The Wrong Girl Page 3

  Lx

  Sent from my iPhone

  To: Lily Woodward

  From: Simone Bryant

  Subject: Re: Call me Sister Woodward, please

  Who knows, it might be the start of a big awakening for him. God knows he needs one.

  See you tonight xoxo

  P.S. What about fantasising about Ryan Gosling?

  To: Sim Bryant

  From: Lily Woodward

  Subject: NO GOZZO

  I mean it.

  I’ll be checking your web history.

  Lx

  Sent from my iPhone

  Lily hit send and sipped her water, enjoying her last day off by spending a few hours at the beach. Fucking Pete, she thought, with overwhelming disappointment. Why’d he have to go be such a dick.

  Lily turned her thoughts elsewhere: tomorrow was Monday, her first day back at work, which raised a mixture of excitement and anxiety. She produced the cooking segment on The Daily, a morning show that had been around forever and often felt like it. Her executive producer always wanted Big Name chefs, but the problem was, they usually worked until two a.m. and couldn’t be bothered making the seven a.m. call time. At the end of last year Lily had suggested the show go back to the old model of one in-house chef so everyone wasn’t in a complete state of panic four days a week, and amazingly her idea had been approved. A new chef had been decided on over the Christmas break, and she was nervous thinking about who it might be, since the decision would likely have been made by her series producer, Eliza, a sweet but ineffective woman with about as much chef knowhow as a pot plant. The new chef could make or break Lily’s year, depending on whether they were fun and easy to work with, or stubborn, lascivious and cantankerous, which was what she had learned to expect based on her experience with a largely male chef’s pool. She shook her head; she hadn’t even been asked for suggestions.

  Lily used to think she wanted to be the on-air talent, when she first started in TV, fantasising of her Bridget Jones moment and becoming an overnight sensation, but she soon realised she’d be terrible at it. In fact, it might be her worst nightmare. She preferred being behind the camera, with all of her mistakes and her private life protected, and absolutely no need to wear heels, or entertain the notion of hairspray. Much better. Much more Lily.

  The next morning Lily pulled her long, dark straight hair up into a messy bun and looked at herself in the far-too-truthful bathroom mirror. She was wearing a pair of black jeans, ballet flats and a light-grey top she’d bought in Byron Bay that walked the line between T-shirt and dressy top. She knew today would just be workshopping; why dress up? Of course, that wouldn’t stop Eliza from wearing her office-lady finest. She persisted with the idea that traditional female business attire, the stuff favoured by Melanie Griffiths in the late ’80s, was ‘professional’ and ‘polished’ even though in everyone else’s eyes it was just ‘vividly outdated’.

  There were no spots left in the car park, as far as Lily could tell. Finally, after almost ten minutes of zooming her small, had-it-since-uni VW Polo around columns and partitions, seeking that elusive car space, Lily spied one. It was a good one too, right near the lifts. She put her foot down and sped towards it, only to see a sleek black ute gracefully reverse into it three seconds before she arrived. She slammed on the brakes and her jaw plunged in shock. Who does that? It was clearly hers!

  She waited to see who would exit this horrible bogan chariot, so she could fire them a greasy and then bookmark them for future greasies too. A head emerged, then broad shoulders in a simple white shirt, followed by dark denim jeans that were full-stopped with navy trainers. The man slammed the car door closed and spun around. He was astonishing. Tall, with dirty-blond hair with a slight curl, olive skin, three-day stubble and a body that would definitely list the gym as a close friend. He noticed Lily staring at him and frowned, as if she had done something wrong. Then he walked off to the lifts, leaving Lily to fume at this rude, beautiful bandit.

  She reversed and did another few laps, settling for a reserved park one floor up, empty because none of the execs were in this soon after new year’s. She couldn’t stop thinking about the guy who had stolen her spot; who was he and why was he parking down with the commoners? He looked like he should be presenting the evening sport segment, or selling luxury yachts. Actually, yeah, he’d definitely be in sales, she thought. Gross. If there was one thing worse than a guy in a tarted up ute who stole your car spot, it was the fact that he was a salesman too.

