The Best Man

by Dianne Blacklock

  As soon as she managed to get the words out, tears welled up in her eyes. She could not believe this was happening! He was going to think she was no better than a moony adolescent, and she would have to agree. But instead, to her surprise, he took both her hands in his, and Madeleine didn’t feel the jolt of electricity you read about in romance novels, but rather a sense of calm, travelling right up her arms and through her whole body, engulfing her. It was like being wrapped in a warm blanket.

  ‘I hope I see you again too,’ he said.

  Madeleine decided she had to do something to make sure of that. She had no idea what, but she couldn’t let go of the first real connection she had felt to another person since her father had died.

  The best she could come up with for now was to send an email, straightaway, so that it would be waiting for him when he arrived home. But when she sat down to write it, she had no idea what to say. They’d only just parted, she had no news to share, and there were only so many ways to ask him if he’d had a good flight home. After discarding too many attempts to count, Madeleine finally decided to be upfront.

  When I said I hope to see you again, I wasn’t just being polite. I realise we live on opposite sides of the world, and I don’t even know how it would be possible, but I really do want to see you again.

  There, I said it. If you think I’m nuts, just don’t respond to this email.

  But he did respond. Anything’s possible, he assured her, if you want it badly enough.

  The email conversation continued, and they became virtual best friends over cyberspace. Madeleine babbled about anything and everything; when she had a prickly author to deal with, or a stressful meeting coming up, Henry would always remember to ask her about it afterwards. He wrote to her when he hadn’t talked to anyone else in days. She knew when he’d had a good day working, or a bad day, what the weather was like in the Hamptons, how beautiful the beach was in front of his cottage. She said she would love to see it. He said she should come over.

  Madeleine said yes without hesitation; she was prepared to go halfway across the world to be with him even though they had never so much as kissed. It felt romantic and exciting . . . and bloody terrifying. What if she was reading more into it than Henry intended? What if he was only inviting her as a friend? She had gone on and on about New York and the Hamptons, how much she’d always wanted to go – perhaps he’d felt harangued into asking her?

  ‘Are you kidding me?’ Liv had said in response to Madeleine’s litany of hypotheticals. ‘He didn’t ask you to come to New York – and stay with him – because he wants to give you a cheap holiday and show you the sights. Wake up and smell the bagels, girl.’

  She had a point. ‘Okay, but what if it all goes horribly wrong?’ said Madeleine. ‘We haven’t even kissed. What if he’s a terrible kisser? What if I am? You know, at least to him. What I mean is, what if there’s just no chemistry?’

  Liv groaned. ‘So far there’s been nothing but chemistry between you two. I don’t think you have to worry about that. You should be more worried you might both spontaneously self-combust on contact, there’s so much bloody chemistry.’

  She was probably right, but still there was more turbulence going on inside Madeleine’s head than on the flight over. But she knew what she had to do. She couldn’t stand the uncertainty for a moment longer, and she had to leave no room for misinterpretation. So she marched through the barrier at JFK and right up to Henry, threw her arms around him and kissed him soundly. Although he couldn’t have been expecting it, it took him only seconds to catch up, and as he brought his arms around her and held her close, Madeleine had the most overwhelming sensation that she was home – not in America, but with Henry.

  They made love as soon as they got back to his apartment, but not urgently or frantically; Madeleine could never imagine Henry doing anything urgently. And she soon discovered to her delight that there was something to be said for non-urgent lovemaking. In fact, a lot to be said.

  There followed almost a year of going back and forth between New York and Sydney – Madeleine only the once, she didn’t have the leave or the funds to repeat it, but Henry came out four times. Madeleine had never felt so grounded, and calm, and just happy. Except whenever he had to leave.

  The morning of his last flight home, she was lying on the bed watching him pack, already missing him. ‘I wish you didn’t have to go.’

  ‘Me too.’

  She jumped up onto her knees. ‘Then don’t.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll marry you,’ she said. ‘Then you won’t have to go.’

