“Gee, thanks,” I said. “That makes me feel tons better.” In fact, it felt so terrible, it was almost funny. I wasn’t tactful? What would you call Hemi, then, a wrecking ball? “All right. Moving on. Jax won, if there’s actually winning happening, so the idea that he’d care about Matiu—or about you, because he won with you, too—is just stupid. You know what I just realized? The reason Matiu and I aren’t a match, besides that I’m not dying-for-you material? I want somebody who doesn’t keep me guessing. I used to think that was so sexy, so mysterious and all—I mean, obviously I thought that, or I wouldn’t have gone for Josh in the first place. I’ve changed my mind, though. I don’t want to play some game, at least I don’t want to play that one. So if Jax is that furious with me, why’d he walk off instead of telling me so?”
“Could be he didn’t want to embarrass you. A good man supports a woman in public. If he humiliates you in public, it’s a sure bet he’ll be worse in private.”
“Oh. Well, that’s probably a positive, then.”
He laughed. “Yeh, I’d say so.”
“In another minute,” I said, “you’re also going to have to say that you were absolutely scary-R-word wrong about him.” I saw his amusement vanish, right on cue, and added, “Maybe I said the wrong thing. Maybe so. But you did the wrong thing. You’re not supposed to make somebody you love feel stupid? Do you have any idea how stupid I feel right now?”
He paused a moment, possibly looking a teeny bit less than comfortable, then said, “Could be I don’t always get it right. Could be I was a bit desperate, too.”
“You? You’re never desperate.”
He said, “Let’s sit down.”
Much as I’d have liked to say I didn’t need to, I actually did. I still wanted to go talk to Jax, or maybe I wanted to see if he’d come back to talk to me. I didn’t know which was better, so I perched beside Hemi on the low concrete wall edging the patio instead, away from the center of the action.
People were finishing up their seconds and thirds of pork and chicken, of potatoes and carrots and kumara, the succulent hangi that had been roasting in the ground for hours today. Normally, I’d have been doing the same thing, but I still didn’t have much appetite. I’d seen my ribs even better in the mirror this morning, and my collarbone didn’t look all that great, either. Some women were voluptuous. Others were ribby.
Hemi said, “Hang on,” then came back with a bottled water and handed it over, sat down beside me, and said, “I’ve seen you hurting so much you couldn’t even open your eyes. I’ve seen you when Hope went off to New Zealand without you and left you alone with me, and when the first of the many arseholes you’ve fancied dumped you when you thought you’d found romance. Then there’s the time when you thought you were going to fail that International Economics class, and they’d turf you out of the MBA program, because for the first time ever, you weren’t always the smartest person in the room, which meant you must actually be the dimmest. I’ve seen you cry a time or two, and I’ve seen you rage heaps more. I’ve never seen you give up. When we found you this time, you’d given up.”
“It was a break.” Hemi also didn’t get bonus points for recounting all the lowest moments of my earlier years, like some kind of This Is Your Life for the clinically depressed. It was a good thing he hadn’t been around when my dad took off because he didn’t want my mother and he didn’t want me, or when my mom died. I was surprised he hadn’t thrown them in there anyway just to round out the whole pathetic picture.
On the other hand, I’d just thrown them in there. All aboard the Trauma Train. It was leaving the station now and picking up speed, trying to carry me with it. I opened my water and thought, Stop it. It’s antibiotics, making you depressed. You’re fine.
Hemi said, “Let’s recap. Hope and I found you curled on the floor of the bathroom with tomato sauce on your shirt and some kind of crusty brown stuff on your chin, smelling like you hadn’t had a bath in a week. Nobody’d cleaned that floor in a while, either.”
I took a drink of water. “You aren’t supposed to say you noticed the smell. Or that I had something on my face. Which was probably peanut butter chocolate ice cream with hot fudge sauce, because I ate a pint of it at some point there. Out of the carton, standing up at the kitchen counter. You’re also not supposed to say that I’m a bad house cleaner and my bathroom was disgusting. That’s just a wonderful list of additional failures to put into the memory banks. Thank you. You’re extremely bad at this comforting thing. Tell Hope I said so. She should probably do it next time.”
