Armani Angels (11 page)

‘How did you know about the broom?' she asked, a smile broad across her face.

‘Hey, girl, I've been there. I'm sorry to hear about you and your husband, though. It's tough.'

‘Yeah,' she said with a deep sigh. ‘It sure is.'

‘Counselling?'

‘We just had a cock-up of a session two days ago. What a joke.'

Peter laughed loudly as Gemma told him the story of the hapless Ralph Piccolo.

She leaned back after the tale and sighed. ‘Ideally Stephen and I get back on track and give Tyler the happy, loving home he deserves.'

‘Or two happy, loving homes.'

She flicked a glance up and took in his kind, open face.

‘I'm just saying. It's not such a dreadful option.'

*

Gemma stood in the business-class queue at the Qantas check-in desk thinking about the last few days. The board, in the end, had held off on their decision to choose a CEO for the Melbourne office. Apparently a fourth candidate had come into the picture.

The conference, however, had been successful and she was excited about the future of the firm. Each of the other branches had survived the recession and was returning to the top of the field. There was a lot of interest in the Australasian market and they even hinted about wanting to open more offices. This was a huge relief to Gemma as she often felt quite isolated being the only IQPR branch in the Southern Hemisphere and it would do wonders for her staff to have other offices in the region to support them.

But most importantly, she'd learned a lot from Peter over the three days just by watching the way he managed potentially difficult situations and how his genuine concern for and interest in his staff made him a stronger leader.

She'd been inspired by the way he'd spoken about his ex-wife and daughter and how he'd managed to maintain a good relationship with both. She decided she was going to get to the bottom of what was troubling Tyler when she got home. She'd worry about the stuff between her and Stephen later. She dashed off an email to Mathew's mother, Laura, suggesting they meet soon to talk about their boys.

Ziggy's on St Kilda Road was thrumming with its usual midweek, midday crowd. Gemma scoured the room. Laura was already here, wedged into a corner with two exuberant suited sorts to her right. As Gemma approached, she grinned to see Laura cringe away from the expansive gestures of her neighbours.

The Italian eatery had been the favourite lunchtime haunt for the business people of the districts for decades. Black-clad waiters zipped through the tables depositing authentic Italian cuisine at each place. The restaurant was the quintessential Mediterranean stereotype, complete with Chianti-bottle candles, red-and-white tablecloths and ballsy staff who shouted across the room to one another in their mother tongue.

Laura was punching the keys on her ancient fliptop Nokia when Gemma reached the table.

‘Hello, Laura,' Gemma said.

‘Hi,' Laura replied, not looking up.

‘Hi,' Gemma said, a little taken aback at Laura's minimal greeting. She sat down and waited for her to finish.

‘There.' Laura slipped her phone into her beaten-up tan satchel-style handbag.

‘Sorry, some bride I shot for the paper last year wants me to shoot her new infant. But I'm not doing that sort of stuff these days, thank God. I'm starved. Bring on the carbs.' And with that she picked up her menu and started reading. Gemma did the same. Mathew's mother was certainly brusque but Gemma respected her forthright attitude, especially after having been in New York where you often don't truly know what a person means.

Laura stuck her hand in the air and gave a low short whistle from the side of her mouth. The Adonis young waiter was unflustered by the unconventional summons, and came immediately.

‘Sì?'

‘Linguine Amatriciana, for me. And for you, Gemma?'

‘Oh, I'll just have the salad,' Gemma said then added, ‘and a double side order of garlic bread.'

‘Attagirl!' Laura grinned.

‘Vino?' the waiter asked.

‘Sì, un bicchiere di Lambrusco, per favore,' Laura said and looked at Gemma who shook her head.

‘Prego,' the waiter said. He turned and his tight buttocks propelled him away.

‘You speak Italian?' Gemma asked.

‘Nah, not really. I just did a photo essay there for a month in a past life.'

‘Beautiful country,' Gemma said.

‘Yeah, if you like great food, sunshine, amazing views and hot blokes – personally I'm not into that kind of thing.'

