Tall, Dark & Distant (8 page)

Georgia blushed. She had no idea which painting Nik was talking about. She knew almost nothing about art, or even what Pre-Raphaelite was. But the painting was obviously something that had left a mark on Nik and he was comparing her to some beautiful Pre-Raphaelite girl. She felt slightly dizzy just thinking about it.

‘Sorry,’ Nik said, ‘that’s like telling a joke and forgetting the punchline.’

Georgia shrugged. ‘No need to apologise.’

‘I’ll pay more attention to the notes next time I visit a museum. I like to look, but I’m too lazy to read. Does that make me a bad person?’

Georgia shook her head. ‘There are worse crimes. Like just reading the notes and forgetting to look at the painting – that’s something I’d do. Just in case I’m tested on it later.’

He smiled. ‘You’re really that studious?’

‘Worse,’ she replied. ‘A complete nerd.’

The conversation moved from art to school, where Georgia was more comfortable. But that made Nik embarrassed. Apparently he hadn’t been much of a student – always in trouble. He looked quite remorseful about it. ‘I should have been expelled. But it’s amazing how money can smooth things over. It changes everything.’

‘Not always,’ Georgia said. ‘I know of a guy who got punched in a fight. Smashed his head on the gutter. He’ll be wearing nappies for the rest of his life. Money won’t help him.’

Nik nodded. ‘How tragic.’

‘Sorry, I’m sounding all worthy again,’ she said.

Nik raised his eyebrows. ‘You don’t need to be sorry. You have a really clear vision of right and wrong. I wish I had such a precise moral compass.’

Georgia looked at him closely. ‘Are you making fun of me?’

Nik shook his head. ‘I just don’t question things in the same way you do.’

Georgia paused. There was one question that had been weighing on her mind all evening. She spoke hesitantly.

‘Do you remember the first day in the park, when you found my hair-tie?’

Nik nodded.

‘How did you see it fall when you were running the other way?’

Nik took a deep breath, suddenly lost for words. She felt his leg shuffle under the table as he prepared to answer the question. Nik settled with his leg against hers, sending a torrent of blood rushing to her face.

‘I turned around to watch you,’ Nik said, almost embarrassed.

‘Oh,’ Georgia replied. It was all she could manage – her brain had slipped into neutral, idling where it had been earlier that morning, when she fell on top of him in the water.

Then Nik moved his leg and slowly her mind began working again, but she couldn’t calm the electricity in her body. And she couldn’t stop wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

The night was still warm as they left the restaurant and made their way across the beach towards Georgia’s place.

Phosphorescence sparkled in the waves, like the sea was putting on a special show for them. Nik walked close to Georgia, close enough for her to feel the heat from his body. Close enough for his shoulder to gently nudge hers, for the back of his hand to glide past her fingers. Nik was telling her a story, something about diving in the Maldives, but Georgia couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying.

She remembered a couple she’d seen on the beach a few evenings earlier. It was impossible not to notice them. They were locked at the thighs, the hips and the lips, their arms wound around each other, like nothing could separate them. A nervous flush raced up Georgia’s neck as she wondered how her evening might end – her lips pressed to Nik’s, their arms wrapped around each other? Just the thought of it made her shiver.

She drifted along in a trance. An elephant could have appeared on the boardwalk and she wouldn’t have noticed. Her mind was somewhere between a kiss and a wedding.

‘Georgia,’ Nik said, as they reached her apartment. The tone of his voice jolted Georgia out of her trance. She looked at his eyes, serious now, preparing her for something important. She knew that it was way too early for a marriage proposal, but could it be a declaration of love? She held her breath.

Nik ran a hand through his hair. ‘You’re honest. I like that about you. My life is full of pretentious people. But you’re just
you
. And that’s why I want to be … straight with you.’ He paused, searching for the right words. ‘I’m not really … ideal boyfriend material.’

Just like that, the bombshell went off. The hopes of a lingering goodnight kiss were obliterated, the dreams of strolling along the beach hand in hand wiped out. Her heart felt like it had been stomped on.

‘I don’t mean that I don’t want to see you again,’ Nik said awkwardly. ‘I’d really like to be friends. I just don’t want you to have … expectations. I’m really unreliable. I make a crap boyfriend, believe me.’

