by Minnie Darke
“I’m fine,” he said. Without lifting his head, he offered her a crooked smile. “Totally fine.”
To Leo, he said silently: You know what, old mate? I think the world of you, and it’s not that I don’t trust you, but before I call Laura, I reckon I might just wait to see what you have to say for yourself next month. Okay?
Taurus
APRIL 20–MAY 20
For the first few days after the Star hit the newsstands, Justine had counseled herself to keep her expectations low. Nick would need time, after all, to realize that the new copy was on sale. Then he would need not only to read Leo’s column, but also to weigh up the possible meanings and interpretations of Leo’s words, remember that famous rendition of “Big Yellow Taxi,” think for a while and decide on a course of action.
But by the time a week had passed, Justine’s patient hopefulness had ebbed away. Although workdays were busy and full, weekends felt long and empty. On Saturday, Justine killed some time by sleeping late, then a bit more by watching the first few episodes of the classic BBC Pride and Prejudice, again. She ate packet-mix macaroni cheese for lunch and set the leftovers aside for dinner, promising herself that for the evening version she would add some peas.
Why hadn’t he called? Had her reference to “Big Yellow Taxi” been too obscure? Did he not remember that long-ago concert at Curlew Court? Or was there another reason? He hadn’t seemed, during the evening they had spent together in the park, like a man who was already in a relationship. There had been a freedom about him, a lack of constraint. The Nick she remembered was such an honest soul, far too constant to behave this way if his heart was tied up elsewhere. Oh God, she sounded like Lizzie Bennet. Maybe she was just kidding herself that she knew anything about Nick Jordan at all.
And what had she been thinking, tinkering with the horoscopes? What if Leo had found out? What if he wrote to Jeremy? What would happen if she got busted? And exactly how crap would it be to be sprung for taking a risk that had, as it transpired, returned precisely nothing? There were so many questions, but one thing was certain: her career as an astrologer, brief as it had been, was over.
In the early evening, just as Lizzie Bennet was giving Lady Catherine de Bourgh her famously eloquent serve in the garden, Justine became peripherally aware that something out of the ordinary was going on in the flat next door. She pressed Pause on Lady Catherine’s contorted face, tiptoed over to one side of the French doors that led out to her balcony and twitched back the curtain. Through the window of the neighboring apartment, Justine could see that AC/DC man was not, for once, alone. He was with a woman: a generously proportioned woman in jeans and a flannel shirt.
AC/DC man and the woman were packing up all his belongings, Justine realized. And they were laughing. Perhaps there was music on in the background, considering how AC/DC man was swaying slightly as he taped up a cardboard carton. The woman’s mouth was moving, her lipstick pink and bright. Maybe she was singing along as she folded clothes into a suitcase.
Definitely, there was music playing, Justine decided, as AC/DC man grooved his way across the living room and took the woman in his arms. He danced her around the half-packed-up living room. And then they were kissing, and the flannel shirt was getting unbuttoned, and…Justine let the curtain fall and slumped against the wall. She was even being outdone in the romance stakes by a middle-aged man with a paunch and a bad tattoo.
* * *
On Monday morning, Justine dressed carefully in a preppy combination of pleated skirt, button-up shirt and argyle vest, and looked her mirror self squarely in the eye. Nick Jordan, she told herself, is a childhood friend, and nothing more. She laced her boots tightly and set out for work through the park.
Reaching Soapbox Corner, Justine came upon a blackboard on an easel. Presumably it had been set out by the odd-looking man who stood close by, wearing a grave expression, and holding a fan of photocopied pamphlets about asteroid collisions and the imminent ending of the Earth.
Justine altered her course slightly and slowed her step. When the man turned away, she knew she had a fleeting chance. Only barely breaking her stride, she swept past the blackboard and erased the stray apostrophe and unnecessary E in YOU’RE SILENCE IS YOUR COMPLICITY. As she continued on her way, she dusted off her chalky fingers with all the satisfaction of a cowboy blowing across the lip of a smoking pistol.
