Desk Jockey Jam (6 page)

But he’d treated her no
differently.  He didn’t look at her more or less often.  He didn’t talk to her
more or less often.  He did however lose the worst of his pissed-off-ness.  She
got her usual good morning, her usual offer to bring back coffee or a sandwich,
her usual good night.  After a few days of this she stopped waiting for him to
confront her or start with the innuendos.  It seemed Kitty was safe to ride
again.

But Bree had wobbly
knees. 

Maybe it was seeing him
track-side looking weekend casual and slightly out of sorts surrounded by his
coupled-up mates, or it was all the surreptitiously checking him out she’d been
doing since then, watching to see if he was going to give the game away. 

He’d be easier to ignore
when the words coming out of his mouth conjured up end-of-year tax returns not
sultry nights, silk sheets and dirty sex.  Why did he have to say that? 
Couldn’t they have had that stupid, forgettable, state the obvious weather
conversation you generally had with people. 

He moved first and she
followed him up the buildings front stairs to the foyer.  When the doors slid
open it was like standing in front of a dinosaur-sized fridge.  The cold air
wrapped around her and relief shot straight to Bree’s head.  She sighed aloud. 
Anthony groaned with pleasure, lifting his face to the ceiling, bearing his
neck. 
Oh God
.  It was too easy imagining him doing that when....
shut
that down, right now.

They looked at each other
and laughed.  It was the single most personal moment they’d shared in twelve
months.  Then they got in the lift with a bunch of other people and went to
their floor, went to their desks and the next thing Bree knew she was nodding
goodnight to him across the office, and he was barely looking up at her as she
left and everything was as it should be.

6:        Bruised

Ant rested his board
against Dan’s Kombi.  The surf was crap this morning so they’d come back to
shore early which meant there was time to talk before he belted home to get
ready for work. 

“What are you supposed to
do when a chick has bruises?” 

Dan’s head came around
sharp.  “What kind of bruises?”

“Multicoloured ones, lots
of them.”

“Assume she’s accident
prone,” said Mitch.  He hopped about brushing sand from his foot.  “Or she’s
got a second rate ballroom partner who’s got two left everything.”

“That’s never going to get
old is it?” said Dan.  He pulled himself up on the promenade railing between
the Kombi and Ant’s Alfa and sat, his bare feet on the lower rail.

“By the time we’re sick of
it you’ll have more than two left everything and the stand-off with Ferdy over
that viral make-out video with you and Alex will be a full on knife fight” said
Fluke. 

“It’s because you have a
girlfriend you feel you can say any friggin’ stupid thing that comes to mind,
right?” said Dan.

Fluke grinned.  “Yeah,
pretty much.”  He dodged a back hander from Dan only to have the one Mitch
aimed at him connect with the side of his head.  Classic.  He was still
grinning though.  Nothing could wipe the grin off Fluke’s face since he and
Carlie had gotten together.

“The bruises,” said Dan. 
“Do you think some bastard is knocking her around?”

“I don’t know what to
think.  I’ve seen bruises, ugly, purple and green, on her arms twice now.  Once
weeks ago, early in the office before the air con kicked in.  She had her
jacket off and there were bruises all over her arms.  And then this week I ran
into her on the street.  Her shoulder was like a rainbow.  Both times she
covered up as soon as she saw me.”

“Is this same chick that
makes you rave on about how equal opportunity is a bad thing because it stops
the best and brightest?” said Mitch.

“Yep.”

“The same chick who got
promoted ahead of you,” he said.

“Thanks for the reminder.”

“Anytime.”

“What are we talking about
here?  You think some fuckwit is hurting her?” said Dan.  Fluke got up on the
railing beside him and Dan casually pushed him off.

Ant shrugged.  “I dunno,
but what if there is?”

Dan sighed.  “You find
out.”

“It’s none of my business.”

