By Christine “Roo” Toups

Chapter 8

"...sandstone ramparts hundreds of feet high, miles wide, pockmarked with caves.” Janice absently swirled the warm beer at the bottom of the bottle.  "But you know something, Mel, and this might be the beer talking, but I think it's the sort of dig I could just walk away from.  The whole place just has a...a feel about it...more churchyard than graveyard."

"Kakadu's a spiritual place," Mel replied. "Small wonder you're uncomfortable. Your workers...are they local to Kakadu?" Janice nodded. "There's your problem." The serving fork hovered over the meat platter, targeting a slice of veal. "More veal?"

Janice waved her hand, fending off a third helping, but was careful not to lose her train of thought. "It's standard practice to employ the natives, Mel."

"You haven't found anything they didn't permit you to find. The real finds, the genuine rarities will elude you as long as you use locals to point the way.”  Mel tucked an olive between her perfect white teeth before sucking the pimento from its salty green blanket.

Janice was entranced, holding the last sip of beer in her mouth briefly before swallowing. "And what would you have done differently? Hire outsiders?"

Mel lifted an eyebrow. "If I had taken the job, then, yes, I would have imported a crew, but that's a moot  point, Janice. The dig is yours." She laid her fork and knife across the plate, signaling an end to the meal, and to the discussion.

But Janice was persistent. "Why didn't you take the job, Mel? You were local; you were Moffat's first choice ‑‑"

"Because I was local and for no other reason." Mel folded her napkin in quarters before tucking it beneath the edge of her plate. "Jack said it was probably because I work cheap, and it's true. I would've paid Moffat for the pleasure of headin' the dig."

"Instead, here you sit...one of a handful of warm bodies in a three hundred mile radius." Janice's voice held the unmistakable edge of sarcasm as she quipped, "Flies, heat, isolation:  I can see what you like about it." Further conversation on the dubious virtues of the outback faded away on the dying strings of a violin passage. For a moment there

was only the ghost of a heartbeat, the rhythmic thump thump thump of the needle as it rode the groove of dead air between tracks before sliding into the last song on the record. Carelessly, Janice's personal favorite on an album full of memorable tunes, began with the incomparable piano work of Teddy Wilson. Two beers brave, carelessly might also have described the way she looked Mel in the eye and said, "So tell me

about Jack."

Mel pursed her lips and sat up straight, lacing her fingers around her water glass. Her eyes held Janice whole as she groped for a response. One of the advantages of outback isolation had been the almost total lack of peer judgment. Unfortunately, that same isolation left her unprepared to field even the most harmless inquiries about her relationship with Jack.   "What's there to say?"  Her voice went up at the end, making two syllables of one, a tell‑tale sign of unease. She recognized it...as did Janice. "He's divorced, as you know...a cargo pilot in the RAAF...He's 42..." she let her voice trail off, giving the impression that she had imparted all that she knew about the man.

"Forty two..." Janice whistled softly, one short note of disbelief as she enjoyed Mel's discomfort. "What does he look like?"

"Dark hair, dark eyes...tall...my head fits just beneath his jaw when we dance," Mel replied with a little smile as a memory warmed her. In the smoky warmth of a first floor hotel room in Athens - champagne on the bedside table, Cole Porter on the radio, and a crown of honey‑blonde hair tucked neatly beneath her chin while warm breath traveled the valley between her breasts and four bare feet interlocked, puzzle pieces on a hardwood floor... Indelible little details of first‑time foreplay. The memory was so vivid, yet made painful by the realization that that life was behind her.

"He's tall, I got that much." Janice's fingers beat a lazy tattoo on the empty beer bottle. "What else? How did the two of you meet?" Mel stood abruptly, taking up her plate and glass. "Mel?" Her eyes followed Mel's retreating form across the kitchen. "What's wrong?"

"Nothin's wrong," Mel replied, as she stacked the dinner plates by the sink. "I don't understand your interest in Jack, that's all. Another beer?"

Janice waved a hand dismissively. "Hey, you brought him up. Besides, I think I deserve to know a little bit about the man. After all, I'm sitting in his chair...eating his food..."

"Sleeping in his bed...Goldilocks." Mel returned to the table for the meat platter.

"Speaking of sleeping in his bed ‑" Janice began pointedly, “how is he in that area?"

Mel's jaw dropped noticeably. "I don't know why I'm surprised you asked that. With your ego, you'd be forever beggin' comparison."

