by Carla Caruso
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Cover design by Adam Lazszuk © Penguin Group (Australia)
Cover photographs by: Woman Beltsazar/Shutterstock ; Jetty Microstock Man/Shutterstock
penguin.com.au
ISBN: 978-0-85797-593-5
Chapter One
Present
‘Oh, to be twenty years old again,’ I murmur.
Bettina, my sister, follows my gaze to the Ginger Spice and Vanilla Ice wannabes, lust in their eyes, gyrating on the dance floor. Trust my luck to accidentally pick a teenage haunt having a nineties nostalgia night for my birthday drinks. My thirty-sixth birthday drinks. (I like to think I’m a young thirty-six. Bettina sometimes call me a kidult.) Wearing fancy dress apparently gets you free entry. Not that I’d gotten the memo.
Bettina – who could double as Jennifer Love Hewitt, even sporting a fuss-free bob and sans costume – wrinkles her pert nose. ‘I couldn’t think of anything worse.’ She clasps my free hand, the one that’s not clutching an Illusion – yes, even the drinks tonight are retro. ‘So you don’t mind if I go, Flora? Is Darlene on her way?’
My sibling, four years my junior, has an adorable husband and two daughters to go home to, unlike me. That’s despite the online dates I’ve been coerced into going on. I’ve always found something wrong with the suitors. I’ll probably have to freeze my eggs soon.
I paste on what I hope resembles a cheery smile. ‘Yup, she’ll be here any minute. You go. I’ll be fine.’
It had been Darlene’s idea for me to have Friday night birthday drinks in the first place. I’d have been perfectly happy to stay home watching a Seinfeld DVD or flipping through an old chick-lit novel while sipping green tea on the couch. But the brassy blonde six-foot receptionist from work had bullied me into making a night of it. A few guests had dribbled in so far. Mostly, though, I’d watched the Facebook RSVPs on my phone swap from ‘going’ to ‘not going’, like flights changing on a departure board, presumably once something better came along. No-one’s reliable these days.
Bettina leans in, pecking my cheek. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
I smile. The grown-up version of Bettina is much tamer than the teenage equivalent, so my options are limited. Following her out onto the footpath, I wait for her to slip into a waiting taxi, then wave madly at her from the other side of the glass as the vehicle pulls away.
My grin slips and my arm drops to my side once she disappears. How I would have loved to have fallen into the backseat and gotten far away from the bright lights of Adelaide city, try as I might to put on a brave face.
It hasn’t been the best birthday. Along with the uninspiring drinks night, I’d had a note left on my desk last thing to see my boss the following Monday. That’s after some personal stuff of mine wound up on the printer . . .
My studded clutch vibrates. Darlene! I fish out my phone, clad in its leopard-print case, my spirits lifting, and click on the message. ‘Flora, hon. Not goin 2 mk it. So sorry. Blind date turned out 2B majorly hot. Hv a drink 4 me tho. C u Mon, D xxxx’
I could kill her. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted someone who didn’t find Seinfeld funny. Right, that’s it then. Time to go home, get comfy and blot out the memory of the disastrous night with some canned laughter and green tea.
I crane my neck this way and that. Of course, there’s no taxi to be seen now. I’ll have to head to the stand around the corner. Sigh. Head down, I speed-walk along the footpath, the sound of revving cars and throbbing nightclub music reverberating in my ears—
Oomph!
I’ve just crashed into something hard, unmoving . . . and faintly citrus-scented. Mum’s always telling me to watch where I’m going. Dazed, I step back, looking up into a pair of hazel eyes lined with lashes Beyoncé would be proud of. My heart jolts.
Of all the people to collide with. It’s Lance Devic, my first boyfriend’s best mate – the guy who destroyed my life one fateful week in the nineties. And just when I thought the night couldn’t get any worse. His warm fingers grip my elbows, steadying me.
‘Flora Brunelli.’ A smile spreads across his tanned features. His formerly floppy dark blond hair is now short and spiky. ‘It’s been a while.’
Fifteen years, but who’s counting? I wrench my elbows free, my jaw tightening. ‘Lance, hi.’
His gaze burns a trail up and down my frame. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’
Irritatingly, he’s gotten slightly better with age, a la George Clooney, his well-built frame nicely filling out his black shirt and jeans. Not that he’s a patch on my ex, Ruben Jax.
All of us went to uni together – Ruben, Lance, Clementine (my former best friend – a whole other story), and me. Sure, Lance had been okay early on, even helping me get my first job, but then he’d stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong and ruined everything. Ah. Best not to think about all that.