  Lily’s desk, she was disappointed to discover, was as messy as she’d left it, press releases and a pile of cookbooks balancing precariously over her keyboard. She’d secretly hoped the cleaners would tidy her pigpen over Christmas, but unless you put something actually IN the bin, not next to it, not leaning against it, they didn’t take it. She sighed and slung her bag over her chair. Another year of Leftovers You’ll Love and Fast Feeds and stovetop burns and washing burned debris off pans. Was she up to it? She’d get there. The first week back always sucked, but she loved her job overall. Plus, she’d worked too hard and for too long at The Daily to simply up and find work elsewhere.

  ‘Any ants? They’re having a fucking field day on mine,’ a voice from behind said. Lily spun around to see a flame of red-pink hair and a wide smile standing behind her.

  ‘Al, you’ve gone all gingersnap!’ She hugged her friend tightly and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  Alice worked on the home decor and renovations segment and was irresistibly dysfunctional; how she managed to hold down her job, let alone remember to shower and eat each day, baffled Lily. Despite her corrosive persona, a hangover from years of masterful work as a high school Emo, Alice dressed like a preschooler and was the office darling. Lily often wished she could be more like Alice, who was seemingly unfazed by other people’s moods or attitudes or demands. She just got on with things; other people’s shit was nothing to do with her, she said. It was an inspiring attitude and, as Lily had discovered, impossible to fake. Plus, Alice was twenty-five, and why wouldn’t you be that carefree at twenty-five? Lily had been.

  ‘Did it last night, saw the box at the chemist and thought, fuck it. Plus, I’m really into sunsets at the moment, and this kind of looks like one, don’t you think?’

  ‘You could wear any hair colour and it would look good.’ It was true, Alice’s peaches-and-cream skin and enormous, dark-brown doe eyes meant she was impervious to the usual rules about colour complementing and clashing. But mostly, she didn’t care what other people thought, and that was why it worked.

  ‘How was camping?’

  ‘Awesome. Jules and I borrowed The Pest from her cousin, this horrible old mobile home from the ’70s, and we did this huge road trip, and met these mental German B-packers and had the full summer kombi van experience. Did a lot of acid. Didn’t really mean to, but on the first night Derek kissed me over dinner and slipped a tab into my mouth and it went from there, really.’

  ‘That sounds a little bit like he drugged you, Al.’

  ‘I don’t know how I’m going to handle this prison after all that fun . . .’ Alice spoke as though she were a bank teller who was glued to her stool all day, when in fact she was rarely at her desk, and spent her days racing around the set, or roaming the city, or filming celebrities’ houses, or producing lightning-fast renovations.

  ‘Hey, how was Byron? Did you see that gypsy I recommended?’

  Lily scrunched up her face and exhaled through her nose. ‘Byron was amazing.’ She looked around surreptitiously. ‘But then when I got back I hooked up with Pete – don’t make that face – and then he told me he was in love with some girl.’

  ‘You’re fucking with me.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘That’s a total spin-out. I really thought if he ever got you you’d be married in, like, three minutes.’ Alice, number one fan of love and sex and male-female relations in general, looked genuinely disappointed.

  ‘Doesn’t matter, I’m on a man-detox now.
He gave me the perfect reason to ditch men. Won’t miss them. Simone’s doing it too. We’re each other’s support.’

  Alice burst into laughter. ‘SIMONE? Simone is off men? Oh, now I’ve heard everything. She won’t last an hour.’

  Alice didn’t get Simone. She thought she was fake and insincere and that Lily could do better.

  ‘She’ll be fine. I’m excited. Do you even know how much energy men take up, Alice? I guess you wouldn’t, since you meet a new guy effortlessly once a week.’

  ‘Scuse me, I saw Matt for ages.’

  ‘Ah, yes, the DJ who wore T-shirts of other DJs so that people knew he was a DJ.’

  ‘He was such a lovely donut, but the DJ lifestyle is not for me. Plus he never had any cash and I could only steal enough quiche from the test kitchen to support us for so long.’

  ‘So you’ll be a Sally Single with me?’ Lily asked with a smile, knowing full well Alice and single went about as well together as porridge and seaweed.

