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“To hear Gerry call it, he all but held the camera for you.”
She laughed, more from relief than amusement. “That’s our Gerry.”
Col sat at his PC and peered over the workstation barrier at her. “What did the parental unit say?”
“Haven’t heard from Dad.”
“He must be living under a rock to have missed this, or are you in trouble for pulling a candid camera number, going low rent?”
She abandoned the edits she was running on a story she couldn’t care less about for tomorrow’s edition. “How well do you know Brian?”
Col waggled his head, knowing she was razzing him. “We didn’t date if that’s what you’re getting at. But he did sign my salary check for about five years.”
“Oh—that well.” Darcy dropped her head in her hands in mock distress, in real concern about not having heard from Brian. It looked like it was going to get hairy on the home front. “Go away Col, you’re depressing me. I have a deadline.”
He laughed and disappeared from view, but when the mailroom guy dumped a thick parcel on her desk with a thump, he poked his head up to stickybeak.
“Does that say what I think it says, Darce?”
“Read your own mail.”
“No, yours is more interesting.” Col was standing up now, leaning across the barrier to look at the parcel she’d ignored. It was going to be a press kit, spruiking something she had no interest in right now. It could wait.
“That says Parker Corp. Shit, they’re on to you already.”
She looked up, caught Col’s arched eyebrows and grabbed for the parcel. Parker Corp colours, Spiderman colours. But lots of companies used red and blue. But there it was, the word Parker, in blue lettering on a red gridded background that looked oddly like a web. It really was from Parker Corp.
“Holy shit!” With the Sydney, Shanghai time difference, even if the story had gone international it wouldn’t have run in Shanghai yet. And even if it had, this had been express airmailed a day ago. Whatever this was had nothing to do with the coverage and everything to do with Australian’s most abusive tyrant.
“Well open it.”
“I don’t know what it is.”
“Me neither, but it’s not ticking is it?”
“Oh God, Col,” she said, handling the package carefully as though it might be.
“They don’t send legal summonses in padded packages. Open it.”
She had an irrational desire to head for the ladies and open it there where no one else would see what was inside. She gave it a shake, it had some weight. Could just be paper. Then it dawned on her.
“I know what it is. It’s an apology gift for cancelling the interview. It’ll be an expensive Chinese-made dust catcher, you wait.” She stuck her scissors into the end of the plastic envelope and cut it open revealing a white box inside, and inside the box, folded in pink tissue paper, a perfect dove grey silk dress, beaded with crystals and pearls.
“Some dust catcher,” said Col.
Darcy dropped the box. Heat rushed to her face. “I... I don’t know, I don’t know what this is. Must be a mistake.”
Col was looking at her with a quizzical expression. “That’s one expensive mistake. Are you sure you didn’t meet Will Parker?”
She glared at him. “Fuck off, Col. I told you I didn’t.” The minute the words were out of her
mouth she knew she’d been too defensive, sounded guilty, knew Col was suspicious of her reaction. She realised she didn’t know Col that well. He wrote for the business pages like she did under Gerry. But he wrote a column, often fuelled by unattributed tips, rumours, and speculation that had an uncanny habit of turning out to be true.
“Okay,” he said, “keep your hair on. If you say it’s a mistake, it’s a mistake.”
“Sorry.” She tried to laugh it off. “How embarrassing. Someone from Parker has a girlfriend who has my dust catcher. She’ll be impressed.”
Col laughed too but before he sat down, Darcy could tell he’d seen the card, the words, ‘I’m eternally sorry. Will’, handwritten on it in large generous script.
