Façades

by Cynthia Lindenmayer

  That statement brought a puzzled expression to Harold’s face, but he discreetly made no comment about the fact that neither Teale nor Simone had mentioned any previous connection when he introduced them at his party. Simone flushed, slightly, and quickly fished in her handbag for a tissue to cover her embarrassment, while Teale looked sheepishly, but longingly in her direction.

  Further potential embarrassment for the secret lovers was avoided by Sasha’s launching into a detailed explanation, augmented by sporadic input from Gai, of the fact of, and circumstances leading to, their recent visit to the nearby police station. As this tale unfolded, Harold displayed increasing concern, and exhorted both young women present to be careful and vigilant during their meanderings about their local neighbourhood.

  Although all present made comments, from time to time, it was Sasha who monopolized the conversation, prattling on, excitedly, and directing her attention, and her body language, almost exclusively at Teale.

  “I believe you will be house-sitting for the Judge and Mrs. Braithwaite, shortly,” she said to Teale, at last. Then, turning to Harold, she asked, “When are you going away, Judge?”

  “In a couple of days,” he replied.

  “Why don’t you come over to our place for dinner one night next week?” she asked, again directing her conversation and her smile towards Teale.

  “Ah… I’m going to be… ah… very busy… um… ah…working on a big case next week,” stammered Teale, throwing an uncertain, helpless look in Simone’s direction.

  “Nonsense, Teale!” interjected Harold. “You don’t get an invitation to dinner from a lovely young woman every day. You’ll have plenty of time to work on that case. Go!”

  Feeling painted into a corner, and receiving no extricating assistance from Simone, Teale reluctantly agreed.

  “Well, what night would suit you?” persisted Sasha, showing a determination not to let go until a firm arrangement had been made.

  “What about Monday night?” enquired Teale, after some hesitation and without great enthusiasm.

  “That suits me fine,” replied Sasha, before adding, to her mother, very much as an afterthought, “That’ll be OK won’t it, Mum?”

  Unable to think quickly of any valid reason to thwart her daughter’s clear intent, Simone mumbled her acceptance, without meeting Teale’s eyes.

  After some further inconsequential small talk, Harold and Teale took their leave, and entered the Court building. Brodie offered to take Sasha to work, before driving Gai home, and to pick Sasha up again after work. So, the three set off towards the parking station where he had left his car, leaving Simone and Lee to go home together, in Lee’s car.

  As the three young people walked towards Brodie’s parked vehicle, Brodie gave Sasha a playful grin, saying, “Gee, you flipped out a bit over him, Sash!”

  “What about you?” replied Sasha, defensively. “You swooped onto his ex on Saturday before she was even cold. It must run in your family,” she added, giving Gai a meaningful look.

  “Hang on, Sasha,” responded Gai. “I didn’t swoop on David – you tossed him aside, and I just caught him. Plus, it’s plain you’re not suffering a broken heart over him.”

  “Come on, girls – that’s enough,” interrupted Brodie. “Here’s the car now, so let’s go.”

  While Lee and Simone made their way home, Simone was mostly silent as she still tried to digest all that had just happened. Her mind was in turmoil about how she could cope with Teale’s presence in her home, with her family, and her daughter’s clear intent to make a play for him. She silently hoped that Teale would have the good sense to beg off the dinner with some excuse before the day came.

  Her thoughts were interrupted, then, by Lee.

  “That Teale seemed a bit reluctant to accept Sasha’s dinner invitation,” he said.

  “Harold told me he not long ago broke up with his girlfriend,” responded Simone, “and maybe Sasha was coming on too strong for him.”

  Just before he dropped her off at home, Lee spoke again.

  “I’ve got a bit of a lighter week than usual coming up. I wondered if you’d like to meet me for a nice lunch together one day. With all that’s happened lately, beginning with Sasha’s party, I thought it might be pleasant if we could spend a little relaxing time together, away from the family.”

  “Yes, Lee. Thank you. I’d like that,” she replied, with a smile.

