His Brand of Beautiful

by Lily Malone

  Bram rested a hand on the mantelpiece near her shoulder. Firelight turned the rose-coloured stripe in his cream shirt orange. He wasn’t wearing a tie and his sports jacket draped open.

  “So you found Newell’s house alright this morning?” Bram asked.

  “Yes, I did. Thank you. I appreciated your help.”

  He laughed. “So formal, CC. I like doing an old friend a favour. I did think it a bit weird you needed my help to find your boyfriend’s address.”

  She gave him no explanation.

  His gaze jived away, scanned the room and returned. “A little bird tells me you’re entering a car in the Bush Bash this year.”

  “Michael spoke with you?”

  He nodded. “Saffah too. The fundraising committee chair is a personal friend of my father’s. I had a word. Thought I could cut the red tape for you, you know?”

  “Yeah I know. Thanks. So are you driving in the Bush Bash this year?”

  “Not the whole race, being a Shadow Minister now and all.” He winked. “I might show my face at Disco Night in Mungeranie, though. We can have that dance you owe me for skipping out at Michael’s wedding.”

  Navy-pants Henry stopped to admire a sculpture on a plinth nearest the hearth.

  Tree-trunk guy’s hips twitched.

  “Will Abigail come with you?” Christina asked Bram.

  Bram shook his head. “The twins are too young. Maybe next year. This year it’s just him and me in the great outdoors.” He flicked his chin at the hulk blocking the heat.

  “How is Abigail, anyway? And the twins?”

  “They’re fine. The girls are both talking. One more than the other. None of us can get a word in once Elle gets started. Abi has to translate for me. Most of the time I haven’t got a clue what that kid’s on about.”

  As Bram talked about his children, the politician’s mask faded. He reminded her more of the younger man she’d known. Known, she thought to herself. Not loved. She knew now she’d never loved him, but it was good to know the old Bram was still in there, even if buried deep. It made her feel like those four years of her life weren’t a complete waste.

  A log shifted in the fire, made sparks shoot like fireworks. Tree-trunk guy didn’t flinch. His eyes were on Merry Norris, her chins and her kaftan, each trying to out-bustle the other as she flowed toward them like a purple tidal wave.

  “It’s show-time,” Bram grinned, rolling up his sleeves.

  Lily Malone

  Chapter 21

  Most Sunday mornings the park opposite Lacy’s flat hosted a Sunday soccer match and usually one or both of the teams and their families stayed on for a barbecue lunch after the game. The playground echoed with the sound of soccer mums pushing rugged-up toddlers on squeaky swings, the kids shouting “more push, Mum, more push.” On the public courts, a pair of backward-capped boys torpedoed tennis balls at each other.

  A persistent breeze blew the scent of steaks and fried onions toward Lacy’s flat. The smell made a rusty taste cling to the roof of Christina’s mouth.

  She stretched her hamstring on the knee-high dry-stone wall that divided Lacy’s flat from the street, straightened, and when she turned to stare across the park she caught three of the soccer team—those not aligned with the mums at the swings—catching an eyeful of Lacy’s backside.

  Oblivious to any such goings-on, Lacy gave her shoelace an emphatic twist. “I can’t believe Tate asked you to move in with him. You must rock at apologies. Next time the landlord comes to hassle me about a rent rise, I’m borrowing those red boots.”

  “So what did Mikey say about the baby?” Christina asked.

  “I didn’t tell him.” Lacy stood and began flattening her headband across the dark curls of her forehead. “I didn’t think it was my news to tell.”

  The headband wouldn’t cooperate so she jerked it back over her head and started again. It got caught on her ear. Next time she snatched her hair into a crude ponytail and wrapped the cherry-coloured elastic around it like a cowboy hog-tying a calf.

  “Spit it out, Lace.”

  “Spit what out?” Lacy blew on her hands, jogged on the spot.

  “There’s something on your mind and you think I won’t like it.”

  Lacy drew herself to her full height, hands on hips. The breeze blew her dusty pink tracksuit top snug around her waist, ruffling the matching pants. “If Michael knew you were pregnant, do you think he’d risk taking you into the outback for a week, driving around in a clapped-out old Landrover?”

