Reunion

by Jane Frances

  Heart in her throat, Cathy slid the shower screen open.

  Lisa spun around, frightened. She had been cleaning her teeth but now stood stock still, toothbrush in her mouth and toothpaste foam wending its way down one side of her chin.

  Cathy met the eyes of blue. Blood hammered in her ears, and her knees felt weak. Still, she held her gaze to Lisa’s and broke it only for the time it took to lift her T-shirt over her head. It fell to the floor, and was soon joined by her panties. She stepped into the shower recess.

  “You remember last night you said you had something you wanted to tell me?”

  Whether Lisa remembered or not Cathy couldn’t fathom. Lisa stood motionless, water streaming over the back of her head. A glob of toothpaste dropped from her chin to her chest and was immediately swept away by the stream of water.

  Cathy pressed on. “Well, I have something I want to tell you, too.”

  “What’s that?” Barely a squeak emerged, not at all aided by the toothbrush still firmly planted in Lisa’s mouth.

  Cathy reached to guide the offending implement away. “This.” The toothbrush fell from Lisa’s mouth as Cathy’s lips met hers . . .

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  Copyright© 2005 by Jane Frances

  Bella Books, Inc.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First Edition

  Editor: Pam Berard

  Cover designer: Sandy Knowles

  ISBN 1-59493-046-5

  Dedication

  For Cheryl

  Acknowledgments

  Sincere thanks to all who provided me with advice, encouragement and support during the writing of Reunion. Some are current and some are past colleagues, and all extraordinary friends— Caroline, Don, Elise, Fleur, Jan, Joelle, Joey, and Lee.

  And special thanks to Cheryl.

  About the Author

  If asked to describe herself, Jane Frances would say she was “an active daydreamer with a practical bent.” A model student at school, Jane left home to attend university and subsequently discovered life outside the classroom. Many years later she graduated, with an ordinary degree but first-class memories of the journey.

  Her studies took her to the marketing department of a city-based educational institution in Perth Western Australia, where she spent more than a decade working with a creative and supportive team.

  Reunion is Jane’s first novel. A first-time writer, she is pursuing a lifelong love of reading and self-expression through the written word.

  Jane currently lives in Paris, where she is happily pounding the keys on her next novel and getting into all sorts of strife as she proves over and over her lack of aptitude for learning a second language!

  Chapter One

  Within minutes of stepping inside the warehouse, Lisa felt sweat trickle down her temples. It was unseasonably hot for late March, a month into autumn for Perth, a city renowned for its Mediterranean climate. For only ten in the morning, the heat inside was stifling and she wondered how on earth the staff managed to work a shift without keeling over from exhaustion.

  Lisa could suppose only that the air-conditioning had broken down. She didn’t recall the humidity being this bad on previous visits. But then again, on her previous visits she had been in the midst of buyer’s fever, practically salivating at the sight of floor to ceiling terra cotta and stonework. Lisa recalled walking endlessly up and down the towering aisles of pots, urns, sculptures and anything that had ever been made from terra cotta or stone, visualizing the endless possibilities of having this or that in her garden, totally spoilt for choice and unable to make a decision despite having arrived with a preplanned design in hand.

  Luckily, her friend Van—who was the reason Lisa made the trek to the wholesalers today—did not operate on the same level. Van needed two large pots for the entrance to her newly erected gazebo, and as soon as she spied the ones she wanted, she headed straight for them.

  She nearly fainted at the cost. “This is the wholesale price?”

  Lisa nodded. “Terra’s not cheap you know. And these aren’t your average petunia-sized pots.”

  “I suppose not,” Van sighed. Indeed, these containers were huge. They had to be to take the orange trees she planned to plant them out with. “Okay, let’s go make Visa’s day.”

  “Hang on a sec,” Lisa said, grabbing Van’s sleeve before she could make a dash to the cash register. “They’ll take them from up there.” She pointed to the carefully packed pots stacked in piles of three almost twelve feet above floor level. “Don’t you think you should check them a bit more closely first? You could get a cracked one if you ask for a blind delivery.”

  Van shot Lisa a look that implied no one would dare send her a cracked pot.

  “A hairline crack gets bigger over time you know,” Lisa continued, “and it would only get bigger during transit. You may as well check now and make sure they’re perfect. Then, you can refuse delivery if you’re not happy.”

  Considering the amount of credit she was about to clock up, Van agreed. She caught the attention of one of the staff by giving a sharp two-fingered whistle.

  In the minutes it took the attendant to find and fire up a forklift, the heat began to really close in on Lisa. She pulled an ever-present rag from the depths of her shorts pocket and patted her face and neck. “I’m going outside for a few minutes.”

  “Okay,” Van spoke skyward, too engrossed in watching the prongs of the forklift inch their way into a pallet to glance at Lisa’s already retreating figure. “I’ll give a yell when they’ve got them down.”

  Striding toward the entrance and the promise of air that was, if not cool, at least moving, Lisa shot her head around at the sudden crash that came from the other end of the warehouse. “Whoops,” she said under her breath.

