The Boyfriend Sessions (2 page)

The plane shuddered abruptly as a wave of turbulence hit. A few people immediately sat back down in their seats while the majority appeared unworried, including me. I felt oddly removed from the forces outside our control buffeting the razor thin walls of the fuselage. Probably because part of me was still in denial I was there at all.

Alright, that’s not entirely true. I definitely didn’t want to be in Paris anymore, subjected to the pleading eyes of my would-be fiancé. I wanted to be on a plane outward bound of the glittering city, away from the scene of my latest downfall.

Just not this flight, I realized belatedly.

The decision had seemed so black and white at the time. I hadn’t even hesitated when I’d hit ‘purchase’ to book the flight online home to Sydney. Ever since boarding, though, I couldn’t shake the desperate, horrible feeling the plane I’d chosen was the wrong one.

And now it was too late.

“Christa Morrison! This is the absolute last straw!”

I surveyed the woman who stood in front of me. Statuesque, nearly six foot tall, slender and olive skinned. Her warm brown eyes were known for their seriousness, but right now they were dangerously dark. It wasn’t quite the homecoming I’d imagined.

“It’s bad enough you go off traveling for months on end without me, that you wasted weeks in Paris with a mysterious Frenchman, which admittedly I can kind of understand. But what I cannot understand … ” she took an angry breath and narrowed her eyes at me, “is you ditching said Frenchman and giving up on your lifelong dream destination.”

I winced a bit because what she’d said was unavoidably true. The long journey home had given me plenty of time to come to peace with my decision to end things with Ben, but the bit about neglecting my lifelong dream destination hurt. A lot.

“What were you thinking? You’re not even due back at work yet.” She shook her head at me in disgust, her long, deliciously straight, dark brown hair fanned out around her shoulders. Then she raised a slim, elegant arm and pointed down the street. “I order you to go straight back to the airport and get on the first plane to Norway.”

“I just really needed to come home,” I replied weakly, and before I could get a hold of myself, my eyes welled and I burst into tears.

Immediately she engulfed me in a tight hug. Sobbing and snivelling into her chest, I was only vaguely aware I was leaving a puddle of tears and mascara on her impeccable work dress.

What a sight. A gorgeous, Amazon woman in her kick-ass corporate attire hugging a dishevelled, vertically-challenged woman in crushed flight-friendly clothes, in the middle of a busy Sydney city street. Not surprisingly, evening commuters bustled past us wordlessly.

She eased me gently out of the hug and had the grace to ignore the stain on her chest from my torrent of tears. Confident I’d recovered from my little outburst, she said the only words a good friend could possibly say to ease my distress in such a situation.

“Come on, let’s get you a drink.” She tugged me inside the foyer of her office building and pressed the button for the lift impatiently. “But first, let’s go upstairs, dump your luggage, get you changed and clean you up a little.”

This was pretty much how it had been for the past twenty years. Against all odds, Madeleine Spencer was my most loyal childhood friend. Even when we were seven or eight, our parents considered ours a strange partnership but were willing to go along with it for the benefits our unusual alliance would provide—straight A’s, conservative, quiet, teacher’s pet.

That definitely wasn’t me. My parents had hoped Maddy’s conscientiousness would rub off and set me on a straight course. Actually, looking back, I’m not quite sure what Maddy’s parents had hoped she would get out of the relationship. I suppose she’d been somewhat shy back then, but they needn’t have worried. By the time she was sixteen she was on the debating team, a school prefect and boys clambered to be near her although, for the most part, they were ignored. Not because she wasn’t interested, just because she was yet to realise the effect she had on the opposite sex and she was far more dedicated to her studies than me.

By that age I was pretty much her sidekick. I got used to providing the comic relief and the teachers seemed to go a bit easier on me when Maddy was there, trying to keep me in line. My grades did actually improve a lot under Maddy’s influence. She encouraged me to sit still long enough to focus and I was pleasantly surprised at my ability to do well at school when I put my mind to it.

Even through our university days we’d remained close. We were on the same campus, but Maddy was enrolled in a Business degree—you would’ve had to kill me first—while I did my Bachelor of Design. I could still remember meeting up with her regularly for lunch. She’d be cramming some micro- or macro-economic theory, or mind-numbing accounting principles, and I’d turn up energised with a sketchbook full of my latest artwork, which I’d bombard her with. She was always content to listen.

As we reached the 17
th
floor and walked through the cutting edge stainless steel and glass entrance doors, I was reminded once again that it was obviously a strategy that served her well.

The sprawling open plan office was a testament to modern industrial design principles. The materials were a mixture of earthy wood and brown tones, contrasted with minimalist stainless and glass. The workstations weren’t desks as such but a demonstration of the company’s branding: the wood shaped to create something resembling a fairytale tree trunk, exactly the way Maddy had intended it.

