His Brand of Beautiful (25 page)

It was like watching a movie star stroll down the red carpet. Bram’s eyes worked left and right, his smile on full beam.

A tree‐trunk of a man with a head of thick dark hair cut too close to curl followed the politician across the gallery floor. When Bram stopped to admire a painting of a green-scaled dragon with a butterfly on its snout, tree‐trunk guy stopped too, massive arms crossed over his chest. One of the patrons—Henry in the navy cords—had to sidestep the hired hulk to get a better view.

“Good of Bram to open the show,” Richard said as they watched Saffah excuse herself from her circle of well‐wishers to intercept the guest of honour.

“He’s cranking up the favours today.”

Her father looked sideways at her. “Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Whatever happened between you two it was a long time ago,” her father said. “You should give him a break.”

Lily Malone

“I
am
giving Abraham a break,” it slipped out before she could stop it. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“What? You’re here with him?” Richard almost choked on his nut.

Merry’s daughter rolled by with a fresh tray of champagne flutes and a teenage attitude that said:
next year I’ll be too old to have to help my mother with this hospitality
shit.

Christina accepted a glass and pressed her lips to the cold rim, sniffed the nutty aroma and took the teeniest sip. Guilt raced the alcohol to the pit of her stomach and she put the glass on the mantelpiece alongside Richard’s beer.

“CC?” Her father shuffled his weight to the other foot. “If there was something…

going on
between you and Bram. I’d be really disappointed. He’s a father now.”

“There’s nothing going on with Bram.” It sounded curt and she tried to soften it.

“Relax. I was talking with Bram this morning, that’s all, and he reminded me about tonight and that it would be special for Saffah if I came.”

At that, Richard looked as if a boulder had been lifted from his shoulders.

She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

Only Bram had made it clear he wouldn’t share any information from his private investigator’s report on Tate, not home address nor shoe size, unless she agreed to come to the exhibition tonight. “I never see you any more, CC,” he’d said. “I go to the opening of an envelope these days. At least you being there will make this one more interesting.”

Saffah turned to the fireplace and beckoned and Richard levered his weight from the mantelpiece.

“Don’t move too fast around the security guy,” Christina said.

“You don’t think I could take him?”

“He’d break you in six. The man has no neck.”

Tree‐trunk guy raised his chin as her father approached—so slowly Christina almost laughed out loud. Bram shook hands with Richard, clapped his shoulder once, then excused himself and started toward the fireplace. The hunk of oak on legs came too, three steps behind, as if tied to the politician’s belt by a thread.

Bram brushed his lips to her cheek. This close to the fire the smell of Old Spice was cloaked by smoke and woodchips. His goon blockaded the other end of the hearth as effectively as a bus.

“I didn’t think The Fuschia Skirt was that much of a security risk,” Christina said.

“Since that crackpot attacked the Premier out at dinner last month, all the ministers and shadow ministers have to have a security presence, you never know when the next nut-job will crawl out of the woodwork.” He indicated the huge man by the fire with his thumb.

“My guy’s an ex‐cop.”

“Your guy?” Christina said, amused. “You sound like it’s the mafia.”

Bram rested a hand on the mantelpiece near her shoulder. Firelight turned the rose-coloured stripe in his cream shirt orange. He wasn’t wearing a tie and his sports jacket draped open.

“So you found Newell’s house alright this morning?” Bram asked.

“Yes, I did. Thank you. I appreciated your help.”

He laughed. “So formal, CC. I like doing an old friend a favour. I did think it a bit weird you needed my help to find your boyfriend’s address.”

She gave him no explanation.

His gaze jived away, scanned the room and returned. “A little bird tells me you’re entering a car in the Bush Bash this year.”

“Michael spoke with you?”

He nodded. “Saffah too. The fundraising committee chair is a personal friend of my father’s. I had a word. Thought I could cut the red tape for you, you know?”

“Yeah I know. Thanks. So are you driving in the Bush Bash this year?”

“Not the whole race, being a Shadow Minister now and all.” He winked. “I might show my face at Disco Night in Mungeranie, though. We can have that dance you owe me for skipping out at Michael’s wedding.”

Navy‐pants Henry stopped to admire a sculpture on a plinth nearest the hearth.

Tree‐trunk guy’s hips twitched.