  Lisa, along with a clutch of other customers, watched in silence as the young fellow who’d taken a liking to a pot at the bottom of a pot pyramid balefully surveyed the results of his impatience. Obviously he had never shopped with his mother for fruit and vegetables. One badly picked orange was a lesson learned for life.

  The stunned silence was broken as staff rushed to the scene, most cursing, none looking in any way pleased with this most unpleasant interruption. Lisa followed, not to witness the effusive apologies of Mr. Impatient, but to more closely inspect an item which, prior to the pot topple, had been hidden from view.

  Later, on the drive home, Lisa chirped happily as she stole another look through the rearview mirror at her impulse purchase, tightly secured with rope on the tray of her utility. “It must have been fate,” she said. “I never would have seen it if that guy hadn’t smashed all those pots.”

  What she had spied was part of a brand-new shipment, waiting to be located to the main floor of the warehouse. A thorough inspection through the wooden packing frame it was still suspended in, a quick swipe of her credit card, and the Grecian-style amphora was hers. It was going to look perfect in the arbor at the end of her yard. Lisa couldn’t wait to get it home to show Janice.

  Back at Van’s place, Lisa declined the offer of a cool drink. Van folded her arms. “It’s totally unfair you know,” she said. “You get to take your purchase home with you. I have to wait a whole week.”

  Lisa grinned. Van knew there was no way they could have unloaded her pots; they were just too heavy. And even if they managed without breakage, there was the added problem of maneuvering them into plac
e. It was much safer to leave it to the professionals.

  “Thanks for your help today.” Van caught Lisa in a quick hug before hopping out of the cab. “You saved me a fortune.”

  “No worries,” Lisa said. She had been more than happy to help. After all, getting items at wholesale price was one of the advantages she enjoyed as a small business owner. “You can repay me with bags of oranges for the rest of your life. Speaking of which, do you want to take advantage of me again to buy your orange trees?”

  Van slammed the cab door and leaned on the open window frame. “I’ll take advantage of you any chance I get, sweetheart.”

  “Promises, promises.” Lisa threw the column shift into reverse and revved the motor. “Say hi to Steph for me.” With that she pulled out of the driveway and headed home.

  As Lisa approached home, she felt a prickle of annoyance. An old blue Commodore sat in her driveway. She parked on the street and prickled again at the steady thump that emanated from inside the house. Janice had promised she was going to get down to some studying today, and unless times really had changed since Lisa’s student days, ear-popping music wasn’t exactly conducive to mental gymnastics.

  Spying old Mrs. Trimble heading in her direction, Lisa hurried her footsteps. Twice before, Mrs. Trimble—Lisa’s immediate neighbor—had waylaid her on her way to her front door, complaining about the loud music played in her absence.

  So twice Lisa had come to bear on Janice, and twice Janice had promised to keep the decibels to a reasonable level, both times muttering about how an old biddy like Mrs. Trimble could hear anything short of an atom bomb, anyway. Not wishing to argue, and feeling more like a mother than a lover, Lisa took Janice at her word and let the matter drop.

  Once on the safety of the front veranda, Lisa stole a glance to the garden next door. Mrs. Trimble had returned to her stoop-style hoeing of the rose beds, obviously assuming Lisa’s brisk walk indicated the thump, ta da, thump would soon be put to a stop.

  Taking a moment to check the soles of her work boots and do a stamp dance on the doormat to remove any debris, Lisa pondered her best plan of action. To storm in and pull the stereo plug from the wall would only embarrass Janice in front of her blue Commodore friend. For all she knew, they may well have been hard at work and only paused for a break in the last few minutes. Alternatively, knowing how Janice was after nine months of living with her, it was more likely her visitor was not a friend from classes at all, but one of her large circle of nightclub buddies who had unexpectedly popped in to party before going home to crash. And Janice being Janice, she would have jumped at the opportunity to down pen and paper and spin a stack of discs.

  Which is exactly what I did when I was Janice’s age, Lisa thought to herself. She swallowed her annoyance as she unlocked the front door, vowing to be the hip older lover—not the nagging old mother.

  The music hit her with a blast as soon as the door was opened just a few inches.

  Lisa headed down the hallway, automatically poking her head into the main bedroom to make sure Janice had made up the bed. Again she scolded herself. It seemed she was forever looking to find fault. She partly blamed her friends for this emerging trait. They had teased her mercilessly when they found out she had slept with Janice (cradle snatcher was a term that came to mind) even though Van and Steph had been party to them getting together.

  Thinking Lisa’s three years of living like a nun were quite enough, they had dragged her to the local gay club, sent a drink to the first girl she thought was cute, and then bid a hasty retreat when Janice came over to say thanks. Two hours later Lisa and Janice were hard at it on the bench seat of Lisa’s utility; then hard at it for the rest of the night on Lisa’s queen-sized bed. It wasn’t until breakfast the next morning Lisa discovered Janice was only twenty—eleven years her junior.

  “You don’t look thirty-one to me,” Janice crooned in Lisa’s ear as a tiny hand crept inside the folds of her sports shirt. “And you certainly don’t feel it.”