  After dropping Simone off, and while driving back to his surgery, Lee made a mental note to call Nadine, as soon as he arrived, to check on her health and to sound her out about her future intentions regarding her return to work.

  When Simone entered the house, alone, she suddenly felt completely drained. She ran to her bedroom where she threw herself down on her bed and succumbed to the need for deep, wrenching tears, which flowed from her like a torrent. Having been confronted with Teale again, so soon after resolving to give him up, the feelings that were thereby engendered, including deep, raging jealousy of her own daughter, made her doubt that she was strong enough to stick to her resolve. Yet, at the same time, the course which events beyond her control were now taking, made it even more dangerous for her, and for the wellbeing of her family, to continue that relationship. She was finding herself more and more caught upon the horns of a very uncomfortable dilemma.

  “Sorry to hear about your ankle, Nadine,” said Pat, to her friend, over the phone.

  “Thanks, Pat. I’m so bored here, just looking at four walls. Mum’s taken Samantha to a friend’s birthday party, and they’ll be away for a while yet.”

  “Would you like me to come over for a while to keep you company?” offered Pat. “I’m bored to tears at the moment, too.”

  “Yes, Pat. That’d be nice. Hurry up! I’ve got lots to tell you.”

  It was not long before Pat arrived at Nadine’s mother’s house. Nadine hobbled out to greet and admit her, and led her back into her bedroom, where they each sat on an edge of the bed.

  “You said you’ve lots to tell me,” began Pat, eagerly, “so, come on, spill it!”

  “Well, you know that seminar I told you my boss and I were going to? Well,” she continued, in response to Pat’s nod, “my boss came on to me real strong, and persistently. It was so embarrassing!”

  “You should have him up for sexual harassment,” suggested Pat. “You could rip heaps out of him for that!”

  “No, I don’t think so,” replied Nadine, with a downcast look. “It’d probably only backfire on me. I’m just a nobody, single mum, whose partner is in gaol, while he’s a big-time orthodontist. Who do you think they’d believe?”

  “Those rich bastards make me sick,” responded Pat, vehemently. “They get away with everything, and we battlers get the rough end of the pineapple, just like Jake and Mark did.”

  “I don’t really know what to do,” lamented Nadine, “but I can have a few days off while my ankle gets better, so that gives me a bit of time to think about it.”

  A gloomy silence descended on the two for a moment, during which Pat spied Nadine’s new, sky-blue, beaded denim mini skirt, draped across the end of her friend’s bed. She picked it up, and held it out at arms length to admire it.

  “Jeez! This is really nice, Nadine,” she gushed. “I wish I could afford something like this.”

  “If you’d like it, you can have it, and the jacket, too,” offered Nadine, to her friend’s surprise, pointing out the matching jacket hanging on her wardrobe door. “That outfit only brought me bad luck over the weekend, and I’ll never wear it again, anyway.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Pat, incredulously, holding the skirt up to her hips, and looking admiringly at her reflection in the full-length mirrored door of the wardrobe. “It’ll fit me, too, if you’re sure… ” she added, hopefully.

  “Sure I’m sure,” replied Nadine. “It’s yours.”

  Excitedly, Pat stepped into the skirt, and half zipped it up over her jeans. Then, pulling the top from its hanger, and putting it o
n over her blouse, she pirouetted in front of the mirror to get the full effect of this surprise offering from her generous friend.

  At that moment, further conversation between the pair was interrupted by the sound of Nadine’s mobile phone ringing, from its position on her bedside table. As she picked it up to answer it, she first checked the incoming call register, and immediately recognized Lee’s surgery number. With a wrinkle of her nose at her friend, she answered it with a curt, “Yes?”, followed by, “Yeah, I’m OK, I suppose.” Then, after a short pause, she concluded, “I’ve got company at the moment. I’ll let you know later.”

  She then snapped the phone shut, and tossed it dismissively onto her bed.

  “Was that him?” asked Pat, her eyes wide.

  “Yeah. He came the big crawl, asking after my ankle. I put him off.”

  “Bastard!” responded Pat, still admiring her appearance in the mirror.

