How Do I Love Thee? (25 page)

‘You don’t have to do that, Roland. Anyway, I’m kind of busy tonight. Sorry.’ She retreated two steps backwards without realising it until she felt the wall pressing against her back.

Rubbing his chin, he contemplated her with small, suspicious eyes the exact shade of arctic ice. ‘Nay, if you don’t come out for a drink with me tonight, I’ll tell your folks that you’re in big trouble. Let’s see—should it be drugs, prostitution or bad men?’

‘Don’t even joke about that. They’d worry themselves to death.’

His stare was even and without emotion. ‘I’m not joking. You know they’ll believe anything I tell them.’

Micky Marstead’s son was practically royalty at home. If Roland fed her parents vinegar and told them it was honey, they’d believe him.

‘You wouldn’t do that.’ Her mouth had gone desert dry and her hands clenched into fists.

Smiling coldly, he said, ‘Oh, yes I would. But you can save them the grief and stress by coming out with me. We can get to know each other again.’ His eyes were so hard and empty, Naomi shivered.

‘I love this city,’ he shouted suddenly. ‘The freedom, the variety, the crowds. Back home, I’m Micky Marstead’s son. Here, I can be whoever I want, whoever I really am. It’s fan-bloody-tastic.’ He closed his eyes in ecstasy.

And what you really are is a bully—or maybe worse. It was true Roland had been forced to uphold a certain standard as a son of the small town’s leading citizen. He probably felt in the shadow of his charismatic, strict and successful father. Perhaps this was the first taste of real freedom he’d ever been given—and he wasn’t handling it well.

Naomi decided her taste in men was severely flawed. How could she ever have idolised this selfish narcissist? All she wanted was for him to leave her alone.

‘Yes, Sydney is a great place,’ she agreed without enthusiasm. ‘Look, I’m not trying to avoid you, Roland. I’m just busy at the moment. I know you wouldn’t really lie to my parents.’ Fingers crossed. ‘How about if we meet for drinks next week?’ Naomi smiled sweetly, practically batting her eyes at him. She could put him off indefinitely, if she could only get him out of the shop tonight.

‘You look busy,’ he muttered sarcastically, peering into the bowels of the sparsely populated store. He turned back to her, squinting with pure malice. It seemed he was about to open his mouth and say something nasty but changed his mind. The man had no subtlety. He was as easy to read as one of her comic books.

‘Okay,’ he agreed, not very amicably. ‘I’ll see you in a few days, then. Here’s my number.’ He handed her a business card. Roland Marstead. State Manager, Marstead Enterprises. ‘Call me when you have some time—but don’t leave it too long.’

‘Thanks. Great to see you, Roland,’ she fibbed. ‘I’ll call in a few days.’ She waved enthusiastically and smiled at him again, thankful he was leaving. She hoped he wouldn’t talk trash to her parents. She had the feeling he might do it, just because he could, even if she eventually relented for that drink. When the door clicked behind him, the relief made her shoulders sag. There was something off about Roland, something dangerous and out of control.

Naomi was good at smiling, not always sincerely. It was a big part of her job and took a certain amount of talent. After all, it was hard to grin all day, every day. She might as well be a bartender or a priest. Her clientele loved to pour their hearts out to her. Not that she minded—listening to their troubles and triumphs was her main entertainment.

It was the end of a long day though and she’d had enough. She felt compassion for her weird and wonderful regulars but Naomi had a life to live, too. Or at least she hoped to have one. Someday …

It was already an hour past the shop’s official closing time. Successfully shooing Roland Marstead out the door gave her the inspiration. ‘All right, kiddies,’ yelled Naomi, clapping her hands for emphasis. ‘Time’s up. Tomorrow’s another day.’ The stragglers departed reluctantly—some of them had to be gently shoved out the door.

When she was alone at last, Naomi began her nightly routine. Grabbing her broom, she swept away the daily refuse left by an admiring patronage. It was a task comforting in its brainlessness and monotony. She relaxed, feeling her muscles unclench as she swept past Warrior Woman, Arachnid-Man and Grinning Ghost.

Hearing a noise, she spun around, clutching her broom so hard it almost snapped. There was a shadow behind the
Spacemen display. Could it be Captain Kirk in the flesh? Or an alien?

She’d been working here for too long. Lately, both her waking and sleeping hours were populated with comic-book characters, real and imagined.

‘Roland? Is that you?’ she whispered, repulsed at the thought. Every instinct told her he had a brutal streak.

