She raised an eyebrow. ‘That ego must be quite a burden to lug around.’
He didn’t say anything to that.
‘Look,’ she said, getting up out of her chair, ‘I realise you’ve been given carte blanche around here, but some of us still have to work. So if you’ll excuse me.’
With that she circled around his still crouching figure and strode off. Joe grabbed hold of the desk to pull himself upright. He was getting too old for this. Not just crouching on the floor, but dealing with this kind of crap. What had he done to offend her? It wasn’t his fault the elevator had broken down, or that she’d passed out, or that they had the same name, or that he’d been given an office. He’d even offered it to her, for Chrissakes. What did it take for her to like him? Or at least not loathe him?
Joe shoved his hands in his pockets and wandered around to his office, when he saw that woman leaning provocatively in the doorway, smiling at him. What the hell was her name?
‘Hey Joe,’ she purred.
He nodded. ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ How come he could remember the name of every single member of the Iraqi parliamentary assembly, and it had changed three times in the last two years, but he couldn’t remember this woman’s name?
‘How are you settling in?’ she asked.
‘All right.’ Lousy actually, but he wasn’t about to share that with her.
They stood there, feeling awkward. At least Joe felt awkward, he couldn’t say what she was feeling, but he didn’t like the predatory look in her eye.
‘Well . . .’ he said by way of a lame segue, ‘best get on with it.’
‘Have you got a minute, Joe?’ she said. ‘I have a proposal for you.’
He fixed a smile on his face. ‘Sure. Come on in.’ He opened the door for her and she walked through, or rather slithered her way over to his desk where she propped herself as though on a sidesaddle, arranging her long legs to achieve maximum exposure. There were definitely guys who got off on this kind of carry-on. He wasn’t one of them. Not that he didn’t find her attractive. Clearly, she was very attractive; it was just that he didn’t particularly enjoy the sensation of being circled by a tigress before she came in for the kill. He leaned back against the doorway to keep her at a distance.
‘So I have these tickets,’ she began. ‘VIP passes, invitations, I get them all the time. Comes with the territory.’
Karen . . . Carol . . . no, it was more exotic . . .
‘There’s a funky new bar opening,’ she went on, ‘you know, one of these “holes in the wall” that are popping up all over the place since the government finally had the balls to toss out the old licensing laws.’
Joe looked blankly at her.
‘You have been away for a while, haven’t you?’ she said. ‘Anyhow, it’s tomorrow night, invitation only. All the cool kids’ll be there.’
Jesus.
‘You know,’ he said carefully, ‘I don’t think I’m one of the cool kids . . .’ Carmen . . . Cara?
‘You are so wrong about that,’ she said. ‘But okay . . .’ She seemed to be contemplating her next move. Obviously he presented a challenge. ‘How do you feel about art? There’s an exhibition by a hot new installation artist Friday night.’
Joe would rather have his toenails pulled out with pliers. He cringed in a way he hoped was charming, not insulting.
She got it. ‘So I suppose a fashion parade is out of the question? Even if it is Isogawa?’
‘I’m guessing he doesn’t make martial arts movies?’
She smiled, but it was strained. He didn’t want to offend her, or make her feel foolish, and he had a sense it was going that way.
‘I’m afraid I’m a bit of a hopeless case . . .’ Carla . . . Carla! That was it. ‘. . . Carla.’
She regarded him through a veil of unnaturally long eyelashes. ‘Well, I’m not going to give up on you,’ she said, sliding off the desk and onto her feet. ‘We’ve got to get you out there, Joe. You really ought to take advantage of your celebrity while it lasts.’
‘My celebrity?’ he frowned, mystified.
She smiled indulgently at him as she came closer, so close that Joe had to breathe in. She started to adjust the collar of his shirt. ‘Don’t be so coy, Joe. “Award-winning, rugged war correspondent, returning home like the proverbial prodigal son after a lengthy stint in the Middle East”?’ She almost smacked her lips. ‘You might have been surrounded by sand out there, but it’s time to get your head out of it. War is very sexy right now, you can pretty much write your own ticket in this town.’
