“Damn!” Peter George exclaimed as he looked at the lifeless form of a cat
on the road.
He had run over the cat’s neck while he had been driving past CASSIE’S
PUB the very place where he would find the author of his troubles.
“Poor little bugger.” Said a voice from behind him, there stood a little old
man with a pot-belly hanging out of his white shirt and faded, dirty
denim jeans.
“Did he belong to any one?” Peter asked so that he might be able to
take the blighter back to his owner.
“He’s a wanderer, but Cassie Sutherland feeds him.”
“Who would be that heartless?” Peter replied, feeling guilty.
“You have that city-slicker look about ya. Where are you from, sonny?”
“I’m from Melbourne. I came to see Cassie.”
“Oh, are you her beau? She is such a pretty thing, all the guys like her
but she won’t have none of ‘em, no siree!” His companion said pulling a cigarette box out of his pocket and lit it, coughing after he had puffed on it.
“No, I’m just paying her a visit. A business visit.”
“You’re her lawyer?” The nosey old man probed.
“Mind your own goddamn business!” Peter snapped.
“No need to shout, sonny. I’m just a simple country-folk who is curious
about how a city-slicker like you ended up here in Hicksville Monto.”
The old man chided good-naturedly and then turned serious.
“If you so much as hurt a hair on Cass’s head I will tear your heart out
with my Stanley knife and the young bucks will join me.” He threatened.
Peter nodded and replied. “I’ll tell her about her cat. Have a nice day.”
Without waiting for a reply, Peter turned on his heel and strode toward
the small building that was supposed to be Cassie’s bar and opened the
doors.
*
Cassie had had the day from Hell.
She had accidentally spilt a mock-tail all over the bench and had to clean
it up before giving her customer a new one, she was now thirty-two and
still had remained unmarried and this morning while she had been
shaving her legs she found a stretch-mark so that was proof that she
wasn’t getting any younger.
The worst that happened today was that she had gone to the toilet and
had come out with her skirt tucked in her pantyhose.
She had come out of the toilet just in time to hear a couple of snobs
laugh at Gabrielle who was a chubby girl with red, frizzy hair but had the whitest teeth that Cassie had ever seen.
“I hope you aren’t planning to go in the Beauty Pageant, Gabby. You’ll
scare all the judges.” Stephanie, the tall, blonde ring-leader said.
The snobby girls tittered and pulled the MONTO WEEKLY magazine out of Gabrielle’s hands.
Everybody stopped what they were doing to look, but no one moved to help.
“Since when did you begin coming to the pub, Gabby? This joint is only
for the hip-crowd. You aren’t a hip crowd!” The second snob who was called Tiffany asked Gabrielle.
“Is there a problem here, ladies?” Cassie smiled at the snobs, who giggled
and said in chorus. “No, Cass!”
“That is good. Because I have a problem with you.” Cassie replied coolly
and pointed a finger toward the door.
“That’s the way out, girls. Watch that the door doesn’t hit your ass on the
way out. I do not tolerate bullying in my bar!”
“Come on girls, you heard the hag. She wants us out. But we’ll make
sure that she has no more customers by the end of the week…”
Stephanie paused for good measure before pulling on the back of her
skirt. “I don’t think any one would want to come to a pub where the
Cassie blushed scarlet while the room erupted with laughter, the three
girls tittered and wiggled their fingers at her before strutting out the
door…
Just when things couldn’t get any worse, a guy who had come in half an
hour earlier hadn’t kept his eyes off her.
He was not the same age as the rest of her customers, yet he probably
wasn’t aware that this pub was only for miners.
This man had winked at her after she had pulled her skirt out of her
panty-hose and she felt a connection with him that she had only had
with Peter, who had been her high-school boyfriend.
They had gone out for two years before Peter had dumped her in one of the coldest ways possible and Cassie had gone through the next three and a half years of her high-school life and most of her adult-hood hating him so much, but that was only because she had loved him and he broke her heart.
