Hold On to Me

by Victoria Purman

  When Anna cocked her head and narrowed her eyes a little, Stella decided she’d better change the subject. ‘Lizzie, Julia said I should call you and I totally forgot. Did she talk to you about The Market on Sunday? Is there a stall available?’ She sipped her wine to avoid looking at Anna.

  ‘Absolutely. It’s all organised. We can’t wait to have you.’

  ‘That’s amazing—thanks so much! I think I’ll bring the kaftans and hats. And maybe some small pieces of jewellery.’

  ‘To Style by Stella!’ Summer announced.

  Stella laughed. ‘How many times are we going to toast my shop?’

  ‘To Stella, then!’

  The five women talked until midnight, laughed until they were hoarse and, half an hour after they had all traipsed out to drive or walk home, Stella fell asleep in the warm glow of prosecco and friendship, and with the taste of chocolate on her lips.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Having wisely, she thought, turned down Luca’s invitation to the wedding, Stella instead spent Saturday planning the re-opening party for Style by Stella. She needed to re-launch the shop with a bang, and she was sure that Luca’s work would be finished soon, so she picked a date and wrote the email to send to everyone. She left just the slightest bit of mystery to fire up people’s imaginations so they would be desperate to come along:

  Style by Stella’s Grand Reopening

  Friday 19 December

  Put the date in your diary!

  She was proud of the plan: she sent the email to all her regular customers, dignitaries from the south coast, the local media (which meant Joe Blake), other shop owners, her suppliers, and her friends. Luca was on the list too, of course, as her special guest.

  She loved the magic of the twenty-first century. Within minutes, the acceptances started to pour into her inbox. As each one arrived, she became more and more excited about reopening and all the promises a reinvigorated business might bring.

  The light was fading outside and Stella felt a sudden growl of hunger. She’d been so consumed with her planning all afternoon that she’d forgotten to eat. Which reminded her that Luca would most likely be in the middle of one of those eight-course wedding meals.

  She was right to have said no. He wasn’t serious. He was just teasing her to see how far along she would play. She was sensible enough to know that. It wasn’t the frocking up she’d worried about: she had a dozen appropriate dresses to wear for such an occasion. It was the idea of walking into a room full of people she didn’t know on Luca Morelli’s arm that was the problem, not to mention doing so as a last-minute afterthought date.

  So while Luca was no doubt enjoying lobster and prawns and every good thing up in Adelaide, she was going to make toast for dinner.

  Mouse must have heard her rumbling hunger, because she stalked past, meowing forcefully and pressing against Stella’s legs.

  ‘I’ve forgotten to feed you too, haven’t I, cat?’

  ‘I love Italian weddings.’ Joe Blake clinked glasses with Luca. They were sitting at Table 47 at one of Adelaide’s most luxurious venues. It was in the heart of the city and had panoramic windows looking out over the River Torrens and, beyond it, Adelaide Oval, gleaming like a new jewel.

  ‘My people do know how to throw a party,’ Luca said with a glance around the room.

  It was another Saturday night. Another wedding. Specifically, another Italian wedding. To say he wasn’t in the mood to party was the understatement of the century. He’d been away all week at Middle Point and had spent the first half of the weekend lugging furniture and boxes with some helpful mates from his soccer team. A truckload later, after cold beers and a shower, he’d hurriedly tugged on a suit and walked through the city to the reception. No one would’ve noticed he’d skipped the ceremony.

  He couldn’t remember how he’d got there. All he knew was that he’d arrived alone.

  Not that he couldn’t have had a date if he’d wanted one. As he scanned the faces of the three hundred guests filling the venue, he realised he could probably name every available woman in the room. He’d dated a few of them when he’d been in his teens and early twenties. They were all smart and beautiful women: sequinned, high-heeled, primped and impossibly gorgeous. Despite the silent urging of his parents, he’d just never found anyone he was really interested in. They were great women but none of them was the one. He didn’t feel the zing with any of them. And while he hadn’t ever before needed any zing, something had changed. Tonight, he wasn’t in the mood to flirt or dance or talk to anyone new.

