by Janette Paul
At least she hadn’t given in to the temptation to picture him in her future. She didn’t have to tear pages out of that book, take a match to them and watch them go up in smoke. She’d almost died of smoke inhalation once. She wasn’t going to let that happen again. No, she had to keep moving forward, down the path she’d started on.
‘Shit!’ She pulled up suddenly, forcing the car behind her to screech to a halt. She had a class today, which meant facing a bunch of students who’d read the weekend papers. She had to face Arianne and Howard too. Saturday’s newspaper called the yoga school a ‘private Eastern Suburbs ashram’, which was inaccurate but not really insulting. Sunday’s story named it in connection with a Roxburgh Girl who used her lover to get overpaid by an insensitive health insurance company.
Dee turned the car around, guilt squirming in her gut at the thought of the school suffering because of her naivety. She parked out front twenty minutes before class and knocked on the door to the upstairs flat. It was not a lot of time to make amends but enough for some apologies.
Howard answered the door, surprise in his smile. ‘I thought you mustn’t have got my message.’
‘I didn’t. I turned my phone off last night. I’m so sorry.’
He seemed hesitant as he motioned her inside. ‘Arianne told me not to say anything without her. She’s in the sitting room.’
Following him down the hall, she tried to gather some words to help the situation. Arianne was cocooned in a bed of cushions on the sofa. Dee threw herself down in the chair opposite. ‘I’m so sorry about the paper. I had no idea that guy was going to write that stuff.’
Arianne and Howard frowned in unison.
‘What, you mean the newspaper?’ Howard asked. ‘We don’t read them on weekends. Too much negative energy.’
Dee noticed then the buzz of excitement about Arianne, the spark in her eyes, the happy smile. ‘So what’s going on?’
‘We’re going for a drive,’ Arianne cried, as though she’d booked tickets to Paris. ‘I’m so excited. I haven’t left the house in weeks. That’s why we wanted you to come up before class.’
Howard, who’d sat on the floor, glanced up at Arianne. She nodded to him, then turned to Dee with a serious expression. ‘Okay, first of all, you don’t have to say or do anything today. But you have to promise not to freak out.’
This obviously had nothing to do with the newspaper. It was something else that might make her freak out. Anxiety pooled in Dee’s belly. She was already overwrought. Freaked out was only a step away. ‘I can’t promise anything. Especially if you’re going to start the conversation telling me not to freak out.’
‘Sorry, but’ – Arianne took a breath – ‘I’ve decided not to go back to teaching. At least for the next six months. After all this sitting around, I’m going to be out of condition and I want to enjoy this baby when it finally comes, not spend my time trying to get back into shape. So we’re going down to Mum’s after the birth. She’s a post-natal guru these days and I can ease my way into it with her.’
Arianne’s mother was a yoga legend. Dee had been to her school on the South Coast. Almost every teacher she knew had. It would be the perfect place to recuperate from a difficult pregnancy. What was there to panic about? ‘That’s great. So Howard will go down on weekends?’
‘That’s what we wanted to talk to you about,’ Arianne said.
Dee looked back and forth between them. Fear punched her hard in the ribs. They were closing the place down. Shit. Half her income came from classes here. If that went, she’d go broke faster than she could roll up her yoga mat and find a new place to stow it. A sweat broke out on her upper lip and a pulse thumped in her throat. Not now. She couldn’t deal with this and Ethan. ‘When are you closing the school?’
‘No, we’re not, and stop freaking out.’ Arianne paused, a small, excited smile curling her lips. ‘We want you to be a partner in the school.’
Dee’s brain went slack with shock. ‘What?’
‘An equal third partner with Arianne and me,’ Howard chipped in. ‘The last few weeks have shown us we can’t operate without you. And now that Arianne’s decided not to come straight back to work, I’ll need some help to keep the place going.’
‘You want me to run the school?’
