Wife for Hire

by Dianne Blacklock

  ‘Why did you still have yours?’

  ‘They ran out of bananas.’

  Sam suppressed an urge to laugh. ‘Oh, okay. So that’s all it was?’

  ‘Yeah. Jeez Mum, don’t be gross.’

  ‘Sorry, I won’t bring it up again.’ She went to walk back out to the kitchen.

  ‘Hey,’ he called after her. ‘What did you do with it anyway?’

  ‘What?’ Sam swung around, she could feel her own face burning red now.

  ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘Um, well, um,’ she stammered. ‘I must have thrown it out, obviously. I mean, it’s not like anyone here needed it,’ she blurted.

  ‘Okay, Mum, don’t have a cow.’ He picked up his skateboard. ‘I’m goin’.’

  ‘Where exactly are you going?’

  ‘Just hangin’.’

  ‘Where exactly are you hanging?’

  Josh sighed. ‘Laura Tierney’s place, okay? She lives round on Gattica Street.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sam said lightly. ‘Call Max and tell her what time you’ll be home, please?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he grunted, walking out the front door.

  Sam unplugged her mobile from the recharger and slipped it into her bag. Then she took out a compact mirror to check her face, for the fourth time in the last hour. She took a deep breath to calm herself as Ellie burst through the back door.

  ‘Mum, can me and Max take Mambo for a walk when she comes?’

  Sam heard a knock on the front door. ‘Well, that’s probably Max now, you can ask her yourself.’

  Ellie ran to the front door and opened it.

  ‘Hey Jelly Belly! What’s happening?’ said Max, hugging her.

  ‘Can we take Mambo for a walk?’ Ellie pleaded.

  ‘Ooh, I dunno. That sounds suspiciously like physical exercise, Jelly.’

  ‘He’s only a pup, Max,’ Sam reminded her. ‘If you walk to the end of the street and back, he’ll be exhausted.’

  ‘Okay then! Go fetch his bridle and saddle him up.’

  ‘Yay,’ Ellie cheered, running out to the laundry.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ said Max.

  ‘They’ve all deserted you. Jess has gone to the mall, and Josh –’

  ‘– has a hot date,’ finished Max. ‘I saw him out the front.’

  ‘Did he tell you he had a date?’

  Max nodded.

  ‘He denied it to me.’

  ‘That’s because you are the mum and I am the “way cool” aunt.’

  ‘Well, “way cool aunt”, thanks for doing this. I was going to ask Jeff but he had some family thing with Jodi’s people.’

  ‘No worries,’ said Max. ‘It gets me out of wedding invitation shopping with the future “MIL”.’ She sighed. ‘She is a lovely woman, but her attention to detail borders on obsessive/compulsive. And I thought Dan was conservative. He’s like the Andy Warhol of the family. Wait till she finds out I’m wearing a purple wedding dress.’

  Sam had been ignoring Max’s constant references to coloured wedding dresses. Last week it was hot pink. And before that, lime green.

  ‘Where are you going again?’

  ‘I told you, I have an appointment.’

  ‘Mm,’ Max shrugged. ‘You look nice.’

  ‘You think so?’

  She nodded. ‘Very nautical. With the blue stripes and all.’

  ‘Is it too obvious?’ Sam frowned.

  ‘Too obvious for what?’

  ‘Never mind.’ She picked up her bag. She could feel the anticipation rising in her chest and she felt almost giddy. ‘I really do appreciate this, Max.’ Suddenly she lunged forward and hugged her sister tightly.

  ‘What’s going on, Sherl? You’re not dying or something, are you?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ she beamed. ‘Do I tell you enough that you’re a big, crazy nut and I love you? And you’re going to be so happy with Dan. And I’m going to be happy too. We’re all going to be happy!’

  Max was frowning at her. ‘I think you need to get the doctor to adjust your Prozac dose, Sherl. You’re going way off the Richter scale here.’

  Sam looked at her watch. ‘Whoops! Better dash. Don’t want to miss the boat.’

  The traffic was heavy down to the marina and Sam was finding it increasingly difficult to keep her cool. She was dead on time when she finally found a space in the car park, and that only made her more nervous. She had planned to be ten minutes early. Oh well, the sky was not about to fall in.

  She did one last check of her hair and face before getting out of the car and locking it. She pulled a note out of her bag and read the directions for where she had to go. After a couple of wrong turns, she eventually made it to the right place and started along the timber pier. She spotted Hal before he saw her. He was bent over, uncoiling rope from around a kind of hook on the deck of a sailing boat. He looked up as she approached and stopped what he was doing, dropping the rope. He straightened, watching her as she stepped down onto the floating pier alongside.

  ‘Hi!’ she said brightly, her heart in her mouth.

  ‘Hey Sam.’ He was clearly surprised.

  She looked along the length of the boat. ‘This is fantastic, Hal. Is it really yours?’

  He nodded, still bemused. ‘And the bank’s.’

