Well, I knew a lot of people who were willing to tell me a lot of things, and Hobart was one damn small town, but there was plenty that could still go on under the radar.
I thought about it as I made my way to our group table. Luc and Callie were seated, as was Tamara; the empty seat next to her had a worn-looking jacket slung over the back. I bet he’d bought that to have something to make him look decent during his legal issues.
Suddenly Aileen’s voice was in my head, uninvited. Why do you need to speculate on that? It’s not any of your business. I almost told her out loud to mind her own business, which would have made me look really good to everyone around.
When I asked Tamara where Steven was, she curled her lip at me.
“Do you know he wants to blame me for him being stupid enough to start smoking? Like, it stresses him out too much when I expect him to listen to my concerns about my sister, who he apparently knew long before I did. Can you believe that?” Then her eyes went one way and her smile another, because she probably didn’t have much reason to expect sympathy from me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bothered to involve myself in group business. I preferred to think of anything that was happening around me with my friends as an ongoing soap opera, something to watch but not have to be personally invested in.
I was picturing Aileen again: this time, actual memories. Those times she’d come along to parties on invitation from Callie or Tamara and stood around looking like she, too, was watching everything happening around her as scripted entertainment on a station she didn’t even like to watch, but still she stayed. That was when she’d first come under my radar: I thought she was hot, but there didn’t seem like anything else to her… until she’d started needing to talk back to me.
Then I flashed on the one day of my life that stood out more vividly than any other: Aileen coming to my house to screw with me the way I’d screwed with her, and then sticking around in her cute little dress to help seal that deal with Cowen. Thanks to Aileen, I had more to move onto after this ridiculous evening than I’d ever given her.
I didn’t know any other girl who would stick her neck out like that. Who would put herself out to help those around her even when she hated what that did for her. When I’d had girlfriends, they usually resented having to wait if I took them out shopping and I wanted to pick out some new clothes too, as if only women were supposed to need to be resupplied. They seemed to spend a hell of a lot of time complaining to me about their friends, about the horrible expectations they had of them. That was apparently what a boyfriend was for to them. I didn’t have much time for girlfriends these days.
Suddenly I was wondering if those girls had complained to their friends about me. I’d managed to convince myself they must just know a lot of bitches, and that was why they had to have those conversations with me all the time. But maybe they were just as hard to please as their behaviour suggested, in which case they might have been having equivalent conversations with those same friends I thought they hated, playing all of their least favourite parts of me for jokes and sympathy.
What would they have most hated? My mind was back on Aileen, on the way she’d looked at me those times we’d crossed paths at parties and I’d told her a little about my plans for the future. I could remember the faces she’d made like she was in front of me that moment, and I thought I understood what was going on behind them: she wanted to be polite, but I seemed ridiculous to her. Maybe I’d spent so much time thinking about her body, top to bottom, I’d taken in something about the way she saw things. I was able to learn things about myself through her existence.
Now I cringed at an inspired vision of how she must have seen me back then. What a blowhard and a fool.
Tamara’s attention had already started to wander. “Maybe I can have a chat to Steven,” I said. “Give him a nudge onto the right track.”
I didn’t understand Tamara’s gaze at all, but it felt like she was trying to administer some sort of slap. “Do you think he would prefer to listen to you than to me?”
“Maybe. He’s more invested in looking good to you. With me, not so much need. We already know one another’s worst secrets.”
It was a lie, but it made her smile. “That would be great, honestly. Thanks, Axel.”
I would have to make sure I did have that word with him now before the night was over, or at the very least I would probably have my imaginary Aileen haranguing me while the real one was still in the room. Well, it could probably be arranged. Steven would just tell me to fuck off in short order, as Tamara probably well knew, so it wouldn’t distract too much from the impossible task I’d set myself.
Aileen, on the other hand…
When I sat down, I bumped shoulders with Ashleigh. Ash and I had technically come to the event ‘together’, telling everyone we were each other’s dates and both riding there in Callie’s car with Carlene crushed in between us, but we had an unspoken agreement not to actually interact much. Ashleigh just wanted to be able to point to the photos in twenty years’ time and tell her kiddies she’d gone with some man, preferably better-looking than the father of those kiddies. Well, if I had anything to say about it she’d be in for a real shock by the end of the night.
But seeing her at that moment turned out to be exactly what I wanted, because it put a very useful thought into my head.
“Ash.” I nudged her again. “You know Elizabeth Anderson, right?”
She gave me a look that made me happy I’d taken the time to bother her with this clearly distressing topic. “I know her. She came out of nowhere a few years ago and she’s being a real pain when it comes to poaching my uncle’s clients. Works for Cooper and Drawn.”
“Cooper and Drawn.” I hadn’t paid her much attention because Aileen didn’t seem particularly interested in the woman who’d abandoned her years ago, and she wasn’t the type to just use someone to get ahead… but that didn’t mean Anderson wouldn’t have offered her a job if she knew of something available. “Are they hiring at the moment?”
“Having a bit of a secretary turnover I hear. Pretty normal over there, though. Drawn is a creep, needs a firm hand or his own hands start to wander.”
This had to be where Aileen was planning to work. She’d be confident she could manage the prick. Too trusting. It hadn’t even occurred to her to keep the information about her future job plans close, and she knew damn well she didn’t trust me. I couldn’t imagine how she was going to manage in that world… but then I thought about how she’d handled that creep Cowen, how she had me running all over the shop… well, maybe I wasn’t putting enough trust in her.
Ashleigh’s eyes on me were brighter than they’d ever been before. If I didn’t know her almost as well as the sister I was glad I never had, I might have thought there was fondness for me in that look. “I see. Elizabeth Anderson is connected to Aileen Anderson. That’s an interesting bit of information.”
Callie’s head had snapped around when she mentioned Aileen’s name, but she just bubbled over silently because she was too afraid of Ashleigh to confront her. I’d never understood why so many other girls were like that with Ash: honestly, it was bitchiness. I liked that Aileen had at least been meeting her head-on when they’d spoken outside that exam, whether or not she was happy about it.
“You need to keep your mouth shut,” I warned Ashleigh. She laughed at me.
“I don’t need to do anything, but I’ve got no reason to screw with her.” She gave me a smile that was brighter than her usual, too. “Good luck.”
I could almost see her picking up her attention and moving it elsewhere. Ashleigh probably held utter contempt for me too. It made me sick that I hadn’t seen this before. Or had I seen it… but not cared before? I knew I was not well-liked, but that seemed inevitable. People were always jealous of those who were destined to fly higher than they ever would.
Jealous of a guy whose mother wouldn’t even stick around f