When she told me she was opening her own marketing agency specialising in environmentally conscious brands, I gave her my full support. I spent months donating my graphic design skills, working nights with her, for free of course, to develop her visual brand identity. It still sent a jolt through me when I entered her office and saw the green and brown of my logo design everywhere.

It also helped that money wasn’t an issue for her. She came from a wealthy background, her father having spent the majority of his career in senior positions in the finance industry. Now approaching retirement, he could afford to throw what most of us would consider alarming sums of money toward what he termed ‘entrepreneurial ventures.’ Maddy’s brainchild, Grounded Marketing, was one of these so-called ventures.

She led me to her glass-walled office on the far side of the building, overlooking Darling Harbour. As she passed the desk outside her office, she caught the attention of the older woman sitting there. The striking resemblance always made me smile. Madeleine was the mirror image, although Julia by no means looked old enough to be her mother.

“I’ll be getting an early night. I’m going to be catching up on Christa’s adventures in Paris,” she told her mother with a raised eyebrow in my direction, “but I’m still on for that breakfast meeting first thing tomorrow.”

Julia nodded, reached over and gave my arm a quick squeeze. “You weren’t due back for another couple of months yet. It’s good to see you. I want you to bore me with all your photos when you’re ready, none of this Facebook nonsense, alright?”

I returned Julia’s warm smile. I didn’t know how Maddy managed to work with her mother, as her personal assistant no less, day in and day out. My mother and I would have lasted approximately three hours before creating a dramatic and entertaining scene for all the other employees.

Then again, Julia was a very special lady. She’d spent much of her career as a high-level personal assistant to some of the most senior businessmen in Sydney. Also nearing retirement, she had decided she was ready for a change when her daughter set out to start her own agency. I wondered if she was still happy with that change now her daughter’s noble venture had turned into a very successful business in a short space of time. The company was recently listed on BRW’s Top 100 fastest growing companies and something told me that Julia’s loyalty and support of her daughter was stronger than her retirement plans.

“Come on.” Maddy closed the office door behind me and quickly set about opening my luggage and rummaging through my clothing. “Are any of these clean?”

I tried not to grin at her wrinkled nose as she rifled through my stuff. “Try the left hand side.”

With a nod, she found some dark skinny jeans and one of my favorite sleeveless tops, a bright blue and white number which looked more like a piece of modern art than a piece of clothing.

“Nice,” she admitted. Maddy wouldn’t be caught dead in my colorful wardrobe, but she had good taste and knew better than most what it took to look good. Plus she’d known me long enough to know what flattered someone as height-challenged as me.

She tossed the clothes at me, closely followed by fresh underwear, and pushed me in the direction of the bathrooms.

Outsiders would probably be confused by our odd dance of sisterly love, when we were clearly not related. Despite that, the horrible sense of vertigo I’d experienced since deciding to leave Paris was finally dissipating in the face of Maddy’s attentions. Trudging to the bathroom, I allowed myself to admit how much I’d missed her during my four months away.

I changed in a toilet cubicle, still a little worried my long haul flight had left a lingering smell which I wouldn’t want to inflict on the public, then headed to the mirror to study my reflection. I looked amazingly fresh except for tired blue eyes staring back at me. I guess that’s the upside of still looking like a teenager.

I washed my face with cold water to wake myself up and took a stab at tidying my bird’s nest hair. My chin-length blonde curls were a little crushed on one side from where I’d attempted to sleep on the flight, but other than that they seemed more resilient than I felt at that moment.

Back in Maddy’s office I quickly applied minimal make-up to cover up the dark circles under my eyes and, with a sense of relief, found my favorite perfume and doused myself in it.

Maddy hung up the phone and stepped in my direction, but stopped as a wave of my DKNY perfume wafted her way. Waving a hand around her face, she gave me a satisfied grin.

“I got hold of the girls. They’ll meet us in twenty minutes for early dinner and drinks before we pack you off to bed for some sleep.”

I returned her grin. It was good to be home.

“Bubbles!”

As usual, Cate’s high-pitched delivery of my nickname in a crowded room of people drew a few glances.

“Bubbles, baby.” In direct contrast, Scarlett’s greeting was a softer contralto for my ears only.

I returned their hugs and we huddled together in the bar area of our favorite noodle restaurant to wait for a table. I observed my friends and was reassured that my months away had done little to change them. Cate was her solid, reliable self. Her shoulder-length blonde hair had grown a little longer than I remembered and her green eyes watched me curiously as we ordered our drinks.

“Are you sure you shouldn’t be at home getting some sleep?” she asked, her voice back to an acceptable volume after her zealous greeting.

I shook my head and smiled. “I need some good food and company to unwind. I think I’ll last a few hours before it hits me.” I wasn’t certain if it was the jetlag I was referring to or my life in general.

