Run Beautiful Run, page 30
‘And it was those impeccable standards that made Janice Farley the best. God, I so miss that woman.’ Nancy slowed her blistering pace to dab at her eye. ‘But darling, you’re here now.’ She pushed through a set of double doors and into a large studio. On one side stood a clothes rack near dressing tables with lights around their mirrors. Assorted lighting was being shifted as white boards moved, creating the walls for a small stage.
Maddison stopped, recognising the scene—it was the set for a photo shoot. ‘What is this, Nancy? We don’t have time for a studio tour.’ She turned to leave, but Nancy pulled her to a standstill.
‘Sweet Cheeks, Regus will be available in an hour. So I’ve booked Leon to take your photos. LEON.’
Everyone in the room flinched, to stare for a fleeting second, only to then resume their blistering beehive pace.
‘Do you have to holler like a hooker high on cocaine, Nancy?’
‘And a good morning to you too, my darling Leon.’
Leon approached them from the shadows with cameras hanging loosely around his neck. He stroked a small grey goatee as the wrinkles deepened around his eyes to smile. ‘Maddison. Oh, sweetheart, let me look at our darling little Maddy, all grown up.’
‘Hi, Leon.’ Maddison smiled, doing the regular round of polite air kisses to not crush the clothes and smudge the make-up. All while Joe stood sullenly on the sidelines.
‘And you must be, Joe. I’m Leon, Chief Fashion Photographer for the magazine.’ Leon shook Joe’s hand. ‘Wow, Nancy, you weren’t wrong about this guy’s bone structure and rugged strength.’
‘Darling, I know my men. But he belongs to our darling little Maddy.’
Joe’s frown was ferocious as he pulled his hand free from Leon and stepped away from the pair ogling him like a mannequin wearing a suit in a store window. ‘What is going on, Maddison?’
‘I’m wondering the same thing.’ Maddison crossed her arms over her chest and glared at her godmother. ‘Nancy, what are you doing?’
‘It’s for the anniversary issue,’ replied Leon. ‘Nancy nominated you both late last night.’
‘She what?’ Maddison glared at her godmother.
‘Calm down, Sweet Cheeks. And don’t you worry, my dear Joe, we’ll be paying you for your time during the shoot?’
‘To shoot what?’ Joe asked.
‘Cameras. Photo shoot. Magazine, darling—’
‘NANCY.’ Maddison’s anger flared at Nancy daring to talk down to Joe like he was some country hick.
‘This is for the twentieth anniversary issue.’ In her Christian Louboutin heels, Nancy stepped in toe to toe with Maddison. ‘You were in the magazine’s first issue, darling, so we need a current photo of you for the now. It’s what your mother would have wanted and what I aim to deliver. So, unless you want me to use male models parading in their underwear—’
Joe cleared his throat with a scowl that surely matched her own as she glowered at her wicked godmother.
‘Well, it’s obvious your dear Joe won’t stand for that, so I’ve made room for him to be a part of it, with you.’ Nancy then spun around to jab her manicured nail at Joe’s chest. ‘Darling, as I’d mentioned earlier, this is a way for you to make yourself a quick ten thousand dollars before we see Regus. To whom shall I make out the cheque? Hmm?’
‘Ten thousand for photos?’ Joe scoffed, shaking his head, stepping away from them all. ‘What fantasy land is this?’
‘Ten K is below average price for a special edition,’ Leon replied. ‘But considering you’ve never done it before …’
‘Joe, you don’t have to do anything.’ Maddison stuck out her chin and faced her wicked godmother. ‘I don’t—’
‘Don’t you dare.’ Nancy spun around and pointed that same nasty manicured nail at her goddaughter. ‘Maddison Janice Farley, you are bloody well doing this, whether you like it or not. I was going to do this when you’d first planned to visit me a few weeks ago. So you’re here now and I will NOT take no for an answer.’ Nancy grabbed Maddison’s hand and dragged her like a small child to the set.
Where was her backbone now?
***
‘Bring out the models.’ Nancy waved her unlit cigarette around like a maniacal orchestra conductor.
