Temporary Intrigue (11 page)

Dimity nodded demurely, resisting a strong temptation to snap to attention and bellow “Ma’am! Yes, Ma’am!” Gail stalked into her office. Melissa threw Dimity a sympathetic look and took off in her wake.

“Did you check that person’s credentials before you–”

The door closed on Gail’s voice. Dimity raised her eyes to the ceiling, thanking her lucky stars that she had kept to the truth in her CV and the intranet spiel. Otherwise Gail would probably be summoning the fraud squad.

Sitting down again, she blew out her cheeks in a sigh of regret for what had been, before thinking apprehensively of what was to come.

Well, she’d worked for pains in the past and survived. It was unfortunate, though, that Gail by association would be a constant reminder of Josh, just as Dimity was almost at the stage of being able to put him out of her thoughts for whole minutes at a time.

At a few seconds past two, following a rather depressing sandwich lunch in a nearby park while she kept a close eye on the time, she ventured into Gail’s inner sanctum. From an immaculate office Gail somehow managed to extract a mountain of documents requiring typing, filing, mailing and various other kinds of attention.

“Now,” she went on, while Dimity staggered under the weight of work in her arms, “is everything organised for the reception?”

“Reception?” Dimity racked her brains.

Gail clicked her tongue in irritation.

“I assume you’ve booked the hotel function room and organised the catering? I’ll need a confirmation. And please do something about your desk. Our policy is Clear Surfaces.”

Dismissing Dimity with an imperious wave of her hand she picked up her phone and began snapping orders at some unfortunate person on the other end of the line.

“Should we fasten our seatbelts or what?” Dimity whispered, passing Amanda’s desk. Amanda’s only reply was a wan smile.

After tidying her desk by the simple expedient of shoving everything into drawers, Dimity followed her instinct and tackled Gail’s work in reverse order. Her judgment proved right when Gail appeared an hour later, demanding to know the progress of the item that had been on the bottom of the pile.

“All finished,” Dimity told her with an angelic smile, her triumph sweetened by the flash of disappointment Gail couldn’t hide.

Keeping one step ahead wouldn’t be possible forever, of course, but it was one small victory to chalk up to herself.

It was almost four o’clock before she remembered to ask Amanda about the reception.

“It’s a cocktail party to welcome some overseas visitors to the region,” said Amanda. “The Mayor will be there, I think, and the hotel bosses. The marketing department people have to put in an appearance too.”

“When is it?”

“Two weeks from Friday night. It’s a lead-in to a big tourism convention that starts the following Monday. Gail’s chairing the organising committee for the convention, so she’ll be tied up with pre-convention stuff for the next two weeks, then with the thing itself for another week, thank goodness.”

Amanda raised her eyes in gratitude.

“Melissa’s going on leave at the end of this week, so we should have an easy time,” she added.

“Am I supposed to go to the reception?” asked Dimity, doing a mental check of her wardrobe. Cocktail parties weren’t usually on her agenda, but she did have one flirty little black number she’d bought for Sandy’s engagement party and had never worn since.

Amanda resumed typing furiously as Gail loomed on the horizon.

“Is there a problem?” Gail’s tone made it clear that an answer in the negative would be best for everyone.

“I was wondering if I’m expected to go to the reception,” Dimity said.

Gail made a sound suspiciously like a snort.

“Of
course
not!” Her eyes zoomed up and down Dimity’s unspectacular, well-fitting dark blue skirt and jacket, as if envisioning her in the hot pink suit and stilettos. “
Temporary
staff don’t go to these events!”

She walked out, shaking her head.

“Well, excuse me for breathing,” muttered Dimity. “So what’s it to do with me?” she asked Amanda.

“I think whoever’s doing your job is supposed to confirm our function room is available and organise the food and drinks,” Amanda said vaguely. “You’ll need to see Malcolm.”

That sounded simple enough, although the downside was that it meant bringing herself to Malcolm’s attention. Grabbing Shane’s CV, which had been on her desk since Monday, Dimity retraced her steps along the third floor corridor, thankful that this time at least she was wearing sensible shoes.

Malcolm had also returned from Melbourne and was in his office. As she had feared, he welcomed her rapturously, almost salivating at the news that she was temping in the marketing department, and promised to look at Shane’s CV. But he was suddenly all business when she explained the main reason for her visit.

“Sorry, darl,” he said, after checking his computer. “You should have confirmed by last Friday. The room’s been booked by another group for that date.”

So the girl who had walked out without any notice had been supposed to organise the venue. Gail had probably been aware of that, Dimity thought resentfully.

“Don’t you have another room they can use?” she asked, preferring to plead with Malcolm than to admit failure to Gail.

