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Chapter 6

‘Here, close your eyes. Let me do your eyeliner.’ Penny leaned in, the heel of her hand pressed into my cheek. ‘We’ll make you all beautiful so we can go out and forget all about this week.’

‘You know, I’m not actually upset about the divorce. That’s not what’s upset me.’

Penny stood back and looked down at me. ‘She says after draining the hot water because she was too busy in the shower crying.’

Okay, so that part was true. It had been a long week, and what else was a girl supposed to do? I trudged home smelling of old coffee mixed with the tang of deodorant and late-afternoon body odour, and I know of nobody who’d agree that that was in any way appealing. My shoes had felt two sizes too small, I hadn’t got through my To Do List, and the divorce papers were a metaphorical weight I couldn’t be bothered carrying. So, I did what any overly stressed girl would do – I slipped under the showerhead and had a good old-fashioned cry.

‘It felt good,’ I said. ‘Sometimes you just need to release those tears.’

‘I know.’ Penny removed her hand and switched to the other eye. ‘But, now, we dust ourselves off, we get ourselves fancy, we drink some cocktails, and chase some tail.’

‘It just felt like one thing after the other this week,’ I said. ‘Niggling little things, but I’m sure Bill is what happens when the universe sends someone to laugh at me. She tends to do a lot of that lately.’

‘Yeah, well, I wouldn’t mind the universe falling on him, to be honest,’ she mumbled.

‘I just feel like a failure.’

‘Ellie, the fact that you are upright and have found gainful employment suggests otherwise. You are smart, you are funny, and you’re a wonderful teacher of words.’ Penny stood back and admired her work with the make-up brush. ‘Fuck, you’re so cute. Who are you going home with tonight?’

I snorted. ‘Nobody I have to see over the coffee urn on Monday morning.’

‘How long has it been?’ she asked. ‘Am I allowed to ask that?’

‘Let me think.’ While she faffed about my hair and tossed me a lipstick, I tried to do the mental maths. ‘Uh, well, he kind of overshot the mark on his last attempt, so that was over before he even got his pants off.’

She passed a lipstick over her shoulder. ‘Are you joking?’

‘I wish I was.’ I peered into the bathroom mirror. ‘All right. Actually, my birthday before last.’

Penny snatched her phone up from the counter and opened an app. ‘Sweetie, that’s fourteen months, two weeks, five days.’

‘Well, then, so it is.’

‘Also, we’re super late. Let’s go.’

* * *

Today was always going to happen, whether I lobbed the grenade first, or he did. There was no point at all being naive about it. Perhaps my anger was more that Idiot Features had got in first, and I was just feeling a wee bit competitive about it all. After all, he was the one who’d done the wrong thing but there I was, being served papers at work like it was me who was the bad guy.

All I wanted to do tonight was have a few cheeky drinks and forget real life for a few hours, make some new friends and maybe catch up with some old ones.

There was one clear-cut memory of the pub that teased itself out from the others as we trounced up the stairs and in through the double doors. It was the last week of high school, and a group of us thought it would be great fun to see out the year with fake IDs, cheap wine, and hangovers. It felt like only yesterday and, here I was again, ready to throw another night the brew fairies’ way.

‘Isn’t this weird?’ My eyes zipped around the room, not sure whether I did or didn’t want to see any familiar faces.

Penny grabbed at my hand and pulled me up towards the bar. ‘Yes, but we’re much cooler now.’

A modern foodie flair had replaced the worn yellowing brickwork, Eighties architectural tubular steel, and dart boards. Still, the faces remained generically familiar. The more things change, right?

In an alcove, parents who were silently praying for no injuries or outbursts from their four children. Not quite outside their earshot, a hen’s party clucked to life with the appearance of the perennial favourite: the penis straws.

No, don’t do it.

The local football team had congregated around the bar, insular worshipping mixed with the scratching of heads and arguing about who did or didn’t have the best mark of their recent Grand Final. In the centre of it all, ensconced with back slapping and the odd hoot, was Marcus. Still dressed for work, he sipped from a wine glass and looked my way.

Our eyes met in a slow-motion moment that could have only been choreographed better had Baz Luhrmann turned up with a fish tank and a fancy-dress party. Taking that for the omen it was, I ignored the cotton candy feeling that filled my limbs and ordered a drink. The less I saw of Marcus and his beautiful, but irritatingly smug face tonight, the better.

