Flying High
Faith woke to another much-too-early morning after another much-too-early night, and how Will managed to fly from one continent, even one hemisphere to the next and play rugby, she couldn’t imagine. She couldn’t even stay awake past six o’clock.
At least this time she’d slept until five-thirty, so who knew? Maybe tonight she’d manage to have dinner with Will’s family before she collapsed. As long as she didn’t go to yoga.
She’d had her phone by the bed this morning, anyway, and had been able to use the flashlight to get out of the bedroom without waking Will up. Of course, that was because she hadn’t had to get dressed. She’d fallen asleep in her clothes, and he’d covered her up, obviously, which was so…so sweet. But then, he was sweet. She’d always known that.
Another nagging splinter of guilt stabbed her as she propped herself at the end of yet another leather couch—brown this time, for a little variety—in the expanse of space that was the great room of this comfortable family home. He wouldn’t like it if he knew what she was doing, she thought even as she was opening her laptop. He wouldn’t like it at all.
But it wasn’t up to him, and they weren’t even involved, so what did she have to feel guilty about? Besides, he wouldn’t find out, would he? Her relationship with him wasn’t real, and anyway, she had to do this.
The decision to take her story beyond Calvin’s site, to publish the episodes in serial form on all the online bookstores, had been the scariest one she’d ever made—and the best. For the first time in her life, she was loving her work, and to her astonishment, she was making more money doing it than at all her jobs combined. Her bank account was growing every month. She had to keep going, because this was her future. And anyway, she didn’t have a choice. People wanted to hear the rest of her story. They were writing to her and telling her so. And she wanted to tell it. So she opened her document and started to type.
It was bad enough. And then, when I walked into the office that Monday morning, it got worse.
I was more than half an hour late, because Karen had been sick again. But surely, considering all the extra time I’d put in over the months I’d worked here, that wouldn’t matter. Surely.
I could tell something was wrong as soon as I stepped through the door. The tension in the Publicity department hung in the air like an invisible gray cloud. What could have happened?
“Panic stations,” Nathan muttered as he passed, ostentatiously studying a pile of papers. “It’s you.”
I made it to my cubicle, but had barely rid myself of my coat before Martine was gliding toward me on her stratospheric heels, the soles flashing Manolo Blahnik red, her entire sleek form radiating feminine power.
“I’d like to see you in my office, please,” she said.
I grabbed my laptop case again in the hope that this might be work-related, but then, what else could it be? It couldn’t be anything else. Nobody knew. Did they?
My heart beat out an apprehensive tattoo as I followed my boss’s elegant back. Could I have done something wrong? More wrong than usual?
“Please. Sit,” Martine said as soon as the door closed behind us, and I did my best to breathe—and sat.
“I’ll be frank.” Martine took a graceful seat behind her desk. “I’m concerned about you. I hope that you aren’t letting your personal life get…away from you.”
You have no idea. “I know I was late today,” I said. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Martine waved a slim red-nailed hand. “It’s not so much the tardiness,” she said, and I flushed a little. That made it sound like I’d been late constantly, instead of once. “It’s more the…the special arrangements.” Her glance was knowing, as if she were aware of exactly what I’d been doing this weekend, and exactly whom I’d been doing it with.
“Is there a problem with my work?” The special arrangements are over, I didn’t say, because there was one way this situation could get worse. If I cried and told the truth—that would be so much worse.
I wished for the hundredth time that I hadn’t taken this job. Quitting wasn’t an option, though. Not when I so desperately needed the salary, and, even more than that, the health insurance.
Now, Martine frowned, and I fought to keep my breathing under control. I could tell something bad was coming. Please don’t let me lose my job, I prayed. Please, no. Please don’t make me have to crawl to Hemi and beg.
“I’m going to give you a piece of advice,” Martine said, and my panic receded, at least for the moment. “Just because you remind me of myself, not so long ago. Be careful. I know you feel…special, right now. But you’re not.”