Shaking her head to put the painful memories of the past behind her, she concentrated on the man sitting at her bar.
“Is there any thing I can get ya, sweet-heart?” Cassie put on her best
country-drawl and gave him a big ol’ smile.
*
Peter would have laughed if this was any one else in his position.
He had not seen Cassie since his year twelve graduation some eighteen
years ago.
She had been head-over-heels in love with him when they had gone out and when he had ended it, she hated him because she loved him.
But the fact was that she loved him back then and would have
recognized him anywhere, would have acknowledged him if he only gave
her the time of day.
Over time she had stopped reaching for him and he was secretly relieved because he was able to stop hating her and move on.
He had moved on.
He was thirty-three, had a successful career, two failed marriages to date and a thirteen
year old son who he now shared custody with his ex-wife, Carol, who had cheated on him with lovers male and female.
So why was he seeking out Cassie Sutherland?
He had to admit, Cassie had only become more beautiful than the gawky,
awkward girl he had once known.
He had rung up his mum a week before to check on her and to make
sure she was getting every thing she wanted at the nursing-home she
now lived in.
“Never mind about me, sweetie. What I have for you is just priceless!
That girl you used to date back in high-school…Cassie Sutherland has
written a fictional story for the women’s magazine EVERYWOMANS
MAGAZINE and she wrote it about you! Names were changed…but of
course I recognized the situation! It’s the newest issue, so if I were you I’d
see it! But she has labeled your character has a ‘selfish, spineless prig
who sees that little kids get what they deserve when they mess with him
but he doesn’t realize that he’s a child himself…’
Peter saw the issue and then finished all his paper-work and left
every thing up to his secretary, Lou.
It was risky for his job to run out of there at the last minute, but
he had to find Cassie and take the money that she had earned.
After a few calls to a few old friends, Peter had her and had boarded an
air-plane for Brisbane on that Thursday and drove his blue sports-car to Monto six hours away.
Now he was looking into the eyes of the girl who used to love him and
wondered why she didn’t recognize him.
He decided to let her have it.
Slowly, he looked up and looked into her eyes and replied carefully.
“I want to have your cheque for the story you wrote about me in
EVERYWOMAN!”
Cassie’s jaw dropped.
“You have to be kidding!” She exclaimed.
“I’m not. Hand it over, Cass.”
“Go to hell, Peter!”
“I’m already there! I can’t believe you’d sink that low Cass, to publicly
degrade me with that article!”
“Well if you had ever given me the time of day, you would know that I’m
mad with you, Peter!”
“For what? Leaving you?” Now they were shouting so that the rest of the
residents in that room were now quiet.
“Not just for that…but for putting a blame that was partly yours on MY
shoulders and letting me deal with it! You never said ‘hi’ or anything, you
never spoke to me unless you wanted something! You put me through
hell just to give you satisfaction that you had control over me. Now it’s my turn. This
time, I sell you out to get the money I need and I refuse to pay you money that I don’t
owe you, just like you acted like you never owed me an apology!”
Peter got up and Cassie turned away, thinking that he would just leave.
However, he was not finished with her.
“We’ll talk about this somewhere else. Away from an audience, Cassie.” He demanded in a whisper.
Cassie whipped around and said. “I am not going anywhere with you, Peter!”
“You are if you value your reputation in this town, Cassie.”
“I remember this…this is called black-mail, where you use my feelings
for you to get you what you want. I’m through with you Peter,
just go. Leave, it is what you’re good at doing anyway.”
She began dusting glasses out with a tea-towel for something to do and gave a squeal
of surprise when Peter reached across the bar and took hold of her wrist and pulled
her close so that their noses almost touched.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to pay me. That is why I always have a Plan B.”
“I told you, Peter. I’m not paying you…” Cassie began, but Peter plowed on like Cassie had never spoken.