  Something was off. He rubbed the back of his neck. Had he been spending too long on the tools lately? Yes, and more precisely he’d been spending too long on the tools down on the south coast. As he looked around, he realised that all the long hair and pert breasts and heels in the world couldn’t hold a candle to a woman wearing cut-off jeans, a sweaty singlet top and a layer of plaster dust.

  He couldn’t get the picture out of his head: Stella holding a hammer and a chisel, flashing him one of her million-dollar all-natural smiles, with her old-school jazz playing in the background. Just the two of them: creating something from nothing. He sighed. That’s where he wanted to be now. Down at the beach with Stella Ryan. Not primped up in a monkey suit at another wedding wearing a tie that was strangling him.

  The only bonus was that he was sitting with his family.

  The only downside was that he was sitting with his family.

  Just then, Anna arrived back at the table and sat on Joe’s lap. She kissed his cheek and snuggled into him and he wrapped an arm around her. He couldn’t believe those two. His parents hassled the crap out of him every freaking day about getting married and settling down—albeit in a loving, caring, you’re-the-only-son-in-an-Italian-family kind of way—but his big sister still managed to get away with not being married to Joe. Not only were they both divorced: they had a kid together! Not that he gave two shits if they were married or not. He had to admit he liked the way his big sister had stood up to community gossip and her own fears about what people would think of her. She’d divorced her cheating arsehole of a husband and found happiness with Joe. She appeared to have everything she wanted. A thriving practice. Beautiful Francesca. She was happy. She’d been through so much; she deserved to be happy.

  Their little sister Grace was still single, but she didn’t cop the drama he did from his parents. Even if he found someone, would he really want it to be like this? Eight courses and bomboniere and—all those bridesmaids. Around him were tables full of families—generations of people coming together to celebrate two of their own starting a new life together. Good luck to them. He had a life, was making a decent go of his business. So he wasn’t engaged or married yet. Thank god he wasn’t so old that people were starting to talk about why he wasn’t. Some of his mates had married young, but he was determined to do what was right for him. And all this, the family and marriage and kids? That would be right for him one day, too.

  In the meantime, if he wanted sex, he could find it whenever he wanted, with a whole string of beautiful women to choose from.

  Except he didn’t feel like a whole string of beautiful women.

  He only wanted one beautiful woman.

  The one he dreamt about at night and fantasised about during the day.

  Grace arrived back at the table and plonked herself down in a chair. She jammed an elbow on the table and shoved her chin in her hand. One of the straps of her red dress had slipped off her shoulder and she was biting at the scowl on her lips.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ he asked with a lift of his chin in her direction.

  She huffed. ‘Are there any guys here I’m not related to or whose medical history I don’t know way too much about?’ Grace had managed Anna’s medical practice for years.

  He patted her on the back and filled her glass. ‘Slim pickings, huh?’

  ‘The only guy who’s asked me to dance is Uncle Tony. And he smells of smoke.’

  Luc
a laughed. ‘I’ll dance with you, sis.’

  She glared at him. ‘While I’m having almost the worst night ever, I’m not desperate enough to commit social suicide, Luca.’ She drank her wine, found her phone, and began jabbing at it with both thumbs. She winked at her brother as she wrote out her message and recited it out loud. ‘Where are all the single men in Adelaide? Hashtag Stuck At Family Wedding. Hashtag Food Brilliant Though.’

  ‘Hey, Luca,’ Anna called over the music. ‘I saw Stella last night.’

  He flicked a glance to his other sister and then looked away. Was she reading his fucking mind now? ‘Yeah?’

  Last night.

  He remembered every minute of it. He’d stood on the footpath out the front of Stella’s shop and fought off the desperate urge to kiss her. He’d almost never wanted anything so much in his life. That’s why he’d stupidly invited her to the wedding. He shouldn’t have done it. He’d kind of put it right out there, laid it at her feet. And she’d rejected him.

  He took a slug of his wine.

  Anna continued. ‘She was saying very nice things about you.’