Joe frowned at the four men parading out from behind the panels wearing a variety of tight briefs. Their beefed-up bodies were slick with oil. Toned. Tanned. And barely dressed. All eagerly vying for a position to stand next to Maddison.
His Maddison.
‘Listen, Joe …’ Leon stood nearby, checking over his camera settings. ‘You can make yourself a quick buck here. I’ll make it as comfortable for you as I can. Maddison could do with the support, not that Nancy’s giving her a choice, but Maddison is doing this for her mother. They’re planning a special tribute to the fine woman Janice was.’
‘What about those blokes? Won’t they lose their pay?’ Joe nodded to the male models, not keen on anyone losing out on their paycheque over him. He fully understood the burden of bills.
‘Those men have volunteered to do this, with another fifty waiting to take their place.’
‘Why?’
‘The exposure. It’s a huge coup for their careers to be seen with Maddison Farley in the anniversary edition. They’ll do anything for that shot.’
Just like Maddison had told him about Nancy’s toy boys.
Nancy dragged Maddison to the small stage. Her hair was glossy under the spotlights, with a hairstylist working on one side and a make-up artist fussing over Maddison’s face. With Nancy barking out orders, the male models eagerly watched Maddison.
His teeth clenched, and his lips tightened at the male competition. Well out of his league.
‘Come on, Joe, I’ll guide you through it. It’s not that hard, you’ll see. After all, mate, you’re just getting your photo taken.’
‘Yeah, right?’ It didn’t feel right. He was a bloke who lived out bush. Not this. I’m outta here.
Joe turned for the door, when he paused to watch Maddison. Her frown flittered as she tried to settle her stance. She shared a tight smile, not her genuine smile that made her eyes shine.
He hadn’t seen her real smile in a while, not since their lazy lover’s afternoon at the waterfall on the station, and that felt like eons ago in a completely different world.
He’d do anything to see her smile again.
‘All right …’ Joe sighed heavily. ‘Why not try something new?’ It was just a photo. How hard could it be?
‘Excellent.’ Leon patted Joe on the back, nudging him towards the stage. ‘Go stand next to Maddison and wait for my directions.’
Joe approached the bright lights as Leon barked out orders, sending everyone off in a flurry.
‘It looks like I’ve been talked into this.’ Joe shoved his hands deep into his trousers’ pockets, in a tailored suit no less.
‘Just think of the money, darling.’ The whites of Nancy’s eyes and teeth cast an eerie luminescent glow under the lights.
‘Money’s not the issue here,’ Joe said to Maddison. Was that the reason she’d never mentioned any of this to him? Hell, he hated talking about money too—but this was something entirely different.
‘Who do I make the cheque out to, hmm?’ Nancy crowded his space. Her perfume barely disguised the cigarette odour that clung to her woollen suit.
‘You don’t have to do this, Joe.’ Maddison’s shoulders drooped as her eyes turned glassy. ‘I’m so sorry for all of this. I didn’t know Nancy was planning this.’ She hiccupped as if to hold in her tears.
He reached for her small, icy hands to ease her pain.
‘I hate doing this stuff,’ she said with big sad eyes.
He crushed her into a hug, holding her to his chest. ‘Hey, apparently it’s for your mother, doing some commemoration to her. I’d do it for my mother if I was in your situation.’
‘And we have to pay you. It’s company policy, darling.’ Nancy hovered over his shoulder like a groupie trying to take his autograph, with pen in hand. ‘So, what name shall I write on the cheque? Hmm?’
‘Elleron Downs. For the family.’ He swallowed at Maddison’s slight smile, which made him proud to see the hint of its return. But he wanted her full smile back. ‘I taught you how to ride a quad. To fish. Shoot a gun, feed cattle, and steer a boat. I guess it’s your turn to teach me something new. But I am telling no one I had a facial and a manicure.’
Her smile grew. ‘Are you sure?’
‘No. But I doubt I’ll be able to stand around and watch four half-naked men fawn over you.’ He grinned, drawing her close to his chest, where her body curved perfectly against his and he kissed her forehead gently. ‘Let’s hope no one I know is going to see this issue. And I’m not stripping down to my underwear, no matter how much they want to pay me.’
The laugh vibrating from her chest made him smile with her.