Only someone who’d never been in a war zone would say that war was sexy. Correct that. Only someone with half a brain and no idea would say anything remotely like that. Joe flinched a little as she reached into his breast pocket for his phone. She flipped it open.
‘I tell you what, Joe, I’ll program my number in here,’ she said, and proceeded to do just that. ‘And if you change your mind, you give me a call. Any time, day or night.’ She slipped his phone back in his pocket and gave it a gentle pat. ‘See you round.’
She slinked past him and out the door, and Joe breathed out. What the hell was that about? She’d given him her number, just like that. Some women didn’t need any work at all. And then there were women like Jo . . . not that he could remember meeting a woman quite like Jo before.
8 pm
‘Looks kind of bare,’ Angie decided.
‘Mm, that’s what I was thinking.’
Jo and Angie were considering the living room from another angle. They’d looked at it from the front door, from the doorway into the bedroom, and now from the kitchen.
‘Where’s all your stuff?’ asked Angie. ‘You know, pictures and that?’
‘All packed away,’ said Jo.
‘Still?’
‘Well, I did pull them out the other night, but I couldn’t decide where to put anything. And then they were all lying around and I couldn’t stand the mess any more, so I packed them away again.’
Angie frowned at her. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jo groaned, walking across the room and flopping onto the sofa. ‘My stuff doesn’t seem to belong.’
‘But it’s your stuff, it belongs to you. This is your place, so it belongs here.’
‘Then maybe I don’t belong.’
Angie came over and plonked herself in an armchair. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Of course I am.’ She’d always dreamed of having a brand-new place, somewhere without history, without a past. Probably because of all the dives they lived in when she was a kid, up and down the tackiest stretch of real estate on the planet, at least it was back then. Surfers Paradise. You were asking for trouble when you called a place ‘paradise’.
Jo wanted to settle somewhere that was unsullied by grubby tenants, grubbier landlords, shady pasts. She wanted a clean slate where she could stamp her own personality. But as the days went by, this place just felt sterile and empty. What did that say about her personality? Ugh, that was a depressing thought.
A knock sounded at the door. Jo frowned. ‘That’s not supposed to happen.’
‘Why not?’
‘This is a security block,’ said Jo, getting up from the sofa. ‘You have to buzz downstairs first, like you did.’
‘Maybe it’s a neighbour?’ Angie suggested. ‘Someone from inside the building.’
Jo doubted it. She didn’t imagine this was a very neighbourly block – once a building got over six floors it rarely was – which was another thing that had attracted her to the place. She walked over to the door but hesitated as she reached for the handle. She wished she had one of those peepholes.
The knock sounded again, giving her a start. She opened the door a little way, peering out.
‘Hi.’
Jo felt her heart jump in her chest. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Just passing . . .’
‘You were not,’ she said dubiously. Jo wasn’t sure whether to be flattered
or suspicious. She usually went with suspicious. It was safer. ‘How did you find out where I live?’
Angie had raced over and positioned herself behind the door, her eyes wide with intrigue.
Joe shrugged. ‘Judith looked it up for me.’
So much for confidentiality.
‘How did you get up here?’ Jo persisted.
He looked a little confused. ‘In the elevator.’
She pulled a face. ‘But how did you get through the security door?’
‘Oh, someone was coming out at the same time.’
So much for security as well.
Angie was poking her, mouthing, ‘Who is it?’
‘Anyhow,’ said Joe, taking a breath, ‘I ah, I thought, since we’re going to be working together, we really need to get over this.’
Angie’s eyebrows lifted so high they looked like they could quite possibly fly right off her forehead.
‘Get over what?’ Jo asked guilelessly. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Sure you do,’ Joe said wryly. ‘Look, I even brought a peace offering,’ he went on, holding up a bag obviously containing bottles. ‘Red and white, I didn’t know which you preferred.’
Angie was nodding her head furiously while Jo stood there, unmoved.
‘We had a wager, remember?’ said Joe. ‘If you guessed what I did for a living, I had to buy you a drink.’