  “Maybe not, but Mikey’s the least of my worries,” Christina said.

  Lacy took two steps toward Christina’s Golf and karate-chopped its roof. “What about Tate? Does he know you plan to ride in the launch?”

  “It’s my decision, Lace. Mikey’s crap at the media stuff, he’ll need me there.”

  “Sounds like a ‘no’.” Lacy poked the roof of the car. “The people who love you have a right to know when your decisions—or non-decisions—impact them, Christina.”

  “He’ll try to talk me out of going and I feel fine.”

  “Who? Michael?”

  Christina snapped. “No. Tate.”

  Cheeks pink, Lacy unzipped her tracksuit and javelined the jacket towards the house, it hitched on the bonnet of her red Mazda 626.

  “You’re trying to bulldoze everyone into doing what you want,” Lacy said.

  “I’m not bulldozing. I’m doing what’s best.”

  “Yeah. What’s best for you.”

  “Oh bullshit.”

  “Bullshit nothing! You’re my best friend, Christina. I love you. Your brother’s my husband. I love him. I hate keeping secrets from either of you, it does my head in.” She gulped a huge breath and lowered her eyes and the heat of her anger deflated like a popped balloon. “Michael knows about the miscarriage, CC. He’s known for years. I couldn’t keep it from him.”

  “Oh.” Christina dumped her hands in the pockets of her white vest and stared back across the park. One of the soccer guys elbowed another.

  Lacy’s hands started flying. “I’m sorry, CC. I should have told you he knew. But that’s why you have to tell him about the baby now. If anything goes wrong on Michael’s watch and he doesn’t know the risks because you haven’t told him you’re pregnant, he’ll be gutted. And I’m the one who will have to live with him, with the fact that I knew and I didn’t tell him and I didn’t stop you.”

  “Mikey will over-react, Lace. That’s what brothers do.”

  “It doesn’t mean you don’t give him the choice. You can’t keep manipulating people, CC, it’s not fair to any of us.”

  “Manipulating?”

  “You set your own course and damn the consequences. You do it all the time. That’s why you’re in this dilemma with Tate in the first place.”

  Christina took a deep breath and let it go. “Let’s argue and walk at the same time, Lace, or we’ll have three soccer guys over here trying to stop the fight.”

  “What soccer guys?”

  “See? Marriage makes women freaking blind. Those soccer guys.” She flicked her head towards the park.

  Lacy turned down the driveway and picked up the pace. The soccer guys waved.

  “Compromise is not a dirty word, CC,” Lacy began.

  “You’re not asking me to compromise, Lace, you’re asking me to cave. It’s giving up what I want to make everyone else happy.” Just like my mother did when she got married and had me. Like I swore I’d never do.

  “So instead you do what you want and make everyone who loves you miserable?

  Tate? Michael? Me? When you love people, you make sacrifices.”

  “The women make sacrifices, Lace. I’ve yet to see a man give up what he wants.”

  Lacy pondered that for a moment. “And what about the baby?”

  There it is. The guilt card. The trump to end all trumps.

  Christina stepped around a dog-turd an owner hadn’t bothered to scoop. “What if Mikey is fine with me going in th
e race? He has a knack for surprising me.”

  “He might be fine with it,” Lacy agreed, but her eyes skipped to the heavier traffic ahead on Kensington Road and her chin set. “And if he is, then that’s great, as long as you tell him the truth, no gilding the lily. If you don’t tell him about the baby, CC—and God knows I don’t want to—but I will.”

  Nikes and ASICS thudded in unison and yet between them Christina felt the yawning breadth of a chasm no bridge could cross. Lacy had always been her rock. Now she couldn’t make her choose. She can’t choose me.

  I can’t lose Lace. “You’re right.”

  “I know. I’m always right.”

  They both laughed. Lacy crushed her to her collarbone in a hug that dented the peak of Christina’s cap.

  “I’ll tell Michael tomorrow,” Christina promised.

  “Thank God that’s sorted,” Lacy said. “If I get mugged in the park I’d hate to go out thinking we’d been fighting.”

  Lily Malone

  “Like any mugger could catch you.”

