by Peter Butler
He shook his head, disappointment showing on his face. 'The show is called Impressive People, Sunny, not Arrogant Assholes. But maybe you've hit on an idea. We should pitch that to the TV Execs.'
'They would buy it, for sure,' she laughed. 'They'd expect to be the stars of the first series.'
Simon reached over the table and rested his hand on Sunny's. He hadn't crossed any boundaries by doing it, but he was very close. He looked intently at her and said, 'With your looks and quick wit you should be in front of the camera, Sunny. Gorgeous and funny is an unbeatable combination. We should work together and see if we can make that happen.'
'We already work together, Simon,' she said as she slid her hand out from under his and used it to lift her glass to her lips. Up till that moment she had used her other hand for that, but she needed a way to extract herself from a potentially embarrassing situation. 'Besides,' she continued, 'I doubt I'd be very good in that role. I don't suffer arrogant fools lightly and quite frankly, most of the people you feature in your programs have caused me to bite my tongue.'
He looked at her incredulously, and grinned, 'You think!'
She gave him a look that conceded she'd said something obvious.
Simon continued. 'That's the thing, Sunny. I seem to mainly work with males. Beauty can take the edge off an aggressive comment when you have the sexual interplay happening between a man and a woman.'
'Sex does seem to be at the heart of it all,' Sunny agreed. 'Ashleigh has certainly worked that out.' She smiled, and then added to qualify her statement, 'He could just as easily have had a buddy lined up to play tennis with, but no, he goes for a silicon implanted "Bunny" who has never had anything complex, like a tennis racket, in her hand before.'
'There you go, Sunny,' Simon laughed at her summary of the situation. 'I rest my case. With your looks, humor and a hint of sarcasm combined with my contacts, we could go a long way - together.'
Sunny was picking up mixed messages from Simon. They had worked together for a while now and they had never had a conversation as personal as this in all that time. Maybe it was just him relaxing, finally feeling more comfortable with her. Or, perhaps he misread the hug she had given him after her incident with Ashleigh. No. It couldn't be that. Simon was an intelligent, successful man. He had a beautiful wife, Suzie, and a baby. He couldn't possibly think she was coming-on to him? Surely.
It was time to find out.
She dug into her bag and retrieved her cell-phone from the side pocket. She quickly scanned the list of messages. Most were from Garrett. She had already listened to the early ones so she guessed the rest would be of the same nature - stay away from Simon! His concern was touching, but way-too repetitive. Action was required to correct the balance of that relationship, also.
She slid off her chair and moved over beside Simon. She put her head close to his and held the phone at arm's length. One selfie coming up.
'Say cheese, Simon.'
***
Clearing customs took longer than I expected mainly because Tim's luggage got a more thorough than normal check. Seems I'm not the only one who thinks Tim is a shifty guy. Eventually, they let him through. I'd hoped they'd at least do a cavity search, but they settled on just looking in his bags.
'The bastards don't even tell you what they think they are looking for.' He spat the words out, clearly offended by the treatment. 'At least in America, they say, "Enjoy your stay, sir," at the end of something like that.'
'They're just doing their job, Tim. It's most likely random. What did they say at the end?' I asked as he was clearly pissed at the whole process.
'He said, "Fuck off, Pommy bastard".'
I looked surprised. 'That's a bit rude. Do you want to complain to his superior?'
'Nah...' He shook his head and twisted his mouth, clearly uncomfortable discussing it with me. 'I might have said something to him, first.'
'Shit Tim! If you get into trouble on this trip you're on your own. Truf and I never signed up to be your baby-sitters. You do realize you have to pass through here again in a few days? You can bet he's flagged you in their system.'
Truf, to his credit refrained from wading into this mini argument, and stood quietly waiting until we were done.
I turned my attention to him and said, 'Somehow we need to locate my cousin - a guy called Sammy who I've never met, or even heard of before this trip.'
We began to walk towards the waiting area, each of us pushing a luggage trolley.
'I've got our transportation under control,' Truf said to me with a grin. 'I've already located Sammy, he's a really good looking fellow.'
