Training Days (13 page)

Ally held her mobile to her ear, only partially listening to the message that would lead her into James’s voice mail.
Nice
. That was also the word she had used to describe someone else very recently. And that someone lived by a completely different ethos than James.

Morgan.

Ally didn’t want to think about her, so she didn’t. She left a short message for James then checked her own voice mailbox. There were sixteen new messages. That should keep her well occupied for a while. And after that she’d get down to some serious work on her Kalgoorlie design.

Yes. That was a good plan for the day. And come tonight she’d rap on the door of the person she wasn’t thinking about and tell her just what she thought of her and her “I’m a lesbian” tale. But then, if it was untrue, why had the person she was not thinking about even bothered saying it in the first place? Surely there was nothing to gain from saying such a thing. Unless of course she did it for the attention. Maybe once the cameras stopped rolling she had to do something to keep “all eyes on me.”

God, who knew.
And who cared? Ally shook Morgan from her thoughts once and for all, put her ear to the phone and listened to what had been happening in her world while she was out of network range.

At ten to ten that night Ally set down her pencil and ruler, interlocked her fingers and stretched her arms out in front of her. She really should get her skates on and freshen up if she wanted to meet the person she promised not to think about—but actually had been thinking about all day—at their scheduled time.
If
was the operative word here, however. She still hadn’t decided if she wanted to keep their appointment or not.

Ally stared directly in front of her, her gaze settling on a little chip some previous passenger had taken out of the wood paneling that lined her compartment. She’d studied the chip countless times since catching sight of it midmorning. In fact, she’d looked at it often enough and long enough over the course of the day that had she been asked to reproduce it on paper, she’d almost certainly draw an exact replica. Ally sighed, forcing her eyes away. Somehow, she didn’t think staring at a chip in the wall was exactly what her boss had meant when he told her to use this train trip as a “brain-expanding” experience. She looked dismally down to the papers strewn across the table. She hadn’t made too much progress on her Kalgoorlie design either.

Although little progress had been made on the work front, Ally did feel her mind had had a workout today. Each session of chip-staring had been accompanied by a series of mental gymnastics. Morganastics, she had named the process, her mental muscles consistently being stretched in the same Morgan-related direction. Her mind would tumble and twirl around the information it had accumulated over the past two days. Eventually it would settle gracefully on a conclusion, then, without warning, a new routine would commence and her thoughts would somersault away, to land in a completely different position.

Given the series of conflicting stories Ally’s brain had been presented with since boarding the train in Kalgoorlie, she wasn’t too surprised it was having problems processing them correctly. What was surprising was the amount of energy she had allowed her brain cells to expend on the process. After all, was she not the one to keep saying how she really didn’t care what Morgan did behind closed doors?

Unfortunately, however, Ally did care. It was during her pre-lunch session of Morganastics that she admitted—in the time since she had been dragged kicking and screaming into the world of Morgan Silverstone—there had been a shift in her mode of thinking. She had never been impressed by celebrity. Sure, she could appreciate their work, whether it be a song, a movie or a piece of art, but she had never understood the tendency for so many people—such as Marge—to worship the ground their celebrity of choice walked on, or to want to delve into every aspect of their lives. She’d never bought a magazine or a newspaper because it headlined some celebrity morsel or scandal. She just didn’t care. But now . . . Morgan the out-of-reach celebrity was well and truly within reach. Under the
Bonnes Vacances
persona was a living, breathing, three-dimensional person. Not larger than life. Just a regular person. In the short time they had spent together Ally had decided she liked Morgan. Quite a lot, actually.

Until she’d realized she’d been lied to just once too often.

Or at least she thought she’d been lied to once too often. Ally took her attention off the chip, picked up her pencil and tapped the end of it on the table top. She sighed in frustration. This was the point that had been stretching her mental capacities throughout the day. She just couldn’t figure out if Morgan was telling the truth or not.

Was Morgan a lesbian?

Or wasn’t she?

