Octavia

I've been to the races at Flemington a lot. So much so that I'm a member of the Racing Club there. I don't have a profound interest in horses myself, but I have family in the industry, so that's the excuse I make to maintain my membership.

 

I hit the tote at about ten and the winner's bar at eleven. My uncle had had a winner, a big winner, and my cousin had done my the courtesy of dragging me into the winner's bar, which, as the name suggests, you can only get into if you're part of the party around the winning horse. Owners, Trainers, etc. Free Moet champagne for all. Lots of suits and ties - I'm in one myself - but they look comfortable in them. I try my best to fit in and I chat to quite a few people, but I can't shake the feeling that everyone in the room is worlds apart from simple old me.

 

I'm not a young aristocrat. My dad's a farmer and my mum's a nurse. So there I am chatting with my talldarkhandsome older prodigal cousin, feeling slightly out of place but having a good time all the time - when SHE walks up.

 

( Hey, you should play this at this point - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG-vmVrHOGE )

 

She makes a noise when she sees him and there's some laughter and hugging. I gather she knows him from some work he did in London running the family stud.

 

And... she's cute. Sort of cute. Easy-on-the-eyes cute. As opposed to the stifling hotness that seems to radiate from a young of young women these days, the sort of stuff you might have been attracted to, there's a certain womanly elegance to her.  

 

They have a momentary embrace, and the small clique that I'm both chatting to and part of glance over in amusement.

 

"Tavia," my cousin says - he pronounces it 'tay-via because we're Australian - "How are you? You said you'd be around, I haven't seen you in ages!"

 

She has long dark hair. I remember thinking that that was noticable because a lot of women put a ton of effort into their hairstyle when they go to the races. Likewise, the men try to present their best. Not her, though. She just looks good with long, sleek hair that's somewhere between chocolate and charcoal. She wears a semiformal frock that's black, sleek, and open at the knee. She also wears one of those fascinator things on her head - those things that aren't really hats but women wear them on their heads anyway. It's black and feathered. By comparison, she's not hugely  dressed up at all. She dresses like my other cousin - my girl cousin, the one who comes to the races so often that it's hardly a big deal. She dresses like it's a hassle, like she's seen something decent and thought 'that will do'.

 

Then she snags us all looking over. She says something I don't catch. There's hardly a moment of silence before my cousin runs through the introductions.

 

"Guys, this is Octavia, Octavia, this is my anon, that's anon, and my cousin anon."

 

I smile and grasp her hand, shaking it lightly. Hi, lovely to meet you, I say. Then I make eye contact as I shake her hand. They're the colour of opals, a very light blue that's not particuarly strong.

 

You know how, sometimes, when you meet people who don't seem sort of cute at first - but then they grow on you as you get to know them?

 

I'll get back to it later.

 

"Lovely to meet you too," she says, with just a tiny smile. She speaks with a slightly refined accent. You can definitely tell she's British. But it's not grating at all. I don't find a voice like Rarity's grating either, but she was several notches below that.

 

I've barely stopped shaking her hand before my phone goes off. I make a move to answer it and say something apologetic, but those eyes. They're absolutely gorgeous, and they're following me. For just a second. And then she's busy looking at someone else, and I'm left with aftershocks that are making my stomach curl.

 

I grab my phone and look down - it's my old man. Still feeling a little jittery, I step outside past a large pair of glass double-doors that the security staff open for me. He wants to know how my uncle's horse ran, and I tell him it was a longshot that had a good run. We make some small talk, and then I quickly dart back in, eager to find some excuse to be in the same conversation again, just so I can hear that lilting accent. Jesus, I think, she might actually smile at me.

 

I guess it's worth noting that I've had a girlfriend before. It's not a lot, but I hope it's enough prove to not be a ronery virgin. Suffice it to say that women don't really have this much impact on me too often. Call it a consequence of not getting out enough and being social, because it's probably true.

 

Anyway, my brain's doing about a thousand miles an hour as I re-enter the small, tightly-packed bar. There's a lot of noise, and I cast about for my cousin. Unsurprisingly, the three or four minutes of conversation with my dad has probably cost me the chance to speak to her. Not being particularly rational or thoughtful at the time, I don't think about how I really wanted to talk to her - but I did. But I don't see her, of course, and I don't see anyone else. I give a little inward groan. That's a bummer, I think to myself. Guess I'll just meander around and try to find either my uncle or cousin -

 

"Was that Chopin?" says a refined, slightly lilting voice to my left. I'm a little taken aback, but I glance left, and she's right there.

 

One arm folded beneath the other, a clenched fist tucked away against her body to support the arm that holds her glass of sparkling champagne. Black dress, black hat, eyes like pale blue gemstones. Or are they even a little bit grey?

 

Hnngh, be still, my stupid, childish heart. She's done a vanishing act, and appeared from the one corner of the wooden-panelled room that I hadn't looked in. Again I'm struck by exactly how good she is. And no, that's not a typo. I really did mean to say that she's 'good', in the same way that you might suddenly enjoy a panoramic landscape that had been right in front of your face the whole time. A pleasant surprise.

