by Simone Jaine
“So you need more stamina?” Eben asked Jase as Jem ushered the children into her car.
“Uh uh. I heard about that from Jess this morning. I’m fine,” Jason replied, belying his statement with a groan as he stretched. He reached over and pulled Jem to him in an appreciative hug.
“Thanks for taking her cell phone in,” he said as he released her. “How is she doing? Really?”
“She’s doing much better,” Jem assured him, closing the car door so the children couldn’t hear the conversation. “Her bruises are starting to fade but I should warn you that they have taken away some of the bandages on her head.” Jem hesitated briefly. “It looks as though they’ve shaved all her hair off.”
Jason pressed his lips together, closed his eyes and nodded to himself.
“I should have been here for her,” he mumbled guiltily.
“You’re here now and that’s what matters,” Jem told him gently. “Besides you’ll be seeing her before you even go home. I think that says a lot for your priorities considering how you’re dressed,” she added as an attempt at levity.
Jase felt the tense knot in his chest that had been sitting there since he had learned of his wife’s accident start to loosen with the approval of his sister-in-law.
Daisy opened her car door, unprepared to wait for the adults to get in.
“Did you get us presents Daddy?” she asked, interrupting.
“I might have,” he answered, willing to be distracted. Jase looked at his daughter. “But I only have presents for good children. Do you know any?”
“Me, me me!” Jeremy, Daisy and Aidan shouted, waving their arms towards him in excitement.
“Well then. Let’s see,” Jase proposed as he rummaged in the top suitcase.
He withdrew three brightly coloured presents which he held up to show them.
“You can open these now,” he told the excited children and passed one to each child through the open car door.
“Aren’t you coming with us?” Jeremy asked his father upon noticing Jase had made no move to get into the front seat.
Daisy and Aidan paused in their enthusiastic paper tearing to hear his answer.
“Daddy’s going to see Mummy on the way home,” Jem reminded them. “If you’re quick through the bath maybe Daddy will read you a bed time story when he gets back.”
“That’s a good idea,” Jason said. “I won’t be gone for too long. I just want to say good night to Mummy like you got to before I arrived. Now finish opening your presents and show Aunty Jem and Uncle Eben what you got.”
The children didn’t need to be told twice. They carelessly ripped off pieces of wrapping paper and dropped them. Jem mentally resigned herself to picking them off the car floor.
“I can’t wait to see Jem’s face,” Jase said as an aside to Eben.
Jem heard Jase’s remark and expected him to have gotten them something she would have considered inappropriate. She was relieved when Daisy held up a coffee toned doll with long dark hair wearing a sulu.
“Oh, she’s beautiful,” Daisy exclaimed as she stroked the doll’s hair. “Thank you Daddy!”
“What did you get?” Eben asked Jeremy and Aidan over the door frame.
“We got drums!” Jeremy told him excitedly and held his up.
Aidan started hitting his with his hands. It was surprisingly loud for such a small drum.
“We can play music for you all the way home Aunty Jem,” Jeremy told her.
“Can’t wait,” said Jem through gritted teeth as loud random thumping emanated from the back seat of the car.
“Did you catch her expression?” Jason asked.
“Yes, she looked thrilled,” said Eben.
Jem narrowed her eyes at Jason and Eben who stood there with grins on their faces.
“You’re a bigger music lover than I am,” she finally said to Eben. “How about I take Jason to the hospital and you take the kids home?”
Eben came up against her and gave her a kiss. Jem felt hopeful.
“As much as I’d love to, I can’t. You know why,” he told her gleefully.
He ushered Jem to the driver’s side and held open the door for her to get in. Once inside, he shut the door so she wound down the window to offer another argument. Eben took the opportunity to steal a kiss.
“Drive safely,” he said before pulling back.
Scowling, Jem muttered something and wound the window up, muffling the sound of the drums in the back seat.
As she backed out of the parking spot it started raining so the men quickly got into Eben’s car.
“So why couldn’t you drive home?” Jason asked Eben a minute later as they waited for the ticket barrier to lift.
“Because rock beats scissors,” Eben said cryptically and not without a little satisfaction.
Chapter 23
Jem lifted her fringe and looked at her eyes in the mirror. The blue “eyeshadow” Daisy had applied was definitely fading. Not as fast as she would have hoped given the number of times she had been applying makeup remover over the last few days but it was getting there.
She carefully mixed foundation with concealer on the back of her hand, gently applied it to her eyelids and examined the result.
Maybe today, she thought. With a few seldom practised strokes she applied eyeliner then eye shadow in shades of brown. With her tinted lashes she was nearly done. She wasn’t fond of makeup and seldom wore it so finished with a tinted lip gloss.
When finished she looked critically at the result. Today was the first day she hadn’t had to apply foundation thick enough to go onstage.
Not bad. Not bad at all.
Jem picked up and looked thoughtfully at the small pot of hair fudge which she had found in the mirrored cupboard above the handbasin. Eben must have bought it to keep his hair out of his face until it was long enough to tie back. He had done a very good job of cutting her fringe but now that she could hide the reason for the cut she was finished with looking like an old English sheepdog.
