“Talk to Cin. She can help you on this.”
He hadn’t talked to Cinta in days and he knew she was uptight about her show. He couldn’t involve her in this any more than he could make her stop looking at him like he’d broken them. She’d done enough for him and Dillon on the way here with counsel and advice. And he’d done nothing lately for her.
“You were there for her.”
Jay inclined his head. His hair was barbershop perfect. It was hard to believe he’d been in a dressing gown when they met. “What are you asking me?”
“I’m thanking you. You were there for Cinta when she was in trouble.”
“I was. Not that she truly needed me.” Jay smiled for the first time. “She had it under control. She was lonely and didn’t know by how much before you arrived. I was keeping her company. I hope you get that us doing business has put distance between her and I. You’re a conflict of interest.”
He was conflict all round; fighting deadlines, time, Dillon, Anderson, Cinta and now Jay.
“Take tonight to think it over.”
“I’m done thinking, Jay.”
He left Jay in the car park and made his walk out official by getting in the car. He went home, but she wasn’t there and that had the effect of turning his frustration into anger. He changed and went for a run, his legs protesting the sudden burst of activity after almost none for at least a fortnight.
He shouldn’t have hit Dillon. He should’ve called Cinta and gone to meet her wherever she was, taken her flowers in some dumb show that everything was okay between them. It was not okay, it was fraying at the edges. Buster had taught him to darn so he knew he could stitch them back together, but he needed time and time had become a commodity more rationed than free money.
The last time he’d tried to make time sparkle for them, he’d taken Cinta out to dinner, but spent twenty minutes standing outside the restaurant talking to Anderson on his phone. He’d been distracted when he came back inside, and they’d eaten in silence. He hadn’t been able to look at her, though she never said a word in complaint. Then he was so annoyed with himself he’d stayed up half the night working before crashing on the sofa in the office again, feeling like he didn’t deserve to lie next to her.
When his phone rang he hoped to God it was her and she had time for him. He pulled up and leant on telegraph pole, fumbled in his shorts for his handset.
“Where are you?”
Dillon. He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, trying to get enough oxygen on the next intake to talk.
“Wait, I don’t care where you are. But I need to know what you said to Jay.”
“Told him I was out if we weren’t equal partners.”
“Yeah, fuckwit to the core. Did you also happen to mention taking on a mentor and doing the moonwalk bare-arse, wearing a ball and chain?”
Mace’s chest heaved. Close enough. “Yeah.”
“He saw you slug me.”
“Yeah.”
“I think you ruptured my spleen.”
He laughed. Dillon sounded like Dillon, not like someone he’d just slugged in frustration. “If you can tell me why you need it I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Bastard.”
Dillon laughed too. And Mace stood in the street and held the phone away from his ear. When the cackle stopped he said, “What?”
“Get your arse back in here. I might need you to take out Anderson because Jay just overruled him and he is not a happy monk.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Me neither, but apparently Jay likes our style. He’s going to find us a mentor and you and I are going to work harder in the zero amount of time we have left when we’ve finished chasing women, getting tatts and snorting coke. And one more thing.”
Mace had begun the walk back to the loft. “Listening.”
“They decided on the location for opening the first office.”
He stopped dead and a woman with a stroller gave him a dirty look as she swung around him. There were five cities on the list, aligned with customer markets, access to finance and a bunch of other indicators Mace was mystified by. The decision mattered, it wasn’t just a milestone ticked off, it was a shift from one set of objectives to another. Opening an international office was a Summers-Denby second round funding activity. He kicked into a run as Dillon said, “Silicon Valley, here we come.”
37: Open and Shut
Of course it would happen like this. She should’ve bet on it. Not a wisp of interest from a headhunter in over a year, and today, on the day of her gallery show, Jacinta got the call. She was the lead candidate for a CEO role. She’d come highly recommended by Constance Graves.
