His Brand of Beautiful (4 page)

If Ruth and her husband were there, they’d just tell him to go
home
.

The mausoleum on Elizabeth Street wasn’t home. Never would be. He never should have bought it. Now he couldn’t make himself sell it.

Tate shook his head—a quick, angry, jerk.

If Jolie knew he couldn’t sell the house because of her, she’d say he was nuts.

Lily Malone

His sister’s death hit him in the chest, same spot it always did. Anger bubbled behind it like lava.

Why was Jolie on his mind tonight?

The house. That went without saying. But tonight he knew it was also because of Christina. She had the same buttery way of speaking, a voice that melted through him like honey on hot toast; and she had the same persistence. Jolie was a dog with a bone too when she wanted something. Never took ‘no’ for an answer.

He dove in and out of Britannia Roundabout. Peak‐hour traffic had passed but it was still heavy as he accelerated up The Parade West and braked at the lights. A group of teenagers sniffed each other while they waited to cross. A kid in skinny jeans and a black T-shirt with blocky white writing waved at them from across The Parade.

I don’t want to work for you
. That’s what he’d meant to tell Christina, what he should have said, standing in her kitchen with her hand hot over his heart, the scent of party, perfume and paint swirling around him; smelling only
her
.

The skinny kid jogged across the road against the traffic, earning himself a volley of hoots. One car braked hard enough to make the tyres squeal. He made it to the footpath and swapped chest‐pumps with his mates. Now Tate could read the shirt; it said
Hellfire
Brigade
.

The cop came from nowhere.

Bull‐necked. Thick‐chested. Navy jacket dusted with rain. Teenagers parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses. He got right in the face of Hellfire Brigade—a kid who didn’t look old enough to shave—the cop’s spit spun in the lights. Maybe he busted him for jaywalking.

Maybe the cop thought the kid was high on drugs. Tate didn’t care.

The cop could have been Ian Callinan.

Mid‐thirties, slab shouldered. That copper look that said he’d soon as drop you on the concrete if you so much as brushed his leathers on the way past.

Could have been Callinan, but wasn’t.

A horn blared behind him. Tate stamped his foot and sent the Jeep snarling forward.

He had to force himself to relax his grip on the wheel so he could make the turn.

“That’s got to be six minutes, Lace. I’ll have a heart attack.” Christina’s lungs burned.

It was Tuesday afternoon. One of the three afternoons a week Lacy had delegated as a running date. The salt of her own sweat dried in her mouth and she would have killed for a drink but her water bottle was in the Golf and the Golf was where she left it when she went running with Lacy after work: outside Lacy’s Kensington flat. So she concentrated on the snug fit of her shining white Nikes and the dull thud of her footfalls cushioned by damp leaves on concrete and told herself to just keep putting one foot after the other.

Lacy checked her watch. “One more minute, CC. You can do it. It’s downhill when we get to the corner.”

Christina glanced up long enough to ascertain just how close that corner was.

Sunlight made tree branch shadows splinter the path ahead, the only time of year rays made it to the ground.

Music played.
Greensleeves
.

Perhaps that was because after the second set of five minutes’ solid running she really
was
having a heart attack and any second now she’d see angels and the shining white light. Or the fires of hell. The stitch in her side knifed, sweat dripped between her breasts.

Lacy reached the corner two strides in front and almost knocked an elderly lady in a walking frame into next week.

“I need me one of those old lady frames, Lace. I thought you said it was downhill.”

“It
is
downhill. Eyes on the prize, CC; think of the fat you’re burning.”

“I like my fat.”

“Then think of every dollar you’ll raise for cancer research by the time we run in the City to Bay.”

A woman passed them on the opposite side of the street tugging a dog more interested in pissing on every tree than going for its walk. She had a plastic bag in one hand and held it an arm’s length from her body like it was a ticking bomb.

“Okay. Two minutes’ walk starts… now.” Lacy slowed.

“Thank you, God.” Christina adjusted her baseball cap and sucked in huge lungfuls of air.

“You’re welcome,” Lacy said.