“She’s a colleague.  If
someone is knocking her around, it’s your business.  If some bastard is
knocking any woman around, it’s your business.  Why are you even hesitating?”

“You don’t know this chick. 
She’s private, reserved.  She’s a snob.”

“You think she’s beating
herself up?” said Fluke.  He got up on the railing without interference from
Dan.  It’d be so easy to tip him backwards onto the sand below.  Almost
deserved it for the stupid comment.  Ant took a step towards him and Fluke let
go his towel and grabbed the railing.  “I mean she says she walked into a door,
or fell down some stairs.”

Ant stopped with both hand
on Fluke’s shoulders and gave him light shove, just enough to be threatening. 
“No, I don’t think she’s beating herself up.”  He let go of Fluke and stepped
back.  “And I don’t think she’s accident prone, has a rare medical condition,
or plays a contact sport.  This girl is no Toni, no Miss Behavin on skates.”

“Well what?” said Dan.

“Fluke might have a
point.  She might be covering for being slapped around.  She does have,” he
paused, looking for the right word, “attitude.”

Dan came off the railing
and was in his face.  “Fuck, Ant.  I’ll do more than bruise you if you’re
suggesting she brings it on herself.”

He turned away and grabbed
his towel.  “Keep your hair on, Dan.  That’s not what I’m saying.  She won’t
take kindly to me interfering.”

“You’re not asking for her
full medical history.”

“I’ve hardly had a dozen
conversations with her outside work stuff.”

Dan went to object again,
but Mitch got in.  “Why’s it Ant’s problem?”

“Thank you, Mitch.”

Dan scowled at Mitch then
grabbed his board and stowed it in the Kombi.  “Explain to me how you’re going
to make this someone else’s problem and it’ll be the right thing to do.” 

Ant handed his board
over.  All their boards lived in the Kombi during summer.  “I can’t be the only
person to have noticed.”

Dan took Fluke’s board,
but instead of busying himself stacking it inside the Kombi, he focused his
baby blues on Ant.  The kind of sharp eyed focus that helped Dan change his
life.  “What?  You think there’s a first-in, first-response thing.  You think
there’s a pecking order for something like this, or a limit on the amount of
concern that can be shown?”

Ant held Dan’s stare.  Dan
wasn’t the only one who’d had a tough childhood.  Ant’s wasn’t near as bad—not
one tenth as bad, but he’d had to grow up fast, had to leave school early, get
a crap job and study at night.  He was still catching up.  He was the only one
in the Petersen’s team without a blue chip, right university, right degree
pedigree.  The only one who’d got there sideways from sheer persistence.  Oh
sure, he looked the part, acted it so well it was who he was now, but scratch
the Italian wool surface of his life and you got a scrapper like Dan, which
meant he knew exactly what he had to do.

“Ah shit.  I have to ask
her about it.”

·
      
 

Bree was at her desk, head
down and busy when Ant arrived in the office at his usual post surf time for the
first time in a good while.  She didn’t acknowledge him.  She’d not done more
than nod at him when she was leaving last night either.  And yet they’d shared
a laugh yesterday and an actual shared understanding moment.  At least that’s
what he’d thought.  Must’ve gotten that wrong.

Lately he’d been skipping
the morning surf more often than he was making it to the beach to get a jump on
the work day, and even though the air con wasn’t firing, the reception from
Bree was usually frosty enough to keep him cool. 

Without doing more than
giving him a weak smile and a bland good morning, with a side of ‘you’re early’,
that was more, ‘officer he did it’, Bree made it known he was spoiling her
peace.  So he hoped she was happy this morning because sometime today he’d be
invading more than her sense of early morning office ownership.  He couldn’t
pretend he hadn’t seen those bruises on her arms and he had to ask, even if he
wasn’t the first.  Even if it upped her frost quotient towards him.

