“Is, uh, everything okay?”
She gave an indignant scoff. “No, it isn’t, Scott Sanderson. No. It. Isn’t.”
“What…is happening exactly?”
“You’re blacklisting me after I helped you achieve your lifelong dream, that’s what’s happening.”
Scott frowned. “Excuse me?”
“Did I, or did I not get her away from the greasy hands of Tall Matt last night, so that you were the lucky man who capitalized on her post Ink the Night sadness and fingered her? Did I not help you do that?”
He looked around the office, worried someone would hear. “You did. Although we didn’t…and itwasn’tbecause I capitalized on her—”
“Perhaps you should contemplate that if you want to keep creeping on Sam, especially under innocuous puppy-related circumstances, I might be your best bet?”
Scott opened his mouth to protest then realised she had a point. “Okay, you’re not wrong, but I’m notcreepingon your sister. I don’t want to make her do anything she doesn’t want—”
“Don’t stress, man. No one can make Sam do anything she doesn’t want to do, bless her. Look, I get what’s going on. You want to ask her opinion about some puppies, partly because you want her to see how committed you are to living in Melbourne, mostly because you want to shag her, is that about right?”
He took the receiver away from his ear, stared at it and then put it back. “How did you…?”
“Oh I’m quite brainy,” she said with a loud snap of gum. “I got a 99.95 on my ATAR and it does not take a genius to know what men are thinking most of the time, trust me. Now, what time do you want me and Sam to come meet you?”
“Er…” Scott checked his watch. “What about quarter past six? I mean if—”
“Quarter past six sounds sick. Kay, byeeeeeee.”
She hung up.
Pleased, confused and slightly nervous, Scott sat back in his chair until he accepted the wheels he’d set in motion. Then he stuck his head out of his office door and caught Toby’s eye. “I’m coming to look at the puppies at quarter to six. Also, what’s your address?”
Toby smiled so wide he almost cracked his face in half.
***
Toby checked hiswatch for the umpteenth time. “They should be here soon, right?”
Scott remembered all the slapdash DaSilva school-runs he’d witnessed—the girls clambering into their dads’ battered Commodore still wearing Ugg boots and carrying cups of tea and toast. “Yes. They’ll be here soon.”
He and Toby were standing on the front steps of Toby’s house, a run-of-the mill, three-bedroom place. Nothing about it was unusual and yet Scott felt uneasy in its presence. Could have been the David Lynch suburban nightmare thing, was more likely due to his personal assistant being extremely jumpy. His parents weren’t around but he hadn’t offered to let Scott in the house and he kept shooting the street fearful looks.
“Toby, are we…not allowed to be here?” he asked.
Toby tried and failed to give a carefree laugh. “Of course.”
“Are you sure?”
His broad cheeks blushed crimson. He seemed to choose his next words carefully. “It’s not that you’re not allowed…it’s just that it’s a bit…My parents, they’re a bit…” Toby shot him a helpless look.
“Clean?”
Toby shook his head. “I’m making it worse. I’ll just show you.”
He walked up the steps and unlocked the front door and gestured to Scott to look inside. “Oh!” Hanging in the foyer of Toby’s house was an enormous wooden crucifix, complete with a man-sized Christ. Not only was Jesus crowned in thorns and nailed to the wood, but his flayed skin, bleeding side and general unhealthiness at this particular period of his life was displayed to a horrifying degree. He was all mottled skin and infected gashes and he had huge yellowish shadows around his eyes. Scott felt his eyebrows shoot upward and willed them back into place. “That’s very…it’s quite…”
‘Disgusting’ was the word he wanted to use, but that didn’t seem appropriate.
“My parents are religious,” Toby said quietly. “Born again. If you think this is bad, you should see the painting we have in the kitchen of Jesus healing lepers.”