Her Little Secret

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘God, I’m good.’ He grinned and, yes, it was arrogant, but it was funny too, and Alison couldn’t help but smile as she rolled her eyes.

  ‘Yeah, but you know it.’

  He looked at her and he wanted to look away, to walk away, to remember he was there for reasons other than this, except there was something about Alison that was hard to resist. Something about her that meant stern warnings could so easily be ignored.

  ‘Hey…’ Moira dashed past ‘…are you coming to the beach later, Alison?’ She gave a hopeful glance at Nick. ‘There are a few of us going—Amy…’

  ‘Not for me,’ Alison said.

  ‘Or me!’ Nick said. Moira shrugged and moved on. It was like sugar to artificial sweetener, Nick decided, because sugar was something he was trying to give up too. Yes, sweeteners tasted okay, once you got used to them, and for a while there they sufficed, but sooner rather than later you went back for the real thing…. And maybe he should just go to the beach, or a bar, or just home and have that takeaway that Amy had offered. Instead he found himself asking Alison if she wanted to go for a coffee.

  ‘I’ve got a dentist appointment.’

  ‘Ouch.’ He pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Hope it’s not too painful.’

  ‘Oh, it’s just my six-monthly check-up.’ And she smiled, but it sort of faded as she turned back to the computer, because it just about summed her up.

  She had six-monthly check-ups, and when this one was done, no doubt, she’d do as she always did and while she was there make an appointment for the next one and write it in her diary, and she’d be there—she never missed.

  Same as her eight-weekly trim at the hairdresser’s.

  Same as she booked in the dog to be shampooed and clipped.

  She bet Nick hadn’t spent ages on the computer, researching dentists to ensure he didn’t miss his six-monthly check-up.

  The most gorgeous, sexy man was asking her for coffee and she’d turned him down for a dental appointment!

  ‘We could meet up afterwards, but not for long, I’ve got to look at that flat.’ She could hear her own words and inwardly reeled at them, and even as she mistyped the patient’s UR number she sounded almost blasé as she dipped in her toe and felt only warmth. ‘So long as I don’t end up getting a filling or something.’

  ‘Let’s just hope you’ve been flossing.’

  She had been.

  Alison lay in the chair with her mouth open as the dentist tapped each tooth in turn.

  Not a single filling.

  Again.

  He cleaned them, polished them and they felt like glass as she ran her tongue over them. As she paid and headed out, she didn’t get why she was so nervous.

  Why she wanted to just not show up.

  Because it might just be coffee and strudel and then she’d be disappointed, Alison thought as she stepped out onto the street with her sparkly clean teeth. Or, worse, it might be more than coffee and strudel…

  Maybe that was what he did—pick someone wherever he went, dazzle her with the full glare of his spotlight.

  And he really could dazzle.

  Since two minutes past six on Friday morning, he’d been on her mind.

  She rang her mum, told her she was having coffee with friends before she went to look at the flat, and as she turned the corner he was there already and looked up and smiled as she made her way over and took her seat at the pavement café.

  ‘How was the dentist?’

  ‘Fine,’ Alison said, ‘I’ve earned my strudel.’

  He ordered, and her nerves disappeared because, absolutely, he was still easy to talk to and easy to listen to, too. Not working for a few months, Nick said, was the single best thing he had ever done. ‘Because,’ he continued, spooning four sugars into his coffee as Alison tapped in a sweetener, ‘I actually missed it.’

  ‘Well, you love your job,’ Alison said. ‘That’s obvious.’

  ‘But I didn’t,’ Nick said, and Alison blinked at his admission. ‘That’s one of the reasons I took a year off. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to do medicine any more, let alone work in Emergency.’

  ‘But you seem to enjoy it.’

  ‘I’m starting to.’ He was in no rush, just sat and drank his coffee as if he’d be happy to sit there all evening and told her a little about himself. ‘There was never any question that I’d be a doctor—preferably a surgeon. My dad’s one, my grandfather was one, my elder brother is, as is my sister…’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Can you imagine what we talk about over dinner?’

  ‘What about your mum?’

