Desk Jockey Jam (3 page)

Bree opened her eyes wide
and sucked in her cheeks, trying for the picture of innocence.  “Do you think
anyone will buy that?”

“Absolutely,” Chris deadpanned. 
“Not.”

“Let’s stick with answer A
then.”

Chris said, “Whatever you
reckon, Kitty,” and ducked the pen, Bree chucked at her.  She knew damn well the
name Kitty Caruso wasn’t for office consumption. 

It’d probably been a
mistake to tell Chris, but once she’d seen the bruises, it’d been hard to avoid
it.  She didn’t need anyone else jumping to conclusions or being in on the
story.  Fortunately, Chris was good fun as well as a heck of a talented
analyst.  She had a memory for facts and figures Bree was envious of and a way
of expressing herself that made her reports interesting even when the spot
price of rare minerals in Zambia was as boring as the conservative black suits
she wore.

Pretty close to the same
conservative black suits Bree wore, and nothing like Kitty Caruso’s roller doll
uniform with its hot pink, butt grazing, tartan pleated skirt and skin tight
fitted black singlet.  Both of which were currently scrunched up in Bree’s sports
bag, with her pink knee highs, fishnets and black sports pants with
Bite Me
printed across the bum.  All of which needed a wash before next week’s bout.

Chris dived under her desk
and retrieved the pen, then made a show of keeping it, by putting it in her
drawer.  “Speaking of Big Swinging Tricks, any trash talk about your promotion
from our esteemed colleagues?”

“Everyone was nice about
it.”

“Everyone?”

Bree hesitated and Chris
said, “Ah, right.  Thought as much.  He looked liked he’d been injected with zombie
virus when Doug made the announcement.  It was like all his joints went stiff
the minute it was your name not his out of Doug’s mouth.  I didn’t think
zombies could say anything other than arrrh or grrrr.  What did Anthony say?”

“It’s true then.”

“What?”

“Zombies can’t talk.”

Chris rocked into the back
of her Aeron chair.  “Oh my God, he actually said nothing.”

“He just gave me a look
like he wasn’t sure we’d met before.”

Chris said, “Big swinging
dick,” and looked directly at Anthony who was two workstation pods over.  He
looked up and frowned and Bree’s cheeks got hot. 

“Shut up, Chris.  I don’t
want to make a thing of it.”

“You’re not.  He’s the one
with the problem.  I bet he’s your classic wog boy.  Mamma’s favourite, never
lifted a finger at home, walks on water.  Thinks women belong in the kitchen cooking
his dinner or with an iron in their hand, fixing his shirts.  Shame really.”

“What’s the shame part? 
He’ll get the next Senior Analyst spot.  Half of me thinks he should’ve had
this one.  He’s smart.  I think they only gave it to me because I’m good for
their equal opportunity stats.”

Chris rocked forward. 
“Are you kidding me?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Not if you’re going to be
an idiot.  You don’t seriously think he’s a better operator than you?”

Bree sighed.  Apart from
her time at the stadium for the bout, when there wasn’t a second to think about
anything other than how to block the jammer and stop the Hurley Burleys
scoring, that’s all Bree had been thinking about: why she got the job and not
Anthony.

He was smart, quick,
insightful and worked hard.  If he was a Mamma’s boy she’d given him a strong
work ethic.  And she’d give him lovely dark eyes, and really broad shoulders,
and a heck of a physique under his European suits.  Not acknowledging Anthony
was sexy in his dark brooding way was as hard as learning to snow plough on
wheels.

“I think we’re about even
and I got a free pass because I wear heels,” she said softly, aware that the
office was at full complement now and they could easily be overheard.

Bree’s chair jerked
sideways as Chris grabbed the arm and pulled it close.  “If I thought that was
the case I’d be the first one to complain to Doug.  Office sisters or not, if
they’re handing out promotions for shoes with heels I want my piece.  But I
don’t think that.  I think you rock.  You’re so much more focussed and
intuitive than me.  I’ve got a good memory, but I can’t make the analytical
links you do so easily.  If I was to rank the whole team, it’s you, then
Anthony, then me, then who cares.  So, I don’t want to hear you talk about
being undeserving again, okay?”

Bree used her feet in her
favourite stilettos, red with six inch zebra stripped heels that she’d designed
herself and had made online, to walk her chair more squarely under her desk.  “Only
if you keep your voice down.” 

Chris went quiet, except
for the clacking of her fingers on her keyboard.  Bree leant towards Chris’
portion of their shared workstation often referred to as the hen house by the
office roosters.  “What was a shame then?”

Chris kept her eyes down
and her voice soft.  “He’s probably a sex god.  I get distracted thinking about
what he looks like out of those immaculate suits.”

Bree folded her lips into
her mouth to stop from laughing.  “You’re married,” she hissed.

“The spot prices on rare
minerals are over inflated,” said Chris, looking up as Doug passed behind
them.  She waited then said, “I’m allowed to look.  I just wish I was you.”

“Sorry, there isn’t that
much extra money with the new title.”

“Not that, dopey.”  Chris
handed her a minerals pricing prediction report she knew Bree had already
read.  “You get to touch.”

Bree snatched the report
and brought it up to her face to shield the blush she knew would staining her
face a toxic shade of salmon.  There was no way
she
could touch Anthony. 
But Kitty Caruso could.  Kitty was all about positioning and manoeuvring, all
about opportunity and follow through and since Anthony Gambese was a sex god
maybe it was time for Kitty to come out to play. 

She peeked over the top of
the report to where he sat.  He really was swoon worthy, except for the wog boy
entitlement and surly tempered brooding, the zombie got your tongue act, and
the walking embodiment of pissed off.  

And that fact that those
attributes were no longer in her repertoire of essentials for a partner. 

