Call Waiting

by Dianne Blacklock

  He gazed at her, unblinking. Ally couldn’t look away, she couldn’t see anyone else around them, she forgot there was anyone else there. They were at the far end of the marquee now, where the wall opened to the view. Ally felt a soft breeze brush past. A lock of her hair fluttered loose.

  Matt smoothed it back behind her ear. “You’re a hard nut to crack,” he said huskily, his face close to hers.

  Suddenly they heard a roar from the house, and the footie crowd burst through the entrance of the marquee.

  “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!”

  Ally moved a step away from Matt, turning to face the crowd, but she could still feel his hand protectively on her back. A waiter walked past with a tray of champagne, and she grabbed a glass, nearly downing it in one go.

  The MC stepped to the microphone. “As you’re all in the mood for cheering, let’s see if we can’t persuade the bride and groom to cut the cake.”

  For the next hour Ally didn’t let a waiter pass her by without taking another glass. Right through dancing with Muncher, Blue and whoever, assorted cousins, Mr. Grady and Mr. Longford, and finally Rob, who said all sorts of nice things to her, which she couldn’t remember anymore.

  The MC announced that the bride and groom were about to leave. Ally picked up another glass from a passing tray and walked unsteadily to the circle forming around Rob and Nic. She hoped this was not going to take too long, she was not sure how much longer she’d be able to stand up.

  Then she felt somebody behind her, gently supporting her.

  “You were swaying,” Matt said quietly, right near her ear. His breath tingled down her neck.

  “It’s the music,” Ally insisted, glancing over her shoulder at him. She saw something in his eyes that made her gulp down the remainder of her glass.

  Nic and Rob made their way around the circle, saying goodbye like there was no tomorrow. Everyone was lubricated with enough alcohol to be totally without inhibition. Family members who usually didn’t speak to each other expressed undying love and devotion, tears fell, men kissed each other on the mouth. Nic and Ally were woeful.

  “I love you! You’re the best friend I’ve ever had in my whole life!”

  “No, you are,” Ally slurred. “I don’t deserve a friend like you.”

  “No, I don’t deserve you…”

  And so it went on, till somebody prized them apart, and Rob swept Nic out of the marquee and into a waiting taxi.

  Ally turned around and buried her tear-streaked face into Matt’s chest, before she realized what she was doing. Oh well, he didn’t seem to mind.

  “Are you okay?” he said eventually, handing her a handkerchief.

  She nodded, taking it from him, and wiping her cheeks.

  “Tears aren’t a bad thing, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “They’re so … appropriate, don’t you think?” she said looking up at him. “You know, you feel bad, and your heart starts hurting, a lump rises in your throat, and then big salty tears spill over your eyelashes.” She sighed heavily, leaning on his chest again. “They’re just perfect. I mean, imagine if you laughed when you felt sad, or got the hiccups or something. It wouldn’t be the same.”

  She lifted her head to look at him. “They’re kind of like your own private rain.”

  “Mm?”

  “You know, happy tears are like summer rain, and sad tears are like,” she paused, considering. “They’re like the rain that falls on a bleak, wintry day.”

  He smiled at her indulgently.

  “I’m crapping on, aren’t I?” she said.

  “Just a little.”

  “I’d better have another drink.”

  “Or,” Matt sidestepped her back onto the dance floor, “we could finish our last dance. Remember, we were interrupted?”

  “Okay,” she said. “But I’m a little bit drunk…”

  “Are you?”

  She nodded as he drew her into his arms. She leaned her head heavily on his shoulder and brought her arms up around his neck.

  “In fact, I might have trouble standing up if you let go of me.”

  “I’m not planning on letting go of you any time soon.”

  They swayed to the music for a while. Ally relaxed into it, though her brain occasionally felt like it was swishing around independently of her skull.

  “Did you know,” she said eventually, “I’ve been a bridesmaid three times now? You know what that means?”

  “I didn’t think you’d be superstitious.”