  ‘Homework monitor,’ Nick said, and Alison laughed. ‘There was no question and, really, I accepted that, right up till the last year of medical school—which I enjoyed, but…’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I wanted to take a year off to travel, but I ended up taking an internship.’

  ‘I was the same,’ Alison interrupted, which was rare for her. Normally she sat quietly and listened. ‘I wanted a year off when I finished school, but Mum and Dad said I should finish my studies.’

  ‘I had the same conversation with mine.’ Nick groaned. ‘So I did my internship, decided I liked emergency work, met Gillian and it was all…’

  ‘Nice,’ Alison offered.

  And they could hardly hear the other’s story for telling their own, or hardly tell their own for hearing the other person’s.

  ‘Work was okay about it—they gave me a year’s unpaid leave, but they made it pretty clear that there’d be no extension. I’ve no idea how bad divorce must be,’ Nick said, ‘because breaking up after four years was hard enough. I mean, there was no real reason—it was just the talk of mortgages and babies and if we’d hyphenate our names…’ He called the waiter and ordered another coffee and Alison ordered a hot chocolate. ‘I was having a midlife crisis apparently!’ Nick said. ‘At thirty!’

  ‘I had one too,’ Alison said, ‘and I’m only twenty-four.’ And she laughed, for the first time she laughed about the sorry situation she had found herself in a year ago. She told him a little about Paul, her one serious relationship—how well he’d got on with her mother, how hard it had been to end it—but there was something she wanted to know about him. ‘So…’ Alison was cautious, but terribly, terribly curious. ‘Are you two having a break…?’

  ‘No,’ Nick said. ‘I ended it and it wasn’t nice, but it was necessary. I just hope one day she can see that—four weeks later I’d got a round-the-world ticket and was flying to New York.’

  And she sat outside a pavement café with a man who came from the other side of the world, but who felt somehow the same, and there was a fizz in her veins she’d never felt before, a glow inside as they chatted on, and she could have stayed and spoken to him for hours, except she had her real estate appointment at seven.

  ‘Do you want me to come?’ Nick asked. ‘I love looking at houses.’

  ‘It’s an apartment.’

  ‘It’s someone else’s!’ Nick grinned. ‘I love being nosy.’

  And Alison smiled back because, even if flat-hunting was hell, yes, she liked that aspect of it too, loved that peek into others’ lives, the solace that wardrobes the length and breadth of Coogee were filled fit to bursting, that some people didn’t even make their beds when they had people coming round to view. And she told him so and told him some more. ‘One couple were rowing on Saturday,’ Alison said.

  ‘The owners?’ Nick asked, and she loved how his eyes widened in glee.

  ‘I think they were breaking up.’ Alison nodded. ‘They stood on the balcony and had this screaming match during the open inspection.’

  ‘God, I wish I’d been there,’ Nick said, and she kind of wished he’d been there too—liked that he liked the same things as her, that odd little things pleased.

  ‘Come on, then.’ She went to fish out her purse, but Nick waved her away and it would have been embarrassing really to protest—and even there he was different. Paul had decided on their first date that equality meant you spl
it the bill—and she told him so as they walked down the hill and turned at the chemist’s.

  ‘He lived in constant terror that he might end up paying for a round of garlic bread when he hadn’t eaten a slice,’ Alison said, and then wondered if she should have said that, if it was bitchy to talk about your ex like that. ‘He was a great guy, just toward the end…’ She trailed off and Nick got it, he just completely got it.

  ‘Gillian and I ended up the same,’ he said as they walked up the hill to meet the real estate agent. ‘At first I used to love it that she did my crossword, but near the end I was setting my alarm early and nearly breaking my neck to get down the stairs and to the newspaper first.’ He glanced over to check that she got it too and Alison smiled. ‘It’s not the crossword, or the garlic bread, is it?’

  ‘He was great,’ Alison said. ‘It was more…’ And she told him a bit about herself, not enough to have him running in the opposite direction, just a little. ‘It was too nice,’ Alison said. ‘Too easy, almost. Mum’s a bit over-protective and he didn’t seem to mind… In fact, Paul suggested he move in.’ She still burnt at the memory. ‘Mum was delighted, it felt like they had it all worked out.’

