Just for Fun (12 page)

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it,” Emma told her
fervently. “Because I’d love it. Where should I send my CV?”

“I’ll give you my email address, at work,” Hannah said.

Emma pulled out her phone and entered it at Hannah’s
dictation. “Even if it didn’t pay as much,” she told Hannah, “it’d be great to
be someplace where there was room to move up. When you’re in engineering, and
you’re not an engineer, there’s really no place to go, you know?”

“I can’t promise,” Hannah warned again. “But I will pass on
your CV, and suggest that Madeleine might want to talk to you.”

“That’s plenty,” Emma assured her. “If it doesn’t work out,
it doesn’t.” But she’d do everything she could to make sure she had the best
possible chance, she vowed to herself. “And could I ask you a big favor?” she
asked hesitatingly.

“What is it?”

“When I send you my CV. I’ll work on it before I send it to
you, and I’ll have my sister look it over, too. She’s an intermediate school
teacher. But if you see anything that doesn’t look quite right? Would you let
me know, before you send it on? I’m not asking you to edit it, or anything,”
Emma said hastily. “But just, if you notice. Would you tell me, and give me a
chance to fix it? You’ll know what they’ll be looking for.”

“Of course I will,” Hannah answered, and Emma marveled again
at her generosity. “But I’m sure what Madeleine will care about most is your
CAD skills, not your writing skills. And your interest in knitwear, which I’ll
be happy to vouch for. Just watch out for the typos and spelling errors, and
you should be fine.”

“I always like coming here,” Nic said, accepting the
inevitable cup of tea from her on Monday. Zack was already in bed, but Nic was
lingering tonight. “It’s so cozy.”

“Well, thanks,” she said with surprise. “I thought you
disapproved of our modest accommodations.”

“I don’t mean I won’t be glad to see you and Zack in
something better. And that reminds me. Oliver says we should get the notice of
the paternity determination soon. This week, maybe next. So you’ll want to look
out for that.”

“OK,” she said, taking another sip to calm herself. “I
didn’t realize it would be that fast.”

“Fast as I can make it. And then we can get the maintenance
sorted. I know money isn’t that important to you,” he went on hastily. “But
I’ll be glad.”

“Why would you think money isn’t important to me?”

“You have your priorities right, I mean,” he explained. “You
realize money doesn’t matter.”

“The only people who think money doesn’t matter,” she said,
“are people who have enough. Of course money matters. If you don’t have it, it sure
matters.”

“But it doesn’t make you happy,” he argued. “Look at you and
Zack. What you have here.”

“It may not make you happy to have as much as you do. I
wouldn’t know. But I do know one thing. It can sure make you
un
happy,
when you don’t have enough.”

“What’s enough, though?”

She stared at him in disbelief. “I’ll tell you what’s
enough. Enough is when you aren’t lying awake at night, thinking about the
electric bill. And then thinking about Zack’s school uniform, and wondering how
you’re going to pay for both. Not to mention when the car is making that noise,
and the Warrant of Fitness is due. And . . .” she broke off. “Never mind,” she
muttered. “You obviously don’t get it.”

“What about your parents?” he asked. “I thought they were
both . . . teachers. Something like that. Haven’t they helped?”

“Not like you mean. They paid for me to take the CAD
courses, when I found out I was pregnant. They helped with my rent, the first
couple months. But they said I needed to learn to stand on my own feet. That if
they helped more than that, I would never become a responsible adult.”

“When you were
pregnant?”
he asked incredulously.

“They have strong opinions,” she said ruefully. “They were
disappointed in me. And who knows, maybe they were right. I did mess up a lot,
when I was younger. Failed a few exams, in high school. Couldn’t decide what I
wanted to study, at University. They thought I was flaky. They still do.”

“But I’m glad, you know? In some ways,” she mused. “Because
if they
had
helped me more, if they were helping me now, I’d have to
listen to them about those things, wouldn’t I? They’d be criticizing what I did
spend money on. Telling me where to live. Telling me I should like my job. And
as it is, they can’t.”

“Don’t they help at all?”

