Spotted Lily by Anna Tambour Page A

fridge stocked with a carton of milk. And a plug-in jug, and a few sachets of instant coffee, and some teabags, and sachets of sugar, and a packet of Tim Tam chocolate biscuits in the fridge, and a chocolate mint on my pillow. And all to be arranged by my bedtime tonight ... No, a little earlier than that. Ten o'clock would be acceptable, if that's okay with you.'
    A moment after I punched off, Justin Abernathy knocked, asking for Mr Hartshorn. They had a whispered consultation in the lounge, ending with the manager bowing and scraping himself out the suite door.
    Then it was time for me to leave. I popped my head into the lounge, asking Brett if everything was alright. From his eyrie, he waved me away in a friendly but I-just-want-to-be-left-alone-to-work manner.
    My credit card in my pocket, I was already on my way out when something grabbed my eye, and I grappled it.
    Downstairs in the ultra-nondescript lobby, 'Dump this,' I said to the assembled staff, handing to Jim with a difficulty that was repugnantly familiar to me, the massively tricky flowerpiece of calla lilies wrapped in a coil of barbed wire—our sole flower arrangement, which had sat on a cut-glass 'table' in our suite's entrance hall.
    'A dozen red roses in a crystal vase,' I ordered, 'for the Hartshorn suite. Oh, and white ones for my room ... that smell, not just for looks. And a proper table in the hall.' And I added, though I didn't know if they'd revile me for saying it, 'please'.
    Then I sailed out the door like I'd done it before,  trailing the smells of exotic unguents—and for the last time in my life, my dirty laundry.
    One hour left to closing. No time to figure out buses, and I couldn't see a taxi so I jogged downtown, prioritizing like blazes as I rushed. My mouth tasted unbearable, so I ran past the last-forty-five-minutes' crowd into Soul's Chemists first, found toothpaste and a toothbrush and a bag of their strongest mints, ripping it open to crunch some as I shoved myself into the check-out queue. When everything was bagged and I handed over my card, it was knocked back as 'under the purchase limit', so I excused myself to the people in the queue as I eased through them to the perfume display, grabbed the biggest box, and inserted myself back at the check-out counter. Though I had rushed, my assistance didn't make the check-out girl happy, but the new total meant my transaction sailed through. She sourly repacked my purchases and I rushed out of the store, stopping for a moment to open the bag, remove the perfume, and lob it in a rubbish bin—an early Chrissie prez to some homeless person.
    My mouth tasted so much better, but I only had thirty minutes left. I had never shopped for a new persona before, but the jog down here shook valuable cells in my brain, stimulating me marvellously. Remembering in detail what magazines had advised was impossible, but details never matter. My brain whirled through thousands of pictures and millions of words. As I jogged, the clutter cleared, and one overriding Instruction emerged, as clear as One Commandment: Accessorize! And then my brainstorm whirled some more as the one accessory that had to be so very Desirée Lily materialized in my mind's eye. Jewels!
    Luckily, only steps from the rubbish bin, Proud's Jewellers twinkled. I weaved through the crowd to its long front window, shuffled between window-shopping nuisances, and then rushed inside. Within three minutes, I could see that none of Proud's jewellery was jewels .
    Emeralds and rubies and violet and yellow stones (zircons? amethysts?)—anyway, stones of wine-gum colour and size, in a choker collar. At least, that had been my vision, not that I was stuck on that model exactly. But Proud's, though busy as a hive, was disappointingly plebeian. Now there was no time left to find another jewellers, so I had to leave jewels for tomorrow. At the moment, I only had enough time to buy clean clothes.
    Around the corner was where I bought my clothes when I