Three’s a Crowd Read online

  Dianne Blacklock has been a teacher, trainer, counsellor, checkout chick, and even one of those annoying market researchers you avoid in shopping centres. Nowadays she tries not to annoy anyone by staying home and writing. Three’s a Crowd is her sixth book.

  www.dianneblacklock.com

  Also by Dianne Blacklock

  Call Waiting

  Wife for Hire

  Almost Perfect

  False Advertising

  Crossing Paths

  DIANNE

  BLACKLOCK

  Three’s a Crowd

  First published 2009 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

  1 Market Street, Sydney

  Copyright © Dianne Blacklock 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

  Blacklock, Dianne.

  Three’s a Crowd/Dianne Blacklock.

  ISBN 978 1 4050 3942 0 (pbk.)

  A823.4

  Typeset in 12.5/14 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  Permission kindly granted by David O’Doherty/Sponsongs for reproduction

  of Very Mild Superpowers.

  Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to

  real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  These electronic editions published in 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  Three’s a Crowd

  Diane Blacklock

  Adobe eReader format

  978-1-74198-668-6

  EPUB format

  978-1-74198-780-5

  Online format

  978-1-74198-612-9

  Macmillan Digital Australia

  www.macmillandigital.com.au

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Also by Dianne Blacklock

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  December

  The next day

  Sunday

  November

  Annie’s birthday

  Christmas

  Rose Bay

  January

  The day after

  Friday

  Sunday

  Thursday

  Saturday

  Wednesday

  Saturday

  Sunday

  February

  Autumn

  The next day

  The following week

  April

  Bean East

  The following day

  Monday

  Saturday

  Monday

  Wednesday

  Thursday

  Friday

  That afternoon

  That evening

  Saturday night

  The next day

  That night

  Monday

  Bean East

  Wednesday

  Bondi Joost

  May

  Winter

  Six months later

  To Joel, Jeska, Pat, Zac, Dane and Claire

  Acknowledgements

  I must begin this time with a correction. In the acknowledgements of my previous book I included what I thought was a witty line, though at my dear son Dane’s expense, which was all well and good until he didn’t get the joke! It was promptly clarified and understood, but then it occurred to me that I had been quite remiss in not acknowledging that he in fact provided a great deal of inspiration for that book, as the character, Will, and his cohort were initially modelled on Dane and his rather colourful bunch of friends. I stand corrected, and take this opportunity to give them their due. Thanks guys!

  For this book, Dane and his fiancée, Claire, were back in the country, and were a willing and helpful sounding board whenever I needed it. As were Joel and Jeska, and Patrick and Zac, as always. And as always, Joel and Jeska were amongst the first readers of the first draft, and they provided fantastic and insightful feedback. I am lucky and grateful to have such a creative brains trust on tap.

  Love and thanks are also due to all my family and friends, whose support and encouragement are never taken for granted, I hope they know. I would like to add a specific thankyou to Lesley McNiven for chauffeuring me around the eastern suburbs while I scouted locations, and for her endless encouragement and loyalty.

  And thanks always to my Pan Macmillan family: the marvellous Cate Paterson, the brilliant Julia Stiles, the wonderfully efficient Louise Bourke and the tireless Jane Novak, to name but a few. I also want to mention how much I appreciate and value the camaraderie of my fellow authors, including Ber Carroll, Liane Moriarty, and especially the very generous Tony Park (who writes fabulous novels set in Africa), and his lovely wife, Nicola – two friends I can always count on to stay the distance.

  Which brings me finally to you, the reader. I know I say it every time, but it means more to me with every book. The emails, the messages on my website, those of you I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, have given me such joy and encouragement. I would sit down at my desk on some of the hottest days last summer, my fingers actually numb from RSI, feeling a bit overwhelmed by my looming deadline, and there would be an enthusiastic note from one of you in my inbox. I can’t tell you how motivating that is for me, and I can’t wait to hear what you think of this one.

  December

  ‘What are you wearing tonight?’

  Rachel shoved the door open with her hip and backed into the hall. ‘Ah, I dunno, Lexie, I haven’t thought about it. I’m just walking in the door now.’

  Her head hurt. The traffic had been a nightmare, even by eastern suburbs standards, and the bus seemed more crowded than usual, not that it had stopped the driver barrelling along like he was at the helm of nothing more substantial than a skateboard. Rachel was still not used to the way the buses bounced up and down the hilly streets and careered around hairpin bends. How they didn’t take out whole rows of parked cars or just plain tip over was a feat of physics clearly beyond her intellectual capacity to comprehend. Arriving home in one piece always felt something of an achievement.

