Playing by the Rules

by Imelda Evans

  ‘Almost wearing it, I said. A fabulous outfit, of course.’

  In spite of herself, Kate had to laugh.

  ‘Is that your answer to everything?’

  ‘Is what my answer to everything?’ replied Jo, rummaging through the sparkly pile on the bed. ‘Do you think the pearls, or the plain gold? No, don’t answer that, it’s definitely the plain gold for you,’ she said, discarding the others.

  ‘Is there anything you think a fabulous outfit can’t fix?’

  ‘Not much. Stand still, can’t you? And hold your hair out of the way.’

  ‘And now,’ she said, having finished attaching two extravagantly large gold earrings to Kate’s ears, ‘I rest my case.’

  Jo spun her friend around to face the full-length mirror.

  Kate gasped. The outfit was definitely something. The soft bronzy stuff of the dress was suspended from a gold ring on one of her shoulders, but from the way it was hugging her curvy bits she suspected it would stay up of its own accord. Kate had long since come to terms with curviness being a fact of her life, but she’d never seen it like this before. Now every undulation of her body was outlined in a colour somewhere between autumn leaves and her hair, in a fabric that shimmered and caught the light as she moved. The dress seemed simultaneously to cover and reveal everything.

  To her surprise, once she got over the shock, she found it didn’t look bad at all. But it didn’t look like her. She looked like someone else. Someone dangerous.

  ‘Jo, I can’t wear this to the reunion!’

  ‘What, you’re going to wear it to do the gardening in?’

  ‘No, of course not! I’m just not sure it’s exactly . . . me.’

  ‘Me, schmee! You want to make a good impression, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, but . . .’

  ‘No buts! Listen, Kate, you’ve been moping around long enough. Are you going to let that bastard ruin your entire holiday, or are you going to get a grip, move on and have some fun?’

  Kate had a brief mental image of Alain getting a grip and moving on with Sophie. Jo was right. It was time for her to pull herself together. Hadn’t she been telling herself the same thing? She squared her shoulders and looked her friend in the eye.

  ‘Fun,’ she answered firmly. ‘I want to have some fun.’

  ‘Well then?’ It was a challenge.

  Kate turned and looked again at her reflection. It certainly wasn’t her usual style, but wasn’t that exactly what she had decided she needed? And it did look pretty good. Glamorous, even. No more Ms Mousy Kate! She turned to her friend with a smile.

  ‘All right – I’ll do it!’

  ‘Attagirl! Now get out of that rig, so we can do your hair.’

  Kate was complying when she remembered something that the dress had temporarily driven out of her mind.

  ‘Jo, I can’t go – I don’t have a partner.’

  Jo looked up from untangling the cords of more hairstyling equipment than Kate had ever seen outside of a hairdresser.

  ‘Why should that stop you?’

  Kate sank onto the bed among the earrings, suddenly exhausted again. She fiddled with the jewellery, avoiding Jo’s eyes. ‘Because I told them I was bringing . . . when I replied to the invitation . . . I told them I was bringing . . .’

  ‘Who? Alain? If anybody asks, just tell them he couldn’t come. I doubt anyone will remember, much less care.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. I didn’t give his name. I said I was bringing my fiancé.’

  Jo stopped fiddling with the hairdryer and stared at her.

  ‘Why on earth would you say that?’

  Kate felt a tear form in the corner of her eye and blinked furiously.

  ‘Because I thought by now I’d have one.’

  ‘What?’ For a moment, Jo looked bemused, then understanding dawned on her face. ‘Oh, no, hon, you didn’t! You thought he was going to ask you to marry him? And then he dumped you? Oh, poor baby. But what made you think he was going to propose?’

  Kate wrenched a tissue from the box on Jo’s bedside table and blew her nose.

  ‘He made a reservation at my favourite restaurant. The expensive one that he normally says we can’t afford. He never makes reservations. Especially not there. What was I supposed to think?’

  Jo perched on the bed, carefully avoiding the pointier bits of earring. ‘Oh dear. Although . . .’ She leaned over and patted Kate’s knee. ‘You know, hon, looking on the bright side, if he’s that cheap, maybe it’s just as well he didn’t ask.’

