Star-Crossed

by Minnie Darke

  “I’m a stubborn bastard, sometimes. Forget it, now.”

  But Justine wasn’t quite done. “If you love Laura, then there must be many good reasons that you do.”

  “It’s okay, Jus. Really. Forget it.”

  “Your friendship,” she said. “It’s one of the oldest of my life. I don’t want to lose it.”

  “Me neither.”

  Justine knew where the conversation needed to go next. She wasn’t relishing this part, but it had to be done. “So, when last we spoke, you were about to make a proposal. I trust it went well?”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Nick said.

  “So, it’s all official then? When’s the big day?”

  Nick gave her a bemused look. “Ah, I think you’re jumping the gun a bit there. I understand that what Laura and I have is a kind of pre-engagement agreement. Actual engagement, I’m told, doesn’t happen until there’s a ring.”

  “I see,” said Justine. “And when does the ring happen?”

  “I’m led to believe that this can be a lengthy procedure. A stone must be acquired, designs must be vetted, jewelers must have time to do their thing.”

  Justine winced. “Sounds expensive.”

  “It is,” Nick said, a little grimly. “Look, I should go. You should sleep. Take care of yourself, okay? If you’re still feeling rat-shit tomorrow, give me a call and I’ll come over and make you another lemon drink.”

  “Oh, goodie,” Justine said, frowning into the mug.

  When Nick was gone Justine took one more sip then tipped the mixture down the sink. In her bedroom, she was met by the disappointing discovery that she’d that morning stripped her bed. The sheets, Doona cover and pillowcases were all bundled up on the laundry floor, but right now the effort of applying fresh linen was beyond her. Likewise, getting into pajamas was a bridge too far. She took her clothes off and dumped them on the floor. Wrapped only in her dressing gown, her teeth chattering from cold, she crawled under the uncovered Doona and flicked her electric blanket on to its highest setting.

  As she fell into a restless sleep, Justine knew two things for certain. One was that Laura Mitchell was a very lucky woman. The other was that she quite definitely had a fever.

  * * *

  For the next two days, Justine was too sick to go to work, or even to get out of bed. At lunchtime on the third day, she felt sufficiently improved to eat a little bit of canned soup and transfer her sickbed to the couch. There she remained for the rest of the day, watching episodes of I Dream of Jeannie, and phasing in and out of wakefulness.

  She was in the shallows of sleep when she was woken by a knock at her apartment door. Opening her eyes, she found that it was just a few minutes before six o’clock. By the time she got to the door, the landing was empty except for a huge bunch of cream-colored roses, their petals tipped with pink. They were wrapped up in shiny white paper and affixed with a note that said: Sick, huh? That’s one hell of a way to avoid me. Hope you’re doing okay. DG x

  Justine picked up the roses and put them to her nose, but they were of the kind that didn’t smell of anything. She took the bouquet inside, filled a vase with water, and thought. Then she scrolled through the contact list on her phone and selected Daniel’s name.

  “So,” he answered. “You got the flowers.”

  “I did.”

  “Do you like them?”

  “Thank you. They’re really beautiful.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that a ‘but’ is coming?”

  “Because it is,” Justine said.

  There was a long silence, in which Justine drew up her courage by reminding herself of how she’d felt on Monday while trying to play Daniel’s work is work game.

  “I’m not going to be able to do this, Daniel.”

  “You’re upset with me? About the astrology thing?”

  “No, it’s not that. I was entirely wrong, and you were totally fair. It’s the whole thing. I know myself, Daniel, and I just know that I’m not going to be able to share a bed on the weekends and then, come Monday morning, pretend we’re nothing more than colleagues. It makes me too uncertain. It…well, it hurts.”

  “But, Justine, it’s a workplace. It’s not like we can—”

  “I don’t think you’re wrong. About the need to behave like that,” Justine said. “It’s just that I can’t do it. You seem fine with it. But I’m not. I’m a heart-on-my-sleeve kind of girl. I’m sorry.”