Cate leaned over and squeezed me. “Well, it’s great to see you. I’ve missed you.”

Cate had been my flatmate for three years. We met at our first job out of university and bonded at the office Christmas party over mutual job dissatisfaction. She was the logical accountant, while I was the creative graphic designer, although our differences didn’t prevent a friendship forming.

“Me too.” Scarlett’s deep voice cut through my thoughts and I looked in her direction. “No one appreciates my work like you do. I swear someday, when I get in one of my moods, I’m going to strangle a client and you’re about the only one sane enough to stop me.”

I smiled into my drink. Scarlett and I met at university. Most of the other students had avoided her. Her odd combination of wit, intelligence and unimpressed, gothic-chic tailoring was pretty intimidating, and that was before you considered her striking Asian features.

“Haven’t killed anyone yet?” I replied lightly.

Scarlett grunted over her schooner of Guinness, running a hand through her short cropped raven hair. Framed by her trademark black eyeliner her dark brown eyes glinted mischievously, complementing her olive skin. “Let’s just say some of the sketches I’ve been working on at home are pretty dark at the moment.”

I laughed out loud. To this day, I was sure the only reason we were such good friends was because of the whole yin and yang vibration going on.

She grinned at my laughter and I took a long sip of my white Hunter Valley wine. I was well and truly over the French labels.

As if mirroring my thoughts, Scarlett considered me seriously. “A Frenchman, hey?”

“I have no self-control,” I confirmed.

“Mmm … they’re not all they’re cracked up to be,” she consoled.

Cate suppressed a giggle. Scarlett’s approach to men and relationships was very
laissez-faire
. She was most likely speaking from experience, but she rarely went into much detail about the men she got involved with. To Scarlett, men were a passing recreational experience. She claimed they interfered with her creativity and cramped her style, so she’d hook up with a guy when the mood hit her but that was about it. We were usually too scared to press her for more details.

“What’s his name?” Cate asked, with great interest.

“Benjamin Renard. Thirty years old, an established Parisian investigative journalist, astonishingly unaffected despite the serious subject matter he deals with, and incredibly romantic.” I listed off the key details because I knew the questions would follow anyway.

Cate leaned in, her eyebrows raised. “What happened?”

“He asked me to marry him.”

“
What?
” Cate and Maddy shrieked at me in perfect unison. Several diners shot us unimpressed looks.

“What did you say?” Cate asked, careful to lower her voice.

I shrugged awkwardly, while Scarlett laughed quietly. “Think about it, ladies. Christa’s here with us isn’t she?”

“Oh.” Cate’s shoulders dropped.

Maddy leaned in, her expression soft. “What happened?”

I took another sip of my drink and looked around the busy restaurant, oddly comforted by the groups of executives meeting for dinner and the smell of the fragrant spices in the air. I felt as far away from Paris as I could get, and I was grateful.

I returned my attention to the expectant looks of my friends. “Well, he took me up to the Eiffel Tower on Monday night and asked me to marry him. So I came home.”

“Little more detail required,” Maddy prompted.

I sighed. “I don’t know. I just panicked. We’d never discussed it, we’d hardly discussed anything … if you know what I mean.”

Scarlett snorted. “Nice.”

“We connected on an intellectual level as well,” I countered defensively, “but I’d always thought it was just a holiday romance, something to enjoy for a little while before I moved on.”

Cate looked at me sympathetically. “But he didn’t.”

“No … apparently. It completely floored me. So I apologised for my reaction and told him I needed to come home to figure myself out.”

“So he’s still hoping for something more?” Maddy asked.

I tried not to sigh. “Well, based on my reaction—and he’s not stupid—we agreed we should keep in touch. And if my feelings change, I should let him know.”

“Well, that’s kind of open ended,” Scarlett mused. “Is he just going to wait around indefinitely for you to get in touch?”

“No. I don’t know,” I admitted. “He’s about to get involved in a really major investigative project, so I think he thought he’d concentrate on that for a while. We agreed to touch base in a couple of months.”

“Do we ever get to meet Benjamin?” Cate asked, a glimmer in her eye. “
Ooh la la
.”

“Yeah, well maybe if you didn’t work so much you could find yourself your very own Frenchman,” Scarlett informed Cate with a nudge.

Maddy ignored their banter. “But why come home? Why not keep traveling when you hadn’t even made it to Norway yet?”

Although I knew she was disappointed for me, the sad tone of her voice stung and I avoided her eyes while I studied my wine. “I don’t know. I guess I just panicked and I needed to be around friends and familiar places … see you guys.” I looked up and grinned weakly.

“Well of course we’re glad to see you,” Cate quickly replied, shooting a warning look in Maddy’s direction.

Unmoved, Scarlett pressed on. “Can you afford to go back over there?”

