The Dating Game

by Avril Tremayne

  Erica had used Adam’s first call to threaten him with scrotal death should he cross any line not approved by her, but had thereafter acquiesced to his ‘just making sure she’s okay’ check-ins, for the sake of everyone’s sanity.

  And David …?

  Well, David greeted her at the door the next Wednesday as though nothing had happened—again! But because Sarah had ensured she had three (count ’em, three!) new men to bring the table for discussion, she was ready to match him cool for cool. ‘Safety in numbers’—check. He’d have no reason to think she’d spent the week in a state of abject depression.

  How deflating, then, to have David brush off her three dates almost as though they weren’t worth dissecting.

  Marketing guru Steven’s fate was sealed when she revealed that work commitments had made him half an hour late for dinner.

  ‘The only excuse for lateness on a first date is death—his,’ David said. ‘It’s a clear-cut case of dump and block.’

  ‘Dump and block?’

  ‘As in, dump him, then block his number. Who’s next?’

  The second cab off the rank was Harrison—an author she’d met months ago at a client’s book launch, who’d found himself with a spare ticket to a ballet performance. Unfortunately, one look at David’s face when she imparted the news that Harrison had arrived at the Sydney Opera House wearing a hemp shirt and health sandals was enough to put the stamp on his fate: dump and block, no question.

  And then, there was Julian, whom she’d run into while getting her morning coffee.

  ‘Julian,’ he said, with just a hint of eye roll.

  ‘It’s a perfectly good name.’

  ‘People who don’t have chins are called Julian.’

  ‘He has a chin like Tom Selleck. With cleft.’

  ‘Yeah, and Tom Selleck is what? Seventy?’

  ‘And very hot! Tom, that is. Hang on—and Julian.’

  But David didn’t seem interested in Julian’s hotness, saying only, ‘Move your left leg and try not to flash me.’

  ‘Flash?’ Sarah demanded, adjusting her leg.

  ‘Yes, flash—and you just did it.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Did too. Pink roses.’

  ‘Oh! Oh! Well, not on purpose.’

  Silence, as David sketched, then cursed as the paper tore under his pencil.

  ‘You’re pushing too hard,’ Sarah told him.

  ‘Thank you, da Vinci,’ he said, and ripped the page out of the book, tossing it to the floor. ‘So go on. Julian.’

  ‘Actually, I know him,’ she admitted.

  David started drawing again, looking at her, then at the sketch, then at her.

  ‘We dated a few times,’ she offered.

  More drawing, no response.

  ‘Two years ago.’

  Drawing.

  ‘Well?’ she challenged.

  He didn’t so much as pause his pencil. ‘You already know the answer if you dated him two years ago and it didn’t work out.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Dump and—’

  ‘Block. But why?’

  ‘If he didn’t hang around for more than a few dates last time, what makes you think he will this time? People don’t change, you know.’

  ‘You changed,’ she said, and wanted to kick herself the moment the words were out. That was not the plan for tonight, to get personal. The plan was to avoid personal and focus on the painting.

  ‘Turn your head a fraction to the left,’ was his response, and Sarah wanted to kick herself with a steel-capped boot.

  But then the pencil stopped. ‘I didn’t change, Sarah,’ he said, keeping his eyes on his sketch. ‘I just came to terms with the fact that there are some relationships I’m not entitled to.’

  ‘What does that even mean?’ she asked, hoping for an opening to talk about things other than her stupid dates now they’d gone and cracked the ice. His past, that Saturday night, Lane—if he’d seen her, if he’d thought about what would happen with her.

  But when he looked up, his eyes were shuttered. ‘Do you have anyone else on the list?’

  So that was that. ‘Only Kyle, but that’s tomorrow night,’ she said.

  He smoothed a thumb over the page. ‘And he’s taking you …?’

  ‘To the movies.’

  ‘What are you seeing?’

  ‘A romantic comedy.’

  David recommenced drawing.

  ‘Well?’ Sarah prodded.

  ‘Well, that seems … unexceptional. We’re done for tonight. Next week, I’m moving on to oils.’