Arriving at the office, Justine found Jeremy standing beneath the mosaic star alongside a crisp-looking young man with neatly combed hair. The packing creases were still visible down the front of his royal blue shirt.
“Darl,” said Jeremy, beaming at the sight of Justine, “please meet Henry Ashbolt. Henry, this is Justine, your immediate—ah, let’s not say predecessor, as that sounds rather morbid. Let us say instead that it is from Justine’s fair hand that you grasp the copy-runner’s baton.”
“Hi,” said Henry, giving Justine a knuckle-crushing handshake.
“Hello, Henry,” Justine said. “Welcome.”
“Thanks,” said Henry, and looked back to Jeremy, in a way that reminded her of a dog gazing at its beloved owner.
“So,” Justine persisted, “where have you come to us from?”
It was her own university that he named, but Justine had a powerful sense that this fact would not interest Henry Ashbolt. He continued, “I graduated with a double major in political science and journalism, with honors. First class.”
Justine bit her tongue before she could say, I’m impressed.
“Ah, Justine,” said Jeremy, apparently sensing the slight bite of frost in the air, “go into my office, will you, darl? And have a look on my desk. There’s a cartoon, just come in from Ruthless. Of the PM. But I want your opinion on whether it would be too, ah, much. For the cover, you know?”
Ruthless Hawker was a freelance cartoonist and professional alcoholic who occasionally bestowed the fruits of his caustic wit on the Alexandria Park Star.
Jeremy continued, “Though I’m expecting Henry to keep that little morsel of information to himself, eh Henry?”
Justine looked at Henry questioningly.
“The PM’s my sister’s godfather,” he explained. “He went to school with our dad.”
“Well,” said Justine, now slightly loosening the reins on her tone of voice, “you must be very proud.”
Henry shrugged casually, but Justine caught the small twist of amusement at the corner of Jeremy’s mouth.
“Nice to meet you, Henry,” Justine said, and she continued on up the path. She looked forward to seeing how well Henry Ashbolt coped with delivering mail, fixing paper jams, taking dogs to the groomer’s, and trotting backward and forward to Rafaello’s six times a day. For years.
On Jeremy’s desk was a large printout of a fiendishly good caricature of the prime minister. He wore a Gestapo uniform and preened himself in a magical mirror—its frame inscribed with the words BORDER PROTECTION. The mirror reflected him in a snappy suit and bright blue tie, celebrating an electoral victory.
When Jeremy followed Justine into his office, Henry was no longer with him.
“So, what do you think, hm?” Jeremy asked, coming to the desk. He scratched his chin.
“People would talk,” Justine said. “Letters to the Editor would be…abundant.”
“But is it too much?”
“An editor of my acquaintance once told me that fortune favors the bold,” Justine said.
Jeremy nodded. “Ah, yes. A beneficial side effect of giving advice is that sometimes people give it back to you, just when you need it. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Justine said, and headed for the door.
“Oh, before you go,” Jeremy said, and dropped his voice low, “tell me—what did you make of Henry? Hm?”
Justine considered, then said, “I didn’t know you could actually buy Young Conservative as a cologne.”
&
nbsp; Jeremy chuckled. “I think it’s working out spectacularly well with you as contributions manager. The publication is all the better for your, ah, sharpness. Our latest edition looked very polished indeed. The new job suits you.”
Although she gave him a smile of thanks, as Justine walked the corridor to her office, she heard the distant chimes of warning bells. Henry Ashbolt was clearly a very ambitious young man. She wondered if she should quietly remind Jeremy that the next reporter’s job to come up was supposed to be hers, no matter how well she was doing in Natsue’s old chair.
She had just slid into that very chair when she heard her phone ringing from somewhere deep in her bag. When at last she found it, she felt a prickle of anticipation run over the backs of her hands; the number on the display was not one that she knew. Could it be Nick?
Brain: Hey! Don’t forget to smile as you answer the phone. Smiles are audible in people’s voices, remember?
“Hello?” she said.