“Will Abigail come with you?” Christina asked Bram.

Bram shook his head. “The twins are too young. Maybe next year. This year it’s just him and me in the great outdoors.” He flicked his chin at the hulk blocking the heat.

“How is Abigail, anyway? And the twins?”

“They’re fine. The girls are both talking. One more than the other. None of us can get a word in once Elle gets started. Abi has to translate for me. Most of the time I haven’t got a clue what that kid’s on about.”

As Bram talked about his children, the politician’s mask faded. He reminded her more of the younger man she’d known.
Known,
she thought to herself. Not loved. She knew now she’d never loved him, but it was good to know the old Bram was still in there, even if buried deep. It made her feel like those four years of her life weren’t a complete waste.

A log shifted in the fire, made sparks shoot like fireworks. Tree‐trunk guy didn’t flinch. His eyes were on Merry Norris, her chins and her kaftan, each trying to out‐bustle the other as she flowed toward them like a purple tidal wave.

“It’s show‐time,” Bram grinned, rolling up his sleeves.

Lily Malone

Most Sunday mornings the park opposite Lacy’s flat hosted a Sunday soccer match and usually one or both of the teams and their families stayed on for a barbecue lunch after the game. The playground echoed with the sound of soccer mums pushing rugged‐up toddlers on squeaky swings, the kids shouting “more push, Mum, more push.” On the public courts, a pair of backward‐capped boys torpedoed tennis balls at each other.

A persistent breeze blew the scent of steaks and fried onions toward Lacy’s flat. The smell made a rusty taste cling to the roof of Christina’s mouth.

She stretched her hamstring on the knee‐high dry‐stone wall that divided Lacy’s flat from the street, straightened, and when she turned to stare across the park she caught three of the soccer team—those not aligned with the mums at the swings—catching an eyeful of Lacy’s backside.

Oblivious to any such goings‐on, Lacy gave her shoelace an emphatic twist. “I can’t believe Tate asked you to move in with him. You must rock at apologies. Next time the landlord comes to hassle me about a rent rise, I’m borrowing those red boots.”

“So what did Mikey say about the baby?” Christina asked.

“I didn’t tell him.” Lacy stood and began flattening her headband across the dark curls of her forehead. “I didn’t think it was my news to tell.”

The headband wouldn’t cooperate so she jerked it back over her head and started again. It got caught on her ear. Next time she snatched her hair into a crude ponytail and wrapped the cherry‐coloured elastic around it like a cowboy hog‐tying a calf.

“Spit it out, Lace.”

“Spit what out?” Lacy blew on her hands, jogged on the spot.

“There’s something on your mind and you think I won’t like it.”

Lacy drew herself to her full height, hands on hips. The breeze blew her dusty pink tracksuit top snug around her waist, ruffling the matching pants. “If Michael knew you were pregnant, do you think he’d risk taking you into the outback for a week, driving around in a clapped‐out old Landrover?”

“Maybe not, but Mikey’s the least of my worries,” Christina said.

Lacy took two steps toward Christina’s Golf and karate‐chopped its roof. “What about Tate? Does he know you plan to ride in the launch?”

“It’s my decision, Lace. Mikey’s crap at the media stuff, he’ll need me there.”

“Sounds like a ‘no’.” Lacy poked the roof of the car. “The people who love you have a right to know when your decisions—or non‐decisions—impact them, Christina.”

“He’ll try to talk me out of going and I feel
fine
.”

“Who? Michael?”

Christina snapped. “No. Tate.”

Cheeks pink, Lacy unzipped her tracksuit and javelined the jacket towards the house, it hitched on the bonnet of her red Mazda 626.

“You’re trying to bulldoze everyone into doing what you want,” Lacy said.

“I’m not bulldozing. I’m doing what’s best.”

“Yeah. What’s best for
you
.”

“Oh bullshit.”

“Bullshit nothing! You’re my best friend, Christina. I love you. Your brother’s my husband. I love him. I hate keeping secrets from either of you, it does my head in.” She gulped a huge breath and lowered her eyes and the heat of her anger deflated like a popped balloon. “Michael knows about the miscarriage, CC. He’s known for years. I couldn’t keep it from him.”