Gemma peered for any sign to show her lunch companion's sarcasm. Laura stared back, her face blank. Oh, she was as dry as toast. Gemma grinned. This woman was a card.

‘So, Laura, how's it going with Mathew? I've just come back from a few days in New York so I haven't had a chance for a good chat with Tyler yet.'

‘Well, if you can manage a good chat with your kid, you're miles ahead of me. Matty hasn't spoken to me since I confiscated his mobile a week ago for swearing at me.'

‘God, how awful,' Gemma said.

Laura shrugged. ‘What can I do? I can't let him keep pushing me around. Boys need boundaries.'

‘That's exactly right,' Gemma agreed. She smiled her thanks to the waiter as Laura's wine arrived and their meals were slapped onto the table.

Laura tucked in with voracious abandon. Gemma picked at her greens then gave into the buttery, garlicky crunchy bread. ‘Oh, this is heaven,' she said, licking fragrant drips from her fingers.

Gemma finished the first piece then slumped her shoulders before she could continue eating.

‘We're finding it so difficult with Tyler,' she sighed.

‘How's his dad dealing with it?' Laura asked.

Gemma scoffed. ‘Not much of a dad.'

‘Why? What's up with that?' Laura asked with a mouthful of bacon.

‘Stephen treats him like a kid brother. It drives me nuts. He's forever ringing me and dobbing on Tyler; it's so juvenile. He even said last time, “Yeah well, he started it.”'

‘No!'

‘Yes! It's as if he doesn't like his own son, and that's just wrong. But having said that, I've been reading up on the father–son thing, and it seems it's quite normal for a fierce competitiveness to spring up between alpha and beta males at this age. Apparently teen sons irritate many dads – well, obviously. But in some cases dads can actively dislike their sons and show little care or affection for months.'

Laura simply nodded and kept on eating.

‘Oh, I'm sorry. You aren't with Matty's dad, are you?' Gemma asked.

Laura visibly bristled and put down her fork. ‘Louis died two years ago,' she said tightly then returned to her meal.

‘I'm so sorry.' Gemma felt her cheeks redden with embarrassment. ‘I can't imagine how difficult it must be to bring up a child as a single parent. Matty must miss his father terribly.'

‘We do all right.' Laura shrugged. ‘It would probably help if Mathew acted a little less like a slug and was a little more useful, more proactive.' She wiped her bread crust around the bottom of her bowl to sop up the last of the sauce. Then she groaned and dropped her head in her hands. ‘I mean, for God's sake, he's old enough to make a baby, but he can't make a sandwich!'

Gemma burst out laughing, relieved that the tension was broken.

‘It's so true,' she said. ‘They're worse than toddlers. Tyler doesn't have to work or do any chores so he can focus on his studies, yet he can't even do that.'

‘Well, Mathew has to work if he wants cash 'cos I'm as poor as a church mouse – bloody private school and all – but he absolutely hates it. He's a dishwasher at the local Thai. So between his moaning about homework and moaning about his job . . . well, there's no joy at our place at all, really.'

‘Can I ask,' Gemma said tentatively, ‘has Matty had any counselling about his dad's death?'

‘What are you, a therapist?' Laura demanded, tossing back the last of her wine. She called across the room, ‘Due caffè latte, per favore,' then looked back at Gemma.

‘He didn't need any counselling. We just got on with things.' Her flashing eyes challenged Gemma to say more.

Undaunted, Gemma tried another question. ‘Does he talk about his dad often?'

Laura shot her another angry look. ‘We don't talk about him. I didn't want to upset him so I have pretty much made it a no-go area.' She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

The noisy bustling crowd in the restaurant was starting to thin as many of the worker bees made their way back to their hives. The din subsided somewhat. The sun hit the window and their table lit up in the afternoon's weak early-winter rays.

‘But,' Gemma's voice was gentle as the waiter delivered their lattes, ‘surely he needs to express how he feels. All that emotion locked inside can't be good for him.'

Laura sipped her latte and stared at Gemma. She said nothing for several long minutes. Gemma fiddled with the sugar packets on the table in front of her.