There’d be a series of interviews, but the recruiter indicated that barring an asteroid, or alien invasion, the job was hers if she wanted it. The last time she’d balanced the likelihood of catastrophe over a real life decision she’d taken Mace home and her whole life had changed.
She’d had to sit down, her legs suddenly disinterested in supporting her frame, her mind suddenly wiped of her day’s to do list. A list that looked pathetically thin, pedestrian and lacking in substance when she found it again, scrawled in her sketchpad. On top was pick up the dry-cleaning, followed by get Blu Tack and red stickers, pay the household insurance. It ended with find gold heeled sandals.
The wait was likely over. She sat on the floor with the phone in her lap and looked around the loft, at the furniture Mace had brought. She’d been happy here, but the day bed needed recovering and the kitchen table was heavily scratched, more space would be good, and a stove that didn’t have a mind of its own would make burning things more predictable.
But then, she wouldn’t need to worry about cooking again unless she wanted to. There’d be a new apartment, with better views, a nicer car, someone else to go buy Blu Tack. A to do list with interesting, challenging items on it, not domestic drudgery. She needed to research the company, a large mortgage lender, not as diverse a business as Wentworth, but she could take it in different directions, make it her own. But not today.
Today she had to hang paintings and get the show ready. She’d been so nervous about that when she woke this morning, now it seemed inconsequential. It no longer mattered if nobody came to Cinta Worth’s show or if any of the paintings sold. Not that it ever truly had mattered; it’d been great as a filler; fun, a chance to explore her creative side and kill off her old demons.
She should call Mace, but she hesitated. It was hard enough to get his attention face to face, on the phone he was terrible: vague, offhand, you knew he was doing something else and only half attending to the conversation. It could wait.
She got to her feet. Alfie would be here any minute to help carry the paintings down the road to the gallery. She did love the loft, it was full of good memories: the night Mace brought her here, so nervous about asking her to live with him, the nights he’d taught her to cook, interspersing food preparation instructions with sexual favours, the long, layered nights of lovemaking and gentle conversation, the laughter, the tears, and soaks in the too small bath. And her time in the studio, working out her halves, making things whole. But it’d served its purpose now.
When Alfie arrived she put him to work. She almost told him her news, but he only knew she’d left a job with a payout and hadn’t needed to work for a while. He had a peripatetic work existence himself, swinging from broke to flush depending on whether his band had gigs or not. What she did outside of class and art and afternoons of arguing for the fun of it was of little interest to him. And when she was working again it would be difficult to find the time to keep up with him. That felt like the defeat of something good she’d made of her life, but it was also real.
“Hey, you all right, Cinta?”
She was unexpectedly terrified and not about the showing. She was right where Mace had been the afternoon he’d thrown everyone out of the loft. She missed him like a supernumerary sense had suddenly been anesthetised, like she was reduced by half. How was it going to work wh
en they both had serious career jobs? It wasn’t a working relationship now. They were virtually flatmates who rarely spoke and occasionally slept together. Very occasionally. If she’d known it would be like this... She’d thought she was ready... God, this was just panic about the show.
“Babe, you’ve gone white. What’s up?”
She shook her head, let a breath go. There wasn’t time for this now. She blinked and her eyes were wet. “I’m nervous.”
“Me too,” he grinned. “I think you’re going to sell out.”
“Hah. I’ll be lucky if anyone other than my friend, Jay, buys one.”
“Ah come on. Mace will. He’s loaded now, isn’t he?”
She laughed. “Not yet.” He was still closer to failing than succeeding, but the gap was narrowing.
“Guess we’ll see him tonight then?”
Mace, Dillon, Jay, Mel, Em, Bryan, Kath, even Tom; her old life and her new life would converge tonight. She wondered for a second what Malcolm would make of it. He’d become the most popular non-executive board member in the city, but no other financial institution had been game to take him on. He sat on the board of manufacturing and industrial companies and no doubt plotted to become chairman on any one, or all, of them.
