Page 2 of Love Is…?

Tessa snorted. “I have never said anything like that.”

“But you believe it.”

Tessa paused. Yes, she did believe it. She’d loved Olna but apparently their eighteen-month relationship had been one-sided resulting in an incredibly painful break-up in the third year of her contract. She’d had to hold it together for the twins, Harry and Jude. Of course, they saw right through her nonchalance and spontaneously hugged her more than normal for weeks afterwards.

Despite that, she hadn’t given up on Love. It was capitalised in her head mainly because her heart held down the shift key when her brain typed the ‘l’. But hook-ups weren’t in her wheelhouse.

“You’re right.” She caught Angel’s nod out of the corner of her eye. “I’ll find that love one day.”

“I believe it. There’ll be small birds chirping about your head, then you’ll sing melodically about your person, then hit that high note in the chorus to express your desire and one of the little blue birds will explode into a clusterfuck of feathers.”

Tessa stared, then fell about laughing. “A clusterfuck of feathers?”

“Yep. New collective noun.” Angel grinned. “Anyway, the point is that you, my lovely five-foot-three elf-cousin who could convince most people that love is amazing, will find your own love. But me? I’m fine, thanks very much.”

Tessa sat up slowly. “How are we even related? So…What’s love to you?”

Angel pushed to her feet, grabbed the set of gloves she’d brought home from her job at the nursery and thrown casuallyon the table, then walked towards the kitchen. “Love is a mental illness."

Tessa saton the toilet because her bladder had yelled hysterically about liquid and urgency. Midnight. Too late for sleep, too early to be awake. Ugh. She leaned sideways, and rested her head against the wall. Angel had found their flat while Tessa was in Canada, and taken Tessa’s advice to go into the toilet, put the lid down, sit, lean her head against the wall, and if her head rested beautifully and at the right angle, then she had to pay the asking price and move in.

“Midnight you will forever be thankful,” Tessa had said, and she was right. She sighed dramatically into the small space, recalling the conversation with Angel.

Too bad if she was a Disney princess. She wanted the romance, the love, that person sweeping her off her feet, the volume swelling in the soundtrack, the rain falling on their open faces as they pause their kiss, the water running down their cheeks and into their smiles.

Tessa rolled her eyes. Maybe just the sweeping bit. But she wasn’t naive about love. Was she? Surely she wasn’t simply in love with the idea of love. That would be silly and wide-eyed and remarkably like a Disney princess. She growled. Midnight conversations were awful.

But the other conversation going on in her head was the issue of unemployment. Hers, specifically. She had savings because her pay in Canada had been exceptional. Professional, highly recommended chaperones were paid well. But she was running through those savings every day she lacked a job.

Unfortunately, in Melbourne, there weren’t carloads of wealthy, potentially famous-type people needing an experienced chaperone. She sighed again. Juliet Raynid, the owner of the agency she’d registered with, had certainly been excited to take Tessa on, so surely, based on Juliet’s enthusiasm, something would turn up.

Later in bed, because the idea of sleep had gone by the wayside, she scrolled through social media, letting her eyes drift over the screen, and paused at the breathless headlines for the upcoming wedding of two Australian celebrities.

“Event of the year,” she mumbled through a small smile, then shoved her phone onto the bedside table and rolled over into the middle of the bed. Weddings meant love, and the thought of two people being so much in love that they wanted to tell the world about it sent happy tingles through her body. A little jolt of serotonin.

Enough for sleep to catch up to her and claim a few hours.

A week later,and calling on her beginner-level ice-skating skills, Tessa scooted around the people in the shopping centre, who would suddenly veer sideways to peer into a store window, and expertly disrupt the flow of foot traffic.

She needed to get to the supermarket and grab the ingredients for tonight’s dinner if she wanted to put the slow-cooker on in time. Hence the speed skating. It was more a jog-walk, really, like that of important women in business suits holding clipboards with blank pages who worked in offices with huge windows.

Her workout tights rode up into her bum crack again. She growled and was wondering if it was possible to throw a tantrumat Lycra when her phone rang. Without breaking stride, she twisted her hand to read the screen. Juliet Raynid.

Tessa immediately veered sideways, and ducked into a small alcove in the huge expanse of wall. This was a call that was going to veto slow-cooked lamb shanks.

“Hi, Juliet!” Tessa shoved her index finger in her other ear like some sort of secret agent receiving detonation instructions.

“Tessa! Good grief, where are you?”

“Southland shopping mall. I’m desensitising in preparation for the crowds at the football grand final in August.”

Juliet laughed. “Well, it sounds like it’s working. Look, I’m so glad I caught you. I have a position available if you would like it.”

Tessa froze, her eyes wide. “I would definitely like it.” It didn’t matter what ‘it’ was. The position would be one that matched her experience and qualifications so that wasn’t a concern. “What’s?—”

Juliet ploughed on. “You’ve been recommended by your previous employers, the Parkers. They emailed completely out of the blue, asking if you were still available. They were thrilled when I said yes, because apparently they are friends with the family that would like to hire you.”

“That’s fantastic!” Tessa bounced a little on the balls of her feet. “What do I need? When?—”

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