by Carla Caruso
Rather than argue further, Celeste decided to turn the tables on her friend. ‘Do you want me to hook you up with the builder or something?’
‘Definitely not,’ Betty-Lou scoffed. ‘I’m enjoying being single for now. Though that doesn’t mean I can’t have the odd builder-related fantasy.’ Celeste knew Betty-Lou’s infertility made her extra-cautious about opening her heart — probably a fear-of-rejection defence mechanism. Betty-Lou went on, ‘The closest I’ve had to anything resembling a love life lately was the hicky I got from a baby I held at the toy library sucking on my arm. Poor little mite was teething, his gums giving him no end of trouble.’
Celeste shook her head, smiling. ‘You idiot! And, for the record, his name’s Lenny. He runs Muscat Building Group and apparently specialises in heritage-style building and renovations. Satisfied?’
‘No doubt he could satisfy me,’ Betty-Lou said lewdly before whipping around to rustle in a kitchen drawer. ‘I’d love to hear more once I find my stupid cake server …’
Celeste sat up straighter, peering over her friend’s shoulder. ‘It should be in the third drawer. Like the last time I helped you rearrange your kitchen.’
‘Yeah, thanks for that tidy-up — now I can’t find a bloody thing.’
When it came to family and friends, Celeste sometimes wondered why she even bothered trying. Sliding off her stool, she tried to block out the noise of Natalia demonstrating how to do a plié in the background as she marched over to Betty-Lou. ‘Let me have a look.’
The doorbell chimed musically through the cottage, signalling Araminta’s arrival and saving Celeste from any more chatter about Lenny.
‘Come in, door’s open!’ Betty-Lou yelped through the archway before sticking her head in her retro, cream-coloured fridge.
Seconds later, Araminta bustled in. In true hairdresser style, she was always changing her ’do. This time she sported blonde locks with a dyed brown fringe. Her whippet-thin frame was also clad in all-black — as seemed to be the uniform of the hairstyling profession — complemented by a chunky amber-and-gold neckpiece.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Araminta said in her usual mile-a-minute fashion. ‘I had a late client. Head full of greys! You know the one I told you about who hasn’t slept with her husband for five months and kicked him out to the spare room? Little wonder about the greys.’ Araminta shook her head, her necklace rattling. ‘I tell you, I’m seriously considering doing a counselling degree. At least I’d get paid for all the advice I dish out and the clients bending my ear off.’
Araminta’s tales from work were always amusing. Although Celeste hated to think what Araminta told other clients about her, also being a customer. Things had a way of spilling from her lips once the hairdressing cape went on. And obviously client privacy wasn’t as much of a concern for Araminta as it was for Celeste. She needed to remember to bite her lip next visit. She wasn’t as close to Araminta as she was to Betty-Lou.
‘Fancy a piece of cake?’ Betty-Lou, returning from the fridge, brandished a tray of delicious-looking cheesecake.
Araminta waved the tray away. ‘Not for me thanks. I’ll just go a cocktail, or ten. I’m trying to do the Paleo diet. You know, eat like a caveman for my health. Although cocktails are the one thing I draw the line at.’
Betty-Lou blew a breath upwards, the petals on the rose in her hair fluttering. Turning down her homemade treats was never a good idea. ‘Not you, too. Paleo, schmaelo. Is all this stupid healthy stuff catching or something? You know, I saw a recipe for a raw paleo fudge the other day. It’s ridiculous. Like cavemen would have been able to get almond butter and coconut oil from Coles!’
Araminta reached for a free glass and shrugged. ‘Well, I’m not religious about it, hence the cocktails.’ She pressed a hand to the bling at her neck. ‘The only thing I truly hunt for is estate jewellery.’
Celeste tried not to think about the dead person who would have last worn Araminta’s neckpiece. Suddenly the accessory didn’t look so pretty. She didn’t really do old.
‘Sweet ride.’ Lenny nodded at the musclebound, tattooed bloke who’d just stepped from the yellow Corvette Stingray that had zoomed into Natalia’s drive the next morning. The sports car was a little flashy for Lenny’s tastes, but he could still appreciate it.