She almost laughed.  Apart
from what he looked like and how he operated at work she knew nothing about
him.  He might be gay for all she knew.  A handsome, brooding, talented Mamma’s
boy, gay analyst—but not
The Senior Analyst
—yet. 

But everything roller derby
had taught her about studying your opponent she figured she needed now, because
there were only four weeks to go in the share portfolio comp, and if Anthony
sex god Gambese thought he was going to walk away with the prize he’d better suit
up and put his knee pads on because Kitty Caruso was coming through.

3:        Puce

Did it matter that your seventy-five
year old Nonna was already thinking about bonbonniere for wedding guests?

Did it matter that for
about fifteen minutes, the fifteen minutes in which Ant had watched the new,
improved, knock your heart into defib, Antonia Pagano work her way around to
greeting him, that he agreed with Nonna’s choice of thought pattern.

Whatever he remembered of
Toni was a deleted file.  This woman in the white dress with the angelic face,
bright smile and designer body, going by the same name was something else
entirely.  She was the whole file server.  The whole mainframe.

For that fifteen minutes, Ant
was Dan when he danced with Alex, transported to a place where only the two of
them mattered.  He was Mitch when he got Belinda back and realised he had a
second chance.  He was Fluke when he held Carlie’s hand and knew she wanted
more.  He was every man who’d ever seen a vision of his future happiness across
a crowded suburban backyard. 

And for the next half hour
that vision floated in front of him like a promise of something better than
mates, and work, surfing and European cars, as Toni told him about working in
London.  She wasn’t some backpacker living wage to wage, she was a qualified
chef and her last contract had been with the Australian embassy.  Why didn’t
someone tell him that?  How could he not have known how great she was?  He
could smell barbeque, but taste heaven.  He could see beauty but hear Church
bells ringing.  He didn’t even care how his insta-lust would make the boys
laugh because he and Toni would be perfect together.  They had history without
even trying, family ties to support them.  A shared sense of how to go about
making a life together and
Jesus Christ
she was beautiful.

And then it all came
undone – spectacularly.  Humiliation had a colour and it was puce.  Ant wasn’t
even sure what colour puce was, just the sound of the word, the way it forced
your lips apart to say it was enough to make him settle on it as the colour to
describe how he felt.

He’d asked her out and
she’d laughed at him.  He should’ve expected that.  They were almost cousins;
it probably came as a shock to her.  They talked some more, friends in common,
family members they could both do without, work, career.  And then he asked her
again.  And she laughed.  Again.  So what?  She was making him chase her.  She
was worth it.  But when he asked a third time, that’s when things went into a trading
halt.

She had this sexy, husky
voice.  She said.  “I’d forgotten you were such a joker.”

He hadn’t been conscious
of making a joke, but she was laughing, so whatever. 

“I mean I can’t even get
past the Anthony and Antonia thing.  We loved it as kids, thought it was so
cool, like we were twins—Tony and Toni, but that’s just too stupid for
grown-ups.”

“It’s not that stupid. 
Even Nonna calls me Ant now.”  It wasn’t stupid it was right, so right, the
shortening of their two names made one.

“You’re hysterical.”

Maybe he was.  He was
blown away by her, so yeah, maybe he wasn’t making sense.  He spied the garden
bench by the hydrangeas that cousin Mario abandoned and before one of the
little tacker cousins could get their bum down, he dragged Toni over to it. 
“I’m serious.  It’s about time you and me got to really know each other.”

She squinted at him.  “What?”

“I mean as adults, fresh
start.”

“That’s sweet, but don’t
you have a girlfriend who’d miss you if you were hanging around with me?”

“Nope.  I’m currently
flying solo.”  His angel didn’t need to know that right up until now, solo was
his preferred position because he got more tail that way.

“Oh God.”

“Is that good oh God, or
bad oh God?”

“You’re serious.  You want
to take me out?”

He picked up her hand and
held it.  “I think I want to do more than take you out.”

She pulled her hand away
and put it to her mouth.  “Oh God.  I can’t believe you.”

“What’s not to believe?”
He shrugged.  She wasn’t laughing now, so what was this reaction she was having
to him?

“I can’t believe you don’t
know.”

Fuck, she had a bloke.  Of
course she did, she was freaking gorgeous.  So this was going to be a little
harder, take a little longer.  Never mind.  Good things come to those who flog
themselves hard enough to get them. 

“Is he important to you?” 
If he was, why wasn’t he here with all the other assorted wives and partners?

“Who?”

“Your bloke.”

“Oh God, no.”

Ant grinned as a fast
track to the finish line opened up. “So, come out with me?”

She closed her eyes and
dropped her head and the sun picked out reddish highlights in her dark hair. 
There were so many things he already knew about her – like how the scar on her
elbow came from a scooter stack and how she was only a toddler when she had her
ears pierced.  And so much he didn’t know – like what she’d taste like, sound
like when he took her to bed. 

She sighed.  “You really
have no idea do you?  I should’ve realised.  Unless it’s something you want you
don’t pay any attention to it.  I have no idea why suddenly I’m something you
want, but I thought you knew.  And I’m sorry if this is embarrassing, but
seriously, Ant.  I like girls.”

And that’s when everything
turned puce. 

When the trading halt
turned into a rout and a full scale market collapse.  He could feel puce in the
back of his throat, colouring his cheeks and tinting the whole bright coloured
day sludgy.

Toni shook her head at him
and walked away and he sat on watching a lizard scuttle in the flower bed and
wished he could bury himself in the earth as well.  No such luck.

“What’s with you?” 

Men were given younger
sisters for a reason, but Ant had no idea what it was.  Arabella stood in his sunlight,
hands on hips, questions on lips.