Mango Kisses (24 page)

‘Hello Sharon. I just dropped in to say goodbye. I’m leaving early in the morning.’

‘Oh.’ She straightened and wiped her hands on her skirt. ‘We’ll miss you. What a pity Jim’s not here. He’ll be sorry not to have seen you.’ Her face brightened. ‘Why don’t you come home with me for dinner?’

So typical of them. Their generosity far outweighed any advice she’d given them. ‘Oh, no, thanks. I’m sorry. I’ve just ordered from Xanthi.’

Sharon held out her hand. ‘Come and see us when you get back.’

Tiffany clasped Sharon’s strong fingers. ‘Thanks for everything. I doubt whether I’ll be back.’

‘You will.’

Tiffany went next door to the takeaway where two families with a gaggle of small children were clogging up the doorway. She eased her way through.

Xanthi beamed and dumped a white paper-wrapped bundle on the counter.

‘I give you extra chips,’ she announced loudly. ‘Because you are too skinny.’

‘I’m leaving tomorrow, Xanthi,’ she said.

‘When are you coming back?’

‘I don’t think I will be. I’ve finished my work here.’

‘Miles will miss you.’ Xanthi accompanied this statement with a nod and a wink. ‘You must come back to see him. He needs a smart girl like you.’

‘I doubt it.’ Not strictly true but close enough for this interrogator and the flapping ears of the other customers. She knew what Miles
needed
her for and she’d completed that assignment. She also knew now what he
wanted
her for — the same thing every man with a belly full of beer and a lustful eye wants.

‘Maybe Miles will visit you.’ Another nod and an even bigger wink. ‘Plenty of money now.’

‘Thanks, Xanthi.’ Tiffany held out a twenty-dollar note hoping to cut the one-sided conversation off before questions started flying which she couldn’t and wouldn’t answer.

‘Where’s your friend?’ Xanthi dived into the till and jangled coins.

‘She left this morning.’

‘She didn’t say goodbye.’ Black mark against the nice Greek girl.

‘Didn’t she?’ Tiffany took the change and slipped it into her purse. ‘I’m leaving very early so I’ll say goodbye now. Thank you.’

‘You come back very soon,’ ordered Xanthi. ‘Or I will tell Miles to go and get you from where you live.’

Tiffany managed a smile, hot cheeks almost cracking under the strain. She began edging her way through the crowd, which seemed reluctant to allow its unexpected entertainment to leave. She avoided eye contact and concentrated on finding a route through the forest of sunburned, shorts and t-shirt clad bodies.

What had possessed her to think Xanthi could be a friend? A gossip and a matchmaker more like it — the downside of country towns. Jim had mentioned that everyone knew everyone else’s business and took an active interest. He liked the sense of community. ‘City living isolates people from each other,’ he’d said.

Her relationship with Miles was common knowledge in the takeaway. Tiffany strode along the footpath, humiliation and embarrassment fuelling her legs. Just wait till Xanthi got the next instalment. Thank goodness she wouldn’t be here to undergo the inquisition after turning down an avowal of love from Xanthi’s Number One boy. Xanthi would find out somehow. She knew everything.

Tiffany’s pace slowed as she reached the motel forecourt. Kevin needed a little sane and sensible talking to so he could get his ambitions in perspective. He had to be made to think rationally. Things had to be said for his own good. Typical of Marianne to clear out and leave the mess for someone else to sort. She probably hadn’t given Kevin a second thought this morning before hitting the high road.

Dinner first. She needed sustenance to tackle this properly.

The fish and chips settled uncomfortably in her stomach, or maybe it was the coming encounter with Kevin weighing her down when she approached the office. She firmed her mouth, steeled her nerve and pushed the door open.

‘Tiffany, I’m so glad you dropped in I need to ask you a few things.’ The face smiling at her was so completely altered from the Kevin she expected to confront that her mouth dropped open. She snapped it shut.

The pale blue eyes had the same sparkle as those of last night’s chanteuse. His skin glowed. He looked years younger. He even stood up straighter. Tiffany had always assumed he was on the shady side of forty-five, nudging fifty, but right now she’d guess he was thirty-five, tops. And he looked an inch or two taller than before, unless he still had last night’s heels on, to go with the white shirt and jeans.