  ****

  Michael wasn’t in his office first thing Monday morning and when Christina tried to find him, Belinda Green waylaid her to talk about the spring cellar door releases. It was lunchtime before she thought of her brother again.

  He wasn’t in the staff kitchen.

  Crewy—sewing crumbs like wild oats into the weekend sports wrap in The Advertiser—mumbled “barrel hall” at her between bites of cold chicken-schnitzel sandwich.

  That was where she found her brother, stooped over a stainless steel pipe fixture he fed through the top of a barrel, concentrating so it didn’t suck air.

  Cool air, laden with the scents of fermenting wine and shaved oak and wet concrete, poured through the metal roller door that divided the barrel room from the tank-farm.

  Christina didn’t shiver. Layers were the trick for wineries in winter, tights under everything, wool hats and jackets with deep pockets that let her feel the growing baby bump. She had her hands in her pockets a lot.

  Mikey saw her coming before she was halfway across the room. When the barrel was empty, he switched the pump off and straightened.

  “Is that Moscato?” Christina asked.

  Shaking his head, he removed the pipe. White wine dribbled down the flanks of the barrel like tears. “Viognier.”

  “You’re oaking it?”

  He scratched an itch where his workboot met his thick grey sock. “It’s for Shiraz-Viognier, so yeah, just a touch.”

  “I thought racking was Crewy’s job.”

  “Sometimes I like doing stuff where I don’t have to think. Long as it’s not every day.

  I’d rather rack barrels than clean them.”

  “How’s it look?” She stepped forward, sniffing.

  “The fruit’s intense. Do you want a taste? I’ll get a glass.”

  “It’s a bit early for me.” The thought of grape juice straight from the barrel turned her stomach. This stage in the winemaking process the stuff looked like a cross between cat piss and pea soup.

  “So don’t swallow. Practice your spit.”

  She pulled her hands from her pockets, put them up to ward him off and felt his eyes search beneath the peak of her wool cap.

  “Rough weekend, CC? You look like you’ve hardly slept.”

  “I could say the same. Have you shaved since Friday?”

  He rubbed the fuzz on his face. “Keeps me warm.”

  The hose scraped concrete as he moved the attachment to the next barrel in line.

  Christina’s pulse kicked. “So, Mikey?”

  “Yup?” He extracted the bung.

  The forklift roared to life outside the barrel hall and seconds later Crewy drove in, tines targeted at a stack of barrels four-high against the wall. The rotating light on the forklift flashed orange circles across concrete and oak. It lit the stubble on Mikey’s chin.

  Her brother waved the hose at the forklift. “That’s us in the Bash in a few weeks, skidding round the corners.”

  “You need me along on that launch, just to keep you on the bloody road.”

  His finger inched for the pump switch. “You wanted to ask me something?”

  Tell him about the baby. Tell him. “I’m moving in with Tate.”

  He grinned. “Sounds serious. Changed your mind about walking up the aisle? Should I hire a suit?”

  She punched his arm. “Lacy says you’re still having trouble with your landlord. I thought you guys might like to move in to my place? At least for a while. I don’t want any rent. You can just pay the bills for power and gas.”

  “True?”

  She nodded.

  “Unreal! We’ll give notice tonight.”

  “I have to go into Outback Brands this afternoon to sign-off on the new labels. I won’t be back,” Christina said.

  “Tomorrow then. And CC? Thanks. For the cottage. It means a lot.”

  She waved his thanks away. “You’re welcome. It makes sense.”

  The suck of wine and the thrum of the pump faded as she strode from the barrel room. She gave Crewy and the forklift a wide berth and in seconds she was out, making her way through the silver forest of stainless steel tanks.

  Lily Malone

  Chapter 22

  Outback Brands’ boardroom was the first door on the left, in a wall of floor-to‐ceiling glass, as Christina followed Lisa Kendrick left off the stairs.

  “Jobe and Leesa won’t be long, Christina. Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” Lisa asked, showing her in. “Coffee? Tea?”

  “Water’s fine, thanks.”

  Lisa smiled and left.

