The Reluctant Wag (3 page)

She was a stunner and everything about her set his body on edge, only his instinct told him to keep well clear. No point chasing her; he had no time for cheap thrills this year. It was going to be full-on footy all the way. Whatever she did to him, he’d control it, like he controlled everything else. He adjusted the treadmill to drive himself even harder and began to run. He’d work her out of his system and he’d get over her attractiveness, eventually. And he’d make sure she had no clue about the effect she had on him. There was no way he’d allow her to become a distraction.

Merise couldn’t sleep. She felt so unsettled. It wasn’t just the modelling, although that was unsettling enough; it was him. Why on earth was she letting him get to her like this? It wasn’t like her. She’d never been one of those women who needed a man in her life to feel complete. She’d had a couple of boyfriends at school, and one or two since she’d arrived in Melbourne, but only briefly and nothing even remotely serious. She’d decided she just wasn’t the romantic type, and she certainly wasn’t the type to make a fool of herself over a man. Cal McCoy had somehow worked his way inside her head tonight, and she didn’t like it. Of course he was gorgeous and athletic, but she’d never before been bowled over by a man’s looks, and she wasn’t going to let herself get carried away now – surely?

And why did he antagonise her so much? Why did she seem to antagonise him? On the one hand, she didn’t care what he thought of her, and on the other, she hated the idea that he thought her a fool. She wanted him to think well of her. One part of her wanted his attention, another part thought she’d be best to steer well clear of him – permanently.

She finally threw off the covers, went to her desk and turned on her new laptop. She thought that as she couldn’t sleep, she might as well send some emails. As she sorted unenthusiastically through her mail the image of Cal – and even more troubling, Cal shirtless – kept coming into her mind. Then she had an idea, and the next minute she’d abandoned her email and googled ‘Cal McCoy’. She came up with over 245 000 hits. She was stunned. Staggered. She refined her search, adding the word ‘articles’ and found his work in the
Melbourne Times
. She began reading.

Half an hour later and she was feeling even more dismayed. The man could write, too! His work was engaging, and he wrote about football with the authority of an expert. Yet his articles were also written with style and laced with humour, and he wrote so clearly that even she could understand, despite her lack of footy knowledge. Cal was no chump. If only she could write like that, she thought ruefully.

When she’d read his most recent article she began to explore some of the other sites where his name featured and soon found herself on
Footy Fanatics
, Australia’s biggest sports forum. There seemed to be dozens of threads devoted to him. Eagerly she read through the titles:

It was plain silly. These men – and they were mostly men – were obsessed with Cal. It was enough to give anyone a case of over-inflated ego.

She then watched some of the YouTube videos and scanned many of the posts by the Yarraside faithful. She was intrigued by the loyalty Cal inspired in these total strangers. She read through several threads where they defended him fiercely from the verbal attacks of opposition supporters.

By the time she went back to bed one thing was clear – McCoy was a real hero to these fans, and their expectations of him were enormous. It was also obvious that he was a hated figure to the fans of opposition teams. She’d had a look at less flattering threads, where he was described as ‘Captain Dud’ and ‘Captain Bighead’. To her, it seemed ridiculous that a simple ball game could engender such passion. So many people seemed to take it so seriously. Well, she supposed there was a great deal of money involved for someone like Cal.

One way or another, he would be under massive pressure to perform, especially now that he was leading the club. She wondered if he felt weighed down by that pressure; if that was why he seemed so intense? It also might explain why he’d be likely to avoid serious relationships. Cal McCoy just didn’t have time for romance. Not that she cared either way, she told herself.

Although Merise and Erica could rarely afford to eat out, their funds stretched to an evening drink in Lygon Street, Carlton’s famous Italian precinct. It was a balmy night and they were seated outside the University Café, drinking blood-orange mineral waters and watching the families and young lovers saunter past.

‘Are you going to the Yarraside game on Saturday?’ asked Erica.

‘Me? No. What game? I thought the footy didn’t start until March?’

‘The season proper doesn’t, but there’s a preseason competition in February and it starts this weekend. Barrackers can’t wait until March. They need their footy fix now.’

