Crossing Paths

by Dianne Blacklock

  ‘I never said he did,’ Jo reminded Belle. ‘You created that little fantasy.’

  ‘Only because you said he was scruffy.’

  Dear God, this was turning into a nightmare. Jo dared to glance up at Bannister but he was grinning widely. She’d pay for it later, no doubt.

  ‘That’s why I thought of Viggo,’ Belle was explaining to the group. ‘He was Aragorn in Lord of the Rings. You know, scruffy in a totally good way.’

  Belle really didn’t know when to leave well enough alone.

  ‘So you’re a sly horse, Jo!’ she declared. ‘You didn’t tell me anything was cooking between the two of you, you just kept going on and on about your panic attack.’

  Charlene cringed. ‘You’re having panic attacks now? How embarrassing for you, love. Are you getting treatment? You really should see a psychiatrist.’

  Jo groaned inwardly.

  ‘I think panic attack is overstating it a bit,’ said Bannister. He still had his arm around her, and he gave her shoulder an encouraging rub. ‘She had an anxious moment, but she got over it, and then we had to wait about an hour for the technician to get there.’

  ‘And you’d never met each other before that day?’ asked a woman in the circle who Jo didn’t even know.

  Bannister shook his head. ‘I’ve been working overseas for the past couple of years, and I’d just flown into the country that very morning. Probably why I was a bit scruffy,’ he added with a grin. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t believe my luck. There I was, trapped in a lift with this beautiful woman. And not only was she beautiful, she was smart, and funny, and we got on like we’d known each other forever.’ He paused. ‘I don’t usually believe in fate, but when something like that happens, well, you have to wonder.’

  Everyone was hanging on his words, not least Jo. Belle leaned in close to her. ‘See, that’s how you spin a yarn.’

  Jo stirred. Yes, exactly. It was just spin.

  Bannister turned to Charlene. ‘You must be very proud of your daughter.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ she said. ‘Jo’s had opportunities I could only dream about. But then again, you can’t have everything. I had to sacrifice any idea of a career for the sake of my little girls, so to see them doing well is all the reward I need.’

  Good grief.

  ‘Just look how well Belle’s done for herself,’ she went on. ‘She has a wonderful husband who provides for her, three gorgeous kids, this house. I only worry that Jo’s missed that particular boat, you know, the one with the family cabins, children travel for free.’ She placed a lingering hand on Bannister’s forearm. ‘Though maybe I’m speaking too soon. Do you like children, Joe?’

  ‘Mother!’

  ‘Well, you can’t afford to be coy about these things at your age,’ she said to Jo. ‘I mean to say, your biological clock is not just ticking away, it’s barely keeping time. For heaven’s sake, when I was your age, you girls were already teenagers. Of course, I wasn’t much more than a girl myself when I had them,’ she explained to Joe. ‘People can’t believe I have two grown-up daughters, and as for grandchildren! You should hear the shrieks. “Charlene, a grandmother?” They simply won’t have a bar of it. Even when I show them pictures.’

  ‘I need a drink,’ Jo said under her breath.

  ‘Come on, I’ll get you one,’ said Belle, linking her arm through Jo’s.

  ‘I thought you said there was no hard liquor?’

  ‘Yeah, but we have fizzy drink for the adults,’ she winked.

  Thank God.

  ‘Darren, get Joe something to drink, we’ll be right back.’

  Belle dragged her into the laundry and closed the door. ‘JoJo!’ she squealed, hugging her. ‘Omigod! Why didn’t you tell me! He’s gorgeous!’

  ‘He’s not gorgeous,’ Jo wrinkled her nose.

  ‘He so is! What’s wrong with you? You don’t have to act all cool, Jo, this is me! I’m so excited, I’m going to burst. Omigod! You have to come over to dinner, this is so great! No, no, I know! Let’s go out to dinner, we can have a proper double date, we’ve never been able to do that!’

  Cripes.

  ‘We’ll get a babysitter, this is a special occasion after all. You haven’t had a proper boyfriend in ages, Jo!’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend!’ she cried.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Jo looked at her sister’s bewildered face. She didn’t want to burst her bubble, and she couldn’t make Bannister look like a fool. He’d only done it for her sake.