  ***

  David knew it was childish to find fault with all those guys, but he hadn’t been able to control it. It was one thing telling himself nothing could happen between him and Sarah, but it was turning out to be quite another to hand her over to some other bozo with a pat on the head and a cheerio.

  Despite the drivel he’d fed Sarah in that art gallery storeroom about saving damsels in distress, he was more black knight than white, taking a mace to the skulls of the other jousters. He’d enjoyed flicking off Stand-me-up Steven, Hippie Harrison and Jilting Julian, and only wished he’d had the ammunition to mock Kilimanjaro Kyle’s choice of movies while he was on a roll. But who the hell could have guessed a guy—any guy—would like chick flicks? Who could be prepared for that?

  Well, whatever it was that had started his mace swinging, it was going to have to stop. Sarah Quinn was not for him. It was that simple. In her mind he belonged to her friend, and she wasn’t at all jealous about that—she hadn’t asked even one question about him and Lane, even though she knew he was seeing Lane at work every day! And sure, he’d told her not to raise Lane’s name, but you’d think she’d try to sneak in one question!

  The fact that she hadn’t tried at least firm David’s resolve to keep Sarah at arm’s length; whatever men she dated during the week, he was going to enthuse over them.

  But when she arrived the next Wednesday and positioned herself on the chaise longue, somehow the black knight came out swinging again.

  Well, how could it not, when the first contender—Porno Paolo—had sent Sarah a photo of his bare chest? Next thing you knew it would be his dick, and then he’d be begging for a shot of her boobs, which she was never going to give anyone, ever. So—dump and block.

  Next was Finn, whom Sarah had met at Lane’s mother’s funeral—a little snippet of information that was provided with a darting look and a quivering lip.

  David had to pause before answering that, and it seemed to him that Sarah leaned slightly forward, eager for what he would say …

  He caught himself just in time and schooled his features into what he hoped was a look of over-it exasperation. ‘Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s the height of vulgarity to hit on a girl at a funeral? Dump and block, Sarah. Next?’

  And then he saw her face fall, and he found that he couldn’t keep going. He shouldn’t be thinking about his own pathetic need to have Sarah jealous as hell over Lane; he should be thinking of her estrangement from a friend. ‘Sarah,’ he said, and waited for her to look at him. ‘Was everything okay? At the funeral last week?’

  She nodded, and he saw her swallow, the tears start to swim. ‘I’ve always described Lane as valiant, and she was. I just wish … I wish I hadn’t ruined things between us.’

  ‘Maybe I can talk to her for you …’

  ‘No,’ she said sadly. ‘It’s not your problem to fix. Not … that part. And she did speak to me at least; she even let me hug her. She spoke to Adam, too, although that didn’t go quite so well.’ She started fidgeting with the hem of the sweater. ‘But … but about Adam. Has it …? Has it …’ Another swallow.

  ‘Has it happened?’ he finished for her.

  ‘More … has it started? Because it should have, shouldn’t it? I mean you don’t just take someone to bed, you have to build up to it, and there’s only one week left and—’


  ‘No,’ he said, and even though it was a relief to know she’d been thinking about it, it was agonizing too—the confirmation that she really truly was expecting it to happen. ‘And she flew to China yesterday so you have at least a week to not worry about it, okay?’

  ‘But I have to worry about it, because Adam’s miserable.’

  ‘Sarah, give me a break. A guy doesn’t hit on a girl who’s just buried her mother.’

  She blinked as that sank in. ‘Oh. Of course, I see. Just because her mother was a cow doesn’t mean Lane’s ready to move on.’

  David felt his lips start to twitch. ‘Something like that, yes.’

  ‘Okay. Thank you.’

  ‘So … any other dates to tell me about?’

  ‘Simon,’ she said. ‘I met him when I was with some of my colleagues at a new bar in Surry Hills, close to my office. I negged him, actually.’

  ‘Give me the neg,’ David said, mixing fresh paint on the palette.

