His Brand of Beautiful

by Lily Malone

  “Well the cameraman couldn’t—”

  He turned away, trying to breathe without the scent of her clouding his nostrils. He glanced down at the mess smeared across his chest. It had been fun while it lasted. Now he felt like a fool. Fake fingernails. Fake frogs. How much of this woman was real? And hadn’t he known that answer before he even got out of the Jeep?

  “I thought you had a schedule to keep,” he muttered. “Where’s my shirt?”

  “A few minutes won’t hurt and the driver will wait. You’ll ruin it if you don’t get cleaned up first. Do you want to use my shower?”

  “Just get me a towel and I’ll sort it out myself.”

  “Hey don’t blame me, Sir Rubens. It was your idea to turn human canvas. The idea of paint parties as I understood them is for us to paint you. Not paint on you.”

  She snatched the towel Marlene had discarded and stalked to the kitchen, past crappy paintings abandoned far faster then they’d been drawn. With each step she whacked the rolled-up linen in her palm like a copper’s baton. He was half a metre behind her when she turned and slapped the cold, wet towel across his collarbone.

  “Jesus.” He sucked in a lungful of air. The towel came away the colour of mud.

  “Would you look at that,” she said, voice like melted butter. “Mix too many colours and it does turn calf-crap brown.”

  On the street, a car door slammed. They both stopped at the sound, feet planted in the middle of her kitchen, squared-off like gladiators, fallout from the party all around.

  And they laughed at the same time.

  “Sorry for being a prick,” Tate said, running a hand through his hair.

  “Me too. You’ve done me a huge favour. I really am grateful.” She gave him a big, wide smile and its power hit him between the eyes like a thunderbolt. Not that she noticed.

  She was already in the lounge collecting his clothes from her couch.

  “We’d better hurry,” Christina said, staring at the pool of blue silk in her hands for so long he thought she might bury her nose in it.

  She crossed back into the kitchen, the shirt waving in her hands. He half-turned and held out his arms and she helped him into the sleeves like it was the most natural thing in the world, then reached for his shirt tails, started deftly slotting buttons. He could feel her breath on his chest.

  “And this?” He let the tie sway in his fingers.

  Christina stretched on tiptoes, a serious expression on her face, looped the tie beneath his collar. He knew she’d done it countless times because her fingers were expert.

  He didn’t want to think about for whom. She shimmied the knot at his throat.

  Velvet-clad breasts brushed his chest. Her knee bumped his and he felt every point of heat where they touched, through belly, breast and thigh.

  He exhaled over her sequined cap. “I want you, Christina.” And he heard her inhale, a sound like the rush of an ocean wave.

  The Bentley’s engine roared.

  He couldn’t see her face beneath the cap’s peak, but he could feel her tension. She quivered just outside his arms like a bow strung too tight.

  “It’s Lacy’s party. I have to go.” But she didn’t step away. She stood clutching his tie with white fingers, a shake in her bare shoulders.

  “You started something here.” He unwrapped her fingers from his tie and flattened her palm over his heart, trapping her hand beneath his own. The beat was brutal. It bashed at her. They stood like that, saying nothing, for what felt like an age, until he said: “We have unfinished business.”

  There was only one handbag standing on her dining table and when it burst into Give Me Shelter they both started. He released her hand and it fluttered up to straighten her cap.

  Her eyes slid away.

  “I don’t know how we’ll work together after this. I can’t think straight,” she said.

  It brought him back to business with a jolt. “Christina I don’t—”

  She stopped him by putting her index finger against his lips. “Of course you do, Tate.

  Everyone mixes business with pleasure. This is Adelaide.”

  ****

  Tate dug in his jacket pocket for the Jeep’s key, one eye on the boot of the beautiful Bentley where it turned at the deli on the corner of Three Oaks Lane and Hutt. Slim hands waved at him from the rear seat like some kind of albino octopus. The smell of fruit jubes was a cloud around him that he wasn’t sure he wanted to wash off. That would mean washing away the memory of Christina’s tongue.

