Saturdays like that day were always hard, as we crammed in every possible client we could, and it was tough to back up after the late nights at the end of the week. Because I couldn’t come while classes were on, Michelle had changed from only working late Thursday and a half day Saturday, to opening until 9 pm Thursday and Friday night, and until 5 on Saturday. She did her books on Sundays, and I did my homework.
I’d thought waitressing was physical – I’d lost three kilos in two months, and was struggling to find jeans in my measly wardrobe that didn’t look ridiculously big. Although that maybe had as much to be with being so busy most of the time that I sometimes forgot to eat, and the rest of the time being too damn tired to face food. After classes, working and homework I had no energy for anything else; any spare time I found was mostly spent stretched out on my bed, snoring.
I think it was for similar reasons that Michelle was still struggling to gain enough weight to make her doctor happy. Her baby seemed strong though, and I knew Michelle was a lot less stressed. At least she wasn’t losing any weight any more. With me around to duck out to get a snack for her, there was someone to make her eat in the afternoons, and Troy made her stop for lunch most days.
My brother had surprised everybody with how delighted he was about the baby, so that was a good thing to come out of all this. He immediately asked Michelle to marry him and she told him to get serious. He reckoned he was utterly serious. I believed him and my bet was he’d talk her around in time for a Spring wedding. She was just holding out again so she didn’t get her hopes up and her heart broken. I had some inside information, though. I knew Troy had sworn he was going to make sure this baby was born legitimate, unlike him. So I would put my money on my brother, if I was a person who liked to make a bet. Apart from three bucks on the Melbourne Cup each year, I don’t waste my money on that kind of thing.
The towels were cold already, and I sighed and got to rolling. I’d swept the floors and mopped already, so I just had the towels to do and then put the scissors in the steriliser and finish the foil and check all the carts and I could go. If I didn’t spot anything else that needed doing. Michelle would be in tomorrow to do the books and she’d get the scissors out and then she’d have to do all those little things I’d missed. Which was the reason I was still here after 6 pm on a freezing cold Saturday afternoon. We both liked to start Mondays with everything clean and ready and organised, and whatever I didn’t get done tonight, Michelle would do tomorrow. She was towards the end of her fifth month. Yep, she’d been a bit along before she got the nerve to tell me, let along Troy, and all the standing was killing her back and legs. She’d tried using one of those saddle seat things but she wasn’t comfortable cutting sitting down like that. She did sit on it occasionally, between clients, while she drank a coffee or nibbled on a ginger snap biscuit.
The front door opened and I swore quietly. I must have forgotten to lock it and turn the sign, so some hopeful chick with a last minute date had just come in and I’d have a hell of a time explaining that no, we were actually closed, and yes, there really wasn’t any actual hairdresser still lurking on the premises, just me, and I wasn’t even an apprentice. Or not yet, anyway. I was starting to come around to that idea.
I hopped up, and went to stick my head around the corner.
‘I’m sorry, we’re clo — oh. Sebastien.’
The tentative smile that had curved his mouth when he saw me slipped a bit, and I felt so outside myself at seeing him I had a moment to wonder how I felt about that. About the smile or that he’d lost it when he saw me. It was kind of hard to tell with my heart pounding in the back of my throat. I couldn’t feel the towel I had in my hands, couldn’t feel my face or my feet, and I doubted it really had got that much colder just since he walked in. It was chilly outside, sure, but it wasn’t like he had supernatural powers or anything.
‘Jess,’ he said, and I felt that, felt it through my whole body in a way that had me squeezing the towel, as that same heart that had been intent on climbing out my mouth now rolled over like a lazy fat Labrador looking for a belly rub. Traitorous thing. I was infuriated at how just hearing his voice shape the sound of my name churned up my insides.