  ‘I said I’d tell him what my favourite flower was, but looking at his tan—seriously, I’m talking tangerine—it seemed he might be into the fake variety.’

  Okay—he had to laugh. ‘And then what happened?’

  ‘We started talking, and it was fun, really. He lives in Surry Hills and he was talking about all the new cafes opening up there and scoring their coffee-making techniques and he has a great sense of humour so it was … yeah, fun.’ Her eyes were starting to do that dancing thing. ‘And you’ll never guess what arrived for me the next day …’

  ‘Coffee beans?’

  ‘Sunflowers! A massive bunch of them. Only they did, in fact, turn out to be fake. Because it’s winter. Not enough sun, apparently.’

  And then she was laughing, and he was laughing, and he wanted so badly to kiss her, it took every bit of strength he had to stay where he was clutching his paintbrush … while their laughter slowly faded and they smiled at each other.

  ‘Dump and block, right?’ she said.

  ‘Yep, farewell, Sunflower Simon.’

  ‘So I’m back to just one option.’

  ‘And …’ Pause, to clear his throat. ‘How’s that going? Doctor Kyle?’

  ‘He invited me to a wine tasting at his apartment last night.’

  Hard to find fault with that. ‘Nice.’

  ‘To be honest, it was a bit of a disaster.’

  Disaster? All right! ‘What happened?’

  ‘There were nine of us altogether, and everyone except me was very knowledgeable. It went well until Kyle decided to do a blind tasting. I’d held my own until that point, but no way was I going to be able to pretend I knew what I was doing for a blind tasting.’

  ‘So you sat it out?’

  ‘Not exactly. Kyle decided I should choose the wine, since I wouldn’t do the tasting. All I had to do was pick a bottle from the wine fridge, open it, and put a wrap on it so nobody knew what it was.’ Sarah shifted uncomfortably on the chaise longue. ‘Kyle said—I was sure he said—I could choose a bottle from any shelf except the top two.’ Another shift. ‘So I chose one. And they all took a sip and seven of them looked like they’d been transported to heaven. Kyle, however, looked like he was heading in the opposite direction.’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ David said, and started to smile.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m guessing.’

  ‘Apparently, I was supposed to take a bottle from the top two shelves. Well, of course the wine I chose turned out to be a 1998 Chris Ringland Shiraz—which I’ve never heard of but is apparently worth more than a thousand dollars.’

  David hooted out a laugh, and Sarah gave that little choke he knew meant she was trying not to.

  ‘And that’s the end of that relationship,’ he said, trying not to sound satisfied.

  ‘Actually … no. Oh, at first Kyle gave me such a look, I wanted to die. But then he saw the funny side and he … he hugged me. He said he was going to book us both on a wine appreciation course.’ She was clearly awed at that turn of events. ‘Can you believe that? I’m being rewarded for a mistake.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ David said, but he no longer felt like laughing.

  ‘I guess he must really like me. Like, really. So it’s time to go exclusive … maybe. Do you— Do you think?’

  ‘What is this, high school?’ he said irritably, choosing to ignore her own question. ‘Oooh, Kyle likes Sarah, does Sarah like Kyle?’

  Sarah blinked—as well she might. ‘Now you mention it, the way you’re scowling at me does remind me of school, the time I accidentally scorched my curmudgeonly old science teacher with the Bunsen burner.’

  He grumbled out some half-arsed sound. Curmudgeonly, that was him. Tetchy, testy, cranky. And old. Too damn old.

  ‘So about Kyle …’ she said.

  But he didn’t want to hear it. ‘How about while I paint tonight, I tell you what I know about wine?’ Because Kilimanjaro Kyle wasn’t the only man in the world who knew about wine. ‘Help you impress the doctor, hmm?’

  She stared at him for a long moment and then shrugged. ‘Great.’ Another shrug. ‘Go.’

  And so he talked, and answered her questions, and counted back in his head to when Kyle had first asked Sarah out. In a week’s time, they would have passed the three weeks and one day mark, and if Kyle was booking that wine course, it didn’t seem likely a split was on the cards. Sarah’s curse was therefore about to be broken. Job done. Goodbye.

