CHAPTER ONE

      TWENTY-FIVE today, Molly thought as she brushed her hair back from her high forehead and coiled its straight brown length on top of her head.

      A quarter of a century.

      Sighing, Molly inserted the first of six securing pins without having to look at what she was doing. She’d done her hair like this for the last few years. It was easy and practical and, above all, cheap. She needed every spare cent from her pay packet to make ends meet.

      At last she glanced up into the vanity mirror and surveyed the finished product with a wry smile. There was no doubt she looked the stereotyped concept of a librarian through and through. Prim hairdo. Prissy blouse. Pleated skirt. All she needed was horn-rimmed glasses balancing on the end of her none too small nose to complete the staid image.

      Molly had twenty-twenty vision, however. Which was unfortunate in some respects. How much kinder it would be, she imagined, to have a fuzzier reflection first thing every morning.

      She suddenly saw herself looking in the bathroom mirror on her fiftieth birthday and nothing would have changed much, not even her hairstyle.

      She would still be living at home with her mother.

      She would still be plain.

      And she would still be madly in love with Liam.

      Her shudder was part despair, part self-disgust. For loving Liam was such a waste of time; such a waste of her life.

      Molly knew he would never love her back.

      She no longer clung to the teenage fantasy where Liam woke up one day and saw that his feelings for the girl next door had somehow miraculously changed overnight from platonic friendship to an all-consuming passion. By the time she turned twentyone, Molly had graduated from romantic to realist. Difficult to hold onto such a futile dream in the face of the type of girl Liam brought home with regular monotony.

      ‘Plain’ did not describe them. Neither did bluestocking, nor bookworm, as Molly had been labelled all her life. Liam’s girlfriends were better known for their bodies than their brains. He liked them tall and tanned, with long legs, lush breasts and hair which shimmered.

      Molly told herself she had the right breasts, but nothing short of the rack was going to add four inches to her average height. And, while her hair was always clean and healthy, mousy brown just never seemed to shimmer.

      So Molly had long since abandoned any romantic schoolgirl dreams when it came to Liam. Common sense told her he was a lost cause. Yet still she clung to the emotion of loving him, clung to it as a drowning man clung to the most tenuous lifeline. Why else was she living in this house which was far too big for just two people, and far too expensive?

      Because Liam’s family lived next door, that was why. If Molly and her mother moved, she would never see him again. Never feel the joy—as bittersweet as it was—of having him drop in for a drink and a chat, as he did every once in a while.

      Liam called her his best friend, but Molly knew she wasn’t really that. She was simply there, a convenience, a ready ear to listen and give him feedback on his latest computer game or graphic design idea.

      A deep dismay momentarily filled her soul before it was abruptly banished by a surprising burst of anger. How could Liam be so blind? And so darned insensitive? And why did she have to go on wallowing in his lukewarm and highly one-sided version of their being ‘best friends’?

      Best friends were supposed to share things, weren’t they? Where was the give and take in their relationship? Today was her birthday, damn it. But would he remember? Not on your nelly! The dynamic head of Ideas and Effects Pty Ltd couldn’t be expected to remember such trivia. He was far too busy running his excitingly successful business. Heck, he hardly had time to come home any more! She hadn’t sighted him since Christmas, a full two months back.

      There would be no phone call. No card, let alone a present. Yet she’d shopped for hours to find him the right gift for his birthday last year. She’d even cooked him a cake!

      ‘Molly,’ her mother called out through the bathroom door. ‘What’s taking you so long in there? Your breakfast’s been on the table for a full five minutes.’

      ‘Coming!’

      Breakfast that morning was a small glass of orange juice, one boiled egg, one thin slice of wholemeal toast, one teaspoon of margarine and black coffee. A big improvement on the minute