The Girl in the Yellow Vest (21 page)

She got up so quickly to answer the door that Charlotte had to wonder if she had offended her. But she came back into the room a second later all smiles.

‘Hey, Charlotte!’ Will called from the kitchen. He was carrying a plate of sausages and a bag full of DVDs. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine,’ she said, smiling. ‘And call me Lottie.’

‘So what are we talking about?’ Will asked as he put a saucepan on the stove and turned on the heat.

‘Oh, you know,’ Emily said with a wink at Charlotte, ‘just girl stuff.’

Will grimaced as he separated the sausages. ‘So I guess we’re watching a romantic comedy tonight? Should I slit my wrists now or after dinner?’

Charlotte laughed and then, much to Will’s embarrassment, Emily regaled her with an account of all his failed relationships. She watched the two of them in wonder, finishing each other’s sentences, teasing each other like two kids in a playground. Did they honestly not see themselves?

‘You never did tell me what went wrong between you and Sasha,’ Emily said light-heartedly as she poured a glass of wine for Will. Charlotte couldn’t help but notice how he took it but looked away.

‘Didn’t I?’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Emily took a swig of her own. ‘Why
did
you break up with her?’

‘
She
,’ Will went back to the fry pan to check on the sausages, ‘broke up with me.’

Emily lowered her glass. ‘Yes, but
why
?’

‘She said she didn’t trust me.’ Will glanced up, his eyes strangely intense. ‘Accused me of being in love with somebody else.’

Emily let loose a peal of laughter. ‘Well, that was pretty dumb of her, wasn’t it?’ She turned to Charlotte and said informatively, ‘
Will
is physically incapable of being dishonest. He couldn’t tell a lie to save his life.’

‘Good to know,’ said Will dryly.

‘So I take it you’re both single at the moment?’ Charlotte asked nonchalantly.

‘Yeah,’ Emily nodded.

‘No one’s caught your eye?’ She looked carefully at Emily.

‘Well, I’m pretty fussy,’ Emily sighed. ‘After Trent, I want to be really careful.’

She walked out of the kitchen to sit down with Charlotte on the couch again, happy apparently to let Will take over all the cooking.

‘So what are you looking for?’ Charlotte asked quietly.

Emily tilted her head in thought. ‘I want someone who isn’t going to stuff me around. They have to be in touch with their emotions and know for sure how they feel.’

‘Ow! That’s hot.’ Will dropped the sausage he’d been trying to put into a hot-dog bun.

‘I want someone who cares about my opinions, who asks me what I need.’

‘Em, do you want onions in yours?’

‘I want him to be hot, don’t get me wrong. But it can’t all be physical. He’s got to be content to just talk to me sometimes.’

‘Earth to Emily. Earth to Emily!’ came an irritated voice from the kitchen. ‘I’m speaking to you!’

She rolled her eyes and threw over her shoulder, ‘Yeah, yeah, onions.’ She turned back to Charlotte. ‘Do you hear what I’m saying?’

Charlotte’s gaze passed from Emily to Will, who was piling five hot dogs on a plate, and threw the question back at her. ‘Do
you
hear what you’re saying?’

‘Huh?’

Just then Will sat down on the couch next to them, putting the plate of hot dogs on the coffee table. ‘Personally, I think we should watch
Zombie Land
,’ he said from left field. ‘It’s definitely the pick of the bunch.’ He finally noticed the silence that had fallen between Emily and Charlotte. ‘What?’

‘You know, I might leave you guys to it.’ Charlotte got up under a chorus of protest. ‘No, I really should go. I should get back to Mum. Have fun, you two.’

They said goodbye and she smiled to herself as she shut the front door behind her.
Some people have the best problems
.

It had been a very difficult fortnight to say the least. First, the painting subcontractor’s team was playing up. They were working far too slow and putting everyone else’s schedules behind. A couple of the workers were refusing to come in. Something about poor amenities for their use or some such rubbish. What did they expect? A five-star lunch room, complete with chef and hot dinner towels before your meal? Honestly, he wasn’t even going to credit their complaints with a comment. Then Will’s girlfriend had rocked up, immediately decreasing the level of concentration in his office by half. He couldn’t conceive how he had ever agreed to that one. The girl was eager enough but that only served to make her all the more attractive and he wasn’t running a Miss Australia pageant.

Now it was Thursday and he found himself in his office, not answering technical queries, not planning his four-day look ahead, not scheduling progress meetings but glancing at the clock.

In one hour he had to take Augustus for his check up.

There was an annoying knock on his office door.
What now?
‘Come in.’ The door opened and a head poked around. It was the planning manager. ‘What do you want?’

‘Um . . .’ His eyes darted. ‘We have a three o’clock meeting, don’t we?’

Mark frowned. He’d forgotten about that.

The planner swallowed. ‘I can come back.’

‘Come in,’ Mark gestured sourly.

The planning manager complied, bringing with him a couple of large bar charts, which Mark eyed suspiciously. This distrust was not unfounded. The figures were in fact worse than his own mental projections. They were behind in all areas of the project.
All areas.
Not a single team was running on schedule. What was wrong with his staff?

At the end of the meeting, Mark left his desk and went to the kitchen to get himself a coffee. From this vantage point, he was able to observe with disgust the following occurrence. His new graduate, who, much to his great fortune, he had not yet had the pleasure of meeting face to face, wasn’t sitting at her own desk. Where her desk was, he had no idea. That wasn’t the point. The point was, she just appeared to be flittering about his office. Taking this drawing from that file. Going to this bookcase and then to that one. Photocopying God only knows what. No doubt, something important in
her
mind.