  ‘I just don’t want to call him that,’ Jo explained. ‘It’s too soon, I don’t want to jinx it.’

  ‘Aww,’ Belle melted, hugging her again. ‘I wouldn’t worry, the way he was going on about you. My God, Jo, he’s so in love. In fact, it sounds to me like he fell in love with you at first sight. This is so romantic.’ Her eyes were glazing over. ‘Can you imagine his wedding speech?’

  ‘Belle!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, I’m jumping the gun.’

  ‘You think?’ Jo turned around to the laundry tub that was filled with ice and bottles. ‘Is there one opened in here?’ She really needed a drink.

  ‘It’s pretty funny about the whole name thing,’ Belle went on. ‘Must be weird, calling out your own name when you have sex?’

  The nightmare continued. ‘We haven’t had sex.’

  Belle looked confused.

  ‘Yet, I mean. We haven’t had sex yet.’

  She gasped. ‘Really?’ Her eyes had gone all soft and puppy-like. ‘He really is special, isn’t he?’

  Jo wasn’t going to be able to take much more of this. ‘I thought we came in here to get a drink?’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Belle, fishing a bottle out of the ice and handing it to her. ‘Well, I’ll say one thing, I’m just glad you’re not seeing that man any more.’

  Belle never referred to Lachlan by name. She preferred to keep him anonymous, a shadowy villainous figure who obviously had her sister under some kind of spell. Jo busied herself opening the bottle, ignoring the fact that Belle was watching her, waiting for confirmation.

  ‘You’re not still seeing that man, are you?’ she persisted.

  Jo just shrugged, avoiding eye contact by focusing instead on untwisting the wire cage around the cork.

  Belle put her hands on her hips. ‘I can’t believe it, you’re cheating on Joe? Already?’ she said in an urgent whisper.

  ‘No –’

  ‘He’s the nicest boyfriend you’ve ever had, Jo. Don’t mess this up.’

  She looked at her sister. ‘Belle, he’s not my boyfriend, it’s not that serious.’

  ‘Maybe not yet,’ she persisted. ‘You have to give it time. Promise me you’re going to give it time.’

  ‘I will give it time,’ Jo parroted back at her. ‘Now can we please get back out there and rescue him from Mum?’

  ‘Speaking of Mum,’ said Belle conspiratorially.

  ‘Do we have to?’

  She ignored that. ‘I thought you’d want to know that she’s been having tests while she’s been here.’

  ‘Tests?’

  ‘Medical tests,’ said Belle. ‘Quite a few, and she’s been to all these different specialists.’

  ‘Did she say what for?’

  ‘All she’ll tell me is that they’re routine, that she’s just having a thorough check-up.’

  ‘Good then,’ said Jo. ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘Jo! You don’t believe that, do you?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? She’s hit middle age and she’s having her ten thousand kilometre service. So what?’

  ‘I think there’s more to it.’

  ‘Okay, she’s probably menopausal and she’s trying to find a wonder cure,’ Jo groaned. ‘Look, Belle, she’s out there drinking and smoking, I don’t think she could be all that worried about her health.’

  Belle sighed, conceding the point. ‘Okay. But I’ll let you know if I find out anything.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it for a moment.’
/>   Tuesday

  ‘That was a nice little mention,’ said Joe in her ear as they filed out of the editorial meeting.

  Jo glanced over her shoulder at him.

  ‘You know, nice to hear some praise from Leo for your coverage of the conference.’

  ‘Faint praise,’ she sighed.

  ‘Come on, faint praise from Leo is like anyone else shouting it from the rooftops.’ He grabbed her elbow and drew her aside. ‘So you know how you owe me now?’ he said.

  She blinked, staring up at him. ‘For what? Your input on the feature? You got a by-line, and it was Leo who asked you to mentor me in the first place and anyway –’

  ‘No, no!’ he interrupted her. ‘I meant for bailing you out with your family.’

  Jo frowned. ‘Bailing me out?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said guilelessly.

  ‘Oh, you mean for concocting that whole charade that I’m going to have to keep up for an appropriate length of time until I can dump you?’

  His face dropped. ‘Was it something I said?’