“Nothing available here, but there are plenty of other places in town. Want to check them out with me?” He leered suggestively.

Leaving the CV with him, Dimity spent a fruitless half hour on the phone calling some of the city’s better known function centres. All were annoyingly well organised, fully booked for the relevant date.

Well, the reception was more than two weeks away. She made a mental note to ask Melissa for advice in the morning, then returned to floundering through the ocean of work from Gail that continued to arrive on her desk much faster than she could deal with it.

It was a relief to get home to an empty house. Shane and Leigh had gone out, leaving a mess in the kitchen, but she ignored it in favour of taking Bert for an evening walk. A good stress reliever for them both, she decided. But despite being glad to have the place to herself, she still felt perversely lonely on her return.

Never happy, she thought. Life, for some reason, seemed to have lost its zing.

Hearing her mobile beep in her handbag, she groaned. Probably Shane, wanting her to act as a taxi service.

It was, however, a text message from Sandra.

CHECK EMAILS!

Puzzled, she went through to the back room. Sandra didn’t have a home computer. Maybe she was still at work and had wanted to send Dimity a message that was too long for texting. But surely it would be quicker to phone than to send a long message.

She got the computer going, called up the emails and sat watching as the names popped into the “From” column.

Don Moreton.

Her former boss, the art gallery director. Good. Probably asking her to run one of the occasional weekend workshops the gallery organised for children. It was a low-paid job but one she enjoyed.

Two spam messages which she deleted without reading.

Josh Williams.

Josh Williams?

A few days ago, the thought of him had caused her heart to jump high enough to qualify for the Olympics. The sight of his name in her inbox now triggered a leap of the pure gold medal variety.

While she had been resigning herself to the fact that he had forgotten all about her, he had actually been sending her a message.

Of course it wasn’t necessarily something good.

Maybe the hotel’s sheet had fallen to pieces in the wash and he was sending her a bill for it.

But the subject line was a simple ‘Hi’. That sounded friendly enough.

As if acting of its own volition, her finger clicked the message open. It was short but cordial.

“Hi – thanks again for a great evening. Hope everything’s okay with you. If you find you need a lift on Friday after all, get in touch.”

Underneath his name he had put both his mobile phone number and work number.

She was reading the message for the third time when she heard the phone ringing in the kitchen, and dashed to answer it.

“Well?” demanded Sandra. “Are my psychic powers working?”

“I might have known.” Dimity perched on the edge of the table, trying to sound severe. But the warm flood of gladness sweeping through her wouldn’t allow it. “Did you slip him my email address?”

“I wouldn’t have given him your work details or home number,” said Sandra virtuously. “But when he rang and asked for an email address I couldn’t see the harm.”

“He rang you? How could he? I don’t think I even told him your surname!”

“He’s an enterprising chap. Looked up all the city hairdressing salons and rang around them until he found me.” Sandra sounded as smugly pleased as if she had engineered the whole thing.

“What did he say?” Realising she was clutching the phone far too tightly, Dimity tried to relax her fingers.

“Oh, just that he wanted to get a message to you but you kicked him out before he could get your phone number.”

“He didn’t!”

“Well, the first part’s true. So you’ve heard from him?”

Dimity repeated the message verbatim. Sandra whistled appreciatively.

“I feel rotten,” Dimity confessed.
“I’m
the one who should have got in touch with
him
to thank him for helping me.”

“He doesn’t seem worried about that,” Sandra pointed out. “The man’s giving you every opportunity to establish contact again short of breaking down your door and dragging you off by the hair.”

Dimity’s eyes narrowed as she visualised this interesting scenario. Then she shook her head.

“If I take up his offer it would probably mean letting him know where I work.”

“Well, do you want to be a woman of mystery for ever? If he’s going to be here on Friday there’s every chance you’ll run into him at the hotel anyway.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Dimity enjoyed a heart-thumping rush of anticipation, then grimaced. “Talk about a tangled web. But we’re probably making a big deal out of nothing. It’s only an email.”

“Okay, go on kidding yourself.”

“The thing is, should I answer it?”

“If it’s not a big deal, why does it matter?” Sandra sounded exasperated. “For goodness sake, Dim! I don’t remember you shilly-shallying around like this with Ian or what’s-his-name – Tony, wasn’t it? You told them straight you didn’t want to take it further.”

“They were casual dates with guys from the tennis group,” Dimity said defensively. “I
knew
how I felt about them. This is different.”

“How?”

But even to Sandy it was impossible to explain the confusion of apprehension and hope that surged through her at the thought of contacting Josh. If a simple email from him did this to her, what would happen when she actually saw him?