Georgia could have kicked herself. She should have been expecting this. She had blindly ignored the obvious – she didn’t belong in his glamorous life. She couldn’t even be trusted to order a meal sensibly. Where had she left her brain? Somewhere on her bed with
Gray’s Anatomy
, probably.

This whole week – the barbeque at Ella’s, the runs in the national park, dinner tonight – he’d made it clear all along and she had ignored it. He’d be going to Sydney soon. He probably had a girlfriend coming from England to join him. How could she compete with some mega-rich beauty with (she assumed) a promising career in modelling?

He said he wasn’t boyfriend material, but Georgia could tell what he meant – she wasn’t
girlfriend
material. He wanted to be
straight
, but he didn’t want to be
honest
; that would be too cruel. She was being dumped on the first date. What would she tell her friends?

‘Oh, that’s okay,’ Georgia managed in a limp voice that sounded anything but okay. ‘It’s not a problem. I don’t have time for a boyfriend anyway. I’m pretty busy myself. You know … Christmas shopping … aah, family stuff … I’ve really got a lot on.’ It was a lame list of commitments, but it was all she could come up with.

‘Let’s go for a drive sometime,’ Nik offered.

He was throwing her a lifeline. She just wasn’t convinced it was attached to anything at the far end.

‘Sure,’ Georgia replied, trying to be cheery. ‘I’ll take you sightseeing.’

Georgia fixed a smile on her face as Nik kissed her on each cheek, but inside she was aching.

‘Where have
you
been hiding?’ Mei beamed, when Georgia saw her friends four days later. ‘Too busy with Nik to see us, hey?’

Georgia laughed nervously. ‘Mmm. Really busy.’

In fact, she hadn’t seen Nik since their date. She hadn’t even heard from him. If he was trying to prove that he wasn’t good boyfriend material, he was doing a great job. And since he’d disappeared, Georgia had avoided her friends. She couldn’t face telling them that she’d got the brush-off right when she was hoping for a goodnight kiss.

But Noosa was too small for her to hide for long. Georgia had summoned enough energy to head to the newsagent for a new magazine and, as luck would have it, the girls walked in just as she was thumbing through the racks. Even worse, Cameron and Dim were with them, though they made a beeline for the car and gaming magazines.

Georgia did her best to smile, but she really wasn’t in the mood. She hadn’t been in the mood for anything in days. She hadn’t been running. She’d hardly eaten. She’d binned her blue first-date dress and had spent way too much time on the internet, googling Nik’s name: Nik Ledbury. Nicolas Ledbury. Ledbury, Leadbury, Ledberry. Nikolas. Nicholas. She had tried them all. She had discovered a great deal about the English market town Ledbury. She had also uncovered information about a Canadian stamp collector and a nuclear physicist. She’d found out about lead poisoning and memorised a list of edible berries. She’d also improved her knowledge of art. But she’d found out absolutely nothing about Nik. He didn’t even have a Facebook page. There was nothing about his family. No evidence of a business tycoon called Ledbury, or any variation on that name. Had Nik made the whole thing up? It seemed unlikely, but it was possible. In any case, Georgia just wanted to put the whole episode behind her.

Ella and Mei stared at Georgia expectantly, waiting for an update on Nik.

‘So, what’s going on?’ Ella asked. She gently took the magazine out of Georgia’s hands, forcing her to focus on the question.

Georgia opened her mouth with every intention of continuing the Nik’s-my-boyfriend charade, just a little longer, but the truth spilled out. ‘He hasn’t called. It’s all over.’

Unfortunately, Cameron and Dim chose that moment to join the girls around the celebrity news section.

‘Who hasn’t called?’ Dim asked, picking up a magazine with
Worst Bikini Bodies
splashed across the front cover.

‘Nik,’ Ella replied. ‘She hasn’t heard from Nik.’

There was a moment’s silence as the girls telepathically sent their condolences and the guys gave her blank looks. A dagger of embarrassment shot through Georgia’s spine.

‘He’s probably gay,’ Dim replied unhelpfully.

