"So..." Stefano nudged my shoulder his voice rising back up to its usual, excitable pitch, "I hear you sold that hot surfer boy's sister an e-party pack."
My stomach rolled unpleasantly at this guerrilla-style mention of the Townsends, especially after my spat and subsequent 'moment' with Fletch the day before. Outwardly, however, I held it together, looking across at Stefano calmly as I replied, "Nope, can't've been me, I don't know any hot surfer boys."
"Ha!" He grinned and threw an arm across my shoulders. "It's funny 'cos it's not true."
I nudged his arm off me, refusing to join in with his laughter, but he and Merry must've been separated at birth because he was in no way put off by my lack of enthusiasm.
"No, but seriously, that Fletcher guy is hot. Those arms, those shoulders..." Stefano trailed off dreamily for a moment, then refocused to add, "And with your steamy history you can't tell me you don't wake up in the middle of the night and just-"
You have no idea, I thought to myself, but, out loud, I snapped, "No."
He smirked. "I'm so taking that no as a yes."
As I considered how inappropriate that response would sound coming from some other situation, there was a sudden scraping of chairs being pushed aside and I found myself being flanked by sunshiny personalities as Merry appeared on my left.
"La-La!" She greeted me. "I was hoping to run into you."
And, apparently, she wasn't the only one as Merry bustled herself slightly to one side revealing a familiar mousy head peeking round her shoulder. Livvy saw me looking and waved.
"Well, aren't I popular this morning?" I reached my central table, pulling out a chair to sit at it and raising my eyebrows as my strangely large entourage seated themselves around me, Merry immediately splitting open a chip packet and laying it open in the centre to share. "So, to what do I owe this personal-space invading honour?" I prompted, keeping my voice as pleasant as I could in the presence of so much suffocating joie-de-vivre.
"I'm here to look at you sternly for stirring up my boyfriend," Merry replied promptly, crunching through a chip unabashedly. "Not sure what she's," she nodded towards Livvy, "after, she just followed me in."
"If you're talking about the other night at the club, Daz stirred me up first," I pointed out, ignoring Livvy for the moment.
"Yes, and he's already received his stern look, but now it's your turn." There was a pause as Merry imparted said look and I stubbornly refused to appear contrite about it. "Seriously, La-La," the look thankfully came to an end before too long, but then it was Merry's words that turned censorious. "I know to you it's hilarious to fake drug up kids, but you could at least try and be a bit subtle about it to save us both from my boyfriend's self-righteous frenzy."
Actually a fair point, and in that annoying way of hers, Merry knew I thought so.
"Fake drugging kids?" Stefano pushed himself into the conversation, leaning forward across the table towards Merry interestedly. "This isn't to do with that hottie's sister, is it?"
"You mean Fletch?" Merry asked and, as Stefano nodded eagerly, she continued, "How do you know about it?"
"This guy I know works at the club and he heard some guy with a fantastic shoulder to waist ratio-"
"That's my boyfriend, Daz," Merry interrupted excitedly and Stefano reached across and gave her a resounding high-five.
"Anyway, he heard some guy complaining to a bouncer that he'd let Lara in and that-"
"Wait a minute," it was my turn to interrupt. "Daz was worried that the bouncer had let me in? As opposed to, oh I don't know, a barely 15 year old? I hope that stern look you gave him held undertones of 'sort out your priorities'," I added to Merry.
"Well, basically he was throwing around the names Fletcher and Lara, and the word 'sister', so that's how I know," Stefano finally finished. "I'm Stefano, by the way," he held a smooth olive hand out for her to shake and Merry took it with a grin.
"Merry, hi."
"And that's Livvy," I pointed out, gesturing towards the first year who was sitting quietly next to Merry, doing her customary stunned mullet impression.
Of course they'd both seen Livvy before, Merry briefly when Livvy had first asked for help and Stefano from barely saying hello before he'd revealed his penis to her, but I'd hoped by bringing her into it I would break up Stefano and Merry's little love-in. As there was another round of introductions, however, I realised I might just have inadvertently made their little group one member stronger.
