Heartbeats in Moonlight

Chapter 29

But later that evening Amelia turned up at Ella's door and she promptly burst into tears as she stepped into Ella's house. It took Amelia several minutes before she finished telling Ella about the events and another few minutes to stop crying. Amelia related the fact that Davina had paid her a visit at her office. Ella listened quietly.

It took another forty minutes to rehashed events as they devoured their chocolate ice cream. It was obvious that Amelia loved Jack, and trusted Jack. But it was also equally obvious that Davina was out to cause trouble, and with Jack being blind to her deviousness, it left Amelia in the unenviable position of trying to show Jack that his ex was a troublemaker, without it looking like Amelia was jealous and did not trust him.

Amelia and Ella studied the photograph and Ella told Amelia her conclusions, that the photograph was staged. After studying the photograph with Ella, Amelia came to the same conclusion. Davina looked like she was shooting a commercial for surfboards or bikini wear, it was too posed. Too contrived. But even as both women came to the conclusion that the photograph had been staged, Amelia explained the real problem would be how she went about convincing Jack that Davina was making mischief.

Ella tried to persuade Amelia that she needed to make Jack see what's going on because it was obvious that Davina's actions were eating away at her friend.

Amelia continued to explain the situation, "It's been awful at home the last couple of days. Not talking about it. Pretending there's nothing to discuss. Going to bed together and all the time it's just hovering there. It's been awful. At breakfast today, I decided that when I got home tonight we were going to thrash this out. We can't pretend. I just wanted the day to figure out how to talk about it, without me sounding like I'm some psycho girlfriend."

Ella's eyebrows rose as she said, frankly, "The only psycho is his ex girlfriend. But it's good you are going to talk to him about it."

"Well that was before I saw the paper. Then I got angry. You know what I'm like when I get cross. I trust him. I know he thinks I'm jealous. And yeah, a bit of me is, but it's not that. Not really. What worries me is the way she is manipulating us, him, the situation. What's really upsetting is he fact I can't get him to see that is what she's doing. It is driving me nuts."

Ella stopped eating her ice cream and said, "You need to talk to him. Her actions are grinding you down."

"I know."

"To her, you and Jack are still together, despite all her efforts. So she's had to go for plan b. She's upping the ante. She's bound to step it up again, I'm sure."

"The cow! Why can't he see her for the manipulative cow that she is? She's exploiting his good nature!"

"He's a man." Ella muttered. "She's a heifer."

"David sees through her."

Ella said nothing. She really didn't want to talk about David. Especially as she and David had just talked about their situation. Well, part of their situation. Ella thought she couldn't tell Amelia about the status of her relationship with David, let alone about the slap.

In silence they ate a few more spoons of ice cream.

Eventually, Ella picked up the conversation and explained that Jack had phoned. "Jack phoned heaps of times. He said, if you showed up here, I was to tell you to get your butt back to his place otherwise it would be too sore to sit on. I'm paraphrasing, he was a bit more expressive! He knows words I've never heard used in polite company

Ella was thrilled to see that Amelia hadn't caved and scurried off on hearing this demands. So Ella and Amelia continued to talk about the situation between Jack and Amelia. Ella knew her friend loved Jack but she was pleased to see that Amelia was not going to allow him to walk all over her. Ella was fairly sure that if Amelia and Jack were to have a long lasting relationship, he'd have to accept that beneath that demure façade was a feisty, stubborn woman. And clearly, having heard the messages he'd left on Ella's phone, he was learning that he couldn't take Amelia for granted. By his third message there was an air of despondency and concern in his voice.

Ella played the messages to her friend and advised her to go home and talk to him, about Davina, not to pretend that the Davina issue didn't exist, but to thrash it out. But before Amelia left, Ella also offered her a strip of condoms, in case they wanted to do another sort of talking. Amelia had pushed the condoms back at Ella before she left, making a pointed reference about them being the wrong size. Several minutes later, Amelia nodded. "Thanks Ella."

"Drive safe." Ella said.

Gabriella watched Amelia's car's taillights disappear before Ella turned and closed the door. She hoped Jack would have common sense and he would see his ex girlfriend was causing mischief. As Ella reviewed her conversation with Amelia, Ella wondered if David's girlfriends were causing mischief. But then, Ella thought the common denominator was David. He had deliberated brought his girlfriend to his home when he knew that Ella would be there. Why? She knew that they had agreed not to talk about their ancient issue. But that didn't mean that she couldn't review their ancient issue. And the more she thought about her business-visit to David, she was convinced that David had tried to see if she would be jealous of his girlfriends. And the more she thought about that she was convinced that he was testing her. The question was, why?

And despite the fact they had reached an agreement, she was not going to simply leave things like this. Perhaps after she finished David's place, she could talk to him, and ask him why? Ella huffed in exasperation, as she thought about how to explain it to David without it sounding as if she was simply jealous of his girlfriends. She couldn't afford to harp on about the two women at his house, but she could explain to David about her concerns. Ella ran a hand through her hair as her head practically laughed at her own fanciful thoughts. But her heart roped in her brain, and reminded her head, they needed to be honest with each other. Like that is going to be easy, her brain remonstrated.