  ‘Sure, yeah, whatever.’ Alice began walking back to her desk, turning halfway across the office to say, ‘Hey, have you heard about the new chef?’

  ‘Let me guess, he’s a good-looking, conceited megalomaniac with six women on the go and a long-suffering wife at home.’

  ‘Nah, don’t think so. Young. New. A good country boy straight from the pumpkin patch. But sadly, he’s not handsome.’

  Lily started up her computer and shook her head. ‘Don’t care anyway. Not interested.’

  ‘He is GODLY. The bear’s flares. All movie-star baby blues, big hands that could make a house from scratch, a voice like a war general and hair that’s made of pure silk and you just know what’s hiding in his pant—’

  ‘I don’t care if it’s Tom Hardy himself: I’m not interested.’ Lily looked at Alice with a pained look on her face.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Alice, in a singsong voice.

  Dale tapped his finger on his mouse. Lily’s co-worker was a small, nervous guy with a penchant for train-driver hats, possibly because he was balding, but more likely because it made him feel less visible and therefore less likely to be forced to converse. He seemed to find the world a largely terrifying place. Lily was ashamed to admit she occasionally intentionally made him squirm, with up to three or four non-work questions in a row. Dale cleared his throat.

  ‘No TV experience, no. Just restaurant.’

  ‘Great. So we’re supposed to anchor the segment on this guy and he has no TV experience, no cookbook, no website, no hosting role on My Kitchen Rules, nothing.’

  Behind Lily the office door opened, and a small woman with short black hair, impressively both flat and frizzy, walked in. No one who’d worked at The Daily for longer than a day wore anything in the same sartorial area code as Eliza’s knee-length skirts, blouses, flesh-toned pantyhose and blazers.

  She was thirty-five at most, but looked forty. It was her eyebrows, Lily decided. They were too arched and thin. It aged her, and made her look mean, which she wasn’t. She was a big dork. As she walked towards the pair, she tip-tapped away on her chunky old BlackBerry.

  ‘Nice break, everyone?’ She was yet to look up at them.

  ‘Yeah, really great, thanks, Eliza, how was yours? How was Port Macquarie? How are your family?’ Lily asked, smiling.

  ‘Mad and many, you know how it is!’ Eliza’s tinkly laugh rang through the room. ‘So, I have some very exciting news.’ Eliza’s news was always at least a week old. Lily knew not to get excited.

  ‘We have our new in-house chef! His name is Jack Winters. He was the head chef at Simmer in Mudgee, a two-hat restaurant, he trained at all the fancy places in Paris and London – you’d probably know them, Lily – and, between us and the doorknob, he looks like he could be a Hemsworth brother . . . but better looking! He’s going to get the stay-at-home mums very worked up, let me tell you that right now . . .’

  Lily winced. Dale’s intel was spot on. They’d hired a no-name, no-experience beefcake to get the viewers all hot and bothered. Classy.

  ‘Now, I won’t keep you, I’m sure you’ve loads to do; Ben will be in touch about the planning meeting tomorrow. Oh and Lily, we should talk about some new tea towels.’ Eliza was always ‘urgently noticing’ things that made absolutely no difference to the show. Last year she had called a meeting to discuss the importance of matching wooden spoons.

  ‘Okay then, more soon. It’s great to be back, team!’ And with a smile and a swivel, she was off.

  Lily waited til she was safely out of view and earshot before turning back to Dale.

  ‘So, you’ll hassle the Thermomix people again?’

  Okay,’ he said at a volume better suited to a church or library. Lily couldn’t help feeling like she was dealing with the work experience kid most of the time, despite Dale technically being a producer, albeit an assistant one.

  Back at her desk, Lily typed ‘Jack Winters Simmer’ into Google and hit search. A stream of restaurant reviews, but no videos or images, which was troubling. She read with interest the first one, written by Terry Durack, which awarded Simmer 19/20. Almost unheard of.

  ‘Stalking your kitchen Adonis, huh? That allowed on your lame detox?’ Alice’s finest skill was sneaking up on people and spying on what they were doing.

  Lily spun around. ‘Can you pipe down? It’s my job to research, remember? Yours too, in case you forgot.’

