Pants on Fire (14 page)

Liinda smiled quite evilly, but then looked worried. She put the unlit cigarette back into her mouth. “See you at morning tea.”

And she got up and walked out. Then the bird's nest suddenly appeared round the door again. “And by the way. He's a Pisces.”

I threw the paper in the bin and spent a few stunned moments staring into space. Why was Liinda being so weird? And why was she being so horrible about Nick? First she was nasty about Jasper, now Nick—was she just plain jealous? But if so, why had she looked so concerned? And why had Nick made out he was like Woodward and Bernstein, but more talented? Oh well, I could ask him all that tonight, or tomorrow, or whenever I next saw him.

Too restless to get down to work, I went looking for Debbie and the spare undies drawer. She was in her den at the back of the office, a grim windowless room where the sun never shone, but it was like Aladdin's cave to us because it was always full of fabulous—free—beauty products, which it was our duty to take home and try.

I'd decided that despite her obsession with only being seen with the Right People at the Right Places and her unbelievable turnover of men, Debbie was not a bad sort. And she was so unbelievably stylish I couldn't help being fascinated by her.

I'd had the entire family history from Antony, who was clearly very impressed by it. Debbie's mother had been a successful model in the 1960s, who lucked out in the new socially permissive age and married a handsome polo player who just happened to come from one of the country's wealthiest and most established families. As Antony told it, Johnny Brent was as close as it comes to aristocracy in Australia, and once young Jenny Kelly had wrapped her long brown legs around his neck there was no way she was going to let him go, even though she'd been brought up practically on the railway tracks and gone to All the Wrong Schools.

It appeared Debbie had inherited the best physical attributes of both parents—she even had nice hands and feet, which seemed to be taking it a bit too far—but you just had to accept it, she was one of nature's better achievements. She'd been a model for a few minutes but quickly got bored with it and much preferred being a fashion stylist. There were more opportunities to boss people around.

Debbie had a natural flair for bossing and styling, and as she'd been to school with Maxine (who happily admitted she had been in love with Debbie's glamorous father from the age of eight), she just glided her way into the job as beauty editor at
Glow
with the same ease as everything else that came to her in her charmed life. Charmed until that fatal plane crash, at least, when the thing she'd loved the most was taken away.

She was looking particularly golden this morning, in a tiny white summer shift dress with white varnished finger- and toenails, one simple gold bangle and a pair of orange Gucci slides. She wore something different every single day and always looked amazing. She could get the entire staff wearing silk scarves one month, bootleg pants the next.

The only person uninfluenced by Debbie's perfect taste was Liinda, who had her own style entirely. She didn't give a fig for fashion; she just wore what she liked, which most days was something denim, something junk shop and that outrageous hair. One day she'd wear pink plastic jelly sandals, the next she'd have on white lace 1950s stilettos. She always looked great in her way too, but no one would have been game to imitate her.

Back in the beauty office, I had the impression Deb-rett's—I realised I'd picked up Liinda's nickname for her—was being a bit funny with me. Talking on the phone and not looking me in the eye. She hissed at Kylie to show me where the undies were kept and all but turned her back on me. I couldn't understand it, she'd been so friendly to me before. I wondered if Liinda had already told her about me and Nick Pollock. Perhaps she was jealous too. After all, she'd taken me to the party and I had scooped up quite a prize. Oh well.

I was certainly glad Antony had warned me not to tell her I'd met Billy and Rory, if this was the way she was reacting about Nick. I hoped it wouldn't make life difficult at work. I chose a pair of knickers out of a large bag full of them and left wondering exactly what was on Debbie's mind. Then I had another hot flush of memory from the night before and forgot all about her.

I thought momentarily about going down to the company gym for a quick shower but decided to get on with some work instead. Actually, I didn't want to be away from my phone that long. I quickened my pace into my office, half expecting the message light on my phone to be flashing already. It wasn't. I ducked out again and asked Seraphima if there were any messages for me. She smiled knowingly and shook her head.

I read the Pisces horoscope in four different magazines. Then I finally turned on my computer to do some work. The phone rang. My hand shot out, but I forced myself to wait four rings before picking it up. It was a contributor chasing a payment. I opened up a story I had to edit for the next issue, called “Ten Signs He's the Man for You.” I'd completely forgotten that was the title of it. That was a bloody sign in itself.

I started scrolling through the copy, which we'd bought from a US magazine, to see if there were any gross Americanisms I needed to remove and replace with Aussie alternatives. I tore through all the introductory blurb and the usual crapola—“says psychologist Dr. Deandra Dingdong” and “Harriet, twenty-six, knew Tod was the right man for her when . . .”—changed Tod to Brent, a few thrus to through, gray to grey and then got onto the good bit—the list.

 

The phone rang. Contributor. Where was her payment? I neither knew nor cared and it probably showed. Phone. PR. More press-release bollocks. Phone. Revlon. Did I get the flowers? Lovely, thank you. Ooh—call waiting. PR. Are you coming to our mascara launch? Yes. Can hardly wait. Phone. Mad reader. Why are all your models so thin? Because they don't eat much? Ooh! Must go. Call waiting. Accounts department. We can't pay invoices unless they're attached to correct dockets. OK, will docket more assiduously in future. Phone. PR. Did you get our press release? Get fucked. Phone. Wrong number.