  She couldn’t help grinning then. ‘Belle thinks you’re about to propose,’ she sighed. ‘For the rest of my life I’m going to have to listen to “What happened to that nice man, Joe Bannister? You should never have let that one get away.”’

  ‘Did I tell you I thought your sister was very discerning?’

  They had stayed about an hour at Belle’s, just until the birthday cakes had been cut, because that was about as much as Jo could take. They all seemed like nice people, and very friendly. Relentlessly so. They thought Jo was incredibly interesting. A journalist! How clever! How exciting! How glamorous! No wonder she hadn’t settled down yet and had her own family. And they always read her column. At least whenever they got the Tribune. They didn’t actually read the papers much, they were so full of bad news! They preferred to believe life held no greater conflict than who was going to win this season’s Pop Idol.

  Jo leaned back against the wall. ‘So I owe you, you reckon? What do you have in mind?’

  ‘Okay,’ he said like he was mounting a pitch, ‘my brother, Will, the actor, he’s in some kind of “production” Friday night, and he asked me to come, so I was wondering if you’d like to come along too?’

  Was he asking her out on a date?

  ‘How is going to the theatre with you payback?’ Jo wanted to know, folding her arms.

  He looked a little coy. ‘Well, I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty ordinary. It’s “experimental” apparently.’

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ said Jo. ‘You want to see me suffer to pay you back?’

  ‘No,’ he smiled. ‘I could use some moral support.’

  ‘Oh, so now you’ve decided I’m moral?’

  He ignored that. ‘I’m saying there’s safety in numbers . . . I was thinking Angie might like to come along as well? She might actually understand it.’

  He wasn’t asking her out on a date. You don’t invite two women out on a date. Good then, she was glad that was cleared up. Unless . . .

  ‘You’re not trying to match your brother up with Angie, are you?’ Jo asked.

  ‘No way, I wouldn’t do that to her.’

  ‘Well, in that case, I’m sure she’d be up for a night of ordinary theatre. I’ll let her know.’

  ‘So you’ll come?’

  ‘Sure, why not?’ said Jo, trying to sound offhand as she stepped around him to return to her desk, but not before she noticed the glint in his eye. He looked a little too pleased with himself.

  Friday

  Jo was lost. She took a sideways peek at Bannister. Although he was keeping it in check, Jo sensed his bewilderment, but when she turned the other way to look at Angie, her friend was wide-eyed, gripped, literally on the edge of her seat. Jo considered herself reasonably cultured, well read, intelligent, but she didn’t know what the hell was happening on that stage. Not that it was a stage as such. They were seated in what had been euphemistically described as a ‘performance space’, but was actually a vast and rather decrepit former panelbeaters workshop, which smelled vaguely of rubber and urine, tucked away in a back lane in a part of the city Jo had never had the reason or desire to frequent. Bench seating had been placed in rows at right angles to define the ‘stage’. Jo’s lower back was beginning to feel stiff. Was she just getting too old? Was she out of step with the zeitgeist? Would she soon hear herself making comments like ‘That’s not music, that’s just noise’?

  The end caught her by surprise, happily. She didn’t see it coming, but she was certainly glad when it arrived. The troupe all came back into the square and took their bows, to the fairly rapturous applause of the small audience. Jo figured they all must be family and friends, or other out-of-work actors lending their support.

  When they were finally able to stand and stretch, Bannister leaned over close to her ear. ‘Sorry about that.’

  She looked up at him, smiling. ‘I think we’re even now.’

  ‘Wasn’t that awesome?’ Angie turned to them, beaming. ‘Which one’s your brother, Joe?’

  ‘Here he is now,’ he said. ‘I’ll introduce you.’

  Will bounded over and slapped Bannister on the back. ‘Hey, old man, what did you think?’

  ‘I thought it was . . . awesome.’

  ‘Liar,’ Will grinned.

  There was a definite family resemblance; the same blue eyes, light brown hair, though Will sported a goatee, and a slightly mischievous glint in those eyes. If they were casting a film Will would easily win the part of his brother, he might even get the role of a younger Joe, though they weren’t so alike that it would be a given. He had the height though.

  ‘Will, these are my friends,’ Joe was saying. ‘Jo Liddell, and Angie . . .’