Two girls on scooters overtook them, wheels scything a mucky track through layers of composting leaves, hair flying beneath helmets. They coasted to the verge, where a soft-serve ice‐cream van was torturing Kensington Gardens with
Greensleeves
on an endless loop.

“If Tate hasn’t called, why don’t
you
call him?” Lacy must have decided Christina had enough time to catch her breath because she picked up the conversation right where she’d left it after their last two‐minute walk.

“Because if I call first, he wins. I’ll be the one giving in,” Christina said.

“That makes zero sense. It’s not a competition.”

“He doesn’t want to consult for me, Lace. I know that, but I don’t know why. If I call him about the brand and he says no
again
, I’ve got nowhere to go. It makes it final. He almost told me the other night to my face he didn’t want the work. He would have if I hadn’t stopped him.” She kicked at a bottle‐top and sent it clattering into the gutter. “If he calls me first, it won’t be because he wants to talk about my brand. It leaves the door open.”

Lily Malone

Lacy turned and skipped backwards a pace, fists banging her hips. “I swear you’re making this more complicated than it has to be. What happened to Tarzan meets Jane. Jane like Tarzan. Tarzan like Jane. Tarzan drag Jane home by hair. I mean
crap
, CC. I saw more chemistry last Friday in your lounge‐room than I ever saw in science lab.”

Christina giggled. “Jane say Tarzan not put toilet seat down.”

“Cheetah shed too much hair on rug,” Lacy added, and it went on like that until she looked at her watch. “You sound so cool, CC, but you don’t fool me. It’s been four years since Bram. That’s long enough.”

“Don’t you dare,” Christina said.

“Dare what?”

“I know that look. You’re up to something.”

“I was thinking I could invite Tate to the wedding. You know—to say thanks for how he saved my party.”

“I already thanked him,” Christina pointed out. “And every time you play Cupid things go pear‐shaped.”

“Then don’t make me play Cupid,” Lacy said, an edge to her voice. “I mean. I just don’t get it. You pestered him for months when it was only about the brand. Now it’s turned personal you’ve morphed from pitbull into my nanna’s whippet.”

“I never knew your nan owned a whippet.”

“It jumps when its squeaky toy squeaks. Don’t change the subject,” Lacy said.

“Can’t you worry about your own happily ever after? In four more sleeps you morph into my sister‐in‐law. That’s when you can turn into a freaking harpy, no need to start early.” Christina thought she must be getting fitter. She’d just put three full sentences together.

Lacy checked her watch. “That’s two minutes up, sweetie. Get those little legs moving.”

Six more minutes of pain
. Christina struggled to a trot. At least it helped distract her from thoughts of Tate. He’d filled her head since Friday night. Every time she heard
Give Me
Shelter
she had to retrieve her heart from the ceiling. When she thought about his voice and the way he said
I want you
, it almost knocked her to her knees.

All that emotion scared her witless.

Ahead, Lacy detoured neatly around the queue at the ice‐cream van. Head down, Christina mumbled apologies and bowled straight through. One foot in front of the other.

****

More than two‐hundred delegates minced and ponced through the throng of AMPRA closing night drinks, all wearing suits and smartphones like badges of honour, calling it networking. The young man trying to engage Tate in conversation took a delicate sip of Heineken. Judging by the bulge in his eyes it almost went down the wrong way.

“I’d never even heard of neoliberalism till you spoke today, Mister Newell.”

“Well it exists, mate,” he responded, trying to remember the guy’s name so he could tell him to call him Tate. The Heineken bottle covered his nametag.
Terry
?

Tate wondered what Christina was doing; thought for the hundredth time about calling her. What would he say? I want you. I don’t want your business; or, I don’t want your business. I want you. He wasn’t sure why but the order seemed important.

The delegate put his beer bottle down and it let Tate see the name.
Trevor Beard
from Melbourne
.

“Cause marketing is a mechanism that allows business to make a profit out of society’s social problems and what you said today is that it’s big business that’s the root
cause
of most of those social problems,” Trevor said with an admiring shake of his head.

Tate wasn’t sure the guy had him verbatim but he was close enough.