Janice laughed, but there was no heart in it. "I have a healthy ego, as you pointed out."

"With good reason," Mel replied as she turned away. "You spoiled me for any future lovers."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"It is, yes," said Mel, "when you're tryin' to start a new life."

Janice shrugged. "What was so wrong with the old one?" A reply was not immediately forthcoming. Mel's back was to her, but Janice could see her hands were still and her head was down.  "Mel?"

"He's a dear, dear, man, Janice..." Mel began quietly. "He's kind, sympathetic, funny...

I don’t know where I would be if I hadn’t met him when I did."

Janice fought to keep her composure. "You mean, it was just a matter of timing."

"In a way...yes." At the butcher's block, Mel wrapped the leftover veal in waxed paper, secretly relieved to have something to do with her hands. "We met the very day my steamer docked in Sydney Harbor.  I was comin' down the ramp, he was seein' his niece off.  I broke a heel off my shoe and would've pitched right over the side if he hadn't been there."

"A real Sir Galahad," mumbled Janice, although it occurred to her, somewhat cynically, she conceded, that the niece Jack had been seeing off at the dock was very likely not his niece at all. Naturally, she was alone in her suspicions.

"He insisted I share his cab, waited with me while my shoe was repaired and bought me a lovely supper."  Mel slid the wax package into the icebox and stood in the open doorway, savoring the chill air on her body. "It was the best possible introduction to the country."

"Better than gunfire and death threats?" quipped Janice with mock surprise.

"I know that tone, Janice," said Mel, moving reluctantly from the icebox to the table. "And it sounds suspiciously like jealousy."

"Not at all," replied Janice, quick to dismiss the notion. "On second thought, I will take another beer." She rose from her chair. "You want a beer, Mel?" She could feel Mel's eyes pursue her into the kitchen.

"You don't have to be jealous, Janice." Mel's voice was kind and soothing, and she meant well, but she couldn't help saying the wrong thing as a general rule. "You're not in competition with Jack."

"I know that, and I am not jealous." Janice opened and closed the icebox without removing anything. "What I am, is hot. It's hot in here."

From her place at the table, Mel gazed out the window where the windmill cast long shadows upon the hard‑baked ground, blood‑red in the twilight. "Sun's settin'...Why don't we take this conversation out to the verandah...where it's cool?" She switched off the phonograph and closed the cover.

"Peachy." Janice bit back a more acidic retort, dismayed at the possibility of an in‑depth conversation on the merits of her rival. Perhaps rival was not the right word, although it had seemed appropriate enough during the long flight to Coolinga. But now...here she was, a guest in Jack Greenway's home, where his personality permeated everything as surely as a sponge soaks up water. His chair. His food. His woman. She followed Mel from the room, convinced that any hopes of a reconciliation were about to be finally and irrevocably dashed to pieces.

At the foyer, Mel continued out to the verandah, while Janice excused herself to visit the bathroom. She splashed water on her face and patted it dry with a hand towel, studying her fractured reflection in the cracked mirror as she did so. She had come to Coolinga convinced she would find Mel miserable, aching for the lover she left behind, but their reunion had been on the tepid side of passionate at best.  Still, she was certain Mel had warmed to the idea of her presence. The woman had baked her sourdough bread. Sourdough bread, for Chrissakes! "If that isn't love, what is?"  She was surprised to

hear genuine confusion in her voice; she was unaccustomed to the feeling.

All her adult life she had been able to have her way, whether by skill, wits or sheer force of will. In a field rampant with male counterparts, she was unique and notable for far more than her gender. By age 25, she had made enough money to live comfortably and to have the luxury to pick and choose the archeological commissions which most

interested her. With her gifts, came hard‑won notoriety; she had the respect of her peers. What she didn't have, however, was what she wanted most. Ain't that always the way?

She pushed away from the counter and knelt on the bedroom floor to root through her satchel. To her relief, she found the object of her search nestled discreetly in a cocoon of wool socks. Squat at the bottom, rising in a tall, graceful neck, the dark amber, 94 proof Tennessee Sipping Whiskey was the only Jack she was interested in at the moment.  It had originally been intended as a gift to soothe the ruffled feathers of a mechanic to whom she owed money, but she would have to find another way around him. She broke the seal on the bottle, intending to down a generous swig or two before joining Mel on the verandah. She hadn’t decided if she would brush, or simply pop a mint afterwards. She hadn't thought that far ahead. She hefted the bottle carefully, almost reverently, tasting the full, sweet flavor of burnt caramel and vanilla at the back of her throat before a single drop of whiskey had touched her lips.

