Three’s a Crowd

by Dianne Blacklock

  Lexie groaned. ‘Let’s not go there again.’

  Catherine glanced at Rachel. ‘Look at you, you’re blushing. What’s going on in that little head of yours?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she stirred, ‘and I’m not blushing.’

  ‘She’s . . . glowing,’ Lexie jumped in. ‘I was going to say, you look great, Rachel. Doesn’t she look great, Catherine?’

  Catherine considered her. ‘Actually, she’s right. Have you done something with your hair?’

  Rachel shook her head. ‘No, in fact I’m overdue for a cut.’

  ‘Your face looks less bloated or something, have you lost some weight?’

  Catherine, master of the backhanded compliment.

  ‘I’ve just been getting more exercise,’ Rachel shrugged.

  ‘Well, you should get going while the going’s good,’ said Catherine, taking a chug of her wine. ‘Have you checked out all the arrows you’ve been getting?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘On Rendezvous. Some of them aren’t too bad, why aren’t you at least giving them a go?’

  ‘Why are you looking on my site, Catherine?’

  ‘Why are you avoiding my question, Rachel?’

  She breathed out. ‘Look, I’m just not interested, I don’t think it’s right for me. I’d rather click with someone than click on them.’

  Lexie giggled. ‘That’s very clever.’

  Catherine didn’t seem to think so. ‘You’ve decided this after one date?’

  ‘Yeah, well, one was enough,’ she said plainly. ‘I don’t want to waste any more of my time on married men and losers.’

  ‘What else have you got to do with your time?’

  You have no idea, Rachel thought, just a little smugly, picking up her glass and taking a sip.

  ‘Oh, speaking of the time,’ Lexie said, looking at her watch. ‘I might have to get going.’ She bit her lip. ‘Would you girls excuse me while I make a call?’

  Lexie walked inside the hotel, finding a quiet spot in the foyer, and dialled the café.

  ‘Bean East,’ Scott answered.

  ‘Hi honey, I’m just finishing up here with the girls.’

  ‘Okay.’

  She could tell she wasn’t getting his full attention.

  ‘So I was thinking I might come by and hang out there till you’re finished, and then we can drive over to Mum’s together.’

  ‘I’ve got my car here, Lex.’

  ‘I realise that, but you could follow me back to our place and we could leave it there. It’s on the way.’

  ‘Look, I don’t know when I’m going to be able to get away. You should go on ahead.’

  ‘I don’t mind waiting for you.’

  She heard him sigh. ‘To be honest, Lex, I’ve been run off my feet today, I’m exhausted. And by the time I finish up here, maybe I’ll just go home to bed.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ she protested. ‘It’s Eric’s birthday.’

  ‘No one’s going to miss me,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ Lexie insisted. ‘The kids’ll miss you.’

  ‘Don’t be unreasonable, honey.’

  ‘I’m not being unreasonable! You’re the one being unreasonable, Scott.’

  ‘Look, I don’t have time for this now, Lexie. I still have customers.’

  And then he hung up! Lexie was stunned for a moment. She’d had quite enough of this. She had a good mind to go back to the table and have a few more drinks with the girls, enough so that she couldn’t drive. And then Scott would have to come and pick her up.

  But she wasn’t going to do that. She didn’t want to let Catherine know what was going on, and besides, it was manipulative and childish and she needed to handle this like an adult. Lexie thought about her options. She scrolled down to her mother’s number and pressed Call.

  ‘Hello Lexie, dear,’ Sally said when she picked up. ‘Are you on your way?’

  ‘Oh, Mum, I’m sorry, I was going to ask . . . Well, Scott’s run off his feet, they’re short-staffed again, and he’s going to be really late if I don’t go and give him a hand.’

  ‘Of course, darling.’

  ‘Are you sure? The kids aren’t in the way while you’re trying to get ready?’

  ‘Now don’t you worry about a thing here,’ Sally reassured her. ‘They’ve been absolute angels. Mia had a lovely long nap, and Riley has been helping me in the kitchen. I think he takes after his daddy.’

  Not so much. Scott never cooked with him, he wasn’t around enough. It was Lexie who let him help out in the kitchen.

  ‘They’re a credit to you, Lexie.’