  Alice slurped noisily from her Diet Coke – quite possibly her third or fourth for the day – and looked at Lily mischievously. ‘I’m going to make a bet with myself in my head right now that you fall for him.’

  ‘Cool. Hope you win,’ Lily said, her back to Alice.

  ‘You’ve got chewy on your jeans,’ Alice said as she turned and walked back to her desk.

  Lily looked down at the back of her jeans and saw a wad of green mess on her left calf. She cursed under her breath. Would she ever be a grown-up? she wondered as she took a pen and started to work at the glob of gum. It was roughly as effective as casting a spell. She deleted the words ‘Jack Winters Simmer’ from the search box and typed in ‘how to remove gum from jeans’ instead.

  5

  ‘But it’s RUDE, babe! And such bad karma.’ Simone looked at her friend in disbelief.

  ‘I actually can’t believe how much you are missing the point here. Just because Chris Rich-guy texts does not mean you’re excluded from the detox. That’s like you, as a vegetarian, having just one meat pie.’

  Lily was flicking through one of Simone’s new swimsuit campaign lookbooks, shot in Cabo, Mexico, in which Simone was oiled up and depleting several layers of ozone with her smouldering gazes. It really was horrible for the self-esteem, Lily confirmed, living with a bikini model, but she loved Sim and was proud of her, and had long ago stopped trying to compare herself with Sim and her fabulous tits and perfect body and hair and skin.

  ‘I haven’t slept with him. He’s just a friend, and he doesn’t know about the man-detox, so in his eyes I’m just a bitch.’

  ‘Tell me, does this “friend” of yours have a penis?’ Lily looked at Simone, eyebrows raised.

  Simone sighed and threw her head back so that it arched over the top of the sofa, while covering her face with one of the cushions. Only her hair and her long silver and turquoise earrings were visible. She loved silver jewellery. Kaftans and crochet and soft cotton scarves also rated highly on her list.

  ‘Do you need me to find our emails with the rules?’

  Simone ripped the cushion off with a flourish, her hair messy, her enormous, green eyes wide. Despite the fact she’d been out all night she didn’t look even remotely tarnished by alcohol or sleeplessness.

  ‘Okay, no, shut up, I get it, but what about, like, business friends? I SWEARTOGOD, that’s all Chris is.’

  ‘Chris who owns houses in New York, Spain and Paris, and also a cruiser, and looks a lot like Adrien Brody? No. He doesn’t seem much like your type.’

  Simone smiled coyly. ‘Just because the men I date
are successful does not mean that’s why I date them. And part of the reason I’m doing this sabboytical is to find a man outside my usual type, anyway . . . Someone honest, and simple . . . and genuine. Someone with heart.’

  ‘You love painful men! You love going out with racing-car drivers and athletes and tycoons and guys who are constantly on their phone. You love the drama and the excitement.’

  ‘But look what happens the moment it gets even a tiny bit serious: they freak out, or bring in hookers, or introduce their boyfriend or wife.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were looking to get serious . . .’

  ‘I don’t want a bloody Tarago and a picket fence. I’d just like, I don’t know, someone to be authentically, mutually happy with, I guess.’ She hugged her knees and looked at Lily at the other end of the sofa.

  ‘I mean, my birthday with the girls was amaze last month, but I couldn’t help thinking how nice it would’ve been to have a boyfriend to spend a weekend in the country with, and just cook up a big meal, and slob about in trackies with. You know? Something authentic.’

  Lily cocked her head and smiled softly at her friend. ‘Do you know how many girls would kill for your life, Sim? The glamour and travel and excitement . . . and you’re after a spag bol and a plumber to kiss you goodnight. Look, relax. You’re going to fall over some incredible man who will adore you and be everything you dreamed of before you know it. And just in case you ever forget, that man is not Michael.’

  Sim looked at her phone and sighed. She hated being reprimanded about Michael, but Lily didn’t give a shit. She’d seen the damage he’d done.

  ‘ ’Kay. I won’t text. I was having a weak moment.’ She crossed her legs and resolutely tucked her hair behind both ears.

  Lily stood up and chucked the lookbook on the pile of magazines that covered the coffee table. ‘Maybe I will have some of that chickpea and twig stew after all.’