A whisper broke the silence. ‘Who’s Roland?’

Relief whooshed through her. ‘You scared the life out of me, Brat.’ The man’s real name was Brad but she called him Brat when he made her mad. Lately, that had been every time they’d met.

‘How did you get in here?’ she demanded. ‘I thought I’d kicked everybody out for the night.’ Naomi turned the colour of beets when she was angry. Her eyes threw sparks and her cheeks felt sizzling hot.

‘Maybe I can walk through walls,’ he suggested, pointing at an issue of her favourite comic-book series, The Grinning Ghost. He then quoted GG’s trademark question, the one he always asked just before solving a mystery, ‘Who can tell?’

‘Yeah, right.’ She kept sweeping, pretending to ignore him. That was hard because, although he was the ultimate computer nerd by profession, he was annoyingly sexy. In fact, she’d like to jump his bones right here and now despite herself. She had to stop herself from lounging across the sale
table like some restaurant special du jour and beckoning him to join her, or leaping into his arms to bounce off the walls, wrinkling the covers of every magazine in the store.

Maybe it was the way secret dimples appeared out of nowhere when he smiled. Maybe it was his fashion sense—the ripped jeans and scruffy T-shirts he habitually wore. James Dean of the keyboard. Or his thick black hair, which was always clean and shiny though a bit untidy, as if he’d just run his fingers through it. Then again, maybe it was just fate and she was doomed to fall for losers. Look at Roland.

‘Come on, Naomi—you won’t talk to me and it’s driving me nuts. What about a truce for tonight? I’ve come to supply your drug of choice—coffee and lots of it. Let’s go to Café Crunch and reach caffeine Nirvana together. What do you say?’ She was irritated that his lopsided grin left her speechless and wobbly-kneed.

Brat didn’t wait for Naomi to reply. Barely giving her time to grab her purse and lock up, he encouraged her out the door. ‘The dust will still be there tomorrow. You can finish sweeping then.’

Squirming out of his grip, she punched him in the arm.

‘Ow!’

‘Well, you deserved it. You can’t just haul me around the city like some slave girl. I have a mind of my own, you
know.’ She didn’t add that when he smiled at her, her proudly independent brain promptly melted into a pool of mush.

‘You’re overreacting,’ he warned, shaking his head. Overreaction was the cardinal sin of the hip and trendy. You had to chill out. You had to be so cool the ice would crack off you in sheets.

Naomi could only sigh. She was a heaving volcano of emotion inside. Every so often, eruptions occurred—that was her nature. If Brat wanted to put himself into the path of Hurricane Naomi, he’d have to weather the storm.

Café Crunch was packed, as usual. Tonight it was stuffed to the brim with the oddest specimens humanity has yet produced. The atmosphere was fiery, reminding Naomi of a Wild West saloon—one wrong move and the entire place would explode into a brawl.

A large, greenish creature handed them coffee. He bore an eerie family resemblance to a comic-book superhero, the Puce Protector, on furlough. They nudged their way through the masses, sighing with relief as they reached a table intact, their mugs still full of steaming brew.

‘I had to talk to you,’ Brad yelled, trying to be heard over the din.

‘So, talk.’ Since when had the boy been shy? He couldn’t be for real. Was he trying to connive his way into her head, her heart or her pants?

They’d met several months ago at the shop and had clicked right away. Or so she’d believed at first. Brad had come in every day for weeks, chatting to her between customers, making her laugh and flirting like mad. They’d often shared lunches as he worked in a nearby building. She wasn’t surprised when their relationship advanced to the next level and he kissed her with the power of unleashed passion behind the Spacemen aisle. She could still feel the tingle on her lips, though it had happened long ago, and the kiss hadn’t been repeated.

The day following that mind-shattering kiss, Brat confessed he already had a longtime girlfriend. ‘I find you incredibly attractive—but I’m not free. We can still be friends though, can’t we?’

Dandy, she’d thought, gritting her teeth. At least he’d been semi-honest with her, revealing the truth about his girlfriend—but by that time, she’d already fallen for him. The damage was done.

After his shocking revelation, Naomi had avoided him, insisting on a strictly business relationship when she couldn’t evade his company. She’d refused to fall into the easy rapport they’d built previously. Whenever he came into Completist Comix, she tried to ignore his gaze, which travelled all over her body, considering the possibilities.