Tapping, and her name uttered as a hiss. "Janisssss."

Janice opened her eyes, a revelation in itself, since she hadn't been conscious of closing them. Across the room, on the opposite side of a six‑paned window, Mel rapped on the glass with her knuckle. She had seen the bottle, but there was no reproach in her voice as she said, "Bring that...and two glasses... and hurry, or you'll miss it!"  she beckoned,  conveying a sense of urgency before stepping out of view, leaving confusion in her wake.

Miss it.  Miss what? Janice stopped in the parlor to collect two heavy glass tumblers from the sideboard and made her way onto the verandah, successfully navigating the explosive screen door without dropping her kit. Using the toe of her boot, she eased the door closed and looked for Mel, who was conspicuously absent.  "Mel?" She set the whiskey and glasses down on a sturdy wicker table and sighed heavily, her frustration

evident. "Where'd you go?"

Mel poked her head around the corner of the wrap‑around porch. "Over here...come see!"

Janice walked the length of the porch, her curiosity snuffling ahead of her like a keen beagle. Rounding the corner of the house, facing to the south, she saw Mel standing poised, dead center of the front stoop. Her hands were clasped atop her head, which was tilted slightly back, and her mouth was open unabashed wonder. "What is it? If it's a dingo, I've seen plenty of those."

"Try not to sound so jaded, Janice Covington, and come here," Mel hissed reproachfully, fanning one hand to her, gathering the smaller woman under her shoulder. "Now," she whispered, as if more volume were an intrusion, "stand just here..."  She stepped back and guided Janice into her place on the worn gray boards. "Do you see it?"

Janice exhaled wearily, her eyes scanning the horizon, left to right, from soft sage and violet to a vivid spectrum of crimsons and yellows. It was breathtaking, and it wasn't a dingo. Points for Mel. "Yes," she whispered, trying to convey her pleasure. "It's beautiful, Mel." She felt warm fingers at her temples and a gentle upward pressure; unconsciously, she found herself leaning back into the support provided by Mel's lanky frame. She could feel two firm breasts, peaked, at attention, against the sensitive skin of her shoulder blades. She might have reveled in that feeling indefinitely if her breath hadn't been snatched without warning from her chest. Directly above her and to her left, divided by a line of native wattles, the sky was clear with a quarter moon and a blanket of dazzling stars; and to the right, off‑set just slightly by the sagging tin roof of the house, the sun was setting, wallowing gloriously in the foothills, using its last minutes to bathe the gums and mulga in raw, homespun gold.  Day and night sharing the sky at the same moment. It was, Janice conceded, the oddest, most beautiful of dichotomies.

"It happens every sunset." Mel's mouth was just inches from Janice's ear, so close her breath stirred the tiny wisps of hair at her nape. "...a few minutes later every day. I find myself standing out here, where you're standing now...waiting. I know that must seem foolish to you, but I suppose I'm a simple woman."

Janice turned to face Mel, careful to maintain the physical and emotional connection that had been created. "You're not simple at all...you're a damned pioneer, Mel." She left those fathomless cerulean pools to turn her own eyes skyward again. "I mean, look at it..." The last vestiges of light were leaving the land, being replaced by a creeping carpet of mauve and ebony. It stole Janice's breath the way few things could. "I've been living in this land for six weeks...sleeping under the stars, and do you know, it never once occurred to me that this place had anything new to show me. How thick is that, I ask you?"

"Pretty thick," Mel echoed with a grin.  She dropped her hands to her sides, unintentionally skimming Janice's hips as she did so. "Oh, sorry."

I'm not. "No problem." Janice turned on her heel. "I got whiskey, remember?"  At the little wicker table, she opened the bottle and turned to Mel, who had taken a seat on a wooden glider. "How do you take it? On the rocks? With water?"

Mel countered brightly, "Oh, however you like it is fine."

"Two fingers. Neat." She passed Mel a tumbler and seated herself in an old bleached rocker that overlooked the wide expanse of horizon. Shaking out her damp hair, she took her first sip of whiskey...center cut, her father had called it...like the heart of a good watermelon...strong and flavorful and just what she needed. She sighed contentedly and stretched her legs out, crossing them at the ankles.  The sun was a molten sliver on the horizon, and the worst of the day's heat was over at last. Trees growing by the verandah were full of sparrows and finches twittering in concert with their counterparts inside the small aviary. Somewhere to her left, just beyond the hangar, a dingo howled. She was primed to notice everything, most especially the woman she loved, sitting across from her, making a face as she swallowed her whiskey in one gulp. Janice raised both eyebrows inquiringly as Mel choked.   "Uh, Mel? You might want to slow down..."