“If it’s the smell and the look of somebody I love giving up,” he said, “I’m noticing, and I’m acting on it. What was I meant to do, then?”
“I don’t know, maybe leave me alone to wallow? I’d have been done soon. I’d have made a plan. I’d have taken a shower and cleaned my bathroom eventually. And if I’d needed help, I’d have asked you.”
“Would you?” Hemi’s gaze could look as remote as the icy peaks of the Southern Alps. Right now, it was nothing like that, because he was absolutely, one hundred percent focused on me. Which did not feel wonderful. “Or would you think, ‘Nobody’s ever been as dumb as me, which means I can’t tell anybody, or they’ll know?’ Would you think, ‘Hemi would never have done this, invested this much of himself with the wrong person, gone this far down the wrong road, and lost everything just because he was too stupid to defend himself’? You forget that I did nearly all those things. I actually married that wrong person, in fact.”
“That doesn’t help,” I said. “It makes it worse. At least she wanted to marry you. I would’ve married Josh if he’d asked me for real. If he’d asked me to set a date. If he’d given me a . . .” I had to stop and breathe. “A ring.” There I went, slicing myself open, hauling out one more painful stone from the bottom of my gut and setting it on the table. “Every time I came home, Hope looked at my finger and didn’t ask, and I could feel her not asking. I could hear her talking to you, afterwards, being all concerned for me again. And every time I thought about it, I got this panicky feeling, like nobody was ever going to love me, not the way you said, like he’d . . .” I’d never had my voice wobble as much in my life as it had these past few weeks. I was not a fan. I went on confessing anyway. “I didn’t know what to do about it. I told myself Josh was as smart as me, and he wasn’t threatened by my intelligence, and we were physically compatible and great business partners, and where would I ever find another man like that? Then there was the company. What would happen if we broke up? How would I work with him? If I didn’t—what would happen to everybody’s job? They had mortgages. They had babies. I couldn’t even think about that, so I thought that Josh and I could discuss everything in the world, and I was work-driven anyway, and that was fine, because I wasn’t the kind of woman that men have a Great Love with. Not the kind they give huge diamonds to and can’t live without and would lay down their life for. You know it’s true. You just said it about Matiu and me, that I’m . . . wrong. That I’m not . . .”
I knew this was another low point. It was just that it was a really low point. I’d hauled out the stone, so why was all of that still lying so heavy inside me? I thought that when you faced it, you started getting over it. Another lie.
I kept talking, because as horrible as it felt, I was on the train now, and it was running away with me while Hemi watched. “And never mind, because I already knew that. You wouldn’t have done any of those dumb things I did. You wouldn’t have let yourself lie like that about somebody for that many years. You’d have gotten out so much sooner. I know what I was doing wrong. I always have, because I didn’t actually fail economics. It’s the Sunk Cost fallacy, where you double down on your investment even when you have no hope of getting it back, because you’ve put so much in already. It’s called a fallacy because it’s stupid, and I knew it and did it anyway. You didn’t do that, and you also didn’t work seven years for almost nothing. That was my chance. It was going to be my . . . my Hemi
-thing. My brilliant start. It isn’t just that I failed. It’s that I failed twice. The business thing, and the romance thing, and the life thing. I don’t have part of a company. I don’t have equity in a house. I don’t have a . . . a . . .” A baby, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t get the word out. “That’s three times. I pretty much . . .” I took a breath and said it. “I failed at everything. And I didn’t have any . . . resilience left. I always get up again, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t.”
Boy, did that make the panic rise. I wanted to get up and walk around. Well, actually, I wanted to get up and run away.
“I wouldn’t have done that?” Hemi said. “I came close enough to doing worse than that. Also, you just described my first marriage. Failing just means you find out what doesn’t work for you. And of course you’re going to have a Great Love. You found out what it doesn’t look like, and maybe that means you’ll recognize it when it turns up. Here’s a tip. It’s not the diamond part that matters, it’s the laying-down-your-life part. Find that bloke. He’s out there. You’re awesome as you are, and he’s going to know it.”
