The Summer Without You (40 page)

‘Oh. Sorry.’

‘On the contrary, tell me more.’ Melodie pinned her with beseeching eyes, trying to make up.

She shrugged, a little less moody. ‘I really don’t know much. I haven’t met him yet – she’s been very cagey about him. All I know so far is that he’s older
and drives a Porsche.’

‘Sounds perfect,’ Melodie quipped light-heartedly.

Ro budged. ‘That’s what
I
said – although he’s a bit pigeon-toed apparently. But Bobbi’s prepared to forgive him that because he’s also a non-exec. Her
first
.’

Melodie frowned and Ro rolled her eyes. ‘I know – her ambition is boundless, but it’s impossible to hate her for it. She’s actually very sweet when you get to know her, a
pussycat really,’ Ro protested, before mumbling, ‘just with very sharp claws.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Melodie nodded, but her eagerness to bond had slipped a little now, and Ro knew she profoundly disapproved. As if her opinion of Bobbi hadn’t been low enough after
sitting through an evening of watching her flirting with her husband . . .

‘Hey, it’s really not her fault. She’s never been in love. Until that happens, she chooses her boyfriends according to spec.’

Melodie had to grin. ‘Ro, you are loyal to a fault. You see the best in everyone, even when they don’t deserve it. She’s lucky to have you as a friend.’ Melodie stretched
her legs in front of her. ‘We all are.’

She winked at Ro – peace seemingly restored – and a small, flattered smile sat on Ro’s lips like a kiss as Melodie began leading the class in the warm-up incantations. Ro
chanted in unison, determined to relax and find a little peace. This was her safe place, a refuge from the pressures pushing in on her in the outside world. But when she closed her eyes, it
wasn’t Matt she found drifting through her subconscious.

Ro trailed in Bobbi’s wake, racks of clothes fluttering like flowers in the wind as her hand trailed over them, her keen eye trained for the print, colour, fabric or
shape that would transform her from ‘date’ to ‘hot date’.

Ro didn’t touch anything. Ironically, in spite of the fact that she was working almost round the clock and nearly at the point of having to turn work away, she was still broke after her
splurge in New York. Obviously, with Florence in such a weakened state, the last thing she was going to do was hand in her invoice for the Legacy job, and she had had to wait till the newlyweds had
returned from honeymoon only two weeks ago before she could even present them with their images for the first edit, much less a bill. She had a small payment due imminently for the surprise
fortieth shoot, but that was it so far. The Connor job was huge, of course, and dominating her working days, but she was still only a third of the way through it, having completed the film
run-throughs and annotations, and was now editing and splicing them. Next up were the photobooks, which would involve going through all their stills (she dreaded to think how many tens of thousands
there might be), and then finally, she had to set up the shoot of the children – once Finn’s hair was suitably photogenic. She wouldn’t see any money before September, at the
earliest. If, indeed, she ever would. Her suspicions about Ted’s actions around Florence persisted, no matter how she tried to arrange the facts – there was just too much coincidence
involved – and she found it almost perverse to be editing a film that showed him as the perfect family man. Irony in motion.

Something waggled in front of her line of vision, drawing her out of her head. Bobbi was holding up a dress for her opinion – black, skater-style, sort of knitted, with little peekaboo
holes in rows along the bust, waist, hips and down the skirt.

Ro frowned.

‘It’s lined, you prude!’ Bobbi chuckled, showing her the inside of the dress.

‘Oh. Well, in that case, be my guest.’

‘Aren’t you going to try anything on?’ Bobbi asked, as she marched towards the dressing room.

Ro absently picked up the price tag of a folded T-shirt: $330! ‘Nope. Don’t have that kind of money. Don’t have that kind of life.’ She wandered over to where Bobbi was
changing, sat down on a leather chair and waited.

‘So, is this for anywhere in particular?’

Silence emanated from behind the curtain.

‘Bobbi?’

Bobbi poked her head through, her hands clutching the fabric below her chin. ‘It’s for Kevin.’

‘Kevin?’ A name! She had a name – and it wasn’t Brook’s! She tried not to appear elated. ‘He’s the older man, is he?’

‘Uh-huh. But don’t tell a
soul
.’

‘Of course not,’ Ro agreed solemnly. ‘So then, the pitch at dinner went . . . well?’

‘It did go . . . well.’ Bobbi grinned, winking and disappearing into the changing room again.

‘I thought you seemed perky!’ Ro was quiet for a moment, slightly depressed that even Bobbi – who by her own confession was concentrating on her ‘conversion’ to
partner – was getting some action while her enforced chastity soldiered on. ‘And nobody at work suspects anything?’