  There was an Irish pub on The Parade not far from his office where his staff had Friday drinks after work. He headed that way, although he wasn’t sure he wanted company.

  If Ruth and her husband were there, they’d just tell him to go home.

  The mausoleum on Elizabeth Street wasn’t home. Never would be. He never should have bought it. Now he couldn’t make himself sell it.

  Tate shook his head—a quick, angry, jerk.

  If Jolie knew he couldn’t sell the house because of her, she’d say he was nuts.

  Lily Malone

  His sister’s death hit him in the chest, same spot it always did. Anger bubbled behind it like lava.

  Why was Jolie on his mind tonight?

  The house. That went without saying. But tonight he knew it was also because of Christina. She had the same buttery way of speaking, a voice that melted through him like honey on hot toast; and she had the same persistence. Jolie was a dog with a bone too when she wanted something. Never took ‘no’ for an answer.

  He dove in and out of Britannia Roundabout. Peak-hour traffic had passed but it was still heavy as he accelerated up The Parade West and braked at the lights. A group of teenagers sniffed each other while they waited to cross. A kid in skinny jeans and a black T-shirt with blocky white writing waved at them from across The Parade.

  I don’t want to work for you. That’s what he’d meant to tell Christina, what he should have said, standing in her kitchen with her hand hot over his heart, the scent of party, perfume and paint swirling around him; smelling only her.

  The skinny kid jogged across the road against the traffic, earning himself a volley of hoots. One car braked hard enough to make the tyres squeal. He made it to the footpath and swapped chest-pumps with his mates. Now Tate could read the shirt; it said Hellfire Brigade.

  The cop came from nowhere.

  Bull-necked. Thick-chested. Navy jacket dusted with rain. Teenagers parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses. He got right in the face of Hellfire Brigade—a kid who didn’t look old enough to shave—the cop’s spit spun in the lights. Maybe he busted him for jaywalking.

  Maybe the cop thought the kid was high on drugs. Tate didn’t care.

  The cop could have been Ian Callinan.

  Mid-thirties, slab shouldered. That copper look that said he’d soon as drop you on the concrete if you so much as brushed his leathers on the way past.

  Could have been Callinan, but wasn’t.

  A horn blared behind him. Tate stamped his foot and sent the Jeep snarling forward.

  He had to force himself to relax his grip on the wheel so he could make the turn.

  Chapter 3

  “That’s got to be six minutes, Lace. I’ll have a heart attack.” Christina’s lungs burned.

  It was Tuesday afternoon. One of the three afternoons a week Lacy had delegated as a running date. The salt of her own sweat dried in her mouth and she would have killed for a drink but her water bottle was in the Golf and the Golf was where she left it when she went running with Lacy after work: outside Lacy’s Kensington flat. So she concentrated on the snug fit of her shining white Nikes and the dull thud of her footfalls cushioned by damp leaves on concrete and told herself to just keep putting one foot after the other.

  Lacy checked her watch. “One more minute, CC. You can do it. It’s downhill when we get to the corner.”

  Christina glanced up long enough to ascertain just how close that corner was.

  Sunl
ight made tree branch shadows splinter the path ahead, the only time of year rays made it to the ground.

  Music played. Greensleeves.

  Perhaps that was because after the second set of five minutes’ solid running she really was having a heart attack and any second now she’d see angels and the shining white light. Or the fires of hell. The stitch in her side knifed, sweat dripped between her breasts.

  Lacy reached the corner two strides in front and almost knocked an elderly lady in a walking frame into next week.

  “I need me one of those old lady frames, Lace. I thought you said it was downhill.”

  “It is downhill. Eyes on the prize, CC; think of the fat you’re burning.”

  “I like my fat.”

  “Then think of every dollar you’ll raise for cancer research by the time we run in the City to Bay.”

  A woman passed them on the opposite side of the street tugging a dog more interested in pissing on every tree than going for its walk. She had a plastic bag in one hand and held it an arm’s length from her body like it was a ticking bomb.

  “Okay. Two minutes’ walk starts… now.” Lacy slowed.

