The Best Man

by Dianne Blacklock

  ‘If only we knew what it was going to be,’ Emma mused.

  ‘In the absence of a crystal ball, we just have to push on,’ said Jane. ‘Jordan, cover designs are going to have to go through a major overhaul. You’ll have to brief your freelancers: no more blacks, reds, greys. And no more ties, blindfolds, cuffs, in fact any suggestion of restraints on the covers. Bridget, Emma, Beth, all of the publishers,’ Jane went on, getting their attention, ‘you have to get to work on cover blurbs, even change titles if possible, especially if they’re suggestive.’

  ‘What tone should we aim for?’ asked Bridget.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jane said frankly. ‘I only know what we’re not aiming for. Maybe try to reimagine the book as though you’re telling your grandmother about it.’

  ‘My grandmother read every book in the Nine Kinds of Pain series,’ Beth pointed out.

  ‘Okay, then your great-grandmother,’ said Jane. ‘Same goes for your team, Madeleine. You’ll have to review the promotional angle for any erotica that’s already printed and waiting in the warehouses for distribution. Press releases will need to be rewritten, you might have to rethink where you’re sending review copies and scheduling interviews. Have all the publicists meet with the relevant authors and talk them through this. Get them to think about higher-level themes, ways of talking about their books without mentioning sex, or at least without emphasising it.’

  Madeleine nodded as she scribbled down some notes, but inside she was groaning. This was going to be huge. If it wasn’t for Aiden, she would be staying back tonight to assess just how much work it was going to involve, so that she could be ready to brief everyone first thing tomorrow morning. But bad luck, she was leaving straight after the meeting. It wasn’t her fault they’d overdone the erotica; it was no surprise to Madeleine that the market was saturated. The same thing had happened with teenage vampires before this wave, and it would happen again with the next publishing phenomenon. Madeleine didn’t blame anyone, though: this was a business, after all. If you didn’t get on the bandwagon, you risked being left behind in a trail of dust.

  ‘We all have to do our best to salvage whatever we can,’ said Jane. ‘Or else we’ll be remaindering books in their tens of thousands, and we just can’t afford that right now.’

  Oatley

  Liv had barely managed to deposit her bag in her room, kick off her shoes and put on the kettle before she heard the boys burst through the front door. They must have caught the early train. She thought she’d have time to drink a cup of tea while she checked her emails. But no matter. She’d rather see her boys than catch up on office work any day. When she’d first started travelling again, she felt like she’d lost an arm, or two arms. Until then she had rarely been apart from her boys: Rick had taken ages to agree to have them overnight, claiming he wouldn’t be able to manage. When Liv pushed it, he started taking them for one night at a time, no more. But things had to change once she went back on the road; everyone had to adapt, Liv probably the most. She had to give up a lot of control, she had to accept that the boys might not get the same level – or at least style – of care when they were with their father, she had to accept that she would miss out on a lot. It was a myth that you could have it all. Nobody had it all; at best you got bits and pieces that you could stitch together to form the patchwork of your life. And you just had to make every square count.

  ‘Hey,’ she called from the kitchen as they thundered down the hall. Sometimes she wished she and Rick had never stripped the floors back to timber when they first bought the house. If not for the aesthetics, Liv would have considered carpeting not only the floors but the walls as well, if it would help muffle the din produced by two teenage boys.

  ‘Heya, Ma.’ Lachie threw his arms around her with a force that might have knocked her over had she not been buttressed by the kitchen cabinets. He was already taller than her, and likely to be taller than his father as well before he was through. He turned directly to the fridge. ‘How’s it going?’ he said, opening the door and gazing inside.

  ‘Good, thanks.’ It really wouldn’t have mattered what she said, he was no longer paying attention to anything that wasn’t edible.

  ‘Hi, Mum.’ Dylan had materialised in front of her.

  ‘Hi, sweet boy,’ she said, bringing her arms around him.

