“Mm. She’ll be here in a couple of hours, so you can go home.” Sophie glanced at her fingers twisted on the quilt. “There’s just one other thing I haven’t told you about the festival.”
The hesitancy in her voice jolted Allie in the chest.What else can there be?Was she to be Lady Godiva, naked on a white horse at the head of the parade? Was she to source a full gay choir and orchestra? Or simply arrange a sit-down meal for three hundred people? Sophie’s voice alerted her a big ask was about to come her way.
“You better tell me.”
“Part of the reason I got the job is because I’m part of the queer community. As you’re pretending to be me, you’ll have to pretend to be a lesbian.”
Allie slumped.Pretend to be gay?Her stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. “How do I do that? It seems…wrong. Pretending to be something I’m not.”
“There’s no magic to it. You’ve been around gay people ever since I came out at fifteen. Before then. There isn’t a homophobic bone in your body. You march in the Pride parades—”
“As an ally.”
“But you do it. You come with me and my friends to queer clubs and bars. You’ve been hit on by women. And I know you’ve kissed at least one.”
Allie looked down at her hands. Her skin itched as if it were a tight fit around her body. “She was lovely. And, well, I wanted to know if…because you were…and she understood…and we kissed.”
Sophie’s cough rattled her body. “Al, you don’t have to explain—again. We talked about this at the time. You kissed a girl, you liked it, but you’ve never done it again. But you’re a part of the queer community all the same. Not because you kissed a girl necessarily but because you support us, enjoy being with us. You’re an ally in the truest sense. So you don’t have to do anything different in Quandong; just be yourself. And if anyone asks questions just deflect them. You don’t have to explain to anyone.”
“You’re right. It just seems like the deceptions are piling up. I hope I keep it together in my head.”
“You will. And thank you. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
She went through to Sophie’s office to find the Quandong file. It lay on the desk, thick and bursting with papers stuffed into the folder with Sophie’s usual haphazard lack of organisation. How she managed to be such a meticulous event planner was beyond her. She put the file on the hall table next to her car keys. Despite Sophie’s assurances, nerves jumped in her belly. Could she pull this off? Maybe. Hopefully. For Sophie’s sake she would have to try.
Allie went into the kitchen for a glass of water. She’d agreed, and that was all there was to it. She just hoped she could do it.
Chapter 2
Tarryn adjusted her safety goggles,put on her earmuffs, and picked up her welder. The steel plating she’d salvaged from the local tip, once cut to shape, would be perfect to create the rounded body of the metal emu she was crafting. She paused to visualise it in her mind’s eye, then pulled her gloves higher and turned on the welder.
“Is that a piglet?”
The voice reached her over the sizzle and pop of the welder, and she looked up. Will stood in the doorway of her workshop, hands on hips as he studied her creation.
Pleasure warmed her at the sight of her best friend despite the chill of her workshop. She turned off the welder, removed her earmuffs, and tugged off her heat-resistant gloves. “It’s an emu. Or it will be once I find something for the legs and the neck.”
“And if you don’t, you could put chubby little legs underneath, a slot in its bum, and I’d have the mailbox you keep promising me.”
She laughed. “Not this one. Soon.” She removed her visor and set it on the bench.
“You keep saying that.”
“Is that why you’re here? To harass me for freebies?” She ran a hand over her close-cropped iron-grey curls.
“No. I’m on a mission from on high.”
“What sort of on high? The Happy High Herb Shop, or have you finally found religion and want to convert me?”
“Neither. Phyllis-on-high.” Will grimaced. “She wants to make sure you’ll be at tomorrow’s planning meeting for the festival.” He side-eyed her.
Tarryn snorted. “I wonder why that is?”
“Is that a serious question?” Will leaned against her workbench, then bounced away once he saw the dust. “Who in the entire town of Quandong is the person least likely to embrace a wedding? Who has made her views perfectly clear about the ridiculousness of spending the equivalent of a house deposit on what is essentially a big party? Who states—often—that while it’s great that Australia has same-sex marriage, it’s ridiculous for the queer community to embrace such a rigid heterosexual institution. Who—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tarryn grinned at Will’s drama and rested her butt against the bench.
