by Janette Paul
‘Oh.’ Wow. Dee’s ego felt like it’d been washed and pressed. Ethan Roxburgh, corporate powerhouse, entrepreneurial know-it-all, thought she had business potential. And not a single word about getting a real job.
‘You’re also one of the more intriguing people I’ve met in a while and it would be disappointing to see you working behind an x-ray machine.’
Dee’s heart thrumped. Ethan Roxburgh, man about town, thinks I’m intriguing. ‘Well, I, um, don’t know what to say.’
‘Don’t say anything. Just pass me that pen and paper.’
She retrieved said writing equipment from beside the fridge and handed it over.
‘This is my direct line. Call me tomorrow to set up a meeting.’
‘I will. Thanks.’ As he gave her the page, her belly did a funny little jingle-jangle.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Take a look at these.’ It was the Monday after the house party and Lucy was sitting at her desk still in her yoga tights. She turned the computer screen so Dee could see the photos from the advertising dinner. ‘I’m glad we went with that dress. You looked great.’
The screen was filled with a photo of Dee standing between Lucy and Ethan. ‘I look like my sister Amanda.’
‘Does she teach yoga too?’
‘No, she’s a management consultant.’
‘Oh.’ Lucy shot her a surprised glance then flicked to a photo of Dee and Ethan. ‘So, I hear you’re Ethan’s latest pet project.’
‘Huh?’
‘He told me he offered you some business advice and was checking I had no problem. That’s a nice one.’ She interrupted her own flow of conversation as a photo of Lucy and John popped up on screen. ‘I told Ethan he could do whatever he liked as long as you still came here three times a week.’
Dee smiled at Lucy’s roundabout compliment. ‘What do you mean by pet project?’
‘His one tiny socialist gene gets active every now and then and he feels he should spread his business talent around, let the little people benefit from his capitalist wisdom.’ She clicked to another photo. ‘Actually, he’s helped launch a few careers. He took on a couple of computer nerds a few years ago and they’re making a killing now, and last year it was a shoe designer and she’s doing really well in Europe this season. He finds someone with potential, takes them under his wing, steers them in the right direction, introduces them to the right people, that sort of thing. They’re not all millionaires but they’re doing a lot better than they were.’
Dee felt a small nervous spasm. Was he expecting her to build an empire?
Lucy glanced up at Dee. ‘If he’s tagged you as his latest project, take advantage of it because he’s gifted when it comes to business.’ A photo of Ethan and his dinner guest flashed onto the screen. ‘Pity about his social life. Did you see his date?’
‘She’s gorgeous. Is she a model?’
‘God, no. A travel agent or something. She’s already been moved on.’
Dee studied the picture for a moment. It was the same one Pam had shown her in the Sunday paper. The woman was standing partially in front of Ethan so it appeared she was leaning against him, her head inclined towards him, her eyes swallowing up the camera. Ethan’s lips were curved in a smile that hadn’t made it to his eyes.
‘I thought they seemed … close.’
‘Nah. Just another Roxburgh Girl. Most of them are happy just to be seen with him and live off the kudos. Did you see that Playboy centrefold a couple of months ago? She was described as a former Roxburgh Girl and she only went out with him once.’ They came to the end of the photos and Lucy closed the file, stood up.
‘What about Toni?’ Dee remembered how she’d flirted endlessly with him over the weekend.
‘She’s still throwing him her best efforts.’ She shrugged. ‘My brother is spoilt for choice. There’s a bottomless pit of attractive women panting to go out with him and he’d rather have a beautiful woman on his arm than not.’ She pulled her purse out of a drawer in her desk. ‘He got that from our father. All three of his wives were stunning. My mother still is, with a bit of help.’ She mimed a Botox shot to the forehead. ‘John and I call Ethan the Date Master. Great at dates, hopeless at relationships. Content to take them out but prefers spending time with his business interests. He got that from our father, too.’