‘We want you to keep doing what you’re doing but with a stake in the business. Arianne’s been checking our books and almost half the students go to your classes exclusively. That means, if you left and those students followed, the school would fold.’
‘But I don’t want to leave.’
‘And we want to make sure it stays that way.’ Howard crossed his legs and put his hands on his knees, palms up, making a case. ‘You’ve been looking at all these business ideas lately and we understand you want some security. We did too. That’s why we started the school. You create a lot of positive energy here and we think it’s time you shared in the results.’ He took a sheet of paper from the coffee table beside him. ‘It’ll mean an investment, of course, so I’ve drawn up some numbers for you to think about.’
Dee took the page, saw the big number on the bottom and felt anxiety ripple through her muscles. ‘I don’t have that kind of money. I’ve only saved enough for a sofa.’
‘You’d have to get a business loan. There are some good rates around, especially if you take it out over, say, fifteen years,’ Howard said.
‘Fifteen years.’ Her heart thumped. Hard. ‘But it’s such a long time.’
Arianne touched a hand to Howard’s shoulder. ‘Go slow. She’s starting to lose it.’
He began counting off points on his fingers. ‘As a partner you’ll get an income even when you’re sick or take a holiday, you’ll earn more for what you’re already doing at the school and it’ll set you up for the future. Just think, in fifteen years you’ll own a third of the business, hopefully a third of this building if we can ever buy it, and you’ll have your career mapped out. It’s a real future, Dee. Something you can build your life on.’
It’d sounded pretty good right up to that moment. A whole future – not just a week or a month, but one she could build a whole life on. It made her suck in a breath and physically recoil. It’s just as well she hadn’t promised not to panic because she was on Freak Out Station and all the trains had been cancelled. Her friends were handing her an incredibly generous, practical and potentially prosperous offer and it scared the shit out of her.
‘I, um …’ Something thick and hard was lodged in her throat.
Arianne held a hand to her pregnant belly. ‘We don’t need an answer right away. The baby’s not due for another month. Don’t make a decision until you’ve had time to think about it.’
Then she saw it. This was Arianne and Howard’s future, too. One they wanted. Perhaps needed. They were depending on her.
The front door clanged and the first students were clomping up the stairs. Dee checked her watch. ‘I better …’ She hooked a thumb at the door and stood up on wobbly legs. ‘I’m, um, too shocked to form words. There are a zillion of them going berserk in my head right now, just flying around as stunned as I am.’ She held her hands out to them, blinked back a tear. ‘I can’t express … I feel so … I want to …’
Arianne laughed. ‘I hope your class knows sign language.’
Dee hugged her, then Howard, and, taking great gulping breaths on the way down the stairs, she tried to calm herself for the class. Tried to get Ethan, Lucy, Arianne and Howard out of her mind. Four students were at the door waiting.
‘Hey, Dee. Ian Fisher sure did a job on you.’
‘Will you be selling the yoga DVD from the school?’
‘I went to school with Ethan Roxburgh.’
‘How’s Arianne?’
Not a single negative comment or unexpected job offer. Dee could’ve hugged every one of them. Would’ve thanked them if she could find the words – and told them to stop mentioning Ethan or she might cry.
The class was awful. Her hands wouldn’t stop
shaking and she couldn’t remember the names of even basic poses. In the end, she gave up trying to make sense and demonstrated instead, saying ‘Like this’ or ‘Follow me’. During an extra-long meditation, she thought about Ethan and Lucy and being a partner, and freaked out a little more.
She was exhausted when she shut the door behind the last student. She pulled the blinds, and the yoga room went dark and quiet. On any other Sunday, she loved it like that – hot and musty from working bodies, silent and cushioned from the world. Today, all she felt was her heart pounding and her sanity spinning out of control.
She was in the store room, wrestling mats onto a shelf, when the studio door opened. A student must have forgotten something. ‘Hey,’ she called, walked back into the room and felt like she’d hit a wall.