“I know that you are currently unattached, so there should be no trouble. You will pay me in the flesh. That sounds good, doesn’t it? It’s exactly what we need. You and I hate each other, it’s a well-known fact that we acknowledge. We should sleep together and see if we can get over our hatred for each other so that we can just move on.”
Cassie looked at him and went into peels of laughter.
“You’re joking! Me? You? That’s the stupidest theory I’ve ever heard.
I think you’re just desperate, Peter. I wouldn’t sleep with you even if
you paid me to! What made you think that the girl I was back eighteen
years ago is the same woman you see now? Ha! Go home and stop
wasting my time!”
“Think about it, Cass. I see something better than what I saw back then.
We’re adults now. We can muck around in the bed, we can do what back
then was forbidden.”
“It’s forbidden even now, that girl you knew didn’t have a life of her own.
Now she has and she’s seen a lot, now she doesn’t need you any more to
make her feel complete.”
“She does. Because in the dibs I have on you, you haven’t gone out with
any one much at all. Why is that? You’ve had eighteen years to find The
One but you haven’t, have you? Because you are still hanging onto the
memory of me!”
Peter thought he had her then, but unfortunately, she fought back with.
“You are a conceited beast, aren’t you, Peter? Some things never
change…”
She addressed another customer who had just popped herself into a stool next to Peter.
“Can I help you, sweetie?”
Cassie didn’t speak to him for five minutes while she prepared the
requested drink and made small-talk with the girl.
She noticed that people were circling around the room, speculating
about what could be unfolding between the man and the woman who were arguing in
hushed whispers and sometimes blurted out the occasional shout.
When the teenage customer went to mingle with her friends, the argument started again and the progeny of Monto’s residents strained their ears to hear.
“Even though we hate each other considerably, that shouldn’t mean that we can’t have sex. I mean, it’s an urge…” Peter began when they were interrupted.
“Is this guy botherin’ ya, Miss Cassie?” Asked a cow-boy who looked about seventeen.
“Not at all, Seamus, honey. How is your mother?”
“Sick as a dog the poor thing. Hospital food doesn’t agree with her.”
Seamus shifted from side to side.
“The poor old dear, well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll make her some of my famous pumpkin soup.”
Seamus grinned. “Thanks, Miss Cassie.”
Then he rounded onto Peter and said. “If you hurt her, I’ll flush your
head down the dunny.”
“I’ll punch your nose to where it belongs.” Peter retorted.
“Why you…!”
“Enough! Seamus, I promise that Peter is not bothering me.”
“Alright, Miss Cassie. But if he tries any thin’ you don’t like, let me know
and I’ll let the boys know.”
“Thank you, honey.” Cassie smiled at Seamus who beamed and walked
out of the pub.
When the doors closed after him Peter said silkily. “Let’s have an affair.”
Peter had a habit of making even the worst of things sound sexy…
Concentrate on saying ‘no’, Cassie! Cassie chided herself and clucked her tongue.
“You are eighteen years too late, Peter. I finally know that men like you
chase any thing that wears a skirt.”
“You shouldn’t read every thing you read in the papers.” Peter told her
gently, she was referring to the scandals that his family had gotten
themselves into over the years that had made front page head-lines.
It was because his Uncle Edgar was the former Senator, who fell from
grace when sex-videos with somebody who wasn’t his wife were viewed
by the public all over the world.
“Uncle Edgar has needs as well. Just like any other human-being.”
“Couldn’t wait until he was dead could he?” Cassie replied sarcastically
as she fetched a ginger-ale and poured it into a glass for another kid.
Peter laughed dryly and said after the kid had walked away to whisper.
“Well, Uncle Edgar has needs just like I do. We George fellas are lusty
lads, but that is what we are loved for. I can give you pleasure by the flesh or I can sue you and I have friends in high places. Which one, Cassie? Either way, I’m getting paid or laid.”
Cassie sighed, she knew what he could give her, but it was the love
that he could never give to her, that was the problem.