  She felt a lump in her throat. Somehow her mother had the knack of saying the right thing at the right time, even if she had no idea she was doing it. ‘Thanks Mum. I’ll buzz you when we’re on our way.’

  ‘I can’t bear the thought of going home,’ Catherine confided to Rachel after Lexie had said her goodbyes in a flurry and left. ‘I know I’ll just want to yell at Alice every time I look at her with that ridiculous haircut,’ she groaned.

  ‘Then don’t,’ said Rachel.

  ‘What, look at her?’

  ‘I was thinking more don’t yell at her.’

  Catherine sighed heavily. ‘I know you believe I’m too hard on her, Rachel, but I really am only trying to protect her.’

  ‘You can’t protect her from everything, Catherine. You have to let her make her own mistakes.’

  ‘That’s what terrifies me.’

  ‘But why?’ said Rachel. ‘The worst thing that ever happened to you also gave you the best thing that ever happened to you.’

  Catherine was shaking her head. ‘Alice isn’t like me, she wouldn’t survive.’

  ‘Maybe you underestimate her.’

  ‘I really wish that was the case,’ she said, draining her glass. She hadn’t stopped drinking, or rather guzzling, since she arrived.

  ‘How did you get here today, Catherine?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘Martin dropped me off,’ she said.

  ‘Is he coming back to get you?’

  ‘Mm . . . ’ She seemed to be contemplating something. ‘Hey,’ her eyes suddenly lit up. ‘Why don’t we have a girls’ night in? We can pick up some Thai food and a couple of bottles. It’ll be fun, you and I haven’t had a night together in ages.’

  Rachel winced. ‘Sorry Catherine, I can’t. I’m . . . I have plans.’

  ‘Oh?’ she frowned. ‘Who with?’

  ‘Um, people from work.’

  ‘You don’t even like the people you work with, you always make excuses not to go out with them.’

  That was true. Bugger.

  ‘Well, I haven’t always liked the people I work with,’ Rachel began, ‘but, you know, we have quite a high staff turnover –’

  ‘I wonder why,’ Catherine snorted, taking another drink.

  ‘– and lately we’ve had a few younger people start, and, you know, they’re a lot of fun. And they were talking about checking out this new club tonight, and, well, they ended up inviting me to come along.’

  God, she’d better keep track of what she was saying. This was the problem when you made up lies. You couldn’t remember the details later. She’d better not start making up names, she was hopeless at remembering names.

  ‘Honestly, Rachel, you really need to start acting your age,’ Catherine drawled. ‘You’re always chumming it up with the young folks. They were just being polite when they asked you out tonight, they don’t really want an old thirtysomething tagging along with them to a club opening, cramping their style. They won’t care if you don’t show up.’

  ‘Well, I’ll care!’ Rachel exclaimed. Now she was getting defensive about a fictional scenario. That was it, she’d had enough of Catherine for one afternoon. The only way Catherine seemed to be able to relax was with a drink, but when she drank too much – which was becoming the norm – she just became unpleasant. She certainly could never be called a happy drunk. Watching her now, slumped in her chair, her fa
ce all ruddy, Rachel felt a little sorry for her.

  So she wasn’t going to get into an argument with her. ‘I have to get going, Catherine,’ Rachel said, standing up. ‘Do you want to ring Martin, or shall we see if there’s a taxi out front?’

  Lexie parked her car and walked briskly down the street to the café. There were still a few stragglers at the tables outside, but as she got closer she could see that inside was almost empty.

  As she marched straight in, she could also see there was no one clearing the tables, wiping them down, making it obvious they were about to close. There was a girl Lexie had never seen before; she was dressed like a waitress, wearing the café’s logo on her apron, but that was all that suggested she actually worked here. She was leaning against a wall, yarning away to a table of what were obviously her friends. She didn’t even look up when Lexie walked directly around the counter into the kitchen area.

  Scott had his back to her, so she grabbed an apron from a hook on the wall and started to tie it around her waist.

  ‘Hi hun,’ she said breezily.

  He turned abruptly. ‘Lexie, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I guess I’ll start with the washing up.’

  ‘What?’ he frowned, coming closer to her. ‘You’re not doing the washing up.’

  ‘Well, someone has to.’ She looked around. ‘Where’s Josh?’

  Scott shrugged. ‘He had tickets to something tonight. I let him go early to get ready.’