In the eight weeks and five days since I’d seen him, not that I was counting, I’d managed to forget again how glorious he was. Standing there, so astonishingly actually there in the empty, tidy salon in a sharp navy wool coat over his jeans, he should have looked awkward and out of place but he looked exactly what he was. Rich, confident, gifted. Out of my league.
At least now I knew it.
‘We’re closed,’ I said huskily, turning away to put the towel into the rack. It looked more like something had been chewing on it, than the neat roll Michelle liked, but I’d worry about that tomorrow. My hands had started to shake so badly I was worried if I tried to re-roll it I’d just drop it on the floor.
‘I’m not here for a haircut,’ he said. ‘I heard you were working here.’
‘So you came to see me.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s been a while.’
‘Yeah. I wanted to come and see you.’
‘But you didn’t.’
‘I had to get my parents to make sure there weren’t any charges still against you.’
I’d had my mouth already open to tell him it was a bit late to bother coming by now, but I snapped it shut. So not what I was expecting to hear.
‘I knew there wasn’t any point trying to get you to listen to me while my family was still trying to put you in jail.’ He offered a half-arsed grin, as though he was trying to lighten the moment, but there just wasn’t anything funny about this. I don’t think I’d ever find any humour in getting arrested and handcuffed in front of my co-workers and a café full of people. Let alone everything that followed.
‘Yeah, and?’
‘Didn’t your lawyer call you? It’s all sorted.’
I’d folded my arms at some point, but I only realised this when I unwound them to put my hands on my hips in disbelief. My lawyer had called me on Friday, actually, with the news that the charges had been dismissed. Dropped. Whatever. Allan had tried to explain, but the details were all legal blah blah blah to me, and all I needed to know was that my record was clear. I was grateful for what Allan had done to help me, of course. But although the computers would no longer spit out the dirty details every time someone typed in my name it was too late to make any difference to my actual life.
There was still gossip and people’s memories. I was unemployable outside my own neighbourhood, and I wasn’t having a great time in it. Half the people we knew seemed to think I was a hero, and the others an uppity bitch who finally got pulled back a peg or two. So no, it wasn’t all fine with me. The anger that I’d had to keep stuffed down deep while I tried to get my life back on track started to bubble up towards the surface. I could feel my face grow hot as I fought to hang onto all that furious, hurt disappointment.
‘All sorted, is it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What, and that makes you my knight on his white horse, does it, riding to my rescue?’
‘No, it makes me the reason you needed rescuing in the first place.’
‘I didn’t need rescuing. Not by you.’
‘You were arrested, Jess. That’s kind of the definition of needing rescue.’
‘I can’t believe you ever thought I’d steal from you.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Funny way of showing it.’
‘I didn’t even know about it. I was on a plane to Melbourne with my cello, to fill in for a cellist who slipped in the shower after rehearsal for a major concert series and broke her wrist. By the time I even heard about it your lawyer had already got you out.’
I stared at him, my brain dully scrambling to make sense of what he’d said. I frowned, trying to remember exactly what my lawyer had said about the cello. I hadn’t been paying too much attention, really. I remember thinking that although I was glad Sebastian
wouldn’t lose his cello, it didn’t help me, did it? I definitely would have noticed though, if someone had mentioned that it had all been some kind of mistake. That would affect me.
‘You had your cello?’
‘Yes, on the plane. A last minute replacement for a series of concerts.’
‘You had your cello the whole time and it was never even stolen?’
‘That’s right.’
‘How could that happen?’
‘Just a mix up. Nobody had a chance to listen to the messages I left, letting everyone know I’d been called in as a replacement. My parents got home and found the place trashed and my cello missing and assumed we’d been burgled.’
‘I don’t understand. They let me go because I was called in to work early at the café, where there were about twenty people who had no reason to lie for me. I had an alibi. I thought your cello was recovered, but you’re telling me it was never even stolen?’
‘Yes.’ He looked at me, his eyes meeting mine.
‘Do the cops know?’ Maybe I really should have paid more attention to what Allan was trying to tell me.
