Marry Me Mischa McPhee Page 5

  Squatting in my inbox — all bold and new and staring at me — are seventeen new emails.

  And I don’t know if I’m overjoyed or overwhelmed.

  Joe set up my new account so it links to my old one — all the emails sent to the project address automatically forward into my usual inbox.

  Seventeen new little flashing envelopes.

  Joy and fear and liquorice tea churn in my stomach as I scan them.

  More than half of them are spam newsletters, from all the companies I sign up to for giveaways I never win.

  Delete, delete, delet…

  Oh, a year’s supply of cupcakes!

  I might just save that one…

  Nine emails left. Two are new lectures, from my feminist history course. I star both of them, to come back to later.

  Three more are Facebook alerts from groups I really must leave.

  One email came earlier today, from Dad. “I already fed Ellen,” it says. “Don’t let her tell you otherwise.”

  I smile and quickly reply: “I fed her too. She’s playing us, Dad.”

  And now I'm left with three messages.

  The first is for an invite to a poetry reading. I star that one, too.

  The next email is from Yasmin. “Just checking the email works!” she typed. “Very best of luck. Shall we meet up next week to discuss progress?”

  I type a quick reply. “Yep. Done. Will email. Ta. M.”

  And then I click on the last envelope.

  “I couldn't believe my eyes when I read your article in the paper today. I'd love to meet up with you. Where and when? Cheers, P.”

  I have to admit, I'm not as excited as when I read the invitation from the person who turned out to be Yasmin. I've already been burned now. I won't be that naive again.

  And they don’t mention the graffiti. They don’t give their name — only “P”.

  For a moment, my finger hovers over the delete key.

  Can I handle going through this again, only to be disappointed?

  But then I lift my finger. Because, yes, I can handle it. I need to be able to handle it. I need to be strong; resilient; positive; calm.

  And also, I really need another one of those Christmas streusels before the season is over.

  “Sounds good. Tricycle tomorrow at four? I'm working until then but I can meet you when I knock off.”

  Almost immediately, my inbox refreshes, and shows I have a new message.

  “Done. Tricycle at four. I'll know how to recognise you, I think!”

  “You'd better not be a journalist,” I whisper to my computer. “Or a horrible person, like Jacqueline Grant.”

  A feeling hovers just outside the edges of my vision. It’s familiar, and frightening because of its familiarity. My heart shudders and my stomach tightens. I close my eyes and there are tears there. “Piss off,” I whisper, to the tightening and trembling.

  I scoop Ellie into my arms. We have an appointment with our doona, a packet of Tim Tams and Orange is the New Black on Netflix.

  Ellen starts purring and head-butts my chin tenderly.

  And I feel okay. With this fuzzy, funny, devious creature in my arms, I feel okay. I feel safe.

  17

  I love Salamanca on Sunday mornings, before the crowds come, when it sometimes feels as if it's just me and the sandstone and the ghosts of all the people who came before me.

  They’re friendly ghosts, I think, the ones who hang around me. I used to talk to them a lot, after what happened with Tim. I always felt they listened, and they protected me.

  And the mountain looked down on me. And made things okay.

  The light this morning is pink, the air is crisp, the baristas in the cafes are just starting up their machines, so the whole place is filled with the smell of morning and coffee and burnt raisin toast.

  I stop at Jackman and McRoss for a jam tart and a takeaway mocha, and walk lazily down Kelly's Steps, enjoying the peacefulness that comes from a rare day of actually being on early for work.

  When I get to the top of the Arts Centre stairs, I pull my keys from my pocket, ready to unlock the bookshop door.

  But then I pause. And turn, slowly, around.

  It’s as if one of the ghosts has whispered in my ear. Go there.

  I haven't been to cubicle three since the day I saw the graffiti.

  I need to see the words again. Touch them. It might sound really peculiar, but I need to connect with them.

  I need to feel the message beneath my fingers. To know it's still there. To know it's real.

  To know he isn’t a ghost.

  Because yes, I’m meeting this person who emailed me, but he could be another Yasmin. He could be another pretender.