  He really was a sweet boy. The twins were identical, but people often doubted her. ‘Are you sure?’ they would question. ‘There are actual tests to prove it, you know, you can’t just go on looks.’ Did they think Liv wasn’t aware of this? And if she was only going on looks, as they obviously were, wouldn’t she doubt it too? Dylan had always been smaller, even though he was technically the big brother, born six minutes ahead of Lachie. The placental issue, and subsequent minor but chronic complaints throughout his childhood, had left him not as robust. But they both had exactly the same blond hair, the same vivid blue eyes and, uncannily, the same voices. The only time she couldn’t tell them apart was over the phone, or if they were calling to her from another room and she couldn’t see them.

  ‘I missed you,’ Liv said, ruffling Dylan’s hair now.

  ‘Missed you too,’ he said, as he stepped back to lean against the kitchen bench beside her.

  ‘I didn’t think you guys could make the early train on Wednesdays?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Lachie, ‘Dad drove us.’

  As if on cue, Liv heard the front door closing. She sighed inwardly; that meant Rick was coming in to say hi. He really didn’t need to bother. When the boys were younger, she and Rick generally had to debrief at handover, but now the twins could speak for themselves. If she needed to know anything, or Rick needed to tell her anything, it could be communicated later, by phone.

  ‘Ma, there’s nothing to eat,’ Lachie complained as he bit into an apple.

  ‘Give me a chance, Lach, I only just got in the door five minutes before you.’

  ‘So I see,’ Rick declared, stepping into the kitchen from the hall. ‘What are you doing back so early?’

  ‘I’m not early,’ Liv countered. ‘I said I’d be home by the end of school today, so the boys could’ve just come home by themselves.’ Subtext: you actually don’t have to be here.

  He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t remember.’

  Typical. Liv always prepared a complicated roster for Rick and her mother whenever she was away, largely because Rick made everything so complicated. He couldn’t possibly just take over – no, that would be too easy. His life had to proceed with as little disruption as possible, so her mother had to be auxiliary caregiver, which brought with it a whole other swathe of problems.

  ‘Well, I’m here,’ said Liv, as evenly as she could manage. ‘So, thanks . . .’

  ‘It’s okay.’ Rick seemed oblivious to the hint. ‘I promised the boys pizza for dinner.’

  ‘Yesss!’ Lachie exclaimed, pumping his fist.

  ‘But I like to cook for them when I get home from a trip,’ Liv objected. More to the point, she liked to feed them vegetables and some kind of non-fried protein. She knew the boys would have eaten okay at their grandmother’s, but Rick nearly always bought them takeaway. He didn’t cook, and nor did his other half, apparently.

  ‘There’s no food here, Ma,’ Lachie was saying, ‘so you’ll have to go up the shops. You don’t wanna do that, do you?’

  Of course she didn’t. But she wasn’t going to admit it. ‘I don’t mind . . .’

  ‘Hey, no need, Liv, I’m here anyway,’ said Rick. ‘You won’t get to catch up with the boys if you’re running around shopping and cooking. Why don’t we just chill, order in some food, have some family time?’

  The only chill was the one running up her spine. This was all sounding too familiar. Rick was onto his third girlfriend since their split, and Liv remembered him behaving this way when he broke up with the other two. Each time he’d started hanging around more, wanting to do things together as a ‘family’. Sure enough, both times the relationship had ended, and he wormed hi
s way in further, lamenting mistakes made, talking about being lonely . . . The first time, Liv had found herself feeling sorry for him, wondering if they could make a go of it again, for the sake of the boys. Fortunately, before she did anything stupid, he was off again. Then Liv knew she finally had to do something permanent, and although Rick didn’t like it, she’d filed for divorce.