‘Oh, ‘ she said. ‘I wanted to fix up my account I’m leaving in the morning. Early.’

‘So soon?’ That was genuine dismay.

‘I’ve finished the business I had here.’

‘But there are so many things I need to discuss with you. About moving and so on.’ Now it was almost a wail of despair. Was he about to burst into tears?

‘Are you sure it’s the right thing to do?’ asked Tiffany.

‘Yes. Definitely.’ Two red splodges appeared in the pasty cheeks but his voice was firm and an octave lower.

‘But it’s such a big change and so sudden. You haven’t planned it or anything.’

‘I know but Baron and I were talking last night, for hours and hours, and we decided sometimes you just have to do it.’ A smile appeared. ‘It’s exciting, like leaping out of an aeroplane.’

Tiffany grimaced. ‘I’ve never done that.’

‘Neither have I but I’m going to now.’ He thumped one fist gently on the counter top.

‘When are you leaving?’ she asked, defeated by his enthusiasm and childlike confidence. In contrast she must sound like the disapproving great aunt. She even felt like one. She’d never done anything remotely risky or unpremeditated where she wasn’t totally sure of the outcome, except going to the kissing course. But that was hardly as much of a challenge as the one Kevin was proposing, it hadn’t threatened to bring about a complete change of life as she knew it. Although, as it turned out…

‘I’ll have to give the owner a month’s notice, I suppose,’ he said grudgingly, sounding faintly like the Kevin of old for a moment.

‘You should. What did you want to ask me?’

‘I’ll need to rent. Where do you think I should look? What area?’

‘Aren’t you staying with your friends in Darlinghurst?’

‘Yes I can, but not for more than a night or two. I’d rather find somewhere and move in directly. I’ll have all my things to store if I don’t have my own place. I was wondering, do you think you could find a reputable agent and check out some flats for me?’

He gazed at her expectantly. Marianne! She should be the one standing here being put on the spot like this! Flat hunting Tiffany’s worst nightmare.

‘I don’t really know what you’d be looking for.’
Cripes! Help!
‘Prices and size and stuff like that.’

‘I think I’d only need one bedroom and I’d like to be fairly central. You know the best areas to be in, don’t you? I don’t know Sydney well at all.’

Oh God!
Tiffany’s mind raced. How much money did he have? What sort of income? Or was it about to be cut off when he quit the motel position? Did he have savings to fall back on? Millions of questions clamoured for attention that didn’t appear to have occurred to Kevin and certainly wouldn’t to Marianne.

‘I don’t want to pry,’ she said in her most professional voice, ‘but what sort of back-up do you have? Financially, I mean. Are you prepared to subsist on your savings? Will you need to find a job fairly quickly to pay your rent? You’ll need to pay a bond, you realise?’

‘I have a little put away,’ he said. ‘There’s not much spending opportunity here and my board is taken care of.’

Tiffany nodded. That was a relief of sorts. ‘You’ll need to get a job though, won’t you?’

‘I think one of my friends could help me there.’

‘Well, I’d suggest you ring them and get that straightened out as soon as possible. I can check out real estate agents and let you know what’s available but I won’t have time to look at anything for you. I’m sorry but I work long hours and it would take too long. I mean, you’d be ready to move before I’d be able to do anything about it. Maybe one of those friends could help. Do you have internet access? That would be easiest. Check out places online, choose a few and ask one of your friends to have a look for you.’

‘Baron does. Thank you, Tiffany. You’re such a treasure. You and Marianne — absolute diamonds. I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t come along. You’ve changed my life.’

‘I just hope it works out for you. Here’s my card so you can call me whenever you need to.’ She smiled as genuinely as she possibly could under the circumstances and added, ‘If you need financial advice or something. Anything. Help of any sort.’ When this whole thing comes crashing down around your ears and you’re broke, homeless and your dream of being a singer is in the gutter thanks to the flippant, excited ravings of an irresponsible maniac named Marianne.