“Hey, Town Mouse! It’s me.”
All of Justine’s anticipation died away. For it was best-pal Tara. And then Justine didn’t know which was worse—the sting of disappointment that it was her best friend on the end of the phone, or the flush of guilt for having felt disappointed that it was her best friend on the end of the phone.
“Well, hello, Country Mouse,” Justine said, trying to sound bright. “What’s with the new number?”
“I finally ditched Telstra,” Tara said. “And you know how long that’s been coming for. Arseholes. For some obscure reason that was going to take another seven hundred ‘on hold’ hours to fix, they couldn’t stop billing me for my old plan and my new one. So I pissed them off altogether. Yay! But listen, I’m on my way out to a fracking protest. Can’t talk long. I only rang to say I’m coming your way this weekend. The BCA have invited me to this gala thing on Saturday night—”
“The BCA?”
“Beef Cattle Australia,” Tara said. “And God bless the ABC! They’ve said I can compromise my integrity by attending, just so long as I come back with a corking story or three, and don’t expect them to pay for accommodation.”
“My house is your house, as ever,” Justine said.
“Thanks, honey. So, what do you say…will you be my date for the ball? We might find ourselves sitting with some gorgeous young beef moguls wearing very large hats. And even if we don’t, we still have your new job to celebrate. Among other things.”
“What other—” Justine began, then stopped herself, realizing. Between now and Saturday lay the auspicious date of May the fourth, which was not only Star Wars Day, but also— “Your birthday!”
“So, you’ll come with me?” Tara pressed.
“Come to the ball I shall,” Justine agreed.
* * *
It was not difficult for Justine to find the particular part of the large and glitzy hotel where the BCA ball was being held. All she needed to do was follow the hat-wearing men and the matrons in pleated chiffon who were making their way by escalator to a first-floor lobby. There, a pianist in rhinestone-studded Converse sneakers was playing Carole King on a shining baby grand.
Justine was wearing one of her grandmother’s dresses, a black 1960s sheath which had a lace overlay and an uncompromising zipper that did wonders for her posture. She stood, trying not to sing along to Carole, until at last she saw Tara—beamy and bosomy in one of her signature fit-and-flare cocktail dresses—coming up the escalator.
“Happy birthday for yesterday!” Justine said. “Was the force with you?”
“Always,” Tara said, hugging her friend. It wasn’t a polite squeeze, but a genuine embrace that caused a little wave of emotion to rise up in Justine.
“Hey,” Tara said. “You all right?”
“Of course. Yes. Fine. It’s just…God, I miss having you around.”
They hugged each other again, then Tara said, “Enough of the sappy stuff. Let’s get something to drink.”
She caught the eye of a roving waiter, lifted two champagne flutes from his tray and handed one to Justine. “And don’t go away just yet,” she told him.
Tara downed her champagne at an alarming speed, put the empty glass back on the tray and took two more. Justine tried to remember whether or not she was stocked up on aspirin.
“Don’t pull that face, my girl,” Tara said. “We’re celebrating.”
Justine was feeling quite light-headed by the time the guests were summoned into the ballroom proper, where the centerpiece of the buffet was a towering, life-sized ice sculpture of a bull. Justine and Tara made their way to their table, but it was disappointingly free of men who were either young or single. Tara introduced herself to the silver-haired gentleman beside her, and before long was engaged in conversation about an unpleasant-sounding bovine condition called campylobacter.
Justine read the menu. The entrée choices were a kingfish tataki or a tart made with goats cheese, no apostrophe. Presumably, she thought, the menu writer had not been able to decide whether the term ought to be shown as goat’s cheese (cheese coming from the milk of a single goat), or as goats’ cheese (cheese coming from the milk of more than one goat). As it happened, Justine had encountered this problem before. She reached into her clutch purse, brought out a mechanical pencil and circled the offending phrase. She began to scribble a note in the margin of the menu.
