,” I said in an attempt to be suave.
“We’ve already said that bit,” he pointed out.
A thousand jumbled questions were causing a shorted fuse between my brain and my mouth as I struggled to say something, anything. All I could think was How? Why? What? And Huh?
“I don’t think I said hello,” I murmured. “I think I only said my name.”
“Then say it.”
“Uh, hello?”
“That’s it.”
He was definitely amused by me. If I had been actively seeking to impress him as part of the first stage of seduction, I was failing miserably.
Best just to be me then, and get it over with. “How did you find out where I worked?”
“I Googled you.”
Coming out of his mouth, it sounded dirty. Nicely dirty.
“Simon Murray is a common name.” I stared out the window onto the street below. I could see the Flinders Street Station just to the left of me, its gold leafing glinting a bit too brightly in the winter sun.
“Well, when I added the search term ‘arty wanker’ to it, up you popped.” I could hear the smile in his tone.
I couldn’t help smiling at myself, and I bit savagely upon my lip as if he could see it from across the Bass Strait.
“Seriously, though. Your name was linked to the Triple F film festival—”
“That’s a rhetorical tautology. Like ATM machine.”
“Whatever,” he dismissed me. “And then I found another article with your picture in it, taken with the Premier.”
“He only stayed for ten minutes,” I told him. “It was a good photo op or something. Still, any publicity is good, right?”
“It all depends. Anyway, are you going to let me finish?”
“You should know, I tend to rabbit on a lot.”
“Why would I need to know that?”
Dammit. He was trying to play it cool. “Well, I don’t think it was listed under Google, but you’re the one calling me. Finish your damn story.”
He laughed again. “So then I found the festival website, and there was your office number and mobile conveniently listed. And your mobile was switched off. So here I am on this number.”
“Uh-huh,” I said noncommittally.
“That’s it,” he said, trying to hook me in.
“I guess.”
“Come on,” he moaned, “give me a break!”
“I’d be looking for a different phrase if I were you, seeing you broke your arm last year and was out for half a season.”
He fell silent, and I got my first stab of fear of thinking that I had gone too far. “Uh—”
“Yeah, you’re probably right.”
I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Sorry. That was bad. Stupid mouth, I said that, right?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s a cute one.”
I could feel the blood coursing into my cheeks. “Thanks,” I said inanely. “Do I return the compliment now?”
“Only if you want to.”
“I don’t know. You’re a footballer, do you really need your ego stroked any further?”
“The press and the fans haven’t been very nice to me lately, so maybe I do.”
“Maybe later. So why are you calling then?”
He paused again, and to tell you the truth, when he spoke he sounded a little nervous. “Look, I’m coming to Melbourne again on Thursday for the game against Essendon. I’ll have training on Friday, the game’s on Saturday… but would you want to go out for a coffee on Thursday night?”
He had me gobsmacked and speechless again.
“Are you there?”
“Yeah,” I croaked.
“I thought the line had cut out for a minute.”
“No, I’m here.”
“So how about it? Coffee, I mean.”
And Simon Murray, the very same Simon Murray who only two days before had been celebrating his single status and crowing about it, and swearing he wasn’t looking for anybody, said before the moment could pass, “I like coffee.”
“So that’s a yes? You’re being cryptic. Come on, I promise I’ll use cutlery if you leave your beret at home.”
“I didn’t think you needed cutlery for coffee,” I teased, starting to feel a little more in control of my senses again.
“A spoon isn’t cutlery? What, do you stir your coffee with your finger?”
“Well, when you promised you’d use cutlery, I was starting to think you did.”
“Okay, so you’re not interested….”
“Interested? Yes, I’m interested,” I said, maybe a little too quickly.
“Good.” And he did sound pleased. “I’ve got your mobile number. I’ll call you.”
“Hey, how do I call you?”
“Send up the Bat-signal,” he said, chuckling. “Looking forward to seeing you again, Simon.”
Before I could answer, he hung up.
Like a clichéd scene in a romantic comedy, I sat in a daze for a little while with the receiver still pressed against my ear and the disconnect tone providing a soundtrack for my state of mind. The sound of a text message coming through on my mobile a few moments later jolted me out of my zombie ways, and I placed the receiver back in the cradle.
It was from an unknown number. I opened it, and it read:
Here’s the bat signal.
I saved Declan’s number and laughed to myself. I crossed over to the window and watched the people moving on the streets below. I wanted to crank the window open and tell everybody what had just happened, but nobody would believe me. I wouldn’t believe me, if I wasn’t me.
I wondered if Roger would.
Chapter 4
THE rest of the day passed in a blur. My mind was definitely not focused on what I was being paid for. Nyssa remarked on my distraction a few times, but I barely heard her. I ended up calling Fran and cancelling lunch, because I knew she would ferret whatever she thought I was concealing out of me. Roger would then kill me if she knew before he did, because she would crow about it endlessly to him (and start another one of his longwinded rants about how friends are supposed to hate their friend’s spouse, not become their other best friend).