‘Why should they? We know how to be professional about it. Kevin doesn’t want it getting out any more than I do.’

‘Right.’ Ro hoped that wasn’t code for ‘married with kids’. She inspected her fingernails. Grubby, broken, unmanicured. Over two months in the Hamptons and what had
she learned? ‘So are we going to get to meet him? Are you going to bring him to the house for Hump and me to inspect?’

‘What are you, my parents?’ she laughed. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! He’d run a mile if he met you guys.’

‘Hey!’ Ro protested, just as the curtain whisked back and Bobbi stepped out like a Lipizzaner – all high steps and dainty ankles. ‘Oh wow!’ Ro laughed, her hands
flying to her mouth in amazement. ‘That looks incredible on you.’

‘You like?’ Bobbi asked, turning to admire her reflection in the mirror behind her.

‘Like? I love! You’ve got to get it. Got to!’

Bobbi pouted thoughtfully, jamming her hands onto her tiny waist. ‘It’s kind of expensive.’

‘Whatever it is, it’s worth it. Get it,’ Ro said, waving her hands dismissively.

Bobbi hitched up an eyebrow. ‘Like eighteen hundred dollars expensive.’

‘Shut the front door!’ Ro burst out, using Hump’s favourite phrase, something that had started to become a habit of late. Wasn’t that the same as a wedding dress?

Bobbi preened, swishing the skirts left to right, showing off her tight thighs, her arms lean and sculpted. She looked stunning, but then, with her figure, she’d look knockout in an $18
dress too.

‘Yeah. He’s worth it,’ she decided, nodding her head firmly and sashaying back into the changing room.

‘Blimey. You must really like him.’

‘I do.’

‘I mean, really, really, really like him.’

‘I told you he’s a non-exec, right?’

‘Bobbi!’

Bobbi’s head stuck through the curtain again. ‘What? Listen, don’t get all preachy on me, Miss Childhood Sweetheart. No guy gets to pull a number on me.
My
terms.
Sentiment gets you nowhere. Jack shit.’

Ro shook her head, wondering how it was they managed to share a conversation, much less a house.

They walked up to the till together, Bobbi holding out the dress like it was an offering to the gods. Ro tried to read the label, but couldn’t pronounce it.

‘How d’you even say that?’ she asked.

‘Azz-ed-ine A-lai-a.’

But Ro still couldn’t get it. ‘I’ll stick to Gap. It’s more A-B-C.’

‘Anything so long as you’re not in Matt’s clothes.’ Bobbi rolled her eyes. ‘You have
no
idea how much it stressed me out looking at you swaddled and swamped
in your boyfriend’s stuff. It was like some sad, desperate, “abandoned ex” look. I mean, I say that with love, right? You know, you look pretty hot now. You got a tan, dropped
some weight—’

‘Cut out the animals nesting in my hair.’

Bobbi chuckled, then winced as she handed over her credit card. ‘Oh Jeez, I must be mad – it’ll be noodles for me for the next month.’

‘Like you said, he’s worth it. But I’ve got to meet him. You’re spending nearly two grand on looking nice for him! I mean, come on!’

‘OK, maybe. But just you. Hump’ll go into his thumb-wrestling, shoulder-bumping, surf-dude mode and Kevin’s not like that. He’s fifty-one, for Chrissakes. He wears
cufflinks!’

‘Enough said. It can be our secret.’

‘Well, it’s only fair we have one. I reckon Hump’s keeping one from us,’ Bobbi said confidingly, taking her receipt and the tissue-wrapped dress.

‘Why do you say that?’ Ro frowned as they sauntered out of the boutique together, back into the sunshine. They stopped on the pavement, their mission accomplished and wondering where
to go next.

‘Coffee at Colette’s?’ Bobbi asked rhetorically, looping her arm through Ro’s and leading her towards the turquoise-umbrella-ed cafe on the opposite side of the road.
‘Because I was in the kitchen when he came in this morning and I asked him where he’d been.’

‘And?’

‘He said he’d been kayaking.’

‘Well, yeah, I go with him sometimes. He goes most days.’

‘Maybe he
used
to.’

Ro turned to look at Bobbi, who was wearing a mysterious smile on her face. ‘What are you getting at? Just spit it out.’

‘I saw his kayak propped against the shed in the backyard, where he always keeps it.’

‘
So?
’ Ro cried, laughing at Bobbi’s long-winded tease.