'Great. Point him out?'
'Here's a clue, Gary. Look for a cardboard sign with your name misspelled on it.'
Amongst the large group of friends and relatives waiting for our flight's arrival, I saw the sign. Garrett had become Garrot. At least Nixon was correct. As was Truf, with his opinion of good looking. Sammy stood holding the sign in one hand, waving with the other at Truf who was waving back. Sammy was wearing the shortest pair of shorts imaginable. Two tanned, well-shaped legs completed the visual feast all the way to the ground. As the sign moved around Sammy's perfectly shaped breasts wobbled into view.
Our trolleys seemed to suddenly accelerate and we rounded the aisle and moved through the crowd of greeters towards her.
Sammy ran to Truf, reached up and gave him a hug and a kiss.
'Welcome to Australia, cuz...' she said with a giggle.
She was considerably smaller than Truf and probably in her early twenties. She had long auburn hair that was tied back in a pony-tail, her skin was flawless and her smile and bubbly personality, infectious.
'Thank you, Sammy. In more ways than one,' Truf responded with a big grin, after she had unwrapped herself from him. 'But I'm not your cousin, I'm his best friend.' He extended his hand to her. 'Call me Truf,'
Sammy blushed, but took his hand and shook it vigorously. 'Nice to meet ya, Truf.'
I was standing beside Truf and I said, 'Hi cousin, I'm Gary. Lovely to meet you.' I closed the small distance between us and gave her a hug in the hope of covering any residual embarrassment.
She quickly recovered her composure and gave me a kiss on the cheek. In control again, she said, 'Hi Gary, great to meet you as well.'
'And, this is Tim,' I said, pointing to him. 'He's a step-cousin or second cousin or something. Tim's married to my sister, Megan.'
'Hi Tim,' she said, and he too, got a small kiss on the cheek.
'Well hello, cousin,' said Tim in his normal leery fashion. 'It looks like the Australian side of the family has grabbed a big handful of the available good-looking genes.'
Sammy just laughed at Tim's lame statement, and I could see in her eyes that in one sentence he'd managed to convey to her that he was a dick-head. Nice work, Timmy.
'It's incredibly nice of you to come and meet us, Sammy,' Truf said.
She turned to him and gave him a big smile. 'No worries, mate. Gave me a chance to legitimately get my head out of the books.'
We were making our way out of the terminal and as the automatic doors swung open the hot Queensland air hit us for the first time. The three of us simultaneously slowed as if we had walked into something tangible. Having come from cool London, to air conditioned plane, to air conditioned terminal, to the warmth of Brisbane was quite a shock. Sammy realized we had slowed. She looked back and laughed. 'If you think this is hot, you're going to absolutely love Culgawinya. It's so bloody hot out there the hens lay hard boiled eggs.'
That brought a round of laughter. I was really liking my cuz.. Sammy was my type of girl; great looking and a sense of humor, although I guessed that was an old Aussie joke, but perfect to drop on three newly arrived Londoners. I looked over at Truf and I know him well enough to see he had arrived at the same conclusion. And Tim. Well, that's a no-brainer; she was young, female and breathing. Enough said - his tongue was hanging out of his mouth like a dehydrated Doberman. And I don't think
it was because of the heat.
Sammy led us to a Toyota Land Cruiser and we piled our luggage into the rear and headed off. Sammy drove and Truf sat beside her. I could make out the remnants of some pink paint on the windscreen in front of Truf's face and I said to Sammy, 'What was written on the windscreen in the pink paint that has been mostly scraped off?'
She glanced at me in the rear-view mirror and said, '$29,950' I saw her smile at me as she said it.
'Did you steal it just for us?' Tim chipped in.
'Sort of... It's yours for the trip. It was on dad's used car lot and it seemed perfect for you. Nan said to give you anything you need, and last time I looked it was a bloody long walk to where you want to go.'
'Glad it's got a GPS and an air conditioner,' Truf entered the conversation. 'It's perfect,'
'Actually it's six years old, so not perfect anymore. By the way, dad said to tell you - You break it, you've bought it.' She grinned again.
