Dog Handling (18 page)

Liv thumped down onto the sofa and stared at the machine as though it were playing an elaborate joke on her and any second now would yell, “April Fool, you idiot!”

Liv looked at the clock and wondered if it was too late to call Alex. It was just gone midnight, and as Charlie wasn’t there, it didn’t really matter if she woke her.

“Alex,” Liv said. “Still awake?”

“Sure am, petal,” Alex said but sounded a bit preoccupied. It occurred to Liv for one split second that she might be indulging in a spot with Rob the groom, but she remembered that he was as poor as a church mouse so put that one into the “unlikely” basket.

“I’ve been invited to Ben’s thingy tomorrow,” Liv said.

“Ben’s thingy, eh? And what would that be?” Alex laughed.

“The harbour thingy.”

“Oh, the party on the
Millie?”

“What’s the
Millie?”
Liv feared she already knew.

“It’s Amelia’s yacht . . . named after her, naturally.”

“Naturally. Listen, are you going?” Liv suddenly didn’t feel like leaping up and down like a rock star on the sofa anymore as she had done when she’d first got Ben’s message. “Does that mean I have to wear a bikini, by the way?” She knew it shouldn’t matter, but lying seminaked in the unforgiving Sydney sunshine was only marginally more appealing than sticking hot needles under her fingernails.

“Yeah, we are. Well, I’m going. You could pretend to be an English rose and wear something floaty,” Alex reassured her.

Liv looked at the abandoned pile of beading and feathers on the sofa. She’d spent the last few days trying out designs for Greta’s Grundies, and maybe she could cobble something together. And perhaps, if she finished this tonight, she would be able to go to the ball after all tomorrow.

“Okay, I’ll be there. What time?” Liv edged her way towards the needle and thread.

“Ohhh, I, erm, oohhhh, I don’t know. . . .”

“Alex, are you having sex? Only if you are don’t let me interrupt you—”

“Sorry, Livvy, no, you’re not interrupting anything. I was just . . . cleaning my teeth. Now what time? Oh, I reckon about twelve-ish. See you there.”

So who else could Liv call in a crisis? Suddenly she missed Tim. He used to be her late-night advice line and she felt quite capable of talking to him these days without even a glimmer of a tear, in fact, she thought, with no flicker of sadness, which was pretty amazing. Still, what would she say? “Hey, whoopee dooo, I’ve been invited to expose my pallid flesh on Ben Parker’s girlfriend’s yacht, which is named after her, tomorrow. Do you reckon I stand a chance of scoring some love?” Not exactly, she decided. Ah, Liv knew who’d she’d call, her boys.

“Dave?”

“Livvy?”

“Can we talk?” she asked.

“Okay, fire away, but you do know that you’re interrupting a pretty impressive dream scene where I was about to seduce Brad Pitt right in front of Jennifer, don’t you?”

“Sorry, but my need is greater than Brad’s.” Liv lay back on the sofa and began to sew herself the dreamkini.

“Brad just doesn’t know his needs yet. So what’s the problem?”

“Problem is that . . . well, did I tell you about the beach thing? About Charlie’s party when I went and sat on the sand with Ben Parker and he tried to kiss me?” Liv asked.

“Okay, now you have my attention.” Dave audibly sat up and listened.

“When did I last speak to you?”

“Yesterday morning when you were being a sad bint because the fat boy hadn’t called.”

“Oh my god . . . okay, well the thing is this: quite a lot has happened since then. . . ,” Liv began.

And Liv related, to the strains of much oohing and ahhhing and “lucky bitch”-ing on the other end of the phone, her past twenty-four hours. She relived it all in glorious Technicolor herself and when she was finished put her needle down and waited for Dave to say, “Lucky you. Go for it, baby.” Which was, after all, the only reason she’d called him. To confirm that she wasn’t morally bankrupt for wishing that Ben would kiss her even though he was going out with someone and that her karma wasn’t going to be kaput for all eternity because she wouldn’t be the one making the phone calls and the moves. She’d be the innocent party slayed by Ben’s devastating charm and entirely blameless. Hell, from what Rob had said earlier on it sounded as though Amelia might even sanction Ben’s seduction of Liv.

Sadly, though, Dave said no such thing.

“Dog handling, dog handling. Didn’t I tell you, darling?” he practically sang down the phone.

