The older guard shook his head. “It’s procedure.”
“And it’s one phone call. Given that I’m about to relinquish my office, my equipment, my car and my home,” her life, “one phone call seems a small thing to ask.”
“It’s—”
“Go ahead, Jac.”
Tom stood in the doorway. Come to gloat.
“Are you sure you should be consorting with me?”
“You’re not angry with me and I have no reason to be anything but saddened to see you go.”
“I am angry with you. You could’ve backed me.”
He looked at the immaculate nails of one hand folded towards his palm. “I don’t back losing propositions.”
She sighed. That was the reason she’d given up any idea of converting Tom to her cause. “Of course you don’t.”
“Make your call, Jac. These gentleman will go back to their workplace and I’ll take you home.”
“Mr Wentworth—”
Tom looked at the guard. “I’m sure I don’t need to repeat myself.”
The guard scrunched his mouth in consternation. “No, Mr Wentworth.” He signalled to his partner and they left.
“Oh thank God,” said Mel, she slumped at her desk; then, eyes flitting between them, said, “This is really happening.”
“Go home for the day, Melanie,” said Tom.
The unflappable Mel was close to tears. “Get out of here.” Jacinta gave a quick laugh. “I am.” She looked at Tom. “Five minutes,” stepped into her office for the last time and closed the door.
She spent one full minute with her back against it, trying to still the sick swings of adrenaline in her chest. The worst was over, she had no reason to feel like she might choke to death on her own anxiety, and in any case, no time to feel overwhelmed. She had a lot to do, starting with the call she’d wanted to make minutes after he’d left her apartment.
She went to her desk and opened the staff directory. She typed Lauder and up came Mace’s details. Before better sense got a hold of her she dialled the number. It rang and rang, then clicked through to message bank; not the usual apology for not being available, the cheerful exhortation to leave a message, just Mace’s deep voice and abrupt words. “If you want me leave a message.”
She wanted him and in the worst way: unfairly, with bad timing and ill grace. The time to call him was earlier, not now when her life was so unsettled. She’d hit on him when she was angry and looking for a way to expiate the hurt. She’d spent the next weekend irrationally annoyed with him, but she wanted him now with a longing that made her hand shake as she put the receiver down. This was better. If she saw him now, in the state she was in, she was only using him again and he deserved more than that.
He’d never know she’d called.
She took her books, a fancy pen set, a crystal paperweight. Not much to show for her career at Wentworth. Tom drove her home in her car. She appreciated his rescue. Being formally marched out under guard was an ignominious end, an obvious power play from a man who could afford to be generous, but didn’t understand the value of the sentiment.
They didn’t speak. What was there to say? Tom’s career would go on, hers was over, if only for the time it took to get a new job, and they had almost nothing in common outside Wentworth and Malcolm.
He pulled up outside the apartment. “When you’re ready to let me help you, I’ll be there.”
“Don’t you worry, he’ll chew you up as well.”
Tom looked at her over the top of his sunglasses. “Bryan has a voodoo doll. I’m assuming it will eventually do its job.”
“I’m serious.”
“He can’t live forever.”
She pressed her lips together hard. “You think I should’ve tried to wait him out. Wait you out.”
He shook his head. “I think you should live your life, little sister, and quit worrying about what anyone else thinks.”
She got out and watched him pull away. In time maybe she’d feel like contacting him, for now, he was part of the world she’d been rejected by and had abandoned right back.
There was a note from Jay under her door. He’d gone to the US, a sudden trip to deal with some investment gone bad. She could call him, but it would be better to have any kind of order in her life before she did, somewhere new to live at least.
She went inside. On the kitchen counter she’d left her accounts. Most of her savings had gone to the marathon victims’ fund. That was another reason not to call Jay, he’d insist on refunding them; in covering her contribution himself.
It seemed right that money she’d accumulated from Wentworth had gone to help people who needed it more. If she sold her company shares she’d have enough to live on for a year or two, maybe longer if she was careful.
And she might need to be careful. She knew it would take a year, longer to get another job at the same level, another job she would feel as connected to, as fired up about. It would take longer if she wanted to move industries and that might become essential if Malcolm did decide to play dirty.
The two headhunters she’d spoken to both suggested she should study or travel, do volunteer work, use the time to show an employer she’d profited in other ways from not having a paying job. That was the thing to do. She’d look at some courses, maybe take an adventure holiday, Jay might have ideas about volunteering.
But first she had to pack up. Find somewhere new to live. Shake the panic that had settled in her stomach, heavy like dread, roiling like a storm cloud.
Despite the size of the apartment there wasn’t much to pack: clothes, shoes, books and papers. All the furniture belonged here. She could take the coffee machine but since it’d been plumbed, she’d need a plumber to get it out. She could take the frozen meals but she’d need a freezer to put them in.
The biggest issue was the canvases. This was the ideal time to throw them out, or simply leave them for Wentworth’s people to deal with. That was the easiest thing to do. Close the door, walk away from all of her failures in one grand gesture.
She stood in the room and looked at the slashed canvas and knew that was a cowardly way out. They were her possessions; it was her responsibility to do something about them.