She paid Dee and walked her to the door. ‘By the way, Ethan can get a little fixated so let me know if he’s a pain and I’ll tell him to back off.’
Dee scrunched a piece of paper and tossed it off the bed, where it fell in with a small pile of similarly crumpled sheets. Damn. This was the third night in a row she’d sat in her bedroom and scribbled unsuccessfully.
‘Pam! Can you turn the TV down? I can’t hear myself think.’
Not that there was a lot of thinking to be heard. She was flattered at the prospect of becoming the pet project of a business tycoon until it came to fulfilling her end of the deal. When she rang to set up a meeting with Ethan, he was businesslike and efficient, asking her to put together a breakdown of her business – money in, money out, that kind of thing. Her business plan, he called it. Projected income, expenditure forecasts, possible schedule for expansion.
Pretty hard when she had a self-imposed golden rule to never make plans more than two weeks ahead.
It was how she interpreted the yoga philosophy of living in the moment – take each day as it comes, resist the temptation to look beyond it. It was like a two-week boundary fence around her life. Not very practical, she realised, but it kept her anxiety under control.
She took a deep breath, let it out, reminded herself that, if she wanted to avoid financial ruin and get Val off her back, she really did need to get her shit together. And getting advice from Ethan was the best method available. Even if it meant making a small hole in the boundary fence.
She picked up a pile of recycled flyers from the yoga school, neatened the stack with a tap against the big yoga book in her lap and started again. MONEY EARNED, she wrote, underlined it. She clicked the end of her pen a couple of times, drew an asterisk in the top corner, a matching one on the other side.
Of course, living in the moment wasn’t the only reason she didn’t think ahead. She drew another asterisk. There was another very practical reason. Why plan for the future when it can be ripped away from you? When you can be sitting in a car one minute knowing exactly where you’re going, then be totally lost the next. Broken and frightened and alone and lost. She shook her head, drew circles around the asterisks, wrote ‘FEES’. If you don’t plan for the future, it won’t hurt when it’s torn off like a strip of paper at the bottom of a page.
She thought about her wedding day, how she’d cried all through the physiotherapy session and eaten dinner that night with Val and Ken in front of the telly instead of at the bridal table. How she’d wanted to ring Anthony but couldn’t bring herself to pick up the phone in case his new girlfriend answered.
She refocused on the paper and realised there were so many asterisks there was no room left for anything else. She scrunched it up, tossed it over the bed.
‘Pam! Can you turn the TV down!’
‘Hey, look at these.’ Pam was standing in the doorway, dangling long, purple acrylic nails.
‘Mmm,’ Dee said absently.
Pam invited herself in, flopping on the bed. ‘I bought this lip gloss too. What do you think?’ She puckered shiny lips.
Dee pulled her yoga fliers from under Pam’s butt. ‘Aren’t you afraid of catching flies in that stuff?’
‘You’re so funny. By the way, I love your shampoo. It smells so spicy.’
‘You used my shampoo?’
‘Yeah, I ran out yesterday. You’re getting pretty low too, by the way.’
Dee clenched her teeth. There was at least a third of a bottle last time she looked. She couldn’t afford to buy another one this week.
Once again, Dee was tempted to tell Pam to park her shampoo in someone else’s bathroom but then where woul
d she be? Sans flatmate, in desperate need to share the rent again, and the next person willing to move in might be worse.
‘What’re you doing?’ Pam pulled the flyers from Dee’s hands.
‘Just something for the yoga school.’ She took them back, putting them out of reach.
Pam made a long, lingering inspection of her room. Suddenly, she was off the bed, picking up one of Dee’s stained-glass boxes. ‘This one’s pretty.’ She opened it and fingered the hair pins inside.
Dee scrambled up, grabbed the box and put it back on the shelf. ‘Yes, I bought it in India. How about a cup of tea?’ She went to the door, waited with her hand on the knob, closed it firmly when Pam walked through.