  CHAPTER 15

  On the following Wednesday, as she was preparing for her luncheon date with Lee, Simone went over in her head some of the events and feelings she had experienced since the disaster of Sasha’s party. Despite the traumas of that evening, and the heat of her subsequent tempestuous encounters with Teale, she felt that, in some strange way, she and Lee had somehow come a little closer together. Certainly, they had begun to communicate a little more meaningfully, and today’s outing was some testament to that. Yet, at the same time, whenever she looked at her mobile phone, she thought of Teale, and hungered for a call from him. Even now, she felt so strongly the pangs of desire for him, and for the ecstatic pleasure with which their passionate love-making always filled her that, were it not for her commitment to meet Lee, she would not have been able to trust herself to resist the temptation to contact him again. It was in that frame of mind that she picked up her car keys and, with a deep sigh, set off to meet Lee.

  Half an hour later, seated across from Lee at a table in one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants, sipping a glass of Moet et Chandon champagne, Simone wondered how they would fill in the hour with conversation, the art of which, at least with each other, they had both all but lost. To break the ice, she began by telling him what Delia had told her, only that morning.

  “Delia tells me she went to see the parents of the classmate who has been cyber bullying Anita, in the hope that she could enlist their help to curtail the insidious flow of electronic abuse from their daughter to Anita. Unfortunately, the girl’s parents were anything but helpful, and sent her off with a flea in her ear about how their daughter wouldn’t do such a thing, and that Anita must be making it all up out of jealousy.”

  “I suppose that sort of reaction is not all that surprising,” offered Lee. “We all tend to be in denial about the short-comings of our own children, at least when we perceive them to be under attack from someone else. Maybe Anita needs to enlist the help of her own parents, or, failing that, of a student counsellor at the university.”

  “I guess a big problem for Anita is her fear about how her parents will react to the news of her homosexuality,” continued Simone. “And, while we’re on that subject, I was very surprised to hear from Delia that you had suspicions about her being gay. You hadn’t mentioned it to me.”

  “I was afraid to tell you because I didn’t know how you would react. And anyway, they were only suspicions. I was just as surprised to hear you actually knew about it and hadn’t told me.”

  “Well, I was worried about how you would react,” said Simone, with a wry smile, “seeing how you and Delia always seemed to be at loggerheads lately. But I must say, you’ve certainly won some brownie points with her for your attitude to this, and you can do no wrong in her eyes, at the moment.”

  At that point their conversation was briefly interrupted by their table waiter, who returned to take their meal orders, followed almost immediately by the drink waiter, who offered to top up their champagne glasses. Simone politely declined the offer, mindful of the fact that she would be driving home after the meal. When both waiters had withdrawn, Simone spoke to Lee again.

  “By the way, Delia also tells me she has heard that Nadine’s former partner, and the father of her child, is in gaol, for embezzlement. You’ve never mentioned that to me before.”

  “That’s the first I’ve heard of that,” replied Lee, his face registering genuine surprise. “I was told quite a different story – just that he’d left her and the child. But if it’s true that he went to gaol, I suppose you can understand why she mightn’t want that generally known, especially to an employer.”

  “When is she coming back to work?” asked Simone.

  “I told her to take her time, and to make sure her ankle is fully recovered. In the meantime, the temp. is doing the job OK.”

  “How did she actually come to sprain her ankle?”

  “Ah – I believe she – ah – went bush-walking, or something with – ah – some friends of hers,” replied Lee, nervously. Then, in order to move off that topic as quickly as possible, he hurriedly said, “Sasha came to see me last night, and asked if I would finance her through a part-time film and television course at uni. Brodie has offered her a job working with him preparing documentaries. He thinks she has a real flare for that kind of work, but she needs to do the formal course to develop that flare, and to give her the academic backing to compete in that field. I said yes. I hope you’ll support that. She’s anxious to leave the beauty parlour as soon as possible.”

