by Janette Paul
Crap. She’d just told Ethan Roxburgh to shove his advice up his arse. She blinked hard and wiped at tears before they tumbled. A large part of her wanted to sob loudly and sadly but now wasn’t the time or the place. If she hadn’t left her handbag at the table, she would have just walked right out. Instead she ordered strong coffee and a large chocolate slice of comfort food.
‘I’m sorry about that. I’ve had a difficult day.’ She sat back down again, not quite looking him in the face.
‘Maybe we should leave that discussion for another time. I’m sorry about your student. Are you okay?’
She nodded, saw his eyes had lost their flintiness. ‘Perhaps this isn’t a good idea. You don’t have much time and I’m pretty frazzled.’ And she wasn’t sure she was going to like his advice.
‘You’re here now and you obviously need a caffeine hit. We can talk while you drink. Is this your business plan?’
He picked up her notes before she had a chance to take them back, unfolded them, seemed confused by the yoga flyers.
‘I wrote some stuff on the other side.’ She turned them over, smiled apprehensively.
He laid the four pages out like tarot cards, read methodically through each one. Dee’s heart was hammering in her chest as he took a pen from inside his jacket, scribbled a few words, a couple of question marks. He glanced up at her, back down again, placed his forearms on the table. ‘Oka-ay.’
Her face burned. She wanted to take her pages and run but the waitress arrived with her order. When she left, Dee said, ‘There’s not much there. I didn’t really know what you’d want. There’s not much anyway. Just my rates and costs and, um, stuff.’ What else was there?
‘Oka-ay.’
What did that mean?
‘What do you charge?’
‘It’s right there.’ Dee pointed to the figures she’d written down.
‘Do you have half-hour classes?’
‘No. That’s my hourly rate.’
‘You could easily charge twice that.’
‘Twice? I can’t ask my students to pay double for the same lesson.’
‘No, but you could raise your prices over time.’
Dee wiped her hands down her skirt. ‘But what if they don’t want to pay more? I don’t want to lose students.’
‘Lucy would pay three times that to have her hair done. If you’re good, they’ll pay. And if they won’t, there’s always someone else who will. Don’t undersell your product.’
My product?
‘What are these figures?’ He pointed to another page.
‘They’re my costs, petrol and clothes and stuff.’
‘Uh-huh.’ He scanned across the numbers. ‘Where do you keep your money?’
‘In a book.’
‘You mean a bank book?’
‘Sort of.’
Ethan lifted his eyes from the notes he was making.
Dee winced on the inside. ‘Well, one of my students gave me this really beautiful yoga book a couple of Christmases ago. You know, one of those big coffee-table books and …’
He nodded.
‘It’s really big’ – she held her hands wide to show him – ‘and full of beautiful photos.’ He obviously had no idea where this was going. Best just to say it. ‘Seeing as most of my students pay in cash, each night I work out how much money I’ll need for the rest of the week and put it in the front couple of chapters. Anything left over I put in the back for savings.’
His lips parted just a fraction.
‘And, well, it’s great, because when I need money I get to flick through the book and check out all the lovely photos and get a bit of inspiration at the same time. And the last chapter is about my yoga guru in India, which is where I go when I’ve got enough leftover money, so anything I find in there I know is savings.’ She shrugged lamely.
Ethan watched her a while longer, a small line forming between his eyebrows.
She gave a quiet he-he of awkward laughter. ‘It’s amazing how much money one book can hold.’
Shit, Dee. You are an idiot. Why didn’t you make something up? Why didn’t you tell him about the boxes? You keep money in boxes, as well. She mentally slapped herself. ’Cause that’s just as dumb. Perhaps she could quietly leave and step in front of a bus.
‘Oka-ay.’ Ethan picked up his pen, slowly rolled it between his fingers, one side of his mouth turning up just a tad. ‘That’s certainly one way of doing it.’
What was she thinking, turning up at a meeting with Ethan Roxburgh with a few scraps of paper and no idea?
‘I, um, I’m really sorry.’ She stacked the pages into a pile. ‘I think I’ve wasted your time and I’m kind of embarrassed right now. So I’m going to go.’