Cassie looked up at him and replied quietly.
“I cannot give you either, I’m sorry. But you will just have to live with
this.”
“Last time when I asked you for sex, you agreed. What’s changed?”
Cassie sighed, but she made a silent resolve to win this argument
without paying in money or flesh.
“You, me, us, the world, our worlds. You were just on the verge of man-
hood then and I was naïve and loving and I didn’t realize that I had the world at my feet and that I held the key to what ever door I wanted my
future in. I didn’t realize that until you were gone, Peter, that I could be
valuable. When I tried to show you, you didn’t see.”
“Don’t try and give me the guilt-trip, right now, you are the one who is
at fault. You have, in your own way before I left school, did try and
make me feel guilty for everything that went on.”
“I succeeded though, didn’t I?” Cassie shot back.
“And to me you’ve become nothing but a thorn in my side that I can’t
wait to get rid of. But I’m still due for payment.”
“Thanks. But no thanks; I need that money I got for that article to pay
for Alexandra’s operation…”
Peter remembered that Alexandra was Cassie’s niece, Cassie had
come from a large family of eight children and Alexandra was a born
diabetic whose diabetes acted up a lot and landed her in hospital on
a regular basis.
Cassie’s older sister, Margaret and her husband, Luther, had died in a car-accident
when Cassie was fifteen and since Cassie was given the title of the
God-mother in Alexandra’s life, Cassie had to take on the actions to raise
Alexandra as best as she could, Peter remembered.
Then he snapped back to the present as Cassie went on.
“…secondly, Peter. Your proposal is the most ridiculous I’ve ever heard…”
Then she continued in a hushed voice.
“I want my first time to be better than that.”
In shock, Peter fell off his stool and landed with a thump! on his bottom.
“Ouch!” He yelled as kids around him began laughing.
“Are you, okay?” Cassie asked with a frown and came around the bar
to where he sat on the floor.
She offered him her hand and he took it.
Both of them felt the electricity run through them, like a light that had
flickered on without the need of switch to give it power.
They both held on for longer than necessary, daring to look into each
others eyes and see the current of connection that hadn’t been seen
since all of those years ago when fate had separated them.
In front of all of those teenagers, he kissed her, demandingly at first and
then softly.
At their cheering, he grinned and looked at Cassie who looked slightly dazed.
“A sexy kiss doesn’t change anything.” She warned huskily.
“Of course it doesn’t! Come on, I’ll take you out for dinner.
We can discuss your payments there.”
For once, Cassie didn’t argue, but let him pluck the tea-towel she had
hanging from her apron onto the floor and let him undo the ties to the
apron as he called out. “Store’s closed! I’m taking Miss Cassie out to dinner now!”
The kids groaned, but in seconds the room was empty with its empty
glasses on the benches and pool-tables.
Cassie let Peter take her hand and lead her outside.
The wind whipped her hair around her face and Peter tucked it back
behind her ears and then Cassie happened to stare at the road…
“Scatters!” She screamed and began running in the direction of the road.
“Scatters?” Peter asked, pretending to be surprised when he saw
Cassie bent over the poor animal who hadn’t been removed from the
road and had been squished many more times.
“Scatters!” Cassie wailed and began sobbing.
He sat down next to her and pulled her back into his lap and tried
to soothe her.
After several minutes, Cassie quieted and asked more to herself than Peter.
“Who would have done such a terrible thing?”
“Yes,” Peter replied thoughtfully. “Who would do such a terrible thing?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Joseph was born in 1989 at Mater Mother’s Private Hospital in Brisbane, Australia.
When she isn’t eating, she’s writing, when she isn’t writing she is reading, when she isn’t reading, she’s socializing and the pattern keeps going.
This book was based on a grudge and to get the grudge out of her system, she has turned the grudge into a comedy book that you can carry around in your bag like a friend and like a friend it will never fail to make you laugh!
Cheers!
Sarah.