I tried to keep my face neutral, but knew I was failing utterly as she went on. “You think that if you follow all his...all the rules, it will last. But it won’t. Nothing you do, nothing you say will matter in the end, because you’re just one in a line that stretches a long, long way back. And one that will stretch a long way into the future, too. So…” She smiled. “Don’t quit your day job.”
She stood up, opened the door, and I scrambled to my feet. “But for now,” she said, “I suppose you’ll do what you have to do, because you don’t really have a choice, do you? You’ll go where you’re taken, and you’ll do what you’re told. You’ll take…advantage of the situation. Who could blame you?”
Her gaze swept over me, lingered on my feet, on the new boots I’d worn today despite everything that had happened, and she didn’t have to say anything else.
I did my best not to stumble over my heels on the way back to my cubicle, fought back the stupid tears that insisted on rising despite all my efforts, and began to go through my assignments all the same, to plan my day.
Everyone might think I was a fraud, but I didn’t have to be one. I would know the truth, even if I were the only one who did. I would keep my self-respect, even if I couldn’t keep anything else. Or anyone else.
This time it wasn’t Will who caught her at it. It was Talia.
“Oh. Hi,” the girl said, hovering on the stairs as if she were about to run back up them.
“Hi.” Faith closed her laptop with what she hoped wasn’t undue haste and set it on the chunky square coffee table that provided a massive centerpiece to the leather couches and chairs around it. “I sure hope you’re about to go into the kitchen for breakfast. And that you can point me to the coffee, because I’m starved and desperate, and I’m not sure what the rules are about what I can eat, or whether I’m supposed to wait.”
Talia smiled, and Faith realized that it was almost the first time she’d seen that expression on her face. The girl came the rest of the way down the stairs in her checked skirt, blue blouse, navy cardigan, and matching knee socks, and Faith stood up and followed her into the modern kitchen. It was stone-floored like the rest of the common spaces, and her stocking-clad feet curled a little against the cold. Maybe she needed to get into the hot tub again. Or maybe not.
“Don’t think we have coffee, actually,” Talia said. “Sorry. We have tea, of course.”
“Of course,” Faith said glumly.
“You can go out for a coffee, though.” Talia filled an electric kettle, set it on its base, and flipped the switch. “Easy as. That’s what people usually do.”
“Oh?” Faith filed that one away for book-reference. “Because back home, we make our own coffee. I mean, regular coffee. Drip coffee.”
“Drip coffee? What’s that?”
“It’s…never mind.” It was much too early in the morning to explain regular coffee, in a regular coffee machine. “Tea’s good.”
“Want eggs, too?” Talia bent to take them out of the fridge, the heavy braid that hung halfway to her hips barely moving. “That’s what I’m doing.”
“Sure. What can I do to help?”
“Toast, if you like.” Talia pulled out the loaf and handed it to Faith.
“You’re up early,” Faith commented. Talia was already pouring boiling water into mugs, she saw with gratit
ude, because if she didn’t get some caffeine in her fast, she was going to kill somebody, and tea was better than nothing. “I don’t remember being an early riser when I was a teenager. Do you have an early class? And is that a school uniform?”
Talia laughed, which was another first, and shoved the mug across the counter at Faith. “I wouldn’t be wearing it otherwise. Not exactly a fashion statement, is it.”
Faith cast a glance at the skirt. She didn’t miss that Talia hadn’t answered her other question. “Can I ask? Do you roll up the waistband once you’re out of the house? I always heard about girls doing that.”
“Maybe,” Talia admitted, peeping at Faith from under long dark lashes that Faith would have killed for. “Because it’s so long, isn’t it.”
“I think they choose the most unflattering length possible,” Faith agreed, “so girls won’t look pretty. Too dangerous. They might forget themselves, or the boys might, as if they wouldn’t anyway.”
She got a little smile for that. “So girls don’t have to wear uniforms in the States?” Talia asked. “Can you wear whatever you like?”