  And all of this could just be a fiction I’ve created — making something beautiful from something ruined.

  Maybe the words never existed.

  Maybe it is only a story in my head.

  I need to see the words, to believe in them again.

  It's only five past eight. I have time.

  Kiefer, who is busy cleaning the espresso machine, calls out, “How goes the quest?” I hold a finger to my lips and he nods, knowingly, miming zipping his mouth shut.

  Andrea from the Long Gallery winks at me over the top of her purple-rimmed glasses as she straightens a colourful abstract.

  The toilets are empty when I get there, which is good. I want to be alone with the words.

  Like a kid below a tree on Christmas morning, when I enter the cubicle, I close my eyes and hold my breath.

  Then, I open my eyes, and my exhalation becomes a tiny squeak.

  The graffiti is still there. It's still in exactly the same place, it's still exactly the same words:

  “Marry me, Mischa McPhee”.

  What's changed is that, while before that was the end of the message, now…

  There's more.

  18

  My hand is at my mouth and it's shaking. I reach out with my other one and run my fingers over the new letters. I turn my hand over and gasp. There’s black ink on my fingertips. The words aren't dry! They must have been written this morning.

  I read the words, quietly, out loud to myself.

  “Are you searching for me?”

  “Oh,” I whisper.

  Now I'm more certain than ever that the person I'm meeting at Tricycle after work isn't GA. Because they know I'm looking for them, and they know I know they know. But this person … the actual GA…

  They're wondering.

  They're asking the question.

  I have to answer them.

  I reach into my handbag and pull out a Sharpie. I scrawl underneath the question one word:

  “Yes”.

  I burst out of the cubicle — startling a small tourist who has just walked in. I blurt my apologies and race outside.

  I sit on a wooden bench outside the Long Gallery. I eat some chocolate to try and feel calmer. It almost works. I'm ready to face the day, at least.

  I am searching for you, I think. And you're here somewhere.

  I look around. It's early. The Arts Centre is almost deserted. I see Andie again. She catches my eye and waves. She looks a little bit stressed, which is unusual for her, but I know she's working on a big acquisition. I plan to bring her a vegan muffin soon, to make her feel better.

  Kiefer is still behind the espresso machine when I walk past again. He's chatting to a man in a black turtleneck.

  Mr Blake is sitting on the bench outside the bookshop, reading Island magazine, and wearing his trademark perpetual scowl. The bookshop doesn't open for another fifteen minutes, and I know he'll be standing at the glass door, pointing at his watch as soon as the seconds hand ticks past nine o'clock.

  For a moment I can’t breathe. Mr Blake. Mr Blake is always at the Arts Centre. Like me, it's his domain. What if…

  But then, with no small amount of relief, I remember. Mr Blake has an intense fear of germs. He refuses to use not only the Arts Centre toilet, but any publ
ic facility, preferring to race home to his own, bleached-and-sanitised, bathroom, despite the inconvenience.

  “Ferals use those toilets,” he’s told us more than once, his eyes wide with horror. “Ferals with dreadlocks and fleas.”

  I feel positively ecstatic. Thank heavens for ferals. Thank heavens for germ-aversions.

  “Mr Blake,” I say, as I approach him, still crammed with the joy of him not being GA. “What a pleasure to see you this morning. Just give me a minute and I'll open up early for you, since you look so eager.”

  I’d almost swear he looks disappointed. It must be the highlight of his day, rapping on our door and pointing at his watch.

  I close the shop door behind me. I am alone, for a moment, with my thoughts.

  And they are all about those wet-ink words. They have seeped into my skin. They are part of me.

  “Where are you now?” I whisper.

  For a moment, I feel like I can sense them. I know they’re still close.

  The idea of it is so mesmerising I spend a full ten minutes, shop keys in hand, staring at a poster for a new Helmut Newton book; humming to myself. Humming a song by Mischa.

  “So close to me; you’re all I see; and then so far; a memory; but I still feel you close to me.”

  My reverie is broken by a rapping at the glass door.

  I turn to see Mr Blake pointing at his watch. Looking positively gleeful.