And did it really matter to her?

Ally tapped her pencil on the table with an increased rhythm. Normally she would say no, it didn’t matter. She might not know any lesbians, but she did know she wasn’t a homophobe. Or was she? The thought of Morgan being a woman who liked— loved—other women, was . . . unnerving. Maybe she was only okay if someone was a lesbian from a distance? More strangely, when Ally shifted her thoughts to the idea of Morgan
not
being a lesbian, it too sat uncomfortably. She closed her eyes and imagined Morgan standing in front of her, in the dress she had seen her wear this morning, and saying “I’m not a lesbian after all. I like men.”

How would she respond to that?

Ally couldn’t think of a single thing she might say. With her eyes still closed, she mentally eyed Morgan’s face, her shoulders, stopping just shy of the beginning of cleavage.

Ally’s eyes flew open. What she felt as she sat there imagining that Morgan was not gay was . . . disappointment.

Jesus
. That really was not a good thing to be feeling. She checked her watch again. It was three minutes past ten. She was late to her appointment. But it didn’t matter, because she had just decided she wasn’t going to keep it.

Ally threw her pencil onto the table and grabbed her phone. Since the empty expanses were behind them and they were now traveling through the more densely populated eastern states there should be no more problems latching onto a network. There wasn’t and it answered after only three rings.

“Hello, James. It’s Alison.” She closed her eyes again and imagined James as he relaxed in front of the television, an open book on his lap and a tumbler of Scotch by his side. His image was reliably comfortable. “I miss you.”

Morgan had returned to the compartment she now shared with Kitty not too long after nine thirty—a lot earlier than expected. She had begged off joining the crew for a post-filming and post-dinner drink, preferring to be alone. The first fifteen minutes of her solitude had been used to good effect, removing her on-camera makeup, cleaning her teeth, reapplying her perfume and having a general freshen-up. She stayed in the clothes she’d worn for the filming of dining in Red, casual linen slacks and a collared, sleeveless shirt. It was a little cool so Morgan fished into one of her bags and pulled out a light cardigan. She didn’t put it on, instead standing in front of the mirror again and examining her appearance. She undid one of the top buttons on her shirt, pushed out her chest a little and checked the effect.

She did the button up again.

And she put on her cardigan.

Then she sat on her freshly made bottom bunk and checked her voice mail. There were a couple of new messages since she’d last checked late that afternoon. Her agent sounded his usual excited self, announcing some “
very
exciting opportunity” and wanting her to call as soon as she got the message. She casually speculated over the reason. It wasn’t about a possible pay increase with the network—they’d only finished negotiating a new contract late last year and she was locked in, at a very generous salary, thank you, for the next three years. It couldn’t be because some company wanted her to endorse their product or service—that was strictly prohibited under the conditions of her contract. And it couldn’t be for any acting positions. Last Christmas she had dabbled in the world of theater, via a part as the Wicked Witch in a Christmas pantomime. Her performance had been so stiff she may as well have been the witch’s broomstick, so she and her agent had agreed it best she only step onto a stage when she was playing herself. So his call was probably for some new event someone wanted her to attend or host. Morgan turned up her nose. Exciting opportunity or not, she had enough things to occupy her time already. As it was, the afternoon of her one day off this fortnight—Sunday—had been booked for months. Of all things, she had agreed to be one of the “lots” at a charity auction being staged by the fundraising committee at a prestigious private school for boys in Sydney. The school was raising funds to buy computers for a very poor school in India, so it was for a good cause, but still, in addition to losing her Sunday afternoon, she would subsequently have to spend another of her precious free afternoons or evenings doing whatever the highest bidder wanted. Within reason of course. Morgan decided that whatever her agent was frothing at the mouth for her to do, she was going to decline. She also wasn’t going to call him now. It could wait until tomorrow. She went on to the next message.

It was her mum. “Call me when you get home, dear.”

“Yes, Mum.” Morgan added her mum’s name below her agent’s in her little notebook.