“Take fast food chains,” Trevor continued, picking up his beer and waving it. “They create environmental and social problems when forests are cut down so more farmers can grow beef. The more of the stuff we eat the fatter we all get and then they encourage us to buy more of their meals because they’ll donate a dollar from every burger to the local school so it can buy footballs to keep the kids fit. And we all buy more burgers and applaud their generosity and think they’re such fine corporate citizens. I never thought of it like that.” Trevor’s watery blue gaze slipped around Tate’s shoulder and his eyes widened.

That’s when Tate felt a hand rub the small of his back and a drawl that still sounded like maple sugar over pancakes after thirty years in Australia declared: “Here you are, Tate.

You’re the hardest goddamn keynote speaker I’ve ever had to find. Shouldn’t you be signing autographs somewhere?”

“Jancis,” he said, leaning down to kiss her powdery‐soft cheek. “It’s good to see you.” He meant it. Jancis Woody had given him his first job fresh out of university and untaught him everything he’d learned in his three‐year marketing degree. She’d been his boss and mentor for eight years in Adelaide, then she’d moved her PR business to Sydney.

He’d stayed in Adelaide and gone out on his own to start Outback Brands. These days Jancis was his colleague and friend, and fifteen‐year friendships were rare in this business.

“Thanks, Mark.” Jancis Woody flashed a smile at the moustached official who’d helped push her wheelchair through the throng. “Can you find that photographer now, please, and get him over here?” The official disappeared in the direction of a camera flash.

Trevor Beard from Melbourne excused himself too.

“Do we have to do the photographs, J?” Tate said, already resigned to it. Jancis was on a mission which meant if he was Mohammed, the mountain was about to be moved.

“You betcha we’re doing photographs. The last one in my archives you were twenty-two and pimply. What are you now? Thirty‐eight?
Ancient
. No one will believe you were here if I don’t have hard proof. Lighten up and smile. We
are
in PR.”

Tate gave up his bar stool and helped Jancis into it. Sweat broke across her lip. For a moment her arms held all her weight, like she sat on a plank above an icy pool. He leaned lower, tucked his arm around her waist and held her until she could settle.

“Goddamn it sucks getting old.” The pain in her eyes was magnified through purple-rimmed glasses. “Thanks, honey. I hope you never need a new hip.”

He signalled a passing waiter for a glass of Shiraz and once Jancis was comfortable and the lopsided table stopped rocking, pushed it toward her.

“I thought walking was therapy. What’s with the chair?”

“I’ll get back to the physio when AMPRA is all over. That crackpot from the hospital needs his head examined, the things he expects a woman my age to do. I haven’t been able to touch my toes in twenty years. I’m not about to start now.”

Lily Malone

He laughed, picked up his beer. “Have you been crunching the board votes for numbers?”

“Yeah. I got president in the bag. Y’all might as well anoint me.” She looked around at the crowd. “Thanks to you putting in an appearance, we got double last year’s numbers.”

“Good for you.” No bubbles rose in his glass and he put it down untouched.

Jancis regarded him over the frames. “You look distracted, honey.”

He was opening his mouth to answer when his phone rang. Caller ID flashed an Adelaide number he didn’t recognise. He felt a ripple through the pit of his stomach.

Christina
.

“I have to take this, J.”

Jancis smiled in a way that showed most of her teeth, including the gold ones. Red wine bled a tiny stain through her bottom lip. “Sure. Go on. I’ll wait.”

He pressed
accept
, identified himself and waited for the buttery tones.

“Hello, Tate. This is Lacy Graham… I’m the girl who painted your chest last Friday night.”

“Of course I remember. How are you?”

Jancis made a lousy show of trying not to listen.

“I can hardly hear you.” Lacy’s voice rose. “Are you back yet? In Adelaide? Your office said you were at a conference. They gave me this number.”

He put his finger in his opposite ear to block out the noise. “Still in Sydney. I’m back tomorrow.”

“Oh. Great.” A pause. “I rang to invite you to my wedding. It’s this Saturday night.

That’s if you’re not busy.”

The crowd noise and flat beer and the too‐slow clock blew away. “I’m not busy.”