Lance cocks his head, squinting at me. ‘You look like you’ve . . . lost something.’
‘No, no.’Unless you count the spark in my eyes.‘I’ve just got somewhere to be.’ I try to sound important, busy. ‘It’s my birthday.’
‘Oh, right. My invite must have gone missing in the mail.’ He grins, his eyes twinkling and right cheek dimpling. I’m sure the effect would have many women swooning, but it does nothing for me.
I hold my head high. ‘Well, I haven’t seen you in a while, and I organised it on Facebook. You don’t seem the social media type.’
‘You guessed right.’
Typical. Facebook non-converts like Lance were just plain rude – it meant you actually had to call to contact them. But Lance had never been one to embrace the new. A graphic designer like me, the last I’d heard he’d set up a boutique letterpress studio using clunky antique presses for bespoke business cards, wedding invites and the like. Such an oddball.
‘Well, um, good catching up, but I’d better go. My guests are waiting for me,’ I lie and blindly march forward before he can say goodbye, not really knowing where I’m going or what I’m doing, just sure I have to get away from him. Alarm bells are ringing in my ears. Lance Devic is bad news.
The tinted glass door of a bar is a few metres in front of me – and there’s no bouncer. It’ll do. In the reflection, I catch a glimpse of my dark hair, pale skin and light brown eyes. Looking more confident than I feel, I pluck at the handle.
‘Sure that’s the right place?’ Lance calls as I sail through, before the door blissfully swings shut. I land in a dark cabaret-style venue, packed with glitzily clad guests hovering around cocktail tables. Soft piano music plays in the background, but otherwise there’s a kind of hushed silence.
Thankfully, no-one seems to notice me, even though my coral jeans are totally out of place. All eyes are trained towards the far end of the room. Oh. It must be a private party – and speech time. Guess I can wait it out a few minutes, ensuring Lance is long gone, then quietly slip out again. Curious about what’s got everyone’s attention, I stand on tiptoes, craning my neck over the sea of heads.
I can just make out a svelte, tanned woman front and centre, the lights shining on her caramel-coloured mane. She’s looking down, wearing a kilometre-wide grin on her face. Oh wow! I know who she is. It’s Odessa Cece, the model-turned-infomercial-presenter. I often see her on the telly in the lunch room at work. Boy, do I know how to crash a party. I stick my neck out further to see what she’s looking down at—
My legs turn to jelly and I grip so hard on a nearby cocktail table that it wobbles, and a woman’s drink splashes. She shoots me a poisonous look, but I don’t care.
It seems to
be the night of coming face-to-face with my past. Ruben, my old flame, looking like a slightly more mature version of Freddie Prinze Jr. in I Know What You Did Last Summer, is on bended knee in front of Odessa.
Down on bended knee.
Everything that might have been between him and me – before Lance blew our chances – flashes before my eyes. Ruben’s familiar voice, the voice I haven’t heard in an eternity, echoes from the speakers. ‘Will you marry me?’
Unfortunately, it’s directed at Odessa, not me. The infomercial presenter screeches ‘Yessss!’ with multiple S’s and applause breaks out like a flu epidemic. I spin around, not wanting to see them kiss for fear of revisiting my Illusion on my stilettos—
Oh dear. Clementine Anders, my former best friend – all honey-coloured waves and grey-blue eyes – blocks my path, staring at me like I’m as unwanted as a computer virus.
We used to be as tight as Olivia Newton-John-style disco pants, but those days are over. The only time I see the interior designer these days is smiling back from the social pages with some B-list celebrity date on her arm. It’s obvious she’s no longer saving herself for Brian Littrell from the Backstreet Boys. Or marriage. Guess she moves in the same rarefied circles as my ‘starchitect’ ex. It kills.
‘Who invited you?’ she snarls.
I try to speak, but the words die on my lips. Still, now’s not the time for an unfriendly catch-up. Ducking my head, I sidestep her like she’s a wax figure from Madame Tussauds and pelt for the door. This is why I never deviate far from my new beachside postcode – doing so means re-living old memories.
But, like the final obstacle in a computer game, Lance has reappeared, lingering near the doorway. My skin prickles with humiliation. He knew all along I wasn’t a guest here. So much for the so-called birthday party I had to rush to.
His gaze rakes my face and he reaches a hand towards me. I dismiss it. ‘You okay?’ He has the grace to look concerned, but it’s likely to be an act; I bet he’s loving this. ‘I should have stopped you going in. It’s just you moved so fast, then I couldn’t find you—’
‘I don’t need your help,’ I spit out. ‘I needed you to keep your mouth shut fifteen years ago, instead of doing a big kiss-and-tell on me and destroying everything.’
