40Someone Like You
Blurb: Dianne is 30, directionless and dissatisfied. An unplanned reunion with her former flame, Luke, forces her to re-evaluate her life and choices. But she broke his heart 8 years ago, and he's not quite over it.
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Chapter One
Dianne felt sick. No – that wasn't the word. Sick didn't even begin to describe what she was feeling. Suicidal? Nervous wreck? Complete and utter failure?
"Can't do this, can't do this, can't do this…" she muttered and went to turn the opposite away.
Damien caught her shoulders just in time and steered her back towards the terrace where the party was being held. "Mate, we're doing this. We have to go. We've been MIA in Harry's life for the last few years, so we owe it to her."
Dianne groaned and allowed her friend to set her back on the right path. "I just don't feel like spending a whole night with a bunch of overachievers."
While it was the 30th birthday of Harriet Slater, their former university classmate, it would also set the scene for an informal reunion with the rest of the classes of 2003 and 2004. What she was most anxious about was that seeing everybody again would bring home to her how decidedly out of whack her life was at that moment. She could do without five hours of sympathetic glances.
Her friend easily hung his long arm around her shoulders to hug her to him as they walked. "Come on, you were one of them."
"Yes, the operative word there being 'were'. But as it stands, I'm 30, unemployed and a divorcee; I'm sorry, but I usually err on the side of not being the token loser in social situations."
Damien laughed. "Hey, you're talking to the guy whose face was plastered all over the papers with the caption, 'The Hack Who Lost the Election'."
She looked at him in empathetic commiseration. "We make a sorry pair."
"Yeah, well, what do they call these kinds of situations again?"
"Hitting rock-bottom?"
"I was going to go with character-building, but I think you're onto something." They arrived at the terrace and they looked at each other with trepidation. "Time to put your game face on, sista – it's showtime."
They entered the house and were awash with familiar faces – there were at least a few hundred people there of Harry's nearest and dearest. They were soon engulfed with pleasantries and haven't-seen-you-in-so-longs.
"Dianne! Damien!" A woman shrieked on the other side of the room. The pair looked up to see a plump, redhead bounding towards them with open arms.
"Harry!" They cried in unison as they swept each other into a hug.
"Oh my gosh, Damien, when did you get so attractive?" Harry asked as they broke apart.
Damien grinned and shrugged. "I was always attractive; it just took you guys a while to get with the program."
"Are you still a Labor stooge?"
Dianne's eyes widened and snorted. Damien only laughed and sighed, "So I'm guessing you haven't read the papers lately, have you?"
# # #
Later in the evening, after failed marriages and Dianne's general state of affairs were no longer topics of awkward conversation with attendees, Diane settled in a corner with Harry and their drinks, where they could talk in confidence. Irrespective of her (unfounded) feelings of inadequacy, she had enjoyed catching up with her university cohort.
"So," Dianne said, "I'm sorry I haven't kept in touch."
Harry put down her glass of wine on the table and shook her head, waving the other woman away. "Oh gosh, Dianne, don't worry about it. I know everybody is busy and we just lose track of how quickly the time goes. I'm just so glad you're here!"
"Yeah, it's been a rough few years."
"I heard."
"And I see gossip still travels faster than any unit of observable time."
Harry playfully hit her shoulder. "Oh, you know, I think it's perfectly normal. At least you have Damien."
"Damien," Dianne repeated redundantly as her eyes absently floated over to where he was standing, trying to hit on Cindy Harcourt. "Yeah, he's been great."
"Did you guys come here… together?"
Dianne's head snapped back to Harry at the intonation of her voice. "We came here together but we're not, you know, together-together."
Harry only nodded. "You know he had the biggest thing for you in first year."
"Damien! Really?"
"Oh yeah," the redhead grinned. "Massive!"
"That's… interesting. Anyway, we're just good friends now and he's a total manwhore. He's feeling a little lost as well." There was a pause in conversation before Dianne said, "It's funny how driven we used to be."
"Well, it's not normal to be so put together all the time," Harry told her as she handed Dianne a shot of sambuca.
"Unemployed and divorced wasn't really what I aspired to be when I graduated," Dianne said, as she and Harry clinked their shot glasses and threw their heads back to drink it. They winced and Dianne wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Harry only shook her head, using a napkin to dab at her mouth. "I wish I had the guts to quit my job the way you did."
"Yeah, well, you live and you learn, and realize you have to do things because you want to and not because you think it's the things you should be doing. I wish I had this epiphany much earlier."
"I want to speak to you more about this but my partner is frantically waving me over to talk to some people. Will you be here a while?"
Dianne looked up as Harry stood: "Of course."
"Because I need your address to send you my wedding invitation," she continued, walking away backwards.
"Promise," Dianne told her.
After Harry left, Damien took the opportunity to walk over and sit down next to Dianne. "So I'm going out with Cindy next Friday."
"Success!" Dianne held out her fist. "Pound it."
He bumped her fist with his before they took a drink from their bottles. After a moment Damien finally said, "Just a word of warning, Luke might be coming tonight."
Dianne was confused. "Luke Warren?" Why should she be cautioned about him? She hardly knew Luke Warren, apart from Law Ball one year when he decided to vomit in her handbag. On second thoughts, maybe she should be cautioned.
Damien exhaled and shook his head slowly. "No… Luke – Luke Casey."
There was a name she hadn't heard in a while – apart from stalking him on Facebook (as much as she could without being his 'friend' and whose profile had extreme privacy settings). She swallowed and replied, "He's back in town? I, um, I thought he was in London."
"He's only here for a few months or something; something about expanding his franchise here." Damien nodded to Cindy. "Cindy just told me." A beat. "Are you okay?"
