The Game You Played (24 page)

“Seminars aren’t really my thing. Hey, I’m going to go back—”

“Sure?”

“Yes. Sure.”

We walked together towards the Billy Coachman
restaurant.

Sass, Kate, and Pria were gathered together out the front. Sass seemed to be crying. Excusing myself, I rushed up to them.

Sass turned to me with reddened eyes. “I have to go, Feeb.”

“What happened?”

“Nanna Rosie died.”

I gasped, hugging Sass tightly. We’d all called Sass’s grandmother Nanna Rosie. She was the warmest person I could name.

“I’m coming back home with you.” I brushed her hair back from her face.

She shook her head. “I’m catching a cab straight for the airport. Mum sounded a mess over the phone. I have to get up there.”

“But you don’t have a bag packed, or—” I started.

Sass wiped her tear-stained face and managed a sad smile. “Gives me an excuse to go shopping for new things when I get there.”

“I’ll wait with you at the airport,” I insisted. “I don’t want you to go alone.”

“No, sweetie, there’s a flight coming soon. I’ve already rung and checked. I’ll be gone soon after I get there. Stay here. Be me and have fun for me for the rest of the night, okay? Please?”

We stepped arm in arm to the taxi stand and waved Sass good-bye. Sass blew each of us a kiss from the taxi as it drove away.

Pria glanced across at Kate and me. “I think this calls for a toast to Nanna Rosie.”

“Correct.” Kate bunched her arms in close to her chest, shivering. “Let’s head back.”

Fog wisped around us as we made our way to the restaurant again. The band belted out an old Irish song. The music seemed appropriate. Nanna Rosie had come to Australia from Ireland as a young woman.

At a table inside, I ordered a bottle of wine. Red. Strong.

Kate raised her glass. “To Nanna Rosie. She made the best banana cake and told the best stories, especially the racy ones.”

Pria and I raised our glasses.

I was wobbly on my feet when I headed off to the bathroom. I needed a moment by myself, to still the waves of raw panic coursing through me. Saskia wasn’t going to be around for a few days. The cameras for number 29 weren’t going to happen.

In the bathroom, I held my face low to the sink, vomiting a small amount of watery liquid.

Too much time was racing past.

If the cameras weren’t going to be keeping watch, then I had to somehow arrange it myself. Only, I didn’t know the first thing about stop-motion cameras or how to conceal them.

Every night, I had to be out there, looking for the stranger man, watching Bernice, watching number 29.

I cleaned my face with paper towels and drank enough water to get rid of the sour taste in my mouth.

On the way back to the table, someone tugged my shirtsleeve. I spun around to Dash’s amused eyes.

“You’re not walking straight,” he said. “Hey, was your friend okay?”

“Her grandmother just died.”

“That’s rough.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I was thinking. We both gotta eat, right? How about just dinner? Tomorrow night? My shout. You can ask me anything you want. All I ask is that you don’t twist my quotes.”

This guy didn’t give up easily.

“Thanks for the offer, but no.”

“You are damned hard to work out, Saskia.”

“I thought you said people were easy to see through.”

“True. But I need a bit of time to warm up.”

A thought pushed into my head. If I went out to dinner with him, it would give me a cover for tomorrow night. I could go to dinner and then head off to watch number 29. It would give me time to figure something else out—something that wouldn’t make Nan or Dr Moran or Trent Gilroy suspicious that I was doing something I shouldn’t be.

“Okay. Dinner.” I held my breath. It wasn’t a
date
. But it was still dinner out with a man who wasn’t my husband.
A husband who was busily dating another woman.

“Eight good with you?”

“Eight’s perfect.”

“Somewhere at Darling Harbour?”

“Yeah. How about we meet outside here, at the spot we were at earlier?”

“Too easy.”

“Great.”

As I walked away, he caught hold of my sleeve again. “Wait, what’s your last name?”

The question caught me with my guard down. “I prefer not to reveal that.”

