Her Favorite Rival

by Sarah Mayberry

It was a spectacular view, too, a sprawling panorama of the city and surrounds.

  “This is all pretty amazing,” Audrey said as the waiter spread her napkin across her lap.

  “We’ve been wanting to come here for ages but we were saving it up for a special occasion,” her mother said, reaching across to squeeze Leah’s hand.

  “I’m a year older. It’s hardly an achievement,” Leah said drily.

  She was pleased, though, Audrey could see. Which was the way it should be.

  “Now, who’s having champagne?” her father asked.

  They drank a toast to Leah before applying themselves to the menu. Conversation shifted to her parents’ work after the waiter had taken their orders. With three doctors at the table, it was natural that medicine was the first port of call when they all got together, and Audrey did her best to keep up. When things became too technical, however, she let her gaze drift to the view.

  The city was bathed in sunlight and the buildings sparkled and winked as clouds raced across the sky. It was a truly beautiful day, the kind that lured people out into parks with picnic baskets, or onto hiking trails with water bottles and backpacks.

  She found herself wondering what Zach was doing with the perfect weather. Making the most of the glorious day doing something outside? Or perhaps he was tackling one of the many DIY tasks left on the renovation list he’d told her and Megan about that night at the bar.

  She tried to picture him with a paintbrush in hand but couldn’t quite get there—he seemed far too urbane and stylish to get down and dirty in that way.

  “Audrey? Hello?”

  Audrey started. “Sorry. I was admiring the view.”

  Among other things.

  Her mother looked exasperated. “You always were a daydreamer.”

  “Was I?” It wasn’t the way she thought of herself. Not when she was younger and certainly not now. In fact, she’d always characterized herself as an anxious child, always trying to please everyone.

  “Oh, yes. You’re our butterfly girl,” her father said with an indulgent smile.

  The waiter came with their meals then and they all fell silent while plates and sides were set out.

  “What were we talking about?” Audrey asked once he was gone.

  “I was asking about your work. How are things going?” her mother said.

  Audrey pulled a face. “It’s been a little tense lately. We have a new CEO and he’s been restructuring the business. So far we’ve lost six people from our department. But it turns out we were the lucky ones—he’s really cut through the marketing and accounting departments.”

  “It sounds as though you were lucky to keep your job.” Leah was frowning with concern.

  “Yeah. It feels that way at the moment, believe me. Morale is at an all-time low. No one feels safe.”

  Her mother was looking worried. “Do you think they’ll be letting more people go?”

  “I don’t know. I’m keeping my head down and hoping.”

  And trying not to do anything stupid, like start up an affair with a colleague, even if he was the hottest thing she’d ever seen.

  “That sounds scary. I’d be freaking out if I was you,” Leah said.

  “That won’t ever be you, darling. People with your skills don’t grow on trees,” her father said.

  Audrey blinked, caught on the raw by her father’s comment. Self-conscious heat rose into her face even as she told herself that he hadn’t meant it as a slight to her, more as a compliment to her sister.

  Stop being so sensitive.

  Conversation shifted to her cousin, Bridget, and it took Audrey a few minutes to clue in that she’d become engaged.

  “When did this happen?” she asked.

  “A couple of weeks ago. I thought you knew,” her mother said.

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry, that’s my fault,” her father said. “Your aunt asked me to pass the news on but I forgot. The party is next month. I’ll email the date to you.”

  “It’s the fifth,” Leah chimed in.

  “I’ll make a note in my diary,” Audrey said.

  “I meant to tell you, Leah.” Her mother’s tone was so studiedly casual that Audrey paused in the act of buttering her roll to glance at her. “I ran into Professor Stenlake the other day.”

  Audrey could feel her sister bristle from across the table. Audrey might not be up to discussing the minutiae of her parents’ and sister’s day-to-day work, but even she knew that Professor Stenlake was in charge of the cardiothoracic unit at the Alfred Hospital and therefore Leah’s boss. She glanced from her sister to her parents, trying to understand what was going on.

  “Mum. Can we please not get into this today?” Leah said.

  “Get into what? I simply wanted to pass on the fact that he said hello and that you were greatly missed. Which suggests to me that if you asked nicely, he’d be more than happy to take you back into the program before too much damage has been done.”

  “I’ve made my decision, Mum. Can we leave it?”

  Audrey looked from her mother to her sister to her father. “What’s going on?”

  “Your sister has dropped out of the surgical program. She’s decided she wants to become a clinical immunologist,” her father said neutrally.

  “Even though she has poured years of her life into a highly prestigious specialty that will ensure she has a brilliant future,” her mother added.

  Audrey looked to her sister. Leah was blinking rapidly, her face very pale.

  “Immunology. That’s a bit of a change of pace,” Audrey said, feeling her way through the minefield.

  “I enjoy it. I have some ideas I want to explore. It’s an exciting field with lots of challenges.” Leah’s chin came up as she spoke and a determined glint came into her eyes.

  “Well, good. Congratulations,” Audrey said.

  “Thank you.” There was no missing the pointedness of Leah’s response, or the look she threw at their mother.