‘You're right,' Laura said almost in surprise. As if the answer had been staring her in the face all along but she'd only just seen it. ‘Of course you're right. I don't talk about Louis because it's too painful for me, but lately I've been thinking that maybe the way I've handled things hasn't helped Matty all that much. I've been acting like the bitter widow.' Laura, stripped of her dry bravado, no longer seemed so cocky. She was quite fragile. Gemma noticed the sprinkle of freckles on her nose. She seemed younger somehow.

‘You're not the bitter widow; you're fine. Mathew's a lovely boy.' Gemma thought of young Mathew's sullen attitude and shuddered inwardly.

‘Perhaps we can go out and do something together, the four of us, something that encourages positive thinking, start the tables turning, make them be happy again,' Gemma suggested with new-found pep, determined to get some positive action out of her meeting with Laura today. ‘I am sure if we do that it will all work out.'

Laura was fishing through her purse for some notes for the bill. ‘Yeah, that'd be super,' her words dripped with bite, ‘we'll just go to that fantastic place where teenage boys have a blast hanging out with their mums. I think it's called Dreamland. Oh, no, it's not; it's called When Hell Freezes Over.'

The squally bitter Melbourne day spat at Gemma when she arrived at the St Kilda Road apartment building. She had an all-out brawl with her umbrella as she approached Dame Frances's building and her mood wasn't improved by the fact the camel wool trousers she'd bought last month from Saks Fifth Avenue now sported mud spatters from a passing motorbike.

Her talk with Tyler last night hadn't gone so well. She'd hoped that if she opened up to him she might be able to get through. She'd decided to be honest and to speak to him from her heart. She'd admitted that there was tension between her and his dad and that the atmosphere in the house was sometimes strained. But Tyler had simply kept his eyes on his computer screen and ignored her. She'd tried again, sitting on the end of his bed and explaining that just because she and his dad sometimes rubbed each other up the wrong way it didn't mean they didn't both love him as much as ever. At that he had plugged his earphones in, turned his music up and the one-sided conversation was officially over.

She'd sighed and left the room in defeat, her shoulders slumped and her mouth tight with sadness. Of course she'd known their issues were too deeply ingrained to be fixed overnight but she'd thought she might have had an inkling of connection. Had he even missed her while she was away?

The elevator opened onto the Dame's marble foyer. With the weather and difficulty parking she'd just squeaked in under the Dame's strict cut-off time.

‘Lucky,' the Dame said in greeting.

‘And good morning to you, Dame Frances,' Gemma replied.

‘Smart alecs finish last,' the Dame responded. ‘Julian,' she yelled in her hoarse voice, ‘where's the coffee?'

‘Coming, Dame Frances.' Julian lugged the overloaded silver tray in. It threatened to tip, the tower of cups leaning to one side. Gemma leaped up to help him. She grabbed the tower just before it toppled.

Thank you
, Julian mouthed.

‘Will you sit down?' the Dame grumbled. ‘I've had enough of this leaping about. Up and down, up and down. We've got work to do.' The other five women were sitting around the table and whispering between themselves. They didn't seem in too much of a hurry.

Gemma was well and truly ticked off by now. This was the third meeting she'd attended of the UP-Kids Special Fundraising Committee and once again, she felt as if she were banging her head against a brick wall. At the second meeting, just prior to her New York trip, Gemma had decided to sit back and keep quiet, take notes and analyse the system. She should have done that the first time instead of launching in, mules and all, as she'd done.

She appreciated the work that the women did, but it was so antiquated, such a waste of resources. Sure, these ladies had all the time in the world on their hands. Nothing to do after supervising the housekeeper's reading of their to-do lists. So they could afford the hours it took to discuss every potential guest on the list as if it bloody well mattered. Gemma could print out a guest list in just minutes that was infinitely more accurate.

But she'd held her tongue. Even when she'd been delegated the job of phoning the Dame's favourite top ten and begging for sponsorship dollars. She could easily have had her top-five clients allocate a percentage of their annual charity budget to the cause which would have taken a mere half an hour, been considerably more profitable and given her clients the tax break they so loved.