“I prefer that you tell me.”

“Nope.”

“Just like that?
Nope?
”

I nodded.

Letting go of me, he held his chin between his thumb and fingers, studying me with his dark gaze. “Isn’t it fair to let me know who you are so I can look you up? Else I might think you’re trying to hide something. Maybe you’re the kind of writer who’s trying to make a name for herself by writing scathing exposés.”

“Maybe you’d better give me enough material so that I can.” I flashed him a smile.

There was a delay before he threw his head back and roared with laughter. “Okay, do your worst. The more moral outrage spread around about me, the better for my career. Gets my name known.”

“I’ll do my best.” I stretched out my hand to shake his.

He reciprocated. But instead of letting go after a polite second, he hung on and squeezed my fingers lightly. “Make sure you wear something other than a wrinkly denim shirt.”

Saturday afternoon

IN THE CORNER OF NAN’S SHOWER, I sank to the floor, my knees drawn up tight to my chest.

The anxiety inside me was a cresting wave that refused to break on the shore.

What am I doing?

I can’t go to dinner with that man. I can’t do it.

Last night I’d been emboldened by a few drinks of champagne and wine and eggnog, and by being Sass.

I let the water run over me until Nan banged on the bathroom and demanded that I stop wasting all the hot water. Too late. The water was already starting to run cold.

I had to call Dash and tell him I couldn’t make it.

No, I couldn’t. I didn’t know his number. Or his last name (even though he thought I knew him).

After I’d dressed and come downstairs, I found Nan outside working on getting her precious ivy to grow over the toolshed, twisting it through the wire mesh that she’d put up before.

“You slept past lunch,” she told me over her shoulder. “There’s a chicken curry in the fridge.”

“Thanks, Nan.”

“You must have had an awful lot to drink, to sleep this late.”

“We had a few toasts to Nanna Rosie. Nan, she died last night.”

She winced. “Oh no. Not Rosie.”

I knew that Nan hearing of deaths of the older group of people she’d known hit her particularly hard. Each death was like a nail in her own coffin. Nan hadn’t even been good friends with Rosie. Rosie had been a firm believer in happiness, not in duty and stoicism, like Nan.

“Sad news, but Sass told me she enjoyed her life ’til the end,” I said, trying to soften the blow. “Saskia flew up to Queensland already.”

“I’ll send a card.” She resumed threading the ivy.

“Nan,” I said hesitantly. “I’m going out tonight. Just to dinner.”

She stopped, her shoulder bones drawing in together. “Who with?”

“A man that I met.”

She started shaking her head even before she turned around. “That’s not the right thing to do.”

“Why isn’t it?”

“You have a husband.”

“A husband who’s dating another woman.”

“You’re not going to fix this by going after other men.”

“I didn’t go after him. He asked me. And anyway, Luke already broke our marriage.”

“A good woman knows to be patient and show her best side. Her husband will see sense, sooner or later.”

I frowned at her with sudden realisation. “Granddad cheated on you, didn’t he?”

Her face crumpled. “Why would you say such a terrible thing?”

“He did, didn’t he? And you just waited it out, right?”

“I don’t want to talk about this, Phoebe. It’s none of your business. In any case, sometimes men stray. If a woman wants to keep the marriage solid, she’ll pull out all stops to get him back.”

“That’s the same kind of advice you used to give Mum. Stay with your husband, no matter how abusive he is. She was your own daughter, Nan. How could you do that?”

She pulled her lips in, dusting her hands of dirt. “I was raised to be strong. Not like you young women of today.”

“You and I have a different idea of what it is to be strong.”

“I was twenty-six, and I already had the two boys,” Nan said with a tremble in her voice. “Your grandfather started chasing a seamstress around. She worked in the textiles factory. What was I going to do? There wasn’t any help back then. I stuck it out. And we ended up having a good life, your grandfather and I.”

I bit my lip. Hard. “Were you happy?”