‘Penis face,’ I grumbled, hoisting myself onto a sticky bar stool.

‘What was that, love?’ Mr Bartender, my new best friend, appeared out of nowhere. He looked cool, like he’d seen it all, blue and white check tea towel over his shoulder, and more faded tattoos than a middle-aged interstate truck driver.

‘Sorry, a glass of pinot gris, please.’ That’ll fool him. Ha. ‘Actually, make it a lemon meringue martini. I need something to really burn through this week.’

Glass in hand, I pirouetted through the crowd, and was spat out the other side into a beer garden. After today, it was just the tropical oasis I needed. With its overhanging green fronds, large palm in the corner, and synthetic turf, it was a fresh break from the monotony of desks, lost pens and a heaving inbox.

We were a small congregation split amongst standing benches and tiny booths made from recycled packing pallets, and mingling became the adult version of musical chairs. At one point, I got stuck with Glenn, Grade Three teacher, who enjoyed Humphrey Bogart films, and was desperate to get some vegan options on the canteen menu. I wasn’t sure our little school was ready for quinoa or tofish, but I wasn’t about to knock his enthusiasm either.

Grace was desperate for a husband and, after a failed engagement and an AWOL boyfriend, had her sights sets upon Marcus. Lucky for him, he was still busy inside with his football club. Her reasoning was the very solid, ‘He’s great with kids and he’s hot. What more could I want?’

Patience, a good heart, commitment, amongst other things.

I considered her words for a few sips of a cocktail as we peered into the bar. There he was, all wrinkly eyes and wide smiles, tie gone, and finally looking relaxed amongst friends. Moving around our group, I landed next to Jack, who had a small audience of his own.

‘I’ve been madly waiting for you make your way over here.’ He wriggled about in his seat and made room for me between himself and Jane.

‘Me?’ I joked. ‘Never.’

‘Yes, you. We were just saying we should play a little game of Get to Know Eleanor, because I think I’m the only one here besides Penny who actually knows you. And, really, I’m sure that doesn’t count because we were like twelve and fourteen at the time and I have a lot of years to catch up on.’

‘Wait.’ I spun in my seat. ‘I thought you were older than that?’

‘Thank you so very much.’ He did little to hide his disgust. ‘I was only ever a few years older than you.’

‘Consider my mind blown.’

‘I’m so offended.’ He sank the last of his wine with a cheeky laugh and a wink. ‘Anyway. Ellie, fast facts.’

‘Shoot.’ I rubbed my hands together and tried to ignore the fact that Marcus was beginning to orbit.

‘Favourite drink?’

I picked up my drink, making a display of it for those around the table. ‘Lemon meringue martini. At least tonight, anyway.’

‘Single? Married? Otherwise?’ Jane asked.

‘Harem,’ I joked, folding my legs underneath me. I waited for the laughter to die down. ‘I am single.’

‘If you had to pick one meal from the pub tonight, what would it be?’ Jack shrugged.

‘For quick and dirty, a ploughman’s lunch. I mean, if you can’t get a platter of cheese, meats and cornichons right, what hope have you got? It makes a perfect picnic, too.’ I could slam down some pickle juice right now, I thought.

‘And onions.’ Marcus’s voice cut across the outdoor space as he pulled a chair up opposite me. Grace shuffled aside to let him in but, with the look she was giving him, she was hoping to make room for him in her pants, too.

I said nothing. Everyone else offered up the best confused looks.

‘What about a long meal?’ Glenn looked glumly at his empty beer. ‘Say, if someone were to cook for you.’

I huffed. ‘Really? Anything I haven’t cooked. I mean, it’s been that long since someone cooked a meal for me, I’d probably settle for a Happy Meal and a sundae at this stage. Although, saying that, I do realise that is still fast food, but I’m sure you get the picture.’

On the subject of food, we ordered an assortment of share plates, all picked through the very scientific method of throwing bar nuts at the menu. Oh, and a ploughman’s platter. The night wore on, plates stacked higher, and every time Marcus came near me, I moved away, until I couldn’t move any further.

Penny, who’d earlier vanished into the throng, resurfaced in my inbox. She was leaving, her message said, with contact details for where she was headed. At least she was being safe, I thought as I scrolled through the length of her message. Still, I wanted to catch her before she vanished into the night. Excusing myself, I left the table, brushing past Marcus on my way through. He reached out, fingers slipping through mine as I placed a hand out to stop him.