She rubbed a little fudge on her fingertips then ran them through her fringe and styled it away from her face. Satisfied with the result she stepped back to get a better impression.
She was wearing Jess’s hot pink wrap around blouse since Aidan had accidently dropped his milo on the ironing pile which required a rewash of the only clean work blouses she had brought with her. It was lower cut than she was used to and had taken her three changes of bra until she found one that didn’t show at the bottom of the neck line.
Around her neck was the black pearl necklace Jason had extravagantly bought for her in Fiji as a thank you for looking after the children. Jem touched the necklace as she admired it. She seldom wore jewellery, vowing not to be like her mother who wore enough to blind you if she stood in direct light.
Maybe the less is more strategy was okay, she conceded.
With her black above knee pencil skirt, black thigh high stockings and low heeled court shoes she was ready for work as she would ever be. There were only a few days left before the promotion would be announced and she knew she had to be visible at work to be in the running.
When she walked into the kitchen Jason gave her a wolf whistle which earned him a black look from Eben as he accidentally overflowed the milk on Jeremy’s cereal. Jason saw Eben’s expression and laughed.
“You’ve got it bad,” Jason said and returned to trying to get an uncooperative Aidan to eat his toast.
“Why don’t you want your toast?” Jem asked as she pulled out Daisy and Jeremy’s lunch boxes from a drawer and set them on the bench.
“I want triangles,” Aidan said petulantly.
“Well they’re squares but still taste the same,” his father told him.
“I’ll fix it,” Jem said and indicated to Jason to pass the plate to her.
She neatly halved each square diagonally and handed it back.
“Now you have lots of triangles,” she told Aidan.
Aidan happily munched the bite sized
pieces.
“You don’t mind staying until he leaves home?” Jason asked.
“As wonderful as that sounds I’ll have to say no,” Jem told him cheerfully as she started chopping up an apple and a pear for the containers.
By the time she had finished making the lunches Eben was trying to help Aidan get his shoes on.
“You know this would be a lot easier if you didn’t wave your legs around,” Eben said conversationally. “Perhaps I’ll have to put your shoes here.”
He hooked the shoe heels over the tops of Aidan’s ears.
“No! Shoe go here!” Aidan exclaimed and held out a foot.
“Finally,” Eben muttered under his breath. He wasted no time in getting the shoes on Aidan’s feet.
“Can I wear makeup to kindy?” Daisy asked as she handed Jem her empty bowl.
“It’s a bit late today, maybe tomorrow,” Jem said and put the bowl in the dishwasher.
“I never get to wear makeup to kindy,” Daisy said.
Before long, Jem found herself climbing into the car beside Eben since Jason had borrowed her car for the day. Aside from ferrying the children to school and kindy then visiting Jess, he planned to have Aidan “help” him shop for a replacement car with the insurance money Eben had sorted out on his behalf.
“It’s a long way to get to Queen St from Tristan Ave if you’re going to join Jason car shopping. You don’t have to pick me up for lunch,” Jem said as Eben joined the stop-start crawl of peak motorway traffic.
“I want to,” Eben replied as he changed to a lane that was moving then took a moment to glance her way and smile. “I have things to do in town today so it won’t be out of my way. Even if it was, I’d still want to see you.”
“Oh. Okay,” Jem said, his words causing a little flutter inside her chest. She wasn’t used to depending upon anyone else even for something as mundane as this lift he was giving her to work and it pleased her that he wanted to do it.
Jem happily returned her attention to the sun sparkling on the tall buildings on the other side of the harbour bridge, feeling warmer inside than she had for years.
Due to an accident near the off-ramp they needed to take she arrived at work later than she normally would have but consoled herself by knowing she wasn’t expected in today at all.
In her office she looked at the overflowing in-tray in dismay.
Just as well I’m here, she thought and mentally rolled up her sleeves to get on with her work.
By mid-morning about half the staff had wandered past her open office door and all had complimented her on how good she looked.
Is it the blouse? The haircut? Or do I look that bad without makeup?
Jem had to wonder when even Nate said something nice to her in passing.
About half an hour later, Cherie skidded to a stop in front of her office door. In her high heels it was an impressive sight.
“You are here!” she exclaimed. “Come on!”
“What is it?” Jem asked as she approached the doorway.
Cherie slapped a manila folder into Jem’s hands.
“I’ve just found out Mark claimed the Bryson account amendments as his work and is now in a meeting with Martha and Duh-boss over a couple of other clients you’ve been working with.”
“What? How did you find out?” Jem demanded as she led the way down the hall.
“The new software lets me see others diaries so I can add appointments and meetings to their schedules. This morning I saw that Mark had booked a meeting with Martha after I left work yesterday. I couldn’t think what it could have been about so I opened the details and there it was.”
They picked up speed through the corridor. Cherie’s shorter legs were almost running to keep up with her.