  ‘Jo!’

  Jo shrugged. ‘I call’em as I see’em, hon. And if he won’t go to a restaurant that’s your favourite just because it’s a bit expensive, he’s not worthy of you.’

  Kate heard a thin wailing noise and was horrified to realise it had come from her.

  ‘But it was time!’

  Jo raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Time?’

  ‘Well, we’d been going out for a year and everything was going well and I just thought . . .’

  The words petered out as Jo’s eyebrows threatened to disappear into her hairline.

  ‘Kate Adams, are you telling me you had this relationship on a schedule?’

  ‘No! Not exactly. But you know how I like to plan! I like to know what’s going on. To have a timeline and a plan and . . .’ She stopped again, aware she was repeating herself. And sounding ever so slightly like a crazy person.

  Kate grabbed another tissue, ostensibly to blow again, but really to avoid Jo’s scrutiny.

  Jo leaned forward and pulled Kate’s hand away from her face.

  ‘So tell me, my mental little plan-freak, did you buy the ring?’

  ‘No! Of course not!’

  ‘Did you have it picked out?’

  Kate paused a fraction too long and Jo clapped triumphantly.

  ‘Ha! I knew it!’

  Kate gave up any hope of plausible denial.

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with wanting to get married? What’s wrong with wanting to be loved?’

  ‘Oh, hon, nothing. But . . .’ She squeezed Kate’s hand. ‘Do you not think maybe you’re taking this whole quest-for-love thing a touch too seriously? Love is supposed to be fun! It’s supposed to be spontaneous and to make you smile. It’s not supposed to leave you like . . . well, like this,’ she finished, gesturing to Kate’s tear-damp face.

  Kate scrubbed her face with her hands and managed a watery facsimile of a smile.

  ‘You know me, Jo. I’ve never been much good at spontaneous.’

  Jo smiled back and squeezed her hands again.

  ‘Never mind. You can learn. You’re good at learning – or so all those degrees would suggest. Now, let me see . . .’ She jumped up and began pacing the room, hands clasped and forefingers tapping together as she thought out loud. ‘Clearly, this is more than an outfit can handle. It’s a good start, but if you’re going to get your mojo back we need something more.’

  Kate wasn’t sure that she’d ever had any mojo. Not if mojo meant the kind of sexual confidence that seemed to hover around Jo like a halo. Even in high school she’d had it. Of course, in those days, it had frightened off as many boys as it attracted. But it had to be better than feeling like a mousy little nobody, as Kate had.

  Much as Jo loved her, Kate was pretty sure Jo hadn’t really understood how she’d felt then, or how easy it was for her to feel that way still.

  After all, it wasn’t as though she’d ever stopped being mousy. She hadn’t needed to. When she was a poor student, no-one had expected her to be glamorous. Then she became an academic. In her profession, even in France, being ‘hot’ didn’t do you any favours. In fact, as a woman, if you wanted your ideas to be taken seriously, a certain amount of dowdiness helped. So she’d embraced her inner mouse and learned to be fine with it. She didn’t love it, exactly, but it was comfortable.

  ‘I’ve got it!’

  Kate jumped and felt the pile of earrings slide down th
e bedspread to rest against her leg.

  ‘You need to have a fling!’

  Kate stopped trying to fend off the earrings.

  ‘A what?!’

  ‘A fling.’ Jo gestured expansively. ‘You know . . . a snog with someone you’ll never see again. A carefree couple of days with a handsome stranger. A one-night stand. Surely you’re familiar with the concept?’

  ‘Jo!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t do one-night stands!’

  Jo grinned at her.

  ‘I know. I just wanted to check you were paying attention. Okay, you can skip the one-night stand. But I still think you should do the rest. You need a no-strings-attached date or five. It’s absolutely the best way to get a loser boyfriend out of your system. You could start with the reunion.’

  Kate opened her mouth to argue, but shut it again without speaking.