  Outback Brands’ boardroom was longer than it was wide, with tan leather chairs encroaching on a solid timber table. A smart-whiteboard covered the right-hand wall, the type where you pushed a button to get a hard copy of whatever you’d scrawled. Two Apple Notebooks sat on a built-in timber cupboard opposite the door, one connected to a widescreen monitor running a slideshow of customer testimonials promoting Outback Brands.

  She listened to Lila Blu laud Tate’s brilliance at creative strategy and a carpet wholesaler wax lyrical about how Outback Brands created him a new website that increased business by twenty per cent.

  Bet they never had to prove how wild they were to become Tate’s client. Then she felt a blush stain her throat. Bet they never had to lick his nipples.

  A large Aboriginal dot painting decorated the wall above the widescreen and there was a second painting in the same style at the rear of the room. Christina preferred it: white daises, petals outlined in subtle yellow and pink on a charcoal canvas. She found it strange Tate would decorate his office but not his house. With Tate, there were always more questions. It was one of the things she— Christina froze mid-thought. Had she seriously been about to think, loved about him?

  Her handbag bumped her hip as she swung away.

  The boardroom overlooked an open-plan studio area, green with indoor plants, where computer monitors the size of small television screens sat on desks above ergonomic chairs. An aquarium filled with fat orange and silver fish bubbled against a wall.

  A well-dressed man with skin the colour of coffee beans stood behind the shoulder of an even darker-skinned Indigenous woman, barely older than a girl. He pointed at the screen and the woman’s fingers pattered on the keyboard. On the other side of the studio was a row of glass-fronted offices. She wondered idly which one was Tate’s.

  A woman so strawberry-blonde as to be almost ginger sat behind a desk in one of those cubicles, a line of red metal filing cabinets spanning the wall at her back. She looked up once and their eyes met, warm if brief contact, and it was Christina who looked away first.

  The man and woman were crossing the studio toward her, A3 sheets of white paper clasped in the girl’s skinny hands.

  “Miss Clay, hello. Finally, we meet. I’m Jobe.” He had a rum and Coke voice and the whitest teeth she’d ever seen and pale, pale eyes like ice mirrors.

 
She held out her hand, a little dazzled. “Call me Christina.”

  Jobe Basel was short, black and sweet, with a milky shot of latte-coloured hair sprouting from an impeccably-shaped skull.

  “It’s good to put a face to the emails, Jobe,” she said.

  “Definitely, it is.” His eyes held hers as his voice dropped a tone and he gave her hand the slightest squeeze before he let go.

  The girl with him was taller, but slouched. She peered around Jobe’s shoulder rather than over it.

  Jobe performed the introductions. “Christina, this is Leesa, she illustrated your labels.”

  “Hello Miss Clay.” Black eyes flicked up, away.

  “Christina, please.”

  Leesa laid the pages clockwise around the boardroom table. Flashes of colour caught Christina’s eye like autumn leaves tossing in the wind and while part of her couldn’t wait, the other part didn’t want to look. When the last page was laid flat, Jobe stretched his arm in invitation.

  Her mouth felt dry as a desert. “I’ve seen them all as PDFs for weeks. This is ridiculous. I’m so nervous.”

  “It’s always different when you see them in print,” Jobe responded. “It makes it more real.”

  “You’re telling me.” She sucked a deep breath, curled her nails into the palm of her hands and stepped forward until her thighs bumped the back of a tan chair. Her gaze fell to the prints on the table and the plants and the fish and the flashing slideshow of clients lauding Outback Brands, faded away.

  Cracked Pots Killer Heels Sauvignon Blanc.

  Her handbag slipped from her shoulder into the nearest chair. Gooseflesh broke across the nape of her neck.

  CC Pot crouched like a sprinter awaiting the pop of the starter’s gun. The perspective showed a lethally-spiked red heel occupying most of the bottom-left corner frame, red fingernails spread in the sand. A daisy chain garter—petals the same vibrant colour as the shoe and exquisitely drawn—gripped the curve of CCs thigh. The tail of a chestnut plait tangled down the back of her pot body and caressed the butt of the gun holstered at her hip.

  “Oh my God,” Christina breathed. The colours were scorched earth—the shoe, fingernails, the triangle of CC’s pot body—they could have been painted with Binara dust.