When I couldn’t find Penny or her mystery man, I called an end to my own night. I’d had enough to drink, was suitably buzzed, and wasn’t keen on making a complete tit of myself in front of people I’d barely known a week. Good Vibes Ellie was ready to be tucked into bed. I said my goodbyes to cries of, ‘But it’s only just gone eleven, stay for one more drink!’ before making a beeline for the door.

Stepping out onto the street, I pulled my coat tighter around me and tucked my hands under my arms.

‘Eleanor, stop.’ Marcus burst out the front door, squeezing between two people, one arm wrangling his coat about his head. ‘Wait.’

I shot him a filthy look over my shoulder and kept walking.

‘Which way to your place?’ His jacket finally slipped over his shoulders with the soft rustle of expensive fabric.

My eyes widened. ‘I beg yours?’

‘I take it you’re walking home?’ he asked.

‘No, George Jetson was about to pick me up from the taxi rank.’ I swung my arm out and mimicked the noise of the cartoon flying car. ‘I was going to go home and have Rosie make me a pot of tea.’

‘Smart arse,’ he grumbled. ‘You’ve only ingested about half the bar.’

‘Oh, and I suppose you’re going to suddenly mine your stash of chivalry, are you?’ I kept up the quick walk along the main street.

‘Actually, I am,’ he argued. ‘Because I don’t think you should be walking home alone.’

‘You don’t want me walking home alone?’ I stopped on the spot, outside a pie shop that was in the throes of closing for the night, barely a light left on in the place. A teenager moved back and forth with a dirty old mop while a blue-light bug zapper burned brightly above the kitchen door. I turned the buttons on my coat. ‘I suppose you think you’re doing a community service, too. You’re so bloody conceited.’

‘Let me get this straight.’ He shifted on his feet and shoved a hand in his pocket. ‘I’ve just told you I’d like to walk you home to make sure you get there safely, because God knows where Penny’s gone. She obviously cares so much about your welfare that she left you alone in a bar. And you’re the one attacking me?’

‘Or maybe she understands that a woman in her thirties is more than capable of getting home safely.’ I pointed in the general direction of home. ‘It’s six hundred metres, at the most,’ I said, before grumbling, ‘maybe a kilometre.’

‘It may surprise you, but the places you think are safe are not always so, and a beautiful woman walking home slightly tipsy may very well become a target.’

I glared at him. I didn’t know whether to feel patronised or touched by the gesture. Lady Justice was having a hard time weighing up her options, too. I think she was about to shake her Magic 8 Ball.

Reply hazy, try again.

‘So, after the day we’ve both had, if my worry makes me conceited, so be it. Conversely, I have tried no less than six times to talk to you tonight and, on each occasion, you’ve either turned away, or simply ignored me.’

‘You’ve been keeping count?’ I shrieked.

‘So, who’s conceited now?’ Marcus folded his arms across his chest and drummed his fingers. He really was quite attractive. And tall. And pretty.

‘Men can get attacked, too, you know,’ I sputtered. ‘And I’ve been here for years. I know the ways.’

‘So, walk me home instead.’

‘Why? You lost your way?’ I laughed, snapping my fingers in his face. ‘Hold on … did you call me beautiful?’

‘I believe I did, yes.’

‘Right, then,’ I said quietly. ‘Thank you.’

‘You know, I might even kiss you if you’d stop arguing with me for three minutes.’

‘I do not argue with you,’ I said. ‘Anyway, three minutes is quick.’

‘Exhibit A.’ He waved a hand towards me. ‘I can’t even—’

‘So, do it.’ I almost wanted to backtrack immediately. Almost.

‘What?’

‘Do it,’ I said. ‘You’re so sure, do it.’

Marcus shook his fists towards the sky and, with one fell swoop, stepped forward, took my face in his hands, and kissed me. As his thumbs drew against my cheekbones, all I could think was, Oh my God, oh my bloody God! We were the last two people to succeed at getting along with each other this week, so why were we chasing this so far up the hill I was about to fetch a pail of water?

And why the hell did it feel so unbearably good? Heat bloomed in my chest, sending any and all common sense fluttering towards the sun on a trajectory last seen by Icarus. Let’s not forget how well that all ended.

With fingers drawn through my hair, and a tug so gentle it barely registered, my ponytail unravelled and tangled through his fingers.