  ‘They just forgot to ask you,’ Nick said, and for the first time in her life, she felt as if someone got her.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ALISON had very few expectations as the real estate agent opened the front door and she stepped inside. There had been so many disappointments, so many let-downs, that, in the name of self-preservation, she kept her hopes determinedly down.

  Even as they looked at the surprisingly spacious lounge, even that this apartment actually had a kitchen, though even the real estate agent managed a wry smile at the supposed glimpse of the bay. Nick could see it because he was a full foot taller, but apparently, there at the top right hand side of the kitchen window was her beloved beach.

  ‘There is a second bedroom.’ Alison peered into a cupboard. ‘Well,’ the real estate agent attempted, ‘it would make a nice nursery.’

  ‘Or study,’ Nick offered when Alison laughed, and then they moved along the hall.

  ‘This is the main bedroom.’

  It was larger than expected too, and, really, all Alison’s wishes had been answered. The owners were off to London, the husband leaving the next day apparently, and the wife following in a month’s time. ‘Really, he’d like to know it was all taken care of before he leaves,’ the real estate agent explained. ‘They want a thirty-day settlement…’

  And she listened to the wah-wah white noise as the agent did his spiel, but it wasn’t the large airy bedroom Alison could see but the suitcase beside the bed, and it truly dawned that if she bought this flat, she was, without doubt, saying goodbye to her dream of travelling, and even though she’d thought it through, even though she’d gone over it a hundred million times, when it came to it, she stalled at the final hurdle.

  ‘Can I have till the morning?’ Alison saw the agent’s eyebrows rise in surprise. For weeks he had seen her at open inspections at places far less nice than this and now he was almost handing her this opportunity on a plate and at the last minute the genuine buyer he’d ensured the vendors he had was faltering.

  ‘The vendors want to save on advertising, that’s why I agreed to bring you through, but the photographer is booked for midday and it will go on the market then, unless I hear otherwise.’

  ‘Sure,’ Alison said. ‘I’ll ring tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m impressed,’ Nick said as they walked down the street.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I thought you’d snatch his hand off to get it—you certainly know how to play it cool.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Alison started, and then halted herself. She was hardly going to tell a virtual stranger, albeit a very nice virtual stranger, her dilemma—and then, in that moment she realised the stark truth, it wasn’t even a dilemma. She really had no choice in the matter. ‘I just want to speak to Mum first.’

  ‘It’s a big decision,’ Nick said, and Alison stopped walking.

  ‘I turn off here.’ She gave him a nice smile. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

  ‘Thanks for the company.’

  It was a strange moment. The light-heartedness of earlier had gone—Alison heavy with indecision and Nick no doubt not understanding why.

  ‘I’ll see you at work tomorrow.’

  She turned up the street and bizarrely felt like crying. She knew, was positive in fact, that he was watching her and that made her walk faster. She wanted to turn, wanted to run back to him, to go to a club or a bar, to ask him about his adventures, she wanted to sit and listen to music, to be late, to not go home. Instead she turned the key in the door.

  ‘Hi, Mum.’

  ‘I was just starting to get worried.’

  ‘It’s not even eight!’ Alison pointed out.

  ‘You said you were out for coffee,’ Rose said. ‘A quick phone call would have been nice…’

  There was a retort on Alison’s tongue, an urge to yet again point out her age, another beginning to a row that had never taken place but one they were steadily building towards. Then Alison caught sight of her father and brother’s photo on the shrine that used to be a mantelpiece, and swallowed down her bitter response, knew this was the small price she paid for living, knew she would do her best to avoid arguing and knew for certain that she had to move out.

