‘No need to bite my head off.’ Siobhan reached for a muffin herself. ‘I was merely offering a little sisterly advice.’
‘I know. Sorry.’ But Clara took a large, rebellious and comforting bite of her muffin just the same. ‘It’s all a little daunting to be honest. Online dating wasn’t even a thing last time I was in the market for a man. Back then love was a lucky dip; it all seems so orchestrated these days.’
‘I think that’s a good thing. No more hanging around bars and clubs hoping someone will offer to buy you a drink. I’d usually gone to bed with someone before I worked out how unsuitable they were for me. There were a lot of uncomfortable mornings after before I finally hit the jackpot with Neil. This way you find someone who has the same interests and values before you even meet them in person.’
Maybe Siobhan had a point. Clara couldn’t help wondering if she and Rob had met online rather than in the hospital whether they’d have ended up together at all. Probably not. Quite aside from the fact that a nurse and a musician had little in common, imagining such things was pointless as Rob wouldn’t have been looking on the internet anyway. Back then, he had groupies falling all over themselves to go out with him. Someone like herself would never have even got close if it hadn’t been for his appendix.
She thought back to the evening she’d walked into his hospital room, unprepared for the flirting she was about to encounter, the feelings he was about to evoke. No clue her life was about to change forever.
‘Hello,’ she’d said with her usual cheery smile as she went over to lift the clipboard off the end of his bed. ‘I’m Clara, and I’ll be looking after you all night.’
‘Looks like my luck’s just changed then,’ had been his mischievous reply. ‘If I’d have known getting appendicitis would lead me to you, I’d have gotten sick sooner.’
And although she’d dealt with plenty of flirty patients before—usually old men who thought it funny—she couldn’t recall any quite as good-looking and young as this one. And his voice … It made her toes curl in her sensible flat shoes.
‘I need to take your blood pressure,’ she’d said, praying that the terrible hospital lighting meant he didn’t notice her blushing.
‘You can take whatever you like, sweetheart.’
She’d given him a stern look, trying to ignore the fluttering behind her ribs.
‘Sorry. It’s my natural instinct to flirt with a pretty girl.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘And I think I’m still a little bit woozy from the anaesthetic, but I promise to keep my hands to myself.’
‘You better,’ she’d said, but her heart had hammered in her chest and her fingers shook worse than they had the first time she’d taken anyone’s blood pressure. ‘So what do you do for a crust?’ she asked, trying to make small talk.
‘A bit of labouring during the day, but at night I play in a band. One Track Mind. You might have seen us at one of the local pubs.’
‘You sing?’ That accounted for the voice.
He’d nodded. ‘I sing, play guitar, write my own songs. I’m a man of many talents.’
‘And modest too.’ Yet, although the words sounded arrogant, for some reason he hadn’t come across that way. There’d been something almost vulnerable about him, as if he was seeking her approval.
Clara had been lucky (or unlucky, whichever way you looked at it) enough to be on night shift the next couple of nights and, used to late nights, Rob had often been awake when she went in to check on him. In her quiet times, she’d found herself engaging in whispered conversations with him. She’d told him about her family, he’d mentioned his mum and his dreams for One Track Mind to become the next big thing. We’re recording demos at the moment to sub to record companies.
And although she found him attractive—who wouldn’t?—she never suspected he saw more in her than a brief flirtation, simply part of his aspiring rock star act, so she’d been shocked when he’d asked her if she wanted to come see his band.
He’d saved her a spot right up the front of the pub where they were playing and she’d sworn he’d been singing every word to her. Afterwards he’d held her hand as he introduced her to his band-mates, but they’d only stayed for one drink before he’d whisked her away to somewhere quieter. They’d sat in a park and fooled around a little, but most of the time they’d simply talked.