‘Georgia, that dress looks so good on you! The colour really suits you,’ Ella said, trying to change the subject, avoid a gay debate and spare Georgia further humiliation. But the damage was done. Georgia’s complete and utter failure had been exposed.

Cameron and Dim lost interest in the boyfriend news and became engrossed in the
Worst Bikini Bodies.
They snorted with laughter at the pages of hapless celebrities snapped with cellulite and saddlebags, or simply from an unflattering angle.

The distraction gave Ella the chance to press Georgia for more details, but there really wasn’t much to explain. She’d been for a run with Nik every morning for almost a week, then they’d had dinner together, and he hadn’t called since.

Commitment-phobe
was Ella’s conclusion. ‘You’re hot. It’s his problem if he can’t see what a catch you are.’

Georgia was flattered, but she mostly still felt like a failure.

‘Why don’t
you
call him?’ Ella suggested. ‘He might have lost your number.’

‘I don’t have his number,’ Georgia replied. ‘And I saw him key my number into his phone. He can’t have lost it.’

‘He might have lost his phone,’ Ella offered. ‘I lose my phone all the time. It can happen. I don’t think Nik is the sort of guy who doesn’t call without a good reason. He seems too … polite.’

Georgia had thought so too, but it seemed she was wrong.

‘If he wants to see you, he’ll call,’ Cameron mumbled from the midst of a
Plastic Surgery Disasters
double-page spread.

He didn’t look up, as if there was no need to make a big deal about it, but the words hit Georgia as hard as a cricket bat. Mostly because she knew they were true.

‘Check out this one!’ Dim boomed. He pointed to a series of photos that captured a woman’s progress from beautiful to freakish.

As Georgia left the shop, she wondered when they’d start laughing at her.

The next morning, she dragged herself out of bed and threw on her running gear. She had spent enough time dwelling on Nik. So, he was gorgeous, he was fun, he drove a Porsche and he holidayed in the Caribbean and Aspen. She didn’t need any of that. And anyway, there were plenty more fish in the sea.

Georgia was sure there would be others out there for her. Perhaps less well-dressed and beautiful than Nik, but by no means unacceptable. The national park seemed like the obvious place to start looking for them.

Georgia found herself assessing every male she passed for boyfriend potential. They all fell well short of the new standard that had been set – too tall, too short, too thin, too fat. They didn’t use their arms properly when they ran. They shuffled too much. They didn’t wear the right running gear. But mostly, none of them were Nik.

Georgia ran to Hell’s Gates. She didn’t pause at the lookout. She ran back along the coastal track and into the rainforest, but she didn’t come across anyone at all. By the time she’d run back to the coastal track, there were no candidates left. The path was a maze of prams and silver-haired walkers in tracksuits. She wasn’t going to find what she was looking for there.

Georgia ran out of the national park and back to her apartment, but when she got there she decided she wasn’t done yet. She had too much pent-up energy after her run-free days.

Georgia pounded down the boardwalk to Hastings Street. Noosa’s tourist hub was busy with holiday-makers enjoying breakfast She ran past happy couples in the beachfront restaurants, through the fog of coffee and bacon, past plates of corn fritters and spinach. Her legs ached with fatigue and her tummy grumbled in protest, but she just kept running.

Georgia ran until there was nowhere to go. Where the coastal path hit the river, she turned and headed for home. The path was too crowded now to really run, so she plodded back past the beachgoers and restaurants, her legs ready to give way. She mooched past Sails, and a wave of yearning hit her. It mingled with her exhaustion and a pang of humiliation at the memory of her failed date. She had to face it – she was still hopelessly obsessed.

That’s when Georgia saw it – a red Ferrari parked between the restaurant and an ice-cream van. But the thing that caught her eye most was the girl draped over the Ferrari driver’s open door. Unlike Georgia, she really did look like a goddess from a painting, with an old-world beauty that seemed quite out of place in Noosa. She wore a translucent Grecian dress, short and belted at the waist. The fabric gathered loosely on one shoulder and her honey blonde hair cascaded over the other. The breeze played with her dress, revealing tanned, shapely thighs. Georgia noticed passers-by craning their necks in her direction. She certainly deserved the attention. She was stunning. But Georgia realised that most weren’t looking at her; they were admiring the car.