Chloe
“GoChloe,it’syour birthday, we’re gonna party like it’s your birthday!”
Chloe looked up from her computer, blinking. Was it that time already? She withdrew the pen she had been chewing from her mouth.
“Hey,” she said, trying to look suitably enthused about her birthday. “I’ll just be a few more minutes, I promise. Do you want to take a seat?”
Julia rolled her eyes and sank down in one of the sleek leather armchairs (purchased second-hand for an excellent price) in front of Chloe’s desk. “Seriously? It’s your birthday. Work can wait!”
“No rest for the wicked,” Chloe gave her friend a rueful grim, dashing off an email in record time, her delicate fingers a blur of activity.
“I thought as much,” Julia shook her head knowingly. “I brought a book.” She pulled out a tattered paperback with a cover that indicated the heroine of the story had a far more exciting love life than either of them did.
“You know me too well,” Chloe flipped through a stack of papers, quickly reading through the legal jargon and numbered paragraphs to ensure everything was in order. “I just need to go through this. The couple who own that new build down by the lake are subdividing. I want to make sure I get the contract.”
“Who else is going to sell it?” Julia was incredulous. “I mean, you’re the only real estate agent in Crowley Lake!”
That was a fair point, but Chloe was unconvinced. “They might give it to that big office in Katoomba,” she said fretfully. “I’m not going to make any assumptions. I’ve got to put in the work if I want to be successful.”
“You are successful,” Julia told her. “Ridiculously successful. But it’s never enough, is it?”
“I just want to keep ahead of the game,” Chloe frowned, putting a question mark next to a paragraph that seemed to imply that the purchasers of the newly subdivided land would be obliged to provide easement access for…goats? That didn’t seem right.
Julia was silent for a while, intent on her book, until Chloe sighed and set down her pen.
“Are you finished? Let’s get going. It looks like it might snow tonight,” Julia said, putting her book away.
Chloe wrinkled her nose, standing up from her desk and peering out of the front window that listed currently available properties in the Crowley Lake region. Julia was right. The grey clouds were threateningly low in the sky.
“I hate snow,” Chloe muttered, stretching her arms and arching her back. Her limbs were aching from spending all day hunched over her computer. What she really felt like doing was going for a run. But it was her birthday, and so she was obliged to celebrate. Whether she liked it or not.
“How can you hate snow?” Julia waved a hand. “It’s so pretty!”
“Well, I’d expect that from someone who shares their body with a literal snow leopard, but it’s a pain in the arse for the rest of us. It…” Chloe searched for a socially acceptable reason to hate snow. “It makes the roads slippery!”
That wasn’t the real reason Chloe hated snow, but she didn’t want to talk about that. Didn’t want to think about a shivering little girl with soaking wet shoes and a thin coat, vowing that when she was grown up, she’d never be cold again.
Julia laughed. “Alright, fair enough. You can hate snow if you want, but I’m still hoping it happens this year. There’s nothing like running through a crisp, untouched field of pure white, with that brilliant bright night sky and—”
“Harassing the local wallaby population?”
“Well, they’re hardly endangered,” Julia shrugged. “And a girl’s got to eat. So do leopards. Crowley Lake can spare me a few wallabies.”
“I suppose it can,” Chloe didn’t want to disagree, however squeamish she felt about her best friend’s dietary habits. Wallabies were cute; she didn’t want to think about them being ripped to shreds by sharp claws and fierce teeth.
“Hurry up and get dressed,” Julia said. “We’re running late already.”
“I will!” Chloe looked longingly at her computer. Maybe she could just check her emails one last time—
“Get. Dressed.” Julia used the voice that she usually reserved for her niece and nephew. She even had a finger raised in warning.
“Okay, okay!” Chloe made for the stairs, not wanting to risk the sometimes snow leopard’s wrath. “I’ll just be a minute.”
“If I had a dollar for every time you said that,” Julia pointed at her watch.
Dashing up the stairs, Chloe pulled off her previously crisp and now wrinkled white blouse and snaked out of her slim-fitting grey skirt. Usually, she’d put them neatly into her washing basket, but she didn’t want to keep Julia waiting any longer than was strictly necessary.
As much as she wasn’t terribly excited about celebrating her birthday, Chloe was enthusiastic about one part of the evening – an opportunity to wear her new dress. Even with Julia shouting threats up the stairs, Chloe couldn’t resist looking at herself in the antique brass mirror that her brother had helped her hang on the wall. It was a rich, inky navy silk that whispered around her curves and brought out the colour of her eyes – or so she liked to think, anyway. Quickly, Chloe stepped into a pair of high-heeled tan boots that looked a lot more expensive than they had been and slicked on some bright red lipstick. She pulled impatiently at the hairband that had held her honey-coloured hair in a neat bun all day and gave it a ruffle. That would have to do, or Julia would come charging up here and forcibly frog-march her to the pub.
“Come on!” Julia called. “Seriously, you better get down these stairs right now, or I’ll—”
“I’m here!” Chloe bounded down the stairs two at a time, grabbing her coat from a hook by the door. “Let’s go!”
“Not so fast,” Julia held up a hand. “Show me your dress! Is that the one you’ve been working on?”
“Do you like it?” Chloe smoothed her hands over the fine fabric (bulk discount, she’d make some delightfully luxe pyjamas from the rest).
“I don’t know why you’re a real estate agent,” Julia said. “You should have been a fashion designer or something.”