'We'll treat it like it's a girlfriend, lots of love and TLC,' Tim said, and I saw Sammy's eyes roll in the mirror. Mine did the same. Maybe I'm being too critical, but everything the moron says is either corny, saccharine-coated or just plain stupid.
'What books did we drag you away from?' Truf said, in an attempt at getting Tim to shut up.
'A fascinating little piece on the macromolecular structure of an organic polymer that I'm interested in altering, to improve its light emitting qualities.'
'Ha! I'm pretty sure I've read that one,' Truf said as he pulled a face. 'Don't want to spoil it for you, but it's the ex-wife who did it.'
Sammy took her eyes off the road momentarily, looked at him and said with a raised eyebrow, 'Your ex-wife?'
'Couldn't possibly be. Don't got an ex, or even a current one, for that matter,' he grinned at her.
She grinned back, clearly getting the answer she wanted.
I could see this developing nicely so I sat back and watched the scenery flash by and listened to the two of them subtly run a checklist against each other.
Tim, who is as perceptive as a dead tree, kept trying to impose himself into the conversation only to have the door politely shut in his face, every time.
It turned out that my little cousin was doing her PhD in Molecular Biology on Organic Light Emitting Diodes, or OLED's which were fast becoming the video screen of choice. Her actual thesis escaped me, but I'm sure Truf memorized every word she said. So, I could find that out if I needed to.
We drove for about a half an hour and eventually turned into the parking bay of "Roger's Executive Used Cars." We piled out and Sammy led us through the yard to the office. Roger had about one hundred cars on his lot, I guessed, mostly late model Mercedes, BMW's, Audi's, Jag's and Volvo's. I imagined they were secretly grateful to have the Land Cruiser leave the lot as it seemed a little outclassed by the other marques.
Roger saw us coming and jumped up to greet us. 'G'day boys, great to meet ya. I'm Roger Gregson,' he said enthusiastically, as he offered each of us his hand. Sammy gave him our names as he shook each hand. It was a bit like the Queen greeting her key troupes, moving down the line shaking hands and nodding, "lovely to meet you." Roger was about fifty, a slight, wiry man with a pleasant face and a healthy crop of pure white hair. I think I could see a resemblance to Gran in his features. His age difference to her more likely meant he was probably my cousin, which made Sammy, his daughter, my second cousin. I think. I'm not good with family trees, although the branch I was currently getting to know seemed like nice people. Prior to this I'd adopted the approach of not looking into the extended family. Lets be honest, there'd be nothing worse than finding that you were related to a long list of convicts.
I'm kidding.
'I wish you'd have given us a little more notice that you were coming,' Roger was saying. 'Marge and I have a couple of spare rooms we could have let you use. Sammy moved out years ago and her brother Greg, decided he wanted to study in Melbourne. Go figure?'
'Thanks for the suggestion, Roger,' I said. 'It's just one night and we're booked into a hotel in the city. But, why not join us for dinner? It would be lovely to get to know you and Marge.'
'I wish we could, but Marge an I have an APEX dinner to go to. Been booked for months, so we can't get out of it.'
'I'm free,' Sammy chipped in, causing Roger to give her a strange querying look.
'Wonderful,' I said. 'We can get to know your family through Sammy's eyes.'
We talked for a while longer, mainly small-talk about Ed and Gran, or Nan as she seemed to be known in the Southern Hemisphere. I just hope we were all talking about the same people. Then Roger excused himself to go do a deal with a customer who was giving the salesman a hard time and wanted to only deal with the boss.
Sammy said that she would make a restaurant booking for the four of us somewhere nice and pick us up from our hotel at 7:30. I was glad to go along with her local knowledge. Truf seemed particularly happy with the way things were turning out.
Me, not so much. I could see my dinner turning out to be mainly spent with Tim. I almost pulled Hector's card out of my pocket to invite him, but decided against it. Given his advanced years and all the traveling he'd done over the last couple of days, he'd most likely be tucked up in bed already.
I glanced over at Tim and I'd swear he was having the exact same thoughts about spending time with me.