This thought was only reinforced as Stefano looked at Livvy and asked eagerly, "So do you know Fletch?"
"Of course she doesn't," I snapped, the whole 'let's talk about Fletcher' thing starting to really bug me.
"I do, actually," Livvy offered, a certain amusement hovering at the corners of her eyes as she nibbled on a chip from the packet Merry had shoved towards her.
Oh, come on!
"You do?" I demanded and she nodded,
"Yeah, quite well, actually. He's my bo-"
"Oh, who cares how you know him?" Stefano barged over the top of her impatiently. "Do you think he's hot?"
Livvy went red and nodded again.
"So there you are then," Stefano slapped a hand down on the table triumphantly. "Fletcher is hot, I told you so."
"To be fair, he could look like a total munter and Lara would still want to root him every chance she got," Merry observed matter-of-factly, almost making me choke on the sandwich I'd just taken a bite out of. "It's a chemistry thing, not a looks thing."
"Yeah, but the looks don't hurt." Stefano looked me up and down frankly and then clapped his hands. "Oh my God, how hot are their babies going to be?"
"So hot."
Right, that was it.
With the kind of calm I imagined a serial killer displaying while holding his victim's head underwater, I placed my sandwich back in its packet, brushed my hands free of crumbs, and levelled a repressive look round the table.
"Leaving aside for a moment the fact that describing babies as 'hot' is incredibly creepy, you're insane, the pair of you," I said flatly. "Yes, Fletch and I had a good old time a few years ago, but as you might remember, his girlfriend wasn't so keen on the whole thing. Also, less than 48 hours ago he accused me of drugging up his sister. The horse is dead, put down the stick."
"Did he yell at you about the sister thing?" Undeterred, Stefano grabbed up one of my wrists and squeezed it. "Did your heart race? Did it pound as that lush mouth of his drew closer and closer, pulsing a heat between you as his words spat hate, but his eyes screamed want?"
Yes.
"No."
"You're lying, honeybunches." Stefano held up my arm and I realised rather than just grabbing me for dramatic purposes, his fingers were pressing hard against a specific spot just below the wrist joint. "No pulse jumps like that for the memory of a polite sharing of a cup of tea."
"It's jumping because I'm angry," I said with gritted teeth, jerking my arm out of his grasp.
"It'll be the anger that gets them, you know," Merry continued to munch on those infernal chips and nodded across at Stefano knowingly. "It'll be an argument one moment and a big old mess of moans and nudity the next."
"Enough!" I bashed Big Blue down on the table, like a judge calling for order. "Livvy, before you pass out over there, was there something you wanted?"
"Oh, uh…" Having the spotlight suddenly thrown on her seemed to freak Livvy out even more than all the sexualised banter between Merry and Stefano, and she actually flapped her hands in confusion, "I guess there is, yeah."
"Go on, then."
In a move that thoroughly annoyed me, Livvy looked round at Merry and Stefano as if for permission and it was only after receiving their munificent nods of approval that she spat it out.
"It's just that there's some people going for drinks tonight and…" she trailed off and the remaining three of us round the table looked at her enquiringly.
"And?" I prompted, impatiently.
"And I was just wondering if you wan
ted to go? I mean, come, you know, come with me?"
"No thanks," I replied promptly. "Now are you guys going to bugger off or-?"
"Lara!" Stefano and Merry spoke in unison, their critical pitch sounding just like Mum's.
"What?"
Merry inclined her head towards Livvy and widened her eyes meaningfully. I looked, and, yes OK, I saw what she meant. Livvy had folded in on herself and was now muttering some sort of apology and starting to leave.
Clamping a hand down on her arm, Merry dragged Livvy back down into her seat and, in the next second, I felt a sharp kick on my shin.
What? I'd said no thanks.
It didn't look like Merry was going to let either Livvy or I go until it was smoothed over to her liking, however, so I heaved a heavy sigh and asked, "OK, why do you want me to come?"
"I just won't know many people there," she said quietly, red-faced as she stared down at the tabletop. "It's my boyfriend's work thing and, although he's gorgeous and perfect and doesn't mean to, he gets a bit carried away with them and I'm left just sort of…standing there."