The stranger, who towered over Lenny — even though Lenny wasn’t exactly lacking in the height department — patted the bonnet of the shiny vehicle. Interestingly, it had Western Australian numberplates. ‘Yeah, she goes all right.’
‘I can imagine. Bet she’d guzzle a bit of petrol, too. Although probably not much more than the tanks the designer mums drive around Astonvale.’
Or tried to drive, if Lenny were inclined to think in a sexist manner.
The guy chuckled, pushing mirrored Oakleys atop his short, spiky hair. ‘True.’ He extended a hand forwards, and Lenny felt a sudden jolt of recognition as he met the guy’s gaze. Like he’d maybe seen the bloke someplace before, though couldn’t quite put his finger on it. ‘I’m Mike,’ the guy went on. ‘Guess you’re the one in charge of doing up this old place.’
‘Sure am. Name’s Lenny.’
It was going to bug Lenny now, not knowing where he’d seen Mike before, like scrambling for a word — unsuccessfully — on the tip of his tongue.
Mike nodded. ‘Natalia’s my fiancée.’
‘Oh, right.’
Maybe that explained it. He must have seen the bloke hanging off Natalia’s arm in the social pages. Not that Lenny was the type to read the entertainment section. But an image may have drifted into his line of sight on his way to finding the business news. His gaze was suddenly caught by a tattoo of a naked redhead on Mike’s upper arm. Obviously Natalia was okay with it. Funny, the pair seemed like total opposites. But that was women for you — always zigging when you expected them to zag.
Speaking of naked, Lenny knew who he wouldn’t mind seeing undressed. That professional organiser, Celeste More-Than-Pretty, whom he hadn’t crossed paths with yet that day. Something about her standoffish, anxious vibe seemed to do funny things to him. Made him want to get her all mucky, encourage her to live a little dangerously. Unfortunately, though, she looked like the type who’d easily get her heart broken, and he didn’t do commitment. Not at this stage of the game.
‘You seen Natalia around?’ Mike pressed.
Lenny directed his mind back to the job. ‘Oh, the last I saw she was having some kind of informal meeting with Minka in the lounge, if that’s any help.’
His concierge-like skills had come to the fore again. If only he got paid extra for such efforts.
‘Thanks, man.’ Mike turned his hefty frame and began heading up the drive, almost pulverising the white gravel beneath his feet as he did so. The guy really was a tall bugger.
Right, back to work. Lenny took a moment to look up and inspect the painters’ handiwork of that morning. They really had made light work of getting their scaffolding up for some exterior work. It was a job well done. Now he just needed to find his right-hand man, Bill, and he could get back to his own project of the moment: the ballroom renovation. Lenny scrambled around in his pockets. It would help, of course, if he could find his phone to call Bill. Where had he left the bloody device?
A sudden vision flickered in his mind, like a hazy image on a vintage movie projector. The tool-belt Celeste had left him. He remembered discarding it in a corner of the ballroom and it had made a soft landing for throwing his mobile on top of earlier on, if his memory served him correctly. Meaning the belt had come in handy in some way, after all. Not that he’d be enlightening Miss Pretty anytime soon. He could only imagine her smug expression if he did.
‘Excuse me, Minka?’ Celeste hurried to catch up with Natalia’s assistant, who was busy out the front ripping open a brown-paper parcel, just delivered by the mail contractor. Celeste had to manoeuvre around some visitor’s yellow sports car, still in the drive from that morning.
Minka’s usual uninterested gaze flicked
Celeste’s way. ‘Yes?’
‘Sorry to bother you. It’s just I’ve been looking high and low for a broom with no luck. We’ve been making real progress on Natalia’s home office. You can actually see floor-space now. But it really needs a good sweep before we continue.’
‘Oh, right. Um, I think I last saw one on the balcony, outside the library,’ Minka offered dully, her eyes back on the parcel’s contents — just some boring paperwork so far as Celeste could see. Which gave her a chance to steal a peek at the assistant’s footwear that day: cherry-red Chanel ankle-boots. Swoon.