  “Thank you, God.” Christina adjusted her baseball cap and sucked in huge lungfuls of air.

  “You’re welcome,” Lacy said.

  Two girls on scooters overtook them, wheels scything a mucky track through layers of composting leaves, hair flying beneath helmets. They coasted to the verge, where a soft-serve ice-cream van was torturing Kensington Gardens with Greensleeves on an endless loop.

  “If Tate hasn’t called, why don’t you call him?” Lacy must have decided Christina had enough time to catch her breath because she picked up the conversation right where she’d left it after their last two-minute walk.

  “Because if I call first, he wins. I’ll be the one giving in,” Christina said.

  “That makes zero sense. It’s not a competition.”

  “He doesn’t want to consult for me, Lace. I know that, but I don’t know why. If I call him about the brand and he says no again, I’ve got nowhere to go. It makes it final. He almost told me the other night to my face he didn’t want the work. He would have if I hadn’t stopped him.” She kicked at a bottle-top and sent it clattering into the gutter. “If he calls me first, it won’t be because he wants to talk about my brand. It leaves the door open.”

  Lily Malone

  Lacy turned and skipped backwards a pace, fists banging her hips. “I swear you’re making this more complicated than it has to be. What happened to Tarzan meets Jane. Jane like Tarzan. Tarzan like Jane. Tarzan drag Jane home by hair. I mean crap, CC. I saw more chemistry last Friday in your lounge-room than I ever saw in science lab.”

  Christina giggled. “Jane say Tarzan not put toilet seat down.”

  “Cheetah shed too much hair on rug,” Lacy added, and it went on like that until she looked at her watch. “You sound so cool, CC, but you don’t fool me. It’s been four years since Bram. That’s long enough.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Christina said.

  “Dare what?”

  “I know that look. You’re up to something.”

  “I was thinking I could invite Tate to the wedding. You know—to say thanks for how he saved my party.”

  “I already thanked him,” Christina pointed out. “And every time you play Cupid things go pear-shaped.”

  “Then don’t make me play Cupid,” Lacy said, an edge to her voice. “I mean. I just don’t get it. You pestered him for months when it was only about the brand. Now it’s turned personal you’ve morphed from pitbull into my nanna’s whippet.”

  “I never knew your nan owned a whippet.”

  “It jumps when its squeaky toy squeaks. Don’t change the subject,” Lacy said.

  “Can’t you worry about your own happily ever after? In four more sleeps you morph into my sister-in‐law. That’s when you can turn into a freaking harpy, no need to start early.” Christina thought she must be getting fitter. She’d just put three full sentences together.

  Lacy checked her watch. “That’s two minutes up, sweetie. Get those little legs moving.”

  Six more minutes of pain. Christina struggled to a trot. At least it helped distract her from thoughts of Tate. He’d filled her head since Friday night. Every time she heard Give Me Shelter she had to retrieve her heart from the ceiling. When she thought about his voice and the way he said I want you, it almost knocked her to her knees.

  All that emotion scared her witless.

  Ahead, Lacy detoured neatly around the queue at the ice-cream van. Head down, Christina mumbled apologies and bowled straight through. One foot in front of the other.

  ****

  I used to love these things, Tate thought, a little later on the same Tuesday night. He watched the AMPRA Conference hum around him, nursed the same pint of Pale Ale and wished the clock above the mantelpiece of the South Sydney Function Centre would hurry the fuck up and get to nine so he could leave.

  More than two-hundred delegates minced and ponced through the throng of AMPRA closing night drinks, all wearing suits and smartphones like badges of honour, calling it networking. The young man trying to engage Tate in conversation took a delicate sip of Heineken. Judging by the bulge in his eyes it almost went down the wrong way.

  “I’d never even heard of neoliberalism till you spoke today, Mister Newell.”

  “Well it exists, mate,” he responded, trying to remember the guy’s name so he could tell him to call him Tate. The Heineken bottle covered his nametag. Terry?

  Tate wondered what Christina was doing; thought for the hundredth time about calling her. What would he say? I want you. I don’t want your business; or, I don’t want your business. I want you. He wasn’t sure why but the order seemed important.