  “Still, it’s pretty pathetic at thirty-five years old, to still be a bridesmaid. Lucky I look okay in fucking pastels. Whoops,” Ally covered her hand with her mouth. “Sorry, I always start swearing when I’m pissed. And,” she whispered, close to his ear, “I think I might be a little pissed.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “So there you go, three times a bridesmaid. But you know what’s worse?” she said lifting her head.

  He looked at her expectantly.

  “You know what they call you if you have a baby after you’re thirty-five?”

  “Mum?”

  Ally frowned. “It’s not a joke! This is really true. It’s a medical term.” She paused, thinking. “They call you an elderly primavera!”

  “Isn’t that a pasta sauce?”

  “Matt!” she admonished. “It’s something like that, there might be a ‘g’ in it. Primagravity, maybe. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, the ‘elderly’ bit. Fucking, elderly primagravy is what they call you!”

  Matt laughed, and Ally nudged him. “It’s alright for you to laugh. Blokes can have babies at any age and they don’t get called elderly.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder again.

  “Do my arms look flabby in this?” she said suddenly.

  “No,” he said, smoothing his hand along her upper arm. “You’ve got beautiful arms.”

  “Then why don’t you like me anymore?”

  “Why do you think I don’t like you?”

  “You don’t ask me out anymore.”

  “Because you always turn me down.”

  “Mm, but you think I’m a pain in the arse.”

  He lifted her chin so that he could look at her. “Not all the time,” he smiled.

  “Well, maybe you should ask me again sometime.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  The morning after

  “Ally, Ally…”

  She covered her head with a pillow. “What’s all the shouting about?” she wailed.

  “I’m not shouting.”

  That was Matt’s voice. If she was in bed, where was he? Ally took the pillow off her head anxiously, squinting up at him. He was leaning above her, fully dressed, she was relieved to note.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Ugh, don’t ask.”

  “Here, take this.” He was holding a glass full of fizzing vermilion liquid.

  “Oh, I don’t think so…”

  “Come on, it’s only Berocca.”

  Ally grimaced. “Why couldn’t they have made it a quieter color, they knew that people with hangovers would be drinking the stuff.”

  “Maybe it’s someone’s idea of a sick joke. Come on, you’ll have to sit up.”

  Ally dragged herself upright. “Oh God.” She felt a sweat break out across her face. “This is awful.”

  “Do you think you’re going to be sick?”

  “Oh,” Ally covered her face. “I don’t want to be having this conversation.”

  “It’s alright, it doesn’t bother me.”

  “Well, it bothers me!” She flinched. “My head hurts.”

  “You’d better take these as well,” said Matt, popping two pills out of a blister pack.

  He gave her the headache tablets, and she swallowed them down with half the contents of the glass.

  “How did you get in?” she said, peering through the veil her hair had formed across her face.

  “Ah, with the secret k
ey. I know all your little secrets now.”

  “How did I get home last night?”

  “Safely.”

  Ally frowned at him. She glanced down at the T-shirt she was wearing, and then at her bridesmaid dress hanging neatly on a hanger over the curtain rail. “How did I get undressed?”

  “Well, Cinderella, after midnight your coach turned into a pumpkin, and everything went back to normal.”

  She pulled a face. “Did you look?”

  “Ally, your dress was strapless, remember? I just helped you get the T-shirt over your head, which took some doing, I might add. You weren’t very cooperative.”

  “Sorry,” she said grumpily.

  “Then I unzipped you, and the dress dropped to the floor. I didn’t see a thing.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  “Ally, you were completely tanked. There are rules about that kind of thing.”

  She sighed. “Thank you for being such a gentleman.” She rubbed her forehead. “I just can’t remember anything! Oh, except dancing with you.”

  “Mm, it was either that or fall over.”

  “I have to lie down again now.”

  She buried herself back down under the covers. “Was I really embarrassing? Did I do anything terrible?”