  Sam smiled. ‘Well, you did it.’

  ‘I did.’

  Hal gazed down at her. He seemed awkward. Sam watched him, unfazed.

  ‘Sam, I’m glad you came, I really am.’ He hesitated. ‘Thing is, I’ve got a booking,’ he checked his watch, ‘right about now.’

  ‘Name of Smith?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘That’d be me.’

  His face was blank for a second, until Sam almost heard the clink as the penny dropped. He shook his head, smiling. ‘Smith, eh? That’s original.’

  She shrugged. ‘You fell for it.’

  Hal considered her. ‘Well, Ms Smith, you look just like a woman I used to know.’

  ‘Oh really? What was she like?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ he sighed. ‘But complicated.’

  ‘What’s wrong with complicated?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all. I like complicated. She didn’t so much.’

  Sam took a step closer to the edge of the pier. ‘So what happened?’

  He gazed at her steadily. ‘She didn’t want me around after a while.’

  ‘Mm, maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe she just needed some time to work out what she wanted.’

  She noticed he took a deep breath. ‘So what does she want now?’

  Sam went to climb aboard. Hal reached out his hand to help her, and she held it firmly as she stepped across onto the boat.

  ‘She wants you to take her sailing.’

  One Year Later

  ‘No, Carlos, I told you already, I’m not going to be your wife any more.’

  ‘Why not, Ellie?’

  They were sitting on the back step, alternately tossing a ball to the dog, who would fetch it and return it, waiting eagerly for the next throw. At this point it was unclear who would get tired of the game first.

  ‘Because Mummy said when I grow up I don’t have to be a wife, I can be anything I want, even a vents manager like her. She said she’s not going to be anybody’s wife ever again. That’s what she told Hal.’

  ‘Did he cry?’

  ‘No, silly. He’s a growed-up man!’

  ‘My dad cries sometimes.’

  ‘Does he?’

  Carlos nodded seriously. ‘He cried when Brazil won the World Cup.’

  ‘Well, Hal doesn’t have anything to cry about. He says he’s the happiest man in the whole wide world. Mummy says she loves him to bits and everything, and she’s always kissing him. And he’s still going to live with us. He says he’s never, ever going to leave.’

  Carlos rested his elbows on his knees, cupping his chin in his hands. ‘I don’t get it. If your mum loves kissing Hal so much, why doesn’t she want to b
e his wife?’

  Ellie screwed her nose up, thinking. ‘Probably ’cause she did it as a job and she got sick of it.’

  Carlos shrugged, taking the ball from Mambo and tossing it towards the back fence.

  ‘I’m still gonna have a wedding but,’ Ellie said firmly. ‘I’m gonna wear a white dress like Max did at her wedding, and my bridesmaids will have purple dresses, like Mummy and Aunty Alex and me and Jess did. But I won’t have Mummy and Aunty Alex, because they’ll probably be a hundred years old by then. I s’pose I’ll have Jess. Marco can be her partner. That should make her happy.’

  ‘Can I come too?’

  ‘Yes!’ Ellie said, exasperated. ‘You have to be my partner. You can wear a black suit like Dan, and have a flower on the collar bit, just there,’ she finished, pointing to his chest.

  Carlos looked confused. ‘So we’re gonna have a wedding, but you’re not gonna be my wife?’

  ‘Uh huh,’ she nodded.

  ‘Will we have babies?’

  Ellie thought about it. ‘I’m not sure. Not two at a time, like Jodi. Her tummy was so big I thought it was going to explode. And Daddy says that one baby has a turn of sleeping, and the other one has a turn of crying, all day long!’ Ellie grimaced. ‘Maybe I’ll wait and see what Max’s baby’s like when it comes out. She’s only having one this time.’

  Mambo returned with the ball, dropping it at their feet and looking expectantly from one to the other.

  ‘Will we have a dog?’ Carlos asked.

  ‘Oh definitely,’ Ellie nodded. ‘Maybe even two.’

  Dianne Blacklock

  Call Waiting

  Ally Tasker is trapped in a dead end teaching job and a relationship that’s going nowhere. Her dreams of a fulfilling life after art college didn’t include cleaning up after bored school children and being a doormat for her yuppie boyfriend. What she really wants is to be more like her friend Meg – at least she has turned her art training into a lucrative job in computer design, not to mention having a doting husband and a gorgeous baby son to complete the package.

  But when Ally’s grandfather and sole relative dies, she returns to the Southern Highland home of her childhood where she must confront painful issues from her past that her safe life in the city has allowed her to ignore. Meanwhile Meg is not as happy as Ally imagines. Dissatisfied with the pretty picture her world projects, a restless Meg longs to inject more passion and spontaneity into her life – but at what cost to her family’s happiness?

  Sometimes you have to risk all you have to realise what is worth saving.

  ‘Full of genuine warmth and gentle humour . . . the perfect example of utterly relaxing escapism’

  CATHY KELLY