  ‘I went to look at that flat.’ She saw her mother’s rapid blink. ‘I think I’ve finally found one.’ She spoke quickly into the ensuing silence. ‘It’s a ten-minute walk away, it’s got everything—two bedrooms, even a little balcony…’ And she waited for her mother to fill in the gap, to point out that she could live here for nothing, that it was stupid, pointless, but for once Rose didn’t speak, and not for the first time Alison tried to be honest. ‘I don’t know if I should take it. I mean, I’ll have a mortgage, there’s no way I’d be able…’ She glanced up and saw Rose swallow. ‘You know I always wanted to travel…’

  And Rose in that moment had a choice between the lesser of two evils. She must have, because for once she didn’t jump in with all the reasons Alison would be stupid to leave home; for the first time ever she bordered on enthusiastic about her daughter moving out.

  ‘It sounds a nice flat.’ There was a wobble to Rose’s voice. ‘Two bedrooms, you say?’

  ‘Well, only one that’s actually big enough for a bed, but the other could be a nice study.’

  ‘You’ll need a study if you do your trauma course.’

  ‘The thing is, Mum—’

  ‘I know you want to travel…’ Rose broke in. ‘I’ve been thinking. I’ve given it a lot of thought, actually. We deserve a treat.’ As Alison opened her mouth to protest, Rose overrode her. ‘I know you’ve always wanted to go to Bali. I wouldn’t mind seeing it too… My treat,’ she said loudly as Alison tried to interrupt.

  And as she lay in her single bed later on, Alison tried not to cry. She felt horribly selfish actually, because in the space of a few hours she’d found a flat and been offered a fortnight’s trip to Bali. It was just…

  The first year after the accident she’d taken her mum for weekends away, she and Paul had taken her for a holiday once too, with Alison sharing a room with her mum. Then last year they’d been to Queensland for a week—her mum saying all the time how much her father and brother would have liked it.

  She ripped back the sheet, and almost ran to the window.

  There were no bay views from her bedroom but there was the distant roar of the ocean as she pushed the window open and gulped in the cool night air. And there were the sounds of the bars and the backpackers and youth and fun, and she was tempted to run down in her nightdress, tempted to find what ever bar Nick was in, to rush up to him and kiss his face off, to take him by the hand and dance and dance, to come back at dawn without sending her mother a text.

  To be free.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘YAY!’ The whole staffroom cheered when a beaming
Alison revealed her news as she walked into her late shift.

  She’d soon got over herself—a brisk walk on the beach at the crack of dawn and a stern talk with herself had turned things round in her head. Then, at nine a.m. she’d rung the real estate agent, at nine-forty she’d been at the bank, at nine fifty-five she’d handed the deposit over and signed a mountain of forms, and now, at midday, she almost had a mortgage.

  ‘Congratulations.’ Nick pulled her aside the first chance he got. It had been a busy afternoon and Alison had been working the paediatric cots while Nick had been in Resus, but as she came back from her coffee break, he was just heading off for his.

  ‘Thanks!’ Alison said. ‘It’s pretty exciting.’

  ‘How about dinner,’ Nick offered, ‘to celebrate?’ And when she paused, when she didn’t just jump in and say yes, Nick upped the offer. ‘With lots of garlic bread.’

  ‘Why?’ He didn’t understand the hurt in her eyes, he didn’t really understand the question. ‘Why would we go out for dinner?’

  ‘Because you want to?’ Nick said, because he was sure that she did. ‘Because I want to?’

  ‘I don’t…’ Her voice trailed off, and her words hung in the air, the wrong words because she did want to, very much. She had been about to say that she didn’t see the point in pursuing this, except when he was around she did see the point—he was nice and funny and whatever attraction was, it was there, for both of them.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ She changed tack, headed for safer ground, used a method far safer than exposing her heart. ‘What with work and everything.’

  Nick could have pointed out that it was just dinner, that, given they’d been out on Friday, clearly work colleagues did meet up outside the walls of Emergency. Except it wasn’t just dinner and it wasn’t the emergency crew he wanted to see more of out of hours—it was her. And, yes, he was bending his own rules, but it was, after all, just for a short while and even if it was work, it was still a holiday. He wasn’t asking for for ever, he wasn’t threatening to run away with her heart, he just wanted more of the smile that sometimes brightened her serious face, wanted more of the woman he was getting to know.