“They’re retired now,” she said. “Down in Hokatika. They’re
on a fixed income, and they’re careful with what they do have. Yeah, it would
have been nice if they’d helped more, before. It’d be nice if they helped more
now, for that matter. Maybe I wouldn’t be on the edge of disaster all the time.
I like to think I would’ve behaved differently if my child had been in that
kind of trouble, but like I said, they were disappointed. They thought I needed
to grow up. And I don’t mean they don’t do anything. They’ve paid for rugby camp,
these past couple years. Which would’ve been quite a stretch. And they give
Zack money for Christmas and his birthday. All that’s helpful, and I try to be
grateful, and not wish for more.”

“Soon as we get this maintenance sorted,” Nic promised,
“that’ll all be a thing of the past. I’ve got Oliver working on it now. So you
should be thinking about a new place.”

“Time enough for that. I’m just thinking about that electric
bill,” she said, a half-smile developing. “I’ve done my best on the money
thing, but it’s not my strong suit. Especially when Zack wants something, and I
can’t afford it. I hate that. But for me too. I wish I could say that I don’t
care, that I’m more enlightened than that, but I do. I
try
not to be
impulsive, but when I see some really special yarn, or some shoes that are a
really good deal, even if I know I shouldn’t buy them, it’s so hard to resist. I’d
love to be able to go into the MAC store in Britomart, and just buy what I
want. I’ve never been,” she said wistfully. “I look in the window, the way it’s
all packaged, all those eyeshadows, and think, better not tempt myself.” She
sighed. “I do love pretty things.”

“Well, now you won’t have to exert quite so much of that
tricky self-control,” he said with a smile of his own. “You’ve done without
long enough, seems to me. And so has Zack. But it’ll take a bit more time. And
a couple weeks till I can see him again,” he reminded her. “Two weeks in Safa.”

“When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow. We’ll lose that day getting there, then you want
to get over the jet lag. Least we’re not playing at Bloemfontein till the next
week. That altitude, playing on the Highveld, that’s a bugger. By then we’ll
have the body clocks acclimated, anyway.”

“It’s a short week as well, isn’t it?”

“Yeh. Saturday one week, Friday the next. Last game of the
season. And I want to ask you something,” he went on, elbows on his knees,
hands clasped, leaning forward to look at her, his heavily lashed brown eyes
raised to her own. “I’d like to take Zack for the Queen’s Birthday weekend,
when I’m back. Sunday and Monday, anyway,” he qualified. “We won’t be back till
late Saturday.”

“Alone, you mean? To your house, with Claudia? He hasn’t had
that many sleepovers. I’m not sure . . .”

“Camping,” he said. “Fishing. I go every year, with my
brother and my dad.”

“He doesn’t know how to fish,” she said doubtfully. “And
overnight? Nic . . .”

“One night. With three adults,” he pointed out. “And we’ll
teach him. How d’you think I learnt?” He smiled suddenly, the serious mood
lightening. “He’s a Kiwi boy, you know. Which means he needs to learn to fish.
Your own dad hasn’t taught him, I guess. You don’t have a brother, right?”

“No. And you’re right, my dad’s not a big outdoorsman.” She
couldn’t help smiling back. She’d never been able to resist Nic’s smile, the
way the corners of his mouth creased and his eyes lit up.

“Then we’ll introduce him,” Nic promised. “To being a real
Kiwi bloke.”

“How was it, going out last night?” Lucy asked, the
following Saturday evening. She was sitting against the head of Emma’s bed in
her pajamas, a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in her hand.

Emma turned around on the embroidered stool of her floral-skirted
dressing table where she was sitting in her underwear, finished wiping her
eyeliner off with a cotton square. She reached for her nightgown on the bed,
pulled it over her head, and crawled up to sit beside Lucy, picking up her own
glass of wine from the bedside table. “Pretty good,” she told her sister,
wriggling under the covers and taking a sip. “Nice to go out for once, anyway.
And considering I couldn’t stay long, and I could barely have one beer, since I
was driving home.”

Ryan would have been glad to buy her another, she thought
now. And to have continued the evening, too. It was gratifying, she admitted,
to have somebody so obviously interested, though she’d decided to play it safe,
go out with the group first instead. She’d worked with him for two years now,
but she still didn’t feel she really knew Ryan. Last night had been fun,
though. He’d walked beside her to the pub where the younger members of the firm
repaired after work, had poured her a beer from one of the pitchers on the
table, laughed and flirted.