‘Okay, let’s do this.’
Sixty-one
For forty minutes, Nancy sipped her champagne and puffed on her unlit cigarette, overseeing all from the edge of the studio’s shadows while Maddison and Joe were the centre of attention. Lighting was shifted. Hair and make-up checked. All with Leon obsessively snapping away.
‘I need another lens change. Lower lighting,’ barked out Leon. ‘Okay, you two, five second break,’ he said to Maddison and Joe before approaching his work table filled with camera equipment.
‘Well, what do you think?’ Nancy asked Leon. ‘Joe didn’t seem interested in the money, so that’s a bonus. And the poor darling man knew nothing about this magazine. So, tell me what you saw?’
Leon removed the large lens from the camera’s body. ‘There’s a definite chemistry between them and a powerful bond I rarely see in couples.’
‘And?’ Nancy tightened the grip on the stem of her champagne glass.
Leon picked up another lens and inspected the glass. ‘It’s good. I haven’t seen Maddison smile like that, not since she was a kid. They’re having a lot of fun up there.’
‘I can see that.’ But Nancy needed to protect her goddaughter from the losers who only lured in little Maddy for a chance to be a part of the industry. ‘But does Joe only have eyes for Maddison?’
Leon clicked the camera lens into place, and grinned. ‘Oh yeah, Joe’s totally in love with Maddison. It’s plain as day through the lens. Even with the half-dressed female models you’ve got parading through here to distract him, Joe never even looked at them—only Maddison.’
‘Darling, do go on.’
‘Joe has this easy-going mannerism that makes him likeable. He’s also very wary of his surroundings. Knows he’s out of his depth, yet he’s still willing to try something new. Joe’s definitely not the dumb cowboy you thought he might be.’
After all these years, it still amazed her how much Leon could see through the lens. ‘But what about Maddison? Does she care for this guy?’
‘She seems be holding back, big time. But if it’s there, I’ll see it.’ Leon grabbed his camera. ‘Clear the set. Now, you two,’ he called to Maddison and Joe, who were laughing together. ‘As the final shots for this session, I want you to look at each other.’
The couple grinned, goofing around like schoolchildren as Leon crouched down before them while everyone else cleared the set.
‘This time I want serious faces, you two. Forget about us. I want you to imagine it’s a private moment together, and I want a kiss!’ Leon’s camera clicked and clicked again.
Joe whispered something that made Maddison giggle.
‘I said serious here!’ Leon snapped from behind his camera.
Nancy approached the fringe of the stage’s circle of light, fiddling with her necklace.
‘How romantic, in front of a crowd, under the spotlight,’ complained Maddison as her eyes darted around the room.
Joe wrapped his arms around Maddison, looking at her gently. ‘Hey, I’ll take any excuse to kiss you and I don’t care where I am and who sees me. Imagine we’re back on the station with no one around for miles and its only you and me.’ He gently lifted her chin with his fingertips and slowly pressed his lips against hers, so softly and so tenderly.
The room fell silent.
Nancy chewed on her bottom lip with her head tilted, captivated by the couple caught up in their tender moment. It was as if they had forgotten everyone else was in the room.
Leon clicked away furiously with the camera, capturing the tender moment.
An intern pushing a trolley burst through the doors, that banged hard against the wall, breaking the spell.
Maddison and Joe stopped kissing only to stare at each other for a mystical moment as an unspoken language passed between them. And then it was gone.
‘And that’s a wrap, people,’ Leon proclaimed with a smile and a nod from behind the camera. ‘That was great, you two. You can go now.’ Dismissing the couple, he strolled past Nancy and said, ‘Maddison’s deep into Joe like a freefall diver swimming for that perfect pearl in the bottom of an abyss.’
‘But will Maddison ever admit it?’ Nancy sighed, gazing at the sweet, sensitive girl who’d always fiercely guarded herself, that got worse after her mother had died. Would Joe be the man to break through those impenetrable layers of Maddison’s heart?
‘Can we go see Regus now?’ whined Maddison.
Oh, now what would Regus have to say about all of this? Nancy’s smile widened as she opened the door to the corridor. ‘This way, Sweet Cheeks. We shouldn’t keep that bastard waiting.’