‘Yes,’ he said again, and this time his gaze slid away.
‘Are you lying to me?’
‘No. Or, not exactly. Listen, can I take you somewhere, so we can talk? You haven’t had dinner yet, I bet. Are you starving, you must be starving if you’ve been here all day. Let’s go eat and I’ll explain everything.’ He was babbling and that wasn’t like him, but I was too angry to care.
‘I’m not going anywhere with you, and you can tell me right now what the hell is going on. No, wait, actually. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t care. Just get out.’
‘Jess, come on, please.’
‘No, Sebastien. Just go away. You’re two months too late.’
‘Jess, no, please, I had reasons for waiting. I knew you’d be so mad at me and I couldn’t blame you for that, so I had to fix it, I had to prove it to my parents and talk them into it.’
‘You didn’t call me, Sebastien. Even before this happened. It was pretty obvious what was going on.’ I was still haunted at inconvenient, painfully random moments by memories of that night. I’d given it up for him in a way I’d never given it to anyone, not even Jay, and he’d thrown it back at me.
‘I told you I lost my phone. I know, I know, it sounds lame, but that doesn’t make it a lie. There is a reason. I can explain that too.’
‘There’s more than one phone in the universe, surely.’
‘I didn’t know your number.’
I snorted rudely, and for the first time Sebastien started to look a bit angry himself. Good. Bring it on.
‘If you’re so smart, then what’s my number Jess?’
‘What?’
‘I didn’t know your number because it was saved in my phone. Without my phone, I didn’t have a clue. But maybe I’m just useless or something. So go ahead, tell me what mine is.’
I may not be as educated as him, but I knew a throw down challenge when I saw it. Only problem was I couldn’t meet it. I didn’t have to think for more than half a second to realise I had no idea what his number was.
‘OK, OK, I get your point. You win that one. But you had a lot of time to call me since, or to find me.’
‘You know, you could have called me.’
I turned away from him and started packing up the foil squares. He had me there. Again. I could have called him. And all my excuses for not calling him were lame, although they’d seemed important at the time. Pride, really. Fear.
‘Why didn’t you call me, Jess? Or did you lose your phone, too?’
Damn, he wasn’t going to let me off the hook. I stacked a few more squares of foil.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does matter. I thought I meant something to you. My sister kept trying to tell me I was wrong, but I didn’t believe her. Please don’t make her right, not after everything she’s done.’
I turned slowly, reluctantly, and looked at him. My whole body yearned towards him and I shoved my hands into the pockets of my apron and grabbed the fabric in my fists. I didn’t trust myself not to reach out to him. I didn’t trust myself to listen to him. It was over, it was done, and I was trying to move on. So why did it feel like my insides were cracking apart? Again.
‘Sebastien, please. Can’t you just let it go? It’s too late for us.’
He looked at me uncertainly.
‘I admit, it wasn’t the only reason I didn’t call you. Anna told me you’d been seeing Jay at the same time as me. I didn’t want to believe her, but then I went to your work and he was there, and I thought you were with him.’
‘You thought wrong.’
‘I know that now. But I didn’t at the time. I thought you’d chosen him. I thought you’d been cheating on me.’
I struggled to meet Sebastien’s smoky-eyed gaze, but I owed him at least something for that. ‘I was never with Jay once we started getting serious. Only just after we met.’
He looked at me for another long moment, his face utterly expressionless, and then he crossed the floor with about three of those long strides of his until he was close enough that if he stretched out his arm, or I did, we’d be able to touch.
Did he know how much I craved that? Did he know how much a part of me wanted to just say ‘stuff it, I forgive you, I hope you forgive me too,’ and throw myself in his arms? I wanted to stomp that part of me to bits, and lecture her on how hard I’d had to work to get my shit together after he derailed my life in the first place.
‘Pink stripes,’ he said, reaching towards my hair. ‘Hot.’