“Oh.” Christina dumped her hands in the pockets of her white vest and stared back across the park. One of the soccer guys elbowed another.

Lacy’s hands started flying. “I’m sorry, CC. I should have told you he knew. But that’s why you have to tell him about the baby
now
. If anything goes wrong on Michael’s watch and he doesn’t know the risks because you haven’t told him you’re pregnant, he’ll be gutted. And I’m the one who will have to live with him, with the fact that I knew and I didn’t tell him and I didn’t stop you.”

“Mikey will over‐react, Lace. That’s what brothers do.”

“It doesn’t mean you don’t give him the choice. You can’t keep manipulating people, CC, it’s not fair to any of us.”

“Manipulating?”

“You set your own course and damn the consequences. You do it all the time. That’s why you’re in this dilemma with Tate in the first place.”

Christina took a deep breath and let it go. “Let’s argue and walk at the same time, Lace, or we’ll have three soccer guys over here trying to stop the fight.”

“What soccer guys?”

“See? Marriage makes women freaking blind.
Those
soccer guys.” She flicked her head towards the park.

Lacy turned down the driveway and picked up the pace. The soccer guys waved.

“Compromise is not a dirty word, CC,” Lacy began.

“You’re not asking me to compromise, Lace, you’re asking me to
cave
. It’s giving up what I want to make everyone else happy.”
Just like my mother did when she got married
and had me. Like I swore I’d never do.

“So instead
you
do what you want and make everyone who loves you miserable?

Tate? Michael? Me? When you love people, you make sacrifices.”

“The
women
make sacrifices, Lace. I’ve yet to see a man give up what he wants.”

Lacy pondered that for a moment. “And what about the baby?”

There it is. The guilt card. The trump to end all trumps.

Christina stepped around a dog‐turd an owner hadn’t bothered to scoop. “What if Mikey is fine with me going in the race? He has a knack for surprising me.”

“He might be fine with it,” Lacy agreed, but her eyes skipped to the heavier traffic ahead on Kensington Road and her chin set. “And if he is, then that’s great, as long as you tell him the truth, no gilding the lily. If you don’t tell him about the baby, CC—and God knows I don’t want to—but I
will
.”

Nikes and ASICS thudded in unison and yet between them Christina felt the yawning breadth of a chasm no bridge could cross. Lacy had always been her rock. Now she couldn’t make her choose.
She can’t choose me.

I can’t lose Lace
. “You’re right.”

“I know. I’m always right.”

They both laughed. Lacy crushed her to her collarbone in a hug that dented the peak of Christina’s cap.

“I’ll tell Michael tomorrow,” Christina promised.

“Thank God that’s sorted,” Lacy said. “If I get mugged in the park I’d hate to go out thinking we’d been fighting.”

Lily Malone

“Like any mugger could catch you.”

****

Michael wasn’t in his office first thing Monday morning and when Christina tried to find him, Belinda Green waylaid her to talk about the spring cellar door releases. It was lunchtime before she thought of her brother again.

He wasn’t in the staff kitchen.

Crewy—sewing crumbs like wild oats into the weekend sports wrap in
The
Advertiser
—mumbled “barrel hall” at her between bites of cold chicken‐schnitzel sandwich.

That was where she found her brother, stooped over a stainless steel pipe fixture he fed through the top of a barrel, concentrating so it didn’t suck air.

Cool air, laden with the scents of fermenting wine and shaved oak and wet concrete, poured through the metal roller door that divided the barrel room from the tank‐farm.

Christina didn’t shiver. Layers were the trick for wineries in winter, tights under everything, wool hats and jackets with deep pockets that let her feel the growing baby bump. She had her hands in her pockets a lot.

Mikey saw her coming before she was halfway across the room. When the barrel was empty, he switched the pump off and straightened.

“Is that Moscato?” Christina asked.

Shaking his head, he removed the pipe. White wine dribbled down the flanks of the barrel like tears. “Viognier.”

“You’re oaking it?”

He scratched an itch where his workboot met his thick grey sock. “It’s for Shiraz-Viognier, so yeah, just a touch.”

“I thought racking was Crewy’s job.”

“Sometimes I like doing stuff where I don’t have to think. Long as it’s not every day.

I’d rather rack barrels than clean them.”

“How’s it look?” She stepped forward, sniffing.