"Oh, it's a plea for social acceptance!" Stefano's face crumpled into genuine concern and he started looking at me just as Merry was. "You have to help her, Lara."
"She's already had her good deed, it's one per pers…ow!"
Both Merry and Stefano had kicked me that time and I was glad it was winter so I could wear tights or stockings to cover up the bruises they'd no doubt inflicted on me.
Unfortunately, I did the worst possible thing to do under the circumstances, I looked across at Livvy again. She'd lifted her head, those big eyes eloquent in their request and, remembering what I'd thought about her unknowingly having the power to wind men around her little finger, I deleted 'men' to replace it with 'people'.
"Fine," I snapped, ungraciously. "I'll come with you."
"Yay!" Merry released Livvy and clapped excitedly. "And I'll come too."
"And me, we'll go as a Livvy posse and make you the most popular person there!" Stefano reached a hand each out to the other girls and they grabbed them and jiggled up and down.
"Wait a minute," I protested. "If you guys are going, why do I need to?"
"Because you're the lightning rod," Merry replied instantly and Stefano nodded as if that made perfect sense.
"You're the one that makes things happen," he agreed, "everyone says so."
Great, so I was the one who got electrocuted and everyone else just got to stand around and enjoy the light show?
"Yes, if by 'make things happen' you mean I get blamed when stuff goes wrong, I suppose you're right, that is what everyone says," I said in frustration, finding that it wasn't only my dry sandwich that was getting stuck in my throat.
"Oh, woe is you," Merry laughed, reaching across to pat my shoulder in mock-comfort. What was with these two and the touchy feely stuff?
"Come on, Lara, you'll love it," Stefano cajoled. "You'll get to dress up all sexy and make everyone want you while maintaining an aloof distance from anyone who actually tries to hit on you, that's totally your favourite thing to do."
Less a 'favourite thing to do' and more a coping strategy, but I could see his point.
Sighing again to show it was under sufferance, I pulled Big Blue out of my bag and flipped to the page for that night. It was irritatingly clear. Before I could stop him, Stefano had swivelled the folder round and had a look for himself, crowing in triumph when he saw the blank space.
"That's settled then, we're all going to go and be Livvy's entourage tonight at…?"
"O'Malley's, 9 'o' clock," Livvy supplied, obligingly.
"O'Malley's, 9 'o' clock," Stefano repeated, the slightest grimace hovering at the corners of his mouth. "Not the most salubrious of locations, but I'll cope. And, hey, maybe I'll bring along a couple of people."
"And I won't bring Daz," Merry reassured me. "I think I need to keep you kids in time out for a while."
"Oooh, so what's the drama there?" Stefano asked, his dark eyes bright with interest. "Apart from the obvious 'you're drugging up my friend's sister' thing?"
"He thinks I've screwed his friend over with my womanly wiles, refusing to consider that Fletch, as a grown man, is responsible for his own damn actions," I was quick to reply.
"Well, that, and you go out of your way to make him look down your top whenever you see him," Merry pointed out fairly.
Yes, that too.
"OK," Merry tipped the chip packet up and caught the last few crumbs onto her palm, chucking into her mouth. Licking the salt off her lips she balled up the packet in a great, crunching crescendo. "I'm off, I'll see you guys tonight."
"Oh, I've got to go too!" Livvy looked at her watch and bounced up. "Thank you so much, though, I really-"
"Careful, don't thank us yet," I warned. "It's entirely possible you'll come out of tonight even more unpopular than you went in."
"We'll be there to dilute the 'Lara effect', don't worry," Stefano assured her. "Besides, Lara my lovely, you're not as despised as you like to think you are."
Right on cue a bunch of girls stalked past, hair uncombed, clothes baggy, eyes glaring. They were part of the 'trying too hard not to try' brigade and I blew them a kiss to make them feel relevant.
"You were saying?" I asked and Merry and Stefano rolled their eyes in unison. Oh, I was rueing this chance meeting between them.
The girls finished their goodbyes and headed off and, turning to look at Stefano, who had also risen to depart, I shook my head in confusion.