‘I’ve been ringing but your phone is off.’ Ethan was in the doorway, hair tousled, t-shirt and jeans, handsome and sweet and tired and concerned. Why couldn’t he have worn his collar and tie and steely business face? ‘We need to talk.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Making conversation had been hard enough before Ethan arrived. ‘No, we don’t. It’s okay. I understand about … everything. We don’t have to do this.’
‘Yes, we do. I don’t know how much you heard but it’s not what you think.’ He took a step towards her.
She smelled the muskiness of his skin, remembered how it felt under her fingers. She ran sweaty palms down the front of her tights and took a pace back. ‘I know I’m not a Roxburgh Girl. I never wanted to be. It was just a shock hearing the two of you talk about it like that. But it’s okay. I’m ready to move on.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ He closed the gap between them, pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
Without thinking, she let him, melding into his body, wrapping her arms around him – then came to her senses and pushed away. ‘Wait. What? I thought …’
‘I don’t know what you thought but this is what I’m thinking.’ He kissed her again, once, like a full stop. Then again, like a comma. And followed it with a slow caress of her mouth – a sweet, passionate phrase. Dee’s head told her she’d walked away but her lips wouldn’t listen. They wanted to stay for the rest of the sentence. For the whole damn paragraph. When he finally released her, she looked at him, confused, fearful.
‘I don’t want a Roxburgh Girl, Dee. I want you.’
Her breath caught in her throat. Do you want the good news or the bad news? The good news is he wants you. So what’s the bad news? He wants you.
She put space between them. He held onto her hands.
‘Dee, I wanted to ask you last night but we got side tracked. I’m going to New York for a couple of weeks in June and I’d love to have you with me.’
She felt the blood drain from her face. ‘In June? That’s two months away.’
‘I thought that’d give you plenty of time to sort out your work arrangements.’
The darkened room seemed to close in around her. ‘I, um … oh, geez … two months?’
Ethan held her hands tighter. ‘If you’re worried about a passport, that should be more than enough time to sort it out. But I thought you’d have one.’ He tightened his hold on her fingers.
She knew it was meant to be reassuring but it felt like restraint. ‘I do. It’s just that two months is so … in the future, and we don’t know what’ll happen between now and then. I mean, we might not …’
One corner of his mouth turned up. ‘What? Be together? In two months? I was hoping we’d still be tearing each other’s clothes off.’ His smile wavered. ‘What were you thinking?’
Dee pulled her hands from his and twisted them together. ‘I … I didn’t think that far. Just thought I’d wait and see how it goes.’
The smile disappeared. ‘How it goes? Like some extended one night stand?’
‘Well, no. It’s just …’ What could she tell him? That he was the best thing in her life but two weeks was the absolute max she could consider?
‘I don’t get it, Dee. I thought there was something going on between us. And now you’re saying it’s just a casual thing for you?’
‘No. It’s not casual.’ No one had been this close since the accident. ‘I just don’t see the point in counting on some kind of longevity that may or may not happen.’
Ethan clenched and unclenched his jaw. ‘I know the Roxburgh Girl thing makes me seem like some kind of playboy but it takes a lot for me to get involved.’ He cocked his head and watched her eyes, her face, then took his own step back, just about out of reach. ‘I thought that’s what was happening here. I thought that’s what you wanted. But if you’re only interested in a bit of fun, just say so, Dee, because I don’t want to invest myself in something that’s going nowhere. I’ve been there, done that and I have no intention of doing it again.’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘So what is it, Dee?’
He’d put on his business hat, laid his options on the table, wanted a response – but his eyes were wounded, wary.
Dee wanted to kiss that expression away but she couldn’t. He was asking for a future.
‘I … I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I, um …’
‘I’m not asking you to shack up and spit out a few kids but I want more than hot sex and a few laughs. Are you up for that?’
The question made heat rush to her face. Was she? She’d already gone past a few laughs. Way past. The night he’d told her he liked the way she’d put herself together, she’d leapt over a few laughs and landed straight at invested. But did she want to keep investing when she needed to be ready to walk?
