‘What’s childish?’
‘Giving me the cold-shoulder treatment. Look, I’m sorry if things haven’t worked out the way you might have imagined. I’m sorry I’m not the girl you remember. Like I said, things change. So do people.’
His sidewards glance showed a reluctant flash of admiration. ‘You’ve certainly grown up a lot.’
‘Marriage and motherhood has a tendency to do that.’
‘Are you saying I haven’t grown up?’
‘Not at all. But parenthood has a way of forcing a person into early maturity, and into being less selfish.’
‘Ah, so you’re saying that I’m selfish.’
‘Don’t put words into my mouth, Nicolas. You would know better than me if you’re selfish or not.’
Nicolas nodded. ‘I suspect that I am. My mother always said I was.’
They both fell silent again as he drove into town. Despite knowing she would see Nicolas again the next day, Serina didn’t want this day to end badly.
‘Can’t we part friends, Nicolas?’ she asked, her voice cracking a little.
He did not reply at first. But then he nodded. ‘If that’s what you want.’
Oh, yes, of course it wasn’t what she wanted. But what she wanted—what she’d always wanted—just couldn’t be. She’d made her bed all those years ago. And now she had to lie in it, till the end of her days.
‘It’s what I want,’ she said.
He pulled into the car park of Brown’s Landscaping and Building Supplies, but didn’t bother to park, just drove straight up to the front door. The face he turned towards her was totally unreadable.
‘Friends, then,’ he said, and bent to give her a peck on the cheek. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Her eyes met his for a long moment. She almost said it.
I love you.
I’ve always loved you.
But only almost.
When tears pricked at her eyes, she did the only thing she could do. She smiled, then got out of the car and waved him off.
She didn’t go into the office. She could not bear to make conversation right at that moment, couldn’t bear any more pretending. She went straight to her own car and drove straight home.
Felicity wasn’t there yet, thank heavens. Her daughter wasn’t renowned for punctuality. Just as well, because by then serious tears were threatening. Serina just managed to get herself inside before the floodgates opened.
‘Oh, Nicolas,’ she cried as she sank down to the floor, her back against the front door, her head dropping into her hands. ‘Why did you have to come back?’
An equally distraught Nicolas was thinking exactly the same thing as he drove back to Port Macquarie. If he hadn’t promised Felicity to judge that stupid bloody talent quest tomorrow he would have taken the first available flight back to Sydney. He didn’t want to see Serina again. He didn’t want to have to pretend to everyone that they were just ‘good friends’. His life had been much easier when she was just a memory, one which had occasionally tormented him but which he’d been able to put aside, most of the time.
Impossible to put aside a flesh-and-blood woman in the same room as him, one who only a short time earlier had been kneeling, naked, before him.
Nicolas shuddered.
He had to stop thinking about that. Had to stop thinking that he’d never meant anything more to her than just a piece of meat.
But she’d said as much, hadn’t she?
Sex is all you’re good for, Nicolas.
They were her very own words.
She’d also said he was childish. And selfish.
As Nicolas drove back to Port Macquarie, he mulled over everything she’d said and done that day. By the time he let himself back into his apartment he’d come to the conclusion that Serina was right. He was childish and selfish. And extremely egotistical to think she might still love him. Which of course was what had brought him here in the first place. That vain hope.
Very vain.
It saddened him to face the truth, but it had to be faced. He’d lost his chance with Serina twenty years ago. That episode at the Opera House had meant no more to her than a one-night stand. As had this afternoon.
Opening one of the wine bottles, Nicolas poured himself a long glass and sat down to drink. Think of tomorrow as a job, he lectured himself. A series of auditions for a show. He’d always liked auditions. Liked the anticipation of discovering someone with real talent. Who knew? Maybe someone in Rocky Creek primary school has real talent…
NICOLAS sat down at the judge’s table and kept his eyes glued to the stage. That way he wouldn’t be tempted to look over at Serina, whom he knew was sitting in the first row of seats, a little to his left. He’d managed to avoid her in the main, although even a short hello and a few miserable glimpses had burned her appearance into his poor besotted brain.
She was wearing white, pure virginal white. Unfortunately, she looked anything but, her dress being halter-necked with a deep V neckline, a tightly belted waist and a gathered shirt that emphasised her hourglass figure and gave rise to the kind of erotic thoughts she always evoked in him.
Felicity walking onto the stage was a good distraction. He hadn’t forgotten that she was going to play at some stage this afternoon and he was really looking forward to it, though he rather suspected Mrs Johnson’s effusive praise earlier over Felicity’s abilities as a pianist might be exaggerated.
‘Reminds me of you, Nicolas,’ the old lady had said.
Unlikely, given Felicity was a girl and only twelve. Although she looked older standing there in a pale blue dress and shoes that had heels. Her long dark hair swung around her slender shoulders the way Serina’s did when she walked. She was, however, taller than her mother. There again, her father had been tall.
‘Act number one,’ Felicity announced into the microphone, ‘will be Jonathon Clarke. Jonathon is in fourth grade and he’s going to juggle. Jonathon?’ She waved towards the wings and a skinny, nervous-looking boy with short brown hair and glasses emerged. Some taped music started, but Jonathon didn’t. Whoever was behind the scenes stopped the tape, then started again.
Nicolas had a feeling that he wasn’t seeing the winner.
Rocky Creek Primary School didn’t have a great deal of talent, Nicolas accepted by the time he’d sat through eight very mediocre acts. But what the kids lacked in talent they made up for in enthusiasm. There was a real buzz in the hall, which was full to the brim with parents, locals and some concert-goers not so local.
None of them seemed disappointed with the acts so far, applauding wildly at the end of each. Nicolas, who appreciated he’d been spoiled by years of seeing top performers all over the world, put aside his super-critic hat and kept his comments on the kind and constructive side. The audience seemed appreciative of his ability to find praise for even the worst performance.
So far he’d endured the hapless Jonathon, who’d dropped more clubs than he caught; a gymnastic-style dance troop of fifth-grade girls whose movements often got out of sync; a poetry reading of ‘The Man From Snow River’, complete with stick horses thundering across the stage in the background; two separate country and western singers with absolutely no originality; a twelve-year-old magician