Versace Sisters

by Cate Kendall

  'Where'd the cake come from?' she asked as she nibbled the corner.

  'That old bat that lives up the road, next to the florist's,' he said. 'It's been like Darling bloody Harbour on a Sunday here recently. God only knows how everyone found out you were coming home, but the freaking doorbell hasn't stopped ringing with people bringing around food. I feel like putting up a sign to tell them to stick their Meals on Wheels efforts – a man can't put his feet up for five minutes.'

  'Oh, they're so sweet and thoughtful. Who were they, so I can thank them?'

  'No idea who half of them were. Anyway, forget them, how are you doing? Do you need any pain relief?'

  'No, darling, I'm feeling great, thanks. And thanks so much for today, you've been wonderful.'

  'Well, I've made your morning tea, unpacked your bag, I guess my duty here is all done. Is there anything at all you need?'

  Mallory looked up at her husband with a watery smile. 'Just you,' she said in a small voice.

  'Yes, well, about that.' Suddenly Vince looked decidedly uncomfortable and, turning away from Mallory, he leaned on the kitchen sink that overlooked their swimming pool and tennis court. 'I'm afraid I've got some rather bad news.'

  Mallory looked at him, her face frozen in disbelief.

  'I'm so sorry to do this to you, Mallory, you're a great girl and all but it's just that I have to do the right thing by my son.' He moved out of her line of sight.

  Mallory turned to stone. A gurgled questioning sound was all she could manage. Her head tried to follow him but the plaster cast at her shoulder prevented much movement.

  'Whoops,' he said as he moved back into her eyeline. 'I haven't said this very well, have I?' He smiled down at her. 'Sharee's pregnant and I have to be with her and be a father to my boy. You know I actually always wanted a son and, considering you weren't able to give me one, it's just wonderful to finally have one.'

  'But you had a vasectomy. We could have had a son, I wanted lots of babies!' Mallory was confused: she knew she was focused on the sub-text here, but she couldn't face what he was really saying.

  'Yeah, right, what with you from your family of all girls, that's all I needed, a house full of chicks!' He laughed as if he'd just made a light-hearted pun. 'No, apparently one of my swimmers snuck through, it's truly a miracle.'

  Mallory's desperate pleas were hushed. Her bruised and battered eyes stared silently up at this stranger.

  'Oh, crap, look at the time. I must be off. We have an obstetrics appointment. Sorry, babe.' He leaned forward and stroked her hair apologetically as if she were a puppy left outside on a rainy day. And with that, he left. The slam of the front door resounded throughout the empty hallway and the living room.

  Mallory sat statue-still while the silence invaded the corners of her house. There was no pain now. It was all gone. Everything was all gone. A little voice inside her whispered, I told you so.

  Fifteen minutes later she tremulously reached out to the tepid tea. Her clumsy left-handedness knocked the teacup over. The stream of taupe liquid trickle across the table and onto the floor. She had no way of cleaning it up.

  ~ 42 ~

  'What?' Tony had his mobile flattened against one ear and his left hand protected the other one from Cold Chisel's 'Cheap Wine' blaring from the juke box. 'Mum's there to mind the kids,' he shouted into the mouthpiece. 'Come on, we're at the Royal, it's just around the corner.' He listened to the few snatches of excuse that were audible above the pub noise. 'Hang on, Sera, I'll just go outside so I can hear you.'

  Tony sidled through the crowd, dodging schooners as they sloshed past. He left the public bar to stand on the skinny patch of sidewalk on Broughton Street.

  'Sorry, honey, that's better. So why don't you come down? I'd love to see you. The guys are all here. We're celebrating completion of the Potts Point job. Some of the wives and girlfriends are here too.'

  He rolled his eyes as the list of reasons came streaming forth.

  'You look fine, Sera,' he tried to reassure her. 'You're beautiful . . . you don't have to blow-wave your hair . . . just chuck on some jeans or something, it's just a pub.'

