Allison Rushby
Author Book List

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I hate Valentine's Day...
Just like you.

One of the top wedding photographers in town, Liv Hetherington, steadfastly single, hates Valentine's Day. This year she's putting her foot down and has vowed there'll be no dinner party set-ups, speed-dating frenzies or any other form of accidental dating organized by her father, flatmate or best friend.

Liv's ecstatic, to say the least. Now she can concentrate on more important things like setting up her own studio and polishing off her Dickens collection. But are relationships really not for her? Drew, the new man in Liv's life, would beg to differ. As would Cupid, who's had enough of Liv being stubbornly single...

Valentine's Day...bah, humbug. Or is that about to change?

Excerpt

I draw a bright red fake zit on the end of the bride's nose and, satisfied, sit back to admire my handiwork. Sally, who happens to be walking by at the time, stops behind me and places a hand on my shoulder. "Liv, sweetheart, if I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times.You're supposed to be taking them off, not putting them on."

"Yes, boss." I sigh and, without turning around, pick up the computer's pen once more and run it over the palette lying on the desk. I keep right on drawing on the picture that's up on the screen — the bride in her hotel room surrounded by a bevy of bridesmaids.This time I add a pair of horns over the bride's tiara and fangs over her newly whitened teeth. Still behind me, Sally leans over and takes the pen out of my hand. Within seconds, little red dots appear on the bride's eyes. I look up and laugh.

Sally goes over to lean up against the steel counter that runs the length of one of the studio walls. "Couldn't help myself.She was a particularly silly cow, remember?"

I don't remember. "I give it three years, max," Sally says, coming back over to take one last look. I glance up to see three fingers, then,'Coffee?" she says brightly, taking off for the kitchen, her lavender sandals making little clip-clop noises on the polished floorboards and her glossy,perfectly highlighted blonde hair waving behind her.

"Yes, thanks," I say, watching as she makes her way around the tiny galley-style kitchen, filling the pot with coffee and putting a few biscuits on a plate. I try one last time to place the couple before I give up. "I don't know why you make these bets with yourself. Thirty years, three years, three months…you never find out if you're right or not."

Sally stops what she's doing and looks at me.'And why shouldn't I make those bets? I do it with my own relationships. May as well gamble on everyone else while I'm at it." She inspects the lip of the mug she's got in her hand, then rubs it with one finger. Remnants of her favourite lipgloss, most likely.'I probably am right, you know. I've always been spot-on with all my husbands.Three and a half years with Simon, two with Tom, seven months with Luke…"

I try not to laugh out loud at that. All My Husbands — it sounds like a good name for a daytime soap. And with Sally's exes there'd never be a lack of characters to bribe/maim/kill off/lapse into a coma only to return in the fifteenth season with amnesia.

I get up and have a stretch before going over to retrieve my coffee from the bench.The two of us carry our mugs over to the sitting area and I take the yellow armchair while Sally stretches out,putting her feet up on the red couch. She offers me the plate of biscuits, one already sticking out of her mouth, and groans as she munches away.'See what you've got me doing? I can't have a fag, so I'll eat half a packet of biscuits instead."

I take a biscuit.'You can have a fag." 'Only if I beg.And only outside." 'Hey,it's your rule! I'm only supposed to be enforcing it, remember?'A few weeks ago Sally had decided she was giving up the tar sticks of death (her words) for good.She'd decided the best way to go about it was to give me,one of the only non-smokers she knew,any packet she bought.Then,if she wanted a cigarette,she'd have to give me good reason why. I'd handed out approximately ten so far,mostly after she'd fielded phone calls from her third ex-husband regarding their divorce settlement.Ten seemed an awfully small number seeing as before this she'd been a pack-a-day smoker.I was starting to wonder where she was keeping her stash.

"I don't feel like begging. Not on a Friday afternoon. Change of topic.You geared up for next week? Been taking your guarana?"

I groan through the biscuit that's in my mouth now. I don't need reminding that it's Valentine's Day next Sunday.And not just because of my failed love-life. In the wedding photography business, Valentine's Day means big business. Especially since for the last two years the day has fallen on a Friday and a Saturday.This year it's on a Sunday.The weekend again.Weekends, of course, are always the busiest days of the week for wedding photographers. But when the fourteenth of February falls on a weekend? Let's just say Sally Bliss Photography has been booked out a year and a half in advance.

Sally laughs at me.'Look at your face! I can never believe the change in you around Valentine's Day — you're such a grumpy-arse. Stop frowning or you'll line for good.Take it from me,there are just some miracles L'Oréal can't perform when you get to my age, however much you're "worth it"."

