Patrick wrapped his arms around her and lifted her out of her high heels. Annabel’s bare feet dangled in the air as he carried her to the master bedroom and threw her onto the bed. He pulled off his jumper. Underneath he was bare. She was surprised by how toned his upper body was. She ran her fingers over the ridges of his stomach.
‘I carry lots of heavy books,’ he said in answer to her raised eyebrows. Then he kissed her again.
They stayed in bed for hours. Until the daylight disappeared, taking the rain with it, and the crickets started singing. Wearing only bed-sheet togas, they scurried barefoot into the kitchen where they raided Patrick’s pantry. They ate artichokes from jars with their fingers and salted bread sticks.
‘You have such a captivating mouth,’ he said, touching it. In the bedroom their lovemaking had been exploratory and gentle. But now Patrick pulled Annabel to him with strength and urgency and pressed her up against the fridge.
The following day Annabel discovered the answer to the mystery of what happens after the grand declaration. You go out on a date. After a Sunday spent in bed, with occasional trips to the kitchen, she asked Patrick out to dinner at The Beresford.
‘I’ve heard of this place,’ he said as they entered the leafy dining room, which was kitted out like a greenhouse. Glass bulbs held soil and white roots. There were fronds and leaves, foliage everywhere. The air was misty like a hothouse.
‘I thought you’d like it. I thought a lot about where we could go,’ Annabel said. ‘I’ve never asked a man out before.’
Patrick raised a flute of champagne. ‘You know what Mark Twain said: “If you always do what you’ve always done, then you will always get what you’ve always got.” ’
‘I love that saying,’ Annabel said. ‘I don’t ever want things to become predictable or boring.’
As he walked her home, Annabel asked Patrick if he would be her date for the wedding.
He took her hand. ‘Am I your boyfriend?’ He playfully swung their arms.
‘I guess so.’
‘You’re a little commitment-shy, aren’t you?’
She grinned at him. ‘I’m not sure. Can I get back to you?’ Patrick laughed out loud.
The big gesture hadn’t automatically meant happily ever after. But this was a good thing; Annabel wasn’t sure if the fairy tale was what she really wanted. She and Patrick were getting along. They may even have been falling in love. Perhaps not. Perhaps she would always be single, but her life would be punctuated by relationships when special people came along. That wasn’t the traditional love story, but it did represent a different type of luck. All she knew was that for now she felt happy and free.
They had stripped the carpet off the floors, exposing evidence of decades of neglect. First, they had found mouldy underlay, then pre-war linoleum. They ripped this up, too, revealing black, tarred wood. The boards would be sanded back eventually. The walls were a patchwork of colours and exposed plaster. The effect was of a world map showing strange undiscovered lands in yellow, beige and blue. Hairline cracks marked national borders. The windows were bare and there were no internal doors. Dani and James used the master bedroom for almost everything. They had set up a little gas camper stove on the balcony and a tub for washing up afterwards. The water had been cut off, so they had to fill it from their neighbour’s hose. But there was nowhere else Dani would have rather been than her new home.
It was exceptionally hot and muggy. When the clouds weren’t bombing them with giant water missiles, the air was sticky and humid.
‘The first thing I’m doing when we get electricity is buying a fan,’ said James, taking off his T-shirt.
Daniela looked up from her work. She was doing a final check-over of the schedule for Monday’s progress meeting with the developer. Once this week was over, she would be able to focus properly on the renovations. She admired her new housemate’s broad shoulders as he lifted a plaster ceiling-rose off the floor.
‘We should take these around to my brother’s place,’ James said, looking at the large collection of original plasterwork they had salvaged from the other rooms. ‘Don’t want it to get water damage in this leaky old boat.’
Daniela smiled absent-mindedly.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he said.
‘I’m just assessing the architectural features of your body,’ she said, still adjusting to the idea of being allowed to openly adore him.
‘You don’t have to assess from so far away,’ he said, coming over to her and kissing her forehead.
Over dinner a few weeks earlier, she had told James all about the Newtown house she had just bought with the help of a small amount of money her mother had put aside for her. It was only a week after she had found him in her office standing over a thick wad of blue letters, barely able to speak.
It had all happened so fast after that. But it had felt natural and easy, too.
‘It has three bedrooms, all upstairs, and beautiful masonry. But it’s going to be so much work.’ She bit ravenously into her burger on their third date at Stitch in the city.
‘I’ll help,’ James said, stealing a chip from her plate, having already finished his. ‘I’d love to help.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course.’
After that he would come home with her after work most nights to help tear up weeds and scrape paint from dented doorframes. They would eat cold meats — soppressata, salsiccia and Finocchiona — with cheese and bread. Then they would fall asleep in Daniela’s bed, sometimes still in their work clothes.
‘Why don’t I be your tenant?’ he had asked one night. ‘That would save you having to get a stranger in.’ He sat up, suddenly alert and excited.
‘Umm …’ Dani was unsure.
‘I practically live here anyway,’ he said. ‘I’m paying rent on my place — I may as well be paying it to you.’
‘Since you’re trespassing on my hospitality?’ she said.