  He knew he was fighting a losing battle. It was impossible to get her out of the house with no notice, especially to the pub. He gave up. 'Well, honey, I'd love to see you. If you can make it down, it would be great. We never go out together anymore. Okay, bye, love you.' He sighed and clicked end call on his phone. A grey Volvo shooshed by in the rain-slicked street, spraying his jeans with mist. He felt so alone. He missed her. He missed having a partner, a girlfriend, someone by his side. They weren't united anymore; they were no longer a team. It was as if they were just two people living under the same roof – like flatmates.

  He went inside and up to the bar to wait for service. More and more each day he could feel Sera pulling away. Every time he kissed her or tried to hold her she'd merely endure it. She didn't push him away or anything, it was more subtle than that. It was her lack of enthusiasm when they embraced that was so heart-breaking. He just adored her. She was so clever, she managed her life – hell, all their lives – with such efficiency. And she was so sweet, she was one of those people that everyone who met her gushed afterwards about how nice she was, so charming, so delightful. And she had the cutest little smile when something tickled her fancy. I used to tickle her fancy, he sulked.

  Tony was well aware that a woman's libido dropped off considerably after babies. He wasn't expecting to have sex with her every time they touched or anything. But he knew she was worried about that, he could read the signs when he reached over for her in bed at night to hold her and her rigid body lay there frozen, emitting every possible message that it just wanted to be left alone.

  But he only wanted a cuddle. Was that too much to ask? It wasn't always about sex. Contrary to popular belief, men did have other needs, he thought, shaking his head and starting to feel quite indignant about his plight. He was just after respect, affection, conversation: the simple delightful elements of every healthy relationship. But, come to think of it, he was actually pretty horny right now.

  The Royal was at its frenzied best. The pool tables were packed and the beers were being knocked back in a fashion that suggested the punters feared imminent prohibition. Freddy and George, two of Tony's apprentices, invited him to join them in the men's for a few lines.

  He laughed. 'Not for me, boys, I'm a family man, you know, not into that stuff.' He was having an in-depth discussion about flooring with Shane Peterson, his chippy, and was feeling nicely mellow. He guessed he'd drunk more than he should, but it didn't stop him from saying yes when one of the lads slapped a shooter in front of him. The flaming sambucca took his chilled, mellow feeling, put it in a blender and transformed it into a shaken and stupefied sensation.

  The men leaned into a circular bar table in the middle of the room and began a deep and meaningful conversation about women, which neither would remember in the morning. Shane suddenly leaped wide-eyed into the air. 'What the . . . ?' he exclaimed and turned. 'Oh, it's you,' he accused a petite platinum blonde who had just accosted him with a butt pinch.

  The girl's locks were piled atop her head with stray pieces stringing about her face and neck. Tony could tell she was young. It wasn't just the unlined visage that smiled prettily up at him awaiting an introduction, but also the bizarre get-up that only someone with the confidence of youth would wear. Skinny-leg jeans clutched her calves and a billowing top scooped down to proudly display rock-solid breasts. A tiny useless piece of quilting stopped under the bust-line in a flimsy pretence at being a jacket.

  'This is Tony. Tony this is Taylah, she's . . . umm . . . an old friend.'

  'An old root, you mean, Shane,' she joked and put out a hand made twice as long by the length of her pearlescent fingernails.

  'Nice to meet you,' said Tony.

  Taylah smiled and shimmied in response. 'Nice to meet you, Tony. Hey Shane, why are you keeping all the good ones from me? This guy's gorgeous.'

&nb
sp; 'Aww shucks,' Tony said. He glowed at the compliment and instantly decided that the girl before him was a charming young lady.

  Shane muttered something about watering the horses, and scarpered. Tony smiled broadly and fell into an easy conversation with the provocative Taylah. The flirting was like flint on a stone to Tony, who revelled in the seductive sparring. It had been a long time since anyone so attractive had paid him any attention.

  The sambucca and the Bailey's that followed numbed his body and he was hardly aware that she'd snaked one arm around his waist, under his jacket. She was very sympathetic about his lower back pain that had gotten worse lately. And said she knew the perfect cure.

  'It's all about stress management,' she advised. 'You need to relax. To let the stress out, you need release.'

  'Really?' he asked, fascinated by this insight. 'I usually just see a chiropractor.'