‘Well, I’m not going. I knew nothing about it. Why would I go anyway?’

‘But you’re supposed to be the face of—’

Merise threw a screwed-up paper napkin across the table at her friend. ‘Don’t you start! Anyhow, I wasn’t invited.’

‘I suppose the preseason comp is just a series of practice matches. The teams don’t take it very seriously. Just thought it would give you the chance to see your boys in action.’

Merise clasped her hands under her chin in mock enthralment, and cried, ‘Be still my heart!’

‘Okay,’ said Erica, throwing the napkin ball straight back at her, ‘be like that. But if you change your mind, it’s on Channel Seven at two-thirty.’

‘Thanks for the info, but I won’t be changing my mind,’ Merise said. ‘Now, are we going to the theatre or not?’

The girls sometimes called in to the Half-Price Tiks office at Town Hall and snaffled low-priced seats. That night they managed to get tickets to a new play that had received rave reviews, and were seated well up in the gods as the audience started to trickle in.

Both girls had brought binoculars to serve as opera glasses, and as Merise scanned the programme, Erica studied the patrons as they arrived. ‘Nice outfit!’ she commented.

‘Where?’

‘The dress circle, third row back. Red dress. Imagine being able to afford seats like that.’

Merise raised her binoculars and focused on the stylish woman in the good seats. ‘Yeah, fabulous!’

But Erica had already moved on. ‘Hey – no. It can’t be. Is it?’

‘What? Who?’

‘Front row, dress circle, right in the middle. Could that possibly be—’

‘Cal McCoy!’ Merise finished. ‘It’s him all right. I can’t believe it!’ And that was the end of her quiet evening at the theatre. She felt instantly unsettled.

‘Oh, Merise, doesn’t he look smart! Who’s he talking to?’

Merise adjusted her binoculars. Were her hands shaking just a bit? ‘Um, that very grand-looking older couple? No idea, but they seem to know him pretty well.’

‘Looks like he knows the guy behind him, too.’

‘Yep, and two women a few seats up are talking to him as well.’ She was trying hard to sound chatty, matter-of-fact. He was just your average mega-celebrity that she’d just happened to meet, and was now . . . thinking about a lot.

‘He seems to be holding court, doesn’t he?’

‘Yeah. Odd. I wouldn’t have picked him for a theatre-goer at all, but he looks as if he’s a regular here.’

‘Cal McCoy,’ said Erica with a flourish, ‘man of many parts!’

Merise had really been looking forward to the play, but now she found it impossible to concentrate on the drama onstage. Her attention kept straying to the front row of the circle, to the tall figure who sat head and shoulders above those around him. He seemed to be following the action as intensely as he did everything else. Merise was beginning to be troubled by the fact that she seemed to be preoccupied by him. What was wrong with her? She’d seen lots of attractive men at uni, but none of them had ever had this effect on her. What was it with him?

Despite Erica’s urging, she refused to go down to the foyer for a drink at the interval.

‘But I’m parched,’ Erica complained.

‘Fine, you go. I’ll stay here. I’m not spending a fortune on a glass of tepid lemonade.’

‘Hey, we might run into Cal McCoy. He could afford to buy us a drink.’

‘No, Erica. I don’t want him to think I’m stalking him.’

‘Why would you be stalking him?’

‘Why indeed?’

Erica looked thoughtfully at her friend for a moment. Merise pretended to search for something in her handbag.

‘Merise, tell me the truth, do you fancy him?’

Merise looked up in mock surprise. ‘McCoy? God no! What makes you think that?’

‘Nothing, except maybe the fact that you’ve had your binoculars trained on him for the past hour. But I’m probably reading too much into the situation, right?’

And the two girls looked at one another and burst into a fit of giggles. But over the next couple of days Merise kept thinking back to the way she’d obsessively watched Cal. It was so unlike her to act like that. She’d have to stop thinking about him – he was getting in the way of her well-ordered life.