‘Thank you.’ The pale eyes filled with unshed tears.

‘Can I pay my account now, please?’ Tiffany said firmly before things got out of control and he flung himself upon her in embarrassing watery gratitude.

‘I shouldn’t charge you a cent.’

‘You should. I’m not paying much anyway, most of it goes on my client’s account.’

Miles, her client. He wasn’t any more. He’d asked if he could take her to dinner and she’d told him after her work was finished. It was and he hadn’t mentioned that dinner date at all. He wanted to skip the preliminaries and go straight to bed. Beachfront gigolo. Maybe he chatted up all the single, holidaying women.

Should she be flattered? Lots of girls would be. Marianne made herself quite clear when she was interested. Was that Tiffany’s problem, one of her many problems, with men? Too restrained? There was nothing she’d like more than to leap into Miles’s bed with him, but not after a couple of beery kisses and a grope. Would other women find that insulting? Disappointing? Surely.

‘Will I use the card details you’ve already given?’

Tiffany surfaced from her miserable, confusing reverie and nodded. She signed the receipt slip when he passed it across to her and put it in her bag. That was it, the end of her Birrigai adventure.

‘It’s a lovely place. You’ll probably miss it,’ said Tiffany.

‘No. I won’t,’ he stated with all the conviction of a man newly released from prison.

‘I will.’

‘You can come back any time you like. Retire here.’ He laughed. ‘Mind you, you could get plenty of work. It’s just not the sort of place where someone like you would want to live. Far too dull and boring.’

‘It has its charm though, the quiet life.’

What did he imagine she did in the city? He’d be very disappointed if he knew her days revolved around organising other people’s money. It was all about keeping Erik happy, staying two steps ahead of Victor, her ambitious colleague, fighting for a seat on the bus twice a day, eating microwave dinners for one, collapsing into bed then getting up to go for a run along paved city streets and do the whole thing over again. She’d have the occasional boozy evening with Marianne, which she realised suddenly, had become her sole social outlet apart from work-related functions. She hadn’t even dropped in on her parents for at least a couple of months, since her mother’s birthday in July, only the odd, quick, dutiful catch up phone call.

‘Hah. You’ve only been here a week. Try fourteen years.’

‘Is that how long you’ve been running this motel?’

‘No. I worked as a kitchen hand at a restaurant on the highway for a few years and as a waiter when I was a teenager. Then I did a trade course. This job came up ten years ago and I got it, mainly because no-one else wanted it.’

‘Did you know Nancy Frobisher?’

‘Yes. Not well but yes. She was an odd sort of woman. Very intense. Why?’

‘She was Miles’s mother.’

‘Yes, I know. She was a devoted greenie. Always protesting about something: a new road or the opening up of new land for houses. Save the three-legged, tailless lizard. You know the type.’

‘Yes. Miles isn’t like that.’

‘No. He’s pretty laid back.’

‘Did she ever have a boyfriend?’

‘Not that I know of. She would have been difficult to live with, I imagine. Quite scary.’

‘Miles and his mother both knew about Fleur, didn’t they?’ she said.

‘Yes. I ran into Nancy in Coffs once. I was with Baron after a show. She’d been to some meeting or other. She recognised me instantly.’ He paused and a frown flitted across his face. ‘It was odd. Of all people she was someone I expected to be quite understanding, open-minded. You know?’

Tiffany nodded. ‘What did she say?’

‘Nothing much but she had the strangest look on her face. It was as if she disapproved on a deeply personal level but accepted it was my choice. It’s hard to explain, it wasn’t the usual reaction of shock or laughter. But she never breathed a word in the town. She knew how to keep a secret.’

She certainly did. And maybe, just maybe, Kevin had given her the reason for Nancy’s harsh separation of her son from his father. The man was at the very least a cross-dresser and she couldn’t handle it, didn’t want her precious son contaminated or her own reputation smeared. Tragic, sad and cruel in the extreme. Especially as by all accounts Grant was a lonely, shy man, harbouring urges he was powerless to control and ashamed to bring to light. And he loved his son.