“No, I’m not interested in dog handling anymore, Davo. What I want is to know if it’s really awful to be wanting to kiss someone else’s boyfriend. I mean I know that it is, but he was once mine and possession is nine-tenths of the law and so maybe I still have a stake in him and I’m really only reclaiming my right. Right?”

“Shut the fuck up a minute, honey. For starters, where Amelia Fraser is concerned we have no qualms about morality. She wears fur and once shagged a friend of mine whose pregnant wife was actually
in labour
as she was getting her gums around his plums. So lose that concern.”

“Holy moley. That’s fantastic. God, thanks, Dave, now it’s all going to be fine and—”

“I said hush. Has something really significant not occurred to you here?” Dave asked, now getting out of bed to locate a can of Coke—this was going to require energy.

“Like what?” asked Liv, but she was losing interest. She’d heard all the good bits, and the best was surely just filler. Now she needed her beauty sleep.

“Like the fact that you have completely proved my theory on dog handling.”

“How?” Liv wondered.

“Okay, you went to the party and because you saw the fat guy at the other end of the room you were so busy trying not to be seen by him that you completely abandoned Ben Parker. Right?”

“Well, yes, but I didn’t mean to. I mean I would have stayed and talked to him if I hadn’t seen Will.”

“But Ben didn’t know this. All Ben sees is a girl who doesn’t want to talk to him. A girl with a ball who doesn’t want to play.” Dave was very excited at the confirmation of his closely held theory. “So naturally our dog is intrigued. He wants more, so he comes back to the girl as she’s about to run out of the door and leave the party and begins to sniff her.”

“I was only going to leave because I was so worried about escaping Will.” Liv frowned; she really should be asleep now if she wasn’t going to have shopping bags under her eyes in the morning.

“And then . . . god, my darling, you were abso-bloody-lutely wonderful. Because then came the pièce de résistance. My clever dog handler gave away just a little; she strolled out onto the beach in an insouciant fashion with her cardigan cleverly buttoned up and she chatted sweetly and showed our dog what a lovely, loveable girl she was and then . . . she refused to kiss him. Perfection. I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“But, Dave, I would have kissed him if I didn’t pong to high heaven,” Liv said, though she was beginning to see a pattern.

“But he was still on your case, wasn’t he? He didn’t think oh, she doesn’t want to kiss me, so I’ll go eat worms and die. He invited you to his party and then—how I love you, my darling clever Liv—when you didn’t show tonight he dashed into the bedroom when Amelia wasn’t looking and called you, desperate to know you better, to have you. And all because he thinks he can’t have you.” Dave collapsed back on the bed in a heap. “This is almost better than Brad’s perfect little legs wrapping themselves around me in my dream. I’m so glad you called me.”

Actually, Liv wasn’t terribly glad she’d called Dave at all now.

“Does that mean that he doesn’t fancy me and it’s only because I’m dog handling that he wants me?” Liv was a bit concerned.

“No, he doesn’t do this to check out chicks in the supermarket. Just that if he does fancy you and you press the right buttons and don’t give him what he wants when he wants it then
YOU RULE.”

“I do?” Liv was unconvinced and nervous. “Then how do I get to kiss him and carry on ruling?”

“So simple you’ll choke. All you need to do tomorrow is rock up on the jetty wearing something divine, not look at him at all, and barely even acknowledge his presence. But when you do, you have to be heaven on a pole or he’ll just think you’re a bitch.”

“But do I get to kiss him?” Liv was bursting to know. “Or else really what’s the point?”

“The point
comme toujours
is that you make him fall in love with you. You’re not just a one-night stand or some floozy in a bikini. You’re the real McCoy. The love of his life. But the good news is that you do get to kiss him tomorrow. But then you have to back off. Right away. Say thanks, but no thanks, I could not possibly, as you have a girlfriend and, frankly, this isn’t on my agenda right now.”

“I say that?” Liv was not convinced.

“Not in so many words. But this isn’t until you’ve shown him that you’re a very competent girl in the bedroom department and can do whizzbang tricks. Or at least just give him the impression that you might. Don’t actually perform for him yet.”

“Fuck. Like what?”

“I don’t know. Improvise. But make it good. Listen, I have to go, otherwise I’ll never be up and I’ve got to paint my float for Carnival tomorrow, but call me and let me know how it goes, okay?”

“Promise. And thanks, Davo.” Liv put down the phone. “I think.”

