by Foster, Zoe
Abby took a sip and looked into Marcus’s eyes as she did so. He looked straight back at her. Finally, he was communicating with them! As he held her stare, Abby felt something race through her that indicated she might have to re-visit the naked Marcus and Abby show again.
‘Don’t you think it’s wild that of all the web companies in the city, you emailed Webra?’ Marcus said, once he’d adequately non-verbally communicated his intent. ‘At first I hoped you’d stalked me, but I never told you what I did, or where I worked, and you never asked because you’re kind of arrogant, so I was especially blown away.’
‘Arrogant, huh? Is that any way to speak to your elders?’
‘Stumbling down that rickety old path, are we?’ he said, his eyes glazed with disdain in that way Abby recognised in her young models when she asked them to stop texting while she was briefing.
‘Which path? The one where I’m doing grown up things like cooking osso bucco and you’re skateboarding?’
He snorted. ‘Are you serious? Besides, you’re what, thirty? Men fool around with women ten to fifteen years younger than them all the time, and no one bats an eyelid. Age is irrelevant. Brains are what count.’
‘While Hugh Hefner has done a great many things in his time, his stance on age-gaps between men and women can’t be considered a particularly feasible template.’
He shook his head.
‘Alright. Have it your way. Would you like me to call you a cougar from now on? Would that put you at ease?’
Abby sensed that Marcus was becoming genuinely pissed, and she herself felt the hot prickle of indignation climbing up her skin in response to his attitude. Why? She thought they were joking around. He was very defensive. Maybe he always went out with older women. But Abby didn’t feel like an ‘older woman’, she felt sexier and more confident than she’d ever been. She was a mess at twenty-three; so insecure and confused, she’d really only started to figure out who she was at about twenty-eight. Now, five years later, she definitely knew who she was, and it was not an ‘older woman’.
‘I think you have to be at least forty to be an authentic cougar. Perhaps I can be a cheetah? A cute house cat?’
Marcus smiled; the tension was diffused. ‘Garfield?’
Abby rolled her eyes. ‘Okay. But try not to call me that in meetings if it’s all the same? Might send out the wrong message.’
‘So if not in meetings, when?’
Abby knew the exact trap he was setting. She just had to decide if she was ready to glide into it. Was the fact they would be working together an issue? Probably. Possibly? Not really …
Marcus continued to look at Abby admiringly, his eyes penetrating into hers, challenging her to refuse his play. She was helpless. In that way that meant she wasn’t helpless at all, but actually very, very full of energy and focus indeed. In regards to one thing, anyway.
‘Oh, I don’t know. When you’re at my place tonight?’
An excited smile took over Marcus’s face, as though he’d just been given the keys to Dad’s car for the evening.
‘Are you instigating a late-night hook-up, Abby Vaughn?’
‘Are you going to bore me with obvious questions?’
He shook his head. ‘You’re a bully, do you know that? Play me like a fiddle.’
‘Or a toy? Isn’t that why you’re called toyboys?’
‘You need to stop it with all the clichés, doll.’
‘And you need to not call me doll.’
‘May I have your address? And a phone number too? That’s if it’s not too forward and/or your pretend fiancé isn’t going to mind.’
Abby grabbed his phone from his hand – it was the new model iPhone, of course – and put her number in. ‘Prank me and I’ll text you the address. Shall we say … elevenish?’
‘Whoa, I thought you meant now. Got some other guy you need to meet up with first?’
‘For your information, I have drinks with some friends. Not that I need to tell you what I’m doing.’
Abby was very intrigued by her tone. She was used to being confident around men, it was part of her ‘I don’t need or really want a boyfriend’ thing, but with Marcus she sensed an elevated level of bossiness. It had to be his age, she realised. She was asserting her role as the older, wiser one, even though the more time she spent with him, the more obvious it became that he was far from a servant needing a master. Pah, it was all part of the sexual circus. Run with it, she told herself.
‘Okay, whatever, I’ll be there. Ready to work on those website designs.’
He winked – it was sexy, not cheesy, and walked back into the hub of suits and tanned legs and noise and Latino house music.