Finally, at almost two o’clock in the morning, he’d taken her home and kissed her senseless on her doorstep. She got the impression he wanted her to ask him in and her hormones were yelling at her to do exactly that, but she didn’t want to be just another notch on his bedpost, so she’d summoned all her restraint to resist him.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he’d promised, and although it had been one of the best nights of her life, she didn’t really think he would. His life singing gigs in pubs was light years from her shifts at the hospital. She couldn’t imagine what he could possibly see in her when he could have had any number of beautiful girls who understood and were already part of his world.
But the next day she’d come home from work and her flatmate, a fellow nurse called Bonnie, had flashed a yellow post-it note at her. ‘Some guy, Ron I think he said, called. He wanted to know if you’re free tonight.’
Her fingers had closed around the tiny piece of paper and she’d almost had a heart attack right there in the kitchen.
They’d seen each other again that night, and a week later they’d consummated things. Rob was such a tender lover, so much more giving than the two men she’d previously slept with. She kept waiting for him to tire of her, but instead they grew closer and she started to see the real Rob, the hurting man beneath the cocky musician façade. The crowd might go wild when he sang, he owned the stage at the local pub as if it was a massive concert hall, but when they were alone, he was almost an entirely different person.
They hadn’t been together long before he’d opened up about his father’s death and the other tragedies in his past. Her heart had broken for him and she’d wanted to make everything better.
And for a while, it seemed like she did.
A few months after they met, a big record label had ‘discovered’ One Track Mind and, less than a year later, high on the success of his first album, he’d proposed. Their wedding day had been one of the best days of Clara’s life, but heartache and tumultuous times were just around the corner.
Now, she couldn’t help wondering what their lives might have been like if they’d each married other people. If Rob hadn’t got appendicitis, if he’d met and married someone else, someone whose body was compatible with motherhood, would he have been able to recover from the trauma of his youth? Would there have been more than one hit song? Would he have been able to stop at one celebratory drink?
‘Clara? Clara! Where are you?’
At Siobhan’s loud, urgent question, she blinked. ‘What?’
‘You went far away. I couldn’t reach you.’
Clara could tell her sister the truth but that would only solicit a lecture. And fair enough; hadn’t she resolved to move on?
‘Sorry, I was thinking about Gregg,’ she lied.
Siobhan’s eyes sparkled. ‘Who is Gregg?’
Clara took another bite of her muffin before replying. ‘Do you remember a guy called Gregg Callen I went to school with? I didn’t know him well but we did work on the yearbook together in year twelve.’
Siobhan bit her lip, a look of serious concentration lingering on her face a few moments. ‘No, I don’t think I do. Don’t tell me you’ve found him online after all these years?’
‘Yes, he’s one of the profiles that came up as a perfect match to mine. He’s divorced too.’ Clara didn’t tell her sister that Gregg’s ex-wife had left him for a woman five years ago. He’d made her promise not to feel sorry for him.
Siobhan leaned forward, eager to hear more. ‘And you’ve been communicating with him?’
‘A few emails have been exchanged,’ she admitted coyly.
‘Well, then, what’s he like?’ Si
obhan asked, her excitement clear in her voice.
So Clara told her sister The Gregg Facts.
He had three grown-up children who were all living overseas; he was planning a trip to Europe in a few months to visit one of them. He wasn’t big on watching or playing team sports, but he liked bush walks, reading and watching foreign films. He was a non-smoker and really only drank on holidays, which he said he didn’t go on enough of but had made a new year’s resolution to fix—hence the upcoming Europe trip.
She liked that he’d decided to get out of his own rut and change his life as well. Although he only lived a couple of suburbs away, they hadn’t progressed past emails yet.
‘What does he do for a crust?’ Siobhan asked when Clara paused for breath.
‘He’s a high school history teacher.’
Siobhan grimaced a little. ‘History? He’ll probably bore the pants off you talking about world wars and every single wife of Henry the Eighth.’
‘I like history,’ Clara said in his defence. And the fact Gregg sounded so different from Rob only added to the appeal. If she was going to contemplate entering a relationship again, she wanted someone solid and stable, not another person she had to mother and look after.