  “You’ll have to apologize to Mr. Longford, but apart from that…”

  She pulled the covers down and stared at Matt, wide-eyed. He burst out laughing.

  “Oh, that’s just unkind,” she whimpered, turning away.

  “I’m sorry. Nothing happened. Don’t you remember seeing Rob and Nic off? Their parents left straight after.”

  Ally recalled dimly. “So I didn’t embarrass myself?”

  “You just got very philosophical and shed a few tears.”

  “Oh, great. I must look awful!” she cried. She knew she wouldn’t have cleaned off her make-up. “Do I look like a panda?”

  “No,” he insisted. “Panda’s are big and lumbering, and black and white. You’re more like a cute little raccoon.”

  “Oh!” She pulled the blankets back up over her head. “You shouldn’t mock someone in this condition. I’m fragile enough as it is.”

  “Well, it’s only one more big sleep until you feel normal again.”

  “Okay, I’ll start now.”

  “Uh-uh,” he shook his head, easing the covers down. “You really should get something into your stomach, as long as you think you can keep it down.”

  Ally looked up at him. “I never throw up. My body likes to hold onto all the toxins so that I get the full poisonous impact.”

  “All the more reason to fill your stomach,” he suggested. “Come on, my shout.”

  “Couldn’t I stay here a little bit longer?” she moaned.

  “Well,” he checked his watch. “There’s a café I know that serves breakfast until two.”

  “So, we’ve got plenty of time.”

  “It’s after one now.”

  “What?” She sat up again. “I have to get up.”

  Matt shifted to give her room. She eased herself off the bed and tottered gingerly toward the bathroom.

  “Oh my God!” she squealed.

  Matt appeared behind her. “Are you alright? Are you going to throw up?”

  “No, but I’m surprised you didn’t. Look at me!”

  As she suspected, her make-up was smudged and smeared down her cheeks, and her hair looked like a rat’s nest. Not that she’d ever seen a rat’s nest, but that’s what Nan used to say.

  “I look like Alice Cooper!”

  Matt chuckled, his hand on her back, gently propelling her farther into the bathroom. “Have a shower, you’ll feel better,” he said, closing the door behind her.

  * * *

  Matt took a sip of his coffee. “And then I threw up all over the principal’s shoes.”

  “You didn’t!” Ally said, wide-eyed. They were sitting in a café on the main road in Bowral, at a table by the window. They had been comparing hangover stories.

  He nodded. “Not only was I suspended for three days, we had to buy him a new pair of shoes.”

  Ally laughed. “You win.”

  She had polished off a plate of bacon, eggs and grilled tomato, with toast and orange juice, and she was on to her second cup of coffee.

  “How are you feeling now?” Matt asked.

  “Almost human,” she smiled. “I don’t know why a big fatty fry-up is good for a hangover, but it always seems to do the trick.”

  “My theory is that your liver sees all this animal fat coming and it has to work through the alcohol toxins extra fast to be ready for it.”

  “My poor liver!”

  “You can be kinder to it tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I think it’ll take more than one day to make up for whatever I drank last night,” Ally said dubiously. “But it was a good wedding, wasn’t it, overall?”

  “Nic and Rob seemed to enjoy themselves. At least it was memorable.”

  “Memorable’s good.”

  “In fact, the knife incident was the talk of the evening.”

  Ally stared at him. “Knife incident?” she said weakly, hoping it wasn’t what she was thinking.

  “Come on, you weren’t even drunk then.”

  She closed her eyes. “I’d almost forgotten about it.”

  “You’re a legend now. The Grady boys were quite impressed.” He paused. “I thought you were very brave.”

  She smiled shyly. Ally didn’t tend to think of herself as brave. “At least it’s a story for them to take back home.”

  “Mm, ‘knife-wielding bridesmaid controls unruly guests,’” Matt suggested. “Have you ever done that before?”

  “Sorry?”

  “When you’ve been a bridesmaid? You said it was your third time last night.”