The room was a mess. It’d never been tidy, but after Mace had moved things around, there seemed more to deal with. Too many decisions to make about what to throw out, what to keep. So much easier to make no decision at all. She’d just made the biggest one of her life and her decision-making muscle was strained to breaking point, all shuddery and weak.
She flicked the sheet off the canvas on the easel. Mace had asked what she was running from. So many ways she could’ve answered that: a mother who’d left her, a family who didn’t love her, a childhood that was fractured, a man she’d cared for who’d hurt her. She’d painted it after she’d thrown Brent out; after she’d forgiven herself for giving him a second chance.
But it was none of those things and it was all of them, glued together in a rough-edged mosaic. She’d avoided answering Mace because the real answer was too painful to deal with.
She was running from herself.
21: Call Me
Fronting at Jacinta’s apartment was too forward, too stalker like, it had stand by to be humiliated spray-painted all over it. Mace nixed that idea despite the appeal of the chance to be face to face with her.
Email was less confronting, but it was also a sucking quicksand and Mace didn’t have the written dexterity not to end up blubbering in it. On the other hand, phone was a suffocating jungle of tangled innuendo and he was leery of cutting through it without his tongue tripping him up and ending things with Jacinta before they began again.
It hardly mattered which way he jumped, because Jacinta’s assistant would likely catch both curveballs before Jacinta got a chance to. That meant email was out. There was no legitimate reason for Mace to send Jacinta an email, especially now he wasn’t a Wentworth employee, and tipping off her assistant to anything personal between them was
a bad algorithm. That left phone. What he really needed was her direct line so together with the power of the hang-up, he could stalk her without her assistant ever knowing.
The hack was probably illegal, but technically not even a hack. It wasn’t his fault IT hadn’t removed his login and password from the employee intranet. For a second he contemplated mucking with it, demoting Malcolm to the mailroom. Tempting, but he had other things to do. He got Jacinta’s direct line and if he called it early morning or late at night she might answer. If she didn’t, he’d hang up and try again till he got her.
The first night he tried he got Jacinta’s voicemail, her assistant’s voice on the machine. He hit the end call button so hard he almost dropped the new handset into a packing box full of Buster’s books. The same thing happened the next night.
On the third night, he got voicemail, but a different voice, a new name. He dialled again with the rough hope he’d misdialled. He’d reached the message bank of John Newton, credit control manager, please leave a message after the tone. Either a glitch or her number had been reallocated. Did she have other stalky one night stands ringing and hanging up on her? He hit the employee intranet, still accepting his details, what losers. He typed her name. He got nothing. Had to be a glitch. He typed in just the surname and up popped Malcolm, Tom and some guy in a branch office called Nigel. No Jacinta.
He typed in Jacinta and got two hits. None of them Wentworths or the company COO. Shit. What was going on here? He typed in personal assistant to Jacinta Wentworth and got Melanie Blasko.
He went to bed that night surrounded by packing boxes and the distinct impression this wasn’t a systems screw up, but a screw up all the same. In the morning he phoned Melanie. He was no longer worried about saying the wrong thing.
“I’m trying to contact Jacinta Wentworth.”
“Who did you say was calling?”
“I didn’t.”
She sighed, because yes that was a dick thing to say. “If you tell me what you need I can make sure your enquiry gets to the right person.”
“The right person is Jacinta.”
Melanie’s next sigh was weary. It sounded wet on the line. “I’m afraid she’s not available. She’s no longer with the company. I’m sure someone else will be able to help you.”
Not a glitch, but still a screw up. “Since when? No they can’t. Where did she go?” Jungle vines wrapped around his throat and made him speak sharply.
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s confidential.”
“What’s confidential about it?” He slapped a hand over his eyes. He was antagonising the only person who could help him.
“I’m sorry sir, it’s company—”
“Policy. Yeah, well that sucks.”
Melanie laughed and then tried to apologise for it. He cut her off again. “I’m an old friend and I have no other way of contacting Jacinta.”
“An old friend?”
The woman was all the way across the city and she could see through him. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry. You could be anyone. I can’t help you.”
“Shit.”
Melanie laughed again. “I’m really sorry, sir.”
“My name is Mace Lauder, how do I find her?”
“Are you really an old friend? Because I’ve worked for Jacinta a long time and I know who her friends are.”
“I’m a new friend. I used to work at Wentworth.”
“How long ago?”
He laughed. “Last week. I quit.”
“It’s going around.”
“She quit too?”
“Don’t you read the papers?”
He’d been so tied up in Buster’s death, in his own work drama and in getting the house ready to sell he’d hardly looked further than his own nose. “I’ve been...busy.”
“Where did you work?”
“IT.”
“I still can’t help you.”
He used a Dillon line. “What can I do to change your mind?” It felt oily sliding off his tongue and slippery falling off his lips. He wiped a hand across them.
“Look, give me a message and I’ll pass it on to her.”