  “And there’s nothing I can do to talk you out of this?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Justine said.

  “Look, I know the situation’s not ideal. It would be better if we didn’t work at the same place. It would even be better if we were still…just colleagues. And I know that we started out fast. Maybe too fast.”

  “Definitely too fast,” Justine said.

  “But it was good, right?”

  You had to hand it to him, Justine thought. He had confidence.

  “It was,” she admitted.

  “All right then,” Daniel said, though Justine had the distinct impression that it wasn’t in relation to what she had just said. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but you’ve left me no option.”

  Justine went cold. “Do what?”

  “Leo’s stars arrived. I have the fax right here, and I’m going to read you your stars. Ready? It is spring, Aquarius, the season of renewal.”

  Justine: Aquarius? Why is he reading Aquarius to me?

  Brain: Remember your little chat in his office?

  Justine: Oh shit.

  Daniel went on, “Those harboring resentments and anger will do well to allow in the strong cleansing tide of grace and forgiveness. This month brings an expansion of the spirit and a surge of generosity toward all creatures, great and small. Does not everyone deserve a second chance? Or even a third?”

  Justine wondered just how many times one could be hoist by the same petard.

  “So,” Daniel said, after a moment. “Might that surge of Aquarian generosity extend to me? Might I have a second chance?”

  Justine thought for a moment. “Work will still have to be work, though, right?”

  “Yes, but just give it some time. Give me a chance to show you that it’s doable.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You know, I’ve been reading up a bit, about the stars. And I’ve learned that Aquarians and Leos are polar opposites on the horoscope. Air needs fire. Fire needs air. So the astrologers say.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Give me another chance at this. How about this weekend?”

  The Virgo rising part of Justine might have accurately pointed out that there were many discrepancies in the situation in which she now found herself, and all of them pointed to the need to approach this proposition cautiously. But it was not the Virgo rising part of Justine that was responding. It was the impulsive Sagittarian.

  “What did you have in mind?” she said.

  Cusp

  They came for Brown Houdini-Malarky under cover of darkness, those whispering women in their khaki tunics and huge suede gloves. One minute he was asleep on the rags at the back of his pen in the distant back blocks of the adoption area, and the next he was struggling and yapping, being manhandled into a transport crate. His world tilted and swayed as they walked him to the main building. Soon he was tumbled out into a fluorescently lit room and pushed into a small indoor pen, its floor lined with newspaper. The door of the pen swung closed. A bolt was shot home. And Brown knew precisely what all of this meant.

  Brown was not alone in the bright room. Lori the poodle, with her mange and her buggered cruciate ligaments, had already been locked in the next-door cell. The door opened again and the women were back with the crate. This time it was Fritz that they brought with them, a dachshund-cross with dodgy bowel control. Crate-load by crate-
load, the women filled the upper-level pens: Dumpling the pug, her face a muddle of glaucous eyes and slobbery folds; Esther the geriatric sheepdog who’d outlived her human and was too old for rehoming. Then the lights went out. The next time they came on, Brown knew, it would be tomorrow, and all five dogs would be ready and waiting for the vet.

  Shortly after first light, the doomed dogs were each given a little bowl of diced beef for breakfast. Fritz, the eternal optimist, gulped down his meat. But neither Dumpling nor Lori could stop howling long enough to eat theirs. Esther, thick of waist and devout of temperament, calmly chunked down her final breakfast, and lay quietly with her head on her paws, comforted by the stories she’d been told of an afterlife known as the Rainbow Bridge.

  Brown had no stomach for food. Having repeatedly cased the cage, he knew it to be impregnable. Curse that bastard Guy. Curse him and his bitch of a mother and every worm-ridden pup that might ever spring from his distempered loins. Bastard! Brown eked out a small amount of pleasure in this cussing, then wondered if it was the last pleasure of his entire life. With all other options closed to him, Brown lay down at the back of his pen, curled into a ball and drifted into shallow sleep.

