Party of Three. Joan Kilby
you be like Kathy and inhabit the moment?”
Inhabit the moment? Was this some new psychobabble buzz phrase? “I can’t believe you’re comparing me unfavorably to your secretary, the woman you call Jezebel behind her back. She’d try to seduce the Pope if he came to town.”
“At least she doesn’t dress like a nun in civvies.”
Ally glanced at her white blouse, navy skirt and low comfortable shoes. Good quality, neat and clean. What was wrong with that? She wasn’t like her sister, Melissa, who wore silks and satins from the vintage dress shop where she worked, or her mother, Cheryl, Vogue elegant in all black, all the time. She definitely wasn’t like her father, Tony, who used clothes the way an actor did costumes, with a different getup for every role he played in his various money-making schemes.
Ally was the ordinary one in her family, the sensible one. The only whimsical note in her conservative style was her colorful collection of brooches. “There’s nothing wrong with the way I dress.”
George checked his watch and with an impatient sigh, tossed down the newspaper, which slipped off the breakfast table in separate sheets. “Now I’m going to be late,” he said dabbing ineffectually at the purple jam splotch on his shirt. “I have a lot of work to do before an important meeting this afternoon.”
The implication that this was somehow her fault strengthened the traitorous thoughts that had been tiptoeing through her mind for weeks. She didn’t want to marry George. She’d made a huge mistake. If she needed proof, there was the fact they hadn’t made love in months and she didn’t care. That couldn’t be right.
She worried all through breakfast and getting ready for work. A breakup was inevitable. Working up the guts to say she wanted out was hard but had to be done, and soon. It was only fair to George who, like his predecessors wasn’t a bad man, just not the right one for her.
Who was? And why did she keep making mistakes when it came to men?
As she passed the barometer on her way out the door she stopped and contrary to her usual custom, gave it a second tap. The needle fell another twenty millibars toward Stormy.
George, briefcase in hand, touched his lips to her cheek leaving behind the faint scent of cloves. When was the last time he’d really kissed her? she wondered, and a mocking internal voice replied, when was the last time you wanted him to?
This made her sad. Once upon a time they’d been in love—or at least she’d convinced herself they were. Suddenly she needed to know. “George…” She flung her arms around his neck and planted her mouth on his. Incredibly, he resisted at first. She persisted and finally he opened his lips. His tongue bumped blindly against her teeth like a warm slug. So much for excitement. She felt nothing inside, not even a flicker of tenderness.
Drawing back, she avoided his eyes and handed him a furled black umbrella from the hall closet. “Take this. There’s a storm coming.”
“You and your barometer.” He chucked her under the chin and favored her with a gently patronizing smile. “Look outside—the weather’s perfect.”
Through the lounge-room window she could see the town nestled in the valley below, red tile roofs and church spires sticking up through the gray-green eucalyptus trees and darker pines. On the far side of the valley, clear to the distant rolling hills, the sky was a pale crystalline-blue, not a cloud in sight. For a split second the gap between hard scientific evidence and what she saw with her own eyes gave her a queer feeling in her stomach, as if she’d been turned upside down.
But she knew what she knew. Change was coming.
Taking a deep breath, Ally said, “When I get home tonight, we have to talk.”
“Fine,” George replied, unconcerned. Either he didn’t know the underlying meaning of the expression or he didn’t give a rat’s you-know-what about anything she might say.
Ally retrieved her own umbrella and locked the front door behind them, then waved goodbye to George as he backed his cream-colored Mercedes-Benz out of the driveway and drove off to his office, thirty miles away in Ballarat.
Every day, rain or shine, she walked the seven blocks down the long hill into Tipperary Springs. She had a car, small and nondescript, tucked away in the garage, but Ally liked listening to the birds and seeing the flowers bud and bloom in people’s gardens. This morning the air was heavy and still. The noisy rainbow lorikeets that fed in the flowering gums outside the Convent Gallery were silent, and in the center of town the purple and yellow pansies that filled the planters along Main Street were wilting after days of heat.
Ally passed her mother’s art gallery. Through the open door she saw Cheryl setting out the guest book on the front desk. She lifted her sleek champagne-colored head, saw Ally and smiled. Without breaking stride, Ally waved. A few weeks from now her parents would celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary. Ally was in charge of ordering the cake, sending out invitations, arranging for food and drink. Her family tended to rely on her for things like that but she didn’t mind; organization was what she did.
Ally headed toward the rental agency where she worked. The agency acted for cottage owners who rented out their properties. Tipperary Springs’s population of four thousand swelled on weekends and holidays when city dwellers and tourists flocked to the resort town, an hour west of Melbourne. Besides taking bookings, Ally made sure there was a bottle of chilled champagne, complimentary chocolates and fresh-cut flowers in every cottage.
Every morning Ally opened the office, which occupied the ground floor of a heritage-listed building. She’d brightened up the stone pillars, marble floors and high ceilings with colorful posters and potted palms. Along the walls, wooden racks displayed pamphlets of local attractions—wineries, lavender farms, glass blowing, ballooning—you name it, Tipperary Springs had it.
Ally was checking her e-mail when Lindy came in and dumped her purse on her desk. “It’s hot!” she said, pulling her damp blouse away from her chest. Perspiration ringed her armpits and her filmy skirt was stuck to her thighs. “When is this weather going to break?”
“Later today. We’re in for some rain.” The phone rang and Ally reached for it. “Tipperary Springs Cottage Rentals. Ally Cummings speaking. How may I help you?”
“Ally, it’s Olivia. How’s everything going?”
“Ticking along nicely,” Ally replied. Olivia owned the Cottage Rentals plus she ran a travel agency in Ballarat. She frequently dropped into the office unexpectedly to ensure Ally was maintaining her exacting standards. “What’s up?”
“I just got word the American tour group is leaving New Zealand a day early and arriving here tonight,” Olivia said, getting right down to business. “Will the cottage they’re booked into be available?”
“Let me check. That was Kingsford Cottage, if I remember correctly.” Ally drew up the page on her computer. “Yes, it’s empty. There’s no problem with them coming tonight.”
“Excellent,” Olivia said. “By the time they get through customs and drive to Tipperary Springs it’ll be at least seven-thirty.”
“No problem,” Ally assured her employer. “I’ll be here until eight o’clock as usual. If they can’t make it before then, tell them to give me a call and I’ll wait.”
“These people are from travel agencies in Los Angeles,” Olivia said. “If we make a good impression, who knows how much extra business will come our way. Put out the twenty-dollar bottle of champagne and the liqueur chocolates instead of the plain ones.”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” Ally said. And truly, it was.
She wasn’t finding a cure for cancer or building a rocket to the moon but she liked to think that because of her attention to detail, her experience and her caring, stressed-out couples who picked up their keys on Friday night went back to their ordinary lives on Sunday rested and invigorated, ready to face life again. Rich or poor, important or not, she gave everyone first-class