By the time she had finished, there was a list of five names to call. She smiled at the last on her list. Audrey.

Audrey had been, and still was, a lecturer at the university where Morgan had completed her journalism degree. She had also been the first of her four Australian lovers. Audrey, while trampling over all the boundaries in the sacrosanct teacher/student relationship, subsequently trampled all over Morgan’s heart by announcing a sudden attack of teacher/student morals. The breakup was not pretty. Morgan threatened to tell the dean, an act that could only end in either the sacking or forced resignation of her lecturer. Audrey, having full knowledge of Morgan’s ambitions to become a television journalist, and also knowing of the postgraduation cadetship she had managed to secure with one of the regional stations, subsequently threatened to write a revealing letter to the well-known bigot of a network manager and hence “shoot down her career” before it even got off the ground. Neither had followed through on the threats, but both kept their word not to see or speak to each other. Morgan swapped her lecture with Audrey for one at a different day and time, graduated without fuss and moved to South Australia to take up her cadetship. After a year or so, a chance meeting at Sydney’s Circular Quay saw their enmity dissolve into friendship. Now they called each other regularly and saw each other when they had the chance.

Morgan never forgot the lesson Audrey’s threat had taught her, and in her early days of television she kept a low, low personal profile. When temptation did get the best of her she was selective, making sure her lovers had as much, if not more, to lose than she did if word of their affair got out. When first snagging her position at
Bonnes Vacances
, Morgan went a little wild. She was akin to a starved woman and the world her buffet. She feasted at every opportunity, only shaking her head at the Australian platter.

Not that that stopped her from looking, of course. There surely was some very tasty-looking Australian eye candy out there. Speaking of which . . . Morgan checked her watch. It was five past ten.

Ally was late. But not quite fashionably so. No need to send out a search party just yet. Morgan set her phone aside and stood in front of the mirror again. She fussed with a strand of hair, aiming for a more messy, carefree look than a well-coiffed one. She removed her cardigan, undid her top shirt button again and sat back down on her bunk. She stood, paced a little in the confined space, stopped at the mirror again and once more fastened her top button.

She checked her watch. Eleven past ten. The fashionably late should be turning up by now. Morgan bit down on her impulse to open the compartment door and scan the corridor. If Ally was on her way, then she’d know Morgan had been looking out for her. And that wasn’t the impression Morgan wanted to give. She wanted Ally to think her announcement this morning was no big deal, that it was simply a case of clearing the air, getting a niggling little annoyance out in the open so they could continue with their friendship.

Friendship.

Morgan plopped back onto her bunk, imagining a friendship with Ally. She dreamed of calling her for a chat, meeting her for a coffee, having lunch with her and a couple of other girlfriends. They were easy scenes to conjure. She could picture Ally reclined at her desk, one foot curled under her thigh, playing with her pencil as she smiled at whatever Morgan was relaying to her on the phone. Then her expression would become more serious and she would remove her tucked leg to sit with elbows leaning on her desk, intent on the conversation. And she could picture them at a coffee shop. They’d go to one of those book-shop cafés—the sort that always has nice comfy armchairs and low coffee tables. They’d pick a couch in a sunny spot near a window, and they’d sit facing each other, sipping on little espressos. They’d be critiquing the coffee—as they always did—and planning their next café stop, their plan being to visit every coffee venue in Sydney until they found the ultimate caffeine hit. Their lunches would be in warm, sunny spots. Modern venues with clean, cool lines, crisp napkins and oversized plates with marvelously presented food. By some unspoken agreement, they’d both always arrive early to these luncheons. Early enough for them both to share the highlights of the days since they’d last met and indulge in one or two of the private jokes they were sure to have by then. As their friends arrived, a glance would pass between them—one that spoke of regret that their company now had to be shared. And they’d linger long after their friends had gone. Not necessarily talking. But just easy with each other. Easy enough that Ally would not shy away when Morgan would reach across the table and lay her hand on hers . . .