I throw a mushroom at him. He catches it in one hand, expression smug. Placing the mushroom on the chopping board in front of me, Keats watches me chop the whole thing before he trusts me enough with the rest.
“This reminds me of Home Ec. Did we ever partner up for that?” he asks, chopping up broccoli.
He so doesn’t remember me. I remember that one and only time we had to work together in Home Economics like it was yesterday. It was Year 9. Fiona was away, and his friend Richard Dean had been sent home for the day for squirting water on Mia in Science class. I never played much pretend growing up, pretending to be “the mummy” while a friend played “the daddy”, but I secretly did that day.
“Maybe once,” I say now.
His eyes narrow like he’s peering into the past. He shakes his head, obviously unable to recall what I’m talking about.
“So, if I was the one Isabella wanted,” he says, returning our conversation to what he’s here for, “why did she change her mind about us? And when?”
I hesitate. It still doesn’t feel right ratting out Isabella to someone trying to destroy her relationship—no matter how desperate I am to get into Keats’ pants.
“Look, I appreciate that you’re trying to protect your friend, and I respect that,” he says, reading my mind.
A cold finger of fear runs up my arm—what else can he discern? I’d better watch what I think around him.
“But I assure you, I wouldn’t be doing this to my brother if I weren’t pretty sure I’m in love with Isabella.”
I nod mutely, lips clamped into a tight smile, nauseous to the pit of my stomach. I knew this was going to hurt, but that was especially painful to hear.
“If…if you want to pull out of our deal…” Keats begins to offer, sounding reluctant.
No!
“You’re not getting out of it that easily. I’m driving that Audi,” I say coolly. After much bargaining, I’d managed to score ten lessons using his beloved car. I take a deep breath and start. “I don’t think Isabella changed her mind about you. She just got to know Byron better. I mean, they’d been friends since they were kids—it was just a natural progression.”
Keats nods, a thoughtful expression on his face. “See, that’s what I’m thinking of doing, too. Get to know Isabella better. Show her we can be friends—that she can confide in me. Then, if there’s trouble in paradise, guess who she’ll come running to?”
“That sounds evil.”
“That is almost exactly what Byron did to us. How is this different?” He dumps the chopped up broccoli into a colander he found under my sink.
“Your brother didn’t do it on purpose.”
“That’s arguable. Look, he should’ve made his move on her before she was with me. And like I said last time, what Dad did to Mom was shitty. But I understand now why he did it—this unrequited bullshit eats away at you. You know?”
I nod, on the verge of laughing at the irony of it all. I bite my lower lip and probably appear sympathetic instead.
“And it would be too late once Isabella’s married, or I marry someone else. And if there were kids involved? Hell, I’m not putting my kids through what my dad did to our family.”
“You want kids?”
“Yeah. Eventually. Little Keats Junior and his yet-to-be-named sister.”
Something stirs in my stomach, little butterflies of hope, at the thought of having Keats’ babies. I tense up instantly. What babies? I have no plans for babies. Mental note: check the use by date on all the condoms in my possession; cull anything close to expiring.
“My wife can name her if she likes,” he finishes, and the bugs in my belly just got massacred at the mention of his future spouse.
I can’t believe I’m jealous of an imaginary woman. Luckily, he doesn’t see me flinch since he’s facing the stove while he heats the wok.
I pay careful attention to the mushroom for extra measure—I don’t want him to see the hurt in my eyes. “I thought Linda said you weren’t the ‘marrying kind’?” I hope I sound off-hand as I put my knife down.
“I wasn’t.” He pours oil into the wok and flicks water at it from the tap over my kitchen sink. “When the oil starts to crackle, it’s hot enough,” he explains like the chef of a cooking show. He puts the garlic in the wok, later followed by the onion.
“So what changed?” The smell of caramelising garlic and onion fills the air, making my stomach grumble. I haven’t had non-diet food in five months.
“Isabella.” He looks down at the pork slices, a blush to his cheeks.