‘Well then, in theory he sounds fabulous, but what does he look like?’
‘Looks shouldn’t matter, should they?’ Rob had been very good-looking when they’d met and look how that had turned out.
Siobhan rolled her eyes and Clara grabbed her phone to bring up Gregg’s profile on the dating website. She smiled as his cheerful face looked up at her and then she turned the phone to show her sister.
‘Wow.’ Siobhan let out a long, impressed breath. ‘He looks a bit like George Clooney—only he’s aged better.’
Clara grinned—that was high praise coming from Siobhan who’d harboured a crush on George since she’d fallen in love with him in that awful horror film Return of the Killer Tomatoes. ‘So have you done the deed yet?’
‘Siobhan!’ Clara rolled her eyes, thinking it was lucky her sister had coupled up before the advent of the internet, which had changed the face of dating. Siobhan would have been unstoppable if something like Tinder had been available back then. ‘We haven’t even met face to face yet.’
‘What are you waiting for? If he’s perfect on paper, then you want to ask him out before some other sex-starved spinster snaps him up.’
‘Who are you calling a spinster?’
They both laughed.
Siobhan thrust Clara’s phone at her. ‘There’s no time like the present. Why don’t you send him an email right now?’
Clara’s heart palpitated at the thought. ‘Isn’t the gentleman supposed to do the asking?’
‘What century are you living in, sister dear? These days men and women have equal rights and that goes for making the first move as well.’
But it wasn’t only the prospect of asking that terrified her. The word ‘date’ sounded so official, so binding, so serious. It sent an actual shiver down her spine. Was she really ready for this?
As if reading her mind, Siobhan softened a little. ‘Why don’t you just see if he wants to meet you for coffee? That sounds more low-key and you won’t be stuck with him too long if he bores you to tears in person.’
‘Coffee.’ Clara said the word out loud as she pondered it. Maybe she could do that?
‘I’ll think about it,’ she promised Siobhan. She needed time to work herself up to it and no way was she going to do it with her sister watching over her shoulder, making suggestions of what to say.
She pushed back her chair and scooped up both their teacups to show Siobhan that there would be no further discussion on this topic.
‘Okay.’ Standing, Siobhan picked up the plate with the remaining muffins. ‘But don’t think about it too long or you’ll chicken out, and make sure you let me know the moment Gregg replies. I’ll help with your hair and make-up.’
‘Deal.’ Clara smiled at her sister, making a vow not to tell Siobhan about anything until after it had happened. She was quite capable of making herself look presentable, thank you very much.
Paige
Paige sighed as she hung up the phone on the fourth ‘R Winters’ she’d called that day. There were twenty-four more listed in the White Pages online and she hoped and prayed she didn’t have to call them all. She took a quick sip of her water bottle and then punched in number five. It rang and rang and rang. She was just about to give up when someone finally answered.
‘Hello?’ The voice sounded elderly and a touch out of breath.
‘Hi, my name’s Paige MacRitchie and I’m call—’
‘Do I know you?’ Now the voice sounded wary as if she were searching for a face to put to the name.
‘Oh, no, I don’t think so.’ Paige laughed nervously. ‘I’m trying to track down a Rose Winters who I think may have worn my mother’s wedding dress. She might have changed her name when she got married I guess, but I’d love to talk to her about her dress. Is she a relation of yours?’
The woman neither confirmed nor denied this. ‘Why do you want to find her?’
‘Well,’ Paige began, hoping she wasn’t wasting her breath on someone who didn’t have any answers, ‘I recently got engaged and my mum is quite sick at the moment. I want to do something special for her and I think she’d get such joy out of seeing me wearing her wedding dress when I get married.’
‘That’s very sweet,’ said the woman, perhaps softening a little.
‘Thank you. But the problem is, she gave it away to charity just after she married my dad in 1988.’
‘What did she give away, dear?’
‘The wedding dress.’