  ‘She was, was she?’ Luca tried listening to the song instead of his sister. He didn’t know it. It was something old school, nice and slow. He fought back to the urge to grab his phone and Shazam it so he could download it and play it to Stella on Monday.

  ‘Yes.’ Anna dropped her chin and looked into his eyes. He knew that look. It was the same expression she used when she was trying to catch him or Grace out in a lie. She’d been doing it for as long as he could remember. She probably looked at her patients like that when they claimed to have given up smoking. Or that they were practising safe sex. ‘She said you’ve got fantastic ideas and you’re very good at what you do.’

  That was nice to hear. ‘She’s a smart woman.’

  ‘Bloody oath she is.’ Joe laughed. ‘You should see her marketing strategy for the reopening of her shop. I got the invite this afternoon. I’m guessing she’ll be pumping me to put it on the front page of the Gazette. And while it’s not exactly front-page news, even for a country rag, I’ll give it a run. She’s a popular businesswoman, our Stella.’

  Luca put his glass down on the table. ‘She’s set a date for the reopening?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s … I’m pretty sure it’s 19 December.’ Joe reached for his phone and swiped a finger up the screen. ‘Yeah, here it is. Friday 19 December.’ He turned the screen around so Luca could see.

  He could see all right, even in the dim light.

  Two weeks away.

  That woman he wanted to kiss, the one he wanted to hold in his arms and take to his bed?

  Right now? He wouldn’t put into words what else he wanted to do to her.

  CHAPTER

  15

  Luca really wanted to talk to Stella. He really wanted to ask her what the hell she’d been thinking when she’d arranged the reopening party without consulting him. He also really wanted to wring her neck.

  But he didn’t do any of those things. Instead, he spent Sunday unpacking boxes and trying to get his house into some kind of order, so it would feel more like a home and less like a squat. The downstairs front room was to be the living room, and his sofa, TV and games console had been shoved in there yesterday, so he spent time setting everything up and creating order there out of chaos. Once that was done, he headed upstairs to his bedroom and assembled the bed frame so he could get his mattress off the floor. He hung his clothes and filled the chest of drawers that almost hadn’t made it up the stairs without falling apart.

  When he’d first seen the place, he’d imagined how nice it would be to lie upstairs and be woken up by the breeze coming in off the square, and the noises of the city as it came to life every morning.

  But he’d felt none of that peace this morning. He’d stalked home through the city streets after the wedding, furious and festering, and had woken with an aching jaw and a killer headache, which had nothing to do with over-indulging the night before and everything to do with the woman who was driving him nuts.

  He cranked up some music and worked to the rhythm of it for the whole day, the hours passing in a frustrated blur. His parents had dropped by at lunchtime with food. His mother had tut-tutted and his father had raised his eyebrows at the state of the place.

  ‘Why did you buy this old wreck?’ Sonia had asked in disbelief.

  ‘Yeah, Ma, I know it needs work. That’s exactly why I bought it.’

  When his father had proposed he put false ceilings in to cover all the old-fashioned plasterwork, Luca shot him a look. Paolo got the message and stopped with the suggestions. After they left, he unpacked the kitchen utensils and appliances and set up his coffee machine on the only available bit of bench space. He brewed a double espresso, took it upstairs to the balcony and sat on an old chair he’d borrowed from the kitchen for the purpose. He propped his feet up on the balcony railing and finally let himself think about Stella Ryan.

  What the hell had she been thinking organising the reopening party for a fortnight away? There was still so much to do on her place. Sighing, he looked back over his shoulder at the interesting wallpaper on his bedroom wall, coming to terms with the fact that he’d be living in a renovator’s delight for longer than he’d anticipated.

  Stella had him tied up in knots and he didn’t like it. Since he’d started his own business, he’d got used to calling the shots. Running his own show. And he liked it that way.

  He gulped down his coffee. When exactly had he handed over his life to Stella Ryan?