Chapter Twelve

And Sit

B
y the time the party began to assemble on the harbour, the sun had scorched the mist off the morning and climbed to dazzling heights over the city. Rose Bay was dotted with tiny craft and the neighbouring beaches were dappled with languid prone bodies. Liv had been up for her surfing hours ago. Spurred on by nerves and romance, she’d even honed her skills somewhat, and today had been a breakthrough for Justin, as Liv hadn’t screamed and swum in the other direction when the wave came towards her.

Still flushed with triumph, she’d gone home and decided to wear her new swimsuit. Before she’d fallen asleep last night she’d finished a latter-years Liz Taylor number that was designed to hide all the places Betty Ford couldn’t reach. Thus with the help of the purple feathers and expanses of something new and formidably tough called techno-fabric Liv had fashioned a swimsuit-and-sarong ensemble that boasted a cleavage-to-lower-body ratio of something like 7650000:1. You see, mathematical ability was good for some things. Cleavage was good for others.

An hour later, Liv wasn’t sure that she’d done the right thing in wearing her new bathing suit on the bus. She’d had one proposal of bigamy, two offers to carry her bags (she had none, merely a rolled-up towel under her arm), and an invitation to join an agency for surrogate motherhood between the Oxford Street stop and Watson’s Bay. Quite how the upper echelons of Sydney society, namely Amelia and crew, would react to Liv’s Liz look remained to be seen. Thankfully, the second she stepped off the bus the first person Liv spied was Alex, sitting on the jetty with her head buried in a book.

“Hey, Ally Bongo, it’s me.” Liv sauntered towards her, though the spring of elastic in her suit could well have catapulted her all the way.

“Ooh, baby!” Alex yelped as she caught sight of Liv. “And God created Liv.”

“It’s not too much?” Liv scowled shyly.

“Of course it’s too much. But it’s heaven.” Alex winked.

“So why were you so distracted last night? What’s going on?” Liv asked Alex as they clambered aboard the
Millie
with the help of the harbourmaster. None of the others had shown yet, but Amelia had staff who arranged the boat in her stead.

“I’ll have to tell you later. Too many spies,” Alex said, grinning wickedly. They found a shiny piece of deck with an unparalleled view of the harbour and laid their towels down.

“Then I can’t tell you my news, either, in case anyone hears. God, I had such a funny chat to Dave last night though; he’s still going on about all that making-men-fall-in-love-with-you-by-treating-them-like-naughty-dogs stuff. I know you think it works, but honestly, I can’t do that manipulative thing. Anyway, I reckon it’s just coincidence that it’s worked so far. Really, it’s a load of crap,” Liv said, readjusting her techno-fabric.

“Actually, I totally agree with you, I think. I mean with some men it probably works, but love and romance can’t be engineered; it always happens when you least expect it,” Alex said, and looked towards the car park, where the guests were beginning to arrive.

“You’ve changed your tune.”

“Just living and learning,” Alex said mysteriously. “So I assume that Ben called you and asked you to this? Clearly has the hots,” Alex whispered to Liv.

“How do you know he called?” Liv asked. “I didn’t tell you that.”

“No, you great idiot, who do you think gave Ben your phone number?” Alex said as she lay back on the towel.

“Well, I don’t suppose I did think. Was it you?” Liv asked.

“Actually, it was Rob. It was quite funny, ’cause Rob called Ben from the mobile last night to see what time we had to be here this morning and they were chatting and Ben wanted to know what we’d been up to and, anyway, somehow Rob ended up telling what you’d been saying about being dedicated to your career and didn’t want a boyfriend and stuff, so Amelia didn’t have to worry.”

“Amelia was worried?” Liv asked.

“Nah, not really I don’t think. She only worries about her roots showing. Anyway, then Ben asked for your number and said he wanted to invite you along today. So we gave it to him,” Alex finished.

“Great. Now I’m a charity case,” Liv groaned in embarrassment.

“Oh, come on, Liv, stop being so down on yourself. You reckon that you’d never stand a chance next to Amelia, but she’s not as amazing as you think, you know. She’s really a bit rough, and I think she takes Ben totally for granted. You’re sweet and lovely, so get over yourself. Have some faith.”

“Well, he’ll be completely put off anyway, as he thinks I’m a celibate workaholic thanks to Rob. Just my bloody luck.”

The boat began filling up. Liv turned casually to see who was there. Amelia was just coming up the gangplank onto the gleaming deck, followed closely by Ben, who seemed to have assumed the role of porter, carrying at least two handbags, a picnic hamper, and a small suitcase.