  'No, there's a better way to get release than that, beautiful Tony.' She gave him a look so lusty that only a dead man would miss the innuendo.

  Tony's heart pounded. She was so sexy.

  'Nobody needs to know,' she said. 'You deserve a good time.'

  He did deserve a good time.

  'So, Tony,' she whispered loudly in his ear to drown out the pub ruckus, 'there's a quiet room out the back, do you want to come?'

  ~ 43 ~

  The tiny nymphette wrapped Tony's great log of an arm around her waist and tugged him into the direction of the rear stairway. Tony stumbled to the ground and staggered back to his feet again.

  'Sera!' A shout came from the other side of the bar. 'G'day, Sera, how you doing?'

  The guys loved Sera. Often, when they were building locally, she'd bring them lunch or a slab of beer at knockoff time. George and Freddy swept her off her feet in a big bear hug.

  'Sera, Sera, Sera!' the chant went up in greeting as each of Tony's team kissed her on the cheek or hugged her hello.

  Shane sidled up to Taylah. 'That's Tony's wife,' he whispered. 'You lose.'

  'Damn,' she said, and blended into the background to sniff out another target.

  'Sera?' Tony said thickly, his addled brain trying to process this latest development. 'Sera!' he called out when the reality of his wife's arrival finally emerged through the fog. He lumbered over to where she was surrounded by his men. The crowd parted to let the boss through. Tony grinned a big goofy smile and threw his arms out, knocking a glass of wine from a rather displeased patron's grip. 'Sera, you came! You came!'

  'Hello, drunken one,' Sera said, and endured his crushing embrace with a squeal and a laugh. 'What have you been up to?'

  'Just a few drinks with the lads. I'm so glad you're here. Let me get you one. Bar-keep, a glass of your finest chardonnay for my missus! And a round for the boys!' Tony leaned against the bar and beamed at his wife. ''T's so good to see you. Jeez, you look good.'

  'Good to see you too, Tony, how was work?'

  'Work's great, drinks after work are great, I'm great. Jeez, you look good.'

  'I know, Tony,' she said, patting him on the back of the hand. 'You just said.'

  'But you do,' he insisted. 'You always do, you're gorgeous. And so lovable, everybody loves you, you know that, dontcha? Everybody.' He turned to the room. 'Who loves Sera?' he yelled into the crowd.

  'YEAH!' the crowd yelled back. The rabble was pissed enough to love anybody at that point.

  The jukebox finally stopped its homage to INXS and someone with a bit of musical taste took over the DJ-ing. 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' by Green Day came on.

  'Remember this?' Tony grabbed Sera's hands and stared earnestly in her eyes. 'Remember? Dance with me – come on.'

  They wrapped their arms around each other, enjoying their bodies moving in time to the song that had meant so much to them nine years ago.

  *

  Back in 2000, on the day they had met, Tony had been the last to board the plane, his overgrown black curls flopping in his eyes, and his cheeks flushed with running from the bar at the end of the terminal to his flight from Hobart to Sydney.

  'So sorry,' he'd said to the flight attendant as he tried to juggle his laptop, brown suede jacket and fumble in his pocket for his boarding pass. He flashed her a cheeky smile. 'I was deep in conversation with an old Digger at the bar, couldn't get away from him.'

  He finally retrieved a slightly soggy boarding pass from the back pocket of his Calvins. 'Ah . . . Oops, I seem to have used this as a coaster.' He grinned again.

  'Never mind, sir,' Sera said. 'Your seat is easy to find: it's the only empty one.'

  'Oh dear, did I keep everyone waiting for long?'

  'Never mind,' Sera said again, her professional demeanour firmly in place. 'If you could just take your seat, the captain can get us all on our way.'

  Tony found himself staring at her lips, watching them move as she spoke. 'Oh, of course, yes, I'll do that,' he said, snapping out of the moment.

  As he apologised his way toward his seat, Tony felt flustered and slightly confused. He put it down to the Guinness. He threw his jacket in the overhead locker as the seatbelt sign dinged, then squeezed past the two other passengers into the window seat, pushing his laptop under the seat in front.

