LITMIR.BIZ

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that. ‘Thing is, I need to feel as if I’m part of a community today, and this community is the only one I’ve got. Does that sound needy?’

      ‘No.’ Millie’s smile came free and gentle and washed over Charlotte like a balm. ‘It sounds like your community needs to lift its game.’

      For all her inquisitiveness, Millie Peters had a good heart and for the rest of the day she did everything in her power to ensure that Charlotte had company. Half the archaeology department went to the cinema with them that evening. The following evening Millie and her latest beau, Derek, invited Charlotte to dine with them at a local pub.

      Derek was an archaeology student with a builder’s licence in his back pocket, a double degree in geology and ancient history, and a blissfully practical outlook for someone bent on becoming a field archaeologist.

      They found a small round table over by the window, not too sticky, not too wobbly, and settled in for the duration. Derek bought the first round of drinks and the barman went back to filling his fridges, and the pool players went back to smacking their balls around as lazy jazz played softly through oversized speakers. Not bad. Infinitely better than being at home.

      ‘The crispy pork sounds good,’ said Derek, and Millie glared meaningfully at him.

      ‘The crispy pork does not sound good,’ countered Millie. ‘Have the beef. Or the duck. No mistaking duck for anything but duck.’ Millie’s face disappeared behind her menu. ‘Remember what I told you about the long pig incident,’ she muttered to Derek as quietly as she could, which wasn’t nearly quietly enough.

      Derek slid Charlotte a lightning glance and promptly disappeared behind his menu too. ‘Where’s the duck?’ he said.

      ‘Halfway down the specials list,’ murmured Millie. ‘Have it braised.’

      ‘Why not barbecued?’ Derek whispered back. ‘You’re just assuming he was barbecued. They could have braised him. They could have boiled him.’

      ‘You’re right,’ muttered Millie. ‘Order the vegetable combo.’

      At which point Charlotte reached across the table and pulled Millie’s menu down past eye level. ‘Psst.’

      ‘What?’ Millie eyed her warily.

      ‘Millie, let the poor man eat pork. I don’t care if he wants it crucified, I promise I won’t see it as a metaphor for him eating Gil.’

      Derek’s menu dipped slowly. Derek’s eyes appeared, followed by a nose, very nice cheekbones, and a wide wry smile.

      ‘I knew she was saner than you,’ Derek told Millie and barely winced when Millie’s menu clipped his shoulder. They were very broad shoulders. Millie might just have to keep this one.

      ‘So what was he like?’ asked Derek. ‘Your fiancé.’

      ‘He’s hard to define, but if I had to sum him up I’d probably go with useful,’ said Charlotte. Nothing but the truth.

      ‘Useful as in “Honey, could you fix the hot water system?”‘ asked Millie.

      ‘I’m sure he could have fixed the hot water system,’ said Charlotte. ‘Had it needed fixing.’

      ‘Can’t everyone?’ countered Derek.

      ‘Sadly, no,’ said Charlotte.

      ‘I dare say Gil was modest too,’ said Millie, glancing pointedly at Derek.

      ‘What?’ said Derek. ‘I can be modest.’

      ‘Of course you can,’ murmured Charlotte, eyeing Derek’s frayed shirt collar and shaggy hair speculatively. ‘Gil was a snappy dresser too, in a rustic, ready for anything kind of way.’

      ‘Window dressing,’ said Derek. ‘It’s the body beneath the clothes that counts and don’t either of you try and tell me different.’

      ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Charlotte. ‘But just for your information, that was superb too.’

      ‘Well, it would be,’ said Millie. ‘What with all that paddling up the river. I bet the man had fabulous upper-body definition.’

      ‘I was a lumberjack once,’ said Derek.

      ‘Of course you were,’ murmured Millie consolingly.

      A youthful waitress stepped up to their table, smile at the ready as she asked them if they were ready to order.

      ‘I’ll have the pork,’ said Derek. ‘But could I have it beaten first?’

      ‘Chef runs it through a tenderiser,’ said the waitress. ‘You know—one of those old-fashioned washing-machine wringer things with the spikes?’

      ‘Perfect,’ said Derek.

      ‘Unlike some things around here,’ murmured Millie.

      ‘No man is perfect,’ said Derek. ‘Especially in the eyes of women. A determined woman can turn even a man’s good qualities into major flaws of character given time and motive, and half the time the motive is optional. It’s just something you do.’

      ‘There’s got to be an ex-wife in your past somewhere,’ murmured Charlotte. ‘C’mon, Derek. Spill.’

      ‘Never.’

      ‘Maybe an overcritical mother,’ said Millie.

      ‘I’m an orphan,’ said Derek. ‘Never knew my parents. Never got adopted. Ugliest baby in the world, according to Sister Ramona.’

      ‘That explains a lot,’ murmured Millie. ‘Though it doesn’t explain how you got to be quite so handsome now. In a craggy, hard-living kind of way.’

      ‘Thank you,’ said Derek blandly.

      ‘You’re welcome.’

      They finished ordering their meals. They started in on their drinks.

      ‘Here’s to the wonderful Aurora Herschoval,’ said Charlotte. ‘The best godmother an orphan could have.’

      ‘Hear hear,’ said Derek. ‘Good for you. And here’s to Useful Gil. May he be blessed with more brains in his next life.’

      ‘Derek!’ said Millie, aghast. ‘We can’t toast to that.’

      ‘Why not?’ said Derek, aiming for an expression of craggy, hard-lived innocence. ‘Sweetie, he may have been handy, handsome, modest, and built like Apollo, but let’s be honest here … the man got eaten.’

       CHAPTER TWO

      A WEEK passed, and then another, and Charlotte kept busy. She applied herself diligently, if not wholeheartedly, to her work. She considered the merits of Harold’s suggestion to hit the archaeology road again for a while and came to no firm conclusion. She inherited Aurora’s wealth and her Double Bay waterfront estate on Sydney Harbour.

      And when it came to dead fictional fiancés, she kept right on lying.

      Was it too late to tell Millie the truth about Gil? To tell everyone the truth?

      The question plagued her. ‘When, when, when?’ her conscience demanded. And, ‘Too late, too late, too late,’ the devil kept saying smugly. Bad friend to Millie. Too late to tell the Mead that Gil had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination. That time had passed. Her detractors within the archaeology world and the university system would flay her if she did.

      ‘What did I tell you?’ they would say smugly to each other. ‘I always knew she was too reckless to hold down a position of responsibility, no matter what pull her family name has in high places.’ Then they’d shake their heads and say what a loss Charlotte’s parents

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