  He looked taken aback for a moment, and then he gave her an indulgent smile. ‘That’s not how it works, Madeleine.’

  ‘Yes it is, you’ll become a citizen automatically.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  She looked blankly at him. ‘You won’t?’

  ‘Citizenship isn’t automatically granted on marriage,’ he said. ‘You still have to go through the whole process of proving your relationship.’

  ‘Oh. Well, we can do that, can’t we?’

  ‘It hasn’t been long enough.’

  Madeleine’s stomach lurched. She’d put him on the spot. She shouldn’t have said anything about marrying him. What was she thinking? Worse, what was he?

  ‘So you think it’s too soon?’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘Not me, the Department of Immigration,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’ How should she take that? And how did he know all this? ‘How do you know all this?’ she asked out loud.

  ‘I’ve looked into it.’

  She blinked. ‘You have?’

  ‘I have.’ Henry closed his suitcase, zipped it all the way around, then lifted it off the bed and set it down on the floor.

  ‘And?’ Madeleine said impatiently.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What did you find out?’

  He took a breath. ‘As I’m self-supporting and wouldn’t be expecting to draw any kind of government benefits, and would certainly not be taking anyone else’s job, I can apply for a long-stay visa and simply wait it out a couple of years. Then, on fulfilling a few other conditions, like a health check, I will most likely be granted permanent residency. So we can get married any time we like.’

  Madeleine’s eyes widened. ‘Oh . . . So, um, have you . . . have you thought about what you might want to do?’

  ‘I’ve already applied for the visa.’

  ‘Henry!’ She lunged at him from the bed, throwing her arms around his neck. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I was going to surprise you,’ he said. ‘But now you’ve stolen all my thunder.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ He gave her a quick kiss on the lips. ‘But I’ll have to cancel the skywriter.’

  She drew back to look at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s just part of the whole big proposal thing I had planned.’

  ‘There’s no need to tease,’ she said. ‘I was only trying to find a way that you could stay.’

  ‘So you don’t want me to propose?’

  Now she was confused. ‘I didn’t say that . . . I just wasn’t trying to force your hand.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s ruined now anyway. Shame really, it was going to be pretty amazing.’

  Madeleine caught the glint in his eye. She dropped back onto the bed, propping herself on her elbows and looking up at him. ‘Well, a skywriter’s okay, I guess. Is that all you got?’

  ‘No,’ he said, sitting down beside her. ‘I’ll have to call it off with the zoo as well.’

  ‘The zoo?’ She raised an eyebrow.

  Henry nodded. ‘They’ve been training a seal to balance the ring on his nose and present it to you during the seal show. It would have brought the house down.’

  ‘Stop it.’

  ‘You think I’m making this up?’

  ‘I think this is what I get for falling in love with a children’s author,’ said
Madeleine. ‘Fantastical stories about seals delivering rings.’

  ‘It’s not all “fantastical”, and I’m not even sure that’s a word.’

  ‘It is so a word. It perfectly describes ridiculous stories made up by boyfriends to tease their girlfriends.’

  ‘I’m not teasing you.’

  ‘About the seal?’

  ‘No, about the ring.’

  ‘Enough!’

  ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’

  ‘It’s locked in a safety deposit box back home,’ said Henry. ‘I’ll bring it with me next time.’

  Madeleine’s heart was racing, but she still didn’t want to fall for it. Though she couldn’t recall Henry ever being such a tease before. She sat up straight, facing him. ‘When did you get it?’

  ‘Six months ago.’

  ‘That long?’

  ‘I’ve known longer than that, but I bought it six months ago.’

  Her eyes teared up. ‘You did? You really did? You’re not teasing?’

  Henry smiled. ‘I wouldn’t tease you about this.’

  ‘So what have you been waiting for?’

  ‘These things take a lot of planning, the seal had to be trained . . .’

  ‘Henry!’