I shuddered as his fingers brushed my ear, I couldn’t help it. He let his fingers trail down my neck, and I gasped, my stomach doing a slow roll.
‘Don’t,’ I started to say, but his hand cupped the back of my neck and that was all it took; as he came to me I was moving to meet him.
We met somewhere in the middle and kissed, hungrily, his hands buried in my hair, my fingers digging into his back. As his tongue moved inside my mouth I moaned against his lips, my body sparking all over, stomach clenching. I burned to have more of him inside me, and I bumped my hips against his, aching for the press of his hot, hard body against mine. And almost immediately, I had what I wanted, as he backed me against the wall and wrapped himself around me, kissing my mouth, my neck, pushing my black top off my shoulder to bite me gently there, and I was reaching for his belt buckle before my brain got control of the rest of me and screeched at me to stop.
I got my hands on his chest and tore my mouth from his, pushing him away.
His lips had lingered, as though reluctant to let me go, but he backed off when I wriggled away from him. ‘I missed you,’ he murmured.
I ducked my head. ‘I don’t want this.’
‘Jess, no way I believe you after kissing me like that. You still want me.’
‘I never tried to hide that. I’m not denying it now, but that’s the easy part. It’s all the rest of it that’s too hard.’ I shook my hair back, ignoring the pang the glimpse of pink gave me. Trust Sebastien to find neon pink stripes a turn on. I’d have to change to another colour.
‘It doesn’t have to be.’
‘It is what it is, Sebastien. We don’t work, we’re too different.’
‘Now you are lying to me.’
‘Oh, please. Look around you. I’m going to be a hairdresser. You’re a concert cellist. Like that can work.’
‘A hairdresser? I had this idea maybe you wanted to be the next Darry Ackles?’
I stared at him for such a long moment. How had he known that? I’d never told him. Then I shrugged. It didn’t matter. ‘That turned out to be too hard, too.’
‘I never imagined you’d give up so easily.’
‘What? You think it’s easy, any of this? You arrogant — fuck you, Sebastien. You don’t get to say that to me.’
‘If I don’t, who will? Nobody around here, that’s for sure, they’ve got your whole life p
lanned for you. And I thought you were trying to break free. Guess I was wrong about that, too.’
‘What do you know? You think because I’ve got — had — some stupid dream that I’ve wised up enough to realise is just a fantasy, that it makes me a quitter? Get real. We don’t all live in a fairy tale like you do.’
‘It always comes to this, doesn’t it? You think I have it so easy and you have it so tough. We both know that isn’t the way it is, but here’s something maybe you don’t know. I don’t think you wanting to be an architect is stupid or impossible. It takes determination and hard work and yeah, probably a bit of luck, but if you want it that badly you can find a way to at least try. Not give up and be a hairdresser just because it’s easier.’
‘What’s wrong with being a hairdresser?’
‘Absolutely nothing. If that’s what you really want to do.’
‘Well, why not? It’s a good trade.’
‘Why not isn’t a good enough reason to commit your life to something, Jess. You deserve better than that.’
I wanted to believe that. Didn’t I?
‘I can’t keep wanting things I can’t have, Sebastien. That is too hard. I have to finish up here, so I’m sure you can find the door again.’
‘I have to tell you something first.’
‘God, this again. Fine, but hurry up. I’m tired and I’ve still got homework to do.’
‘You’re still doing your HSC?’
‘Of course,’ I said impatiently. ‘Start talking or start walking.’
‘It was Anna.’ He looked at me, and I just stared back at him, unimpressed.
‘That’s supposed to mean something? What about Anna?’
‘Anna trashed our house and stole the instruments.’
‘What?’ Now he had my attention. ‘Why would she do that?’
‘She was pissed off when Jay dumped her. After she told him you and I were together, I think she expected him to take her back again. But he didn’t.’
‘And that’s a reason to trash your house?’
‘Anna’s had a few issues.’
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