Mace groaned. He didn’t have a message. He had an all-consuming desire to see Jacinta again and the desperate thunk of knowledge he’d left it too late to step up. “Tell her. Tell her. Jesus,” he smacked the heel of his hand into his forehead. “Tell her Mace called and I’d like to see her.”
“That’s it?”
That was like slitting a wrist with a machete. “That’s it.”
“I don’t know when I’ll next speak to her, and it might be a while, but I’ll tell her.”
“What does a while mean?”
“It means she’s travelling and I don’t know when I’ll get to talk to her.”
“Okay, I get it, thanks.” His throat was still neck-tied by vines Tarzan could’ve swung on. “Oh wait. She doesn’t have my number either.”
“Right.”
Because that didn’t that make him sound like someone Melanie should protect Jacinta from. “She would’ve had my company contact.”
He gave Melanie his new number and she rang off. He stood with the boxes and the packing tape. It didn’t feel right that she’d quit. Compared to him, she had a lot to quit on. He searched her name online and came up with a couple of newspaper reports. One was straight-out company propaganda saying she’d left to pursue other interests. The Jacinta he knew didn’t have other interests. The other two were more like real journalism. They voiced all the concerns Mace had, which amounted to speculation she was knifed, suddenly and spectacularly, in the career guts.
He stomped around the house, throwing things in boxes, earmarking others for St Vinnie’s or the garbage. Melanie said Jacinta was travelling, which meant she wasn’t at the apartment. And neither was Jay. Dillon had tried to reach Jay, but his office said he was overseas and unavailable. They made it sound like for Dillon he’d be permanently that way.
He’d hit a dead end. They were no further ahead on Ipseity, it could take months to sell the house and he was skint. All he could do was hope Melanie passed his number on and Jacinta felt like using it. And if that didn’t happen, well, it’s not like he didn’t already have enough to do and hell, what was he thinking anyway? Jacinta out of work was go travelling indefinitely, while he was sponge off Dillon till the sale of the house happened. They might’ve shared a laugh about quitting Wentworth, but what else did they have in common?
He taped up another box of Buster’s romance books and stacked it in the hall with the others. He might as well clean out the notion that his weekend with Jacinta meant anything more than something once enjoyed voraciously but not worth keeping.
22: Waiting
Jacinta tried lying on a deckchair and lasted three days, the third day only because she’d converted her sit-on-your-butt-and-pretend-to enjoy-it holiday into a walk-till-you-drop trek that started the next morning. Now she had blisters on her blisters. She also had a suntan, a haircut and new casual clothes and shoes.
That took care of the urgent need to fill her unemployed time for the first month. And now she was back in town she needed to find somewhere new to live and give Bryan back his spare room and garage. She also needed to stop dodging Jay’s calls. She plonked herself in a serviced apartment and hired a car while she went flat hunting.
Her first instinct on getting an email from Mel was to ignore it. She didn’t want to think about Wentworth, she wasn’t past the grief, or the anger. But it wasn’t Mel’s fault she reminded Jacinta of where she’d be if not stomping around the place with a rental listing and a crabby temper. And Mel had a problem. After leaving her languishing with almost nothing to do since Jacinta left, HR had finally found a new position for her, but it was a sideways shift and Mel wanted advice. It was the least Jacinta could do.
They met for coffee in that cute neighbourhood with the cafe and restaurant strip, the
gallery, gift shops and boutiques where she’d last gone the day Henry wrote the obituary on her career.
“Oh my God, you look amazing, Jacinta.”
She shook her head and her hair swished about her neck and shoulders. “New hair.”
“No, you look...” Mel put her hand to her lips then blurted, “You look ten years younger.”
“It’s the suntan.”
“It’s having a life.”
Jacinta sipped her coffee. She wasn’t having a life; she was waiting for something similar to her old one to come along, and checking her email constantly. Carrying her phone in her pocket wasn’t making it happen any quicker.
“I’m still coming to terms with that.”
“It must feel strange, but exciting too. There must be things you wish you’d been able to do when you were working all those hours.”
There was reading for pleasure, there was the new Pilates class she was considering enrolling in and perhaps the rest would come. Meanwhile she was turning sleeping into an Olympic sport. And that had to stop. That felt like a creeping symptom of depression and she was all too conscious ending up depressed was a real possibility.
They talked about the job Wentworth wanted Mel to do, it wasn’t near as bad as she’d built it up to be.
“I miss you. I guess I panicked a bit. I thought they might’ve tried to get rid of me because they knew I was loyal.”
“If you ever truly believe that I’ll talk to Tom about it.”
Mel nodded. “I guess I have a new boss in the Wentworth mortgages. Oh, while I think of it, I took a call for you from a guy called,” she unfolded a piece of paper, “Mace Lauder.”
“Really, Mace?” She felt a little thrill trick up her spine that had nothing to do with the arrival of the lemon tart they were sharing.
“Yeah.” Mel gave her a wicked grin. “You obviously know him. He was kind of odd on the phone.”
“Odd how?”
“Abrupt, and funny without meaning to be.”
She let the thrill roam free, spreading out from her central nervous system to her fingertips and toes, bubbling inside like laughter. “That sounds like Mace.”
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