  He took hold of her hands. ‘I’ve been waiting,’ he said, ‘to have the long-stay visa approved, and to come back here and tell you that I love you, and that I want to be with you every day, all the days of my life, for as long as we both shall live. And that’s when I was going to give you the ring.’

  Which was exactly what he did, two months later, in the arrivals hall, not far from where they were standing now. He didn’t get down on one knee or anything – Henry wouldn’t want to attract attention – but Madeleine liked it that way anyway. This momentous thing was happening in the middle of all the hubbub, and no one even knew.

  ‘We have had a lot of significant moments in airports,’ she sighed happily, leaning her head on Henry’s shoulder.

  ‘Ah, there he is,’ Henry said calmly. ‘Oh, sorry, what did you say?’

  Madeleine jerked her head up. ‘No, what did you say?’

  ‘Aiden,’ he said. ‘He’s walking down the ramp.’

  She gasped. ‘Where?’

  Henry leant in close to her and raised his arm to point through the mass of people congregating at the base of the ramp. Madeleine’s eyes followed, and the face she had previously seen only in photographs suddenly came into focus. She wondered how she could have missed him; tall and bronzed, with golden-blond hair, he looked like a movie star in the midst of all the rumpled travellers.

  ‘I don’t think he can see us,’ said Henry.

  Madeleine sprang into action. ‘Aiden!’ she cried, waving furiously, before launching herself headlong into the throng. Henry had to grab hold of the back of her jacket to keep up with her. Soon they all arrived at the clearing at the end of the ramp, and there was a moment’s hesitation as they stood smiling expectantly at one another. Someone had to say something.

  ‘Man, you’ve gotten old, Darrow.’

  Henry’s face broke into a wider-than-usual-for-Henry smile. ‘And you haven’t changed at all, Aid.’

  Aiden laughed loudly as he shoved his luggage trolley aside and threw his arms around Henry with such exuberance that Madeleine thought Henry’s feet might have left the ground. Aiden eventually released him, turning his sights on her.

  ‘Madeleine, I presume?’ he said, before sweeping her up in an equally enthusiastic hug; and, because she was shorter and lighter than Henry, her feet actually did leave the ground before he set her down again.

  ‘You didn’t tell me your wife-to-be was such a knockout,’ he declared.

  ‘He didn’t?’ said Madeleine. ‘You didn’t?’ She turned to Henry with mock indignation.

  Of course Henry didn’t, that wasn’t his way. Aiden was clearly a charmer. Madeleine scrubbed up all right, but she knew she was nothing out of the ordinary. She had never been too hung up on her looks – her dad had always made both her and Genevieve feel like they were the most beautiful girls in the world. But he also used to say that looks were a gift you were given, character was a gift you gave to others. Her eyes were her best feature, mostly because they were an unusual shade of green. She had her dad’s eyes, so she was happy to accept compliments for them.

  ‘I had a feeling you two were going to gang up on me,’ Henry was saying. ‘I just didn’t expect it to start two minutes after you arrived, Aid.’

  ‘Have you forgotten what a fast worker I am?’ Aiden joked, offering Madeleine his arm. ‘Grab the trolley, would you, Darrow?’

  Henry trailed behind them out of the airport as Aiden and Madeleine got acquainted, exchanging all the usual pleasantries: How was his flight? Did he manage to get any sleep? How were the wedding preparations coming along? Did she know it wasn’t too late to ditch Henry and run away with him?

  ‘You know I can hear you, right?’ Henry said from the rear.

  It occurred to Madeleine that Henry had also failed to mention quite how breathtakingly good-looking his friend was. But she supposed that was something guys didn’t do. She had seen pictures of Aiden in their college yearbook, but that was a long time ago, when they were both still very boyish-looking – handsome, but with decidedly bad haircuts, and yet to fully grow into their features. Henry didn’t have any other albums, or boxes of old photos; she supposed that was something guys didn’t do either. So Madeleine had had no choice but to google Aiden. That always made her feel a bit like a stalker, but Liv told her that was nonsense, as she grabbed the keyboard from Madeleine and typed in his name. Unsurprisingly, given his résumé, there was no shortage of images. Aiden set up relief programs across the third world on behalf of a major multinational, so there were pictures of him standing among groups of shiny black children in Africa, outside humpies with toothless old men in Vietnam, surveying the slums of Mexico and India. In the photos he always had a smile on his face, his eyes bright with hope despite the apparent hopelessness of his surroundings. But the energy of the man in the flesh was a whole other thing.