“I gave you that account before I left,” Jem reminded her as she slowed a little to reduce the possibility of Cherie twisting an ankle in her high heels.
“I know,” Cherie puffed apologetically. “It went missing from my desk earlier this week and I have been trying to find it since. I only found out that Mark had it all the time when Martha commented to me on how thorough he had been with the changes they wanted. He told her he’d started picking up your work seeing as how no one knew when you’d be back and he didn’t want you to get too behind.”
Jem was too incensed to respond. They rounded the corner and the glass walls of the conference room loomed ahead. She stopped at the door and took a breath.
“Am I good to go?” she asked, more to give herself longer to calm down than anything else.
“You’re fine,” Cherie answered, then really looked at Jem for the first time. “You’re great, in fact. Go get ‘em!”
With a shove, Cherie pushed Jem through the double doors.
In the room beyond, all conversation stopped between the three people sitting at one end of the long glossy black table.
“Sorry, I’m late,” Jem said as she walked towards them and pulled a matching black leather chair out beside Martha. “I only just found out about the meeting.”
She sat down and wondered whether she’d gain anything by trying to confront Mark in front of her bosses.
“I emailed you last night about the presentation,” Mark told her, sounding disappointed. “I took your absence to mean it wasn’t important to you.”
“It’s very important to me,” Jem replied evenly as she watched Nate tap his pen against the folder in front of him. “Why send an email and not a text message? You know I’d see that immediately.”
She unclipped her cell phone and checked for messages. There were none.
“I can put more information into an email,” Mark told her and scratched his head.
He looked contritely at Nate and Martha.
“Could you please excuse us for a moment?”
Martha nodded while Nate tapped his pen harder for a few seconds then put it down and also nodded. Seeming to forget their presence he poured some of his ever present vitamin concoction into a small glass and took a sip. It was a vile green and judging from his expression it tasted as good as it looked.
The things you do for lust, Jem thought as she followed Mark into the corridor outside the conference room.
As a murder location went it wasn’t ideal, with Martha watching them through the glass wall. When Martha turned to glance out the outside window Jem wondered whether she’d have enough time to strangle Mark before Martha turned back.
“What did you hear?” Mark asked through a big toothy grin for the benefit of Nate and Martha if they happened to look.
“Enough to know that you are presenting my work as your own. Where do you get off doing that anyway?” Jem responded through an equally false smile.
“We’re a team,” Mark said patiently. “When I win we all do.”
“Not when you get a promotion I have done the work to earn,” Jem said, her toothy smile widening enough to scare people.
Mark sighed.
“Let me explain how it works,” he said in a friendly voice used for small children and animals. “Look at you. You’re a woman in her prime child bearing years. Sooner or later you’re going to wind up a stay-at-home mother for whatever length of time suits. Then for the rest of your working career you’ll have to compromise your work with days off to look after sick children, attending school stuff and so on.”
Jem turned her back to the glass conference wall so Martha couldn’t see her face.
“What are you on about?” Jem interrupted coldly. “I don’t have kids not that it should make a difference. At any rate how does something that may never happen to me justify you treating me so shoddily?”
“It makes sense,” Mark said. “As a man I’m the breadwinner so I should have the higher paying job. There’s no point giving it to you because you’ll wind up leaving it to start a family. Look at yourself. You’ve already dropped everything to look after kids that aren’t even yours. You’ve shown where your priorities lie.”
Jem’s smile dropped at his audacity.
How dare he take credit for her work with such specious reasoning? Despite juggling the needs of three children with spending time with her seriously ill sister in hospital she had managed to mostly keep up with her work by working late into the night. And as far as priorities went she and Cherie were the ones to do most of the work for his presentation while he played golf with Duh-boss.
Jem felt her hands curling into fists. She really wanted to punch him but knew if she did she would be lucky to still have a job. Maybe that was what he was counting on. She forced her fingers to spread out and mentally counted to ten.
“If the same sort of thing happened to your sister what would you have done?” Jem demanded tightly.
“Nothing. Mum would have taken over. That’s what mothers are for as I’ve just been telling you,” he reminded her.
“And if she’s unavailable or for that matter any other relative?” Jem asked him, to put him in her predicament.
“Then in the absence of a girlfriend I’d arrange for a full-time nanny or split the children up to stay with friends.”
“Do you think that is what would be best for them if it happens without warning and they can’t see their mother?” Jem asked in astonishment.
“I’d tell them she’d gone on holiday,” Mark said and rolled his eyes. “Honestly Jem, would you get over this hypothetical crap so we can get back to the meeting?”
“Ah yes, the meeting,” Jem said with forced calm since she was seething inside. “Since when has it been acceptable to take my work and present it as your own?”
Mark cocked his head to one side and scratched it.
“Who said it was your work to begin with?” he asked casually.
“We both know it was!” Jem hissed at him.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nate look at his watch, say something to Martha and rise from his seat. Martha closed her folder and also stood up.
“It’s your word against mine so consider it payback for Saturday,” Mark said smugly, seeing Nate approach the doors and thinking he had the last word.