He drew breath. ‘Not bad for someone who’s always so wound up.’

‘And you’re so stuck up.’ I kissed him again. This time, I fumbled with the front of his shirt, the thick expensive fabric, the tiny translucent buttons that felt colder than the night air, and the soft silk of this tie. My fingers drew a line up his chest, past his collar, and came to rest at the nape of his neck.

‘You wanna just come home with me instead?’ he mumbled against my mouth.

‘Why, so you can save me from the dragons?’

‘Something like that.’

* * *

The Great Penis Drought ended exactly thirty-seven minutes ago.

‘Should we perhaps define this?’ I asked.

Marcus shifted his weight, rolling over to face me. His breath came in tiny puffs that tickled my cheeks. For a moment, I simply enjoyed looking at him, at the self-satisfied smile that barely registered, at the sleepy eyes, and the arms he folded across his chest. A lock of dark hair flopped down into his eyes. I pushed it back and waited.

‘Before I go home and we’re both still scratching our heads?’ I continued in the face of his silence.

There was no dictionary definition for what had just happened. All right, so maybe there was, and I’m sure the thesaurus would have something to say, too. Sex. Sex had just happened. Very sexy sex. I’d have jumped and run for the bathroom if it weren’t for the fact there was a distinct Haven’t Seen Use in a While pain tickling my hamstrings.

‘I suppose we probably should,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper.

‘What do you want to call it?’ I asked.

‘I’m not entirely sure,’ he said.

I tucked hair behind my ear and curled further into the pillow. ‘Do you want a relationship from this? Is that what this is?’

‘How about we don’t call it anything?’ He propped himself up on an elbow. ‘Just … I don’t know right now. Whatever.’

Whatever? What kind of word is that to use in a situation like this? I detested it. Even my woozy brain, which was plummeting to Sober Land (Icarus, remember?), knew that was bad news. It was the word of choice whenever Dean wanted to dismiss my excitement or devalue me in front of his friends. The worst part about it? It worked every single time.

A beloved author popped in to the library for a quick visit? Whatever.

Great day at work today! Whatever.

I’m moving out. Whatever.

Apparently, I’d just slept with Coastal Edition Dean and, as much physical joy as his naked body may have brought, none of it was worth going through that kind of humiliation again.

I was so, so angry at myself.

‘I’m going to have a shower.’ Marcus rolled out of bed and strolled across the bedroom, everything on display, as if being intimate with each other were something we did regularly and not just at the end of a drunken night. His body was every inch the footballer, taut muscles, definition, and legs for miles.

‘Okay,’ I whispered, pulling the duvet up around my chin.

‘You all right?’ The corner of his mouth drew up into a smirk. ‘You don’t want to join me?’

I shook my head and, trying to look coolly casual, picked a clump of mascara from my eyelashes. ‘No, thank you.’

I watched him disappear behind a glass-doored en suite. Shifting, I tried to reconcile his words with a body whose muscles I hadn’t used in far too long, and lady parts that were feeling the aftereffects of a decent seeing to. Finally.

I sat up and took in my surroundings, a room I’d been too preoccupied to look at earlier.

A low-lit bedside lamp gave the room some decent ambiance at least, hiding all the lumps and bumps, and anything else nobody wanted to see. A box of condoms, which had been torn at in desperation, was doing its best impression of an origami flower on the bedside table, and my clothes were strewn from one end of the room to the other, though I was sure my dress was still on the bannister somewhere.

Mixed feelings were something I’d experienced a lot lately, but this was taking the cake and using a blowtorch to light the candles. Earlier, I was oozing confidence and full of those loose-limbed, sated, post-orgasmic feelings. Now, I was panicked. I was a ‘whatever’ again, and reality was coming home to roost. My head was set to wash, and my stomach was on tumble-dry. This was the dumbest idea in the history of my ideas. I had to work with this man. I had to look him in the eye and act as if we hadn’t just had the most incredible toe-curling, back-arching, name-screaming, hair-pulling sex ever.

And he wanted to define it as ‘whatever’.

I was a complete goose.

With the safety of Marcus in the shower, I ran. I threw back the sheets, shimmied back into my underwear, slipped on my shoes, and raced down the stairs for my dress. My handbag and coat had been discarded by the front door and, just as the water upstairs stopped running, the front door closed with a gentle click and I disappeared into the night.