“Happiness is a fleeting thing. No one has hold of it for long. But a marriage keeps a family together and provides stability. That’s worth a lot. And your grandfather and I were very fond of each other.”

I was about to point out that Mum was never fond of my dad, but in truth, I didn’t know that for certain. Mum was always so guarded about her real feelings.

Leaving Nan to her ivy, I headed into the kitchen to heat up the curry. I took it up to my bedroom.

Down on the street, Bernice was walking home. She was sporting a large, floppy purple handbag. I recognised it from the stash of second-hand wares at number 29.

Damn.
If I’d been out of bed earlier, I could have followed her to see where she was going.

I needed to try to find the stranger tonight.

Closing my eyes, I told myself I needed to get through the dinner with Dash. So that I could head out and search without Nan getting suspicious.

Three hours later, I began getting everything ready. I’d wear tight black pants, a nice red top, boots, and a black jacket tonight. In my bag, I packed a knit cap, warm gloves, and my notebook. I spent ten minutes researching evolutionary psychology on the internet. If I was going to pretend to interview a scientist, I needed to know a bit about my subject.

Dr Moran called me on the phone just as I was packing two of Nan’s sharpest kitchen knives into my bag. She was surprised when I told her about my
big step
of going out on a date night. I could tell by her voice that she didn’t know whether to cheer or be alarmed. If she could see me right now, she’d definitely swing to the alarmed side.

Another three hours after that, I was ready to leave. It would take me the better part of half an hour to walk to Darling Harbour.

Nan seemed to control her glaring expression somewhat as I headed for the front door.

“I’ll be back before midnight,” I told her.

“Where is he? Isn’t he picking you up?”

“I’m meeting him just down the road.”

“You stay safe and make him bring you home,” she told me.

I nodded, not wanting to verbalise yet another lie.

The night sky was clearer than the sky during the day had been. Thank God, the ever-present rain and fog were holding off tonight.

I walked to the pier and waited. I wanted to be the first one there. I needed to be the one to set the tone for the date. If I could control everything with Dash tonight, I could get through it.
Mayb
e.

Seagulls burst from the dark sky as I stood by the pylon. Like harbingers of doom from an apocalypse movie.

Minutes ticked. He was late.

I waited longer. Until he was so late that I was starting to feel a bit like an idiot. People in the outdoor cafes and bars were watching me. They all had a good view. I shouldn’t have made this the meeting place. Last night, in the deep of the fog, it hadn’t seemed quite so public.

So, he’d ditched me for a better option.

I’d have to fill in some time before I headed back to my street.

I walked the loser’s walk of shame towards the nearest bar and ordered a drink. I seated myself on a bar stool. Within the space of five minutes, I was hit upon by two men.

Look, here she is. The poor loser girl who got stood up. She’s an easy target now that she’s got the stink of rejection on her.

Yet another man made his move. He parked himself on the stool next to mine, doing a quick, nervous lick of his bottom lip. He was bulky underneath his too-tight shirt. It was obvious he worked out. A lot. Too much. Sleeping with him must be like sleeping next to a bundle of boulders.

I forced myself to grin and make light conversation. I tried to channel Sass. Sass flirted with everyone. Even women. Even with my nan.

“Are you meeting with friends?” the bulky man asked me.

“A guy. But it looks like he found something better to do.”

The man stared at me with interest. “So, are you coming home with me instead?”

I straightened, confused. “How did the conversation get
there
?”

“Just want to know where I stand. We could be wasting your time and mine if this isn’t headed anywhere.”

I felt so, so far out of the singles scene. It all felt as impersonal as a transaction. Only no money was being exchanged. Just time. And cheap conversation. And most of all, bodies.

“Okay, I’ll give you an answer,” I told him. “In respect of your time, the answer’s no.”

He barely missed a beat. “Your answer doesn’t have to be no. Let’s break this down. What are your reasons for saying no to me?”

“A second ago, you were worried about wasting your time. Well, you’re not going to get productive here. You might as well go try your luck with someone else.”

