EVIE’S JOB
Tess Mackenzie
Copyright 2014 Tess Mackenzie
Smashwords Edition
Table of Contents
Author’s Note
1: Natalie
2: Evie
3: Evie
4: Natalie
5: Evie
6: Natalie
7: Evie
8: Natalie
9: Evie
10: Natalie
11: Natalie
12: Evie
13: Natalie
14: Natalie
15: Evie
16: Natalie
17: Evie
18: Natalie
19: Evie
20: Natalie
21: Evie
22: Natalie
23: Evie
24: Evie
25: Natalie
26: Evie
Epilogue: Evie, a year later
About the Author
Author’s Note
Evie’s Job was originally written as serial fiction, writing and publishing a little each day, every day, on a website called Wattpad. For the most part, the sections in this book match the sections as they were published. Each separate section is a day’s writing, and a chapter was written over a week or more. This structure is preserved here except that a very small number of the longer sections, which in the original required an arbitrary break mid-dialogue, have been joined together.
I was unsure about this, and whether it was better to completely rewrite the beginnings and endings of each daily section into larger chapters. In the end it seemed better not to, for fear that doing so might alter the story in some mysterious, irreversible way. Also, I hoped it might be more readable as an ebook this way, in that each section is a thousand words or a little more, and mostly each begins with a quick reminder of what has just happened. This is a very long book, actually two that somehow ended up tangled together and impossible to separate, so hopefully these shorter scenes keep it interesting and fresh all the way through.
Anyway, this is all just to explain why there may seem to be odd stopping points, and strange cliff-hangers, and other little quirks like a brief repetition of what has just been said in the last scene. That’s all!
And thank you very, very much for reading this, too!
Tess
1: Natalie
By the early afternoon, Natalie had decided that the conference was a waste of her time. She was there because a senior partner needed to attend. To make an appearance, to shake hands, and be seen. She was there being seen, doing her bit for the firm, but actually sitting through the sessions was simply frustrating.
The conference was about tax law, about recent changes to fringe benefit tax legislation, and Natalie already knew what those changes were because she’d read the Select Committee submissions as the bill made its way through parliament. She had a fairly good idea of the changes already, and she didn’t need this conference to find out exactly which recommendations had been implemented, and as well, the firm had a junior associate attending in addition to Natalie. The associate would write a brief on what was relevant, which Natalie could read along with everyone else. Reading was quicker than listening, so sitting in the sessions, and doing nothing, that was a waste of Natalie’s time.
Wasted time made Natalie impatient. Time to relax, she enjoyed. Time on her own, to unwind, that was important. But here, sitting in a room full of her colleagues, pretending to listen, that wasn’t time which was being spent productively, and Natalie resented the imposition. She resented it as she shook hands and smiled and asked how people were. She resented it whenever she thought about lost billable hours, and working late tomorrow to catch up for today, and the meetings she needed to be preparing for next week.
She was resentful, but she was worried, too. She was worried about running into Meredith.
Meredith was in court today, which Natalie knew because she’d had her assistant check. Natalie still kept track of Meredith. She put more effort into avoiding Meredith than was sensible, even after two whole years apart.
Two years ago, Meredith had broken Natalie’s heart and Natalie had never forgiven her. Natalie had never forgiven, and never stopped hurting either. Natalie and Meredith had been together for fifteen years, until Meredith had left, utterly unexpectedly. Now Natalie spent a lot of time avoiding places she thought she might run into Meredith.
She tried to avoid such places, but it didn’t usually work.
They saw each other frequently, almost inevitably. They saw each other because they were both partners in big law firms, and because years together had left their private lives hopelessly entangled too. They shared friends and interests and careers, so hiding from Meredith was never actually going to be possible, but Natalie tried to all the same. It had become almost a habit. It was leaving her lonely, and probably harming her career, and was definitely starting to isolate her from friends, but she hid anyway, avoiding Meredith, like she was hoping to today.
She was hoping not to see Meredith at the conference. Hoping, probably in vain, because Meredith, like Natalie, would be expected to attend, and because they would both need to stay until the drinks at the end of the day. Meredith would probably appear after court had finished for the day, so the best Natalie could hope for was that Meredith would be late, and in a hurry, and that Natalie could lose herself in the crowd and avoid an encounter. She was hoping for that, but unsure how likely it was.
It was going to be an unpleasant afternoon.
Natalie sat through the first talk after lunch, impatient and worried, and then decided she’d had enough.
She had sat at the back of the conference room, deliberately near the doors, with all the juniors who were likely to be called away. She’d sat, and noticed a few of them noticing her, the ambitious ones who kept track of partners. When she stood up, they noticed, but she assumed they wouldn’t suspect anything as mundane as boredom. They’d be imagining crises and boardroom bloodshed and other terrible events. Natalie stood up, and smiled apologetically at the speaker, and slipped out the nearest door.
