“Is it?” Georgie turned to her with an encouraging smile. “What star sign does that make you, Irene?”
“Aquarius. Which is supposed to make me impulsive and charming.” Irene laughed. “Well, I’m certainly impulsive, but the jury’s out on the charm.”
Perfect opening, thought Georgie. “What about you, Maureen? What does your star sign say?”
“Aries,” she said. “But I’m nothing like I’m supposed to be…impulsive and energetic and domineering. I hate conflict. I just like a quiet life.”
Aha. Georgie almost felt like punching the air. Louise had definitely said Aries – someone amenable, she’d said, someone who liked to please others.
Bingo. What else had she said? There was someone connected with Maureen who was older, someone more intense and determined. And impatient?
Georgie thought about how to approach it, and then grinned to herself. Intense, determined, impatient? Right.
She began to talk about her Great Grandma Rosa.
Maureen was fascinated, listening to her story. “I can’t believe it. You and your great grandma – you both read crystal balls? Does that mean you can tell the future?”
“Sometimes,” Georgie admitted. “I could wish it was more accurate, but that’s the way it goes.”
“But you really can see things?” The expression in Maureen’s eyes showed both wonder and curiosity. “Would you be able to see what’s in store for me?”
“Quite possibly.” Conscious that Irene’s was now openly listening, Georgie quickly added, “I usually approach it as a fun thing, and if I find out anything that might help it’s a bonus.”
“I’d like to do that. If that’s okay.”
“Of course you can.” Inwardly, Georgie was elated. It was always much easier if someone was keen, rather than having to be talked into reading. “When would you like to do it?”
Maureen chewed on her lip, thinking. “We close the cafe at eight. I could come then. Is tonight too soon?”
“Tonight would be fine. In fact…” She thought of Scott. He knew how to do an astrological spread, just like his mother. “Why don’t we combine it with a card reading as well? My partner, Scott, does those. He learned from his mom – she’s an astrologer.”
Maureen’s eyes glowed. “A crystal ball reading and a card reading? How exciting! I always used to visit the tarot reader at the markets, but I never told Jim about it. He doesn’t believe in that stuff.”
Georgie reflected that Jim Beggs probably didn’t believe in anything that would afford his wife pleasure. How Maureen had managed to stay with him for decades she had no idea.
“We’ll make it a date, then,” she said. “Come down as soon as the shop closes. We’re staying in the caravan park, but I’ll walk up to the entrance and wait for you at around eight, show you where to go.”
Now, she thought. Back to her great-grandmother’s personality, so she could find out what she really wanted to know. “Rosa’s an amazing woman, but I was scared of her for years. She is quite abrupt, very determined – and always speaks her mind.” She gave a wry laugh. “I’m sure you know the type.”
“Oh, I do.” Maureen nodded vigorously. “You could be talking about my mother – God rest her soul.” An expression of sadness crossed her face, and she added softly, “She passed away a couple of months ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Georgie squeezed Maureen’s hand, wondering if her mother had been the last support she had against Jim. “You must miss her.”
“She didn’t live here. She had a house in Maclean, but she was determined not to be pushed into a retirement home. She loved her garden, and she couldn’t bear the thought of not having one. She had vases of flowers everywhere. Well, she got her wish.” Maureen toyed with the lunch and roll on her plate, remembering. “She stayed in her own home until she died, although the last few months were difficult. I drove there to see her when I could, and Jim sent money to help her out.”
“I’m sure your mother must’ve appreciated that. Both the visits and the financial assistance.”
“She liked seeing me, but…” Maureen shrugged, and her mouth twisted in a slightly bitter line. “She blamed Jim for not letting me go more often, although he was all right with me staying with her for the last couple of weeks of her life.” Her eyes met Georgie’s. “Jim is not an easy man to like, and my mother couldn’t abide him. And, like your great grandma, she wasn’t backward in speaking her mind. Thought I should have left him years ago.”