The apron he takes in his stride, but this he turns pink over? He must be in love. I’m going to be sick.
He scrapes the pork pieces into the wok, the oil instantly sizzling as it touches the meat. “Anyway, let’s start with Isabella’s favourite things,” he says pushing around the sautéing ingredients with a wooden spoon. “So, what’s her favourite colour?”
Chapter 9
“Holy fuck, Jess. Easy.” Keats winces. “Let’s just go slowly. Please.”
I grit my teeth and ignore him, going for it.
I press down on the gas, and the surroundings zoom past—trees, road, road barriers, hills in the distance, all a blur. I see the corner up ahead. I take it at high speed, angling my body in the direction I want to travel, willing my ride to make it. But the tires screech as the car skids and gravel flies. I turn my head to look at Keats sitting beside me. He’s grimacing like he wishes he’d put on a seatbelt, fingers tensely gripping his seat.
The car suddenly flips, goes airborne and I smash it into trees, landing on the asphalt upside down with a thud.
Game Over.
Keats gets off his beanbag in a huff, chucking his controller onto the saggy cloth. It’s Sunday morning, a couple of weeks since he first cooked for me, and Keats and I made plans to meet today for my very first driving lesson. I didn’t realise it meant a couple of hours using a steering wheel controller and a car racing game while he sat like the proverbial backseat driver beside me. He walks over to my TV and unplugs the game console with the crisp moves of the pissed off.
I can’t help but laugh.
“God. Chillax, Keats.”
“Don’t tell me to ‘chillax’. You just killed us.”
I laugh harder. Damn he looks amazing in a grey vee-neck knit top and khaki cargo shorts, even when he’s being a baby. “You bring over a racing game for me to practice on and you expect me to go slowly? All the other drivers were passing us.”
The corners of his mouth are down but his lips twitch like he’s ready to see the funny side of this morning’s “driving lesson”. “I couldn’t find a driving game that didn’t involve racing.”
He slips the gaming console back into its box. He brought everything to my place this morning. Brand new. It’s the third time he’s been to my flat. He came here again after work last week for another chat session about Isabella over grilled chicken and a hot salad—he cooked, of course.
“I’ve got an idea,” I say. He looks up, the intensity of his blue eyes catching me by surprise again—you’d think I’d be used to it by now. “Why don’t you actually let me drive your car?”
“No. Way. You couldn’t even get through the circuit without crashing.”
“It was a video game. I was using a saucer-sized steering wheel.”
“Practise. I’ll leave this,”—he indicates the game console—“here so you can get your road position right. Brush up on your road rules, then we’ll talk about letting you get behind the wheel of my car.”
“But I’ve had my learner’s since I was eighteen!” I protest, probably sounding like I was back at that age. I took the test and got the permit so I had proof of age to go clubbing and drinking with my friends. I’ve dutifully renewed it every time before it expired.
“Well, that probably means you haven’t thought about road rules in ten years. I’ll let you behind the wheel when you can pass the theory test again, and when you can go around the track sa
fely.”
That sounds like ages away. My features fall. “But I cleared my schedule this morning to go driving.” An overstatement. To free myself up, I wrote the latest instalment of erotic fiction last night—a little frisky business in a photo booth. I’d like to think it’s art imitating life but it’s more like I was low on ideas and I thought my paying customers would probably like the idea of the cramped public space and a camera.
“Oh, we’ll go driving today. But you’re sitting in the passenger seat while I teach you how to handle her.”
I look at the clock on the wall next to the book shelf. Shit, it’s later than I thought. Sitting on the beanbag playing video games with Keats was way too entertaining and time has flown.
“Fine. You can show me stuff on the way to your mum’s house.” There was no time to argue—I’m going out with Mrs McAllister for the rest of the day, and I need a lift anyway.
I get up from my seat to the usual crunching noises of the beanbag I’m on. “I’m ready to go, too. Let me get my bag.”