He put his arm around me, and I leaned my head against his shoulder, just for a minute. Hemi had the broadest, most comforting shoulders in the world. I’d never had much of a dad, and I’d never had a brother at all. I knew how it felt to have both, though.
I said, “I so want to believe you right now.”
Some more of that low laughter, and he hugged me a little closer. “You should. Getting your kick up the arse, that’s all, realizing you may not be quite as clever as you always thought. You got it faster than I did. Comfort yourself with that.”
“Have I ever said that I kind of appreciate you?” I asked.
“Think you said so today. There was a ‘but’ attached, though, as I recall.”
“All right, I’m going to say it now. Pay attention. I appreciate you. And . . .” I had to swallow to get the words out. “I love you.”
He kissed my cheek. “Goes both ways, eh. Happy birthday. The first thirty years are the hardest. Maybe you should go find that Jax fella, tell him what you’re thinking, and let him tell you what he’s thinking, too.”
“He’s probably gone. In fact, I’m sure he’s gone. All my stuff is at his place, too. I’m going to have to go back there and apologize. Probably over the intercom, standing on the sidewalk and yelling out my weaknesses for the entire clientele of the Coffee Club to hear. There’s a horrifying thought.”
“If that’s what happens,” he said, “you’ve got the wrong bloke again. This time, you’ll get out before you’ve sunk so much of your cost. Only one way to find out.”
“Does that mean that if he’s left, you’ll give me a ride back there?”
“I will,” he said. “And I’ll hang around, too, in case you need a ride home again.”
Jax
I got my beer, but I didn’t drink it. I couldn’t anyway, not if I was going to drive home, so why had I picked it up? I stuck it back in the tub, walked around to the front of the house, and thumbed a number.
“Hey,” Poppy said. “I was just about to call you. Where are you? Leave the doggie alone. Leave it alone.”
“Poppy,” I said. “Focus.”
“Leave it alone,” she said, and then, “If I focus on you, either Hamish will get bitten and we’ll probably have to go for rabies shots, he’ll get mange, because that’s definitely happening, or he’ll drop the poor thing and I’ll have to tick the ‘yes’ box when they ask me whether your kid has a history of harming animals. Hang on.”
Some only slightly muffled talking, some high-pitched, pint-sized arguing, and she was back. “Right. This isn’t working. Why didn’t you answer my last two calls? How’s a loving sister meant to get you your flowers if you aren’t even there? Thought you said you were back at the Mount for the weekend.”
“I’m at a hangi in Katikati,” I said, “and I don’t need flowers. I’d also tell you that I was furthering your negotiations by establishing good relations with Hemi Te Mana, his grandfather, and about forty members of his whanau, but turns out I’m wondering instead whether I actually have anything to do with this venture or not. I’m guessing ‘not.’”
“What? I have to go. Where exactly in Katikati? I’ll get the flowers delivered there, then.”
“Just leave them.” I not only didn’t need flowers, I absolutely didn’t need flowers. I never had, which was why nobody had ever sent them to me. I especially didn’t need them from my sister.
“Address,” Poppy said. “There’s meant to be singing.”
Brilliant. Karen’s birthday party was about to be crashed by a stripper. Or something bizarre, like a male stripper. In a gorilla suit. That was exactly the sort of thing Poppy would think was hilarious.
I needed a stripper, male or female, only slightly less than I needed flowers, or another burst of shrapnel through the chest. If Poppy thought I’d be excited by the prospect of a woman taking off her clothes for money, she knew nothing about life in the military. Feeling sorry for a girl with nothing but blankness behind her eyes, because she’d told herself, “Don’t think, just do it and get it over” too many hundreds of times, didn’t much make me want to climb into bed with her.
“Tell me it’s not a stripper,” I said.
“It could be,” she said. “What’s the address?”
“No stripper. I mean it. Absolutely not.”
