Summer Beach Reads. Natalie Anderson

of the work they do. You belittled him.’

      ‘I tested him. Big difference.’

      Why did that surprise her? He’d always been interested in breaking people down to see what made them tick. ‘Not to the person on the receiving end.’

      That shut him up. For almost half a minute.

      ‘So, is that a no to partnering up? I already have reservations.’

      She hated doing this by phone. It was all too easy to imagine vulnerability in his tone. If she was looking him in the eye he’d never get away with that. But his tone changed hers. She sighed. ‘Tickets to what?’

      ‘The symphony.’

      ‘The Australian Symphony doesn’t have Beethoven on their line-up for this year.’ She’d already checked.

      ‘Not the ASO. The Berlin Philharmonic. They’re in town for a limited season. Three concerts.’

      ‘Those tickets were expensive.’ She’d checked that, too.

      ‘So?’

      ‘So throwing money at it is a fast way to get the list out of the way.’ And off your conscience.

      ‘Really? I suppose you walked to Antarctica, then?’

      ‘No. I took a work opportunity. There was a media call to promote the hundredth anniversary of the end of Scott’s expedition and I qualified. The only thing I paid for was my thermals.’

      ‘Nice junket,’ he snorted.

      ‘Sure. If you don’t count all the freezing-your-butt-off and hauling yourself up rope nets on and off an ice-breaker.’ That had nearly killed her. Although it had helped her get fit preparing for it.

      ‘So how were you planning on getting to Everest without money?’

      She tossed back her hair. Maybe it would translate in her voice. ‘I don’t know. Work on a cruise ship to earn passage. Then make my way to Kathmandu by bike.’

      She was nothing if not an idealist.

      ‘It would take a lifetime to do the list that way.’

      She stared at the wall. Suddenly something important clicked into place for her. Something she’d been missing.

      ‘“Full effort is full victory”,’ she murmured. Satisfaction lay in the effort, not the attainment. Gandhi knew it. It was just a pity Hayden—the student of human nature—had forgotten what that felt like.

      ‘What?’

      She refocused. ‘The list was supposed to be about honouring my mother’s memory. Buying your way down the list does the opposite.’ Almost worse than doing nothing at all.

      His pause grew dangerous. ‘So, now you don’t want me doing the list?’

      I want you to care. And she had no idea why that was so important to her. ‘Not if it means you put in the minimal amount of effort or outsource it to someone to make you up an itinerary.’

      Silence descended as he considered that.

      ‘What if I didn’t pay for the tickets?’

      She blinked. ‘Then I assume you’ll be arraigned for theft when the curtain rises.’

      ‘Ha ha. I meant that I contra’d them. Does that change how you feel?’

      Did it? Last week, if someone had given her a month off work and a cashed-up credit card she would have zoomed through the list knocking things off, too. But she felt sure that there’d be no sense of achievement. Not like the year of preparation for the marathon, or learning to horse-ride well enough to tackle the Snowy Mountains, or working for months on the Antarctica proposal and her ice fitness.

      Could she even enjoy the victory if it came so easily?

      ‘Using your influence is like using your money—’

      ‘It wasn’t influence. I bartered a friend for the tickets. Good old fashioned labour.’

      Labour? Those hands? ‘What for?’

      ‘I give you my word it’s nothing that wouldn’t honour the intent of Carol’s list.’

      She turned it over in her mind. And over. And then looked under it and really tried very hard to find something reasonable to object to. But her curiosity was piqued, too. What exactly did one trade for tickets to a performance that exclusive?

      ‘Front row?’ Okay, now she was just picking a fight.

      ‘Centre.’

      ‘When?’ Did he just assume she’d be available?

      ‘Tuesday night.’

      Damn. She was.

      Somehow it being an evening thing made it feel more like a date than a business arrangement. Which was ridiculous. Two birds, one stone, he’d said. The deal was made. The tickets arranged. Why shouldn’t she benefit from whatever hard manual labour he was going to have to undertake to pay them off?

      She sighed. ‘Okay. I’ll see you then.’

      ‘Really?’

      Lucky he couldn’t see her, because she completely failed to hide the tiny smile that broke at the surprise in his voice. Too cool for school was kind of his thing back when she used to watch him from the stairs. It was nice to know that someone who had been that jaded at nineteen was still capable of surprise at thirty.

      ‘Really.’

      ‘Great.’ Awkward. ‘See you Tuesday, then.’

      Her chest squeezed tighter at his parting words. But nineteen year old Hayden would never have been a good choice for her and she suspected thirty year old Hayden was even less so.

      Lucky this wasn’t a date, then.

      ‘Is that a cape?’

      Hayden stepped around her in the concert-hall foyer to check out the back of the indigo cloak that Shirley had put on over her simple black dress. The shoulders formed a reverse V that left her décolletage bare and met at an ornate black clasp that closed like fingers around her throat.

      ‘Capelet, according to the label,’ she informed him.

      Whatever it was, it did amazing things to her eyes. And the dress for the rest of her, too.

      ‘You’re early,’ she announced.

      ‘I wanted to pick up the tickets. You’re earlier.’

      ‘I wanted to people-watch.’

      At least Shiloh did.

      He should have twigged when she’d first told him her new name, except that he’d been out of action for so long his connection to the living world had dwindled to what he read in the newspaper and saw on television the few times he turned the thing on.

      The fawning of the girl on the beach that day was his biggest clue. That had sent him hunting on the Internet and it took no time at all to realise that his Shiloh was that Shiloh.

      The people’s princess.

      Blogger extraordinaire.

      Queen of snark and acute social awareness.

      Possessor of a two-million-plus social network and a list of subscribers that contained every major news journalist, politician’s aide and celebrity in the country. No one wanted to be the one not following Shiloh’s eloquent posts, even if they didn’t always like them. Or understand them.

      He found the dolphin story—beautifully researched and filled with example after example of people whose lives had been changed following an encounter with a cetacean. Hundreds more in the reader comments. The dolphin that sensed the tumour. Or a pregnancy. A whale that monstered