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Jules looks at the card. She should send a picture of it to Samantha.
Thinking of Samantha has her calling out. ‘Excuse me again. Sorry.’
James turns to her and her tongue gets heavy in her mouth. She takes a deep breath and asks anyway before she loses the spark of confidence that made her stop him. ‘This is probably a big ask, but are there copies of the conference slides available? I’m filling in here last minute for my boss and yours is the one talk she was sad to miss.’
James rubs the underside of his chin with his knuckles. ‘Hmm. Who’s your boss?’
Jules goes to tuck her hair behind her ear but it’s already pulled back in a ponytail. ‘Samantha Liu? We work at Infinity Press.’
‘Ah, Ms Liu.’ He smiles, nodding his head. ‘I know the woman. I remember hearing her talk at the last Sydney conference. Spoke a mile a minute but great stuff, great stuff.’
‘So you’ll send me the slides?’
‘Why not.’ He pulls his phone from his pocket and passes it over after unlocking it. ‘Give me your email and I’ll sort it out.’
‘Thank you so much.’ Jules enters her details.
‘Will you be giving her presentation then?’ James asks as she types in her work address. ‘I noticed she was on the timetable.’
‘Yes. Tomorrow afternoon. I just finished polishing it up at lunch.’
‘Working on it right up until the deadline. That’s always been my technique too.’ James smiles at her, taking his phone back, then glancing at the screen. ‘Julianne, is it?’
‘Yes. Julianne Doherty.’
‘I’m looking forward to your talk, Julianne.’ James walks away with a nod of his head.
Jules watches him leave, tapping her finger on the corner of the business card still in her hand. There’s an energy sparking in her chest that lingers from his talk, the energy she felt when she first started working at Infinity. She reads the business card again before slipping it into her phone case.
***
After the last of the day’s talks, Jules showers at the hotel then catches a bus to Chloe’s university where they’ve arranged to meet. She steps off the bus with her make-up bag, some hair stuff and two pairs of shoes that Chloe asked her to bring, with a promise she’d drop them back at the hotel so Jules could go straight to the concert. She spots Chloe’s pink-and-purple streaked hair immediately. A good thing too, because the hug comes in swiftly, and suddenly Jules is surrounded by slender arms and she’s got curls up her nose.
‘Jules! I’m so excited you’re letting me dress you.’ Chloe pulls back with a bright dimpled smile so similar to Cameron’s it makes Jules’s stomach swoop.
‘Thanks for agreeing to it,’ Jules says, falling in beside Chloe as she sets a fast pace into the campus. ‘I probably could have gotten away with something I have in my suitcase, but I wanted it to be special.’
‘First time going to the Opera House?’ Chloe stops at a bay of lifts and presses the up button. The doors open and they step in.
‘No, I’ve been before, but not for years.’
‘I’ve gone so many times since Carrie got into the orchestra. Which sounds like I’m bragging, which I’m totally not. It never loses it’s cool and I always dress up.’
They exit on level four and Chloe takes them around enough corners that Jules loses all sense of orientation, before Chloe pushes open a wide door.
Jules steps into an explosion of fabrics. ‘Woah.’
She swings her head a full 180 degrees to take in the racks upon racks of clothes of all kinds and styles. In the middle of the room are a few bays with sewing machines sitting on them, and dress forms adorned in outfits at various stages of completion.
‘This would be my friend Cat’s wet dream,’ she tells Chloe.
Chloe laughs and grabs Jules’s wrist to pull her into the back left corner of the room, taking her bags off and dumping them onto one of the sewing tables. ‘It’s a chaotic mess, but I love it.’
Chloe’s like a firecracker, sparking around Jules and making her try on outfit after outfit while she keeps up a steady conversation about the musical she’s helping out with and the collection she’s creating using all scavenged fabrics. Eventually, after Jules has tried on so many outfits she’s lost all sense of modesty, Chloe settles on a midnight blue dress.
Chloe pushes Jules over to the full-length mirror with surprising strength. The top half of the dress clings to Jules’s body from the wide, off-the shoulder bands to her waist. The bottom half is made with thick panels of fabric in varying dark shades of blue. Jules swishes side to side and they reveal flashes of skin up to mid-thigh, though there’s a tan slip underneath for security.
Jules twirls, feeling like Cinderella after her Fairy Godmother waves that magic wand. The dress does amazing things to her breasts and brings out the colour of her eyes. She’d love to slowly descend a curving staircase wearing this and have Cameron waiting at the bottom with barely-banked fire in his eyes. The need that’s lingered since this morning flares hot inside her.
