Training Days

by Jane Frances

  “Yes.” Josh nodded for her to close the door and then for her to sit. He leaned forward in his chair, resting his arms on the desk and clasping his hands together. “Ally, you know my son, Paterson.”

  Ally nodded. Josh’s teenaged son had visited the offices on dozens of occasions. She’d seen him sprout from a gangly kid to the rangy seventeen-year-old he was now. Only a month prior he’d come strutting into the office, proud as punch as he jangled the keys of his first “set of wheels,” an ancient Torana sedan with holes in the upholstery, badly faded paintwork and an intermittent backfire. Ally was surprised it was even allowed on the road. Her insides froze. Surely nothing had happened to the kid in that deathtrap of a vehicle?

  Josh clenched his hands more tightly together. “Paterson was arrested last night—”

  “Thank God!” Ally blurted, relieved he was alive and well.

  Josh threw her a very odd glance. “For possession of drugs—”

  “Oh,” Ally interrupted again, feeling a little foolish for her untimely outburst.

  “And for driving a stolen vehicle.”

  “Oh,” Ally repeated. She was awash with questions: were there others in the car, how was he caught, was there a chase, was anybody hurt, did Josh know his son was taking drugs, what drugs was he taking? But she didn’t ask. It would be hard enough for Josh to have discovered Paterson had run off the rails, without having to suffer twenty questions about it from an employee. Come to think of it, why was Josh telling her all of this in the first place? Apart from the occasional “how was your weekend” query, they didn’t usually discuss their personal lives at the office. Maybe, on this occasion, he needed a sympathetic ear. “I’m really sorry, Josh. It must have been very difficult for you and Helen.”

  Josh acknowledged her sympathy with a nod. “It’s been a long night. But he’s home with us now and his court hearing is on Wednesday, so hopefully this ordeal will soon be over.”

  “Really? That’s fast.” Ally had thought the court system was clogged with waiting periods extending into weeks and months. But maybe they fed the “simple” cases through quickly. Then she realized the timing. Josh would be on the other side of the globe next Wednesday. “Good to get it over and done with, I guess. But bad timing as far as the conference goes.”

  Josh shook his head. “I won’t be going. I want to be there for Paterson . . . and I don’t want Helen to have to deal with it all by herself.”

  Ally nodded. She’d also met Josh’s wife, Helen, on a number of occasions. She was an artist, creating beautiful silkscreens, samples of which hung around the office. In Ally’s opinion, Helen was almost as delicate as her creations. Not one to cope well in a crisis.

  Josh unclasped his hands. “How’s your latest project progressing?”

  “Very well,” she admitted, a little thrown by the abrupt change in topic. “I’ll have the walk-through ready to run past you this afternoon. I promised the client initial plans by close of business tomorrow.”

  “Excellent.” Josh nodded. “What else is on your plate at the moment?”

  “Well, I’m in a holding pattern with the Boyden account while Mrs. Boyden waits until her planets are properly aligned for making a decision on the floor plan.” Ally was pleased to see the eccentric behavior of one of her clients managed to raise a smile. “I’ve also got final plans out with the Changs, but they’ve promised me an answer by next Tuesday. There’s a site visit for the final stages of the two-story in Quaker’s Hill. That’s on Friday. And also on Friday I’ve got an appointment with some potential new clients. I can’t remember their names offhand.”

  “So nothing of a screaming urgency that only you can handle?”

  “Not really,” Ally said carefully. It was never wise to admit you were dispensable.

  “And your passport is up-to-date?”

  Ally glanced sharply at Josh. “Pardon?”

  “You’ll need a passport if you’re going to take my place at the conference.”

  Ally’s mouth fell open. She’d known something good was going to happen today. But Barcelona? Tomorrow? Fantastic!

  Except for the thought of all that flying. And except for the fact her dialing permutations would also have to come to a halt. Maybe she could squeeze in a number here and there in between everything she would have to organize at the office. And probably a couple more tonight after she’d packed her bag and watched last Friday’s episode of Bonnes Vacances, which, according to the television schedule, was to be repeated after the Thursday night movie finished at ten thirty p.m. But she couldn’t use the phone in the plane, and she could kiss her job good-bye if Josh received a telephone bill for potentially hundreds of calls charged at international roaming costs. So all her other dialing would have to wait until she got back.