‘But I didn’t guess.’
‘Only because you passed out first.’
‘Is this elevator guy?’ Angie blurted loudly.
He craned his head. ‘Who was that?’
Jo sighed heavily, opening the door wide. ‘This is my friend Angie.’
Angie was grinning her face off as she grasped his hand enthusiastically. ‘Hi, nice to meet you. I thought you said Elevator Guy was a complete stranger, Jo?’
‘He was at the time, but turns out Joe here has started working for the Trib as well.’
‘Who?’ said Angie, confused.
‘My name’s Joe, Joe Bannister,’ he explained, still shaking Angie’s hand, or rather still having his hand shaken by Angie.
She snorted a laugh. ‘You’ve got the same name? That’s pretty funny.’
‘Hilarious,’ said Jo, deadpan.
‘So, you’re coming in?’ said Angie somewhat rhetorically as she dragged him by the hand which she couldn’t seem to bring herself to part with.
‘I think that’s up to Jo,’ he said as Angie yanked him over the threshold.
He was persistent, Jo had to give him that. Besides, she was intrigued. And probably a little flattered. ‘Sure, come on in.’
Angie took the bag from him. ‘So I’ll get us a drink?’
‘I’ll do that, Ange –’
‘No no, you entertain your guest,’ she dismissed, bustling off to the kitchen.
Jo glanced over her shoulder at Bannister as she closed the door. ‘Take a seat.’
‘Thanks,’ he nodded, wandering slowly over to the sofa as he surveyed the room. ‘Still haven’t finished unpacking, eh?’
She came to stand beside him. ‘You can tell?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s a little bare. Doesn’t have that lived-in look yet.’
That was it, that was the look she was going for. And she suspected the only way to achieve it was to live in it, put out all her stuff and get over herself.
‘Jo,’ Angie called from the kitchen, ‘I can’t find your wineglasses.’
She glanced at Bannister. ‘Excuse me. Make yourself at home.’
Jo crossed the few metres to the kitchen which was largely open to the living room, but for a nook at the end where the wall wrapped around the fridge and a bi-fold door concealed the tiny laundry. Angie was huddled in the alcove out of sight from the living room, beckoning furiously.
‘What are you doing?’ Jo asked in a low voice.
‘Do you want me to go?’ Angie whispered urgently.
‘Go where?’
‘Go, get out of here, leave you two alone. I’ll make an excuse.’
‘What?’ Jo was momentarily confused. ‘You don’t have to go.’
‘But do you want me to go?’
‘Don’t get weird, Angie. He’s just a guy from work.’
‘Yeah, and you never told me that part either.’
‘I didn’t know myself till he showed up at a meeting the next day.’
‘And now he shows up on your doorstep.’ Angie arched one eyebrow suggestively. ‘What do you think that means?’
Jo sighed. ‘That you have a fertile imagination.’
‘Oh, come on, you really can’t be that thick,’ said Angie. ‘He’s obviously courting you.’
Jo tried to suppress a laugh but it came out as a snort.
‘Mind if I put on some music?’
Jo and Angie both jumped, turning around. Bannister was leaning over the bench, smiling at them. She hoped he hadn’t heard any of that.
‘Yeah, sure, of course,’ said Jo. ‘Go ahead, the player’s –’
‘I’ve got it,’ he smiled, before turning away again.
‘He’s cute,’ Angie swooned.
Jo rolled her eyes.
‘Oh, okay, you’ve got some literal fixation with the word cute. He’s hot then.’
Jo frowned. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously. Ruggedly. Rough-around-the-edges, eat-him-up-for-breakfast hot,’ she drooled. Music started up in the next room and Angie let out a stifled squeal. ‘And he likes Jeff Buckley!’
Jo groaned. ‘Maybe I should leave you two alone.’
‘Don’t be daft, woman, you’re the one he’s courting.’
‘Would you stop using that word?’ said Jo, reaching up into a cupboard for the glasses. ‘We’re not in a Jane Austen novel.’ She turned around to see Angie’s eyes glazing over. Jeez, she was replaying Darcy’s wet-shirt scene in her head right this second. ‘Snap out of it, Ange.’