  ‘I was going to wear my wide jeans with that new top,’ Lexie was saying. ‘You know, the peasant-style one, with the deep frill? I can wear it low on the shoulders, and with the right jewellery it looks pretty dressy, but, with the jeans, not too dressy. See? Perfect.’

  ‘So wear that.’

  ‘It’s too hot for jeans now. And
I don’t think I have a skirt that will quite . . .’

  Rachel kicked her shoes off into her bedroom and tuned out. She just couldn’t get that interested in clothes; she thought about them the way some people think about cars – something to get you from A to B. She didn’t like shopping either. Or jewellery. She didn’t dislike it, she just wasn’t all that fussed about it. She was obviously missing some fundamental feminine gene. She leaned against the doorjamb and surveyed the state of her room. Bugger. The clothes strewn all over and spilling out of her laundry hamper reminded her that she hadn’t done any washing on the weekend. Saturday she didn’t get around to it, because in Rachel’s universe that’s what Saturdays were for – not quite getting around to things. She needed that one day when she didn’t have to get things done, or be anywhere at any given time, or do anything to some arbitrary schedule. Rachel had spent last Saturday not quite finishing the newspaper, strolling down to the beach but not going in for a swim after all, stopping to chat with neighbours she bumped into on the way back from the beach, and saying yes to their offer of a beer, and then staying for another, and then, okay, just one more, and later, watching heaps of good clips on YouTube. Well, she watched heaps of clips, some of them were really good.

  ‘But then I worry that cropped pants might be too casual . . .’

  Sunday it rained so the washing didn’t get done. A more organised person would plan for such a contingency and, before taking that walk down to the beach, would have thrown on a load of washing. Easy. But it would have spoiled the very carefree nature of Saturday, even if it meant she didn’t have enough clothes to get through the rest of the week. A more organised person would also have probably bought a dryer by now, to replace the one that had broken down earlier this year . . . or was it last year? Hmm, Rachel had a feeling it happened just as summer was coming on, and she thought she could get away without it, so that would make it last year. She sniffed under her arm now to see if she could get away with staying in the clothes she’d had on all day. She grimaced. That was the other thing she’d never got used to – the pong on the bus. Especially in this weather; there was a reason they called it ‘stinking’ hot. If only everyone attended to their own personal hygiene a little more rigorously, Rachel might get away with pushing the boundaries occasionally with hers. She wondered if a squirt of perfume would do the trick.

  ‘Rachel, are you listening?’

  ‘I’m listening to what a stresshead you’re being,’ she said, sidestepping the fact that she wasn’t listening at all. ‘I don’t know why you’re so worried, it’s only us girls.’

  ‘Only us girls – and Catherine,’ Lexie reminded her. ‘If I’m not dressed up enough, she’ll make one of those comments she always makes, like “Just come from the beach, Lexie?” But if I’m too dressed up, then she teases me about going overboard, like “Who are you trying to impress?” You know what she’s like.’

  Oh, Rachel knew exactly what Catherine was like, but after twenty-odd years it was water off a duck’s back, for the most part. Lexie hadn’t known her as long, so she was not fully desensitised yet.

  ‘Yeah well, it’s not Catherine’s birthday,’ said Rachel, ‘it’s Annie’s, and do you think she’d care what you wore?’

  She heard the sigh of relief down the phone line. ‘You’re right. In fact,’ Lexie added with a significant bump in enthusiasm, ‘that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to choose something that Annie would like.’

  Annie liked anything and everything and everyone, but Rachel was not about to stall the horses. ‘Okay, so I’ll see you soon –’

  ‘Oh, that’s why I was calling in the first place,’ said Lexie, her voice wavering. ‘I talked to Scott almost an hour ago and he wasn’t anywhere near ready to leave. They were short-staffed today, poor baby was up to his elbows in washing-up.’

  Okay, now Rachel began to feel a little uneasy – being late for Catherine was a whole other box of kettles. As a lawyer, Catherine was accustomed to accounting for her time in billable units of six-minute blocks, and this made her extremely . . . precise. That was the polite way of putting it. It also made her extremely intolerant of anyone who kept her waiting. Lexie was giving Rachel a lift, so this was going to make them both late. Not regular, within-reason late, but properly late. And that was not good. Catherine with the black cloud of self-righteousness hanging over her head all evening was no fun at all.

  ‘Maybe I should go ahead . . .’ Rachel mused out loud.

  ‘Oh, please no!’ Lexie cried urgently. ‘Then I’ll have to walk in on my own and –’

  ‘Okay, calm down, Lex. What if I grab a taxi over to your place?’