 

Of course, these observations are split-second, and hardly registered beyond a little skip in my heart. And not for the obvious reason that she's extremely cute. It's that she's just asked me a question and I have absolutely no idea what she means.

 

"I'm sorry?" I say, completely at a loss.

 

"Your phone," she says with another smile, gesturing to the white apple in my hand with a flick of her head. She doesn't even move her arms.

 

"Um, no," I reply quickly, not really thinking about my answer. "I think it's Debussy."

 

Of course, I then think about my answer. In a split-second, I master the spark of interest that ignites in my chest.

 

"Wait, it's Debussy?" I say, and then I smile unwittingly. "You like Debussy?"

 

"I like a lot of music," she says airily, "But I just recognised that particular piece of classical. It's Clair De Lune, right?"

 

Restocking my mental faculties, I gather that she's just asked me about classical music. I don't know much about classical music either - other then that I enjoy it quite a bit for no reason. I know people might think of me as a bit of a highly-strung intellectual for listening to it as well, so I never bring the fact that I absolutely adore classical music up. I just prefer to quietly enjoy myself.

 

"Yes," I say. "I think it has another name, but I'm not quite sure what it is."

 

"Suite Bergamasque No. 3," she replies. Her smile broadens at the surprise on my face.

 

There's a brief outburst of breath from me - it sounds like an unrestrained chuckle. I express my surprise and say that I, too, enjoy classical music. I ask her if she enjoys a lot of classical music, still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a pretty girl has both (A) approached me and (B) is expressing a similar taste in music to me.

 

"Actually, I'm a trained musician, but I work in the racing industry as a stablehand during the summer." Her lips curl into a polite smile. "Not a whole lot of work for me at the moment."

 

"Woah, really?" I say, not at all meaning to sound so surprised. "I'm just a student," I add. "I mean, not at the piano. I used to play the piano when I was a lot younger, but... I've just really always liked classical music." It's an amazingly awkward way to end the sentence, so I smile broadly and say a little more. "It's very relaxing, don't you think?"

 

"Yeah," she says, a little more enthusiastically than normal.

 

I ask her if she works for my uncle. I only mention him by his full name, of course. I'm thinking don't want her to get the impression that I'm name dropping because I'm family. I don't realise that it's a totally futile effort at the time - I mean, I was already introduced as his son's cousin.

 

I don't notice. If she notices, she says nothing of it. "The London Syndicate, yes." she adds. "That's where I met (your cousin)."

 

"I figured you were from England," I say, deciding on flattery as the best form of flirting with this grey-and-black goddess. "I have to admit, you have a lovely accent."

 

She laughs quietly to herself, looking away. There's a tiny hint of colour in her cheeks, and I'm glad for it. She's dizzingly beautiful when she's happy.

 

"Oh, it comes with the territory," she says.

 

"And where is that territory?" I add.

 

"Just around the West End of London," she says. "I've lived there for about three years, and before that I was all over. Mostly around the Southeast, near Wales."

 

"Anywhere near Cardiff?"

 

She seems surprised that somebody knows what Wales is. Add a notch for geography.

 

"Yes, quite near it, actually. Have you ever been?"

 

We get into a long conversation about an earlier trip the UK I'd taken with my family when I was sixteen. We talk about Cardiff being a wreck, except for the nightlife. God knows how long that goes on for. If I was talking her to death, then I didn't notice it - I was more keen to keep the conversation going while basking in her pleasant smile. Topics fly past. We discuss our mutual love of cider over beer and dislike of cricket. Ponies don't enter into it.

 

"I went to see a test at Lords when I was a little girl," she says, making a face. "It's interesting, but boring to watch."

 

"I think it's because you're English," I tease. I make a crack about a cricket series that went awry for England. Don't ask me how I get away with the things that I say. I can't describe the kind of dry humour that I use except to say that I give nothing away. I don't laugh, I don't smile unless I mean to - deadpan, intelligent, considered humour.

 

Whatever it is, she laughs anyway. "Yes, something like that."

 

And then we have a pause. And we catch eachother's eye again for another half second. A lovely awkward pause to ruin things. Or at least it would be if I wasn't so completely enamoured with her that I forgot how to be awkward.

 

"Are you here for long?" I say, not really processing what I'm saying. She shakes her hair and says something about a week or so.

 

"Do you want to get a coffee with me anyway?"

 

There it is again, that polite, thin, embarassed smile that plays across her face. There's no such thing as rosy cheeks in real life, but god, watching the slighest sliver of of pink come to her cheeks is amazing.

 

"Sure," she says. "I'd like that."

 

I leave later that day with a phone number and a date. And it isn't until I've gotten home that evening that I really take stock of how good looking she was. Everything about her seems good, and not for the sake of anyone else. She seems carefree and happy. Not a snob. Very unlike her peers no doubt. I know for a fact she's very unlike most girls that I've ever been interested in in this way, not that it would be more than a few.

 

She's almost... a little too good to be true, really. Ever so slightly...

 

Inhuman.