  The delegate put his beer bottle down and it let Tate see the name. Trevor Beard from Melbourne.

  “Cause marketing is a mechanism that allows business to make a profit out of society’s social problems and what you said today is that it’s big business that’s the root cause of most of those social problems,” Trevor said with an admiring shake of his head.

  Tate wasn’t sure the guy had him verbatim but he was close enough.

  “Take fast food chains,” Trevor continued, picking up his beer and waving it. “They create environmental and social problems when forests are cut down so more farmers can grow beef. The more of the stuff we eat the fatter we all get and then they encourage us to buy more of their meals because they’ll donate a dollar from every burger to the local school so it can buy footballs to keep the kids fit. And we all buy more burgers and applaud their generosity and think they’re such fine corporate citizens. I never thought of it like that.” Trevor’s watery blue gaze slipped around Tate’s shoulder and his eyes widened.

  That’s when Tate felt a hand rub the small of his back and a drawl that still sounded like maple sugar over pancakes after thirty years in Australia declared: “Here you are, Tate.

  You’re the hardest goddamn keynote speaker I’ve ever had to find. Shouldn’t you be signing autographs somewhere?”

  “Jancis,” he said, leaning down to kiss her powdery-soft cheek. “It’s good to see you.” He meant it. Jancis Woody had given him his first job fresh out of university and untaught him everything he’d learned in his three-year marketing degree. She’d been his boss and mentor for eight years in Adelaide, then she’d moved her PR business to Sydney.

  He’d stayed in Adelaide and gone out on his own to start Outback Brands. These days Jancis was his colleague and friend, and fifteen-year friendships were rare in this business.

  “Thanks, Mark.” Jancis Woody flashed a smile at the moustached official who’d helped push her wheelchair through the throng. “Can you find that photographer now, please, and get him over here?” The official disappeared in the direction of a camera flash.

  Trevor Beard from Melbourne excused himself too.

  “Do we have to do the photographs, J?” Tate said, al
ready resigned to it. Jancis was on a mission which meant if he was Mohammed, the mountain was about to be moved.

  “You betcha we’re doing photographs. The last one in my archives you were twenty-two and pimply. What are you now? Thirty-eight? Ancient. No one will believe you were here if I don’t have hard proof. Lighten up and smile. We are in PR.”

  Tate gave up his bar stool and helped Jancis into it. Sweat broke across her lip. For a moment her arms held all her weight, like she sat on a plank above an icy pool. He leaned lower, tucked his arm around her waist and held her until she could settle.

  “Goddamn it sucks getting old.” The pain in her eyes was magnified through purple-rimmed glasses. “Thanks, honey. I hope you never need a new hip.”

  He signalled a passing waiter for a glass of Shiraz and once Jancis was comfortable and the lopsided table stopped rocking, pushed it toward her.

  “I thought walking was therapy. What’s with the chair?”

  “I’ll get back to the physio when AMPRA is all over. That crackpot from the hospital needs his head examined, the things he expects a woman my age to do. I haven’t been able to touch my toes in twenty years. I’m not about to start now.”

  Lily Malone

  He laughed, picked up his beer. “Have you been crunching the board votes for numbers?”

  “Yeah. I got president in the bag. Y’all might as well anoint me.” She looked around at the crowd. “Thanks to you putting in an appearance, we got double last year’s numbers.”

  “Good for you.” No bubbles rose in his glass and he put it down untouched.

  Jancis regarded him over the frames. “You look distracted, honey.”

  He was opening his mouth to answer when his phone rang. Caller ID flashed an Adelaide number he didn’t recognise. He felt a ripple through the pit of his stomach.

  Christina.

  “I have to take this, J.”

  Jancis smiled in a way that showed most of her teeth, including the gold ones. Red wine bled a tiny stain through her bottom lip. “Sure. Go on. I’ll wait.”

  He pressed accept, identified himself and waited for the buttery tones.

  “Hello, Tate. This is Lacy Graham… I’m the girl who painted your chest last Friday night.”