Somehow, for the first time in her life, that Saturday afternoon Merise found herself in front of the TV, watching
Weekend Footy
. The game between Yarraside and the Point Cook Panthers was about to begin. She told herself that she was only watching to learn something about the club whose campaign she was fronting. But when Cal McCoy led the Wolves out on to the ground, a great cheer went up from the almost-packed stadium and Merise felt her stomach fizz.

Ridiculous! But – he looked so very manly, so sure of himself, so, well . . . heroic.

‘And what a monster cheer from the Yarraside crowd for their new captain!’ said the TV presenter. Cal didn’t acknowledge it. Not even the ghost of a smile. He ran along, well in front of his teammates, bouncing the ball with every step, his face a mask of concentration and determination. When called to the centre square by the umpire for the coin toss he ignored the young girl in the Yarraside scarf who’d been chosen to throw the coin, and just stood staring ferociously at the Panthers captain. Gosh! He might have given the poor kid the time of day, Merise thought, as the teams took up their starting positions.

She hadn’t expected to be enthralled by the game, and above all by McCoy’s part in it. She didn’t need to know anything about footy to see that he dominated play, excited the crowd and inspired his teammates with his driving energy and superb skill. It was his aggression that really surprised her. Just before half-time, when the game was still in the balance, a gorilla-sized Panthers player lined up beside Cal and began niggling him as they both followed the ball. He pushed him repeatedly in the back, elbowed him in the side and tried nudging him out of the way, sledging him the whole time. Cal took it for half a minute, then turned, grabbed the offender by the guernsey, lifted him off his feet and threw him across the ground. The umpire had to intervene to cool the situation. ‘McCoy just asserting his dominance,’ explained the commentator.

Cal scored two goals and was cited by the TV experts as best-on-ground. To Merise he was certainly the most desirable man-on-ground. She couldn’t believe that three hours had passed and she’d barely moved. What was she thinking of? This man was eating into her life! She’d better get a grip before it was too late.

But just thirty seconds after the siren sounded, when she lifted the remote to switch off, the screen was suddenly filled with Cal’s face. He was standing in the middle of Etihad Stadium and a sports presenter was holding a mic up to his face.

‘Congratulations, Cal. You boys played a pretty impressive game. Off to a good start for the year?’

Cal was breathing heavily. ‘Yeah, mate, not bad. It was good for some of the younger lads to get a game.’

‘A big ask for your new recruits to go up against last year’s premiers in their first game, but they didn’t seem rattled.’

‘They weren’t. They screwed their courage to the sticking place, mate, and they didn’t fail.’

Merise did a double-take. He’d just paraphrased Shakespeare, and from
Macbeth
– her favourite play. This man was an enigma, she thought, an increasingly fascinating one.

The next day, Merise was supposed to be completing her online enrolment for the coming academic year, when she found herself opening Google, clicking on Images and searching for Cal McCoy. She began to browse through dozens of photos of him playing footy, with fans, and at awards ceremonies, often with beautiful women. She went through these one by one, carefully studying the escorts he’d chosen to see if he was attracted to any particular type of woman. But there was no pattern that she could see. He had posed with petite blondes, willowy redheads, curvaceous brunettes. So many women in his life. That was a good thing, she told herself – it meant that he wouldn’t notice her. She’d be just another female, and after all, theirs was purely a working relationship. She was in it strictly for the money, and he probably hadn’t given her a second thought. Fine by her; she could get on with the rest of her life.

As Merise approached Tuftons, Melbourne’s largest independent bookshop, she noticed a long line of people snaking up the street and around the corner. Something big must be happening there, she guessed. She went into the shop by the quieter side entrance and headed for the Academic section. The university bookshop had sold out of a secondary text and she wanted to get a copy as soon as possible.

She was scanning the shelves when she felt a poke in the back. She turned to find a laughing Jason Cowley, a friend from uni, now sporting a Tuftons’ staff T-shirt.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked.

‘Looking for a book, what else? Are you working here?’

‘Yes, just started. I love it; there’s always something happening.’

‘Yeah, looks like it. Why the big crowd today?’

‘We’ve got a major book-signing happening. Some hot-shot photographer has done a series of sports portraits –
The Gods of Sport
I think it’s called.’