She eyed Alfie. She knew he was fishing. He’d made no secret of being attracted to her. “Yes, Mace will be there tonight, and no he won’t have to buy a painting, he gets originals at home.”
Alfie laughed. “Hope he knows what a good thing he has with you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Just carry the paintings, Alfie.”
“I’m serious. He’s intense. And you’re...” he gave her a top to toe overview, it came out of him like a dare. “Desperately gorgeous.”
“And you’re a sexist scumbag. Pick up that canvas in the corner.”
He laughed again. “But you love me.”
She grunted. Alfie was fun to banter with. “I guess you’re all right, if you stay out of the light.”
“Hah! I’m mortally offended. But I’m picking up the painting.”
It took three trips back and forth between the loft and the gallery and then a couple of hours to design and hang the exhibit. Margaret and Ingrid helped with that. Then there was time to go home via the dry-cleaners to pick up Mace’s suit, shower and change. The showing started at 6.30pm, but she needed to be there at six, she’d walk down with Mace and they’d eat at one of the locals afterwards.
She showered, washed, dried and styled her hair in big glossy, girly curls and fussed over her makeup and outfit. She hadn’t dressed up in ages. It kept her from focusing on how nervous she was. If it didn’t matter, if it was only fun, if she now had an on-ramp to a life like the one she’d lost, why was she feeling sick to the stomach about this? She’d run tougher staff meetings. This was just a cocktail party, it wasn’t like her career as an artist depended on it.
Except she inexplicably wished it did.
She kept half an eye on the time, knowing Mace would undoubtedly rock in late and want the bathroom. At 5.30pm she started getting anxious. At 5.45pm, she had five minutes to decide to leave without him or be late. She could call him, but say what, the obvious? No, he’d figure it out and meet her there.
All the way between the loft and the gallery she kept expecting to hear his feet, hear her name called, feel his hand at the back of her neck or on her waist. And she’d forgive him because it didn’t matter that he was late, it only that he was there.
The gallery looked different when she arrived. The windows were spotless, the spotlights were on; there were waiters with drink trays. Margaret was wearing a pants suit that wasn’t ripped or stained, as well as lipstick and shoes. Jacinta saw it as an outsider might and it almost stopped her walking inside. She’d fretted over the collection, half the time elated with it, the other half tyrannised, and always a heartbeat away from taking her knife to it all for the satisfaction of ruining it, and the proof she was an imposter.
She’d hung the new oil version of the charcoal sketch she’d done of Mace in the window. She’d been careful to keep it covered in the studio so she could surprise him. She wanted to be standing beside him when he saw it for the first time.
She’d taken that first impression, blended it with how he was to her now and recast it with greater depth and skill. It was a very sexy piece she’d called One Night and it wasn’t for sale. It was a private love letter flashed at the world for a brief moment, and that moment had lost its magic because he wasn’t standing beside her, and she wouldn’t have time to watch for his arrival.
She saw Jay’s though. He looked so handsome in his navy suit. He bought yellow roses and he smelled expensive. He kissed her cheek then whistled when he saw the painting. “Does he know?”
She shook her head. “I hope he likes it.”
“Good Lord, it’s outrageous. I’m assuming he actually looks like that undressed.”
“He does.”
“Lucky girl.”
She had been. Still could be, but their relationship needed work, and she needed Mace to be here to see how much she wanted him. That’s what the painting was about, a reminder of how they’d lost and found each other, a prompt so they could do it again.
“Where did you come from?” She was desperate to ask Jay if he’d come from the incubator offices and if he knew how far behind him Mace was. She was equally desperate not to show him she cared so much, because Jay could be mean, and if he thought Mace was giving her trouble it might spill over to their business dealings.
“Been with the lawyers all day. Gruesome, no fun at all. I’m hoping the champagne is good.”