  On Sunday morning, The Market behind the Middle Point pub was crowded. Holiday-makers jostled with locals, young children hid under trestle tables, making their parents frantic with worry, stallholders happily sold their wares and, in the best spot of all, Stella Ryan had a table with some of her most portable items. She’d chosen casual jewellery, some hats, multi-coloured striped scarves and soft leather purses and she’d brought with her one rack of summer kaftans—the kind of thing you threw over your bathers when it was hot but you didn’t want your thighs on full display. She sold zillions of them.

  ‘A coffee for you, Stella.’

  ‘You’re an angel, Lizzie.’ Stella took the takeaway cup from her friend and sipped appreciatively. She’d been up since six and was in desperate need of caffeine.

  ‘We’ve got an amazing crowd here today. Look at all these people.’ Lizzie’s beaming smile and laughing blue eyes were infectious.

  ‘Thank you once again for saving me this spot. I feel honoured to have the prime position.’

  ‘We’re so excited to have you here, Stella. You’ve added a dash of real style to The Market. I wish you could come back every week during summer.’

  ‘Me too, but I’m reopening in two weeks.’

  Lizzie grinned. ‘Thanks so much for the invitation to the opening party. I can’t wait.’

  ‘Me neither. I’ve felt in limbo since the fire. It’ll be good to get back to business and a regular routine.’

  Lizzie checked her watch. ‘I’ll pop back later to see if you need more coffee. I’ve got to mingle and see if everyone’s happy. Good luck.’

  ‘See you soon.’ Stella waved her friend away and turned to take in the crowd of people. It was a real mix. Young families, retirees, bearded hipsters and vintage princesses strolling hand in hand, surfers, clutching coffees, wandering by in their boardshorts and damp hair. She felt a hint of regret that she hadn’t been able to be part of this bustling Sunday morning scene at Middle Point. When she’d returned to the south coast five years before, she’d had a weekend stall at another local market for twelve months to help her get re-established, as well as working for other retailers to build her bank balance and networks, but once her business had grown, she’d moved into premises and never looked back. Having her own shop had always been her dream, and she was happy to be living it, but there was a vibe about The Market that she loved.

  When she stopped daydreaming and shook herself back i
nto the present, she realised there were two customers taking a discerning look at her wares. They were dressed in loose white linen and were impeccably groomed with salon nails and, Stella noticed as she glanced down to check out their four-inch wedge heels, salon toes to match.

  ‘Good morning, ladies. Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with, won’t you?’

  The two women looked at her from behind their huge sunglasses and Stella didn’t have to see their eyes to feel their disdain. It wafted across the table to her like unaffordable but sharp perfume. One of the women reached for a necklace Stella had arranged on a tree branch she’d secured in a sand-filled wine bottle. Its beads clinked together as she ran it between her fingers.

  She turned to her friend. ‘That’s quite nice. But I think I’ve seen it cheaper up in Adelaide.’

  ‘Mmm, I know. And really, it’s only good for wearing down here on hols, isn’t it? It’s a little too …’ she shrugged her shoulders as she searched for the right insult ‘… colourful for real life.’

  Stella smiled grimly and tried not to bite. She took in a deep breath and tried to unclench her teeth. She’d never had nice things as a child. Sometimes, when her parents were straight for a while, there would be some spare cash. A five-dollar note would be pressed into her palm with a guilty smile from her mother, a look that maybe said sorry even if her words rarely did. And Stella would take that precious money and head to the local charity shop, where she would spend hours scouring the tables for something that would be just hers. And she often found things that she loved—her style had been distinct even then. It might have been a simple china bowl or a glass vase. Stella learnt to buy things of no value, things her parents couldn’t later take and sell for cash. Even as a small girl, she could appreciate the beauty in old pieces that had come from other people’s homes.

  And by the time she was in her teens, having lived with Auntie Karen for years, and working at the Middle Point general store, she’d grown into her confidence and her style. She’d created her costumes; her mask; her new character. She didn’t want to look like everybody else because she wasn’t like everybody else. She’d learnt by then to own her difference and she turned that into a burning desire to do better, to be better. She listened when her teachers told her she was smart, that she should get an education. She didn’t ask anyone for help to achieve her dreams. She’d always had to do it alone, even when Auntie Karen arrived like an angel to rescue her.