‘So, I saw it when I filled the kettle when I first came down – at least forty minutes before he came in.’ She looked across at Ro meaningfully. ‘He was out, but he
wasn’t kayaking. I think he’s got himself a girlfriend and he doesn’t want us to know.’

‘Ha! That’s it? Listen, Bobbi, Hump
always
has someone on the go. You’ve got no idea what he’s like during the week. It’s a new girl at breakfast three days
of the week.’

Bobbi clamped Ro’s arm closer in to her. ‘Yeah, so why keep it a secret, then?’

‘Same reason as you?’

‘He’s self-employed! He doesn’t have any bosses to hide it from,’ Bobbi shrieked excitedly as they crossed the wide road, trucks stopping to let them pass. ‘Nope,
he lied for a reason, Ro. And I, for one, am going to find out why.’

Greg was lying out in the garden when they got back, muscles gleaming like each one had been individually polished. Both Ro and Bobbi stopped talking and walking at the sight
of him.

‘Hey!’ he said, shading his eyes from the glare of the sun. ‘Where have you been? Hump wanted to try to put a four together for tennis. Now that we have a champion in the house
–’ he grinned, displaying his perfect teeth ‘– we thought we could show off at the Maidstone.’

‘They have courts there?’ Ro asked, walking out onto the veranda. Bobbi followed at a distance.

‘Grass. Perfect for
your
game.’

Greg’s eyes tracked Bobbi in the shadows. ‘Get anything nice?’ he asked, clocking the expensive boutique bags.

‘Not really.’

‘Not really?’ Ro laughed in disbelief. ‘She just spent nearly two grand on
one
dress!’

Greg’s eyes stayed on Bobbi, but his expression was cooler. ‘It must be an important event.’

‘It is.’

‘Care to share?’

‘Nope.’

Greg looked back at Ro and gave a small half-shrug. Whatever. ‘Thirsty, Ro?’ Greg asked, leaning down and pulling a Coke from the blue cold box beside his lounger.

Ro turned, just in time to see Bobbi storming through the back door, bags bustling about her knees like balloons.

What could she do? She’d already taken on Melodie on her behalf, but she couldn’t fight all Bobbi’s battles for her, and no one could say she hadn’t provoked Greg into
this eventual retaliation.

He handed her the drink as she clambered onto the squeaky sunbed beside him and she picked up the well-thumbed copy of
Dan’s Papers
, the local newspaper. It had a colour-magazine
cover, and Hump’s adverts were always prominently displayed on the inside front page. She began rifling through it noisily.

‘So, what are you up to tonight?’ she asked, scrutinizing the pretty girl in this ad. Ro was pretty sure they’d breakfasted together at some point. Laura? Lauren? Lowri?

‘It’s a big one, actually. I shouldn’t really be here. I ought to be helping out, but . . .’ He tipped his head back, angling his face to the sun for a moment.
‘Man, it feels so good just to stop for a moment, you know? Things are going to get crazy later and I really need to take a bit of time out and just get my head straight . . .’

‘Uh-huh.’ She flicked towards the back to the ‘House & Home’ section, where she’d paid for her Marmalade Media advert to be positioned between a custom closet
company and . . . a rentable mechanical rodeo bull? She was sure they’d said it was an ad for an annual radio ball. She shrugged. There
might
be an overlap in their customer base . .
.

‘. . . I hope you’ll join us. I’m sorry it’s such short notice now. I don’t know what happened to your invitations. I wrote them myself, but Erin’s just had
so much to oversee, as you can imagine. They must have been put down somewhere and—’

Ro squinted, paying more attention to what Greg was saying again. ‘Sorry? What invitations?’

‘For the charity cocktail party we’re throwing in Southampton tonight. Didn’t Hump tell you about it?’

‘I haven’t seen him yet today.’ He’d been too busy sneaking into the house, keeping secrets if Bobbi’s hunch was right.

‘Oh. Well, can you make it? It’s for a good cause, and I’d like you to really meet my friends properly.’

‘It sounds . . .’ She wanted to say ‘lovely’, but after the fiasco at the Gilded Heights – Hump’s affectionate nickname for Wes Turner’s place –
tennis competition the other week, she wasn’t sure anything ‘big money’ was her bag.

‘It’s not going to be like the Wes Turner gala, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ he said. Thanks to Hump convincing his printer mate to run up a banner printed
with ‘Ro *hearts* Wes’ and tying it to the stair banister, she hadn’t been allowed to forget that particular weekend. ‘In fact, it couldn’t be further from that.
Tonight will be much more . . . subtle. And Hump’s coming.’