‘Yes.’ He said, tracing his fingers over her stomach. ‘Since I’m trespassing.’
Instead of giving him an answer, she had kissed him. It seemed the best way of avoiding the question. She stood to take their plates to the kitchen (aka balcony), but he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back onto the bed.
‘Noo-ooo!’ Dani kicked her legs helplessly in the air, giggling. But she let him win. Lying still and naked in his arms an hour later, she had to admit that it did seem silly him paying rent on his Randwick house, which had been sitting empty almost every night since she had collected the keys to the Newtown project.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You passed the housemate interview.’
‘That was an interview?’
‘Yes,’ she rolled over. ‘Now I’m very tired. I interviewed two other men for the room earlier today.’
He climbed over her so that he was in her line of sight.
‘Really? Do you mean it? We’re going to live here? Together?’
He looked so eager, so happy. Dani melted. ‘Yes.’ She smiled.
When he ended his lease, she insisted they keep separate bedrooms.
‘Housemates who are dating,’ she said. ‘Not lovers who live together.’
He agreed, but after they shook hands on the deal, they had somehow found themselves back in her bed. A month later, a fine dust of plaster particles had settled on the bed in the second bedroom, while they woke curled together in the room opposite.
‘We should paint our room cream,’ Dani said, waking to sunshine. ‘Make it really light.’
‘Oh, now that you need help painting it, it’s “our room”?’ said James.
‘I’m happy to do it myself if you want to go back to Chernobyl in there.’
‘Bribery, hey?’
‘That’s right.’
They laughed.
‘Perhaps we should get married,’ he said, burrowing a hand under the blankets, searching for the cord on Dani’s pyjama pants.
‘I don’t think so, mister,’ she said. ‘You’re just after a spot in the master bedroom. Besides, something tells me you’re more interested in the honeymoon than the wedding.’
‘Long walks on the beach. Matching Hawaiian shirts. Of course.’ He grinned mischievously.
They fell silent again as he cuddled closer.
‘Really, though,’ he said after a moment.
‘Really what?’
‘Do you ever think about it? Not now, but one day, maybe?’
‘Painting the bedroom?’
‘Marriage.’
‘Do I ever think about marriage?’ Daniela paused. ‘I suppose it has crossed my mind once or twice.’
Clementine’s feet were stuck straight up in the air. Just as she had finished painting her toenails, she had realised it was nearly eight o’clock. She was running late and the varnish was still sticky. To speed the drying process she had turned on the ceiling fan and lain on her back with her toes pointed skyward.
This is what it had come to. She was thirty-five and still panicking about dinner. The men she had met this year, the non-Jasons, had all started to bleed into one another. In her mind they were defined not by who they were but by who they weren’t. But tonight was different. Tonight she was going out with Damon Dresner; a man utterly unlike Jason, but still incredibly close to him. His best friend. Clementine slid on her ring. It had been sent back by Mirabella in exchange for a promise from Tim Oldfield not to show the photos of her and Harry to any publishers. Clementine twisted the worn filigree band as she always did, and wondered if she was crazy.
She had already imagined sleeping with Damon, but she wasn’t sure she was entirely comfortable with it. She realised that as people delayed marriage the dating pool didn’t just get smaller, it got muddier. Everyone was someone else’s ex.
Clem felt as though she had sherbet in her veins — she was tingling all over.
She was dabbing on perfume when there was a knock at the door. Damon hadn’t told her where they were going, but he had said to dress up.
‘You were wearing that the first day we met,’ he said when she opened the door.
‘You remembered.’
‘I remember how breathtaking you looked.’
‘I just have to put my shoes on,’ she said. ‘Come in.’
He followed her into her room, but hung back bashfully.
‘You have a nice place,’ he said.
‘It’s just a rental.’
Clementine didn’t know what to say. Damon knew the worst of her. He’d seen her with her guard down, and there was no banter that would offset the truth of their relationship.
She bent to guide her feet into her high heels when she felt him behind her. He caressed her shoulder and turned her to face him.
‘I remember noticing this.’ Damon took hold of a strip of fabric. She was wearing a halter top that tied in bows around her neck and her waist, leaving her back exposed. Damon slid his finger down the length of her spine to the knot of fabric. He loosened it. As the knot came undone Clementine’s top fell open at the back. It hung loosely from her neck like an apron. He turned her around, cupped her face with his hands then moved them to the back of her head and held it. He kissed her then slid his hands to the back of her neck where the second knot held her top in place. She could feel him manoeuvring it. It slackened. Her top fell to the floor.
‘Oh dear,’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘This is against the rules.’
‘What rules?’
‘We’re not supposed to sleep with the ones we like.’
‘Are you sure?’ he said, with a slight catch to his breath.
She knew that once they had slept together they could never go back to how things were. This wasn’t a one-night stand or a casual relationship; this would be her acknowledging that she had once loved Damon’s best friend, but now she was choosing him.
‘Uh-huh,’ she nodded and kissed him. She took his hand and led him to her bed.
When they had gotten their breath back, Damon enfolded Clementine in his arms.
‘I didn’t plan that.’
He moved closer.