And Fran knew something was up. I had that certain tone of dorkiness in my voice. She said I sounded too happy.
I had to do laps of Federation Square at lunchtime to burn off the excess energy.
Nyssa said she watched me do the circumference of the building three times before she got dizzy and actually had to go back to work to recover.
On the tram ride home I smiled to myself like a loon and got the usual wide berth that the other passengers afforded to public transport crazies.
I fed Maggie before her yowling threatened a visit by the RSPCA, showered, changed, and drove to Roger and Fran’s house.
“It’s not Wednesday,” Roger said when he opened the door and saw me.
“No shit,” I said, and I pushed past him into the warmth beyond.
Fran walked in from the kitchen, and her eyes widened. “Hah! I knew it! Didn’t I tell you something was up with him, Rog?”
“Yes, honey,” Roger said patiently.
Fran ushered me into the lounge and sat me down—as if I were her child and needed to be lulled into a false sense of security to let slip what I had done wrong at school that day. I took a deep breath and began talking.
“Declan Tyler?” Roger repeated, the shocked look of all shocked looks upon his face.
I nodded.
“Declan Tyler?”
I exaggerated my nod.
“The Declan Tyler?”
I did tell you I was nodding, right?
Fran remained impassive, but her eyes were going to and fro between us li
ke she was watching a game at the Melbourne Open.
“Declan Tyler, the winner of the Brownlow and Norm Smith Medal?”
“And the Leigh Matthews Trophy,” I reminded him.
Roger stared at me, dumbfounded. “And he’s going out with you?”
“Hey!” Fran and I protested in unison.
Roger seemed to collect himself for a moment, but then was back to dumbfounded and semi-offensive. “No offence, but I mean, you have seen the girls they can get!”
Fran frowned, probably envisioning the need to cut off his access to the next telecast of the Brownlow.
“He doesn’t like girls,” I said snottily.
“I know, but he could be going out with a gay supermodel—”
“We get the point!” I yelled, my snottiness turning into extreme prejudice with a license to kill.
“I think you’re pretty,” Fran said soothingly, leaning across and patting my hand.
“Thanks,” I replied. “Because pretty is usually what I go for, you know.”
So there they sat, my two best friends in the world, and I could have quite cheerfully wrapped them up in a burlap sack at that point and time, weighted it down with some good, heavy stones, and thrown them into the Yarra River to drown.
“Declan Tyler,” Roger whispered to himself.
“Is it so hard to believe?” I asked him.
“What, that he’s gay, or that he would date you?” Roger asked.
“You are such a prick,” I muttered.
“I’m just trying to wrap my head around it, that’s all!”
“Well, send me a telegram when you do.” I stood, but Fran pulled me back down.
“Simon, you know Roger’s an idiot. Don’t get pissed.”
I tried to stare Roger down, but he wouldn’t look at me. He knew he was in the wrong, but he was still in shock and incapable of social niceties. Then a thought crossed his mind.
“Do you think he’ll take you to the Brownlows?”
I wanted to burst out laughing. Ever since we were kids it had been our dream to go to Brownlow nights. We had gone a couple of times and stood in the audience for the blue carpet trying to get autographs, but we longed for the chance to get inside the actual ceremony and hobnob with the elite of the football world.
“We’re going for coffee, that’s it. I mean, it’s not like he’s out.”
This made Roger look up. “He isn’t?”
“Well, do you see him on the cover of DNA? Those dickheads on the footy show trying to cover up their arses whenever he comes near them on the panel?”
“Like I subscribe to DNA,” he scoffed. “But what does that mean? I mean, for you.”
I tried to ignore his question, as I had been avoiding the nagging little voice inside my head asking the exact same thing. “What do you mean, what does it mean?”
“You know what I mean,” Roger said.
“I don’t know what either of you mean,” Fran said, although of course she did.
“Well, if he’s not out, that means a lot of sneaking around. What’s in it for you?”
“It’s just coffee, Rog. I’m not thinking any further than that.”
“Well, maybe you should!”
This was getting too soap opera for me. Like Home and Away levels of bad. “I thought you guys were the ones who wanted me to see someone? And now that I have a date, you’re acting all pissy.”
Fran hesitated and then mustered up the courage to say, “We just want you to be careful.”
“You have a look,” Roger said.
“A look?” Now I was the one who was dumbfounded.
“Yeah, a look!”
“Describe this look.”
“I don’t know, look in a mirror!”
“Lately you haven’t cared about dating.” Fran was trying to choose her words carefully. “And now all of a sudden, you look… excited, but trying hard to hide it. You really want to do it.”
“And there’s something wrong with that?”
“It’s just… he’s a celebrity… well, as much of a celebrity as a sports player can be.” Spoken like someone who didn’t know one end of the field from the other. “It’s not going to be easy.”
“You got that right,” Roger mumbled.
I stared them down. “It’s just coffee.”