  Not immune to the power of compliments—and as she had rediscovered the night before, even less immune to the powers of the flesh—Lisa succumbed to her first illicit sick day in years.

  Van and Steph were all ears at lunch the following Sunday. Then they were all mouth when Lisa announced she would be seeing Janice again.

  “She is rather young,” Van said for what seemed like the fiftieth time.

  “I don’t care.” Lisa was sulky by this point. “I like her.”

  Despite, and sometimes in spite of, her friends’ ongoing assault, Lisa decided she really did like Janice. Apart from her obvious physical attributes—although just over five foot two she was a green-eyed, fair-skinned brunette with all the right pieces in all the right places—Janice was like a whirlwind, racing from one idea to another and pouring all her energy into whatever project captured her fancy. When that project bored her, she was soon onto the next. Lisa’s friends said she was flighty. Lisa argued she just didn’t bother wasting her time on useless issues.

  A casual remark while watching a gardening show one Saturday evening spurred Janice into another wave of enthusiasm.

  “I was just thinking about doing something with the garden,” Lisa had said. The next morning, she rubbed her eyes into focus and saw a set of elaborate garden plans laid out in front of her.

  “Just take a look at them,” Janice pleaded, sliding the plans closer. “I stayed up half the night doing them for you.”

  Closer inspection revealed the plans to be well thought out and workable, despite a few obvious exceptions. A heated argument ensued over the life or death of the Lilly Pilly tree. Janice was adamant it had to go. How else was there to be room for the hexagonal gazebo which housed a six-seater spa? Lisa was just as adamant. The Lilly Pilly added character and shade to the back garden. It was a fine looking tree with many more years of growth. It housed her rock doves. And how was Lisa’s mum to make her Lilly Pilly jam without a supply of berries? Besides, there was no way even an old bath was in her budget, never mind a spa large enough for an entire basketball team.

  Janice stalked off in a huff to the bedroom, but soon snapped out of it when Lisa announced through the closed door that they should do a nursery hike and check out some prices.

  Numerous trips to the nurseries and Lisa’s beloved terra-cotta warehouse later, Janice’s vision took form, minus the spa and with the Lilly Pilly still intact. Their ensuing garden party was full of accolades. Even Van admitted Janice had done a wonderful job. Amazed at this unexpected compliment from her toughest critic, Lisa kept silent about the fact Janice’s role had been purely of designer and supervisor. She hadn’t actually done any of the physical work.

  “I told you everyone would love it.” Lisa and Janice lay in bed after the last guests had long gone.

  Janice threw herself onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “Do you really think so? They weren’t just trying to be nice?”

  “Honestly Jan,” Lisa reassured. “They loved it.”

  Janice turned onto her side, propping her head on her hand as she considered Lisa carefully, “What if I said I wanted to quit work and study building design?”

  Lisa’s eyes widened. “Building design? What’s that got to do with laying out a garden?”

  “I’ve been looking into it. There’s a great course at the Tech in the city. It’s mainly building stuff but it incorporates garden design. I reckon it would be really good.” She curled her arm around Lisa’s waist. “It beats the hell out of selling crappy phones for the rest of my life.”

  Exasperated—only a few months prior Janice had been full of the fortunes of flogging mobile phones—Lisa played devil’s advocate. “Full-time study can be pretty hard going, especially when you’re used to bringing in an income.”

  “So you don’t think I can do it after all.” Janice did a complete flip to face the window.

  “I didn’t mean that at all Jan.” It took a few tugs to get them face to face again. “I just want to make s
ure you’ve thought this through. Are you sure it’s what you really want to do?”

  “Yes, baby.” Janice snuggled in close enough that her breath washed over Lisa’s face. “It really is.”

  Predictably, this new idea caused more raised eyebrows from Lisa’s friends during their rare but “we must do this more often” lunch at a local café. While giving her coffee order to the waiter, she overheard Van mutter to Steph, “I’ll believe it when she actually gets her butt into the classroom and keeps it there.”

  “I have no idea why I even bother with you two.” Furious, Lisa gathered her wallet and keys and tossed a note onto the table for her share of the bill. “You’ve done nothing but pick on Janice since day one. If you can’t accept her as a part of my life, then I don’t want you as part of my life either.”

  “Look Lisa, we’re sorry.” Steph followed Lisa outside, catching her arm. “You’re right. We have been hard on Janice. But we just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Shaking Steph’s hand away, Lisa spun to face her. “You’re the ones hurting me. How do you think it feels when everyone hates your girlfriend?”

  “We don’t hate her.” Steph tossed a wayward strand of auburn hair from her eyes. “We just don’t think she’s very . . . mature.”

  The flash of anger that crossed Lisa’s face was enough to send Steph backtracking. “I mean—”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” Lisa spat. “Janice will prove all of you wrong. She’s really serious about this course and I happen to think she’ll stick with it.” She twisted the key in the lock and tugged the door of her utility open. “If you don’t believe me, call in a couple of months when classes are in session.” Lisa climbed in, slammed the door, and left Steph in the wake of her Ute’s exhaust.