  Damn that bastard Kyle and his chick-flick loving, good-humoured, wine-buffed perfection.

  ***

  With only a week to go before the final sitting, Sarah found she’d never been less interested in dating in her life. Contrarily, her apathy seemed to work like a charm on the single men of Sydney, attracting them in droves.

  She felt … compromised. Yes, that was the word: compromised. Because she seemed to be filtering every thought she had, every move she made, every guy she saw, through her perception of what David would think and do and see. Even Kyle—a good-looking, dedicated, warm-hearted doctor (did it get any better?)—wasn’t quite right.

  Or maybe it was that he was too right. So ‘right’ he was verging on unexciting. Like an unshaken snow dome.

  Which was why, three weeks to the day since her first date with Kyle, she bit the bullet and told him it wasn’t working for her and she wouldn’t be seeing him any more. She figured since she was the one calling time on a relationship for once, she might feel a sense of victory on the curse-breaking front.

  But she didn’t.

  All she could think about was what David had said to her about the guy who fell in love with her needing a good pair of running shoes if he had any chance of catching her, and that David was the kind of guy who wore Italian dress shoes that weren’t meant for running.

  While she was in that frame of mind, Adam called to ask her opinion of David Bennett, and was unwise enough to refer to David as the arch enemy of the Quinn family—and Sarah lost it.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you my opinion about David Bennett,’ Sarah said in a dangerously controlled voice. ‘And that is that there’s nothing wrong with him that any woman with eyes in her head can see. If Lane likes him more than she likes you, you have only yourself to blame. Nobody told you to sign that dumb contract of hers.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Shut up, Adam! I’ve had enough of you whining about Lane and David and … and life. I’m sorry I ever let you loose near her. None of us would be in this mess if I hadn’t. She’d be happily settled with David and neither you nor I would be any the wiser and we’d both be happy.’

  ‘What do you mean “neither you nor I”? You’d know about him. You’d still have met him. She’d be bringing him along on your girly dates, and—’

  ‘And I wouldn’t have cared! That’s the thing. I—would—not—have—cared. But because of you, I have to care. I do care. Because of you, my whole friendship with Lane is compromised, and a whole lot of oth
er things I don’t even want to go into with you! So let me give you some free advice that has nothing to do with David Bennett and everything to do with you: if you really want Lane, do the universe a favour, and go and get her. Tell her you love her; tell her whatever you have to tell her to win her. And stop being an arsehole ruining your sister’s life!’

  And she’d hung up—and started crying again.

  Sheesh, that crying. Once you peeled off the seal it was hard to stop.

  So the last thing she needed was for a follow-up call on Tuesday that was even worse—because it was from Lane. At the office again, as though she didn’t trust Sarah to answer her mobile phone, and maybe she was right not to trust her on that, because Sarah started to shake the moment she heard Lane’s voice. The call was brief: Lane was home from Beijing and needed to see Sarah; did Sarah have time for a quick drink after work on Wednesday at Midnight Madness with her and Erica?

  Feeling as though all her chickens were about to come home to roost, Sarah said an unsteady yes, then wondered what the chances were of dropping dead overnight.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  At 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sarah—distressingly undead—was alone in the office bathroom, in her regular spot in front of the mirror, trying on a nonchalant smile. ‘So, Lane, have you heard of the Langman Portrait Prize?’ Smile, smile, smile. ‘Aaaaand no, that sucks.’

  She modified her facial expression to something more matter-of-fact and tried a different tack. ‘You know I’m interested in art, Lane, so when I was asked to be a model by— Ugh. Nope. That sucks too.’

  She pushed at her right eyebrow to make it straighter, made her eyes go I-am-so-innocent wide. ‘After you left the gallery the night of the party, I bumped into David Bennett again—purely by accident—and we started talking and one thing led to another and I—I … Gah!’ She whirled away from the mirror. ‘No more. I’m going to have to wing it.’

  You can do this, she told herself as the taxi dropped her at Midnight Madness.