  Maybe Jo was right. She had wanted something to boost her confidence and send her back to work looking like a woman with a secret. Maybe a fling was exactly what she needed. Maybe this was the plan she had been looking for. Kate felt her spirits lift . . . and sink again, as she spotted the flaw.

  ‘Jo, I think I can see a problem.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Where exactly am I supposed to find a handsome stranger at short notice?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I can think of something.’

  Kate didn’t like the look on Jo’s face. Unless she was mistaken, she had already thought of something and she was looking entirely too pleased with herself for Kate’s peace of mind.

  ‘Bearing in mind that whoever you pick might be mistaken for my fiancé.’

  Jo waved an elegant hand dismissively. ‘Like I said, I sincerely doubt anyone will remember who you said you were bringing. But if you’re worried, we’ll find someone who doesn’t mind that.’

  ‘Who? Who are you going to find who fits all those criteria? Between now and tonight?’

  Jo pursed her lips and tapped one long finger against her cheek, in pretend deliberation.

  ‘Aha! I have it! The perfect man! Good job, nice manners, not bad-looking, if I do say so myself. He owns a dinner suit and there is nothing he loves more than playing a part. When he was younger he was in so many amateur theatrical companies that his mother used to despair of him graduating from high school. Best of all, I’m sure he’d be delighted to go out with you.’

  Kate was mystified. Offhand, she couldn’t think of any man in Melbourne who would even remember her, let alone be lining up to take her to her high school reunion. Then an awful suspicion struck her.

  ‘Jo – you didn’t!’

  Jo was the image of innocence.

  ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘Josephine Juliet Marchant, tell me you have not set me up with your brother!’

  ‘No, I haven’t —’

  ‘Thank goodness!’

  ‘But I’m going to.’

  ‘But Jo, after this morning . . .’ Kate closed her eyes to try to blot out the events of the morning. It didn’t work. Instead, disconcertingly, she found that shutting her eyes brought vividly to mind that Josh had smelled fantastic. At the time, she had been too embarrassed to really register it, but now, suddenly, his fragrance washed over her memory like a wave. A warm, spicy sort of smell, with an undertone of man that made her catch her breath.

  She hurriedly opened her eyes. The sensation disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving only the lingering embarrassment. As much to herself as to Jo, she moaned, ‘Oh, what must he think of me?’

  Jo hid her mouth with her hand, but not fast enough.

  ‘Are you laughing at me?’

  ‘No,’ Jo replied through her hand, unconvincingly.

  ‘You are so!’

  Jo abandoned her pretence and giggled openly.

  ‘I’m sorry, hon, but if only you could see your face!’

  ‘It was embarrassing!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly. I know my brother is a tease, but I don’t think he is quite vain enough to think you flung yourself at him deliberately. I think he liked it, though . . .’

  Kate’s ears, which had been burning with a mixture of mortification and annoyance, pricked up.

  ‘I could tell by the way he kept looking at your door this morning while he was supposed to be talking to me. He fancies you.’ Jo smiled at her slyly, and somewhere inside her, Kate felt her teenage self swoon. ‘And since he doesn’t have plans for this evening – he only got in in the wee hours of the morning and not even Josh makes plans that fast – he’ll be the perfect escort. Tell me I’m wrong!’

  Kate couldn’t, not least because a picture of grown-up Josh in a dinner suit had swum into her mind and stolen the breath she needed for talking. She shook her head to dislodge it and some sense filled the space where it had been.

  ‘But Jo, even if I agree to go to the reunion with him that doesn’t solve my other problem. I can’t exactly have a fling with your brother!’

  Jo shrugged.

  ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t. Half of Melbourne has. He’s quite good at them. It comes from all the travelling he does for work. A girl in every port and all that.’

  Jo stepped closer to Kate, her face serious.

  ‘Look, I promise, I wasn’t thinking of him at first, but now that I have, I think he might be just what you need. He won’t hurt you, Kate. I do think you need a fling, but the last thing you need is a rebound relationship. With Josh you’ll be safe. He knows what’s going on with you.’