“You can. Of course, that’s got a downside, too. It seems to me, if everybody wears the same uniform, it’s less about who has how much money. If you’re a girl who doesn’t have the right clothes, a uniform could just be the answer to your prayers.”
“I never thought of it like that. Just thought it was ugly, and wished we could wear mufti. I can’t wait to get out of school.” Talia’s tone was almost savage as she poked with a spatula at the eggs she’d broken into a pan on the stove. “Go to Uni and get out. Like Mals.”
Faith started to ask a question, then thought better of it. “Hmm,” she said instead, focusing on buttering slices of toast as if it required all her concentration. “Maybe it’s easier to be a boy.”
She thought Talia was going to say something. But instead, like Hope in the conference room, she seemed to catch herself. She turned away, pulled plates out of the cupboard, and slid eggs onto them. Faith added the toast, and they pulled stools up to the kitchen counter and began to eat.
“So what is there to do after school around here?” Faith ventured after a minute. Talia hadn’t been around the previous afternoon, she hadn’t missed that. “Seems like it might be a little easier to get together with your friends than where I grew up.”
“Where’s that? Vegas? I always wanted to go there. Sounds so glamorous. Not boring like here.”
Faith laughed. “And here I’ve been thinking how beautiful New Zealand is. How much there is to do. The ocean, the lake, the mountains? It seems like paradise to me.”
That was met with a look of incredulity. “Ha. Dead bore. Everybody I know wants to emigrate to Aussie, or the UK, or even,” Talia said with a sigh, “the States. When I told them you were from Vegas, all my friends were jealous as.”
Jealous as what? Faith wondered. “Well, I guess everything looks different from the outside, because it’s not glamorous at all. I work in a casino. I practically grew up in one, so I ought to know. It’s people losing their money, and outside of that? It’s suburbia, and your friends from school live miles away, and you don’t have a car. I’d think it might be better here. What do you do after school?”
“Huh,” Talia said. “We usually go down by the lake. You know, hang out. Have a chat.”
“I haven’t seen the lake yet.” Faith concentrated on her toast. “I wonder—” She stopped. “No, probably not. I know, I’m kind of old. Never mind.”
“What?” Talia asked. “You’re not old. You’re pretty cool, actually.”
“Really? Well…do you think—would you be willing to show me the lake, maybe? Show me around a bit? Because I’ll bet Will’s going to go to the gym this afternoon again, and your grandmother said something about yoga again, so…please.”
Talia laughed, for real this time, her perfect smooth oval of a face lighting up with it, her dark eyes showing a light Faith hadn’t seen in them, and Faith laughed back.
“Yeah,” Faith admitted, “I’m begging here. Please. Hide me.”
She did end up seeing the lake before the afternoon, though. She saw it on the way to her Canopy Tour with Will.
His mother had come into the kitchen while Faith and Talia were finishing up, and Talia’s face had gone shuttered, their conversation at an end. Faith had sat at the breakfast table with the others once Talia had taken herself off, had offered to do the dishes, and had had her offer accepted, to her relief.
“You can do them with me,” Miriama said. “Emere is off to work today.”
“Oh, do you work?” Faith asked, and then could have kicked herself, because the woman had raised five children.
“Yeh,” Will’s mother said. “At the i-Site—the tourist information site—a few days a week. Keeps me busy. How do you stay busy, Faith?”
Her glance held not-so-veiled hostility, but Will just laughed. “You’re offside there, Mum. Faith has three jobs.” Well, four, but who was counting? “She’s been working already since she’s been down here, haven’t you noticed? She doesn’t spend her time trolling the casinos for hot rugby boys with big bikkies, whatever you may be imagining.”
“Big…” Faith uttered faintly. What had he just said?
“With money,” he said. “Why, what did you think? Got to stop looking at those naughty pictures, eh. They’re giving you a dirty mind.”
Faith choked back a laugh, because Will’s mother didn’t look amused, and Miriama’s sharp eyes were on the two of them again.