“Well, obviously you didn’t agree,” Georgie said gently. “And everyone has to make up their own mind.”
“He wasn’t always quite as bad as he is now,” Maureen said. “He worked hard, and I was happy to work hard alongside him to secure our retirement. Fish and chips in a country cafe…it’s not a recipe for riches.” She stared at the raindrops trickling down the window. “But now… I’m beginning to think my mother was right.”
Although she and Maureen were sitting on the end of the table, Georgie had the feeling that Irene, a few seats away, was straining to catch the conversation.
She cast about for a way to find out the last piece of information she needed. “It sounds as though you and your mother had very different personalities,” she said. “Just out of interest, what star sign was she?”
“I don’t know,” Maureen admitted. “Her birthday is on the nineteenth of May.”
“The nineteenth,” Georgie repeated. “I’ll ask Scott. He’ll know.”
Irene’s head swung towards them. “Did I hear you talking about star signs? The nineteenth of May? My sister’s birthday is on the fourteenth of May. That’s Taurus.”
Taurus. Georgie felt a surge of triumph. Maureen was Aries, and her mother was Taurus. She had the right two women.
Then she had a sudden image of the basket of flowers on the quilting square in the crystal ball. Flowers, of course – Maureen said her mother had loved them. It was all coming together. Now she just had to figure out what Maureen’s mother had to do with all this.
“Taurus? Thanks, Irene,” Georgie said, hiding a grin. She glanced at Maureen and found that she, too, had an amused glint in her eye.
Well, that was Irene. You didn’t earn the title of town gossip unless you listened in at every opportunity.
“You said you’re an Aquarian, didn’t you, Irene?” she asked. Time to direct the conversation away from Maureen. “Have you ever had your astrological chart done?”
“I have,” Irene said, “and now I’m going to insist that you do a reading with your crystal ball, too, just like you are for Maureen. See if you come up with the same things…” Within that, Irene took the floor and they were hearing all about her path through life and what the tarot card reader at the markets had told her.
All in all, Georgie thought, a successful day. Maureen was coming out of her shell, and Georgie had achieved quite a lot. First, she’d learned that Maureen and her mother fit the birthday profiles. Second, Maureen had agreed to a reading tonight, and Georgie was certain that would yield more information about her mother.
Third… clearly, Jim Beggs had been keeping secrets from his wife. According to Scott’s brother, Jim had a number of investments with Stan Lambert – he of the “owns half of the Yamba” fame.
Yet Maureen seemed convinced that they wouldn’t have a lot of money for their retirement.
Someone didn’t understand what was going on, and she was willing to bet it wasn’t Jim.
22
Jim Blows His Top
After taking off to suit herself the day before to attend that stupid coffee class, Maureen had disappeared again. One minute Maureen was out at the front counter taking orders, and the next she was gone.
Jim turned around to find that instead of his prune-faced wife coming through the kitchen doorway with the orders, it was Anton.
Jim stared at him, his blood immediately heating up. “What are you doing here?”
Already used to Jim’s ways, and
apparently not the slightest bit intimidated, Anton shrugged. “Your wife asked me to work today, from eight thirty through till one thirty.” He angled his wristwatch at Jim and pointed. “It’s right on eight thirty.”
Jim pushed past him and went to the door, opening it just in time to see Maureen’s little white Holden Barina disappearing up the street.
Where the hell was she off to now? This was getting ridiculous. Ridiculous.
He stomped back inside and, ignoring the two old men drinking tea in a corner booth and two women at the counter, demanded, “Did she say where she’s going?”
“No. Just asked me to come in between eight thirty and one thirty, that’s all I know.” Unconcerned, Anton got the milk out of the fridge and went to the coffee machine to fix the women’s orders.
Anton might not have known where Maureen was, but others in the town did, it seemed. By eleven o’clock he had found out that she had gone off to spend the morning with some craft group. At twelve thirty a woman ordering fried calamari rings announced that she’d seen Maureen having lunch at the restaurant by the river, sitting next to that American woman who had been working in the cafe across the road.