“I like the things you wear,” he’d told her, leaning close
to her ear to make himself heard above the din of conversation and music in the
noisy bar. “You always look so soft. Not like an engineer.” He took a
honey-colored curl lightly between his fingers. “You don’t even have serious
hair.”

“I wouldn’t make a very good engineer, would I?” she asked.
“It’s more than the hair. Not serious about the subject, I’m afraid.”

“I’m glad,” he told her with a smile. “Wish we were
someplace else, though. Someplace I could really talk to you. Too noisy in
here.”

She smiled back, took a piece of pizza from the pan on the
table and bit into it. “Mmm,” she said as the warm cheese hit her mouth. “Good.
You want some?”

He was staring at her mouth, she realized. She licked into the
corners to check for stray strands of cheese, grabbed for a serviette from the
pile. “Do I have it on my face?” she asked him.

He shook his head, and she finished her pizza as they
continued to chat—if you could call bawling into each others’ ears chatting.
She took a final swallow of beer, then leaned over to tell him, “I have to go.
Can you slide over?”

He stood at the end of the bench, took hold of her elbow as
she slid out and stood up. “I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.

“Thanks.” She waved her goodbyes to the group, edged her way
through the clusters of people crowding the bar area now, with Ryan close
behind.

“Whew.” She turned to smile at him when they were out in the
cool air again, tugged her jacket on. “That was loud.”

“We don’t get you out with us often,” he said, walking
beside her up the sloping street towards the carpark. “You’re not used to it.”

“You’re right. My Friday nights are usually a lot quieter
than this.”

“With your kid? Is it a boy or a girl?”

She knew she’d told him. Oh, well. “A son. Zack.”

“How old is he?”

“Six.”

“Six. I wouldn’t have thought,” he said, looking at her
sideways. “You must get out, though, from time to time. How about a quiet
dinner with me, Saturday next?”

“Sorry,” she said. “Saturday doesn’t work for me.” Zack
would be leaving for the camping trip Sunday morning. She didn’t want to go out
the night before. Unless she was mistaken, he was pretty nervous about the
whole thing. Better to be home with him.

“Friday night, then?” he persisted.

“Hard,” she admitted. “My sister picked Zack up from
childcare today, but I can’t ask her to do that two weeks in a row. How about
lunch Friday instead? I could do that.”

“I’ll take a lunch,” he decided. “If that’s all I get.”

  “So you’re planning to go, huh?” Lucy asked as Emma
finished telling her about the evening.

“Yeah. I’m not sure he’s my dream guy, but he’s cute. And
not very . . . engineer-y. A bit more of an edge, maybe, which I like. As long
as I go slow, why not? Because you know,” Emma confessed, “I haven’t even
kissed a man for three—no, four months. I don’t even want to
think
about
how long it’s been since I’ve slept with one. And I’m missing it.”

“Because you still have an itch for Nic,” Lucy pointed out.

“Wow.
That’s
refined.”

“Sorry,” Lucy grinned. “But I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I can’t go there, though,” Emma argued. “I have to keep
seeing him, and that’s so hard. Because I can help but notice.” She sighed and
took another sip of wine. “If only he weren’t so ridiculously
strong,”
she
complained. “If he didn’t have those arm muscles, or those big hands, maybe I
could do it. Or those eyes. The way they turn down like that, you know?”

“Oh, boy,” Lucy said sympathetically. “You really do still
have it bad.”

Emma groaned, dropped her head into a hand, and shook it in
despair as her sister wrapped a comforting arm around her. “Plus he’s about to
get married to the elusive Claudia. And that’s going to be even
worse.”

“Still haven’t met her?”

“No. And no chance now, not with Nic out of the country for
two weeks. And I’m
relieved,
Luce. Because when I meet her, she’ll be
real. And then I’ll
have
to make myself stop fantasizing about Nic.”

“Better go out with this Ryan guy,” Lucy counseled. “Sounds
like you need some distraction. Or maybe to scratch that itch.”

“I’m glad you’re here tonight, anyway,” Emma told her. “At
least I have somebody to sleep with.”

Lucy laughed. “In a manner of speaking.” She set down her
empty glass, reached out to turn off the bedside lamp, then snuggled down under
the duvet. “I like being with you, too,” she told her sister. “I hate it when
Tom’s out of town. I’m not used to living alone.”