  The vet came at noon. She was Annabel Barwick, a young woman with a soft helmet of ginger hair and a bright new wedding band on her left hand. Brown, watching her through his one good eye, thought it to her credit that she spoke to them in a tone of affectionate despondency, apologizing to each. Assisting her was vet nurse Jesse Yeo, a young man with stovepipe legs, jet black hair and sensitive eyes rimmed with red.

  Brown focused his mind and visualized a laser beam of Voo Dog power issuing from his eye. The one-eyed dog is not supposed to be here, he Vooed. The one-eyed dog must be returned to his pen, unharmed. But the vet and the nurse were preoccupied and he could catch the eye of neither one of them.

  Fritz—bless him—still thought there was a chance for charm to work, so he bounded up to the cage front with an upbeat volley of barks. But this only meant that he was first: the nurse held his little chestnut forepaw while the vet grazed off a bit of fur with the clippers, and drove in the needle. Then little Fritz was in a garbage bag on the floor. Brown watched it all. He watched as Lori was injected, and as her cries for someone called Prudence became incoherent, and stopped. He watched Esther close her eyes and slip away to meet her master.

  Brown knew who would be next. But he’d be buggered if he’d go gentle into that good night. Having thoroughly studied the room beyond his pen, Brown knew it to be a total bastard of a place, entirely bereft of nooks and crannies. It had an easy-wash floor covering curving up the base of the walls, and there was hardly any furniture. The door that led to the hallway, and to the world beyond, was closed; the place was sealed.

  But here was a piece of luck. Just as Jesse the nurse crouched down at the door of Brown’s pen, Annabel the vet took several steps toward the main door and reached for the handle. The timing, Brown realized, was going to be perfection. All he had to do was lunge out of the pen, past Jesse, and bolt for the door. Yes! The vet levered down the handle. The door began to open. It was a narrow opportunity, but wide enough for a street terrier of indefatigable enterprise.

  Brown sprang, easily evading Jesse’s large, grasping hands. His claws struggled for traction on the slippery floor, but there was no sense leaving any effort on the bench. Pedaling his hind legs like a rabbit’s, he scrabbled forth. The door was only slightly ajar, but he’d get his head through it, he was sure. And then he’d be gone. Down the hall, out the door. And away!

  “Little bugger,” Jesse muttered. “Annabel! Shut the door!”

  Slam. The latch slid home. The heavy white door was flush with the wall. And Brown was on the wrong side of it. Of course, he ran, leading Annabel and Jesse in a merry dance, once, twice, thrice around the room. But it was hopeless. Soon he was cornered. Jesse lifted him by the scruff of the neck. And now Brown was aloft, squirming and arching and snarling as the nurse carried him toward the table. Meanwhile the vet was drawing green fluid into a syringe.

  * * *

  Fifteen-year-old Luke Foster—Libra, wintertime center half-forward for the Aussie Rules team, summertime wicketkeeper for the cricket squad, habitual smoother of an embarrassing front-and-center cowlick, and die-hard fan of the (original) Star Wars movies—reached into the glove compartment of his mother’s Saab, drew out an aloe-vera-infused tissue and handed it to her. It was Friday morning and they were parked a few blocks away from the public school that would, as of today, be his alma mater.

  He had left St. Gregory’s a day ahead of schedule, without any fanfare or farewell. No part of him had wanted to suffer under the pitying glances of boys whose parents were doctors or old money or business owners or abalone divers, and who had financed their sons’ education with actual cash money rather than an imaginary inheritance. His private school mates would continue on their blazered, boatered, red-and-blue-necktied way to Head of the River rowing successes, private cello or euphonium lessons, and places at Group of Eight universities. And he would not. He would have to find his way to his destiny in a yellow polo shirt.

  “I’m so sorry,” sobbed his mother, Mariangela. “Oh, Lukey, we wanted the best for you. We really did.”