But no, she held her breath, accepted the tasks and wasted hours of her valuable time. Now here they were again. Ready for another three-hour session which, had she been running, would have been over by now.

She readied her iPad, tried to settle her flyaway locks, took some calming breaths and looked around at the group once more. They seemed a little more overdone than usual. The air was more electric. In fact, the women looked tarted up as if they were attending a cocktail party, not a morning coffee meeting.

‘Well, there's no point in starting until she gets here,' the Dame said to Julian. ‘Call her, see why she's late.' Julian hastened to his mobile, which was in the kitchen.

‘Who's coming?' Gemma whispered to Bobbi Robertson-Black.

‘Photographer from
The Age
. They're doing a special piece on the Dame and her charitable work. We're all going to be in a group photograph,' Bobbi said.

‘I didn't know,' Gemma whispered back. ‘Why wasn't I told?'

‘I mailed you a copy of the letter.'

‘I check my email every five minutes practically. I didn't get it.'

‘No,
mail
mail. You know, with a stamp. To your home.'

‘To my home? My goodness, I haven't looked in my letterbox in days.'

Bobbi gave her a look that suggested she couldn't help such inefficiency.

‘She's here,' Julian said with a flap of his hands as he darted into the foyer. He was looking particularly sharp today in a chartreuse tie with matching shirt and pocket puff flopping from his reefer jacket. He was obviously to be included in the committee shot as well.

He walked back in the room. ‘Everybody, this is the photographer from
The Age
, Laura Gillespie.'

Gemma laughed as Laura caught sight of her. ‘What the hell are you doing here?' Laura asked her.

‘I'm on the committee,' Gemma said. She walked over and gave Laura a greeting peck on the cheek.

‘Jeez, I never would have picked it.'

By now the older women were in a frenzy. The Dame actually excused herself and returned, fifteen minutes later, in a burgundy figure-hugging, ruched, chiffon, full evening gown with sweetheart neckline and matching wrap. Gemma felt like she'd come from the coalmines in comparison.

‘Gemma, use the powder room and fix yourself up, will you?' the Dame said. ‘And it wouldn't kill you to put on some lipstick.' She stared pointedly at the mud stains on Gemma's camel Armani pants and tsked loudly.

Gemma returned from a quick smooth down of the hair and glossing of the lips in time to be positioned by the Dame.

‘Gemma, you go in the back.'

Laura was barely holding back the laughter at the sight of Gemma among these Dior divas.

After much spotlight shifting, the Dame was finally satisfied with the tableau and Laura was ordered to shoot.

Later, after a few portraits of the Dame solo, in various outfits, Laura took her leave. ‘Bye for now. Priscilla Simcoe, the journo, will be here shortly.' She twiddled her fingers at Gemma. ‘Have fun.' Gemma poked her tongue out in response. That nonsense had already wasted an hour and a half. Gemma understood the value of a good publicity shot, but she could have done it far more efficiently.

Finally the group returned to the table. The ladies all seemed to relax now they could unclip their corsets and let their smiles relax.

The disturbance hadn't helped Gemma's mood and she was itching to get back to the office to get stuck into her overflowing email inbox that was screeching for her attention.

‘Now, ladies, down to business,' the Dame commanded. ‘We need to discuss the Rum Ball. Who shall we invite? We don't want to sully the waters with riffraff. Just our personal telephone books.'

The women shuffled through their handbags. Louis Vuitton patterned phone directories were pulled out and flicked through, and names were shouted to Julian who was writing as fast as he could.

Gemma shook her head. ‘Why aren't you asking the same people who attended last year?'

The Dame sighed as if she were fed up with a recalcitrant child continually whining about being bored.

‘We are, Gemma. They're the same guests every year and this is how we get them.'

‘But why don't you just print off last year's database?'

Julian shook his head at her imperceptibly:
Don't go there, girl
.