  “I understand that you’re infatuated with immunology at the moment. But there is so much more opportunity for you in cardiothoracic surgery, Leah. So many more chances for you to make your mark.”

  “For the thousandth time, I don’t care about making my mark. I want to be a doctor. I want to help people. I don’t need my name up in lights. I definitely don’t need to stroke around pretending I’m God in a white coat. If you’re so keen on cardiology, why don’t you look at retraining?”

  Their mother sat back in her chair as though she’d been slapped. “We both know I’m too old to go down that path.”

  Audrey frowned, once again trying to catch up with the conversation. Since when had her mother not wanted to be a GP?

  “Mum. Come on.” Leah pushed her hair off her forehead, a gesture of frustration since she was a small child. “There’s nothing wrong with being a GP. Nothing. And you’re a great one.”

  “I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did.” Their mother reached for Leah’s hand and caught it in her own. Her fingers showed white with tension as she pressed home her point. “Listen to me, Leah—don’t settle. Never be less than you can be. Don’t let this opportunity slip away.”

  “It’s not what I want, Mum. It’s what you want, and I can’t live my life for you. Not anymore.”

  Leah’s chair scraped against the floor as she stood. Her eyes were shiny with tears as she spun on her heel and headed for what Audrey assumed was the ladies’ room.

  She started to push back her chair to go after Leah, but her father beat her to it.

  “I’ll go,” he said, shooting his wife a dark look.

  “I told you I couldn’t sit by and let her do this to herself,” her mother said.

  “It’s her birthday,” he said. “Couldn’t we at least have had a cease-fire for a few hours?”

  Back stiff, he walked away from the table.

  Audrey’s mother was very pale as she fussed with the cutlery on either side of her plate.

  “Ar
e you okay?” Audrey asked.

  “What do you think, Audrey?”

  “To be honest, I had no idea this was going on.”

  “Well, it is. As you can see.” Her mother reached for her wineglass.

  Audrey stared at the sharp edges of her mother’s profile and tried to find the right words to say. “Is immunology really that bad? I’m assuming she’ll still get to drive a Mercedes and wear a stethoscope around her neck, right? And that if they ever call for a doctor on a flight she can still put her hand up to be the one to save the day?” She said it lightly, inviting her mother to take a step back from the heat of the situation.

  “Your sister is a brilliant woman. She could be a trailblazer. But she’s settling for mediocrity.”

  “Well, maybe that’s what she wants. She seems pretty determined.”

  And it wasn’t as though immunology was a walk in the park or anything to be ashamed of, even if it didn’t have the same old-school prestige that cardiac medicine enjoyed.

  “Perhaps we should talk about something else,” her mother said.

  “She’s thirty, Mum. And you said it yourself, she’s brilliant. You really think she hasn’t considered all the angles?”

  Her mother set down her wineglass with a thunk. “I can hardly expect you to understand, when you’ve thrown away every opportunity that’s come your way, but your sister is special. I know in my bones that if she passes this opportunity by she’ll regret it later. And I don’t want that for her. I won’t let another of my daughters waste her potential.”

  Audrey flinched and her mother’s expression softened marginally.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s the truth, Audrey. Even you have to admit that.”

  It had been a long time since Audrey had dared to defend herself to her parents. Her list of sins was so long, her transgressions so many, she’d always bowed her head and accepted their criticism. It seemed small recompense to pay for all the hurt and fear she’d once caused them. But today she couldn’t stop the words that rose up inside her.

  “I was sixteen, Mum. It was a long time ago. I’d like to think I’ve made up a bit of ground since then.”

  It took her mother a few seconds to respond—apparently she’d become as used to silent compliance as Audrey had.

  “When you failed to finish high school, you threw away any chance of achieving a higher education and ever being anything more than a glorified clerical assistant. Let’s not pretend it was any different.”

  “I have my high school certificate. You know I do. I earned it at night school.” It felt like a puny defense against her mother’s patent disapproval but Audrey had to say it.

  Her mother dismissed two years of hard work with the flick of her fingers. “You could have been so much more. We all have to live with that.”

  Even though she had always known it was how her mother felt, her words were like a blow to Audrey’s solar plexus. For a long moment all she could do was breathe and blink as she concentrated on not shedding any of the tears pressing at the back of her eyes. She was saved from having to say anything further by her father’s return.

  “Where is she? I’ll go talk to her,” her mother said, standing.

  “Sit down. She’ll be with us in a minute.” He was uncharacteristically stern, and her mother sat without a word.

  Audrey took a swallow from her water glass and tried to regain her composure. The occasion was already a disaster, but she wasn’t about to be the one who ruined it beyond all doubt by creating a scene.

  “Sorry,” Leah said when she slid into her seat a few minutes later, offering everyone a small smile despite the fact that her eyes were red from tears.

  “I’m sorry, too. We can talk about this another time,” their mother said, patting Leah’s hand.

  That the discussion was not over as far as she was concerned was more than obvious.

  Leah slid her hand from beneath their mother’s. “We should probably order another bottle of wine.”

  Audrey spent the rest of the meal trying not to reveal how much she wanted to be anywhere else. She tried to concentrate on the conversation at the table, but nothing stopped her mother’s words from echoing in her head, not even her sister’s very genuine pleasure when she opened Audrey’s present. One thing that had gone well for the day.