  ‘I loved the whole production!’ Angie blurted, thrusting her hand at Will. ‘The metaphor for death, so clever, and the set design, well, it was a metaphor in itself, wasn’t it?’

  Two chairs on an empty stage was set design? And a metaphor as well?

  ‘Well, you seem to know what you’re talking about,’ said Will, clearly impressed. ‘How do you know my brother?’

  ‘Through Jo,’ said Angie.

  She smiled on cue, raising her hand.

  ‘Jo works with me,’ Joe explained. ‘At the Trib.’

  Will became thoughtful. ‘Jo from the Trib . . . this wouldn’t be Elevator Girl by any chance?’

  So now her reputation preceded her. ‘I am indeed Elevator Girl,’ she confirmed. ‘But I need to keep my identity secret, you understand.’

  He grinned broadly. ‘She is cute, bro.’

  Jo raised an eyebrow at Bannister.

  ‘It’s better than scruffy,’ he defended.

  She had to give him that.

  ‘So do you work at the Trib as well?’ Will asked Angie.

  ‘No, I . . . ah . . .’

  ‘Angie’s an actor too,’ Jo jumped in.

  ‘Oh yeah? Cool. Where’d you train?’

  Angie launched into her spiel about how she nearly got into NIDA, which was true, she made it to the third call-back but didn’t make the final cut. Her ‘qualifications’ were a cobbled-together bunch of summer schools and short courses, many run by highly regarded agencies, but it remained a constant source of embarrassment to Angie that she wasn’t a fully-fledged drama graduate.

  Jo had heard it all before. She glanced at Bannister. ‘I hate being “cute”.’

  ‘It’s not my fault you’re cute,’ he returned.

  ‘Hey, you might know Mitch,’ Will was saying. ‘I think he did one of those AFTA courses. Come and see if we can find him.’ He glanced at Joe. ‘Oh . . . you guys –’

  ‘We’ll be right,’ said Joe. ‘You go ahead.’

  ‘Grab yourselves a drink,’ said Will. ‘They’re putting some wine out up the back.’

  He turned to Jo. ‘You game?’

  ‘If you are,’ she said.

  They wandered over to a trestle table where a row of win
e casks had been lined up, flanked by two towers of plastic tumblers.

  ‘I can’t remember the last time I drank wine out of a box,’ Joe remarked.

  ‘I can,’ said Jo. ‘I just prefer not to.’

  He smiled. ‘So you don’t want a drink?’

  ‘No need to go that far.’

  He took a couple of tumblers off the stack. ‘What’s your poison?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it that, you may be tempting fate.’

  ‘Good point. What vintage would madam prefer?’

  Jo considered the casks, all bearing the enthusiastic banner 5 litres for the price of 4!. ‘I think I’ll have to go for Classic Dry, whatever that may mean,’ she said, ‘because I’m not touching Fruity Lexia.’

  ‘Good decision,’ said Joe, filling a cup and handing it to her.

  He went with the red, and they both moved away from the table as more people made their way over.

  Jo looked around the space. If they were going for grunge, they’d certainly achieved it. ‘Interesting venue.’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it,’ he said, taking a sip of his wine and grimacing faintly.

  Jo tried hers. It was room temperature. Maybe she should have gone with the red as well.

  ‘So, that stuff Angie was saying . . . did you get that?’ Bannister asked her.

  She shook her head sadly. ‘But just because it doesn’t make sense to me doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Yeah, but sometimes I wonder if this avant-garde stuff only impresses people in the know,’ he said. ‘They’re preaching to the converted, you know what I mean? Shouldn’t they be trying to reach a wider audience?’

  ‘And that’s how you get reality TV,’ Jo pointed out. ‘When you only ever appeal to the lowest common denominator, you’ll only get the lowest form of entertainment.’

  ‘So you thought that was high art?’

  Jo gave him a coy smile. ‘What do I know? There were some funny bits, like when the guy was trying to explain black holes.’

  ‘Yeah, that was pretty funny.’

  ‘And then the scene with the old man and his son was really poignant.’

  ‘Okay, I agree with you there, but how did it fit? I thought we were going to find out. But they never came into it again.’