  Ally hated hearing back things she’d said when she had no recollection of them at all. What had made her tell him she’d been a bridesmaid three times?

  “Well, no, I can’t say I’ve been pushed to threatening the guests with a kitchen knife before,” she joked. “That was definitely a first.”

  “So, you were Meg’s bridesmaid, I presume?”

  She nodded. “That was a perfect wedding, because it was Meg’s, and that’s how she does things. But I was also bridesmaid for this girl in college … well, not really bridesmaid. We wore jeans and cheesecloth tops and they were married by a female Buddhist priest on a clifftop overlooking the beach. I don’t know if it was even legally binding,” she grinned. “What’s the strangest wedding you’ve ever been to?”

  “My own!” He laughed. “It was probably quite normal, but I didn’t know what the hell was going on.”

  “What about the best wedding?”

  “I’m still waiting for that.”

  Ally willed herself not to blush, but the way he was looking at her …

  She took a deep breath. “Best holiday?”

  “Actually, that would have to be my honeymoon,” he admitted. “We went to Daydream Island. Twenty years old, full of lust, with a license that said we could have sex all day if we wanted.”

  Ally considered him for a moment. “She must have hurt you very much.”

  The smile slipped from his face, and he stared down at his cup.

  “I mean,” she tried to explain, “leaving for so long. Leaving Beck. You must have been very hurt.” It had played on Ally ever since Matt had told her what had happened. She knew from Meg’s experience that perhaps Matt had been justified in leaving. But Ally wanted to understand why he had abandoned his little girl.

  He shrugged. “It was a long time ago. It feels like another lifetime,” he murmured, staring out the window.

  Ally felt that she’d spoilt the moment. They had been having such a good time, she didn’t want to lose the easiness that had developed between them. She twiddled her spoon in her coffee cup, absently. “What’s your best moment?”

  He looked back up at her, meeting her gaze again. “Mm?�
��

  “What if you had to define your best moment? What would that be?”

  She noticed a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “That’s easy. The second they put Beck into my arms.”

  Ally watched the expression on his face.

  “She was all slippery and covered in gunk, but she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

  But you left her.

  “What about you?” he said eventually.

  “Hm?”

  “Your best moment?”

  She blinked back a tear and cleared her throat. “Still waiting.”

  * * *

  Matt pulled up outside Ally’s place, as the dashboard clock registered five-thirty. They both stepped out of the truck. Matt came around to the passenger side, leaning back against the hood.

  “Thank you for breakfast,” Ally said. “And for watching out for me last night.”

  He shrugged. “My pleasure.”

  Ally lingered. She didn’t want him to get back in the truck and drive away.

  “You’re a nice guy, Matt Serrano.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all this time, Ally Tasker,” he joked, but he was looking straight into her eyes.

  Ally could feel her heart racing. She stared back at him. “Do you want to come inside?” she said quietly.

  He paused, sighing audibly. “If I don’t go now, I might never get away,” he said in a low voice.

  Ally swallowed. “So?”

  He held her gaze. Ally wondered if he could hear her heart beating from where he stood.

  “I’ve got to get up early,” he said eventually. “I have to be on the road at four tomorrow morning.”

  Ally was jolted back to reality. “Where are you going?”

  “It’s the school holidays. I’m taking Beck home to Mum and Dad’s, then we’re doing the Great Ocean Road. I’m sure I mentioned it.”

  She nodded slowly, frowning.

  “You’ve been a bit preoccupied.”

  “I guess.”

  “So, I’ll see you when I get back?”

  Why did she feel like crying? God she hated this, hated feeling something, only to be disappointed.

  “Have a safe trip.”

  “Bye.”

  October

  Meg was in the process of repacking the pantry shelves when she heard a knock at the front door. She had spent the best part of the day cleaning out the entire pantry, washing down shelves and discarding anything that hadn’t seen the light of day this century. She dusted off her clothes and smoothed back her hair as she went to open the front door.