“Address,” she said.
I gave it to her, because I needed to get off the phone, and because she wouldn’t really do a stripper. She’d have feminist objections. I hoped. The male one in the gorilla suit was still a possibility, but those probably weren’t too easy to come by in Tauranga. A thought to cling to.
I stuck the phone back in my pocket and contemplated whether to just drive off and leave all this behind, and then, once I was home and could explode in peace, to do the thing I needed to do most, which was ring my dad. The whole ridiculous setup had his fingerprints all over it. Sending me all over New Zealand like I was on some high-end Outward Bound expedition for troubled teens, as if all I needed, as I adjusted to life on one leg and a brand-new career in the luxury-auto and more-luxury-real-estate business, was to learn self-reliance and teamwork via some camping and rock climbing. If one of these stops featured a campfire sharing circle and a vision quest, twenty-four hours on your own in the bush eating what you could gather and a heavy dose of journaling, I was out. I’d spent six years in the military. Same thing, except no journaling. And people tried to kill you.
Somebody came around the house. Unfortunately, it was the old man, so turning my back and driving off wasn’t on. He headed for the brightly-painted chair that sat like a throne under the avocado tree, lowered his skinny backside into it, and said, when I came over, “Taking a break, eh. Probably wise. I’ll take one with you.”
“Nice chair,” I said, for something to say. It was elaborate, with the entire back painted like a peacock’s feather, and the peacock’s body painted on the seat. Hand-painted, definitely.
“Karen made it for me. She’s a special one, eh.”
“Yeh,” I said. “She is.” Right now, “special” could mean “specially tactless,” as well as “specially damaging to my ego,” but I didn’t tell him that.
“Sit down,” he said, and when I sank into the chair beside him, he looked at me more keenly than I appreciated. I’d been evaluated by enough Te Mana men today to last a lifetime. He said, “Thought you might’ve got your knickers in a twist and driven off, from what I heard. People don’t surprise me much anymore, but you could’ve done it. Still here, aren’t you.”
I stuck my legs out in front of me, crossed my ankles, and looked down at them. No matter what miracles medical technology came up with, I’d still have to take my leg off at night. I’d still face-plant out of bed when I forgot. People would still define me by what I’d lost, and they’d still pity me for it. And I still wouldn’t be able to stand the thought of it.
Th
at was weak. It was the last thing from the man I wanted to be. It was who I was anyway, and I wasn’t sure how to explain it. Actually, I was sure. I didn’t want to explain it at all. I also couldn’t drive off without Karen. If I’d started to, I’d have turned the car around. I wasn’t sure which prospect scared me more—that I’d be enough of an arsehole to leave her here alone, or that I’d have had to come back. I was so far out of my depth here.
He said, “Never mind. Karen told me about what happened, about Hemi arranging for her to come down here, pretending she was helping, and that it may have happened to you as well. Right now, I expect she’s telling Hemi. Worse things in the world than your whanau trying to help out, though, I reckon.”
“Yeh,” I said. “I’m sure she feels stupid.” I should go talk to her. I needed another couple minutes first, though. After that, maybe I’d find something to say to make us both think we had something left to offer. That this was a pause, and then we were moving on.
Which looked like what? The realization hit me like a shot of cold water to the face. This was not how romance worked. Romance had rules. I hadn’t followed them, maybe, but I knew what they were. What we were having didn’t look much like that. More like ships passing in the night.
The old man said, “Not easy to think the people you want to take care of are trying to take care of you instead. I’ll tell you a secret. Getting old doesn’t make it any easier.”
“I never thought of that,” I said, because I had to say something, “but I reckon you’re right.”
“No man wants to be helpless,” he said. “Can’t feel like a hard man when somebody’s propping you up, especially if you’ve made your life about being that hard man. And if they don’t tell you they’re doing it, it could be worse.”
That one was so true that I had no answer at all, so I didn’t try. Anyway, I was still stuck back at the “moving on” bit.
Kiwi Rules (New Zealand Ever After Book 1) Page 24