Until this moment, she’d been confident that she knew exactly how to dress for a big city interview, but the mirror posed an uncomfortable question. Shouldn’t she, at the very least, be able to recognise her own reflection?
What had gone wrong?
She’d woken early in a fever of confident excitement, had sung in the shower, eaten a super-healthy breakfast of fresh fruit and yoghurt in Chloe’s cheerful, sun-filled kitchen—she still thought of this house as her godmother’s—and then she’d raced upstairs to her bedroom.
The new and too expensive navy-blue dress fitted like a dream. Made from fine merino wool, with a high neckline and a neat white collar, it fell in straight, slim lines to a softly flared hemline. Its simplicity and neatness, Sally fervently hoped, signalled the very essence of efficiency.
Intent on completing her efficient image, she’d carefully brushed and crammed every wayward wisp of her blonde curling hair under hairpins and into a tight knot at the back of her head.
And then she’d stepped back to appraise the results and saw, with a chilling certainty, that she looked as grim and forbidding as her unforgettable third grade teacher.
How had this happened? The neck to knee navy had looked flattering in the shop. ‘Fabulous’ was the word the shop assistant had used.
Now the dress made Sally look too thin.
Admittedly, she had always been on the light side. Her older brothers had teased her about it when she was a skinny kid and she hadn’t given two hoots. Dressed in their hand-me-down jeans, sensible cotton shirts and sturdy riding boots, she’d simply been one of the gang, riding horses or quad bikes all over her family’s Outback property at Tarra-Binya.
Today, however, at the age of twenty-three and on the brink of life as a city woman, Sally would have loved to show more of her womanly curves.
She wondered what Chloe would have thought of this outfit. Her godmother had had a brilliant sense of style, and an even greater capacity for living life to the full. She’d been sensitive and warm-hearted too and had always said exactly the right thing to make Sally feel good about herself.
That she wasn’t here to help Sally phase into city life was almost too much to bear.
Blinking back tears she couldn’t afford on such an important morning, Sally tipped her head from side to side and swiftly switched her attention to her hair. Perhaps that was an even bigger problem than the dress. She’d overdone the efficient image.
After all, her interview at Blackcorp Mining Consultancies was for a front desk job and, if she got it, she would be meeting people all day long. And, although the Human Resources manager at Blackcorp would require efficiency in a receptionist, she would be expecting friendliness too.
Friendliness was Sally’s forte. She loved people and loved to chat, had always hoped for a job that involved plenty of talking. But now, as she practised smiling into the mirror, forced a sparkle into her eyes and gave a cheerful flash of her white teeth, she still looked like the Wicked Witch of the West.
That hair knot has to go.
Frantically, she began to rip out hairpins. She didn’t really have time to start rearranging her appearance, but she couldn’t face her appointment looking like this.
Pins scattered left and right, hitting the glass tray, the polished timber dressing table, the carpeted floor. Sally paid little heed to them as blonde curls bobbed up, like coiled springs, happy to be free again.
The front doorbell rang.
No.
Not now! Who on earth would be calling at eight o’clock on a Monday morning? She was only halfway through the rescue attempt on her hair.
Unwilling to waste precious time by going all the way downstairs to the door, Sally dashed to the bedroom window, conveniently poised above the front steps. With a flick of the curtain, she could identify her caller.
‘Anna!’
Her sister-in-law was almost jogging on the top step, balancing her young daughter, Rose, on her hip while she pressed the doorbell again.
‘I’m up here,’ Sally called.
Anna Finch looked up, her face chalk-white and terrified. Sally’s first thought was that something had happened to Steve, her brother, who worked on an oil rig off the Western Australian coast.
Without another word, she left the window and flew down the stairs, her hair problems instantly dismissed.
‘Anna,’ she cried as she flung the front door open and encountered a heart-stopping close up view of her sister-in-law’s pale cheeks and fearful, worried eyes. ‘What is it? What’s the matter? Is it Steve?’
‘No, Steve’s fine. It’s Oliver. He’s having a terrible asthma attack.’
It was only then that Sally saw Anna’s blue car parked at the gate and her three-year-old nephew’s sad face peering anxiously out at them. Poor little Oliver looked pale and sunken and, even from this distance, Sally could sense that he was struggling to breathe.