  ‘Are you kidding me? Josh can take off when he has something on, but you can’t?’

  ‘Lexie, it’s a little different. I own the business.’

  ‘And Josh is your right hand,’ she reminded him. ‘You can’t run this place on your own, with one waitress,’ she dropped her voice, ‘standing out there chatting up the customers.’

  ‘There were another couple of casuals on over lunch, but they knocked off already.’

  ‘You need to develop a better roster system,’ said Lexie. ‘If you were going to let Josh go home early, then one of those casuals could have stayed on for a longer shift.’

  ‘Lex,’ he said with a hint of condescension in his voice, ‘I’ve been running this business for a long time, I think I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Despite all evidence to the contrary,’ she said, looking around the mess of the kitchen. ‘Anyway, we can talk about this later. We’re wasting time.’

  She made a move towards the sink, but Scott blocked her.

  ‘I’m serious, Lex,’ he said. ‘You’re not doing the washing up.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll start clearing the tables, you wash up.’ She glanced out into the café. ‘Or get Flirty Girtie out there to do it.’

  ‘Lex –’

  ‘I’m not going to discuss it, Scott. We have plans tonight, we made a commitment, and I’m not going to let you welch on it.’ She took a breath. ‘The kids haven’t seen you all weekend, Riley doesn’t get to spend your day off with you any more now that he’s at school. You have a family, and we can’t take second place to the café all the time.’

  He looked a little taken aback. ‘You’re kinda cute when you get all riled up.’

  She folded her arms, glaring up at him. ‘Don’t patronise me, Scott. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m staying till you close. I’ve already phoned Mum and told her I was coming to give you a hand finishing up for the day, and you know what? She didn’t have a stroke, and she didn’t say you were a bad provider, she just said, “We’ll see you when you get here, darling!” ’ Lexie chirped, imitating her mother. ‘So what do you want me to do? Clear the tables, or shall I put on those rubber gloves and start the washing up?’

  His expression had hardened. ‘Just for the record, I don’t like this, Lex,’ he said seriously. ‘I don’t appreciate being cornered.’

  ‘Neither do I,’ she returned, staring up at him defiantly.

  Now he really did look cornered. ‘Well, you’re not washing up,’ he said, hanging on to some authority.

  ‘Fine, then I’ll do the tables.’

  Autumn

  Rachel stepped off the bus into the pouring rain. No, this wasn’t pouring, it was bucketing down. The clouds that had been threatening to open up all day had finally made good on their threat, dumping the full force of their weight in a downpour of biblical proportions. Rachel didn’t mind the change so much after a hot, sticky, stifling day, but why did it have to hit only moments before she was about to get off the bus? She broke into a run, but she pretty quickly realised it was pointless. She was already drenched through to her skin. So she slowed to a walk, holding her face up to the rain. It was quite refreshing actually.

  She’d had a lousy day. Lloyd had been more persnickety than usual; Rachel had not thought it possible. But in his vast administrative wisdom, he had decided that too many mistakes were being made on the invoices lately, and so he had developed a laborious double-checking procedure, which Rachel was certain would end up wasting more time than the odd mistake had ever done. But what did she care anyway? Every day she came closer to packing it in. She would have thought that having something fulfilling in her life would make work matter less, but that’s not the way it was panning out. Instead it seemed to bring everything into sharper relief. It was like teaming a designer dress with scuffed, chainstore shoes, or placing a new armchair beside a battered couch, or wearing real gold next to a tarnished fake.

  And Tom was the real thing, solid, eighteen-carat. Rachel’s stomach did a flip right now just thinking about him. She couldn’t get enough of him . . . literally. Though they talked on the phone every day, they hadn’t seen each other all week, and the weekend was looking impossible. Sophie had a big assignment; she was going to be based at home for the duration, with all her friends in lockdown over the same assignment. Hannah was having her best friend, Ellie, over to stay, which meant Tom couldn’t duck away even for a short time, and he’d also promised Sophie a long-overdue driving lesson, which would have to wait until Ellie went home. So he was going to be tied up for the entire weekend, while Rachel was free for the entire weekend. She tended to keep her weekends free now so that she was available on the off-chance . . . That sounded so pathetic, but she kept telling herself it was only temporary. And even if Tom only had half an hour spare – when he was supposed to be doing the grocery shopping, or popping out first thing in the morning for milk and the newspaper – that half-hour made her whole weekend. Sometimes Rachel even liked the fact that no one knew about them; they existed in their own little bubble when they were together, they didn’t have to share their time with anyone else. Except when there was no time, like this weekend.