Abby walked behind the curtain and saw Charlie talking animatedly to a sweaty, flustered guy in all black, carrying several boxes of what must be expensive whisky. He raced off and Charlie collapsed in a chair and closed her eyes, her head facing up to the ceiling.
‘Everything okay?’ Abby asked.
Charlie looked over and made the symbol of slicing her wrist with a knife.
Abby laughed as she walked over to Charlie, hoisting her handbag onto her shoulder as she did. Charlie plucked a small red card from her clipboard.
‘Take my card, maybe we can go for a coffee one time?’
‘Sure!’ Abby smiled. ‘Hey, you should be proud of yourself – that’s a good party out there. Always a good sign when no one’s leaving early. Have a fun weekend and please feel free to yell at any Allure girls who take it upon themselves to dance on tables.’
‘Can do. Cool to meet you, Abby.’ Charlie smiled and Abby walked back through the curtain, into the crowd and into what had recently become quite an exciting evening.
14
As suspected, Jeremy’s friends were complete dickheads. It was as though there had been an exhibition of Drunken, Rich Stereotypes in the museum next door, and they’d snuck out after closing time.
The obviously-on-cocaine guy with his shirt open two buttons too many was married, but someone had clearly forgotten to tell him, because he spent the entire session trying to lean lecherously over Abby and flirt with her using incredible Can I Buy You a Drink technology. And the young guy with hair from a 1986 Harvard brochure and a slimy jock-hero glint to match was just as bad, telling swagger stories about his awesome job, and important friends and ordering Dom Pérignon, even though everyone had moved on to spirits, and weren’t nearly as impressed as he’d hoped when he had the cute waitress bring it to the table with a bowl of strawberries and $600 worth of insincere fanfare.
Jeremy, though, was a delight. Abby immediately got what Chelsea saw in him. He was funny, charming, quick-witted and spectacularly handsome – Chelsea pretended she was above choosing men for their looks but she absolutely was not – and he was genuine and welcoming to Abby, and not just for show, and not just for the three minutes it took for the platitudes to dissolve. He apologised for his mates’ behaviour, but not for his mates, which showed he was loyal, albeit a terrible judge of character. He was generous, but not in a showy way for the sake of gratification and adoration. And he was very, very, very sweet to Chelsea. Abby caught him gazing at her more than once as she chatted to other people, or applied lip gloss, just smiling at her in his own little world, thrilled to be in her presence.
But the thing that Abby liked most about Jeremy (surprisingly not his friends’ chest hair) was the way Chelsea was around him. She really was herself. She wasn’t playing the coquettish, regal princess she often did around new men, nor was she pretending she was more intellectual/artistic/musical/sexual than she really was. She was just herself. The same Chelsea Abby loved, and the same Chelsea who drove Abby mad. It was special. It made Abby feel warm with joy and jittery with a desire to pull Chelsea aside and tell her NOT TO FUCK THIS ONE UP.
At 10.50, Abby whispered to Chelsea that she had to leave, and why, but not to make a scene, because she wanted to slip out quietly. Unfortunately, after 729 martinis of various flavours and frui
ts, Chelsea was not interested (nor capable) of being subtle.
‘Wooooooo!! Abby’s gotta booty call!’ she screeched.
‘Chels!’ Abby hissed, irritated.
‘Is that why you’ve been such a sourpuzzzz?’ enquired/accused chest hair.
‘Bringhimhere! Less meet him, why don’t you …’ slobbered Harvard.
‘Is it the toyboy?’ Jeremy asked, with a mischievous glint in his eye.
‘I will neither admit not deny anything,’ said Abby as she smoothed her dress down over her thighs, and tucked her hair behind her ear, unable to contain a smile at what lay waiting for her at home.
‘It was so lovely meeting you, Jeremy, and uh, your friends. Night sweetie’ – she kissed Chelsea on the cheek – ‘Have fun!’
She walked quickly away from the table to jeers, hollers and sloppy wolfwhistles, eager to get home and freshen up before her new friend came over. Once in a cab, she realised she’d forgotten to text him the address, and quickly sent it to the missed call number in her phone.