‘Ethan.’ A striking redhead in a black power suit was towering over their table.
Ethan’s eyes flared in surprise, as though he’d been caught out. He checked his watch before standing. ‘Shelby. Hi.’ He kissed her cheek and she smiled just for him. ‘Dee, this is Shelby Dansen. Shelby, Dee Nichols.’
The woman held out her hand to Dee while taking in every inch of her singlet, tights and the skirt she’d thrown over the top. ‘Hello, Dee. Gee, I wish I had time to go to the gym this early in the day.’
‘I’ve been teaching yoga,’ Dee corrected.
‘Are you at uni or something?’
‘No, I’m a yoga teacher.’
‘Dee’s the star of the new Health Life commercial,’ Ethan interjected.
‘Oh, you’re a model.’ Shelby dismissed her with a superior raise of her manicured eyebrows and turned to Ethan. ‘Have you ordered yet?’
Wow, discriminated against on two counts, Dee thought. ‘Here, take my seat. I was just leaving.’ She stood, pushing her chair towards Shelby, and scooped her notes off the table. As she turned, Ethan grabbed her hand, the one with the yoga flyers.
‘I think they’re mine,’ he said.
She took a firmer grip.
He held on. ‘You’ve got to give me something to work with.’
‘But I thought …’
He shook his head, held her eyes with his. ‘We’ve only just started, Dee.’
The breath left her lungs. How could she say no to that? She loosened her hold, let him slide the pages free.
‘I hope I never have to teach a class like that. What did you do?’ Leon asked.
Dee blinked against tears and played with her muffin while Arianne and Leon watched her with a mixture of horror and sympathy. It was Sunday afternoon, Dee had just finished the class and they were sitting at their usual table at the back of the café two doors down from the yoga school.
She shrugged. ‘I told them Mike called last night to say Emily passed away. Then we had a spontaneous group hug and we all cried. And they decided that because Emily loved the Sunday class, even when she wasn’t strong enough to do anything, that although we were upset, we should do the lesson anyway. For her.’
‘That must have been really hard,’ Arianne said.
‘Yeah, it was. I just tried to make it simple and talked a lot to keep everybody focused.’ Dee pressed her lips together for a moment. ‘I kept seeing Emily in her spot under the window, the way she used to lie on her back practising her breathing while everyone else was working around her.’ She gave up trying to contain it and tears dropped on her bag as she dug around for a tissue.
Arianne gave Dee’s shoulder a comforting rub. ‘How’s Mike?’
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. ‘Devastated, of course, but he seemed kind of at peace with it. The funeral’s on Thursday.’ She stirred her coffee without drinking any. ‘I just wish I’d seen her one more time. Said a proper goodbye.’ She’d slipped into a coma on Thursday morning, a few hours before her session with Dee.
‘How are you doing?’ Leon reached across the table and took her hand.
‘I just feel really, really sad. It’s going to be awful breaking the news to students all week and trying not to cry when I’m teaching. And the fune
ral …’ She shook her head. The anxiety animal would have a field day.
‘Are you going to be all right teaching my classes? Do you want me to find someone else to do it?’ Arianne had given up more than half her lesson schedule now, most of which Dee was covering.
‘No, it’ll be good to stay busy.’ She worked on a convincing smile. The extra money from Arianne’s classes was great – she’d had her car serviced and put a little more aside for a new sofa – but her body was sore and she felt overloaded. Dirty clothes were piling up, her half of the fridge was bare and she had no shampoo. She stretched her calves under the table and hoped Arianne didn’t notice.
‘What about on Thursday?’ Arianne asked. ‘Do you want me to find someone to fill in for you so you can go to the funeral?’
Dee shook her head. ‘I’ll do the first two, they’re pretty early, but I’ll cancel the next one and I’ve already spoken to Howard about the two in the afternoon. Then there’s the six-thirty class at the school. I can’t afford to drop any more so I’ll just have to pull myself together for that one.’