  19

  The bookshop is now squirming with customers and I've barely had time to breathe. By two o'clock there had been a line at the gift-wrapping counter for the past hour. We were so desperate for help that we called in our favourite Christmas elf.

  Our Joe of all trades.

  Joe calls himself the bookshop’s “Girl Friday”. He swans in at moments of crisis, his hands held above his head. “Never fear, ladies,” he says, in the deepest voice I ever hear him use. “The man has arrived to fix everything.”

  He is never happier than when he’s wielding a roll of wrapping paper, and a ball of curling ribbon. Especially if the ribbon is printed with reindeers that match today’s ugly jumper.

  But even with his help, the customers are still grumpy with the wait and I'm feeling a bit freaked out. There’s sweat in the armpits of my floral scoop-neck top and I’m pretty sure I’ve wiped ink on my face more than once. I don’t have time to care.

  I'm just tying my fringe, palm-tree-style, out of my face with a red rubber band, and feeling about as pretty as a turnip when I find myself faced with a man in a tweed jacket.

  “I know you,” he says, inclining his head to one side. “You were at the university yesterday. You work here?”

  “It seems so,” I say, applauding myself for constructing a full sentence. Because I realise, now, that this man might be a bit older, but he’s ridiculously handsome — a suave, elegant, silver fox. And he remembers me! He noticed me!

  “I've never been in here before,” Tweed Jacket Man admits, and I pick up the faintest hint of an English accent. “Various reasons. Mostly, who has time to read, these days? But I just happened to be walking past and peered in the window and saw you behind the counter and, well, here I am!”

  He came in here just because he saw me?

  Goosebumps prickle my arms.

  I hear a tiny throat-clear coming from the wrapping station, and I shoot Joe a look. His eyebrow is raised. He's listening to every word.

  Of course he is. It's Joe. And I'm talking to A Human. I'd expect nothing less than flagrant eavesdropping.

  I turn back to…

  “Damian,” he says. “Damian Dreyfuss. Delightful to meet you properly, Miss...”

  “Maddy. Madeleine.” I add, because it sounds more grown-up.

  A voice in my head yells: “Tailored jacket; Tom Ford chinos. AND HE DOESN’T READ.

  “Stop it, head!”

  It's only the bemused look on Damian's face that tells me I've said this out loud. Thankfully the crowded bookshop is so noisy I'm certain he won't have heard exactly what I said, but I still look like very odd, mumbling to myself.

  Which reminds me. The crowded bookshop.

  I look over Damian's shoulder to see the line has grown longer. Joe is doing his best, but even his flawless wrapping skills can’t keep the Christmas-fatigued horde happy.

  I have to wrap up this conversation before the customers start revolting.

  “Can I help you with that?” I ask Damian, gesturing at the Moleskine notebook he's carrying.

  “You, Maddy … you can help me with much more than a notebook. You can come out with me tonight. When does the bookshop close? Five thirty? Meet me at Quarry. The couch by the fireplace — the best seat in the bar. I'll have a drink waiting for you.”

  A voice niggles in the back of my head. He'll have a drink waiting for you? But he doesn't even know what you like to drink!

  And besides, I already have a date. A date with someone who might not be GA, but still doesn’t deserve to be stood up.

  “I can’t,” I tell Damian Dreyfuss. “I have plans already.”

  I scan his notebook, and read him the price.

  He hands over a platinum Amex and flashes me a shiny grin. “Well, you can't have plans every night. Here is my card.” He presses a silver-edged square of cardboard into my hand. “Call me.”

  And then he takes his paper-wrapped parcel under his arm, turns on his Cuban heel and strides confidently out of the bookshop.

  “Thank heavens for that,” the woman behind him says. “I thought you two would never finish flirting.” She smiles, wickedly. “Are you going to call him?”

  20

  An hour later, I'm sitting near the counter at Tricycle, letting Kiefer play Agony Aunt.

  They didn’t come. “P”. I cleaned myself up in the toilets. I even put on lipstick.

  And they didn’t come.