Lance looks momentarily flummoxed. ‘I guess I deserve that. Look, Flora, I want to explain about that nigh—’
But I savagely push past him, my shoulder banging against his chest. ‘Let’s leave the past in the past.’
Without glancing back, I thunder onto the footpath, stick out my hand and do my best Carrie Bradshaw impersonation. ‘Taxi!’
I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My skin is pink from scrubbing it free of makeup and my eyes bare, my stick-on eyeliner strips now dotting the bathroom sink. I send a silent prayer up above that I won’t have to see Ruben, Clementine and co. for another fifteen years.
Tonight’s been just like the worst week of my life, which lead up to my twenty-first birthday, only boiled down to one day. I’ve stuffed up my career, been deserted by friends and lost out on my dream guy – all in the space of twenty-four hours. I might have turned thirty-six, but nothing’s changed.
I don’t even have any processed food to pig out on for comfort, because I keep forgetting to leave the gate open for the online groceries guy. Nor do I have a pet to console me. Who has the time? The closest thing I have is an aquarium screensaver on my laptop.
Sigh. I wish I could hit ‘delete’ and start the whole day again. Scratch that. I wish I could delete the past fifteen years and start over. My outlook once glittered with promise, but, in one fateful week, it all turned to dust. My life’s been stuck in second gear like in that Friends song.
My mobile, poking out of my handbag, taunts me from the vanity. And suddenly, I can’t help it. Despite my mortifying night, I want to know everything about Odessa Cece there is to know. Why she wound up with Ruben as the prize – and I didn’t. Reaching for the device, I rest my hip against the sink, click on the Facebook icon and type Odessa’s name in the search bar, like the masochist I am.
Sadly, I already know Ruben’s not on Facebook – I’ve looked a dozen times before. I scroll through the names that come up. There’s an Odessa Cece in India with a Bollywood-style pic, and one in Italy with a snapshot of a female bodybuilder. No joy. Maybe she uses a nickname so fans can’t find her.
Hang on a second. Clementine. We’re not Facebook friends, but my nosiness means I know she has her six-hundred-plus friend list set to ‘public’. Show-off. I type in my ex-pal’s name and scroll through the alphabetically organised list – Oh, man. My hand shakes.
‘Odes & Rubes.’ They’ve got a sickeningly sweet joint account. No wonder I couldn’t find Ruben online before. The profile pic is of the pair, looking extra tanned, their arms entwined, on the rear deck of a yacht. I feel faint. Though someone should really tell my ex what ‘Rubes’ rhymes with. Unable to help myself, I click on the photo to enlarge it, my fingers still moist from cleansing my face – Oh no. OH NO!
I’ve somehow hit ‘add friend’ instead, my request winging its way to the duo’s account as we speak. I’m numb with shock. They’ll think I’m some sort of ex-obsessed stalker – and I guess they wouldn’t be far wrong. Tears jab at my eyes. Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse.
I hate technology! I hate the twenty-teens, or whatever name you call this stupid decade!
Things used to be so much simpler. People didn’t say they liked daggy things just to be ironic, you didn’t have to go by a silly Twitter name like@FBrunelliYeah, dance ‘Gangnam Style’ or watch ‘dramality’ shows. Every second song didn’t have a dance beat and sound the same. There was no such thing as ‘Bragbook’.
And your dream guy didn’t just propose to a TV star.
‘I miss the nineties,’ I scream at my reflection, flailing my arms about like the half-Italian I am, one hand still clutching the phone. ‘Before I was twenty-one. I want to go back. Start over.’
Eek. I’ve been a little overenthusiastic with my gesturing. My mobile has slipped from my fingertips, its diamante pendant flashing in the bathroom light. It’s now freefalling towards the adjacent loo bowl. I turn, lunging for the device, stubbing my toe on the ceramic base as I do so, but I’m too late. There’s a resounding splash.
Shell-shocked, I watch the phone sink below the depths. Putting a steadying hand on my bag on the vanity, I suck in a breath. Thankfully, I’d flushed, though why oh why hadn’t I shut the darn lid? This is just another symbol of my life going down the toilet. Fast.
Sighing, I lean forward to fish the device from the water, praying I can somehow salvage it. Dipping my hand in, my fingertips make contact with the smooth metal. Then, from out of nowhere, an electric-blue light zaps from the bottom of the phone, blurring my vision, stunning me. The room seems to spin like a CD, then—
Blackness.
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