‘Hey, did Leon tell you Breck and Chantal are back together?’ Pam hoisted herself onto the kitchen bench. ‘Thank God. It’s so tense in the make-up room when they’re fighting.’
With her back turned, Dee rolled her eyes. Letting Val take over her life might almost be better than listening to any more stories about soap stars Breck and Chantal. She opened the canister. ‘Where’s the tea?’
‘Oh, I forgot. I used the last of it this afternoon. Never mind. I wasn’t desperate for a cuppa anyway.’ She jumped off the bench, waltzed back to the sitting room and turned the TV back up.
Roll on Shit Together.
Dee heard once that if you pressed your tongue into the roof of your mouth it stopped you from crying. So while Emily took long meditative breaths, Dee pressed her tongue so hard she thought she’d bruised it.
Emily seemed to have shrunk since her last session. Her face looked grey against the white hospice sheets and her thin hair had lost its auburn hue.
‘Start to become aware of your surroundings. Feel the sensation of the air on your face and the clothes on your skin.’ Dee watched Emily’s eyes begin to move under her lids. ‘When you’re ready, gently bring some movement to your fingers and toes.’ Emily winced in pain as her hands made weak fists. Dee pushed harder on her tongue, reminding herself the class was about what Emily needed, not her own grief at her student’s pain.
For the last two weeks Dee had lugged around a textbook on pain and breathing techniques, using any spare time she had to read up on what might help Emily. She smiled at her student as she opened her eyes.
‘Thanks, Dee,’ she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Can you pass the water?’
Dee held the cup with its bent straw to her lips while she sipped. ‘Was that okay? I didn’t tire you out too much?’
Emily’s voice was a little stronger when she spoke this time. ‘No. It was good.’ She curled her fingers in and out on the bed, gesturing for Dee to take her hand.
She placed her warm fingers over Emily’s cold, bony ones. She’d never taught anyone so sick. She’d had a couple of sessions with her when she was in the hospice during her last relapse and she’d spent time with another student after he had neck surgery. But this was different. All the usual boundaries between teacher and student were pointless. The touching that Dee usually avoided seemed to be what Emily needed, as though the connection was as important to her as the breathing. It felt strange at first, like kissing a girl friend accidentally on the lips, but during the last couple of sessions she kept a hand or her fingers on her all the time, like a link to healthy energy.
‘Thank you so much for coming. It means a lot.’ Emily’s smile was weak but her eyes spoke with an inner strength. ‘I’m going to sleep now. Can you let Mike know?’
‘Sure. I’ll see you soon. Sleep well.’
Dee crushed her tongue some more as she quietly closed the door. She found Mike in the family lounge with his daughters, Lauren doing homework and Kate watching TV.
‘How is she?’
‘She’s sleeping.’
Mike took his wallet out. ‘You’ve stayed half an hour over this time so I’ll give you some extra.’
Dee stopped him with her hand. ‘I don’t want anything for today.’
‘I know you’ve cancelled classes to come here. I don’t want you out of pocket.’
‘No, Mike. There’s not much I can do for Emily but I can do this. I’d like it to be my gift.’ New furniture could wait.
His eyes went all shiny. ‘Thanks, Dee.’
‘I can come again on Thursday, if you’d like.’
Mike pressed his lips together, ran a hand through his hair. ‘I’m not sure how long she’s going to be here but that would be great. It really helps.’
‘No problem. So you think she’ll be going home soon?’
‘No, Dee. Emily’s not going to be with us much longer. It’s down to days now.’
Her breath caught in her throat and she forgot to press her tongue in her mouth. Two big fat tears tipped over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. ‘Oh, Mike. I didn’t realise. I just thought she was going to get better like all the other times. I’m so sorry.’
Dee sat numbly in her car, trying to comprehend Mike’s words. It wasn’t fair. Emily had two great kids and a husband who adored her. She dug around in her bra strap for a tissue to wipe her eyes. She thought of Lauren and Kate in the family room, how they’d joined in on some of Emily’s earlier sessions, how her hospice room was decorated with Kate’s cute paintings and Lauren’s talented sketches.