“Hoping to tear you away today, though,” Will said. “I thought we could do a bit of sightseeing. In fact, I already booked, so no choice. As Kuia pointed out to me, here you are in En Zed, and I’m duty-bound to give you an adrenaline rush, aren’t I.”
His face was nothing but innocent, but Faith knew better. She looked right back at him and said, “An adrenaline rush? You think you could?”
This time, he was the one choking, to her satisfaction. He recovered himself fast, though, and said, “Well, maybe somebody else could. And I could watch.”
She started to smile, caught the look on his mother’s face, and got up hastily and began to collect plates instead. “I’ll just start this, then. I’d like to help more instead of just falling asleep on you, since you all are being kind enough to let me visit.” Yes, it might have been a blatant attempt to win a little favor with his mother, but she wasn’t used to being hated, and it was wearing on her.
Will got up with her. “We’ll do it together. And then go for my outing.”
“Don’t do that,” she hissed at him under cover of the running water when she was scraping plates and filling the dishwasher.
“Who, me? Did I start that?”
“Your grandmother knows,” she muttered. “I’m sure she does. And, what? Now I’m not just a gold-digging tramp, I’m a gold-digging exhibitionist tramp?”
His laugh rang out, and she had to laugh too. “Because you’re bad,” he said, the smile reaching all the way to his eyes as he looked down at her. “I’ve always known it. It’s all a front, that good-girl thing you do. See, there you are turning red again, bang on cue. Nothing better than a good girl succumbing to her dark side. Nothing sexier than thinking about helping her do it.”
“Stop,” she warned. “Stop right now. That’s our deal.”
He sighed. “Right. Washing-up, sightseeing, showing my innocent American girlfriend the beauties of my native land. The program as scheduled.”
It didn’t turn out to be sightseeing. It turned out to be a heart-stopping journey through the treetops with two guides and five other guests, none of whom had recognized Will, because none of them had been Kiwis. The guides had known who he was, but they hadn’t made a big deal of it. But then, Kiwis didn’t make a big deal out of much, Faith was figuring that out. Well, nothing except rugby.
It all began frighteningly enough, with following their guide—or, in her case, following Will’s tight, muscular, absolutely
fantastic rear view, in a pair of shorts again—up an endless ladder set against a tree trunk that was a good six feet in diameter.
Higher and higher into the air she climbed, wanting to stop, wanting to climb down, but that wasn’t an option, because there was somebody else behind her. Finally, she came gratefully to rest on a platform set high in the treetops, a canopy of green and birdsong all around her. She felt a little better when her feet were on solid wood again, despite the fact that the platform was completely open, and that there were nine people crowded around it, including one of them who would rather have been hugging the trunk. That would be Faith.
“Please tell me it’s not possible to fall,” a middle-aged woman, sharing the adventure with her husband and already looking dubious, said to some nervous laughter from the rest of the group.
“Haven’t lost one yet. That’s what the harness is for, eh,” Roman, their male guide, said, exchanging a laughing glance with Will. “Want to show them what happens if they let go?”
Will grinned at the young man, and before Faith realized what he was doing, he’d leaned back from the edge of the platform and stepped off, was dangling in midair from the chest, twisting a little in the wind.
Faith gasped, cried out, and in the next two seconds, she’d reached for him, grabbed him around the waist, and pulled him back in, and everyone was laughing. Everyone but Will. His arms had come around her instantly, and he was holding her tight.
“Sorry, baby,” he said. “No worries. It’s all good. Nobody’s falling today.”
“Apologies for the moment of heart failure,” Roman said cheerfully as Faith disengaged herself from Will, tried to calm her racing heart and pretend that the whole thing hadn’t happened. “But, yeh, the harnesses are there for a reason. You’re safe as houses, and we’ve just experimented with our million-dollar man to prove it to you.”
Just in Time (Escape to New Zealand Book 8) Page 16