‘Should go well. You’ve definitely got a great turn-out.’

‘Yeah, but we’ve got the author out the back carking it; unfortunately the divinity designated to star at the book launch hasn’t bothered to turn up. He hasn’t even phoned to explain or apologise or anything.’

‘Really? What a loser! Who is it?’

‘Some cricketer, I think. Col McCoy.’ Jason was about as interested in sport as Merise was. She hid her surprise, and merely said, ‘You mean Cal McCoy, the footballer?’

‘Do I? Not sure. Whoever he is, he must be totally up himself to stand up all these readers – bloody insane! The photographer’s just going to have to do the whole thing himself. But of course nobody came to see him. They’re all here for the paragon of the pitch, or whatever he is.’

Merise was shocked. She knew that Cal had many demands on his time; still, to leave all those fans in the lurch was going too far – even for a star of his status. But, she figured, when you got up there in the celebrity stratosphere, it probably wasn’t hard to lose touch with reality and with lesser mortals.

A few days later, she was having an early-morning coffee with Erica at a tiny café in one of Melbourne’s inner-city laneways when she opened the
Melbourne Times
to be confronted by her own image. It was on page five: a half-page photo of her smiling – adoringly of course – up at Cal. In the photo he was looking straight at her and he was smiling, too. She couldn’t remember that. He looked almost charming. A trick of the camera, probably.

‘Oh, my God!’ cried Erica, snatching the paper out of her hand. ‘Wow! You look gorgeous! You’re like . . . a . . . like a real model.’

‘Thanks,’ said Merise sardonically, ‘but look – they’ve photoshopped me to death!’

‘It’s still you, Merise, and it’s no wonder McCoy is looking at you like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘As if he could devour you.’

‘Is he?’ Merise studied the photo. ‘No, he’s just the consummate professional – giving his all for his club.’

‘Yeah, right.’

Merise felt herself blush as she felt a tiny thrill on the inside.

When Cal walked into the players’ room that morning a cacophony of hoots and wolf whistles arose from his teammates.

‘MMMwwwaaahhh!’ Tom Rivers, his vice captain, made a loud kissing sound as he held up the newspaper with the photo of Cal and Merise. ‘Mr Wonderful!’ he shrieked in mock adoration. The others fell about laughing.

Cal only grinned and snapped the back of his legs with the wet towel he’d just carried from the lap pool.

‘Are you two a number?’ asked Tom, half-seriously.

Cal set his jaw. ‘I’ll tell you what’s a number, mate – your lousy twelve-disposal game on Saturday, with a feeble fifty-three per cent kicking efficiency. That’s a number you’d want to be working on.’

‘Yeah right.’ Tom took no offence. He’d known Cal since junior league. ‘First game of the year. I must have been a bit rusty,’ he said.

‘My first game, too,’ Cal responded coolly, ‘and I got “best-on-ground”.’

‘And so modest about it! Anyway, she’s a decent-looking girl. When’s the big day?’

‘Grand Final Day,’ Cal shot back. ‘September.’

Tom rolled his eyes. ‘Geez, mate, don’t you ever think of anything but footy?’

‘No, I don’t; and I wish you wouldn’t either. Okay, boys, let’s just concentrate on the Bulls this week. We got off to a good start, now we’ve got to build on that, right?’

‘Right,’ they chorused back and no one dared mention Merise again that day.

But Cal’s mind was on that photo. It had been a shock when he’d first seen it. To him there was a raw intimacy in the way he was looking at Merise. He’d had no idea that the shot would turn out like that. It was the kind of shot that got the gossip magazines going, and he didn’t need the hassle of any more media scrutiny. Just one more good reason to stay away from Merise Merrick.

Merise was determined to get off to a good start at uni this year and aimed to get through all her texts before term began. She was reading in the university library when her phone began to throb. It was Bev.

‘Yes?’ Merise answered, her voice little more than a whisper.

‘Merise, good news. SMO wants another photo shoot.’

‘Oh, good,’
I think.
At least the money would be welcome.

‘Yes, it’s terrific. They’re so pleased with the first lot that they want to run with the same theme again.’