She looked at his espresso eyes, his soft mouth, the arms that felt like a shield. The problem was she didn’t want to walk away, not right now. Would gladly invest hard-earned assets for the relief of having someone strong to hold them for a while. She reached out a hand to his chest, felt the contours of the flesh beneath his shirt. Sweet words she thought she’d never say again began to form. She could hear them in her head, feel the shape of them in her mouth.
Ethan’s eyes softened. ‘Is there a future for us, Dee?’
A future?
A wave of anxiety washed over her so fast she didn’t have time to draw breath. Her knees turned to jelly, her stomach clenched and her vision blurred. She reeled away from him, sucking in air, trying to see past the weird blackness that was creeping across her eyes.
‘Dee?’
There was concern in his voice but she could only just hear it behind the ringing in her ears. She grabbed the desk with both hands and propped herself against it so she wouldn’t drop to the floor. Just breathe, Dee. She squeezed her eyes shut, pulled in air through her nose, blew it out through her mouth. In, out. Hard and fast until her vision began to clear. She sensed Ethan behind her, felt his arm around her shoulders, felt her head start to spin again.
‘No. Don’t.’ She pushed him away, let go of the desk, took a few steps back and focused on breathing some more.
‘Dee, what’s wrong? Let me help.’ He reached out a hand.
Her body ached with the need to take it and the need to get some distance. She took another pace away. ‘Please don’t ask me about a future.’
Ethan didn’t move for a long moment, just watched her from beyond the barrier she’d put between them. ‘You’re scared,’ he said at last. ‘It’s okay. I’m scared too. I just don’t forget to breathe when I’m scared.’ He smiled gently.
Breathe, Dee.
He ducked his head to look her in the eyes. ‘It’s a big step for both of us but that’s no reason not to do it. I want to be with you, Dee, and I’m pretty sure you want to be with me. We can face the future together. It’ll be our future.’
The panic sparked in her toes, sped up her legs and leapt into her belly. She clenched her teeth. No. Not another panic attack. Not another future. She made her voice firm and loud. ‘I don’t want a future. I don’t believe in the future.’
There was anger and confusion on his face.
�
�I … I can’t do this. Not now. I want … I need …’ What? Everything? Nothing? ‘I need you to go.’ She turned and fled to the storeroom.
Dee’s eyes flew open. She sat up, gasped so hard she thought she might choke.
Ethan.
Shit. She flopped back on her pillow, eyes swollen, head throbbing, back sore. Big circle with the right leg. Whoa. Make that a not so big circle. Not so big with the left either. Rest. That would have to do. She needed time to curl up in a ball and feel crap for a while longer.
Even though Sunday had been a series of separate shocks, in her head it blended into one, interconnected mess. The newspaper made her think of Lucy and Ethan and the school. The partnership offer made her want to talk to Ethan, which made her think of Lucy and the newspaper. And any thought of Ethan made her skull feel like the Lotto barrel with all those balls rolling around and bouncing off the walls.
At five-thirty, Dee hauled herself out of bed and wondered how she was going to find the energy to strike a pose for the yoga DVD tomorrow. She stretched against the kitchen bench while she waited for the coffee, then stopped when she realised she’d always done that at Ethan’s. She remembered his face: when he’d seen the newspaper, when she’d told him to leave, when she’d walked in on him and Lucy. The sound of Lucy’s voice: ‘She wasn’t meant to say anything.’ Shit, shit, shit. She beat her head against the fridge. It felt a lot better than stretching.
Patrick opened his door before she had a chance to knock.
‘Tough weekend?’ he asked.
‘Yep.’
‘I always thought that saying about any publicity being good publicity was a load of old bunkum.’
She smiled and was surprised it didn’t hurt.
Inside, he said, ‘I’ve got one piece of advice. Keep doing what you do best. When everything’s blown over, it might be all you have left, so look after it.’