  Kate flinched. ‘Because you told him, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, I told him. I had to explain what you were doing here! I didn’t give him any details, don’t worry. But he knows you’ve just broken up. So he won’t ask you for anything you’re not ready to give. But he will show you a good time.’ Her face broke into a grin. ‘And I will take pictures that you can plaster all over Facebook so that your deadbeat ex and all the guys at work know exactly how heartbroken you aren’t. What do you say?’

  Kate felt the way she had on the edge of the platform, the time that Jo had convinced her to go bungee jumping. As though something that had started out as a sensible, Kate-style plan was about to veer out of control. But this was no time for nerves. She had three weeks away from her normal life. If she was ever going to have a fling, shake off her mousy persona and grow some mojo, this was the time. She was never going to have a better opportunity. Or, she had to admit, a more attractive one. She took a deep breath.

  ‘I’m in!’ she said, with considerably more certainty than she felt. She paused, then grinned at her friend.

  ‘But if it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll get you to open the door!’

  CHAPTER THREE

  As luck would have it, when the doorbell rang Jo was still in the bathroom fiddling with her hair. She stuck her head around the door and smiled wickedly at Kate. ‘Do you think you can manage to open the door without fainting this time, Kate?’

  ‘I did not . . .’ Kate began indignantly, then stopped as she noticed Jo making reeling-in motions with her hands.

  ‘Still biting then, Kate? Good to see some things never change.’

  ‘Jo Marchant, has anyone ever told you that you are a pain?’

  ‘Frequently,’ Jo replied, serenely. ‘I take it that means you can open the door, then?’

  ‘Of course I can!’

  ‘Good. I’ll get on, then, shall I?’ said Jo, disappearing regally back into the bathroom.

  ‘Of course I can,’ Kate repeated to herself, as she moved down the hallway, which suddenly seemed three times as long as it did normally. It wasn’t as though this was a real date, after all. It was her friend’s brother doing her a favour. Showing her a good time so that she could go back to work having had a ‘fling’. Giving her some photos to flash around to show how much she didn’t care about Alain. That’s all.

  So why were there butterflies dancing a tarantella underneath her breastbone?

  The doorbell peale
d again, temporarily disturbing the butterflies. Kate told herself to stop being stupid and opened the door.

  She was greeted by an enormous bunch of flowers with legs. At least, that’s what it looked like. Kate felt the beginnings of a blush creep into her face and the butterflies turned their fluttering up a notch. Then a man’s face popped around the edge of the flowers and smiled at her.

  It wasn’t Josh.

  ‘Hello,’ said the face, cheerfully. ‘You must be Kate. I’m Matt.’

  Kate was none the wiser.

  ‘Jo’s date,’ he said, more tentatively. ‘I do have the right place, don’t I? The door was open downstairs, so I came up.’

  The penny dropped and Kate felt the blush turn into the standard-issue, hideous embarrassment variety. Of course Jo had a date. Kate had just been too busy stressing about her own non-date to give it any thought. She pulled herself together and smiled at the stranger called Matt.

  ‘Yes, you do have the right place! People are always leaving that door open. Honestly, I don’t know why they bother with a security system at all.’ Kate realised she was babbling and forced herself to be more to the point. ‘Would you like to come in? That is, if you can get through the door with that lot!’

  She kept her tone light and this time, having checked in advance for cats, she managed to open the door without incident. But inwardly, she was fighting a sense of loss. There was no-one else behind the flowers. Even a quick look into the hall outside yielded no trace of Josh. Perhaps he had managed to make plans after all.

  For no good reason she could think of, Kate found she had a dull ache where a second ago the butterflies had been. What on earth was the matter with her? She put her hand to her forehead, wondering if perhaps she was coming down with the flu. Then Matt spoke again, forcing her attention away from the bizarre way her body was behaving.

  ‘Is Jo ready? I’m a bit early . . .’

  Early! Of course! Kate’s mood lightened as if by magic. If Matt was early, then Josh was still on his way. Probably, anyway. Kate still could not justify to herself why it should matter so much, but the butterflies, some of whom had miraculously come back to life, were apparently immune to reason.

  Kate told herself it was because she wanted to get on with her plan and favoured Matt, who was waiting patiently for an answer, with her most dazzling smile.