  “I’m only too happy to support that,” replied Simone. “I’ve noticed a bit of a change for the better in her attitude lately – since she’s been helping Brodie. I’m still a bit worried about her safety, though, after that attack on Gai. She tells me she’s being careful, and makes sure someone walks her to the car, and things like that. But I won’t be really happy until the police catch whoever is responsible for it. I guess whatever time she spends working with Brodie will be time she is relatively safe.”

  “Remind me when it is that her latest heart-throb is coming around for dinner,” asked Lee.

  “Next Monday,” replied Simone, keeping her eyes on her plate, in an effort to mask the sudden rush of colour to her cheeks. “I’m glad Hannah will be back by then,” she added quickly, to further divert Lee from her discomfort, “because I may have a busy time with work next week.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve been a bit remiss in not taking enough interest in your work,” said Lee, apologetically. “I wasn’t aware, for example, that you have such high-profile clients, including young, handsome, upwardly mobile barristers, like Teale. In addition, I must confess that, until Delia told me on Sunday, when I arrived home, that you were out with some friend, I didn’t realize that I don’t even know who your close personal friends are.”

  To cover her deepening anxiety at Lee’s having touched on such a sensitive issue, Simone responded, with a show of mild indignation, “But you’re hardly forthcoming about all your friends and extra-curricular activities, either!”

  “True,” he replied. “I’m sorry about that, too. We have certainly drifted apart along our own separate tracks, in recent years. Is it too late for us to try to get back onto converging tracks again? I’d like to try, if you’re willing to.”

  “Yes, Lee,” replied Simone, after a brief pause. “I think it’s worth a try. What have we to lose?”

  The rest of the meal passed pleasantly enough for both Lee and Simone. He filled her in on the progress of his humanitarian project initiated by Brodie, while she opened up to him a little more about her work. When, at last, they parted, as Lee prepared to return to his surgery, he gave Simone a light kiss on the cheek, saying, “Thanks, Simone. I really enjoyed that.” She responded with a smile, before turning to walk back to her car.

  At home, later, as she undressed, Simone turned over in her mind her recent interaction with Lee. She acknowledged to herself that it had been a reasonably pleasant interlude, and that Lee appeared to be making a genuine effort to re-kindle their relationship. After all, she
thought, we did have a very passionate relationship once upon a time, and one really has to earn a divorce. So, we owe it to ourselves and our children to make a decent effort.

  At the same time as these thoughts were going through her head, she could not get her mind completely away from Teale, and the sheer thrill that she experienced at the sight of his well toned body, and the feel of his hard, strong manhood. She knew that she could never have a lasting, fully satisfying relationship with him, but that it would only ever be a purely carnal one.

  Those thoughts, at once, sent a shiver of sexual desire pulsating through her now naked body. With a sharp intake of her breath, she ran one hand quickly through her lingerie drawer, to locate the recently acquired, intimate implement hidden there. Extracting it from its hiding place, she took it to her bed, where she lay, on her back, eyes closed, and allowed her fantasies of Teale to wash over her, unrestrained. As she did so, she first took the nipple of each breast between a thumb and forefinger, and caressed them, gently, at first, but with gradually increasing pressure, as she imagined Teale’s eager tongue pleasuring her with its swift, firm, moist strokes. Then, when the moment was right, she took her vibrant assistant in one hand, and applied it, with skill and purpose, to the exquisitely sensitive part of her now delightfully dewy honey pot, until she brought herself to a climactic peak of ecstasy such as she had recently experienced only in Teale’s arms.

  Teale was in his chambers, doing his final check of, and signing off on, an opinion that he had been working at, less than enthusiastically, for most of the day. With some reservations, he had accepted Megan’s late invitation to dinner, that night, at her apartment. Despite his awareness that he and Megan were ideally suited, in temperament, interests, and background, and that they were also sexually quite compatible, he found it extremely difficult to let go of his obsession with Simone, and of the strong addiction he felt to the adrenalin rush that their uninhibited sexual exploits gave him. He knew, from her unrestrained erotic responses to his red-hot libido, that she shared that addiction, and therefore he could not quite comprehend how she could simply turn her back on further opportunities to indulge in such intoxicating exhilaration.