  Sera's face was a mask as she delivered the safety routine, her hair tamed by pins and spray, and those lips hidden behind a veneer of red gloss. In his mind Tony saw her face break into a smile, her hair fall soft and golden onto her shoulders and those lips – ah, those lips. Right then, he decided, he had a mission. He would make that beautiful girl smile – not just a regulation Air Australia smile, but a true smile, just for him – by the end of the flight.

  *

  Sera's heart had banged so noisily in her chest when the guy with the curls came on board that she was sure he would hear it above the clipped professional voice she struggled to maintain. There was something so endearing about his ridiculously messy hair, his cocoa coloured eyes – even his scent gave her tingles of pleasure.

  He didn't make any effort at subtlety during the quick pond hop, taking every opportunity to try and make her laugh. 'Nuts?' she'd asked when serving drinks. 'No, perfectly sane,' he'd replied.

  His charming attempts at winning her smile were actually working a treat, but only on the inside. She wasn't going to give in that easily. It took all her will power to remain professional and cool. She rushed back to the galley a few times to lay a cool flannel on her burning cheeks and take some deep, calming breaths.

  She'd had plenty of passengers try to pick her up in the past. It was one of the downfalls of the job. She'd even accepted a few offers of dinner and one had actually become a relationship for a short time. But she'd never felt anything like this.

  After landing, Tony stood and retrieved his things. He'd been pretty sure she had a fun-loving and cheeky personality underneath – he'd seen the sparkle in her eye as she snubbed his gags – but he had failed to crack her professional shell . . . hadn't he?

  One last chance; she stood at the door bidding her passengers goodbye like an automaton: 'Good evening, thank you for flying Air Australia. Good evening, thank you for flying Air Australia.'

  Surely she'd personalise her farewell for him, he thought, as he reached the door. Hadn't they bonded?

  'Good evening, thank you for flying Air Australia,' she said to him.

  His shoulders slumped. He hadn't touched her. Despondent, he stepped onto the air bridge to make his way up the tunnel.

  'Excuse me, sir?' He turned as he heard her voice. The same mask of polite indifference greeted him. 'You dropped your boarding pass,' she said and handed a crisp piece of board out to him.

  'Oh, that's not mine,' he started, but when he looked at the paper he could see a phone number written across the top. He took it and looked back at her.

  The open smile that wreathed her face was as genuine, pure and giving as he'd known it would be. Dumbstruck, he could do nothing but stand there, holding the pass and smiling back. 'Thank you for flying Air Australia,' she said
once again, but this time it smacked of mirth and warmth.

  He'd practically skipped down the concourse. The baggage carousel reminded him of a merry-go-round, the planes were a flock of doves and the taxi queue was a daisy chain.

  As soon as he got home, with shaking fingers he dialled the number that was written on the boarding pass.

  *

  The Fringe Bar was jumping with its usual crowd of revellers when Sera walked in later that night. She should have suggested something more intimate than Oxford Street's ultimate party venue, but she needed to be sure her mind agreed with her gut before she took this thing any further. After all, this Tony guy was a complete stranger.

  The music was thumping, the joint was jumping – and so was her pulse. She'd never been so nervous on a date before. What was it about this guy that made her so edgy?

  She was sick of being single but she hadn't actively looked for a partner in months. It wasn't worth the letdown and the disappointment – she just knew they'd be turned off once they saw her scar. She was sick of walking the lonely road. But maybe this would be different.

  Her eyes went instinctively to the table in the corner window just as Green Day's haunting hit started with its opening lyric.

  At that moment Sera's eyes met Tony's. She walked over, they both started speaking at once – 'I was just thinking of this song!'

  It became their song and Green Day their band.

  *

  'Do you remember, Sera? Do you remember?' Tony's eyes were closed as his head hung, supported by her shoulder.

  'I remember, baby,' she murmured, at peace in his secure hold.

  'God damn it, Sera!' His mood switched in the classic manner of the truly intoxicated. He pulled back and gripped her upper arms. 'What happened to us? It was so perfect, we were so great. What happened?'

  'Don't do this, Tony, not now, not here,' Sera begged.

  'Then when, Sera, when? In between your bloody manicures? Will you schedule me in?'