I’m already in my good clothes so there’s no need to change—it took me an hour to figure out what to wear for my non-date this morning with Keats. In the end, I settled for a floral dress that showed enough cleavage to hopefully keep his eyes off the cellulite on my legs. I’ve left my hair down with my curls perfect from being in two braids overnight. I flick some strands off my shoulders, sneaking a look behind me to see if Keats has noticed. He is lounging on a beanbag leafing through one of my tabloid magazines, a bored expression on his face.
I sigh—he’s so not interested in me.
***
How Heather McAllister got through almost sixty years of life without having heard of a “breakup haircut” is beyond me. Was she so popular in her dating days that she was never the dumpee? Or was Dr McAllister her one and only relationship? Either way, I’m a firm believer in makeovers, especially after a huge life change. And you can’t get any bigger than a divorce, and the death of the love of your life.
“I don’t know,” Mrs McAllister says for the umpteenth time to Henrique, my fabulous hairdresser in Fortitude Valley. He’s a magician with scissors and hair dye, and up to his arched eyebrows in clients. A backlog of women is currently waiting with the latest celebrity mags on dramatic leather sofas in the waiting area of his salon.
Henrique looks at me, pleading with his eyes. He has too many customers waiting and needs decisions. Fast.
“Colour change, length change, style change, babe,” I instruct him. “If Heather recognises herself next time she looks in the mirror, I would be disappointed. We want her to look younger, fresher and ready to flirt.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Heather giggles nervously from the customer’s chair. “Jeff liked my hair like the day we met.”
That explains why she has a Farah Fawcet ’do circa famous red swimsuit photo shoot.
“If you don’t like it, it’ll grow back, but if you love it—and you will because Henrique is a genius—it’ll change your life.” I give her shoulder a squeeze. Something about Mrs McAllister’s fragility makes me want to be upbeat for her and mean it.
She looks at me and nods, cringing. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
I hold her hands and we share a giggle.
“You heard the lady, Henrique. Let’s see some magic.”
Heather’s whole body tenses, and I try to distract her with conversation, starting with my first “driving lesson” with her son this morning. I can’t help but complain that the closest I got to controlling his beloved luxury car was telling him to swing by a 7-Eleven so I could get a low-sugar Slurpee on our way to her house.
“Don’t feel bad, Jess. Keats loves that car,” she tells me as Henrique brushes her hair into a low ponytail. She’s chosen not to look in the mirror during the whole process in case she changes her mind. She grabs my hand and holds onto it when Henrique starts arranging her hair into a single long plait.
Warmth radiates from Mrs McAllister’s hand, infusing me with warm fuzzy feelings and a poignant ache in my chest I barely recognise. I don’t have a lot of memories of Mum, but I remember she used to push me away when I tried to hug her.
“He once lost a girlfriend because of that Audi,” Heather adds, hand still on mine for moral support.
“Linda?” My voice is thick with the emotion of remembering my mother. I cough to clear it.
If Heather noticed that I’ve just tripped and hurt myself on Memory Lane, she doesn’t say anything. Instead, she raises her brow at me like she’s surprised that I know her son’s ex-girlfriend’s name.
“We ran into her at the Bridal Expo,” I explain. And she repeatedly “ran” her bouquet against Keats’ chest.
Hmm, his strong, firm chest…
I can just picture it now with that lion tattoo.
Heather studies my expression and a tentative smile forms on her lips. Damn, she’s perceptive. I wonder what else she can tell about me?
“Linda was getting clucky,” Heather continues, instantly drawing my complete attention. “She started dropping hints about tying the knot and having babies. After Keats bought the car, she broke up with him—right there in my living room. She said buying such an expensive sports car with barely a backseat meant he didn’t see children in his future. She gave him an ultimatum—her or the car.”
“And he’s going to let you learn to drive in it, honey?” Henrique pipes in, sounding impressed.
I’m not tempted to tell them that Keats is finally choosing a woman over his car—because that woman is not me.
“You ready, honey?” Henrique asks my new friend, placing a tanned hand on Heather’s shoulder. He has a pair of shiny chrome scissors in his other hand.