I stop frowning. "That's better." Sally puts down her coffee.'Anyway, Valentine's Day — just smile, think of the money and remember our unofficial motto…"

We both put cheesy grins on and lift our hands to our faces as if holding invisible cameras. Click, click. "Those who can't, photograph," we sing-song in unison.And we're definitely two girls who can't, I think as I lower my hands again. Sally can't stay married, I can't…well, I can't be bothered.

There's silence as we both return to our caffeine in-take greedily. I think we're both feeling a lack of energy.As Sally mentioned,it's Friday afternoon and I've got that drained feeling that people all over the city are sharing.

"Oh," Sally says, making me look up from my mug. "Don't forget about Monday. Mrs Batty-Smith's funeral.'And with that we both look over at Mrs BattySmith's desk in the corner and stare. "We'll have to order a wreath," she adds, before pausing to bite her bottom lip.'Are there any grey flowers?"

"I don't think so." 'I'll order something later.'She glances at her watch. "Bugger. I've got to get going." She takes one last sip of her coffee and pushes herself up off the couch.

"Engagement shoot?"

Sally nods, running her hands down her black capri pants to smooth out the creases. "I won't be back this afternoon, so if you could be a darling and close up…" She winks at me. "I've got a big date tonight."

"Have you just? I thought you were taking a break from men? Waiting till a decent one came along?"

"Well, I was…" 'For a week?" 'I gave up smoking! I need some kind of a hobby to keep me busy." She grabs her diary off the coffee table and has a quick flip through.'Fabulous.The park at the end of the world again. Just what I need." She sighs as she stuffs it in her bag and heads for the door.

I give her a sympathetic look as I get up and take my coffee over to the computer.The park at the end of the world is the bane of our lives. Sally includes an engagement shoot session in all the higher-priced wedding photography packages,and the couple get to choose the location. Bliss's studio is a few minutes out of the city,but somehow just about every couple manages to choose the park at the end of the world as the location for their engagement shoot.

"Have fun," I say as the door slams behind my employer. She gives me a wave through the glass and mouths Ta ta.

I sit back down at my desk and undo the zit, horns, fangs and little red eye-dots on the computer screen. Just as I'm about to make a start on the bride's flabby underarm (by personal request), I catch a glimpse of yellow and look up to see Sally speed off in her Ferrari. Smoking.

So that's where she's been keeping them, I think. And, speaking of broken promises, I can't believe she's going on a date tonight! Just two weeks ago, when divorce number three finally came through and Sally was crying poor,she told me in her most sincere voice that she was taking a leaf out of my book and was going to try being single for once. Finally she was swinging around to my way of thinking — men were just too much trouble. Much easier to take up the ice-cream education style of dating that I'd adopted (sitting in front of the TV with a new 500ml flavour to sustain you for the evening — a litre if it had been a particularly hard day). Either way, Sally's single girl life hadn't lasted long. Less than a week, if you figured in when the guy had actually asked her out.

I turn my attention back to the flabby arm, which really isn't flabby at all, and edge out the tiniest sliver from underneath. Not too much, not too little. Just enough. Well, maybe a tiny bit more, I think, sitting back in my chair to take a look. I would if it was me.

As hard as I'm trying to concentrate as I move the pen back and forth over the palette, I can't help but keep catching sight of Mrs Batty-Smith's desk out of the corner of my eye.The desk Sally and I had both been staring at before. Still de-flabbing, I think about Monday and how strange it will be to go to her funeral. Strange because I know so little about her.

What I do know about Mrs Batty-Smith has been pieced together over time, gathered from the other wedding photographers around the city. Everyone knows one thing for sure — Mrs Batty-Smith was the wedding photographer to book in the sixties, when she was about my age. She wasn't Mrs Batty-Smith then, however. Back then she was Miss Smith and she was the best, commanding the highest fees anywhere in the country, photographing all the top weddings.

Celebrities, politicians, you name it — she photographed the day.

It's the more personal information that everyone's hazy on. I've been told that her husband left her at the height of her career, that this caused her to fall apart a touch and it was all downhill from there.Ten years or so after that she stopped photographing altogether. She never remarried, I know that much for sure, and she spent the rest of her days doing the books for all the wedding photographers around town.

My eyes drift away from the computer screen and I sit and stare at her desk.She was a funny old thing,Mrs Batty- Smith, crotchety as all get out, though she'd talk for ever about her eighteen cats.If you tried to get onto

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