"What was that?" I asked, bemoaning my usual quiet lunch with occasional good deed request thrown in.
"That, and it's actually kind of sad you have to ask, was having lunch with your friends." To my horror, Stefano leant down and chucked me under the chin, immediately dancing away as he obviously saw the 'I'm going to inflict pain on you' glint enter my eye. "Bye, sweetcakes," he sang as he left, "I'll see you tonight."
I watched the tight twitch of his buttocks as he went, abstractly taking notes for my own strut in the future, but knowing he'd been wrong about the friends thing.
I might not have a lot of experience with that kind of relationship, not having been terribly popular before I rooted the boyfriend of the nicest girl in school, but even I knew that a friendship was supposed to be a 'I'd do anything for you' kind of thing. That wasn't the case with the three I'd had lunch with; they'd each already had their good deed, and I didn't have much else to offer.
~*~
O'Malleys was on the edge of campus, an artfully dingy pub that liked its drinks large and its floor sticky.
Slipping in through the heavy, wooden doors that night, I paused in the entrance and scoped out the inhabitants, noting that there seemed to be quite a lot of toned, tanned people milling about. Considering the basic point of Bay campus was that it was on the bay, this wasn't that surprising, but it still made me blanch. Toned, tanned people reminded me of Fletcher.
And so it was that I was actually relieved to be distracted from these thoughts by a voice I recognised squealing, "You came!" And Livvy bouncing up to my side, smiling widely in greeting.
"I said I would." I looked her up and down, taking in her chosen outfit for the night, and then sighed. "Hold still for a moment."
As Livvy obediently froze, I reached out and rearranged her top, pulling the material into its intended place so that the seams ran along her shoulders and the empire waist sat where it was supposed to under her breasts.
"Don't tug at it," I instructed as I stood back to admire the new lines. "You're pulling it out of the shape it was designed for."
"Oh," Livvy looked down at herself and then back up at me with a wide smile. "That's heaps better, thanks. Come on, my boyfriend's over there and I want you to meet
h-"
"Easy, let me get a drink first," I interrupted, forcing a smile to my face lest that seem too rude for such a delicate flower such as herself and Stefano and Merry overheard and kicked me again.
"Righ
t, of course." Livvy backed off and added, with a good attempt at cool, "I'll catch up with you in a bit."
I held the smile for a second longer, then dropped it in relief and made my way through the crowd to the bar. My striking, red heels demanded people make way and, with an artful elbow or two, I found myself supplied with a rum and cola in record time. Sipping the dark liquid, I acknowledged to myself that my order had been less about the alcohol, than the hit of sugar it would provide. Something told me I'd need my energy that night.
Turning to scout out if Stefano or Merry had arrived yet, I was just in time to see Livvy pulling back in a hug from someone whose incredibly familiar shoulders stretched out a faded blue t-shirt. With the poise garnered from the last few years, I managed not to bury my head in my hands in frustration, but it was a close run thing. God, was there no bloody escaping Fletcher Townsend?
The frustration quickly faded, however, as I saw the fond way Fletch was looking at sweet little Livvy and then thought back to what she’d said about knowing Fletch and how she'd been cut off at 'he's my bo-'.
Oh no. No, no, no, no.
He couldn't be…could he?
----------
"And you have the cheek to say that I make a fool out of people?"
Fletcher had just angled himself out of view of Millie, finding that not seeing her in the barely there top she was wearing did a hell of a lot for his determination not to be drawn into her inviting…smile. He wouldn't have said he was feeling self-congratulatory, exactly, but there was a certain amount of triumph at having turned up to Millie's drinks thing and having, so far, avoided anything that would make work awkward next week.
Any sense of accomplishment vanished, however, as he turned and found himself face to face with a very beautiful, very angry Lara...like there was any other kind.
With practice born from years of run-ins with her, he raised his eyebrows at Lara’s question, but didn't reply; waiting to see if she was going to make an actual point. Sure enough, she used his silence to demand, those cat-like eyes of hers practically crackling with annoyance, "So, what? You're too good to spend a few seconds reassuring her? You're more experienced so she should just keep up or piss off?"
The Do-Gooder Page 6