She stirred. ‘Well I think courting’s an excellent word,’ she declared, ‘and I’m bringing it back. As in – Joe has clearly come here with a couple of bottles of very expensive wine to court your favour. And that’s more than El Cheapo would ever do.’
‘El Cheapo?’
‘Who do you think I’m talking about? Lecherous Lachie.’
‘Lachlan’s not cheap,’ Jo said defensively.
‘No, I’m sure he isn’t, with anyone but you.’ Angie paused. ‘Hey, does Joe know about Lachlan?’
Jo was beginning to frame a response when she realised it didn’t credit one, and she wasn’t going to encourage Angie any further. She poked her head past the dividing wall. ‘Red or white?’ she called to Joe, who had ensconced himself in one of the armchairs.
‘Whatever you open,’ he called back.
‘Either,’ she persisted.
‘Okay, red.’
‘Can we open the white as well?’ said Angie, turning up her nose. ‘You know I’m not all that fussed on red.’
Jo slid the bottle towards her. ‘Help yourself.’
‘We should have a signal,’ said Angie in a conspiratorial tone as she opened the wine.
‘What?’
‘If you do decide you want me to leave after all, you know, if things are going well, we should have a signal. He’ll never suspect, I can pull it off, I am an actor. What do you say?’
Jo was shaking her head as she poured the wine. ‘I say you’re nuts.’
Angie pulled a face.
‘He’s just a work colleague extending the olive branch of friendship,’ Jo said calmly. ‘That’s all there is to it, Ange. There will be no signal, and nobody will be going anywhere.’ And with that, Jo picked up the two glasses of red and walked out of the kitchen.
Truth was, Jo felt much more at ease with him on her own territory, especially with Angie providing a very effective buffer. She knew what Angie was like; she would barrage him with questions and monopolise his attention, which would give Jo the perfect opportunity to sit back and observe. Bannister was
right, they were going to work together, they should at least try to get along. He was clearly going to heroic efforts to do just that, and despite some lingering suspicion as to his motives, the balance of power was continuing to swing back in her favour, so the least Jo could do was give him a hearing.
‘So how do you two know each other?’ he asked when they were all seated in the living room, sipping on what was a damn fine red, Jo noted. That scored him a few points.
‘I work at the Earl of Sandwich, not far from the Trib building,’ Angie explained. ‘We met right back when Jo first started there. But that’s just my day job. I’m an actor,’ she added importantly.
‘Ah,’ said Joe. ‘So you’re the actor friend?’
‘Ooh, my reputation precedes me?’ Angie remarked, chuffed.
‘You got a mention in the elevator. All good,’ he assured her.
Jo found it a little unnerving that he knew so many snippets about her life; she never knew what little snippet was going to pop up next.
‘My brother’s an actor,’ said Joe.
Mm, she remembered that. Now that he said it.
‘What’s his name? Would I have heard of him?’ Angie was asking.
‘I doubt it. Will Bannister?’
Angie thought about it, shaking her head.
‘He hasn’t done anything of note, as far as I can tell. He hangs around with actors and, you know, creative types. They seem to have a lot of projects in the works, but I’m not sure anything ever comes of them.’
‘At least he’s having fun.’
‘Oh yeah, he’s having a lot of fun, all right.’ Joe took a sip of his wine. ‘How about you, Angie? Do you get much work?’
She shrugged. ‘Commercials, extras work. It can pay well, but I didn’t do this for the money, and it’s pretty soulless. I really want to break into theatre.’
‘So what’s stopping you?’
‘You’re kidding, aren’t you?’ said Angie. ‘Hasn’t your brother complained about this? It’s a closed shop. The industry’s so small in Australia and the roles so few and far between, that once you get in, you hang on for dear life, taking anything that’s going, a line, a walk-on, just to keep your place. I don’t blame anyone for doing that, just makes it hard to get your foot in the door. Especially when you don’t exactly look like Cate Blanchett.’
Crossing Paths Page 15