The darkest parts of her used to wish for trauma. Like the scales of justice, and the balance that always must be kept between the Barbaranis and the La Marcas, she thought if something bad happened to her, it would cancel out her privilege. She’d wanted desperately to be someone who’d been dealt a difficult deck of cards, like Jett with his drug-addicted parents and Daisy with her single-parent upbringing, reliant on Centrelink cheques. Nella was jealous of the depth it gave them. People like that who’d crawled their way out –theydeserved happiness. People like her didn’t. If they got it, it was almost always stolen, or counterfeit.
Without waiting for Avery’s fiancée to respond – or spit at her – Nella ordered another round, randomly jabbing a finger at the third cocktail on the plastic menu. All she could feel was the heat of eyes. Everyone’s – her friends from the office, Eliza, Avery, his troll of a fiancée, the bartender, the band, the entire pub, the entire world. Her dead father. Grey. Max. Jett.
Maybe if she hadn’t been so focused on the gazes of ghosts, she would have seen the bartender’s fingers slipping on the second pint glass.
Avery reached for the beers, but Blondie intercepted. The bartender didn’t react quickly enough to the four hands outstretched in front of her. Avery fumbled with the drink on the right, trying to catch it, but Blondie’s fingers knocked it over.
Nella’s opaque black lace top was as much defence as a fishing net against the onslaught of cold sticky beer.
‘Oh, Ms Barbarani, I’m so sorry!’ The bartender’s ears went red. Avery grabbed a box of napkins and shoved them at Nella, while Blondie made some sort of apology that no one bought. Everyone at the bar was silent.
‘It’s no problem.’ Nella’s ears were ringing, her cheeks burning. She fended off the bartender’s offers of dry-cleaning and eternal flagellant servitude and attempted to salvage the top with one of the napkins but it disintegrated after one press against her wet boobs. ‘Hold this.’ She passed her shoulder bag to Daisy, whose mouth was frozen open like one of those swivel head carnival clowns, then peeled the beer-soaked top over her head, bundled it in a ball and shoved it into the depths of the Saint Laurent bag Daisy held open.
‘On the house,’ the bartender said as she passed two bright yellow pina coladas over the dripping bar.
‘Nella.’ Daisy’s nails dug into Nella’s bicep. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’
‘I know everyone can see my nipples, Dais,’ Nella said, ‘and I don’t care.’ Thank whatever demon was looking up at her she’d worn a nice bra.
‘It’s not that. I actually think you’re the coolest person in the galaxy for doing that, but ... do you remember that night—’
The night Clarkson died? Why was everyone so afraid to say it? They’d just spent half the day at an event entirely focused on the fact that he was dead.
‘—when you called me. I tried to tell you something about Clarkson, but then Ian—’
‘What is it, Daisy?’
Daisy looked sideways at Eliza.
‘Gotta pee,’ Eliza said, taking the hint. She slipped off her stool and left them alone at the bar.
Daisy swallowed. ‘I followed Clarkson, the day before you got back to Bindi Bindi. I followed his car after he finished for the day.’
Nella almost choked. ‘What? Daisy, are you insane? Why would you—’
‘You told us never to trust anyone!’
‘I meantclients!’
‘How was I meant to know he was your friend? And you weren’t there – I thought maybe he was working against your family. He came round to the office to see if you were there – I don’t know if he’d already been to see your brother or not. But when he got in his car, I dunno ... I just had this feeling—’
‘You could have called me.’
‘I did.’
A memory swam – her phone, dead, somewhere in the penthouse apartment, covered in microwave sweet chilli sauce. ‘Daisy, if the cops get footage of you trailing his car, this could be bad—’
‘I didn’t know he was going to die!’ she almost shouted.
Nella shot her a look to shut up. ‘But you know following people is wrong, yes?’
Daisy nodded, like a child being scolded for eating glue at kindergarten. ‘Can I tell you where he went?’
Nella felt a lashing of shame. Daisy had put herself in potential danger, unknowingly implicated herself in Clarkson’s death and was still now trying to protect Nella, giving her plausible deniability like she’d been trained.
‘I assume it wasn’t to the Bindi Bindi Farmer’s Market?’
Daisy shook her head slowly. ‘He drove to the La Marca Estate.’