"Me? Of course I am; why wouldn't I be? Of course I'm okay. I mean, he's only the biggest regret of my life and I haven't seen him in 8 years, and from all kinds of reliable sources I know he's still good-looking and completely successful, while I'm a whining mess." She took a big swig of her beer before she finished with a wry smile, "Yeah, okay, so maybe I'm a little drunk right now."
"Dude, you're so awkward sometimes. Like really."
Dianne laughed and leant her head on his shoulder. "It's all ancient history anyway."
Damien nodded and patted her affectionately on the head. "Yeah, I know."
The first thing Luke noticed - and completely unintentionally - when he entered Harry's tererace was his ex - the ex - sitting in a corner with her head on his former team mate's shoulder. He shouldn't have been so surprised that she'd be there; after all, wasn't it he who had left Sydney? Of course she'd have kept in contact with Harry and the gang - so of course she'd be at Harry's 30th. Of course.
"Do you know everyone here?"
Luke pulled his eyes away from the corner, still surprised and, against his best judgement, shaken. "Most," he told his companion. He wasn't able to elaborate as he was suddenly approached by friends he hadn't seen in almost a decade.
When Dianne saw him time seemed to contract and dissolve around her, so that it felt like she was in an empty room watching him. In her head, Tori Amos's greatest hits played in synchronicity with every step and move he took. Throw in the bloody back catalogue of Kate Bush, Ani Di Franco and Alanis Morissette for good measure, and it summed up Dianne's feelings at that moment. Shit. She took Damien by the hand, apologising to the person he was speaking with for taking him away so abruptly, and pulled him into the nearest dark hallway, almost crashing into an amorous couple, who didn't seem to be too fazed as they continued whatever it was they were doing in the dark.
She ignored Damien's questions and simply said, "I think I'm going to hyperventilate."
Damien frowned; Dianne had turned a dull pallor. He was about to step out of the dark to look for what it was that spooked her, but she pulled him to her quickly. "Di, are you okay?"
"Does it look like I'm okay?" She swallowed before she continued, "He's here. When you look out, he's near the kitchen - okay? Look but don't be too obvious, okay?"
Damien nodded and inched his head around the corner of the hallway they were hiding in. He caught sight of Luke surrounded by people. He looked much the same since graduation, but while his movements carried the same bright confidence he had when he was younger, there was a reservation in how he was interacting with the people around him. Damien was going to ponder on this observation further when he noticed the woman with him; in her hasty escape, he wasn't sure Dianne noticed her. With this in mind, he stepped back into the dark and looked at his friend seriously and asked, "Do you want to rock and roll out of here?"
"No, I promised Harry I'd stick around."
Damien's mouth thinned into a line. He wasn't convinced; even in the dim light he saw the uneasiness plastered across her face. "Are you sure?"
Dianne wasn't sure, but she nodded anyway. "I'll be fine."
"You do realise that, the moment you saw him, your first impulse was to hide in a darkened hallway. I don't think it's a leap to think that, actually, you're not fine. Not to mention, your drunken ramble before -"
"Look, I just wasn't prepared for it. Give me a moment to collect myself." She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before exhaling. She repeated the breathing exercise until she was light-headed with fresh air and looked back to Damien. "Okay, okay, I'm good."
As Luke made small talk with Harry's guests, he casually swept his eyes around the immediate vicinity to try and catch sight of Dianne again - and he wasn't quite sure why he wanted to see her, either. Maybe he had imagined she was there? No sooner had the thought entered his mind when he saw her and Damien walk out of a darkened corner, his arm around her shoulders. Luke wasn't sure what exactly it stirred in him but he pushed away that bubble of undefined feeling, regardless; it was too dangerous a territory to start navigating, and it was one he'd rather not revisit. He was, for all intents and purposes, indifferent.
# # #
Dianne was thankful to Damien for spending most of the night steering their socialising away from the general vicinity of wherever Luke happened to be. They were outside in the courtyard area, with a few of their former politics classmates, when she noticed a pretty, blonde woman she didn't recognize standing by herself. Dianne guessed she must have been a partner of one the attendees, dragged there unaware that everyone present basically knew everyone else. In a moment of social charity, Dianne slipped away to talk to her. But by the time Damien had noticed Dianne had walked away, it was too late to warn her that the woman she was approaching was the woman Luke had arrived with.
"Hello," Dianne greeted the woman.
The woman looked up a little surprised but relieved for the company. "Hi," she smiled as Dianne stood next to her.
"I'm here to save you from social exile." Dianne grinned and held out her hand. "I'm Dianne, how are you?"
She took the hand and shook it. "Hi Dianne, I'm well thank-you. I'm –"
"Kath."
Dianne turned to see who had called out: it was Luke walking towards them. When he arrived at the two women, Kath protectively slipped her arm around his waist. Dianne's head was spinning, unable to completely digest what had happened in a space of a few seconds. Luke was standing in front of her. And this woman – Kath – was here with him.
Kath looked between Dianne and Luke curiously, noticing her boyfriend's uncharacteristic reaction to the woman. He was usually quite polite and charming. She took it upon herself to make introductions as neither one of them took the initiative to do so. "Luke, this is Dianne."
Luke cleared his throat, gathering his wits, and said evenly, "We know each other."
Kath guessed as much. "Oh, well, I should probably introduce myself properly then." She held out her free hand to Dianne and began again, "I'm Luke's -"
As the scene played out, Dianne noticed the giant rock on the hand clasped to Luke's side; and, with more resignation than she intended, she finished Kath's sentence for her: "Fiancée."
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A/N: Yes, I am aware I have many stories that are unfinished, and a certain sequel I have yet to start (well, post), but I've recently been on an Austen-binge, and, like any good Austen tragic, I have decided to write a modernized and loose reworking of my second favourite Austen novel: Persuasion.