Abigail Gordon - Chasing Summer

‘Not on a Thursday.’

‘Oh...’ Her eyes dropped, her heart regretful all of a sudden that she had agreed to go out with him. He was a link with her past, with Ralph, a past she now wanted to forget. Her ex-husband must be some sort of monster, to deceive her as he had done. She actually cringed as she thought of how she had allowed him to dictate every facet of her life. God, she’d been the original puppet on a string, the perfect piece of clay to mould as he willed. And all the while he’d been making a fool of her, having lovers behind her back while she fulfilled the role he’d chosen for her—that of a decorative hostess with no more say in their life than one of the original paintings he hung on his wall.

Salome shook her head as she vowed never to surrender herself to a man’s will like that again. If she ever remarried it would be to a man who would be her partner, not her master—an equal in every way.

Her eyes lifted to see a ruthless black gaze peering down at her, the gaze of a man whom she suspected would be no more husband material for a woman than Ralph, obviously, had been. For a moment she felt oddly disconcerted, but quickly dismissed the unwarranted reaction. This swinging bachelor’s personal life was no concern of hers. ‘Well, Mike?’ she said. ‘Have you got a pencil and paper, or an excellent memory?’

SALOME’S mother came into her bedroom as the former was putting the final touches on her make-up, and gave the large suitcase sitting beside the door a disgruntled look. ‘Just because I asked Wayne to move in,’ she flung at her daughter in a petulant tone, ‘doesn’t mean you have to move out. I thought you were happy enough living here with me.’

Salome counted to ten, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to keep the angry frustration out of her voice if she answered straight away. When she’d come home and found her mother had asked her latest boyfriend to share not only her bed but the whole house, Salome had seen red. It wasn’t that Wayne was a bad sort. He was probably the best type of man Molly had ever been out with.

But Salome couldn’t bear to stay around and witness her mother make the same old mistakes with yet another man. So she had drastically revised her plans, telling her mother some white lies about the unit and car, saying she had decided to keep them both and live in the unit.

Actually, this was not entirely untruthful. Given her new situation, Salome could see that to leave herself destitute was insane. It was all very well to be high-principled, but she could see, finally, that she had gone too far in giving away all of Ralph’s settlement. Her marriage to him, after all, had cost her four years’ wages. So she’d decided to take the equivalent sum from the money the sale of the unit brought, and buy herself a modest unit somewhere. The same applied to the Ferrari. When she’d met Ralph she had owned an old run-about, which he’d disposed of, so she believed she was justified in using some of the money from its sale to purchase a modest vehicle.

All these plans, however, she kept to herself. It was far easier to let her mother think she was keeping the lot. Less argument. Less hassle.

Molly had been astonished though delighted with what she called her daughter’s finally coming to her senses about keeping something from that ‘old coot!’ Not so delighted, however, about her moving out, for they had become very close over the last year, all their old differences seemingly having been resolved.

Till now.

‘Please, Molly,’ she said calmly. ‘Let’s not argue about it. I’m not exactly moving interstate. I’m only a twenty-minute drive down the highway, and I’ll visit often.’

‘Oh, I get the picture. Wayne’s just an excuse. It’s this Mike Angellini you’re going to dinner with, the one whose unit is next to the one Ralph gave you. You’ve set your sights on him, haven’t you?’

That was so ridiculous that Salome almost laughed.

‘Not at all,’ was her rueful reply as she picked up the bronze lip-gloss. ‘I told you. Mike’s an old acquaintance. I’ve known him for years. You don’t honestly think that after what I’ve been through with Ralph I’d leap into another involvement this quickly, do you?’

‘Who knows what you’d do?’ her mother said archly. ‘Any girl who could marry a man thirty years older than herself could do anything!’

Salome counted to ten again. ‘Not all women like younger men,’ she said with creditable control.

‘Younger men are more fun,’ Molly stated pompously. Then grinned.

Salome shook her head in fond exasperation and began putting more pins in her up-swept hairstyle. Her mother’s behaviour with men frustrated the life out of her, but it was impossible to dislike the woman. Or not feel sympathy for the events that had shaped her life. An abandoned child, and the product of various state institutions, Molly was a teenage runaway, pregnant by the time she was fifteen, Salome’s father an Irish sailor who’d been in Sydney for a week on shore leave and had never returned.

Molly had always claimed to have loved him. But then, Molly claimed to love all her boyfriends, even creepy Graham, who’d been twenty-three to her thirty-three, and spent more time chasing the eighteen-year-old daughter than the mother.

Salome glanced in the mirror at Molly, who was still very attractive at thirty-eight and not as rough in speech and manner as she used to be, and wished with all her heart that this time she’d found the right man, the one who would marry her.

‘How old is this old friend of yours?’ Molly asked, dropping down on the end of the single bed. ‘Not as old as Ralph, I hope?’

‘Early thirties.’ Salome stood back from the dressing-table mirror, and made a final survey of her appearance. The forest-green woollen suit, with its softly pleated skirt and fitted single-breasted jacket, suited her tall, shapely figure to perfection. And the ivory silk blouse with the tie at her neck looked suitably demure.

There would be no cleavage tonight, Salome had decided. No way did she want to spend the evening having Mike Angellini either glaring reproachfully at her breasts, or assuming from her mode of dress that he might be on to a good thing.

That was one of the reasons, too, why she had put her hair up, being aware that some men found long, loose hair sexually provocative. Maybe she was being overly careful, but she had a feeling that the evening could be spoiled if she gave Mike the wrong impression. As she’d found out to her chagrin that morning in Charles’s office, a man’s desire had little to do with admiration of a woman’s real personality. All a female had to have was a pretty face and a nice figure to interest a male on that level.

‘Is he handsome?’ Molly kept on.

‘Very.’

‘Not married, is he?’ Her mother’s voice carried suspicion.

‘No,’ Salome laughed. ‘For pity’s sake, quit the third degree, will you? You’ll make me nervous soon. Look, I can’t even get my earrings in now!’

Actually, underneath her composed façde, Salome was beginning to feel a bit nervous. Odd, really. Over the years as Ralph’s wife she had dined with princes and sheikhs, gone to the races with royalty, sailed with tycoons, and partied with movie stars. Why, then, should she be worried about a simple dinner for two?

Perhaps it wasn’t the dinner itself she was nervous about, but what Mike would think when he arrived and she told him she had decided to move into the penthouse after all. In fact, was moving in tonight ! She could hardly explain the real reason without embarrassment. Nor could she, in front of Molly, reveal that it was only a temporary arrangement, till the unit was sold.