Hey ‘Toyboy’, address is 22a River St, Paddington. I’ll be there in 20. See you then? Garfield.
Abby sat back in the taxi and took a deep breath. She was excited about seeing Marcus, and it felt delicious to admit it. Well, she was excited about what they were about to do, more accurately.
Once home, Abby tore up the front steps to her stylish semi and barged through the door. She tore her heels off and threw them in the hallway, the sound clattering off the polished floorboards. She raced into the bathroom, taking the corner too wide and slamming her elbow into the door, swearing loudly and rubbing her arm quickly to dull the pain. She was clearly more pissed than she thought she was; she smiled goofily at the memory of Harvard refilling her champagne glass every three minutes, in order to make sure she saw the label on the bottle. Abby looked at herself in the mirror, which served as an instant reminder as to why she rarely did smoky eyes – she looked hellish. Her eye makeup had run and smeared and there was black gunk in the inner corner of both eyes. Hot. She roughly wiped her fingers underneath her eyes and applied some more blush and lipgloss; that would do. Oh, and perfume. And deodorant too, actually – this dress was made from as many natural fabrics as a laptop and Abby was disgusted to find a faintly acidic scent when she sniffed under her arms.
She pulled her handbag open – it was resting precariously on the toilet seat – and checked her phone: 11.25. And no text back. Hmmm. Her gut, ever the optimist, was quick to suggest he wasn’t coming. Of course he was, Abby chided herself! He was far keener than she was. He was probably on his way right now. Being as smug and confident as he was, he was probably deliberately not replying, hoping to suavely knock at the door instead, all leany-against the veranda-y and cool, as though he’d happened to be walking past and thought he would pay her a visit. She’d prepare some drinks and put some music on, is what she would do. Would she change …? Naaah. Looks too contrived. Plus, she loved this dress. Sucked everything in magnificently, like a sexy, socially acceptable girdle.
At 11.58, Bonobo was playing at just the right volume in the lounge room, and Abby was perched on a stool at her breakfast bar sipping on vodka and ginger ale, wishing desperately that she had a cigarette, preferably housed in a packet with nineteen of its friends. Where. The. Fuck. Was. He?
Maybe he’d gotten into trouble, she thought. Or lost his phone. Or … NO, her head-voice reprimanded – we do not make excuses for men. Especially when they have done nothing to deserve such a privilege. He was just a little ratbag who was good in bed, why was he making her so angry? Did she even care if he came around tonight? Really? If she was honest, it was more the fact that he’d got under her skin and made her angry, that was making her angry.
She jumped off her stool and checked she didn’t have an emergency cigarette in the little wooden box of random shit on top of the fridge. No. None in the third draw either. Fuckit!
This was such a sad, sad scene, Abby realised. A desperate, pissed fool scrambling through drawers for a cigarette, stood up by a CHILD she didn’t even care about. That was it, she decided. She’d give him till 12.15 and then she was cancelling the invitation. She could text him, and see what he was playing at, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing she was annoyed, or that she was even thinking about him. Not a chance in hell.
She’d go and wait on the lounge, she decided; more comfortable. Maybe reply to some emails on her phone. There’d be no watching TV, that’s for sure. It would kill her buzz and send her directly to sleep. Perhaps she could check Facebook, she thought, spying her laptop on the desk. Or perhaps she’d just lay here for a moment and close her eyes, just for one second …
At precisely 3.17 a.m. a very confused Abby awoke in an awkward and intensely uncomfortable position on her sofa. Her hangover had arrived early, which was cute, and her mouth tasted like the bottom of a pig’s hoof, although she had no evidence it didn’t actually taste worse. With one hand rubbing her right eye clumsily, she reached for her phone. There was a text from ‘Toyboy’.
Hey Garfield, are you still awake??
It had been sent at 1.46 and it made Abby very, very irritable. Was she awake indeed.
He could go fuck himself. ’Cause he sure as hell was not fucking her.