After I had settled in to my hotel room the first thing I did was check my emails. Both Sky and Sophie had provided some more background material for me to study on Plutarch Resources. I had lots of time to read the details later so I just glanced at what they had provided then went back to my inbox. I found an email that somehow had bypassed my spam-filter. It was from someone called "heidi1691" and it was a gmail account - and it had an attachment. Normally, I would immediately delete a rogue email like this if it managed to get this far through my security system. I made a mental note to check how it got through my filters, but took a chance and eagerly opened it. I liked the name - it sounded awfully like someone I knew.
Dear Paranoid Amnesiac.
Don't want to sound needy, but I miss you. (Maybe you've forgotten me again. I should explain. I'm the one you slept with - but didn't... Coming back to you now?)
I regret leaving things in a way that caused you to head off Down Under clearly frustrated. But, I now have my head around that issue - and frustrated has become MY middle name.
Heidi Frustrated McGuire. It sucks :-)
BTW. You are wrong (see attachment) - I survived.
I opened the attachment and a picture of Sunny appeared. It was a selfie, taken in a bar. It was her with her arm around Simon, their heads squeezed together to fit in the shot. Both of them smiling cheesily.
Shit!
Even from the other side of the planet this girl could push my buttons. Big-time. Okay, I should defer to her knowledge of Simon over my quickly formed assumption that he was a Rohypnol rapist. But to make the point with a picture like that. Well, that's just cruel.
I hit "reply"
Dear Frustrated.
I need more clarification. Which night did we not sleep together? And, are you the one on the left or the right in that picture?
Garrett... and frustrated "Little Gary".
I hit "send" and then took a moment to ponder her email. She wasn't too far off with her paranoia jibe, but my insecurity was totally based on wanting to keep her safe. I could take the high-ground here. But my desire wasn't totally selfless, I seriously wanted to get to know that girl. Every part of her, including her wonderful crazy mind, if that was at all possible. She did more than push my buttons, she made things pop - Little Gary would attest to that.
It felt good to have a shower and a proper lie down on a flat bed and I was so exhausted I almost did a Hector and slept through dinner, but something woke me from my nap just in time. Maybe my left and right hemispheres were working in concert together, again. Maybe I have a guardian angel. Or more likely, a siren went by outside and woke m
e.
I needn't have rushed because our taxi - that would be Sammy, was fashionably fifteen minutes late.
She pulled up into the drop-off bay at the hotel in a black Golf GTI. She hopped out and the three of us all did double takes. She was wearing a simple black mini-skirt that barely covered her incredible backside. She was totally aware that her legs and backside were features to flaunt if she wanted to impress guys. Job done. Six bulging eyeballs would have told her the three of us were on-board with her plan. Getting on-board the Golf was a different matter. It was a two door model which required some gymnastics from the two unfortunates who were allocated the backseats. Truf claimed the seat in the front because his long legs would be too cramped in the back.
Come to think of it, Sammy was the one who suggested that.
'Nice car, Sammy,' I said, massaging my legs from the contortion-like experience they had just endured. We sped out of the hotel driveway and quickly blended with the city traffic. She was driving a lot more aggressively than she did from the airport.
'It's not mine,' she shook her head. 'I don't own a car. That's one good thing about having a dad who has about a hundred of them. I just grab one from the lot whenever I need a ride.'
'Nice deal,' I replied. What the hell would have been the problem with grabbing a big Merc or Beamer, then?
We ended up at a nice French Restaurant called Beauforts. The food and wine were exceptional and after an hour or so I even found myself actually enjoying Tim's company. The more Australian wine I drank the funnier my English brother-in-law became. Just as well, because Truf and Sammy had withdrawn into their own little world, as I had feared would happen.
Tim and I had ceased to exist to them.
I have a vague memory of singing Waltzing Matilda and even having my arm around Tim's shoulders as we departed the restaurant. Thankfully, Sammy had stayed with Perrier water for most of the night. No doubt aware of her father's rule: You break it - you've bought it. Or, maybe she had some other compelling reason.