The point being, as absorbed as she was in her task, no one else was absorbed in theirs.

His piling engineer observed her walk from the bookcase to the photocopier.

His procurement officer watched her stroll from the layout table to the pin-up board.

And his quality manager craned his neck to watch her bend over to pick up a highlighter she’d dropped.

No wonder they were so behind. Enough was enough.

Why had he ever agreed to let this girl in? Oh yes, another one of Kathryn’s bright ideas. Well, maybe he could kill two birds with one stone: increase his men’s concentration and increase the productivity of his painting team.

He walked over to the girl and stood in front of the layout table until she noticed him. She looked up, her big eyes rounding even further.

‘Er . . . hi.’

‘You must be my new graduate.’

‘Yes, Emily Woods. I’m very happy to be here. Thank you for taking me on. I’ve been really enjoying –’

‘Yes, yes, we’ll dispense with the pleasantries. What are you doing?’

‘Well,’ she began shyly, ‘we have ten pre-fabricated trusses arriving next week and I’m trying to organise –’

‘Yes, that is next week. This week, the painters have fallen behind as they have the week before and the week before that.’

‘The painters?’ she faltered.

‘I have ten deck beams in the yard that are just sitting there doing nothing. I can’t use them because the painters haven’t got around to spark testing them yet. I need you in the field.’

Her face lit like a bulb. ‘You want me supervise the installation of these beams? Sir, I can’t tell you –’

‘No,’ he cut her off. ‘I want you to spark test them.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I want you to make sure that they’ve all been properly painted and then release them to be used.’

‘But I’m not a painter –’

‘Ben will show you how.’

Ben, the quality manager, who had been rather ineffectually pretending not to eavesdrop, stood up. ‘Beg your pardon, sir?’

‘Show her how, will you? I’m going out. Oh,’ he thought of something, turned back and held out his hand to the girl, ‘welcome to the Hay Point Wharf Expansion, Emily. I’m Mark Crawford.’

In a sort of daze, she lifted her hand and gave him what could only be described as a wet-fish handshake. He disengaged himself and made for the exit.

It was time to get Augustus. As he put his cage into the ute, he hoped that both his luck and his project progress improved next week. It would be a colossal embarrassment if they were not ready in time for the shiploader.

As he fished his keys out of his pocket, his fingers brushed Kathryn’s ever-present list. Unable to resist the pull, he took it out to read it again, as he often did. His wife’s last instructions were too hard to throw away. To make matters worse, he found himself involuntarily following them. Even now, he was scanning the list to see what he was up to.

Number four. Bake a cake.

Kathryn had been a chef. As far he was concerned she remained the most talented cook he’d ever met. Ever since they had married, food had infused his life, blanketing it with delightful smells and tastes and textures. He missed watching her experiment at weekends. He missed coming home to a house filled with the juicy aroma of roast beef. He knew exactly which cake she wanted him to bake.

Comfort food had been Kathryn’s answer to everything. (How his wife hadn’t been the size of house he’d never know.) When she was excited about something, she’d make chocolate tarts. When she was feeling down, she’d make stew. ‘Something hearty to warm the soul.’ When she was angry, seafood seemed to be the dish of the day. How many times had she given him prawns with severed heads when she was pissed off, or crab cooked whole?

But cake . . . cake was reserved for those moments when she just needed to stop and think.

Whenever she was faced with a difficult dilemma, a ticklish predicament, an interesting but irreconcilable problem, she would head straight to the kitchen to bake. There was nothing that helped Kathryn nut out a problem better than mixing flour, butter and eggs. And if it were a particularly stubborn problem the cake would be chocolate. A decadent mud variety. It got to the point where he wished they had more issues in their lives.

I can’t do it.

Even if he could cook, which he couldn’t, doing something like this would release memories he couldn’t face again. He grunted. Maybe that had been her plan.

He started the engine and drove to Mackay.

The appointment was shorter than expected. Augustus’s splint did not need adjustment and they were back in the car again within an hour. Mark put the turkey on the front seat. Unable to stand for too long, it sat there rather listlessly, the small plastic bucket still encasing its head.

‘I suppose you think you’ve got it tough,’ Mark remarked.

Augustus ignored him.

‘You do realise that I’m your benefactor?’ he said, as he restarted the engine. ‘The only reason you’re alive is because of me.’

The bird finally raised its head and gave him a beady stare.

‘Fine, it was me who ran you over in the first place, but you have to admit, that wasn’t my fault.’

The turkey averted its head.

‘You know, insolence doesn’t look good on you.’

The turkey closed his eyes.

As the scenery flew by the windows Mark dared to say what was on his mind. ‘I just wanted to ask you . . . you know, just in case, when you were lying there under my car tyre heading towards the light . . . Did you happen to see my wife?’

Augustus did not stir.

‘I guess not. It was a long shot, I know, as technically you didn’t die, but it’s just that I wish I knew what was in her head when she gave me this damn list to complete. So,’ he tried conversationally, ‘feel like baking tonight?’

The turkey finally opened both eyes and put his head up in what could only be described as the bird version of horror.

‘Relax!’ Mark shot at him. ‘I wasn’t talking about putting you in the oven. I’m thinking of baking a cake.’