LITMIR.BIZ

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warning without question, as she did most of Faith's saws and superstitions, only realising later in life that these pronouncements were lines lifted straight out of any number of Hollywood movies that formed the basis of her mother's very own, midday, University of the Air. And while there was always a possibility that Faith had had some unfortunate dealings with the many white-shoed pimps she was bound to encounter at Safeway, the grown-up Ronnie decided that this was unlikely. Nevertheless, white shoes as an indicator of untrustworthiness in a man had remained locked into her subconscious (with certain concessions made to tennis players - but only when engaged in play).

      So maybe if Lawrence had worn white shoes? If she had known about this store of footwear? She closed her eyes and burrowed down further into the pillow, not wanting to think about ifs, not wanting to think.

      Perhaps it was only women's shoes that Ronnie noticed? From the stilettoed follow-me-home-and-fuck-me to the high-tech trainer or the low-life moccie, all objects of envy or derision, dead giveaways of character and intention.

      Oh yes, her mother, the Profiler, was spot-on when it came to analysing women's footwear but she might have given Ronnie more warnings about men (pimps included) other than their sporting of white shoes. Leather ties perhaps. Or brown cardigans and cargo pants. Let's face it, anyone who falls in love when assaulted by those kinds of dress-code violations...

      Fallen in love? Was that what Ronnie had done? Was love what had brought her here? Surely not. But that was what she'd said to Lawrence last night. 'I love you very much' were the words she said, confident he felt the same.

      Love? How else could she express what she'd been feeling for the last few months? There were times when it felt just like it. The pounding heart, the breathless anticipation, the heightened sense of touch and smell, the loss of weight - oh, the heavenly, effortless loss of weight! But love?

      She didn't have a lot of evidence to go on. Even in the self-saucing thick of it she had sensed that theirs was not an enduring meeting of true minds such as she once had with Boyd, bound with steel hoops of humour and intelligence. Her conversations with Lawrence on matters other than work had had some moments of flow, but they were just brazen excuses for her to stand close to him, to hear his voice, to breathe him in. And yet with another part of her brain, located at some considerable distance from the part that was on red alert, she had registered a dim 'no future'.

      So, it wasn't love. And it wasn't for the sex. Although sex had indeed been and gone, without her even coming. Oh, very droll, she thought. Very amusing. In a few months time we'll all be laughing our heads off over that one. But not today, because any minute now her head was going to implode.

      She rolled over carefully, exhaled through pursed lips as she realised with blinding clarity that it was neither love nor sex but that silly, giddy in-between land: she had simply had a crush on him.

      A schoolgirl crush, at an age when the only schoolgirls she knew were going to school with her son. An excruciating crush, to the exclusion of all else. A crush with no place in the real world. Something to take her mind off the humdrum, to put a spring in her step and a two in her dress-size where previously there had been a four. A crush, at once exciting, dangerous and bothersome; she loved having it and yet longed to be free of it.

      If he had, perhaps, found a girlfriend? It had taken Lou-Ann five minutes to find out he was recently divorced. He wasn't going to stay alone for long: Lawrence Konitz was gorgeous - the verdict in the dyeing room was unanimous - tall, blond, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, that sort of thing, with a kind of louche, enigmatic presence exemplified by a predilection for Hugo Boss suits. A veritable 'chick magnet', and straight to boot.

      The appearance of a girlfriend for him would have solved everything. The sort of fantasy Ronnie had been indulging in was predicated on the faintest possibility that something might happen. An obsession for an attached person offended her moral sense, and she was, as are most women of Irish - Catholic descent, pathologically moral. Not at all like those women for whom an intrinsic part of the attraction lies in the fact that the other person is already spoken for.

      The fact that she herself was not only spoken for but had it in writing, was welded at the heart for all eternity to a husband and child whom she would not and could not leave, did not seem a contradiction to Ronnie. In her fantasy file, the one marked 'never to be released', she was free as a bird; an extreme object of desire.

      The emergence of a real-life girlfriend for Lawrence, however, would have put an end to all of that, would have forced her to admit that she was indulging in a bit of fun, some romantic aerobics for the flabby, marriage-fatigued heart, that she was not free, that she had nothing to offer. There would be no contest.

      But there had been no girlfriend. No rumoured liaison had cropped up in the office goss broadcast via Lou-Ann's regular coffee-break bulletins. On the contrary, Ronnie rather feared she might be an item on the agenda when Lou-Ann had asked her point-blank, and almost breathlessly, what she thought Lawrence might like for Christmas. Genevieve's head had spun around so fast Ronnie almost heard her neck snap. 'Miss Inhuman Services', one of Genevieve's many epithets, usually feigned grand indifference to coffee talk. Stella, the apprentice cutter, had even glanced up, sighed, then buried her head further into Textile View.

      The fact that Lou-Ann might have noticed any crush-like behaviour on Ronnie's part was, in itself, no big deal - the receptionist from hell had a heat-seeking device for trouble - but it was a wake-up call. Time to get a grip, snap out of it before someone else noticed her pink cheeks and cow eyes. Someone else who would give her hell. Someone like Dexter.

      Two weeks at the coast on her Christmas break had helped her to shake the whole thing off in the nicest possible way. She had to admit that what she lost on the swings of her husband's high-powered legal career she gained on the roundabouts of the low-key summer holiday. Perfect house with panoramic views across the ocean to Wilsons Promontory, a safe, secluded beach, bush-walks, rockpools and decent local restaurants. Paradise.

      When Matt was a baby it was more like an endurance test than a holiday - housework on location with none of the comforts of home. Cowering under an umbrella breast-feeding and swatting flies or crouching in terror as the toddler rushed into the water, while Boyd wandered off for hours - 'fishing'. In the last few years, however, things had improved immeasurably. Boyd brought all the boy-toys: scuba equipment, sailboard, fishing rods, frisbee, with which he and Matt kept themselves amused from sun-up to barbie.

      Sketchpad and pastels at her side, Ronnie lay glistening from her swim and let the sun burn a hole through her spine all the way to China, she didn't care. If she thought of work at all it was of the year of possibilities ahead.

      'Sky's the limit, Ronnie!' Isn't that what Dexter said at the Christmas party?

      'David Jones and Target have both re-ordered - can't get enough of us - well, you, really - they love you: your designs. Right place, right time, right pictures! That's what textiles is all about!'

      Strictly a VB man, her boss Dexter Henderson had a low tolerance for methode champenoise, it made him wax garrulous. 'And I just know,' he barrelled on, fingers to his temple, 'in my heart, that if we get this foot in the door of the Asian market... sky's the limit!'

      Old fantasies of a new house, private schooling for Matt and maybe another overseas trip were starting to look attainable. The real world was looking good. Boyd was looking good. Warm, funny, considerate, he even did the dishes, and there is no greater turn-on for the hard-working professional mother-of-one than the sight of her husband, tea towel in hand, scrupulously drying a plate.

      Sex was edging its way back into the love-making category; they actually looked into each other's eyes, kissed the way they used to and, afterwards, their tingly, sunburned bodies stayed locked together instead of turning to distant sides of the bed and the pressing business of sleep, or maybe just one more chapter of holiday reading. Contentment ruled.

      That's when she decided to keep her promise to Dexter to go back to work a week early to help him finalise the pitch that he was sweating over to secure a deal with a major Asian department store conglomerate known as 2-SWAN. She knew it would involve working closely with Lawrence, in his capacity as Arthouse's recently

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