15
Abby pushed the eggs around her plate with her fork, and considered buying another bottle of mineral water. Why she had bothered ordering food baffled everyone seated at this impromptu brunch. But Abby felt stupid not ordering breakfast when everyone else was, so she always did, even though when she was hungover all she could stomach was mineral water. Icy cold. No straw. Until around 4 p.m. when intense cravings for hot chips with barbecue sauce and chicken salt kicked in, and the only thing worth living for was being warm and horizontal and doing something requiring 2 per cent of the brain, like sleep or anything starring tacky housewives or drunken guidos.
‘So when do I get to meet the wonderful Jeremy then?’ Mads asked, after Abby’s glowing report. Well, as glowing as she could muster after her brain had hidden 98 per cent of her adjectives and refused to push more than eight words together at a time. And yet she didn’t recall drinking that much … She hadn’t eaten dinner though, that was never much help. Fucking Harvard and his champagne refills hadn’t helped either.
‘I’m thinking about hosting a barbecue next weekend, so you should definitely come to that.’ Chelsea beamed when she spoke about Jeremy. It was lovely to watch, even if her radiance in light of her drinking irritated Abby. It wasn’t fair – Chelsea’s skin never dipped below 100 watts, not even after half a vat of vodka.
‘Good. Have that barbecue, we’d love to come.’
‘So … everything cool with Dyl now?’ Chelsea was swirling her teaspoon through her coffee at a furious pace, clearly agitated by the two coffees that had preceded it. She often used coffee in place of food; burned heaps of fat, she maintained.
‘Of course. Although, poor bastard, I do feel sorry for him. Sex has been so on the clock with trying to get pregnant that when I’m not ovulating, I really, I just couldn’t be fucked, so to speak. He was quite keen on some nook-nook last night, but I was so tired, because we’d had an excursion at school yesterday—’
‘To the post office?’ Abby asked.
‘The front gate and back?’ Chelsea asked.
‘How dare you … We went to the shop to learn how to buy a train ticket, thank you. Anyway, so I’m there, rolled over, suffocating under the heavy blanket of fatigue and I feel this big poke in my lower back, and he’s kissing my neck and being all foreplay-ish, and do you know what I did?’
‘A quick handy and a kiss goodnight,’ Chelsea stated, as though it was the obvious answer.
‘No, much better: I hooked my ankle up to his groin and I wiggled it around a bit on his balls.’
Abby launched forward and placed her hand over a mouth that was about to furiously spray mineral water. Once she’d swallowed, she burst into laughter.
Mads threw her head back, curls bouncing around her, and laughed. ‘I did. I actually did. As though he was a small, desperate dog and I was giving him the titillation of his life, a stranger walking past with an agile ankle and a perverse desire to see a stray dog happy.’
Abby and Mads dissolved into laughter again, as Chelsea tsk-tsked earnestly.
‘Poor Dyl.’
Abby, who was still struggling to breathe, gave Mads’s leg a rub with her ankle. ‘Oooh, you like that, don’t you, mmmm, sexy rubs …’
‘I know, I know. Dyl said, ‘Did you just rub my balls with your heel? And we were both quiet and then I admitted my disgraceful behaviour and we lost it. Just lost it. I think we needed the laugh, to be perfectly honest.’
‘You have to give him sex at other times of the month, Mads, you can’t just do it for baby-making purposes, that’s hardly fair.’
‘Oh fuck off, Chels,’ Mads said good-naturedly. ‘I’m not in the mood for your dramatic, archaic Stepford wife shit today.’
‘I’m just saying …’ Chelsea said, her inflection rising along with her eyebrows.
‘“Just saying” has to be the most passive-aggressive, juvenile non-conclusion a human being can offer,’ Mads said, shaking her head. She also hated when people used the word ‘absolutely’ or ‘totally’ in place of ‘yes’, both of which Chelsea was guilty of, daily. ‘I was tired, it was funny, Dylan isn’t just a sperm bank, he gets plenty of sex, and more blow-jobs than most married men get in their entire lives, so you can just calm the godamn farm.’
Chelsea, finally locating her compassion chip, exhaled and reached over to rest her hand on Mads’s shoulder.