“Unlikely. I stayed longer in France than I’d intended and I’ve used my airfare home, so I’d have to start all over again.”

“Oh,
Bubbles
,” Maddy said, “you really didn’t think it through before you jumped on that plane, did you?”

She was right, of course. I hadn’t thought it through. I’d let myself get distracted by my emotions—not the first time—and now I was paying the price.

The purpose of my trip, apart from a general sabbatical from all things work-related, was to travel to Norway. Scandinavia seemed an odd destination for an Australian girl more inclined to enjoying a swim at the beach, but the desire had struck during my first year of university while attending a fine arts class.

Although these days I did the majority of my work on the computer using graphic design software I’d always been a closet sketch artist and, when first conceptualising something, I’d revert to pencil and a sketch pad. This suppressed fine arts inclination had led me to take an entirely random and admittedly inappropriate elective course at university—introductory sculpture. I’d never sculpted anything in my life but my desire to try something different and spice up a pretty dull course load had won out.

My talent had not.

Always excellent with a pencil, my ability to apply my creative talents to sculpture proved laughable. While the rest of the class created impressive representations of famous sculptures, my works resembled a high school pottery effort. Even the tutor took pity on me. Halfway through the semester she’d suggested I select the works of a well-known historical sculptor and provide sketches for my final assessment instead.

I’d accepted the offer gratefully. I had a much better chance passing the course if my final project involved a pencil instead of clay. That was when I discovered the work of Gustav Vigeland, a Norwegian sculptor who’d lived during the late 1800s and into the early 20
th
century.

I was mesmerised. His work was so lifelike and there was honesty to his pieces that resonated with me. His works were entirely people focused and there seemed no end to his ability to capture the various states of human existence and emotion. Hence my expensive and incomplete trip to Norway.

And now I’d ruined it.

As if sensing my dark thoughts, my girlfriends supplied another round of drinks before we were led to our table. I quickly ordered a pad thai and returned my focus to my friends. Attempting to steer the conversation toward something other than my dismal love life, I looked at Scarlett. “So how’s work?”

“I got promoted.”

I blinked. Usually any discussion concerning work and Scarlett involved derisive comments about management or the ungrateful clients. A promotion was the last thing I expected.

Scarlett offered a wry smile. “I know,” she agreed. “Creative Director, go figure. Apparently my honesty is seen as an advantage, so now I get paid to tell clients what I think of their complete and utter lack of creativity.”

I took a long drink of my wine. For two years Scarlett and I had worked at Shout Advertising in their creative department. She worked alongside the copywriter as Art Director, while I was one of six graphic designers tasked with making their concepts come to life.

I’d aimed for the role of Design Director for twelve months. When one of the other team members was promoted to the position earlier in the year, it was the kick I’d needed to finally undertake my overseas travels. I had to admit that Scarlett getting promoted to the role of Creative Director, without an inkling of motivation, when she so blatantly had little care for climbing the corporate ladder, hurt just a little bit.

“I told you you’re too good for that place,” Scarlett said, reading my thoughts. “If I were you, I’d tell them to go screw themselves, hop on a plane to the UK and go work over there for a while. Then you won’t have to put up with pompous managers anymore, especially now I’m one of them. You could pop over to Norway for the weekend any time you like.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Congratulations. How’s it going anyway? When did you start?” Normal humans would have updated their Facebook status, but Facebook and Scarlett weren’t on regular speaking terms after some photos of the revealing variety leaked out after one of her passing recreational experiences had gotten nasty.

“A month ago.” She shrugged. “More meetings, less time to be creative, but whatever, I get paid for it.”

I nodded. Scarlett had always felt her creative efforts at work were extremely undervalued and instead preferred to pour out her creativity in her own time, so I didn’t doubt she’d done some interesting work while I’d been away.

“I’ve told you I want you to come and work for me,” Maddy, who’d been listening intently up until that point, interjected casually.

“I don’t know why you don’t,” Scarlett agreed.

“Because I don’t want to ruin a good friendship,” I said stubbornly. I couldn’t believe I’d been in the country for less than twenty-four hours and they were starting in on this again.

Scarlett raised her eyebrows at me. “That doesn’t make sense. We’re friends and we work together.”

I knew she was baiting me, but couldn’t help replying. “You don’t count. You can take anything I dish out and give it back. It’s what our friendship is based on.”

“Oh? So what does that say about our friendship then?” Maddy asked with a huff. “It’s not strong enough to withstand working together?”

“No, of course not. It’s just that I value our friendship so much that I don’t want to risk ruining it.”

“Ouch.” Scarlett gave me a wicked grin. “I guess I know where I stand then.”

“Oh for … ” I let my sentence trail off rather than swearing.

Cate, who sat next to me watching all of this unfold, reached around and gave me a tight squeeze along with a quick wink. “Can’t you tell? We’ve missed you, Bubbles.”