But I knew, and they knew, that I was lying. I was looking forward to it, too much. I had no more idea than they did about what could happen. All I knew was that I wanted to go and see how it went. I couldn’t really imagine any consequences; it was all too abstract.
I DIDN’T hear from either Roger or Declan the next couple of days. My good mood had all but vanished when I met Fran for lunch on Wednesday.
“He cares about you, you doofus,” Fran said over her chicken roll. “It’s just you two are guys, so you have stupid ways of showing it.”
“It’s my life,” I said childishly.
“And as your friend, he will always butt into it, awkwardly to be sure, and then back off instantly,” Fran replied.
“Do you think I shouldn’t go on this date?” I asked, half-scared of what her answer would be.
“Of course you should.” She fished a bit of scraggly looking shaved carrot out of her lunch and inspected it with disgust. “Just go into it with your eyes open.”
I think no matter which answer she had given, I would have been half-scared regardless.
“So what are you going to wear?”
I looked at her, wondering if she thought I had suddenly grown a vagina in the past five minutes. “Clothes.”
She sighed. “Men.”
THAT night I could barely sleep, and I cursed myself for being so stupid. I was awake at four thirty in the morning, and I pictured myself trying to be cool and debonair over coffee with Declan — and then falling comatose into my latte and drowning before him.
He was a footballer; he had quick reflexes. Hopefully his resuscitation skills would be just as good. I giggled dreamily while I remembered what his lips tasted like and thought that I had to stop such thoughts immediately or else I would never get through the day.
Even the unwashed denizens of the public transport system couldn’t stop me from beaming like Pollyanna as I rode the light rail into the city. Nyssa handed me my first cup of coffee of the morning suspiciously.
“Hello, Cheery McCheer.”
“Morning, Nyssa.”
She watched me closely. “Why are you so happy?”
“No reason.”
“There’s a reason! You’re never this happy! You’re surly even when you’re happy.”
I saw a light cross over her eyes as realisation dawned upon her. I took a step back, thinking she had cottoned onto me and my hypocritical ways.
“You’ve gotten another job!”
Okay, that stumped me. “What?”
She was now going into full hysterical mode, practically wringing her hands. “I knew it was too good to be true, that you’d stay here forever! You’ve been headhunted by some larger festival! Or maybe even a studio! I’m going to get a new boss who will be feral and probably make me sign up on a workplace contract, and there’ll be no more Bog-off-to-the-Pub Fridays!”
“Did you add Red Bull to your coffee again?” I couldn’t help but be amused.
“No!”
“I haven’t been headhunted. You know me, I’m too lazy. I would rather be the big fish in the small pond rather than the tiny fish that drowns or is eaten by sharks in the vast deep.”
Nyssa collected herself almost immediately, embarrassed at the display she had put on. “You promise?”
I held up my hand and spread my fingers. “Scout’s honour.”
“That’s the Vulcan salute.”
I stared at my fingers. “Oh, right. I always get those two confused.”
She leant in and glared at me. “Anyway, you’re not going anywhere without me, right?”
I gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “I have it written in my contract.”
I could barely see out of my window because of the sheeting rain outside, but I wasn’t going to let anything affect my mood. Besides, I always look better in layers, which is one of the many reasons why I hate it when summer comes around.
As I was on my second cup of coffee, my mobile buzzed with an incoming message.
My plane arrives midday. I have an afternoon training session,
but I hope to be done by 4. See you at 6?
I bit my lip and texted back.
Where?
The reply was almost instantaneous.
I’ll pick you up.
That could prove difficult.
How do you know where I live?
I could almost see him shaking his head as he replied:
White Pages online, idiot.
Oh. Well, then.
See you at 6.
His final message made me smile, and I looked up quickly to make sure Nyssa wasn’t spying on me.
Looking forward to it.
But I didn’t text back. I had to get revenge somehow for the whole idiot thing.
I ONLY managed to make Nyssa even more paranoid when I left the office at four thirty and told her I was calling it a day and she could as well.
“You’re going to an interview, aren’t you?” she called after me as I ran out the door.
She was kind of right. But I left her hanging in anticipation.
Even leaving early was cutting it fine. I would probably only have forty-five minutes before Declan arrived, if he was punctual. I rushed through my front door, made sure to feed the cat, and jumped quickly into the shower.
I only managed to choose my boxer shorts and wriggle into them before I was stumped. Crap, Fran was right. I should have been thinking about what clothes to wear long before this.
I stood before my mirror and eyed myself critically. Daniel Craig emerging from the ocean in Casino Royale, I wasn’t. I was too pale, I had skinny arms but a slightly flabby and hairy tummy. My legs were even paler than my chest. I sat down (although fell down might be more honest) on the end of my bed, wondering if I was going to have a panic attack. Who the hell was I kidding? What made me think I could go out with somebody like Declan Tyler, a physical Adonis who was one of the favourites in the annual shirtless AFL stud farm calendars?