Just Between Us by Cathy Kelly

girl. Her limitations only became obvious when you were a script writer trying to write lines she wouldn’t screw up. As a storyline editor and one of the team of contributing writers on National Hospital, Tara spent a lot of time writing lines which Sherry then delivered with all the élan of the postman delivering a credit card bill. Which all went to prove that looks weren’t everything, as Isadora, Tara’s colleague, muttered bitchily every time Sherry fluffed her lines.
    Feeling as if she’d better make an effort, Tara investigated the contents of her handbag (black satin, borrowed, no visible logo). Underneath her mobile phone and a notebook and pen in case she had any brilliant ideas for the love triangle storyline she was working on, was a red lipstick, a very elderly concealer and her glasses case.
    There had been a pair of tights in there for emergencies but she’d had to break them out after the smoked salmon starter when her watch had twanged a thread on her existing pair.
    ‘Do you want a lend of anything?’ asked Sherry, concentrating on applying eyeliner with a professional’s touch. She was expertly using a tiny angled brush, Tara saw.
    ‘Er, no thanks,’ Tara said. She slicked on a speedy coat of lipstick, and looked critically at herself to inspect the effect. Standing beside Sherry was a mistake. Tara wasstraight as an ironing board while Sherry was all glowing curves with sparkling gold dust on her silken skin.
    Sometimes Tara wondered, in an idle sort of way, what it would be like to be beautiful rather than clever. Her mother, Rose, was beautiful, still beautiful, even in her late fifties. The family teased her about how the Kinvarra postman was besotted with her and how he nearly crashed the post van whenever she appeared. And Stella, her elder sister, was stunning too, with melting dark eyes and a serene, smiling face that made people gravitate towards her. And Holly, who had more hang-ups about her looks than a catwalk full of teenage models, was incredibly pretty in an arrestingly luminous way. But the beauty gene had clearly skipped out when it had come to Tara.
    Not that she minded, really. Tara knew she’d been given a gift that made up for not being a head-turner – a brain as sharp as a stiletto and a talent for putting words together. A gift that had brought her here tonight.
    She grinned as she thought of her Aunt Adele’s mantra at Miller family get-togethers: ‘Thank the Lord that Tara’s so clever.’ Tara knew that this was shorthand for ‘It’s lucky that Tara doesn’t have to rely on her looks.’ Her mother used to glare at Aunt Adele whenever Adele said this but it had no effect. Her aunt was one of those people who thought honesty and tactlessness were pretty close to Godliness in the hierarchy of virtue, and felt that speaking her mind was not just important, but compulsory.
    But Tara, after a few pointless years of secretly longing to be a beauty, was perfectly content with the way she looked. She’d never be pretty but instead was a combination of quirky and unusual looking, with a sharp little chin, a mischievous full mouth, and a long nose which might have dominated her face were it not for deep-set hazel eyes that glittered with amusement and brilliance. Even beside a raft of golden-haired lovelies, people always noticed Tara’s clever, vibrant face. And once they got talking to her, they loved her because she was witty and funny into the bargain.
    By the time she’d got to college, Tara had worked out a clever and eccentric look which involved very trendy clothes, short, almost masculine hair and fire-engine red lipstick. It helped that she was tall, so masculine clothes and hair worked on her. Now, at the grand old age of thirty-two and thanks to the confidence that came from having a career she loved, Tara was utterly at home with her looks. Her dark hair was expertly cut and its exquisitely tweaked style owed much to the salon wax she scrunched through