  ‘Well, gentlemen,’ Madeleine said as they exited the terminal, ‘this is where I must love you and leave you.’

  Aiden’s face dropped. ‘What are you talking about? I just got here.’

  ‘I’m afraid some of us have to work.’

  ‘I’m crushed!’ he said, holding a hand to his heart. ‘I thought your lives would revolve around me from the moment I deigned to grace you with my presence.’

  Madeleine grinned up at him. ‘That’s what you get for arriving on a weekday.’

  Aiden turned to Henry. ‘Looks like it’s just you and me, bud,’ he said as he slapped Henry on the back.

  ‘I’ll be home for dinner, we’ll catch up properly then,’ Madeleine promised. She reached up to give him a hug. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Aiden.’

  ‘And I’m glad to be here.’

  9.30 am

  Madeleine had left her car at work the night before so they would only have to bring one car to the airport today. Now in the cab on the way to the office, she had the chance to check her messages. There was already a screenful of missed calls, texts and voicemails, and it was barely half an hour into the working day.

  Since Henry had moved to Australia, Madeleine had gradually taken on more responsibility in the office so she wouldn’t have to do so much travelling. She’d kept the authors she had at the time, but she didn’t take on any more, nor did she look after any of the one-off blockbusters – celebrity autobiographies, memoirs of sporting stars, or exposés by journalists with an inside scoop and often a grudge. As it happened, Liv had been itching to get back on the road ever since the twins had started high school and she didn’t have to be quite so hands-on with them, so the change in roles suited them both. Though it didn’t take long for Madeleine to see why Liv had wanted a break: these days, the buck stopped right at her feet with a resounding th
ud. Every mistake, misquote, missing author, even flight delays, were either blamed on her or she was expected to fix them somehow. It was an entirely different world of stress, she just got to go home at night. Most of the time.

  Madeleine called Stacey first. Stacey was the publicity assistant and Madeleine’s right-hand girl. She was efficient, organised and completely indispensable.

  ‘Hey, how’s the best man?’ she chirped. ‘Did he arrive in one piece?’

  ‘He did,’ Madeleine confirmed. ‘He and Henry are off having some quality time together, and I’m on my way in now.’

  ‘I’ve got about a bazillion messages. What order do you want them in?’

  ‘From bad to worse, I guess.’

  ‘Okay, the library called about Emily Tanner’s event, they’ve only had four bookings so far and they think they should cancel. What shall I tell them?’

  Madeleine sighed. Emily’s self-esteem was wafer thin as it was. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll give the library a call, see if there isn’t something we can do. And I’ll handle Emily myself. Next?’

  ‘Lydia Carlyle rang about the marketing for her literary lunch.’

  ‘But that’s being handled by the events manager at the venue.’

  ‘I know, but she wants us to fix it. She’s angry that they called her book a romance.’

  ‘They called it “a romance in the tradition of Jane Eyre”,’ said Madeleine. Though God knows why. ‘How can she have a problem with that?’

  ‘Maybe she’s never read Jane Eyre?’

  ‘Well it’s about time she did. Leave it with me. Next?’

  ‘Peter Norris rang, upset about the review in the weekend paper.’

  Madeleine groaned. ‘Did you remind him that we don’t write the reviews?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll talk to him. Anything else?’

  ‘Let me see . . . The books haven’t been delivered for the Taste launch . . . Um, Michael Kelly wasn’t home, or at least he wasn’t answering his phone at the appointed time for his radio interview –’