A car started up behind her, dragging her back to the present. And the time. She was late. Really late. She turned on her phone, hoping there wasn’t an impatient message from Ethan. She was meant to be in his office in five minutes.
It was two weeks since the house party and, according to Ethan’s scary secretary, Tuesday from 2.45 to 3.30 was the only time he could squeeze her in in the next decade.
Not that she had any great desire for a business conference right now. Nice and all that he was, she felt more like going home and crying. She started the car, dialled his number while dabbing at a tear lodged under her lashes.
‘Ethan Roxburgh.’ His voice was terse.
Dee tried for friendly yet harassed. ‘Hi, it’s Dee. I’m so sorry but I’m running late.’
‘Yes.’
She winced. Ethan Roxburgh probably wasn’t kept waiting very often. ‘I went over time with a student but I’m on my way.’
There was a moment’s pause. ‘How long will it take you to get here?’
She checked the dashboard clock. Perhaps if she dragged it out, he’d decide he didn’t have time to wait. ‘At least fifteen minutes, depending on traffic and parking.’
He blew out an impatient breath. ‘I’m meeting someone at the café under the building at three-thirty. I’ll see you there in fifteen.’
Damn. Dee worked the accelerator harder.
Manoeuvring her way through the afternoon traffic, she took an anxious look at the green yoga flyers on the passenger seat. She’d only managed to fill the backside of four pages with the kind of information she thought Ethan would want. It had taken ages and a mini forest of trees to come up with that much. There must be a name for this kind of mental block. It was entirely possible Ethan would take one look at them and say he was wrong about her potential, that her business wouldn’t sustain a monk on a hunger strike and her only hope for survival was to find a job that actually made money. She didn’t need advice from Ethan Roxburgh. Her mother had already told her all that.
Chapter Fifteen
Dee dropped into the seat opposite Ethan and slipped her recycled flyers timidly onto the table. ‘Sorry I’m late.’
He looked up from a wad of notes he was reading, his eyes dark and unimpressed. ‘You don’t need to keep apologising, Dee.’
‘Oh, sorry. I mean, um …’ God, I’ve upset Ethan Roxburgh.
He checked his watch. ‘We haven’t got a lot of time so we may as well get straight to it.’ He folded his arms and leaned forward. ‘One of the first lessons in business is that time is money. If you don’t learn to manage your time, your business will never succeed.’
This wasn’t the nice, I-find-you-intriguing Ethan from the house party
. This was an all-business version and the flinty look in his eyes made her anxious. ‘I’m usually careful about keeping to the lesson times but my last student needed a bit more today.’
‘Did you incorporate it into your fees?’
Dee swallowed hard. After her session with Emily his attitude irked her. ‘Yoga isn’t the kind of business you can run by the clock. Part of my job is to understand the needs of my students and sometimes that means running over time.’
He gave a brief smile. ‘You won’t have a business for long if you think like that. The money you earn is as important as your students. If you don’t make money, you can’t afford to teach.’
An image of Emily’s pale face scrunching in pain filled her mind and anger gurgled in the base of her throat. He might be Ethan Roxburgh, business know-it-all, but she didn’t want this kind of advice right now. ‘When one of my students is counting the rest of her life in days and an extra half-hour of meditation helps to make that time a little easier, then I don’t really care how much money I lose by mismanaging my time.’ Dee gripped the edge of the table. ‘And, to tell you the truth, I not only didn’t charge extra, I didn’t charge her at all. And I don’t intend to charge her when I go back on Thursday or any other day I’m lucky enough to see her again.’ Her breath caught in her chest. She really wasn’t going to see Emily again. ‘And if running a good business means missing out on meeting people like Emily, then I’m not interested.’ Her throat felt thick and her tear ducts tingled. Don’t cry in front of him. She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth. ‘And you know what? I really need a coffee right now.’ She stalked to the counter.