  ‘But I virtually pass your place on the way. And what if Scott gets home while you’re in transit? Then I’ll have to end up waiting for you, when I could have been heading to your place, and that could add like, another ten minutes, which would totally defeat the purpose.’

  She was right. Which meant the entire conversation was also pretty pointless at this juncture.

  ‘Listen, no one’s actually late yet,’ said Rachel. ‘Why don’t you just keep getting ready, and if Scott isn’t home in time, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

  That was her preferred modus operandi. In fact, crossing bridges as she came to them was somewhat of a specialty of Rachel’s, not that she would recommend it as the most effective game plan. Her lack of preparedness for life’s little misadventures had landed her in some less than enviable situations over the years: dropping out of uni with no money and no idea what she was going to do with herself; stranded in more countries than she cared to remember with no money and no idea what she was going to do, and married to a man she didn’t love, with no idea . . . Suffice to say there was a recurring theme. She had a feeling her epitaph would end up reading, Here lies the girl who finally met a bridge she couldn’t cross when she came to it.

  ‘So back to my original question,’ Lexie was saying, ‘what are you wearing?’

  Rachel sniffed under her arm again. She smelled like the 361 bus. No, she wasn’t going to get away with it. She stooped to pick up a top off the floor. ‘Something Annie would like, remember?’ Something clean would do for Rachel.

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s right,’ Lexie chirped. ‘Hold on a sec, Rachel . . . Scottie!’ she shrieked. ‘You’re here, I love you! Scott’s home,’ she said breathlessly into the phone.

  Rachel’s ears were still ringing. ‘Yeah, got that. Crisis averted then.’

  ‘So I’ll see you at ten to, or maybe quarter to?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Rachel, knowing it was highly unlikely she’d see her any time before seven. ‘Prank me when you’re on your way and I’ll wait for you down on the street.’

  Lexie hung up the phone and tossed it on the sofa as she rushed forwards and leaped up into her husband’s arms, straddling him around the waist with her legs. She loved that he was such a big tall man, and he could hold her up in his arms like this with barely any effort.

  ‘Come on, Lex,’ he groaned. ‘It’s been a long day.’

  ‘Oh, poor baby,’ she cooed. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘By getting down off me,’ he said, giving her a quick kiss on the lips before depositing her back on her own two feet.

  She pouted up at him.

  ‘I’ve been on my feet all day, hun,’ he sighed, walking past her into the living area, where he threw himself onto the sofa. He frowned, lifting himself up slightly as he reached under his back and pulled out the phone. He placed it on the coffee table just as Mia came waddling out from the playroom. She let out an excited shriek when she spotted her dad, which alerted four-year-old Riley, who came flying through the doorway and launched himself across the room, easily overtaking his baby sister, to land with a thump on his father’s chest. Mia squeaked ‘Up! Up!’ and Scott scooped his arm around her to lift her into the fray.

  ‘Riley, Mia, take it easy, Daddy’s had a hard day,’ Lexie said in her mother’s voice. She had been quite
amazed how quickly she’d picked up that tone. She’d never been in a position of authority over anyone; she had always got by on being sweet and obliging. But that approach did not work on a recalcitrant toddler, and Lexie had heard herself quite unexpectedly one day using The Tone. And it worked, what’s more. It was not the first thing about motherhood that had surprised her. Or delighted her. Lexie was in her element, she felt this was what she was born to do. She’d never said that to anyone, of course. Except Annie. Annie understood, she always understood. It had been a godsend having her next door when the babies were born. Lexie didn’t know how she was going to get by without her there now.

  She gazed down at her beautiful son and her beautiful daughter and her beautiful husband, as he tickled, and blew raspberries, and generally delighted his children, and Lexie counted her blessings.

  ‘Well, I know where I come in the scheme of things,’ she declared, planting her hands on her hips.

  ‘What?’ said Scott, looking up at her.

  ‘Couldn’t wait to offload me, and you let the kids clamber all over you.’

  ‘Come and join us,’ he invited expansively. ‘Clamber all you want. I just had to get off my feet, Lex.’

  She softened. ‘Do you want me to take off your boots for you?’

  ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘But I want to.’

  She pulled off his elastic-sided boots, and his socks, remembering how her brother used to tease her, chasing after her and waving his smelly socks in her face, how she hated smelly boys. But nothing about Scott was smelly. Oh, sometimes he smelled a bit strongly of the kitchen, depending on the special of the day at the café. But mostly Lexie loved the smell of him, loved everything about him. She gave his feet a quick rub. ‘Better?’

  ‘Thanks love.’ He looked up at her. ‘What time have you got to leave?’