It was cheap and he’d notice. She laughed. He gave a theatrical groan. She lost him soon after as she stepped into the hostess role, greeting friends and family, laughing with students in her own class and others run by the school. Em was pregnant and had swollen ankles. Mel brought the new boyfriend. Alfie looked incredibly dapper. First time she’d seen him out of torn jeans. He wore a suit with his long hair and looked like he should be sitting front row of a fashion parade. They all cooed over him and Agnes took pictures and put them online. She could’ve rung Mace, but she didn’t want to check her phone because she didn’t want to hear his excuses. It was one night and he’d known for months how special it was to her. She couldn’t help feeling let down, betrayed.
That feeling intensified when Dillon arrived noticeably harried. He made his way to her side. “You look edible.” He hugged her off her feet. “Where is he?”
“Not with you obviously.”
“Fuck. He was right behind me. He should be here.”
She shrugged. He could’ve been in an accident, but she didn’t think so. He was distracted; he was squeezing a hundred things into the tiny space she’d marked out as hers. He was putting her last. It shouldn’t hurt so badly. It was eviscerating.
“He’s not coming, is he?”
Dillon took hold of her arms; in her heels she was almost able to eyeball him. “He was right behind me. The ugly son of a bitch is late and for that you should cut his balls off, but he’ll be here.” He jerked his head towards the window. “That’s him?”
She nodded. It was hard to find language in the war between heartbreak and fury.
“Yeah, like I said, ugly son of a bitch. You could do better.” He pulled his phone from his suit pocket and she stopped him. “What if I only ring hospitals?”
That shook her, but only for the second it took to recognise a false hope. “Do you really think we need to ring hospitals?”
Dillon frowned. “No. He’ll be here.”
At 7.30pm, she sold her first painting and not to Jay or anyone else she knew. It was unaccountably exciting someone with no ties to her thought enough of her work to want to take it home and put it on their wall. She’d led million dollar acquisition deals that were less thrilling, certainly less personally satisfying.
At 8pm, Tom arrived, fashionably late. She introduced him to Jay for the first time. She might’ve
introduced him to Mace as well. Time shifted, paintings were purchased. By 8.30pm, the whole exhibition was marked with red sold stickers and she had an offer, a great offer, on One Night. She thought seriously about taking it. It hardly mattered that she keep it, that Mace see it. Perhaps this was her fault. Had she taught him that art was only an amusing pastime she cared marginally about? That wasn’t how she thought about it now.
People were leaving, Tom then Bryan and Kath, home to relieve the babysitter, Jay, Ingrid, Agnes and Carmen. Alfie stayed and so did Dillon. Margaret had her shoes off. Her partner Julian, who owned the gallery attached to the school, pulled her aside.
“You know it’s unusual this is, to sell out like this. Your work is evocative. You have a future as an artist, but then you must know that.”
Not until tonight had she seen it, and heard it, eavesdropping on a dozen conversations where people considered her work and found it interesting enough to spend money on.
She hugged Julian. It was kind of him to say so. “Thank you. I’m a little shocked. Beginner’s luck I guess.”
“No, no. You come see me tomorrow. I want to talk about a commission.”
“You mean someone would pay me to paint?” It was a slightly hysterical notion.
He smiled. “Many of the right people will pay to have your art if we manage it well enough. Art is a business like any other, and you are a valuable commodity.” He must’ve read her scepticism. He gave a warbling laugh. “You’re thinking I say this to all Margaret’s students.” She nodded and he waved a hand dismissively. “They wish.”
At 9pm, Dillon pulled her into his side. “I will hunt him down and I will boil his scurvy flesh from his bones and bring you his inadequate skeleton.”
She hugged him back. “That’s very medieval of you.”
“Unless you’d like the honour of stabbing him to death? Ladies choice.” He tipped her head up with a finger under her chin. “How bad is this?”
“I’m disappointed. I wanted him to be here.” A sense of extreme sadness sat on top of her lungs, pressing down on all the frustration and anger, all the good will and good fortune of the night. It made it hard to breathe.
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