Mrs McAllister closes her eyes and nods. With his super sharp scissors in hand, Henrique pulls the plait taut, then starts to cut through her thick hair. He has to widen and close the blades several times over her tresses, making Heather wince with every crunch of her substantial mane. I imagine it’s like those public executions in medieval times when the axeman’s blade doesn’t quite do the job with the first cut. For Mrs McAllister, it seems just as painful. Her eyes begin to moisten.
“Have you seen any new movies?” I ask quickly.
I want to distract her before she bolts out of the hairdresser with only half her locks snipped off. If this make-over helps her get rid of even a little of the baggage Dr McAllister left her with, I know she would feel so much better.
“No,” Mrs McAllister says. “But I love watching films.”
I tell her about the latest movie I saw and my new celebrity crush—safe topics. In the process, I’m learning a lot about my new friend. Home all day, Heather has an encyclopaedic knowledge of celebrity news and gossip which a Hollywood tragic like me can definitely appreciate. In a way, she’s almost like the older, wiser version of Jillie—just not as excitable. And a bit faster on the up take, and more responsible. Okay, she’s nothing like Jillie, except for the fun factor. And the fact hours just melt away while I chat with her.
“Here you go, honey,” Henrique says as he finally detaches the plaited hair from my new friend’s head. He passes it to her, and it’s almost a foot long. “Doesn’t that feel lighter?”
She nods, biting down on her lower lip as her eyes glisten. But a tentative smile breaks through like a bit of sunshine behind a rain cloud.
I give her arm a squeeze while Henrique and I pretend we haven’t just seen her come close to breaking down.
A couple of hours later. Henrique tucks the last glossy locks into place.
“You ready?” I ask Mrs McAllister.
She shuts her eyes and nods. I can’t supress my excited grin—I’m so happy for her. Maybe this is what it feels like to have a mother, or an aunt I like. Henrique swivels the chair till Heather is facing the mirror. She cracks open one blue eye. It blinks a couple of times before the other eye joins it. Her lips quiver as she takes in the short, slick, dark brown bob—like Catherine Zeta Jon
es’ in Chicago.
Oh shit, she hates it.
But then Mrs McAllister’s mouth stretches into a grin so wide it crinkles the corners of her eyes and puts two deep dimples on each side of her mouth. Just like Keats. I never noticed before how much her eldest son takes after her.
“So you like it?” I ask as warmth fills me.
“I love it. But…”
I hold my breath while I wait for her to finish her sentence.
“…can we go shopping now? I need new clothes.”
I am beyond relieved. It’s like the Grinch when his heart starts to get bigger—there’s definitely an ache in my chest that’s not all together unpleasant. “Whatever you like, Mrs McAllister.”
She appraises herself in the mirror, lifts her chin, and draws back her shoulders till she’s no longer slumped and defeated. “You know what? Jeff divorced me, so I should stop using his name. Call me, Heather or, if you must, by my maiden name, Ms Radley.”
Chapter 10
My Miz Peggy website feels neglected. I’ve been on it every day but I don’t have the time, the energy or the interest to maintain it right now. I still answer the emails, finalise stock orders, promote new products, and do my weekly mini-fiction stories but I haven’t done anything different for the site itself.
Isabella and Byron’s wedding is just taking too much of my time and energy, and I have to say, my interest, too. It’s now well into May, and after a month of looking through wedding mags, and calling reception venues, I’m hooked. Probably because wedding planning is infinitely a lot more pleasant than answering sometimes perverted queries from my website’s subscribers.
Besides, the wedding industry is filled with the in lurve—my website is quite often frequented by the lonely and the horny. I’m seriously beginning to consider changing careers to wedding planning.
But I need to snap out of it.
Miz Peggy is my bread and butter. And I’m so close to my goal of saving up for the minimum deposit on a house. I don’t even want to get married. I’m sure I’d be worse than a mechanic who doesn’t drive—a wedding planner who doesn’t believe in marriage. With a sigh, I open up another email from my advice service.
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