  In a week.

  So much for something good happening today. Barcelona. The whole idea sucked. But for Josh’s sake she forced out a smile. “Really? Excellent.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Midmorning on Friday Morgan settled into a quiet corner of the little departure lounge at Vanuatu airport and fired up Kitty’s laptop.

  As suspected, her Google search for “Alison Brown Architect Sydney” was immediately successful. Morgan scanned the first ten or so results and clicked on one particular entry that caught her eye. “Wow,” she exclaimed softly when the page from the Architectural Digest Web site had loaded. If Ally had designed the house represented in the single photo then she was good, very good, at what she did. The short paragraph of text that accompanied the picture—it seemed one must subscribe to the magazine to get the full story—was enough to glean that Ally had indeed designed the featured home. It also gave the name of the company she worked for. Design for Tomorrow. Morgan immediately opened a new browser window and navigated to the White Pages phone directory. Within seconds she had a number and an address.

  She glanced at her watch. Fifteen minutes before boarding would begin. Plenty of time to make a quick call. But should she?

  Morgan pondered the options. Ally could hang up on a phone call. But it would be a bit more difficult for her to avoid Morgan in person—especially in an office environment.

  She decided to give her a surprise visit on Monday.

  Within less than a minute Ally’s office details had been transferred into Morgan’s notebook. Then she closed down the laptop and hurried to the tiny newsstand to scour the shelves for the Architectural Digest magazine. She tucked a copy of the most recent edition—that which featured Ally’s design—under her arm for closer examination on her flight to Fiji.

  Mark, who was seated next to her during the flight, quirked an eyebrow when he discovered Morgan’s latest taste in reading matter. “You looking to upgrade from that harbor-side shack you call home?” he asked.

  “Something like that,” Morgan said evasively, closing the pages a little so his view of the content was restricted.

  Mark responded by shifting in his seat and peering more closely at the magazine. “Hey, is that our Alison Brown?” he asked, pointing to a caption next to the main picture on the first page of the six-page article.

  Morgan feigned surprise and made a show of pretending to read it for the first time. “Why, I think it is.”

  “Great house,” he said simply, without a trace of sarcasm. “She’s good.”

  Morgan nodded, trying very hard to keep the enthusiasm from her voice and a smile from creeping across her features. She wasn’t very successful. “Seems so.”

  Three days later her smile had yet to fade. She entered the small reception area of Design for Tomorrow and was greeted almost immediately by a young woman, probably in her twenties, with a shock of bright red hair and a nose ring.

  “Good morning,” the woman chirped, a cup of coffee in hand. She frowned a little, as if she recognized Morgan but couldn’t quite place her. “How can I help you?”

  “Good morning.” Morgan couldn’t help but focus on the nose ring. She had to force her gaze to shift
to the woman’s eyes. “I was hoping I could speak with Alison Brown, please.”

  “I’m sorry, but she’s not here at the moment.”

  “Oh.” Morgan glanced at her watch. It had only just gone nine a.m. Maybe she hadn’t yet arrived at the offices. Or—and this was an eventuality she hadn’t figured into her plans—maybe she was off-site. After all, architects had to go visit their projects. “What time will she be here?”

  “No time soon, I’m afraid. She won’t be back until Friday.”

  “Friday?” Morgan echoed. This wasn’t an eventuality she had figured on either. Where was she? Had she flown back to Kalgoorlie to present her client some house plans? Morgan’s heart sank. This was not going at all how she’d imagined.

  The woman nodded, now looking a little worried. She opened the large diary that sat on the reception desk and peered at Monday’s date. “There’s no record of any Monday appointments for Ally—”

  “Oh, no. I didn’t have an appointment,” Morgan assured her. “I just popped in on the off-chance I could see her.” She thought hard for some reason why she would do so. “I was recommended to her by a friend,” she said a little lamely.