The Dame whipped off her glasses. ‘You just don't get it, do you? We've been through this a hundred times with you. We're not the impersonal tech generation. We do it properly, we do it well and we've been doing it for decades before you were born, so if you could just pull out your telephone book . . .'

‘But if I just email my phone list to Julian, he'd have it in . . . Look, I'll show you.' Gemma flicked on her iPhone, touched a couple of buttons and emailed the list to Julian's laptop, which beeped in chirpy response.

‘And then, you simply make a database, like so.' She got up and leaned over Julian to access his laptop. Julian sat with his hands in his lap, head down, as though his computer was involved in this shameless betrayal of the Dame but he wasn't.

‘Then put the database into a form for labels and voilà. Command P.' Gemma looked around the room. ‘I don't hear it printing. Where's your printer, Dame Frances?'

Dame Frances glared at her newest protégée. ‘I don't have one.' Her voice was low and quiet. The other women in the room squirmed.

‘Oh, I can fix that for you. I can get you one,' Gemma said brightly. ‘Anyway, have a look at the screen. See? There's my list of names already in a database and if the other ladies just email theirs too, we could have the invitations printed out in half a day.'

Dame Frances put her glasses back on and peered at Julian's screen. ‘This is no good at all.'

‘Why not?' Gemma asked. ‘It's 200 names, bam, ready to go.'

The Dame began thrusting a gnarled finger at the screen. ‘Uta Manning – divorced amid scandal. We don't need her and her table of trampy divorcees. Sam and Sally Marks – boring, middle-class accountant types . . .'

‘They're not, they're lovely, and they're my friends.'

‘I haven't finished,' the Dame snapped.

‘Her – too young. Him – too flashy. Those two – bad reputation: swingers, I believe. And as for the rest of your clever electronic list, I haven't even heard of any of them. I'm not having a bunch of nobodies, no matter how electronically zipped up, at my Rum Ball.'

‘But, Dame, it's the twenty-first century. It's not about a who's who of Melbourne. It's the almighty dollar that makes the world go around. And time. And if we don't start saving some of both, this charity is going down the toilet.'

‘How dare you? How very dare you!' The Dame sat up straight, her bosom thrust out like an opera singer's. ‘This committee has relied for years on a very specific group of hand-picked elite people. We only include new people from friends of friends and with very careful vetting. We're not just sending out the invitations willy-nilly.'

‘But, Dame, you could have further reach if you did it my way,' Gemma begged.

‘I don't want “reach”,' she trilled. ‘I want the old days back when my parties were the toast of the town, the most talked-about, the most exclusive events, impossible to get into. What you're suggesting will result in our functions becoming about as exclusive as the opening of a McDonald's.' Her voice dropped several octaves. She held her throat to recover her composure. Eventually she looked back at her notes. Then she added in a chilly tone, ‘And don't call me “Dame”.'

‘Hello?' A voice called from the lobby. Dame Frances glared at Julian. ‘Did you buzz someone up?'

‘Er, no, Dame Frances, but I did give the journalist the key code so she could come up.'

Dame Frances tsked. ‘I despair of you sometimes, Julian, I really do. Now you're going to have to reset the code. Come in.' She directed the last comment to the unseen visitor.

A young bleached-blonde woman entered the room. The Dame's disapproval of her casual disco attire of glittery flared Guess jeans and a sequined T-shirt featuring an unclad woman was clear as she looked the woman up and down and sighed.

‘Hellooo,' the young woman said, ‘I'm Priscilla Simcoe. I'm here to do the piece on your committee. I guess you're “the Dame”.' She said this with air quotes.

‘Nobody calls me that,' the Dame said. ‘Come, sit. Julian, coffee.'

‘Oh, no thanks, I'm right,' the young woman said.

‘It's not for you; it's for me. Let's begin, shall we. As they say, charity begins at home. Fifty years ago I saw there was a need for fundraising . . .'

Gemma tuned out. She couldn't believe that the Dame was holding this interview here, right now, wasting, yet again, everyone's time with her inefficiency. She brought her iPad to life, ignoring Dame Frances's glare, and got stuck into some work emails. At least
she
could use the time productively.