‘Oh, of course, right. And what did you say this dress looked like?’
Paige tried to describe her mother’s dress—its beautiful lace, big bow and lavish train.
‘That sounds lovely. I’ve always been a fan of bows myself. My granddaughter got married last year and she could have done with a few well-placed bows to cover her up a little. Why young people insist on wearing such revealing gowns I’ll never understand. In my day, we left a little to the imagination.’
‘I totally agree, Mrs—? I don’t think I quite caught your name.’
‘Doris,’ she snapped. ‘Doris Winters. Now what was it you wanted with my Rose? She’s overseas at the moment and I need to go watch Bold and the Beautiful.’
‘You know Rose?’ Paige did a little dance on the spot. Surely this had to be the Rose of the fashion parade win.
‘Yes, of course I do.’
‘Do you know if she got married in a dress she won at a fashion parade?’
‘I may be old, but I haven’t lost my marbles yet. Rose did get married in a dress she won and it sounds very much like the one you are looking for.’
Paige grinned so hard her cheeks hurt. She could almost feel the dress on her body. Wait till she told Solomon. He’d tell her she should consider a career as a private investigator. If only tracking down a kidney was a matter of following clues like this.
‘Wonderful.’ She managed to tame her excitement long enough to say, ‘Do you have an email address for Rose?’ If she was overseas, email might be better than a phone call.
‘Email?’ The woman asked as if Paige had just requested her daughter’s tax file number. ‘I don’t know anything about emails. She calls me every Sunday at dinner time, but there’s no point you contacting Rose anyway.’
‘Why not? You don’t think she’ll want to sell me her dress?’
‘She can’t sell you something she doesn’t have anymore.’
Paige’s heart sank. ‘What did she do with it?’
‘She gave it away two years ago when her husband ran off with his yoga teacher. Never trust a man who is in touch with his chakras, that’s my advice.’
‘Oh. Who did she give it to?’ Paige asked, clutching at straws.
‘The local Vinnie’s op shop,’ Doris said as if this was obvious.
; Paige felt a flicker of hope within once again. ‘And what suburb would that be?’
‘Newtown I think—somewhere on King Street.’
‘Thanks. I’ll check it out.’
‘Oh, I doubt it’ll still be there after all this time.’
Doris could quite well be right but Paige wasn’t one to give up that easily. ‘Thank you so much for your time. I really app—’
‘Darn it. I’ve missed the beginning of Bold.’ And with that the line went dead.
Paige found a parking spot almost right out the front of the op shop Doris had directed her to. If that wasn’t a good omen, she didn’t know what was.
‘Thanks so much for coming with me,’ she said, turning to her friend who sat in the passenger seat.
She’d already asked Karis, Jaime and Narelle to be her bridesmaids—to which they’d all squealed excited ‘yes’es—but Karis was the only one who’d been able to make today’s expedition.
‘Are you kidding? Thank you for inviting me. These kinds of shops are my jam and I’m always up for an adventure.’ Karis, who usually wore beautiful vintage clothes she found in shops such as this one, unclicked her seatbelt and smiled conspiringly at Paige. ‘Let’s do this.’
Paige beeped the Mini locked and then they crossed the footpath to the big shop, passing two large yellow donation bins as they went. As she looked at the window displays on either side of the door—one full of assorted sporting equipment and the other with blankets and mismatched throw pillows—it was all Paige could do not to skip inside. Her pulse raced with anticipation.
Karis breathed in deeply as they entered the large store. ‘Don’t you just love that smell?’
Paige screwed up her nose as Eau de Mothballs with a dash of dusty old paper and floor cleaner greeted them. ‘Love is not the word I’d have used.’
Karis laughed. ‘Okay, so maybe it’s a little musty, but it’s worth it for the potential to uncover treasures.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
A wiry woman, hanging up big woolly jumpers on a rack near the entrance, smiled at them. Her name badge announced her as Miriam. ‘Morning, loves. Can I help you with anything?’
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