This was the first time she’d gone anywhere with him since the fateful day he’d broken her heart. Her insides felt like the venue of a boxing match. What did he want? Why wouldn’t he just leave her alone? Did she even want him to?

‘Well,’ he hesitated, drumming his fingers on the table.

‘Tell me already,’ Naomi snapped, sounding bitchy even to her own ears. ‘What is it?’

Brad flinched as if she’d slapped him. She wondered when she’d turned so nasty? It was more than hormones; it had become a way of life lately.

‘I broke up with Debbie,’ he finally ventured. He clearly expected her to say something but she didn’t know what.

‘That’s too bad,’ she said insincerely. Did he want her shoulder to cry on? He didn’t appear heartbroken—in fact, he was grinning.

‘No, it was for the best. It was pretty ironic, actually. She’d been trying to get up the nerve to break up with me. We both knew it was over. No tears, no fuss.’

‘Good for you. But why tell me?’

‘Because I’m all yours now,’ Brat said triumphantly.

While she wanted to explain to him about the last creep who claimed to be all hers (the bigamist), she also longed to believe him. If only she could shout, ‘Take me away from here.’ A cliché, it’s true—but what if there were some magic
path out of confusion and into grace? What if Brad knew the way? What if his alias was Clark Kent?

‘I know you’re the woman for me. I knew it from the first time we met. The problem was my obligation to Debbie. We’ve known each other since high school and we’ve been through a lot together. When we were younger, we used to do a lot of drugs and booze. Haven’t touched the stuff in many months. Now that my head’s on straight, I realised that Debbie and I have absolutely nothing in common. I’ve never loved Debbie, didn’t even know what love was—until I met you.’

It was no use. Café Crunch was a thundering cacophony—not the ideal location for intimate whispers. Besides, he’d hurt her badly once and she couldn’t risk that again. So instead of baring her soul, she abused him. ‘You’ve got a lot of nerve assuming that I’d want you on the rebound—much less all of you.’

‘We’d be great together and you know it.’

‘You’ve got to prove yourself to me, Brad.’ She shook her index finger at him like a scolding schoolmarm. ‘How do I know I can trust you?’

‘I’ve always been honest with you, haven’t I?’

‘How about when you kissed me, behind Debbie’s back?’

Brad’s smoky grey eyes seemed to bore right through her. ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen but the temptation was
irresistible. I have weaknesses like anybody else—and you’re one of them. I ended up telling you the truth, didn’t I?’

‘Eventually,’ she nodded. One of the waiters dropped a cup which shattered into a gazillion pieces.

‘But if you need more time, fine.’ Brad’s confidence was infuriating. ‘I’ll talk you around in the end—you know I will. You like me too, I can tell.’

‘You are the most arrogant man I’ve ever met.’ Well, almost. He was neck-and-neck with Roland Marstead. Naomi sighed again. No, that wasn’t fair. Brad was really a sweet guy, just mixed up. Around Naomi, he was like a force of nature or a magnet pulling her towards him, stirring up her blood.

It was all too crazy—the setting, the proposal, the times. Between Roland’s visit and Brad’s revelations, her emotions were swirling around like water down a plughole. A wave of despair drowned her and she had to escape for the sake of her sanity.

Without warning her companion, Naomi ran out of the café, pushing her way through the crowd. The throng of coffee drinkers seemed to be stealing her breath and she was afraid she would faint. Was her strategy always to run away from trouble? She felt like the worst coward in history.

At last, she found herself on the street, alone. She sucked in a deep gasp of polluted city air. The atmosphere was warm,
wet and thick as soup—a typical summer night. Clouds gathered overhead, pressing down on her spirits.

Naomi began to walk home, consciously forcing her legs to move. It was late and she was the only one on the street. The night had transformed Oxford Street into a comic-book world. Shadows lived, trees became monsters and buildings looked on with evil intent.

You’re overreacting, she chastised herself, then let go a painful cackle of laughter, realising she was echoing Brad’s earlier warning. Maybe he was right though.

Brad wasn’t really crazy. He only needed someone to love, just like everybody else. Heavens knew she lusted after him—the way he smelled of soap and sexuality, his expressive eyes the colour of a stormy day, his cheeky laughter.

A thought just struck her, sudden and jarring. Did he just say he loved her, back there in Café Crunch? Maybe not in so many words, but he’d implied it. She had to wonder whether he’d once given Debbie the same spiel. ‘Should I trust him?’ she asked the dark sky.