I’ve always found that a better solution, her note said, than leaving the apostrophe out is to remove the “s,” and show the term as “goat cheese.” Then you don’t have to worry about specifying whether one or more goats contributed to the—
“Honey, what are you doing?” Tara asked. Evidently, the campylobacter conversation had exhausted its possibilities.
“I’m just fixing up—”
“You’re not. Please tell me that you are not editing the menu.”
“I’m just—”
“Sweetheart,” Tara said, without lowering her voice, “how long is it since you got laid?”
The silver-haired man gave a bemused smile and glanced at Justine, who blushed deeply.
“I’m serious,” Tara went on. “Have you had any? At all? Don’t tell me you’ve been on a drought since Tom. But that’s terrible! The last person you had sex with probably talked about flying primate theory during foreplay.”
“Oh, ease up,” Justine said. “He wasn’t that bad.”
“Hello, I’m Tom Cracknell,” Tara mocked, “and I’m doing a PhD on the motor cortex and the corticospinal—”
“Tract of the flying fox,” Justine finished.
It was true that Tom, at the time of his relationship with Justine, had been rather enamored of his PhD topic. He was the kind of guy who could name the entire sequence of television Dr. Who actors, and enumerate pi out to several hundred decimal places. He’d taken Justine to remote rivers to go kayaking, and to indoor climbing centers to scale walls, and to a bunch of other places that were outside her comfort zone. And it had been fun. But when Tom had been offered a postdoctoral position on the Atlantic coast of the USA, it had broken nobody’s heart.
“So, it’s been what? Eight months? And, what—nothing? Nothing?”
“No,” said Justine quietly.
“No wonder you’re proofreading everything in sight.”
“Hey, come on. I am performing a…a valuable community service.”
“Not a sniff? Not a whisper? Anything on the horizon? A blip even?” Tara said, pinning Justine with her investigative journalist’s gaze.
Justine shook her head.
“Ah!” Tara said. “You’re leaving something out. I can tell.”
“Well, it’s not a blip,” Justine argued. “I don’t think it even counts as a semi-blip.”
Tara took a deep gulp of her wine. “I’ll take a hemi-demi-semi-blip over nothing at all. Now, tell me everything.”
So
Justine told Tara about Nick Jordan. About the market, and the fish suit, and lunch at Cornucopia, and about how Nick had always been an actor and was about to play Romeo. She even dished about the fleeting moment of teenage passion on a South Australian beach. But in telling all of this, she found that she was—without exactly deciding to—holding back the part about the stars.
“Okay then,” Tara said, as if she might have been rolling up her sleeves. “So, what’s your plan now?”
“Plan?” Justine asked innocently.
“You must have a plan,” Tara said. “And please tell me it’s a better one than waiting to see if he calls.”
“Is that really so terrible?”
“It’s pathetic.”
“But I don’t have his number. I couldn’t contact him even if I wanted to.”
“Rubbish,” Tara said shortly. “Honey, sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horns. Facebook him, track down his parents, turn up at that restaurant at lunchtime…whatever, but promise me that you will, in some way, shape or form, make contact with that man. Promise?”
“We-e-ell,” said Justine. It couldn’t be long, now, until Leo’s stars arrived ready to be transcribed for the new edition. Maybe, just maybe, she could give the stars one more shot? “There might be a way.”
* * *
Around midnight, at the offices of the Star, all was quiet and still. Computers slept behind darkened screens, their green standby hearts steadily beating, while in the hallway, the temperamental old photocopier slumbered beneath its vinyl dust cover. Amid the chaos of Anwen’s workstation, a set of Star Wars figures stood draped in colorful streamers from a packet of party poppers that had been exploded in honor of May the fourth.
The leaves of the potted fern on Justine’s desk quivered slightly in the barely moving air, as did the wispy halo of an angora cardigan slung over the back of the chair. Through the skylight above the desk, nothing could be seen but the murky dark orange of the city’s night sky. But was it possible that, at a few minutes past twelve, a silver beam of starlight pierced the glass panel above the desk? Did a single glittering filament spear down into the quiet of the office and spark the fax machine into life?