“You’d be surprised how many women respond to being asked straight out if they want to sleep with me. It gives them a direction. But maybe you’re not like that and I took this too fast. Let’s dial it back a bit. What do you do for work?”

I leaned towards him slightly and spoke slowly and concisely. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

“That’s a bitchy thing to say.” But he remained sitting there, sipping his drink, as though he believed that getting past my defences was just a matter of persistence. “You don’t even know me, but you’re just dismissing me.”

“I’m not dismissing you. Just your offer.”

I was completely out of my depth.
Sass would have handled it like an expert. I wasn’t Sass.

I needed to get out of here. It was too crowded. Airless. The body heat of the packed crowed was mixing with perfume and sweat and sour alcohol. The music was hammering my ears. Sass had no problem entering bars alone. I didn’t know how she did it. I didn’t know
why
she did it.

The bulky man was obviously still not satisfied. He didn’t leave. “You damned women get it too easy. You just get to sit there like a princess and wait for men to come to you.”

I eyed him directly. “What if I just wanted a drink or two to drown my sorrows before I head home? What makes you think I’m some kind of man-processing factory?”

He chewed his lip, not answering. His eyes were round and strangely childlike in that meaty, square-jawed face. I realised he was probably only twenty-two. I felt a weird twinge of pity for him.

“Hey bud, she’s with me,” came a voice from the other side of me. An American voice.

I turned, and it was Dash.

Dash, in a midnight-blue shirt and his hair smoother than it had been last night, was even better looking than I’d remembered. He had a kind of young Keanu Reeves look to his features.

The bulky guy pulled himself up from the stool, but then stopped, peering at Dash. “Hey, I went to a seminar today. Aren’t you Dash Cit—?”

“Whatever,” Dash cut in. “Get lost and stop bugging people.”

Shaking his head, Mr Bulky began making his way back to wherever he came from. I stared after him. Mr Bulky hadn’t left when I’d asked him to. He’d only left when another male had basically claimed me. I resisted an urge to follow and kick him in the shin.

Dash slid onto the stool that Mr Bulky had deserted “I caught the last couple of things that jerk said.”

“I think he’s just a bit of a stupid kid, trying out pickup lines.”

“Sorry I’m late. Got caught up and couldn’t get away.”

“Don’t sweat it. After all, I had a bar buddy to keep me company.” I made a wry face.

A grin caught at the edges of his mouth. “Hungry?”

“Yeah.” I was never hungry.

I walked with him to a restaurant that I’d chosen. I’d been to it years ago with Sass, Pria, and Kate. I remembered the food had been good.

I’d booked a table outside. Being outside made me feel less anxious. Like if I needed to get up and run, I could.

The night remained clear, lights from the boats reflecting on the water. A large two-level boat filled with diners in formal dress sat at the edge of the boardwalk. A wedding maybe.

Dash ordered a bottle of wine before we’d even seated ourselves.

“So, should we get started on the interview?” I asked.

“I worked a three-hour seminar today. We’ll eat first. Talk shop later.”

“I’m cool with that.”

“Why don’t you tell me about you? You know stuff about me. I know zero about you.”

“That wasn’t the point of coming here tonight.”

“Yeah, but even I get bored talking about myself.”

“Maybe you should work on your notoriety, so you don’t run out of material.”

He laughed at my joke. He laughed so easily. So naturally. Luke wasn’t like that. Luke had a pre-approved list of comedians and comic actors that he found funny, and all other attempts at humour were met with stone-cold silence. Including mine. Especially mine. He never found me funny.

A waiter came with the wine then, rescuing me from talking about myself for the moment.

Straight after we ordered, my phone buzzed. It was Luke. The message said
Urgent
.

“Would you excuse me?” I asked Dash.

“Go right ahead.”

Stepping away out of Dash’s earshot, I called Luke.

When Luke answered, he sounded a little lazy, as though he was lying around somewhere.