Mel screwed her eyes shut, sputtered and nodded rapidly, holding her glass in front of her. "May I have..." cough "...another, please?"

Janice left her glass on the arm of the rocker and retrieved the whiskey bottle. "This is sipping whiskey, Mel...say it with me...sip‑ping‑whis‑key..." She held the bottle over Mel's empty glass. "If you're not accustomed to it, it'll bite you back." Mel lifted her glass until it clinked against the bottle. "Okay, suit yourself." She refilled the glass, unable to shake the impression that Mel seemed to be marshaling her courage, fortifying herself for some earth‑shattering admission. "What's on your mind?" she asked, giving voice to her thoughts; she toyed briefly with the possibilities, none of them favorable if your name happened to be Janice Covington.

"I was...I was mulling over the virtues of a really fine whiskey," Mel replied, her fingers grazing Janice's as they clasped the neck of the bottle. "I don't have a great deal of experience with drinkin', as you know, but I find that I quite have the knack for it." Mel took custody of the bottle. "This has a...a kinda smoky quality to it..."   sip  "...oak, I think." long sip "Yes, definitely oak."

"Probably aged in oak barrels. You sure you don't want me to take that?"

"Did you want another drink?"  Mel asked as she held the bottle possessively between the pillows of her breasts.

Lucky bottle.  Janice shook her head slowly, placing her hand over the wide mouth of the tumbler. She took two steps back, leaning against a support post. As she watched Mel go repeatedly to the well, she determined that at least one of them should stay sober.

Mel settled back into the glider, the open bottle of whiskey tucked between the armrest and her hip. She kicked off her shoes, heedless of where they fell. Her face was flushed, warmed by the liquor, and her eyes were luminous in the moonlight. Meeting Janice's expectant gaze, her courage waned temporarily. It wasn't until she'd cautiously tipped back another shot of whiskey, that she found her voice. "If you drink from a bottle marked poison, it's almost certain to disagree with you sooner or later."

"If you're referring to the whiskey..."

"It's from Alice in Wonderland, and I'm trying to make a point. Please, don't interrupt." Janice settled back against the post, suitably reproached, while Mel focused on a knothole in the floor boards. "Lewis Carroll as prophet...it's not an idea many people can warm to."  She kept her eyes down, unable to bear either the confirmation or denial in the other's face, and she was grateful Janice had the presence of mind to remain silent. "All my life I knew what I wanted, what was expected of me as a woman, and as the

daughter of Melvin Pappas. These things were seldom complementary of one another..." Mel's voice trailed off; she groped for the bottle at her side, but her hands were shaking

and her aim was slightly off. She felt Janice's fingers close over her own. "One more...for luck."

"I think you've had enough, Mel." Janice set the bottle on the table between them. "Just...take a few deep breaths and spit it out...whatever it is." She took a long pull on her whiskey, reflecting miserably on her inability to cope with rejection, and braced for the worst.

"I've made some mistakes in my life, Janice," said Mel, the words leaping from her lips, a verbal suicide.  "I have done some things that I've regretted, and people I cared about paid the price." She looked into the bottom of her glass and was afforded an unobstructed, if distorted, view of her bare feet. "Oh, my...look at that..." She tilted her head in wonder. "I have big feet," she said, as if the idea were a revelation.

Janice rolled her eyes. It's official: she's drunk. It's a damned record. The number one problem with drunks, in her opinion, was the propensity to be distracted by the smallest things. It was both blessing and curse. "You have nice feet, Mel," she said succinctly as she approached the glider. She took the empty tumbler from Mel's hands. "I think you should probably lie down for a while, sleep this off."

When Mel felt Janice's hand upon her elbow, she looked up into a pair of sparkling green eyes and felt compelled to apologize. "I'm sorry you came all this way, Janice." Strong fingers encircled her arm, drawing her into a standing position. "I know it must seem like a tremendous waste of time to you now, and if I'd known you were comin', I'd've stopped you."

Standing there, with Mel's arm wedged securely between her own hip and elbow, Janice felt her knees go to jelly. Here it comes. "Later, Mel...All this can wait till later." She stopped at the front door of a house settled with shadows. With her free hand, she groped for the lights.