Jim gritted his teeth and said nothing, but he thought plenty.
When there was a lull just before one thirty, he motioned Anton into the kitchen, folded his arms and stared at him.
“You said you knew the backpacker I had working in here before, name of Nick.”
Anton nodded, his dark eyes keen.
“He told you to come here and ask here for work. That right?”
“Said if I knew how to cook fried food, make coffee, I should be fine.”
Jim’s eyebrows lowered. This was where he had to be careful. “Did he tell you about any other tasks I asked him to do?”
A slow smile grew on Anton’s face. “He might have.”
“None of this might have business,” snapped Jim. “Did he or didn’t he?”
Anton waited a beat for he spoke, staring at Jim, spinning it out. “He said that you could be very generous to staff who could help out in other ways.” He leaned against the door jamb and looked pointedly at the cafe across the road. “You like to make sure there are no cockroaches on your premises, for example.”
Jim grunted. “And what was your response to that?”
“I thought this sounded like the kind of place I’d like to work,” Anton said. “I need money for travel. I don’t care how I get it.”
Jim nodded. His instincts had been right. “I’ll pay you fifty bucks to do a job right now.”
“If it’s the same kind of job that Nick did,” Anton said coolly, “you paid him a hundred.”
Jim bit back a retort and contented himself with a glare instead. It would be worth a hundred bucks if it worked. If not—well then, he would just have to think of something else.
“All right, but if you get caught, you keep your mouth shut.”
“I won’t get caught.”
“Right. Get yourself over there now, order something to eat. And then –”
“Who’s going to pay for the food?”
“I will,” Jim growled. “But make sure it’s something cheap.”
Anton nodded. “Cockroaches again?”
“No,” Jim said. “This time, I’m trying something different. Come with me.”
Trev Chaffey had not had a good morning. He had started work at six thirty, and a job that was supposed to take an hour and a half, tops, had spun out closer to four hours—one of those situations where one problem led to another lead to another. That had made him late for his second job of the day, so he’d missed his usual morning cappuccino from Coffee, Cakes and Crêpes.
At the second job on a building site, he couldn’t get started until the concreters had finished, and because they were running late too, he had to stand around waiting…but didn’t dare leave the site in case someone else arrived to snag his place in the queue. Then the clouds had started building, and the rain started.
Just one of those days. Now it was well after one thirty, he’d had to reschedule the third job of the day and he had twenty minutes before he was due at number four, which looked like being rained out anyway.
He was frustrated and starving, and although fish and chips would have gone down well, he figured he would feel better after seeing Viv’s slow, warm smile rather than Maureen Beggs’ unhappy face. And Viv did do a pretty good job on the crêpes.
He went to Coffee, Cakes & Crêpes and for the first time that day, something went right. Although there were still a few people lingering over coffee, most of the lunchtime crowd had been taken care of, so Viv had time to come out and chat. She’d been doing that occasionally now, when he came in, and Trevor was beginning to think maybe she liked him for his own sake, not just because he’d helped them out a few times when things went wrong.
“Hi, Trev.” Viv slid his cheese and bacon crêpe in front of him, and a moment later Lissa arrived with his cappuccino, plus one for her sister. She squeezed Viv’s shoulder. “Take five, Viv. Everything is quiet.”
The twin aromas of bacon and coffee tantalized Trev’s nose, and he heaved a huge sigh as he picked up his knife and fork. “Man, do I need this.”
As he tucked in, Viv smiled at him. “Been a rough day?”
“You don’t know the half of it.” Briefly, in between wolfing down the crêpe, he filled her in.
Half amused and a half rueful, she grinned sympathetically. “We all have days like that.”
Right then they heard a rumble of thunder, and the rain started coming down in earnest.