  Kiefer hands me a chocolate muffin and I take it thankfully. “They don’t know what they’re missing,” he tells me, and I nod in agreement.

  I tell myself that there’s no reason for me to be feeling so morose. I didn’t know them, and they were not GA.

  But I don’t like that they stood me up. I don’t like that I wasn’t in control.

  I raise the muffin halfway to my mouth. I realise my hand is shaking. I also realise I’m not even a little bit hungry.

  In fact, the thought of eating is making me ill.

  Oh no.

  Not again. Not now.

  “Can I have another coffee?” I ask Kiefer. “A really, really super strong one, like a macchiato or a triple espresso?”

  “Are you sure you need that?” A gruff voice to my left startles me so violently I nearly fall off my chair. I swing around to face the speaker and my stomach sinks as I find myself looking at none other than Jacqueline Grant.

  She looks ridiculously dashing, in a black three-piece suit.

  Or, at least, she would, if she wasn’t scowling at me. Again.

  My stomach twists. I don’t want her here. She doesn’t like me. I’ve just been stood up and I’m feeling like crap. I would really like her to just go away.

  “Please go,” I say, because it’s all my mouth will say.

  And it feels horrible, to be like this again. Unable to talk. My throat closing up. It feels horrible for the room to spin and swing and grow smaller. It feels horrible to be rude and snappy, even if it is to Jacqueline Grant. But my mouth won’t say anything more.

  “I'm sorry, Maddy,” Jacqueline says, and it vaguely registers that she remembers my name, and that this is both remarkable and almost nice. “I’m sorry about the coffee comment. I've had a rough day. Rough few days, actually. I think I was a bit rude to you in the café, too, actually. Not enough sleep, not enough coffee and too much stress. It doesn’t excuse it. It just … a rough case. I'm involved with a very high-profile case—”

  My mind suddenly uncoils. I nod, slowly, remembering seeing Jacqueline's unfeeling face and dark suit during the protest. “Yes,” I hiss. “I do k
now all about it. In fact, I was at the protest yesterday to try and save Sassafras House.” My cheeks are heating up, but I don’t feel anxious any more. This time it’s anger. I know what to do with this feeling. “I'm so sorry, Ms Grant, that our small protest against your capitalist bullshit made you have a bit of a bad day.”

  Jacqueline Grant's face is thunderous. “Actually,” she says, through gritted teeth, “I think I might take you up on your suggestion. I think I might just leave.”

  “Do I want to know who that was?” asks Kiefer, as she walks away.

  “No,” I reply. “I really think you don’t.”

  21

  Back at home, with Ellen on my knee, I finally log in to my emails. To be honest, I'd rather go to bed, but there might be a message from “P”, explaining their absence. Perhaps they got hit by a hovercraft. Or eaten by a rogue wombat. Or sucked into a black hole.

  I wish Jacqueline Grant would get sucked into a black hole.

  I am not thinking about Jacqueline Grant.

  Twelve.

  Twelve new emails.

  Five of which are newsletters, three of which are course-related, one of which is a survey from a chocolate company, two of which are emails from Dad telling me not to feed Ellen.

  Too late.

  And then there’s a strange one, to my bookshop email address. It’s strange because the address is really only used internally. Most outside correspondence comes to Britta, as the manager, or to our admin account. But this one is addressed to Madeleine@SACbookshop.tassiee.com.au.

  This email is addressed to “Dear Maddy”.

  And then it goes on:

  “You must be thinking I'm some sort of stalker. I promise I'm not. I'm simply captivated by you — I glimpsed you again in a cafe this evening, and you were even more beguiling. I'm sure this happens to you all the time — this bewitching of poor, unsuspecting schmucks like me. So, I understand if you don't reply. But, if you do, there is a table with your name on it at a restaurant of your choice. Any restaurant. Anywhere in the country. Decide where you'd like to go, and I'll arrange the rest. Just drop me a line. Let me know. Or tell me to cease and desist. If you do the latter, I will, of course, respect your decree, enchanting woman. Yours, Damian Dreyfuss.”