Sixty-two
Whisked away to the top floor, the elevator doors opened with a ding, where they were swamped with a cacophony of ringing phones, talking people, and hammering keyboards, as a fast-paced energy filled the air. And that was just in the foyer.
As Joe accompanied Maddison and Nancy further inside, the room widened to an area filled with cubicles of workers popping up their heads with phones stuck to their ears. It reminded him of long-neck turtles poking through a billabong’s surface, only to quickly duck to disappear.
‘Where are we going now?’ Joe asked Maddison, as Nancy led them past the rows of desks filled with busy working people. How could they hear themselves think in all this racket?
‘To see Regus. Look, I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about any of this, the magazine, and what my mother did, and who she was.’
‘Are you embarrassed by it?’
‘No, I’m proud of what my mother created. It’s just that people only know me here as Janice Farley’s daughter and Maddison from the Maddison magazine. I’ve never been able to create a reputation for myself on my own merits. I tried. But as soon as I mention my name anywhere near people who work within this industry, they know who my mother was and the magazine.’
‘I think I know what you’re going through.’
‘How?’
‘With the station. Whenever I mention Elleron Downs, everyone knows of Dad and the Charter family name. I’m carrying a legacy my family has been running for four generations. Its why my parents encouraged me to take time away from the station, to work out who I was and to find what I wanted out of life. I got to experience it on my own, creating my reputation—not that I did a good job of it, but it’s mine.’ Joe pulled her to a stop to talk. ‘Isn’t that what you’ve been doing? Working as a barmaid and doing scuba diving tours in Melbourne this past year?’
‘Yes. Although my gap year is almost up.’
‘Gap year?’ Did that mean Maddison was coming back to this place?
***
‘Darlings, please come along.’ Nancy beckoned to them. She stood beside a secretary seated behind a desk that guarded a closed door.
Maddison took a deep breath, gripping her new handbag, which held Bob’s waterproof pouch, close to her chest. ‘We had better get this over with.’
‘Who is this Regus, anyway?’ Joe asked. ‘I only heard Nancy call him the king of the jungle and many other unpleasant names.’
It was time to stop keeping secrets and Joe deserved to know everything.
‘Regus is Editor-in-Chief of Thames Publishing House. He’s in charge of all of their magazines and newspapers.’
‘Your boss?’
She nodded. ‘I’m hoping Regus will know exactly what to do.’
‘Do you want this story published?’
‘We have to be careful with what we do next.’
‘We?’ He said with a spark in his blue eyes.
The word came so naturally. But she couldn’t afford to think too far ahead. ‘I can’t let Cottillard get away with what he’s done. And there’s all these legal implications in all of this. Regus will know who to contact so your family doesn’t get into trouble keeping that goon tied to your kitchen chair.’
‘When I phoned home earlier, Greg told me they’ve untied Tom and have him working around the station. He can’t go anywhere, and Greg’s filled his head full of scary stories, telling him there are crocodiles everywhere and they’re flooded in.’
‘Do you trust Tom?’
‘No. But I trust my parents to make the right choice.’ Then he sighed heavily, glancing around the noisy office space. ‘I can understand Nancy’s apprehension in not visiting her ex-husband, but why are you so hesitant in seeing this guy?’
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Yes. We could have seen him yesterday if he lives here, then we could have avoided that whole photo shoot.’
Joe was right.
‘The last time I saw Regus we argued, and I never argued with anyone. I’ve always kept my mouth shut, not having the courage to speak out, or most of the time people ignore me—’
‘I’d doubt that.’
‘They do. Or they only sucked up to me to get to my mother.’
‘What happened between you and this guy?’ He threw his thumb towards the gatekeeper talking with Nancy.
‘I told Regus I quit, and he called me a disappointment because I walked away.’ More like ran away.
She hugged her bag tighter, staring at the closed door that led to the lion’s den. ‘The guy is tough. Fair, demanding, and tough, but he knows how to get the best out of people. Regus also has this uncanny ability to look objectively at a story from all angles. It’s made him the best in the business. It’s just …’ She hesitated, licking her dry lips.