“And there goes job number four,” said Trev, feeling resigned. “I might as well have stayed in bed this morning.” He picked up his cup of coffee, feeling guilty for complaining when the girls had had such a rough time of it. “Anyway, tomorrow is another day. How are things going with you guys? Everything settled down now?”
Viv rolled her eyes. “I would say yes, but I don’t like tempting fate.”
Behind her the door opened and the backpacker who’d been doing a bit of part-time work across the road walked in. Don’t order a crêpe, thought Trev. He didn’t want Viv to have to jump up and return to the kitchen.
“You might have just had one of those bad runs,” Trev suggested. “Happens to us all. I remember when I had all my tools stolen, right after two weeks of bad weather that held up most of the work around here. You get through it.”
A moment later, Lissa came over to them. “Sorry, Viv. He wants a vegetarian crêpe. I’d make it for you, but I’ve got two more lattes to do.”
“That’s okay. It won’t take me long.” She stood up and then paused, looking down at Trevor. “If you don’t have to rush off, the kitchen closes at two. I can take a break for a while.”
Her tone sounded casual, and her smile held no hint of anything else but friendship, but Trev’s heart leapt in his chest.
“Might as well,” he said in an offhand tone that matched hers. “All right, I’ll hang about.”
“Okay. Back soon.” Viv disappeared, and Trev lifted the coffee cup to his mouth with a grin big enough to swallow the whole thing. His eye caught Lissa and she winked and gave him a thumbs up.
Trev felt the blood rushed to his face. Were his feelings for Viv that obvious? Did Viv herself know? What if she was just being kind?
Outside, the rain started coming down harder. Trev stared into his coffee and then took another gulp. He didn’t want Viv to spend time with him as a kindness.
Opposite him, he heard the scrape of a chair being dragged back. He looked up to see Lissa sitting down. “Trev, I’m just gonna say this once, okay?”
Not knowing what to expect, he nodded and then, unable to look at her, glanced away. Over her shoulder he could see the backpacker standing up and looking at some of the Yamba seascapes on the wall. He was jigging up and down, impatient for his lunch.
“Trev.” Lissa’s determined voice pulled his eyes back to hers. “Viv likes you a lot. In f
act, I don’t think she knows quite how much she likes you, if you get my meaning.”
Trev stared at her. He didn’t know what to say.
“This business with Shane and Amber, it kind of wrecked her confidence, turned her off men. And Amber rubbing it in all the time makes her feel like an idiot.”
“If you ask me,” Trev said sharply, “it’s Shane Carter who’s the idiot. He’s got a woman like Viv right in front of his eyes, and he lets her go for the sake of a twit like Amber Kaye? You don’t know the number of times I felt like going down to the bakery to punch his lights out.”
He averted his gaze from Lissa’s again, afraid he’d given away too much.
The backpacker had moved on to a framed poster outlining the history of the area, but what caught Trev’s attention was the way he took a quick look around, his gaze resting on the couple nearest to him, before glancing down at his feet. His head turned towards them, so Trev instinctively made sure his gaze was focused on Lissa. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the guy return to his seat and sit down.
Something was off. Trev’s mind went immediately to theft; while he knew perfectly well that most backpackers were fine, there were a certain number who funded their travels with a bit of petty theft.
But what could he steal from here, while he was standing out in the open like that?
“Trev?” Lissa tapped him on the wrist. “Are you listening to me? Or am I totally off base here?”
“No. I mean yes.” Dragging his mind back to what was really important, he gathered together all his courage and set in a rush, “Are you saying that I might have a chance with Viv?”
Lissa shook her head in mock sadness. “Honestly, men are so slow at times. Yes, Trev. I’m saying you have a chance with Viv. Ask her out, why don’t you? But don’t tell her I told you to. Sssh. Here she comes.”
Lissa stood up and pointed at him as Viv walked past to take the aromatic crêpe over to the backpacker. “Stay there, Trev. It’s raining outside and you can’t do any work, so settle yourself in and chat up Viv.”
A Good Result Page 11