  So now Liv suspected trouble on the home front again, and she was hardly surprised. She knew Rick better than he did himself, and each time he’d chosen women as selfish as he was, so the relationships were doomed from the start. But she didn’t care, and she certainly didn’t want to know about it. And furthermore, she really didn’t want him here tonight. She wanted the boys to herself; they needed the whole night to catch up properly, in their own time. They always had plenty of phone contact while she was away, even a Skype call here and there, when Dylan set it up. But it wasn’t the same as physically being together. Liv had always subscribed to the theory that ninety percent of parenting was just being there. When she was home, the boys would drift off and do their own thing throughout the evening, but at different times they would each seek her out. Lachie would talk nonsense half the time, but he would talk, and in the midst of the nonsense Liv would pick up the trail of crumbs – a teacher who was bugging him or a subject he was having trouble with, a girl he had his eye on. Lachie was a bit of a lad, a lot like his father, but Liv liked to think he had the best of Rick: the big, sparkling personality without the self-centredness. Perhaps having a twin had made Lachie more empathetic; he was certainly fiercely protective of his brother, even a bit affectionate, or as affectionate as a fourteen-year-old male could be expected to be. Dylan was a quieter, more sensitive soul. He was a deep thinker, and a worrier, and at some point during the evening he would usually seek Liv out, curl up on the sofa beside her, and have a heart-to-heart about whatever was on his mind.

  But not tonight. Tonight Rick would be the centre of attention, because Rick always managed to be the centre of attention. It wasn’t long before all three of them were lined up on the sofa playing the PS3. Liv knew she wasn’t going to get any sense from them until the hunger pangs struck, so she went ahead and made her cup of tea and took herself off to her bedroom to check her emails. She quickly discarded the morning’s missive from Jane about a meeting this afternoon, but another email had been sent not long ago with notes from the meeting. Liv sighed as she read through them: this was going to be a lot of work. So much for her plan to take the rest of the week off in lieu.

  She closed the laptop. If she was going to have to work tomorrow she refused to do any work now. Instead she would take a quick shower and change into her house trackies; there was no one to impress here. She slipped off her jeans and went to toss them in the hamper when she felt the slip of paper in the pocket. She pulled it out and read it properly this time: David Lessing, and a mobile number. His handwriting was a bit messy – was that a five or a three?

  What did it matter? Liv scrunched it up and dropped it into the wastepaper basket beside her desk.

  6 pm

  Because of the meeting, Madeleine had left work at the worst possible time for traffic, bang on five, along with every other commuter in the CBD. She had only just made it across the Spit Bridge, and there was still up to another hour’s drive to go. She would never have chosen to live at Pittwater herself, but Henry had fallen in love with the place, so what could she do?

  Madeleine had finally moved out of the family home during the year of their long-distance courtship. She could hardly expect Henry to stay at her mother’s when he came out to visit, and besides, her emancipation was well overdue. Having blown a good chunk of her savings on her own trip to New York, she could only manage the bond for a compact one-bedder, but as she was still away a lot it was really all she needed. Not so when Henry moved out to Australia and in with her: for one it was cosy, for two it was hopelessly cramped. Henry had ended up renting a studio to work in, but that was only a temporary solution at best. He had always worked from home, and he sometimes liked to work late at night if the inspiration took him, or an hour here or there, and he couldn’t do that so easily if his workspace was located elsewhere. He understood that the apartment was convenient for Madeleine’s job, but he said he just wasn’t going to be able to work so close to the city long-term. In New York he’d had an apartment in an old brownstone in the East Village, but he usually moved up to his place in the Hamptons more or less full-time when he was working on a book. As he had grown more successful and could be selective about promotional commitments, Henry found he was spending the vast majority of his time in the Hamptons, which was how he’d earned the ‘reclusive’ tag. It was true that he was quite content in his own company, but he still had friends in New York, and apparently he often had visitors to stay at the house in the Hamptons – at least when he wasn’t working.

  So Madeleine had agreed they could look for a place away from the city. Henry had researched locations online even before he moved over, and he had his heart set on Pittwater. When he told her, Madeleine tried to be philosophical. It was a little further out than she had envisaged, and the commute was going to be a bitch, but she totally understood why Henry wanted to live there. It was beautiful and peaceful and remote, the perfect setting for an artist, and she wanted him to be happy. He had moved across the world to be with her; she could hardly complain about moving out of the city.