There was a small bar on the hotel’s ground floor which ought to be quiet this early in the afternoon, too late for lunch, and too early for drinks. If not, Natalie would get a room upstairs, and have her assistant send some work over.
She went downstairs, and the bar was empty.
She sat down, and asked for wine, then sat for a moment, simply doing nothing. It was quiet. She was glad to be alone. She got out her phone, and checked her email and messages, but there was nothing especially urgent. Tax litigation in the city had closed down for the duration of the conference.
Natalie sat, thinking. About Meredith, and being hurt, and about feeling alone. She was unsure why she still felt so awful. She finished the wine, and asked for another, and the bartender poured it, barely speaking.
Natalie sipped, and looked around.
There was a courtyard outside a wall of windows, an outdoor seating area for use in summer, although it was too cold outside to be comfortable now. It was a cold winter day, as unpleasant as a Sydney winter ever got. A sharp, clammy wind was blowing off the harbour, and the clouds were low and grey. There was a young woman out in the courtyard, leaning on a table and half behind a tree. She seemed to be out there on her own. Natalie watched her idly, sipping her wine. It took a moment to work out why. The young woman was smoking. Natalie could see a streamer of smoke each time she breathed out. The smoke caught in the wind, and flicked around the courtyard, and it disappeared on the cold damp air.
Natalie watched the young woman, thinking. She was probably someone’s junior associate, hiding down here so her firm didn’t realise she smoked. Past the trunk of the tree, Natalie could see dark hair moving in the w
ind, and a slim arm in a while shirt sleeve, and the line of a leg in a dark skirt and tights. The uniform of ambitious juniors, Natalie thought and liked that thought, without quite knowing why.
Natalie watched a little longer, and decided she liked that hair. She liked the arm too, but she especially liked the hair, and for some reason she also liked the idea of risky smoking as well, of being out there with half the lawyers in the city in a conference room upstairs.
Natalie had an idle urge to go and talk to the young woman. She was attracted to her, in a gentle way. Strangely attracted, for someone she could only half see, and who was probably only half Natalie’s age.
Natalie shouldn’t be attracted, but she was.
It had been happening quite often lately, often enough that Natalie had become almost used to it, in an uncomfortable, resigned kind of way. The women Natalie noticed, the women she was attracted to, were all far too young for her.
She though she understood why.
She had been with Meredith for so long that she’d become old in the time they were together. She’d become old, without quite noticing. As if somehow she had forgotten all those years, now that Meredith was gone. As if her mind, her inside self, hadn’t realized how much time had passed, or didn’t want to admit that it had, and now she felt far younger then she was. As if, seeing herself, she felt her mother’s age, rather than her own.
It was confusing, in a way, almost too confusing to bear.
Natalie knew she had to start flirting and dating, to get over Meredith, to move on. She knew she ought to find someone else, but her spiteful, unhelpful mind constantly undermined her. It wouldn’t admit she’d aged. Women her own age, the women she should be noticing, they didn’t interest her at all. She wasn’t attracted to them. She didn’t notice them, or think of them as potential partners, or find them desirable at all. As friends, they were nice enough be around, but as lovers, they simply weren’t there. She only seemed to notice much younger women. It wasn’t fair, not even to herself, and it didn’t make much sense, but she understood what was happening. She was interested in women the age which would have been right for her the last time she’d been single. As if she was setting her time with Meredith aside. As if, in her heart, she was still in her twenties, and no older than when she’d last tried to pick someone up.
In some ways it made her life very simple. She wasn’t attracted to anyone who would have her, and she no longer especially cared. She hardly bothered to try any more. She only rarely went out, and hardly ever flirted, and she almost never took the time to be interested. She was used to her life. She was used to the way she felt. Being attracted to people she couldn’t have was simply part of her, and if she was being honest, the hurt over Meredith mattered far more anyway. She spent her time working, or alone, or looking at younger women from a distance. She spent her time missing Meredith, and hurting terribly.
She sat at the bar, and sipped her wine, and watched the young woman smoke outside. She sat, and thought, and missed the life she’d used to have.
Sometimes she was more lonely than she could stand.
*
Natalie sat, and sipped her wine, and looked out the bar’s windows, watching the young woman in the courtyard smoke.
She felt slightly strange. Half longing, half wanting, but sad and regretful too. And cowardly. She felt cowardly, she realized, for sitting inside staring, instead of going outside and saying hello. She ought to go outside. She ought to try and speak to the woman she was watching. She ought to do something, anything, other than sit and stare.
She knew she wasn’t going to, and that made her a little annoyed at herself.
She sat, looking out the windows, brooding.
She was in an awful mood. She was worried about running into Meredith, because she knew she probably would. She was sick of worrying about seeing Meredith. She wanted her life to move on. She wanted to get past Meredith, to stop being upset and hurt, to be attracted to someone else. Someone like the woman outside. She wanted that, but didn’t know how to make it happen. She didn’t know how to make herself stop feeling what she was feeling.