  “Would you like me to make an appointment for you now?” The woman, relaxing again, sipped from her mug as she turned pages. “She’s rather busy on Friday but next Monday afternoon is looking good.”

  Morgan would just be arriving back in Sydney next Monday. If she hurried off the plane and didn’t get held up in customs she might just make it to the offices before closing time. The moment the woman raised her head again Morgan honed in on the nose ring. “Is five thirty too late?”

  Apparently not.

  Five minutes later Morgan left Ally’s offices with a Monday afternoon appointment . . . and one of Ally’s business cards.

  “This is her new mobile number?” Morgan had asked when it was presented. She figured the card was brand new, since the woman had to rip open a padded courier bag to get to the box of cards.

  The woman assured her it was. She didn’t ask how Morgan would know Ally had a new number and that the couriered cards were not just reprints.

  Back in her car, Morgan turned the card over in her hand. Her original plan of a surprise visit was dead on the ground. And, since her name was now staring up from the company diary, her Monday appointment held no element of surprise. So she may as well dial and hope for the best.

  She did. And she held her breath as it rang once, twice, three times.

  “Hello?” The voice that came through the line was sleepy, as if its owner had been woken. But it was definitely Ally’s voice.

  Morgan’s breath caught in her throat at the sound. Had it really only been less than a week since she last heard it? It seemed like an eternity. But why so sleepy? she wondered. Was Ally on vacation? Or was she home from work, sick? “Hello, Ally. It’s me, Morgan.”

  Ally sat bolt upright in bed, the fog of sleep lifting almost immediately. She hadn’t been in too deep a sleep, the change in time zone and her preoccupation with her private thoughts working together to prevent quality rest. But still she had to ask, to ensure she wasn’t dreaming, “Morgan?”

  “Yes.” There was a pause on the other end of the line, then, “Did I wake you?”

  “It’s okay,” Ally said quickly. She rubbed at her eyes and groped for her watch on the bedside table. It wasn’t even midnight yet. Another reason she was so quick to wake. She’d been in bed for less than an hour. “I’d only just gone to bed.” She sighed happily. “I’m really glad you called.”

  “I’m really glad you’re glad.” Another slight pause followed. “Are you unwell?”

  Ally smiled at the concern in Morgan’s voice. “No.” Right at this moment Ally was feeling better than she had for days. “A bit jet-lagged, but apart from that I’m fine.”

  “Jet-lagged?”

  Ally realized Morgan had no idea where she was. When they’d last spoken Ally had had no idea she’d be in Barcelona either. “I’m in Spain.”

  “Spain?” Morgan echoed softly. “Where in Spain?”

  “Barcelona. I’m here for a conference.”

  This time there was a gasp. “I don’t believe this. Ally, how long will you be there?”

  “Until Wednesday morning.” Ally’s stomach lurched, imagining arriving back in Sydney just as Morgan was leaving. “Where are you?”

  “I’m in Sydney. I have to be at the airport in a couple of hours.”

  Ally couldn’t help the curse that escaped her lips. “Fuck.”

  “Ally, I’m leaving for Barcelona. I’ll be there Tuesday morning.”

  “You’re coming here?” Ally asked, feeling a little faint.

  “Yes.”

  There was yet another pause, extended such that Ally wondered if it had been left intended for her to fill. She decided it was. After all, she had been the one to break contact. Morgan was probably unsure if she wanted to reconnect. “I really would like to see you,” she said softly.

  Morgan’s reply was immediate. “That’s good. Because I really would like to see you, too.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Morgan walked a few steps, stopped on her mark and started talking into the camera. “Another piece of Gaudi architecture on the same street as La Pedrera is the Casa Batllo, otherwise known as the ‘house of bones.’” She turned slightly and gazed behind her to the façade of the building, which had balconies and supports that did look remarkably like skulls and bones. Then she turned back to the camera. “It was originally built for a wealthy aristocrat who lived on the lower floors and rented out the upper levels. Now it’s open to the public.” She turned again and walked toward the entrance as if she was going to visit. In actual fact she already had visited earlier that day. They were just filming out of sequence.