  In the two years that Luke had been at St. Gregory’s, he’d never troubled himself with even the idlest curiosity about how his parents could afford the fees. He and his younger brothers, both of whom were still in primary school and safely out of this whole mess, had had their names put down for the exclusive boys’ high school before they were even out of diapers, and perhaps this was one of the things that had made him believe that his parents had some kind of plan for paying the fees. And although he’d never really thought about it, if he had, he would have thought they’d have a better, more watertight plan than maxing out the credit card and waiting for his grandfather to die. Especially since, now that his grandfather had died, all he’d left to Luke’s mother was her own mother’s wedding ring, some ugly rosewood furniture and an out-of-tune piano.

  Part of Luke wanted to ask his mother what the hell she’d been thinking. Why hadn’t she just sent him to the local public high school from the start? Today, as he walked into an unfamiliar classroom in his too-clean, too-new, too-stiff yellow polo shirt, the gossip would already be doing the rounds. That’s the kid who got taken away from St. Gregory’s.

  Another part of Luke—the part that hated to see his mother with her eyes bloodshot and her nose swollen—wanted to take Mariangela’s hand and stroke it, to tell her that everything was all going to be all right, that he’d never really loved St. Gregory’s that much; that now she could turn up at school pickup in her Ugg boots and a black puffer jacket instead of designer office wear or yummy mummy gym getup; that the local public school had something that St. Gregory’s never would have. Girls. That would make her laugh.

  “You going to be all right today, Lukey?” Mariangela asked.

  “Course.”

  Luke pulled down the Saab’s sun visor, slid open the little door that hid the vanity mirror and smoothed his cowlick down flat. But, of course, it only sprang back as he juggled himself and his backpack out into the street.

  “Bye, Mum,” he said.

  “Bye, darling,” she said, and blew him a miserable, weepy kiss.

  “Have a good day,” he said.

  “I’ll try,” she sniffled.

  In an eerily accurate Yoda voice, Luke said, “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

  * * *

  Patricia O’Hare—Virgo, career homemaker turned empty nester, mother to adult daughters Larissa and Zadie, grandmother-in-waiting, stock market genius and baker of the lightest passionfruit sponges known to humanity—volunteered each Friday at the Dogs Home. This was just one of the many activities that Patricia had taken up in order to keep herself busy now that her girls were largely independent. Although she had her s
hare portfolio to manage, and much knitting to do now that Zadie was expecting, these pursuits were hardly enough to keep an efficient woman like Patricia away from the slippery slopes of Dr. Phil at lunchtime and chardonnay at 4 p.m.

  Patricia discovered the Dogs Home when she went there, after a period of mourning for Bonnie the blue heeler, to choose herself a new dog. On her very first visit, as she walked the aisles of pens, she came upon a liver-and-white greyhound sitting demurely on her narrow haunches at the front of the cage, striking a pose that put Patricia in mind of a 1920s showgirl sitting beside her suitcase and waiting for a lift. The dog looked at Patricia as if to say, “Oh, there you are at last.” And a good match it had turned out to be, too, with both woman and dog sharing an air of inherent respectability, a love of comfortable couches and appreciation of good grooming.

  On her first few Fridays as a volunteer, Patricia walked dogs. With Alsatians, huskies, vizslas, Shelties and shih tzus, she trod the well-worn tracks that traced through the remnant bushlands around the Dogs Home. She had a lovely new sun hat, purpose bought, as well as a pair of new running shoes in a spunky, youthful color scheme. She found the days less enjoyable when it was her turn to shovel dog poo out of pens, but Patricia was under no illusion—if the service were not in some way unpleasant or inconvenient, everyone would be doing it.

  It didn’t take long, however, for the Dogs Home administration to realize that Patricia had skills that made her invaluable in the office. Within two months of starting out as a volunteer, she was triaging the mail, proofreading the newsletter, doing the banking and coordinating the volunteer database.

  Every few months, however, Patricia would wake up and realize that it was not just a Friday, but one of those Fridays, and she would wish that she were going anywhere else that day but the Dogs Home. Those Fridays were the ones on which that lovely young vet, Annabel Barwick, cleared the diary at her own inner-city practice and drove out to the Dogs Home for a grim morning of pro bono work.