  By the time her father signed the credit card slip, Audrey was as taut as a bowstring and desperate to be alone. She managed to say all the right things as she took leave of her family, but it required every ounce of willpower she possessed to not break into a run when she reached the parking garage.

  She loved her parents, and she sincerely regretted the fear and sadness she’d caused them in her teens, but sometimes being the black sheep of the family was an impossibly heavy burden to carry. She’d been telling herself for years that one day she would make it up to them, that they’d see her as she was and not as the troubled girl who had scared them and angered them in equal measure, but maybe it was time to face facts. She was thirty-three years old, and she had been a good girl for the past fifteen years. She had worked hard and studied at night school and climbed the ladder at Makers. She’d bought an apartment all on her own, without any financial assistance from her parents, and she had never, ever given them any cause to worry about her again.

  Yet her mother still looked at her and saw nothing but disappointment and wasted opportunities.

  Audrey slid behind the wheel, started the engine and threw the car into Reverse, accelerating so fast the tires squealed on the concrete. She wanted to be far away from here. She wanted to be gone, gone, gone, away from her mother’s disapproval and disappointment and her father’s sad eyes.

  Your sister is special.... She could be a trailblazer.... You could have been so much more.

  “No.” Audrey slammed the heel of her hand against the steering wheel as she zoomed up the exit ramp and out into the busy city street. She would not play the comparison game with her sister. It was childish and fruitless and pointless. And it always ended the same way—with Audrey as the loser.

  She pointed the car toward St. Kilda and concentrated on driving, doing her best to ignore the thoughts clamoring for attention. She parked in the first spot she found and left her shoes in her car before walking across the sun-heated pavement to the beach wall, down the steps and onto the sand.

  It was warm enough that there were a few families camped around umbrellas and sun shelters, and the sand close to the water was dotted with children digging holes and building castles. She walked along the beach until she found a sparsely populated stretch and sat. Looping her arms around her drawn-up knees, she dug her toes into the sand and did her damnedest to concentrate on the world around her and not the turmoil inside her.

  The beach had always been her special place, her touchstone when times were tough. There was something about the sound of waves and the smell of seaweed and the freshness of the air that helped her find perspective. Staring at the dark blue sea, she waited for the beach to work its usual magic, but the knot of hard, hot emotion remained tangled tight inside her.

  Let it go, she ordered herself. Instead she felt the humiliating push of tears for the second time that day. She let herself fall back against the sand, careless of the fact that she was in a new dress, and flung her forearm across her eyes. She breathed deeply until the threat had passed, once again refusing to give in.

  She wasn’t a little girl. There was no point crying over things that couldn’t be changed. She was who she was, she’d done the things she’d done, and her parents felt the way they felt. It was what it was.

  The world was warm and dark behind her eyelids and she lay listening to the sound of her breathing and feeling the wind play against her bare legs and arms and the fabric of her skirt. She was aware of the tension in her body—across her chest and shoulders and through her belly—and she realized that she’d been wound up and tense for a long time.

  The pressure at work, the constant need to prove herself to her pa
rents, the push-push-push from within to be good and smart and calm and sensible and always, always, always do the right thing...

  She’d been doing the right thing for so long. Working overtime to show the higher-ups she was eager and dedicated and loyal, always wearing just the right clothes, never rocking the boat. She’d dated nice, safe, conservative men; she’d eaten whole-grain bread and broccoli and dragged her backside to the gym three times a week. She’d saved and paid down her mortgage and forgone little pleasures like overseas holidays and the pair of shiny red Jimmy Choo shoes she’d seen in a shop window and the decadent, gooey caramel cream cake they sold at her local bakery.

  She’d been good, so good, and the effort of it all, of holding herself to such a high standard, of never losing control, of always doing the sensible thing, the smart thing, was enough to make her want to throw back her head and howl like a banshee.

  It was such a visceral need she could actually feel her throat tense, could feel her body bracing itself for the effort of yelling until her lungs ached. She dug her heels into the sand and clenched her free hand around a fistful of the stuff and waited for the feeling to pass, as she’d waited for the need to cry to pass, as she’d waited for so many things to pass.

  The feeling didn’t go away, though. It sat behind her breastbone, wanting out. Wanting release. Wanting something that wasn’t prescribed and orderly and sensible.

  An image swam behind her eyelids—a hard, very male body. Navy eyes, hot with need. A mouth made for secrets and sin.

  Her eyes popped open and she stared at the bright blue sky. What she was thinking was insane—or, at best, highly risky. It certainly wasn’t smart or safe or advisable.

  Exactly.

  She pushed into a sitting position, then she was on her feet. Then she was walking to her car. Then she was running. She knew if she stopped to think, she’d stop, period. And she didn’t want to stop. She wanted to do something reckless and wild. She wanted to be bad and impulsive. She wanted something that wasn’t about duty or ambition or penance.

  Something for her.

  She grabbed her phone from her handbag as she unlocked her car. Her heart in her mouth, she called up a search engine and tapped in Zach’s name. A few seconds later an address filled the small screen.