And that’s what made this
so much harder.  Bree already gave off intense dislike.  Not that she was
overly friendly with anyone on the team, except Christine and that was a girl’s
club thing, and the competitive nature of the office ensured they were all
rivals before they were friends, but still, if there was anyone she avoided more,
it was him.  And if her reaction to him coming in early wasn’t enough of a tip-off
then there was the never sitting beside him at team meetings, going so far as
standing instead of taking the last seat near him, never accepting his group
invitations to lunch or Friday night drinks, and rarely if ever making eye
contact.  No wonder he’d figured her for a snob and a bitch and stopped trying
to engage her.  As far as he was aware, the only thing he’d done to make her
eyes shoot icicles of hatred at him was exist. 

Ordinarily he couldn’t
care less about something like that, but since his epiphany in the shape of a
girl who likes girls, he did care.  Because post the fiasco with Toni, he
wasn’t sure he hadn’t missed something important about Bree and how she reacted
to him, and that made him even less sure how to approach this.

For all of five seconds,
he thought about going around the problem and talking to Christine.  It was
likely she’d know, and if she did, and it turned out Bree was the worlds most
clumsy person, then this whole thing was done with.  He could stop worrying
about it.  But if Chris didn’t know, and he raised it with her, and it turned
out Bree dressed the way she did, trousers and long sleeves on days when all
the other women wore lighter summer clothes, because she was hiding something
terrible, then he was making things worse for her by dragging more people into
it. 

He had to think like Bree
was a monster wave, face her, take it to her, paddle like mad and then get the friggin’
hell out of there if things got too hairy before he got pummelled to pieces.

It took him all day to get
his approach right.  And even then the water was choppy.  Bree was in one of
the client meeting rooms using the table to compile a report that must’ve got
screwed up by the photocopier.  He watched her go in.  He knew that room only
had one glass wall facing a little used corridor and a door that closed.  It
was perfect for a private conversation.  He went in and shut the door behind
him and it was only then he realised it was also perfect for making someone
feel cornered.

Bree’s, “What do you
want?” was so sharp it could snap a leg rope.

“I, ah.  Wanted a moment
with you.”

“A moment?”  Ant could
almost believe it was possible to catch frostbite from words alone.

“Yeah, I wanted to ask you
something.”

“I’m sure the door could
be open while we have the moment.”

“Yeah, but it’d be better
if it wasn’t.”

“Open the door, Anthony,
you’re making me uncomfortable.”

“Why do you call me
Anthony?  Not even my Nonna calls me that.”

“Is that what you came in
here for?  I’m happy to call you Santa Claus if you’ll go.”

He sat and she said,
“Don’t,” so he stood, but he towered over her, she was only a little thing, so
he sat again and she said, “What’s going on?”

“Why do you hate me so
much?”  That wasn’t the question he’d planned on asking but since he was
already in the water, he might as well get wet.

“Are you for real?  You
come in here for no good reason, shut the door, complain about me using your
given name and want to know why I hate you.  I don’t hate you.  But I might
start if you don’t leave me alone.”

“You really don’t hate me?”

“Ant.”  She said it very
deliberately.  “This job is exhausting.  I don’t have any energy left over to
summon hate for anything other than olives and anchovies.”

He grinned.  “You hate
olives?  They’re like chocolate in my family.”

“Well, there we go.  I
must hate you because you like olives and I think they should be wiped from the
face of the earth.”

Ha, he hadn’t realised how
funny Bree was.  “You really hate olives?”

“I’d really like you to
go.”

“Can’t do that.  Haven’t
had my moment.  You truly find this job exhausting?”

“No, I find I can do it
half asleep and skating backwards while knitting a jumper and whistling
Sadie
the Cleaning Lady
.  Yes, I find it exhausting.  Now moment over,” she
pointed to the corridor.  “Get out.”

Jesus, she was funny. 
Funny beat icy and got to drink a beer with the boys afterwards.  The moment
was definitely not over.  “I find it exhausting too.  I’m going to have to give
up my morning surf altogether.  I need more time to get across it all.”