At 11:25 loud pig-honking noises emanated from the front desk outside my door. It was Seraphima with another gadget,
Glow's
answer to the dinner gong, inviting us to enter Maxine's office for morning tea. I began to wonder how many more noise-making devices she had stashed under there. Perhaps an air-raid siren for when one of management approached, or a recording of the Red Army choir singing “The Red Flag” for those days when the entire staff started their period simultaneously.

In Maxine's office, everyone was gathered around the desk, where there was a baking tray filled with a steaming sticky toffee pudding, dotted with strawberries, with bits of card to use as plates and pieces of loo roll as napkins.

Everybody had brought in their own tea and coffee and Seraphima made me one. Liinda drank only obscure South American herbal teas and was dunking her tea bag in her cup, which had the word “GET” on one side and “LOST” on the other. Her cigarette was behind her ear. Debbie was holding her usual Kylie-delivered skim-milk latte from a trendy café. Maxine had a large plunger of coffee on her desk beside a metal cup and saucer. Most of the other girls clutched mugs of tea. Zoe had a glass of water.

It was my job to cut and distribute the cake. Zoe stood very close to me while I did it, making yum-yum comments about how she couldn't wait for her piece.

“So, who was the lucky guy?” said Maxine, licking her fingers, her feet up on her desk.

“Oh, I'd . . . er . . . rather not say,” I said, longing to tell her, but remembering Liinda's advice. “It's all a bit new . . .”

The phone in my office rang. I started to run for it, but Maxine waved a manicured hand and said, “Let it go to message bank, that's what we have it for.”

I felt a terrible rictus pass across my face and before I could hide it, I saw Liinda and Debbie exchange a look. What was going on?

Several of the girls had seconds of cake, but I could hardly eat a mouthful, a fact that I thought should be the next point in my Ten signs list:
“You Are Unable to Eat Whenever You Think of Him.”

Zoe seemed to be in love too. She'd gone back to her office, leaving her hotly anticipated piece of cake completely untouched except for the strawberry. Maxine saw me notice it.

“I see Zoe's been pigging out again,” she said. “But don't worry, she won't go hungry—she'll have eaten the whole strawberry. Even the stalk.”

“She does seem to eat in very strange ways,” I said. “That business with the finger in the yoghurt. I can't believe she's worried about her weight.”

“Zoe's terrified that if she relaxes for a moment the fat girl lurking inside her will come out and take over. That's why she's in the gym every spare minute too. She looks gorgeous, but it gets really hard to be around. I've tried talking to her about it, but she gets very shitty and says it's none of my business if she wants to be healthy.” She shrugged and reached for another piece of cake.

Although she was what you would kindly call “strapping,” Maxine seemed totally confident about her appearance. She was very tall, with the kind of body that looks like it should be in hockey gear, and an equally strong-featured face. But the overall package was very attractive—particularly to men who liked to be dominated, or so Liinda had told me.

“What shall I do with the rest of this cake?” I asked her. “There's about half of it left. We can't possibly finish it.”

“Just put it in the kitchen,” said Maxine. “How are you going with those articles I gave you? We need all the copy for the April issue ready by next week for layouts.”

“It's going fine. I'm just reading through it all and then I'll go over it with Liinda this afternoon. I think there are some articles that cold do with some more boxes and lists.”

Maxine nodded. “Sounds great. We love boxes and lists. There's your phone again.”

This time I ran. PR. There were three messages on my voicemail. Danny Green inviting me to go to a party with him. Another angry contributor—I really would have to get Seraphima to explain the docket system to me. And Antony asking me if I wanted to go to the same party Danny Green had invited me to. It was weird. Nick's messages were usually waiting for me when I arrived at work and he'd rung me by lunchtime every day since the night I'd met him. I desperately wanted to ring him, but part of me wanted to see how long he would leave it before calling. The other part wanted to ring all the hospitals to see if anyone with the initials NP had been checked in with two broken arms.

By one p.m. I was starting to feel hysterical. I decided to go to the gym and have that shower. A workout wouldn't do me any harm either; it would take my mind off things. I had my swimsuit with me, so I went to look for Zoe to see if she'd take me. She wasn't in the fashion office and I asked Seraphima if she'd seen her leave. She looked at her watch, fixed me with her innocent look and suggested that I should look in the loo. Sure enough, one minute later Zoe emerged from the Ladies. With fresh lipstick on.

“Are you going down to the gym?” I asked her.

“Yes—now. Do you want to come?”

So we went to the gym and I swam up and down the pool thinking about Nick, while Zoe ran about a hundred miles on the treadmill. She ran without a break for an hour. It was funny, she looked really great in her clothes, but seeing her in a tiny Lycra bra top and little boy-leg shorts, she just looked thin. Her face was locked in a grimace and sweat was pouring off her. She was still running when I emerged from the changing rooms, dressed, hair dried and ready to go. I told her I'd see her upstairs.