It was wonderful to lie next to him and not worry that he was going to jump out of bed, claiming an early meeting or an unfinished report.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Clem asked.
‘No, let’s just lie.’ He pulled her in and kissed the top of her head. He had a thin coat of curls across his chest. She scraped her fingers back and forth through them. He kissed her eyebrows, eyelids, the side of her nose. He kissed a row of kisses across her left shoulder, onto her collarbone, down between her breasts, then traced a path to her bellybutton and below. Clementine squirmed.
‘Shh. Just lie still.’
She didn’t want to spoil the moment by telling him that, although she appreciated the sentiment, there was really no point in doing what he was about to do. The day’s orgasm ration had been used.
‘Close your eyes,’ he instructed. Clem waited. Soon the tickle of pleasure took over as he blew a stream of air up the inner seam of her thigh. She could feel his cheeks and the tip of his nose brush against her leg. Then he drew away.
‘What—?’
‘Shh …’ She felt it before she heard it. ‘Keep your eyes closed,’ he whispered. The soft blowing returned.
She felt the beginning of another orgasm. She started to ache, it was almost painful.
‘Stop,’ she breathed. He ignored her.
Ecstatic waves hit her. She tried to push Damon away, but he held onto her until she was seized by more fits of pleasure. Her body was shaking.
‘That’s never happened before,’ she said after her head had cleared.
Damon gave her a wicked grin.
‘I think we’ve missed our reservation,’ he said.
Clementine looked at her clock. It was six minutes past eleven. She smiled. In one hour it would be after midnight. A new day. And then they could try again.
It was the first day of summer.
The waiter tried to fill Clementine’s glass with champagne, but she covered it with her hand. Annabel raised an eyebrow.
‘You’re not …?’
‘No. God, no.’
Damon and Clem had talked about children and the fact that they both wanted them one day. But they were still getting to know each other, and Clementine had been accepted into a postgraduate child psychology course. There was no need to rush things.
‘It was a beautiful wedding,’ said Annabel.
‘You did a good job,’ Clem told her. ‘Perhaps you missed your calling.’
‘After this year I think I’m all wedding-ed out,’ Annabel said.
The white table in front of them was covered with food and glasses of wine. Much of the wedding party was on the dance floor. There was no doubt it was a success.
Daniela flopped onto an empty chair.
‘My feet are killing me,’ she said. ‘I’ve got an emergency pair of ballet flats stashed away, but I really want to keep up the charade of being elegant.’
‘Here,’ Clem said, unstrapping her newly repaired silver shoes from Paris.
‘They look dainty but they’re very comfortable.’
Daniela reached for them. ‘What about you?’
‘Haven’t you heard,’ Clem said. ‘I’m not single any more — I don’t need to make an effort.’ She winked at Damon, who laughed.
Another song started. Patrick took Annabel by the hand and led her onto the dance floor, where they showed off their new tango skills learned at lessons on Sunday evenings.
‘She seems very happy,’ said Dani.
Clementine nodded. When Annabel returned five minutes later she was flushed and grinning. The emcee warned that the bride was about to throw the bouquet. Melanie Sissowitz, dressed in a red silk gown, stole the microphone.
‘Where are my bridesmaids? Clementine, Annabel, Daniela,’ she called. ‘I expect to see you up front for this,’ she said, holding up her bouquet like a liberty torch.
‘I think I could use some air,’ said Annabel.
‘Yes,’ Dani agreed. ‘Let’s go outside for a moment.’ She hooked her fingers around three champagne flutes and picked up an open bottle with her other hand. ‘I think we’ve earned this.’
They strolled across the spongy lawn and sat on the stone bench where they had hatched the husband-hunting plan the previous May.
‘I doesn’t feel like less than a year since we sat here and started being friends again,’ said Annabel. ‘Proper friends.’
‘I know,’ said Daniela. ‘‘I don’t know how I would have got through the past six months without you two.’
‘Me, too,’ Clem said. ‘Let’s have dinner this week. How about Thursday or Friday?’
‘Yes,’ said Annabel. ‘But would it be okay if we made it Friday? I think I’m going to be in the office until late on Thursday night. We’ve got meetings all day with Eve’s Garden.’
‘Yes, Friday’s better for me, too,’ said Dani. ‘I have big plans for stripping floors on Thursday. The house is really starting to come together.’
‘Friday suits me,’ Clem said. The library at Sydney University was open late on Thursday, and she had a lot of reading to do before the semester started in March.
‘It’s going to be a busy year,’ said Annabel.
‘I know, I’m exhausted just thinking about it,’ Clementine said. ‘But excited.’
They sat in silence for a moment and listened to the distant sound of the wedding party where the men they loved were waiting for them. They heard the drum roll, then the shouts of glee as the bouquet was thrown.
‘I’m so happy for Melanie,’ said Annabel.
‘The last of the great single ladies,’ said Dani. ‘Here’s to her.’ They raised their glasses.
‘Here’s to all the single ladies,’ said Annabel.
‘It’s funny how weddings are always the last part of a story,’ Clementine said. ‘Or the end of the film.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Daniela. ‘But tonight doesn’t feel like an ending at all. It feels like a beginning.’