  Oh bugger, was that hail?

  Fortunately she was not far from her block, and she took off up the street, squealing occasionally as pebbles of hail ricocheted around her. They were only tiny yet; Rachel just wanted to get under cover before they got any worse. She rounded the corner and raced up her driveway to the awning at the entrance of the building, taking a moment to catch her breath. There were none of the dramatic golf-ball-size hailstones the papers loved to report; instead it looked like someone had split open a bean bag on a balcony above, the little white balls bouncing playfully after they hit the ground. Rachel pushed on the security door; it was open, as usual. She stepped into the foyer, dripping, her shoes squelching as she mounted the stairs, which actually made her smile. Now that she was out of it, she decided it wasn’t so bad. In a minute or two she would change into dry clothes, which was always such a cosy, comforting sensation after being caught in the rain. Then she would pour herself a drink and sit and watch the storm head out over the ocean.

  She fished around in her bag for her keys and, retrieving them, she stuck the key in the lock, but the door gave way before she’d even turned it, which was odd. Before she had time to process what was going on, Tom was standing in front of her.

  ‘Surprise!’ he announced.

  And she screamed.

  ‘Rach,’ he laughed, drawing her i
nside. ‘It’s okay, it’s only me.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ she breathed, her heart racing in her chest. ‘You scared the shit out of me, Tom!’

  He was still laughing as he gathered her into his arms. ‘You’re soaked,’ he said, recoiling.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  He pushed the door closed. ‘I wanted to surprise you.’

  She was still catching her breath. ‘Were you also trying to give me a heart attack?’

  ‘I’m sorry, honey. Look at you,’ he grinned down at her. ‘You look like a drowned rat.’

  ‘Sweet talker,’ she returned. ‘You still haven’t said what you’re doing here?’

  ‘Sophie texted me at lunchtime with a likely story about how three of them were going to stay at Zoe’s and work on their assignment together. So I did the stern father thing and told her it was okay as long as she was home by midday tomorrow and that she stays put for the rest of the weekend.’

  ‘What about Hannah?’

  ‘Well, once I’d heard from Sophie, I did a switch with Ellie’s mum, so I’ll have them next weekend instead.’

  ‘Did you know all this when you called me today?’ asked Rachel.

  He looked a little sheepish. ‘Not for sure. I wanted to check you were free before I talked to Ellie’s mum, but I didn’t want to tell you what I had in mind in case it didn’t pan out. And when it did, I realised I could surprise you. I didn’t mean to give you a fright.’

  Rachel considered him. ‘Does this mean you can stay the night?’

  ‘Yes it does.’

  She smiled, reaching her arms up around his neck. ‘Then you’re forgiven.’

  As they kissed, she felt his fingers hook under her top, slowly easing it up. ‘We really should get you out of these wet things,’ he said in a low voice, his mouth close to hers, as Rachel dropped her bag on the floor and raised her arms again. Tom pulled the top up and over her head, tossing it aside. He smoothed his hands over the damp fabric of her bra. ‘You really are wet through,’ he murmured.

  ‘Indeed.’

  His mouth covered hers and he brought his arms around her, scooping her up so her feet left the floor and striding into the bedroom. He lowered her to the floor again, tugging at the zip of her skirt, before slowly sliding it down. But the wet fabric clung to her, not moving, so Tom dropped to his knees, running his lips and his tongue across her belly as he peeled the skirt all the way down. Rachel gasped. She raked her fingers through his hair and drew him up again. ‘Come here, you,’ she said, pushing him down onto the bed and straddling him. She started to unbutton his shirt, from the bottom up, while he lay back, gazing up at her. She loved the way he looked at her; he made her feel as though she was incredibly sexy, and Rachel hadn’t felt like that in a very long time. She got to the last button and opened his shirt back, lowering herself down to press her body into his, skin against skin. That was almost her favourite part. Almost. He wrapped his arms tightly around her as their mouths locked and their urgency started to build. She felt his hands on the catch of her bra –