Leon nodded. Arianne patted her shoulder some more. Dee wiped her eyes.
‘Is Tom the Hollywood Jesus going to the funeral?’ Leon asked.
Dee laughed a little. Trust Leon to keep her head out of the blues. ‘No, he didn’t know Emily and we’re still just doing coffee. A funeral might be too intense at this stage.’
‘A Jesus could be useful at a funeral.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Any sparks yet?’
Coffee – or, rather, Tom’s herbal tea and Dee’s double-strength espresso – had become a twice-a-week get together. Tom was sweet in a serious, dedicated-vegan kind of way. She told him about the advertising industry party and Ethan’s offer and he thoughtfully warned her about the corrupting influence of big business. ‘We’re still getting to know each other.’
‘You’ll be sick of him by the time anything sparks,’ Leon said.
‘It doesn’t seem right looking for a spark with Jesus.’ Arianne lifted her coffee to her mouth, made a sickly face and put it down again.
‘Are you feeling any better?’ Dee asked.
‘A bit but I really miss my classes.’ Arianne rubbed her little ball of pregnant belly.
‘Still tired?’
‘I wish I could sleep for the next five months and wake up when the baby needs to be pushed out.’ She suddenly slumped back in her chair as though she couldn’t hold on to her positivity any longer. ‘Lucia made it look so easy. She was still teaching two days before Zac was born. I feel like a zombie and I’m dumping my classes on everyone else.’ She heaved a shuddering sigh. ‘Oh, damn. Pass me one of your tissues, Dee.’
Dee and Leon exchanged helpless looks as Arianne took her turn dabbing at her eyes.
‘Right,’ said Leon. ‘I think we need to balance the emotion meter. Time for a good laugh. Dee, what’s the latest with Ethan Roxburgh?’
Her tales of self-humiliation in the presence of Ethan Roxburgh had kept Leon and Arianne entertained since she’d met him at Lucy’s party. She glanced at Arianne’s red-rimmed eyes and knew she’d prefer to be laughed at a little more than see her Amazonian friend cry. ‘What was the last you heard?’
‘Café, embarrassing outburst, power-suited woman,’ Leon said.
‘Okay, so he rang on Friday to set up another meeting. He’s apparently devised some incredibly entrepreneurial plan to save my disastrous career. Guess I’ll have to get all business-y.’
Both Leon and Arianne looked at her with disbelief, which was better than tears.
She waved a hand at them. ‘I know, it feels weird to me too. But Val’s putting the pressure on to start looking at apartments so I need to get to Shit Together status pretty quick. Besides, he’s persuasive and, well, nice actually. He asks questions and doesn’t make me feel stupid. I do that all on my own.’
Leon pointed a finger at her. ‘You want to be a Roxburgh Girl.’
‘Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen.’ She remembered the look on Ethan’s face when the Shelby woman turned up at the café. ‘Guys like him don’t date their charity cases.’
‘So when are you meeting him? I’ll buy you coffee afterwards so you can fill me in on the next embarrassing instalment,’ Leon offered.
‘Thanks a heap. Thursday at one-thirty.’
‘Isn’t that right after the funeral?’ Arianne said.
‘Oh, you’re right. I’ll have to phone his scary secretary and cancel.’ She checked her watch and shot to her feet. ‘Bugger. Sheila wanted me early today. Gotta go.’ Sad and all, she still had to earn money. She threw change on the table for the coffee and ran out the door, forgetting all about Ethan.
‘I don’t like the rain either but I’m not going to sit in the middle of the road and wait for it to stop.’ Dee cursed her car again as water sprayed through the window. She grabbed another handful of tissues, wiped her face then the fog off the windscreen. She should’ve spent her money fixing the ventilation system because even after new tyres and a grease and oil change, the heap of shit was still useless in wet weather.
Thursday was never going to be good – the inevitable overload of emotion over Emily’s funeral was already pushing her anxiety level up – but did it have to start so badly? It’d been bucketing down all night and, as far as her car was concerned, there was no way it was going to get its underbelly wet driving through puddles when it could sit quietly in the street and annoy the hell out of Dee. By the time she coaxed it to life, it was so late she had to cancel her seven-thirty private.