  However, when Henry insisted on buying, Madeleine finally baulked. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted the move to be so permanent or binding, but mostly she just felt extremely uncomfortable that she didn’t have any capital to contribute. Henry said he didn’t care about that. He could afford it, and it was silly for them to rent somewhere that wasn’t quite what they wanted when they could remodel a house of their own to suit their needs. Besides, rentals were so scarce up that way, it would take ages for them to find something. In that case Madeleine didn’t want her name to go on the title deed, but as it turned out, they didn’t have a choice. As a non-resident, Henry wasn’t permitted to buy property, so the deed had to be solely in her name. That made her even more uncomfortable, but Henry waved away her concerns. It was going to be their home, he insisted; everything else was just paperwork.

  They held on to the apartment during the period of the renovations; it was the practical thing to do, and Henry mastered driving on the left side of the road during all the trips back and forth supervising the renovation. He even did some of the work himself. They had chosen a house with solid bones and a good layout. It really only needed a new kitchen and bathrooms, and a reworking of the downstairs space for Henry’s studio and office. The plan was to let go of the apartment once they had moved into the house, but Madeleine still hadn’t got around to it. Every time she went to give notice to the property manager, something came up. She liked having the alternative if she had to work late, or if she had to be at the airport early. But in reality she rarely stayed at the flat these days, especially if she worked back: she would look at the time and realise that she could spend the night alone, or in one short hour – even less if it was late at night – she could be home with Henry. The second option nearly always won out. But still she couldn’t bring herself to give up the flat.

  It was going on seven when Madeleine finally pulled into their street. Their block was typical for the area, a steep embankment off a winding section of road, with the garage suspended on a concrete slab at street level and the house perched on the side of the hill below, giving them sweeping views across Salt Pan Cove.

  There wasn’t a lot even an architect could do about the precipitous site, and the house could only be accessed via a flight of steep stairs. Madeleine kept a pair of Crocs in the garage so she could change out of her heels and navigate the stairs safely. Now she kicked them off again at the front door and let herself in. The house was in virtual darkness, and she couldn’t hear any signs of life. She didn’t think they would have gone out, especially as Henry knew she was on her
way home; she had sent him a text when she’d finally left the office. Perhaps Aiden was resting and Henry had decided to do some work. His studio was on the level underneath, all by itself except for the laundry and a storage area. Henry loved it: he had uninterrupted views and absolute privacy. It was his sanctuary.

  As Madeleine walked barefoot through to the main living area, she was hit by the aroma of dinner cooking, which meant the boys couldn’t be far away. She peered out to the deck, and could just make out their silhouettes in the rapidly fading twilight. They must have been too busy catching up to notice they were sitting in the dark. That was a good sign.

  ‘Hey, the working girl returns!’ Aiden exclaimed, jumping to his feet as Madeleine switched on a light inside.

  She stepped out onto the deck to join them. ‘Hi, boys.’

  She was suddenly and unexpectedly scooped up into Aiden’s arms with the same enthusiasm he had displayed this morning. Not that she was complaining – a big, exuberant hug was a very nice welcome to come home to.

  ‘I’ll get you a drink, Madeleine,’ Henry said, standing up.

  Aiden released her. ‘No, let me,’ he insisted. ‘I’ll let you have a moment with your beautiful fiancée, Henry, but after that you have to share.’ He paused in the doorway. ‘What will you have, Madeleine?’

  ‘Ah, mineral water, thanks.’

  Aiden frowned. ‘You’re not going to drink with us?’

  ‘Well, the thing is, I don’t normally drink during the week –’

  ‘But surely this isn’t a normal weekday,’ Aiden declared. ‘It’s a special occasion! Besides, we have to make a toast, so you have to have a drink or it’s bad luck. What’ll it be?’