So she sat there gloomily, instead.
After a few moments she heard loud voices in the hotel lobby, just outside the bar’s door. People from the conference, she assumed, probably heading towards the bar. Something about the voices made her think they were lawyers, a loudness and self-confidence, a way of filling space with themselves. She didn’t want to be around anyone she knew right then. She didn’t really want to see people at all.
She put down her glass, and went over to the courtyard door, and pulled it open. It stuck for a moment, making her think it was locked, then opened when she tugged hard. She stepped outside and pulled the door closed again before anyone could notice her.
She stood there for a moment, thinking.
Outside, the courtyard was as cold as she had expected it to be. The wind was damp and clammy, enough she wanted to shiver.
She looked over at the tree, at the young woman who was smoking, and decided she might as well go and say hello. She could try and start a conversation even if it was a complete waste of time. For practice, if nothing else. To take some initiative in her life. To make herself stop hiding from Meredith and staring longingly at every other woman she saw.
It was about time that changed.
She started walking towards the young woman.
She started walking, but halfway there, once she was able to see past the tree, she realized she’d been looking at one of the hotel staff, not another lawyer. The dark skirt and white shirt were the hotel’s uniform, not a suit with the jacket off. It was one of the waitresses who’d been circulating with trays of drinks during the conference breaks. It was one of the waitresses, and she was even younger than Natalie had thought, not much more than twenty.
Natalie stopped, suddenly unsure, wondering if she should just save herself the embarrassment and leave.
She almost did. She almost just walked away. She almost changed her mind and went back inside, and made polite conversation with whoever had turned up in the bar. She almost did, until she realized the young woman was looking at her, had perhaps heard the sound of the door opening, or the tap of Natalie’s shoes.
The young woman was looking at Natalie, and Natalie suddenly felt silly. She stood there, hesitating. She told herself to stop. She was a successful woman, a partner in a major law firm. She shouldn’t be so easily intimidated.
She was that easily intimidated, at least right now. She didn’t know what to do next.
The young woman looked over, and breathed out, and smoke drifted out of her mouth. Natalie could suddenly smell it. The wind was blowing it away from Natalie, but some slight eddy of air caught it, and brought it back her way.
Natalie smelled, and realized. The young woman was smoking pot.
Natalie was a little surprised. She stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. Whether she should say something, or pretend she didn’t know. The young woman didn’t seem to be bothering to hide what she was doing. She was outside, but not out of sight of the windows, and Natalie wasn’t sure what that meant. A touch of self-centredness, perhaps, or recklessness. Or feeling herself invisible, and not actually expecting to be noticed. It wasn’t her business, Natalie decided. It wasn’t her business, and it didn’t change very much about being attracted to this woman. If anything, the recklessness, if that was what it was, made Natalie’s attraction stronger.
“I’m sorry,” Natalie said. “I didn’t mean to…”
She stopped, unsure what she hadn’t meant to do. After a moment the young woman shrugged.
“I thought you were someone else,” Natalie said.
“I’m not.”
Natalie nodded slowly. “I should leave you be.”
“It’s fine,” the young woman said. “Stay if you want.”
“No,” Natalie said. “You’re on a break…”
“Yep,” with a glance at the joint. “Obvious
ly.”
“Well, then I shouldn’t bother you.”
“Luckily you’re not.”
Natalie hesitated.
“Stay,” the young woman said. “Stop worrying.”
“All right,” Natalie said. “Thank you.” Then, “I’m Natalie.”
“I know,” the young woman said, and pointed to Natalie’s name badge.
“Of course,” Natalie said, suddenly flustered.
After a minute, the young woman held out her hand. “Evie.”
Natalie went over and took it, and Evie shook quite solemnly. She had a steady hand, slightly cool. Cold because of the air, Natalie supposed. Natalie shook quickly and let go. She was used to shaking hands, had learned long ago, had become accustomed to it at work, and to all the odd little games people played with their handshakes. Evie didn’t play games. She held out her hand, and squeezed, and then took it away again.
Then she held out the joint.
Natalie was a little surprised. She shook her head.
“You sure?” Evie said.
Natalie hesitated, suddenly, confusingly, undecided. She was a lawyer, a partner representing her firm, here at the conference to work. She was successful, professional, and hadn’t been near pot in twenty years. She was about to say she couldn’t possibly, and then she decided that perhaps she could.
She ought to try new things, she thought, to take little chances, and step outside herself.
She ought to do that, and she never really had.
As well, she wanted to impress Evie. If she was being completely truthful with herself, that was the main reason she was considering this. She wanted to impress Evie, to do something with Evie, and she the more she thought about it, the more she thought that wasn’t so terrible.
Everyone did stupid things to impress someone they were attracted to.
Everyone except Natalie.
Natalie never had, not that she could remember. So perhaps, she thought, she ought to start.
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