‘Got it. Thank you.’ Celeste was about to turn on her heel when, over Minka’s shoulder, she spied the old Italian fellow from yesterday, sitting on his porch. Almost appearing to have watched the pair’s exchange. Which was slightly unnerving. Then again, he probably had cataracts and she was just imagining things. Even so, Celeste edged closer to Minka, lowering her voice. ‘Uh, do you happen to know the old guy across the street? He’s been busy having a good look at us.’
The elderly neighbour’s words from yesterday rang in her ears, seeming to float on the spring breeze: She’s crook, she’s crook.
Minka swivelled on a stiletto heel and threw back her head and laughed as she turned back. It was the most animated Celeste had seen the girl. ‘Mr Milesio? Oh, he’s mad! He’s always having a gawk. Has been doing so since day one. Once he even dumped a half-empty milk carton behind a shrub in the front yard when he got too close in passing. It took the gardening team days to work out where the sour smell was coming from.’
Celeste blinked. ‘How strange.’
Minka, seeming bored again, checked her watch. It was white, bejewelled, and Christian Dior. The girl had brilliant taste in accessories even if the rest of her outfits were always kind of grey. ‘Well, I’d better get back to it. Natalia’s got the idea for an online show in the works and there’s plenty to organise.’
‘Oh … sure.’
Minka bustled ahead and Celeste had to slow her steps not to follow directly behind the assistant, also on her way back inside. Thankfully, Minka veered to the right, the phone pressed to her ear as usual, while Celeste headed back upstairs. She still hadn’t tried the lift, though she’d passed it. It was as shiny and silver as a lift in a luxury hotel.
The library wasn’t hard to find. Its carved wooden door was open. And like the other liveable areas — where Celeste’s services weren’t needed — it was tidy, probably set up for business meetings. A showpiece, rather than anything functional; Natalia didn’t seem the bookish type.
The room had bottle-green walls and matching velvet couches, shelves and shelves of antique-looking books, and a chandelier the size of a small jet hanging from the ornate ceiling. Celeste could just imagine being curled up on a couch with Gail Blanke’s Throw Out Fifty Things or the latest IKEA catalogue.
She headed through French doors to the balcony, where scaffolding on the outside tainted the otherwise perfect view of the garden. Minka had been right about the broom. It was lying to the left amid paint tins and brushes, which had since been abandoned by the painters. Smoko time obviously.
As she went to grab it, Celeste heard voices come into the library and froze. One of the voices belonged to Natalia and the other to an unfamiliar male. Instinctively, Celeste crouched down, her knees cracking, cursing leaving open a French door. Natalia wouldn’t know Minka had sent Celeste up to the balcony, and she knew how it would have looked. Like she was nosing about where she didn’t belong. Perspiration beaded in her armpits. She sent a silent prayer up above that Natalia and her visitor wouldn’t be long and that they’d think the door had been left ajar by a painter.
‘… You can’t keep letting things continue as they are,’ the gruff male voice continued. ‘Not after everything you’ve built up. Something’s got to give, Natalia. The demands are only going to get bigger.’
‘But what can I do?’ It was Natalia, but she sounded … different. Almost less polished. A far cry from her assured TV persona, at any rate. ‘There’s no other option, no out.’
What the hell was going on?
‘You could come clean. Beat them at their own game,’ the man said.
‘No, no. Not when we don’t even know who or what we’re dealing with. I’ll have to think of something else, some other way—’
The rest was drowned out by the din of a leaf-blower next door: another sound synonymous with Astonvale. The leaf-blower racket paused momentarily, and then Celeste’s blood turned to ice as she heard footsteps heading for the French doors. At the same time, she noticed a familiar face popping up at the far end of the scaffolding. In a split-second decision, Celeste duck-dived across the tiles, making it to the other side of the balcony in the nick of time.
‘Give me a hand,’ she begged her saviour of the moment.
Lenny, on the other side of the balcony, looked puzzled for a millisecond, then helped her scramble rather unglamorously over the wrought iron onto the wooden planks below. His hands, as he gripped her, felt strong, warm and slightly rough. Breathing hard, she ducked down onto the scaffolding, the gravel driveway and garden suddenly swimming like some sort of mosaic before her eyes.