It stalled twice on the way to her next lesson and she had to park two blocks away so she could point it downhill in case of a clutch start. When the class finished, rain was pouring from the sky in a solid sheet, which would have been fascinating if her umbrella hadn’t flipped inside out and left her saturated to the undies by the time she threw herself in the driver’s seat.
She tried the ignition. Nothing. Nothing. And nothing. Then something crazed and furious popped in her head. She throttled the steering wheel, yelled at the smug bloody motor, turned the key, pumped the accelerator like she was stamping her foot on the floor. Again nothing. She screwed her hands into fists, felt the skin stretch, her fingers ache, her jaw clench.
Settle, Dee. Take a deep cleansing breath. Take several deep cleansing … Okay, now you’re hyperventilating. She closed her eyes, trying to relax. Reminded herself that a couple of years ago she would’ve been in the throes of a full-blown panic attack by now. Head spinning, vision blurring, fingers tingling, hard to breathe, no air, like being suffocated, like … Okay, stop now.
She tried the key again. Deep breath, Dee.
And again.
Yes!
Her pulse was still racing from the almost panic attack when she joined the traffic. There was an hour before the funeral started but a lot of traffic lights to coax the car through. Please just get me there, she begged it. The engine could fall right out on the road after that, she didn’t care – just so long as she got to the funeral. She’d never get a cab or road service in this weather.
She was waiting at an intersection, cooing soothing words to the ungrateful piece of junk, when her phone rang. She glanced at the display, forced some cheer into her voice. ‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Trudy, I’ve organised for us to inspect that nice flat this afternoon.’
What? ‘I can’t today.’
‘But you said you’d be able to look at it in the afternoon.’
Dee breathed hard. She never should have agreed to anything. ‘I said one afternoon. I work in the afternoons.’
‘Well, where are you working today? If you’re close, you could pop in and have a look.’
Her tyres slid on the wet road as she over-revved out of the crossroad. ‘One of my students died on the weekend, Mum, and the funeral is this afternoon.’
‘That’s no good, dear. What time? Maybe you could come over after.’
Dee dragged a hand through her hair. ‘I won�
��t feel like inspecting an apartment after the funeral.’
‘I suppose I can understand that but when are you going to? You’ve been telling me you will for weeks. I can’t keep putting the agent off. I want a date from you.’
Dee’s heart hammered in her chest as the lid lifted off a swell of emotion. ‘I can’t do this now, Mum.’
‘But, Dee …’
‘No!’ she snapped, hung up and flung the phone at the passenger seat.
Great. She’d cut off her mother. Dee slammed the car into gear and waited impatiently for the lights to turn green. Why did Val have to push so hard? Tears brimmed in her eyes and she knuckled them angrily away as she stamped her foot on the accelerator. Uh-oh. The engine didn’t like that. It shuddered and stopped.
‘No! Not now!’ In the middle of a busy intersection. In the middle of an almighty downpour. In the middle of a bloody awful day. ‘Shit. Shit!’
Horns were blaring behind her as she turned the key again and again. A man appeared and started pushing the car. She steered to the kerb. He waved and left.
Rain pounded the roof, washing across the windscreen in waves. Wet clothes clung to her, condensation fogged up the windows and her tears rolled unchecked. The phone was ringing again. Dee looked at the display, expecting Val with another tongue lashing, but the name on the screen made the blood run out of her face so fast she thought she was going to faint.
Chapter Sixteen
The meeting. She hadn’t rung to cancel. Dee wiped tears off her cheeks and swallowed hard before answering. ‘Ethan!’
‘Dee, hi, something’s come up and I was wondering if we could get together earlier.’
‘I, um …’ She heard the tearful tremor in her voice.
He must have heard it too. ‘Dee?’
‘I, um …’ Her breath hitched on a sniff.
‘It’s okay, Dee. Take a breath.’ She heard it tremble in and out. Get a hold of yourself. ‘That’s good. Now, what’s wrong?’