  At step six Kitty called, “Cut.”

  “Is that it this time?” Morgan asked hopefully, eager to get this, the last shot for today, over and done with. This was the fifth time she’d had to do her introduction to the Casa Batllo, Kitty finding something wrong with each of the other takes— first Morgan’s expression was “odd,” second a pedestrian stopped behind her right shoulder and stared idiotically into the camera. On the third and fourth takes she fluffed her lines.

  Kitty declared she was happy.

  “Thank Christ for that,” Mark muttered as he lowered the boom. He was in a rare bad mood and had been all day. So the repeated takes at the tail end of their day of filming had done nothing to improve his humor. “I need a beer.” He turned to Morgan. “How about you?”

  Morgan checked her watch. It was already nearly seven thirty

  p.m. Had they kept to their planned schedule they’d have wrapped up nearly an hour ago. She and Ally had arranged to meet at eight, so now there was only half an hour to get back to her hotel, freshen up and head out again to their designated meeting place—at the junction where the Plaza de Catalyuna met the beginning of the famous pedestrian strip of the Rambla. Luckily Morgan’s hotel was only a few minutes’ walk away from where they were now as well as the agreed meeting spot, but still she would be cutting it fine. She shook her head. “I can’t right now. I’m meeting Ally, remember?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” Mark scowled and strode away, recording equipment in hand, in the direction of the hotel.

  Morgan hurried after him. “Come on.” She repeated what she’d told him on the plane on the leg from Milan to Barcelona. That was when she’d told him Ally was going to be in the city at the same time as they were and that she was taking the opportunity to catch up with her. “This is the one chance I have to meet with her before she leaves. You and I can have drinks tomorrow.”

  “I still don’t see why I can’t come along too. Just for a little while.” Morgan sighed, knowing this was at least partly the reason he was in a mood. The other was that Rebecca—the busty blond

  sound engineer he’d been panting after—had taken up with a balding studio manager while they were island-hoppin
g in Fiji and Vanuatu. But she thought they’d worked through the Ally portion of his huff already. “You really are very unattractive when you sulk.”

  “And ever since you’ve fallen in love you’ve become a real pain in the ass.”

  Morgan stopped walking.

  Mark didn’t. She watched his back as the distance between them increased. “I’m not in love,” she called to his retreating figure.

  “Try and tell that to anyone looking from this side,” he called back without turning.

  Morgan broke into a half-trot and ended back beside him. “I’ve changed my mind. You can come to say hello.”

  Immediately Mark broke into a smile.

  “One drink. That’s it.”

  Mark’s smile turned into a grin.

  “You’re worse than a child for getting your own way.”

  Mark just shrugged.

  “I’m not in love.”

  Mark shrugged again. “Whatever you say, Mogs.”

  “I’m not,” Morgan repeated, more to convince herself than Mark. Just because she really liked Ally and happened to think about her most of her waking hours didn’t mean she was in love. Nor did the fact she’d been wandering around in a gloom from the moment Ally disconnected from her life and walking on cloud nine from the moment they reconnected again. And that strange flip-flopping sensation that happened in her stomach whenever she heard her voice or laid eyes on her wasn’t love either. Was it?

  Morgan didn’t have time to contemplate life, love and the universe right now anyway. They entered the hotel and waited for the elevator.

  “I’ll meet you in the lobby in fifteen minutes sharp,” she said to Mark before he got out on the second floor. “If you’re not there I’ll leave without you.”

  Mark was on time and they hurried out of the hotel together. Morgan caught sight of Ally when they were still a good twenty meters away from her. As arranged, she was standing near the entrance to the Metro, just out of the way of the mass of humanity entering and exiting the hole in the ground. She wore a black and lace dress, a sleeveless halter top style with a very flattering below-the-knee hankie hem. She carried a sequined evening bag. She had her hair slicked back. Morgan sucked in her breath. She looked . . . fantastic.