Page 6 of Hidden Gem
“Perfect! You can rest up before the party. Put your feet up.”
“And my head on the pillow?”
“No!” Luna laughed. “You’re a hoot.”
Worth a try.
They stepped into a busy salon, and Marnie plonked herself into the appointed chair. She listened as Luna spoke to the hairdresser, lifting Marnie’s lumpy curls and planning how to tame them. The hairdresser had a remarkably similar style to Luna herself. Maybe she had an army of Nigella-lookalikes dotted around the city. Marnie wondered if Tom had chosen the stylist because she was closer to her age. With Luna’s flawless skin, it was hard to estimate her exact age, but she had to be in her forties. There wasn’t a hint of uncertainty in her, that tell-tale sign of actual youth.
Leaving the ladies to worry about her hair and makeup, Marnie dug up her phone. She had two missed calls from Shasa. With everything else going on, Marnie hadn’t been in touch with anyone back home like she’d promised. Swallowing a lump of guilt, she called back.
Shasa answered on the second ring, a little out of breath. “Hey! How’s the writing retreat going?”
“Good. Except I’m not writing. I’m actually in Wellington.”
“Wellington?”
“Yes. Tom has this art thing at the Beehive. They’re displaying one of his paintings, and he invited me. I’m getting my hair done and everything. It’s so weird.”
“Go Tom! That’s amazing. I hope you’re enjoying the glitz and glamour?” Her voice carried a dose of doubt.
“I’ll try.”
“The reason I called ... you know how Lando is doing your garden?”
“Right.” Marnie pictured the tall guy who lived in cycling shorts and hung around the community house. He ran a landscaping business and had just finished working on the shared garden of their small co-housing community. Shasa and Mac had overseen the work, and the area had turned out well, but Marnie could tell Lando craved more creative freedom. When she’d agreed for him to design her private backyard, she’d fought hard to dismiss her own concerns, along with the burning look in his eyes. And now she wasn’t even there to oversee the work. She had to stop agreeing to things just to be nice.
“Did you okay a massive fountain with ceramic dolphins?”
“Massive what?”
“I told him I’d call you, and he got all weird, said it was a gift and you don’t have to pay, that you two have an understanding. Is it true you agreed to go out with him when you come back?”
Marnie grimaced. “I ... can see why he’d think that. He talked a lot, and I was a bit distracted, so I just nodded. I nodded a lot.”
Shasa laughed, albeit good-naturedly. “I love you Marnie, but you can’t do that with Lando! He needs boundaries. When he was working on the shared gardens, I had to talk him out of two tacky water features, a koi pond and other weird shit that kids would either drown in or fall off.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t have young children, so I have no excuse.”
“How about ‘I don’t like it?’ It’s your backyard.”
Marnie winced. “How bad is it?”
“Hang on, I’ll send you a photo.”
Marnie waited until a photo popped up on screen. Holy cow! Her tiny backyard was overtaken by a rainbow-coloured ceramic bowl with huge dolphins cavorting in and out of it. They were covered in tiny glistening tiles that must have been made of mirrors. One of them had caught the evening light, turning it into a starburst on the camera lens. Marnie felt sick. She’d go blind looking at the shiny mammals. Or worse, they’d start a wildfire.
“Are you still there?” Shasa asked.
Marnie brought the phone back to her ear. “It’s... big. But don’t worry about it. I’ll sort it out when I get back. I have to get ready for the party now.”
“Okay. Have fun!”
Marnie dropped her phone in her handbag and settled back in the chair. Luna handed her a magazine and pointed at a picture of a gorgeous woman in an evening dress, her loose curls partly gathered up, diamond earrings shining. “We’re thinking something like this.”
“Wow. I never wear my hair up.”
Luna’s melodic laugh filled the room. “What if, for one night, you did something new? You’re not from around here, nobody knows how you usually dress or wear your hair. Think of this as an opportunity to be whoever you want to be!”
