The Blind Date Surprise. Barbara Hannay

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      Date: Monday, November 14th 6: 05a.m.

      Subject: Re: You’d better have a brilliant excuse,

      you jerk!

      Dear Annie M,

      I hope you don’t mind my replying to your message, but my nephew is out of town this week and he’s asked me to respond to any important emails. I consider your communication to be of the utmost importance. I regret having to intrude into such a personal exchange but I believe you deserve the courtesy of a quick response.

      Please accept my sincerest apology for the unpleasant experience you suffered last night as a consequence of my nephew’s inexcusable thoughtlessness.

      Damien was called away at short notice and I contacted La Piastra restaurant on his behalf. However, I understand your deep distress and I am saddened by my nephew’s bad manners. You’re absolutely right; you deserved an explanation from him and I will make sure that he contacts you immediately on his return.

      In the meantime, I trust that you are still able to enjoy the remainder of your stay in Brisbane.

      Yours sincerely,

      Dr Theo Grainger.

      Annie dropped the page on to the tabletop. ‘Oh, my God. Damien was called away at short notice.’

      ‘Oh, yeah,’ scoffed Mel. ‘And we all came down in the last shower.’

      ‘You don’t believe him?’

      This question was greeted by a significant silence while Annie watched Mel and Victoria exchange knowing glances that snuffed out her final glimmer of hope. After a bit, Victoria leaned across the table, grabbed the page and scanned the printed message.

      ‘The uncle’s a bit of a wordsmith, isn’t he?’

      Annie nodded sadly. ‘I guess “inexcusable thoughtlessness” is a refined way of saying that his nephew’s a bottom-of-the-pit jerk.’

      Mel grinned. ‘I rather liked the way we described his rotten nephew in our email.’

      ‘Yeah,’ said Victoria. ‘There’s nothing wrong with short, shoot-from-the-hip language.’

      Annie managed a small smile.

      ‘Anyway.’ Victoria tapped a French tipped fingernail against the email printout. ‘This uncle’s a doctor, so you’d expect fancy words.’

      ‘He’s not a medical doctor,’ said Mel.

      Annie and Victoria stared at her. ‘How do you know?’ they both asked simultaneously.

      ‘Because a Dr Theo Grainger was my philosophy lecturer at university and it’s not a common name. I’m sure this must be the same guy.’

      Annie’s mouth fell open. ‘You studied philosophy?’

      ‘In my first year. I didn’t keep it up because I wanted to major in urban planning, but Dr Grainger was a pretty cool lecturer. He had quite a following.’

      To Annie the very word philosophy sounded lofty and unbelievably clever, and she found it hard to imagine an ordinary girlfriend like Mel studying the subject.

      Suddenly Victoria looked at the clock. ‘Hey, look at the time. We’d better get moving or we’ll be late for work, Mel.’

      The two girls jumped to their feet.

      ‘Don’t worry about the kitchen. I’ll tidy up,’ Annie called after them, but they’d already disappeared into their rooms. It occurred to her that if she stayed in their house much longer the girls would soon treat her the way her brothers did.

      At home, Kane and Reid ran around doing important outside work like mustering the cattle, fencing, servicing the bores and machinery, and they left her behind to cook and clean and keep the books, as if she were some outback version of Cinderella.

      It was a big part of the reason she’d wanted to get away and it wasn’t very comforting to think that in no time at all she was becoming a City Girl Cinders.

      A broken-hearted, disillusioned City Girl Cinders.

      One thing was sure; she didn’t want to spend this week keeping Mel and Victoria’s flat clean and tidy. But what were her options? She could reply to Dr Grainger’s email and press the issue about Damien by demanding to know when he’d be back. But she was fast losing confidence in the Internet as a form of honest communication.

      She lifted the printout from the table and read the uncle’s email again. Philosophers were fantastically brilliant and thoughtful and wise, weren’t they? Pity some of it hadn’t rubbed off on his nephew.

      Actually, it was a wonder this philosopher uncle hadn’t lectured her on her own lack of wisdom. No doubt he took a rather dim view of any girl who dashed recklessly into the city from the far reaches of the out-back and expected a blind date to fulfil her silly romantic fantasies.

      She was halfway across the kitchen with cereal packets in hand when she paused. Come to think of it, Uncle Theo hadn’t expressed any negative opinions about her. He’d been surprisingly sympathetic.

      Perhaps there was something deeper behind this—something the uncle understood. A direct approach to Dr Grainger might sort this whole mess out. Rather than mucking around with email, it would be better to deal with him face-to-face. That was the McKinnon way. It was what her brothers would do.

      Look the enemy in the eye so you knew what you were dealing with.

      But how the heck did you confront a philosopher?

      Dropping the dishcloth, she dashed into the bathroom, where Mel was applying mascara.

      ‘Which university does this Dr Grainger teach at?’

      Mel frowned at her reflection in the mirror. ‘UQ at St Lucia. Why?’

      ‘I—I’ve always been curious about philosophy and I was thinking that, as I have time on my hands, it might be interesting to sneak into the back of one of his lectures. Is that allowed?’

      ‘Well…yes.’ Mel gave her eyelashes a final flick with the mascara wand and turned to face Annie. ‘But don’t you think you should just let this Damien thing die a natural death? You know what they say about other fish in the sea. There are some okay guys at my work—’

      ‘This isn’t just about Damien,’ Annie said quickly. ‘It’s about me. I want to sort it out. I don’t want to be left up in the air until Damien eventually decides to turn up.’

      Mel gave a puzzled shrug.

      From near the front door Victoria called, ‘You ready, Mel?’

      ‘Yeah, coming.’ To Annie, she said, ‘You do what you like, Annie, but I think you might be out of luck. The university year will be winding down now. Lectures will have finished and the students will be on swot vacation getting ready for exams.’

      ‘Oh.’

      As Mel hurried for the door she called over her shoulder, ‘If I were you, I’d stick to shopping.’

      ‘No, thank you,’ Annie said quietly.

      When a knock sounded on his office door Theo Grainger was deep in a mire of student assignments and he grunted a greeting without looking up from the papers on his desk.

      ‘Dr Grainger?’

      He’d assumed that Lillian, the philosophy department’s receptionist, was dropping off the day’s mail. But this voice wasn’t Lillian’s; it was younger, no doubt a student panicking about forthcoming exams.

      He didn’t bother to raise his head. ‘Do you have an appointment?’ he asked just a little too gruffly.

      ‘No.’

      His aggrieved sigh drifted downwards to the pile of papers on his desk. ‘You must know by now that