It was really, really high up there. In her haste to hide, she hadn’t factored in her dislike of heights. In a second, she was a kid again, waiting for her go on the giant water-slide, her knees trembling as she looked down from the steps. Even with Lenny’s ankles within grabbing distance, she could feel herself wilting like a water-stressed agapanthus. Behind her, a door could be heard slamming shut.
Meaning she’d risked life and limb for nothing.
No one from the library was venturing any nearer. She could have waited it out.
Lenny squatted to her level, his eyes twinkling. It would have taken nothing to lean forward and press her finger into the cleft of his chin. But that would have meant letting go of a plank.
‘Everything okay? You’re not just hiding because you’ve dirtied another top and think it’ll ruin your pristine image?’
She gritted her teeth. ‘How did you suddenly appear on the scaffolding?’
A chuckle reverberated in his throat. ‘I used a ladder. Like most people.’
Fifteen–love. She supposed it was a fair call.
He pushed on. ‘I was also checking that my crew, during their break, had got the paint colours right. Lucky their artwork’s dried or you would have really been a mess. Now, are you going to enlighten me on why you are here?’
Celeste swallowed and tipped her head in the direction of the library. ‘I was out here, looking for a broom. Then I overheard Natalia enter, having a private conversation with some guy. It sounded quite … intense, so I didn’t think they’d appreciate my being here. Which is why I hid.’
Lenny adjusted the dusty cap covering his lustrous thatch of hair. ‘Must be her fiancé. I met him out on the drive before. They’re probably just having a lovers’ tiff.’
‘Natalia has a fiancé?’ Celeste scrunched up her forehead. ‘I always presumed she was single. I’ve never seen her relationship mentioned in the gossip rags before. You’d think the magazines would be on her like nothing else if they knew wedding bells would soon be ringing.’
‘Maybe she’s just protective of her loved ones, anything not business-related.’
‘Maybe. I mean, she doesn’t even wear an engagement ring, from memory, or live with him.’
‘Perhaps she’s saving herself for marriage,’ Lenny offered dryly, beginning to look bored. ‘Anyway, we’d better not hang around here. If you wanted to look suspicious about attempting to sell a celebrity’s story, you’re going the right way about it.’
Celeste widened her eyes, desperately looking around. ‘Right, how do we go about getting down? Is there a cherry-picker for that?’
A grin lit up Lenny’s features, making him look even more devilishly handsome unfortunately. He pointed towards the edge of the scaffolding’s metal frame. ‘The same way I came up — the ladder.’
Celeste gulped, holding her chin aloft, doing all she could not to let it wobble. ‘I can manage that.’
5.
‘Oh, no thanks, I don’t do carbs.’ Shandee, Lenny’s date, waved away another waiter — this one wielding a tray of salmon-laden croutons, which Lenny wouldn’t have minded sampling. But it was too late for that.
Shandee, a part-time model, part-time real estate receptionist, also didn’t do dairy. Or sugar. Or gluten. Nor had she been a fan of seeing the oysters shucked live. She would made a cheap date if he’d been paying, but, as it were, it was all free. She’d joined him at the launch party of a paint company’s new wildlife-inspired colour collection, aptly at a function centre at the Adelaide Zoo.
Of course, he hadn’t invited Shandee for the dazzling company, but he knew she’d enjoy being arm-candy. And she could do what she excelled at: dressing up in her glad-rags for a fabulous party. They both got something out of the deal, no strings attached.
Every now and then he had to show his face at industry events. Network. Even though he’d much prefer to be on his front deck at home, watching the sunset, a beer in hand. Not donning a shirt and trousers and putting product in his hair. The trouble with these parties was that, while they always looked good from the outside, in reality you spent most of the evening trying to disentangle yourself from conversations and steer clear of certain people.
He looked to Shandee. ‘Should we go out on the balcony?’
The speed-painter making fast-forward-style art on canvas for the party-goers’ amusement — talented as he was — was starting to bore Lenny. As was seeing the paint company’s new TV ad repeated on the TV screens.
Shandee fingered her loose, auburn bun and shrugged. ‘Okay.’ Then she hooked her arm with his. Lenny smiled inside as the other males in the crowd rubbernecked at her in her nude-coloured sheath as she passed. Idiots. It was as though they didn’t have women waiting at home.