Joey’s face breaks into my thoughts. I flinch and Erik hesitates in response.
This is not Joey, I remind myself. It’s Erik. Erik, who feels like home. Like a place I belong. In these arms, with this body, with this boy I thought I’d lost forever.
And the thrill, the exploding want inside me is so strong, that I reach back for him. This time, there’s no flinching, no holding back. Erik’s mouth is warm against mine. His hands are on my face, drawing me nearer.
He will leave again. I know that. But not now. Not today.
Erik kisses me softly, then hard, until we’re clinging to each other, holding on so tight I know I won’t fall. But it still feels as if I’m falling, falling harder than I ever meant to.
And the drop could be long, it could be perilous, but let me fall, let me drop. Because this feeling right here? This is worth it.
We walk to the front door, hand in hand, and I give Erik a shy kiss goodbye on the lips. He heads down the porch steps, but turns back halfway and reaches for me. He kisses me slowly – once, twice, three times. I hold him and he squeezes me tight.
‘Bye, gorgeous,’ he whispers.
After he leaves, I shut the door, leaning back against it. My head is light, and I can still feel the wetness of his mouth against mine. Who knew a kiss could be like that? I press my fingers to my lips.
My phone buzzes on the kitchen bench where I left it and I reach for it, expecting it to be Mum. It’s not.
Hey, Roobster. Sorry about the other day. I can’t get back to Cooper’s Creek before Friday. But tell me where and when. I’ll do my best to answer your questions.
The sight of Robbie’s number on my phone is strange. I didn’t know what to put down on his contact – Robbie Vetter? Dad? So I didn’t put anything. I half expected him to ignore my text anyway. I half wish that he had.
Meet me at The Hollow Log on Main Street in Willaware. Nine o’clock Friday morning.
The café is public enough to feel safe, and private enough to be perfect.
Don’t you have school?
This is important. Stop trying to parent me. And don’t tell Mum. This is between you and me.
I can barely sleep for the nerves, and when I wake I go through the motions for a day at school. Shower. Uniform, breakfast, packing my bag, hugging Mum, walking to the bus stop. If Robbie has told her we’re meeting, Mum doesn’t give me any clues.
The bus driver eyes me suspiciously as I get off at the town stop. ‘Not wagging, are you?’ he says.
‘I have a meeting.’
Which isn’t a lie. I have a meeting with a music producer. A song writer. A singer. A guitarist. My father. Take your pick. If he shows.
I arrive at The Hollow Log fifteen minutes early. It has wicker chairs pulled up under slab wood tables, resined and smooth. There’s a small timber bar inside that’s lit with coloured lanterns. I use the bathroom. Check my phone. No messages from Robbie. One text from Erik. It starts with a blue heart.
Hi. Good luck today. Just be your gorgeous self and you’ll get through it.
My finger hovers over the red heart. A bit bold maybe, but I send it anyway.
Then I open the barrage of messages from Alex. I read them in reverse order.
Where are you?????
I should be there with you.
I’m so nervous and he’s not even my dad!
Are you there yet?
Text when you get there.
Have you left home?
As I’m reading a GIF of a carton giraffe scanning the Sahara appears.
Hiding in the toilets. Just got changed. Waiting for him.
Alex sends me a GIF of Alice in Wonderland strumming her fingers on a table.
He’d better show. He owes you that much.
I’m heading out now, I type. I feel sick.
When I emerge, Robbie’s sitting at a small circular table, flicking idly at the menu, with coffee and raisin toast in front of him. He’s scanning the street, shoulders hunched. He looks kind of lonely.
But he showed. Unreliable, undependable Robbie turned up.
I send Alex a quick text. Breaking news: he’s here.
Show time.
‘Hi,’ I say from behind him.
He whips around, gets to his feet. ‘Sweetheart – I mean, Ruby.’ He sounds shaky.
We stand there awkwardly, and I’m not sure how to greet him. At the same time as he reaches out to hug me, I offer my hand. He takes my hand and shakes it. This is, after all, serious business.
I order a hot chocolate and, after a while, Robbie says, ‘What do you need to know? Is it about the music or about your ma?’
I study him a moment. ‘Will you be honest with me?’
‘Honesty’s a sign of respect – of course I will be.’
‘Were you in love with her?’
He looks at me for a long time. ‘That’s a very direct question.’
I ignore the diversion. ‘Were you?’
He sighs. ‘Yeah, I fucking adored her.’
A young waitress, with a short black fringe and a stud necklace, delivers my hot chocolate, and I wait until she leaves. ‘So why didn’t you stay?’
‘Ruby, I didn’t leave her. I thought we’d go together. When we got offered the gig in the UK, I said hell yeah, and she said hell no. I never understood why. Celeste – your ma – she’s a closed book sometimes.’
‘She was pregnant.’
He looks directly at me now. ‘Listen, I didn’t know that, but I did the wrong thing by her either way. I know it now. But back then we were so young. I’m not a bad guy, Ruby. I just fucked up. Maybe you’ll fuck up one day too. And you gotta accept that, in yourself and other people. If you expect perfection all the time . . . you don’t wanna end up like . . .’
‘Her?’
He takes a deep breath. ‘People are complicated. When you do them wrong, they can be cold and unforgiving. They can punish you, harden their hearts, cut you out. Cut everyone out. But it doesn’t make them happier. Your ma, she went cold when we left for the UK. A few years later, I heard she’d had a kid. I was busy touring and on the road, shows almost every night. It was fast-paced shit and the years ticked by. I heard about the accident when I was in London. Tried to look her up once, twice, get in touch, but she was nowhere. No social media, no contact details. More years passed. The band was losing traction, so the label suggested a reunion tour back home. I found an obituary online. First I thought it was hers. Felt sick to my guts, but then I realised it was your Nan. And I thought, time goes so damn fast. It felt like a second chance, if that makes any sense. So I came out to the forest. I didn’t even know if Celeste would want to talk to me, to be honest. Didn’t know what state I’d find her in.’
He takes a deep breath, pushes his plate of raisin toast aside.
‘I hadn’t given a thought to you. Not till I saw you. You reminded me so much of her, the way I remembered her, and then I figured out your age . . . heard your voice. I didn’t need a DNA test to know you were mine. It was a lot to take on.’
I think about this for a while, turning it over in my head. I don’t like the way that sounds.
‘You’re not obliged to take any part of me on.’
‘That’s not what I meant – it was . . . I couldn’t believe she’d hide you all these years, deny me the chance to be your father, even if I would have been a shitty one. It wasn’t her choice to make.’
There’s a part of me that wishes I’d known all along that I have my mother’s music and my father’s song in my blood. The idea is both thrilling and terrifying. But does it matter where our gifts come from? It wouldn’t change the fact that he wasn’t there. How much does a biological connection mean, anyway? Grandad was never really mine, but he may as well have been. Family is more than sharing the same blood.
‘Do you want to be part of our lives?’
It’s a test question, and one I need the answer to.
‘That’s up to you and your ma, isn’t it? But I’d like to keep
in touch. With you, at least, if you can see a way to being my . . . you know . . .’
‘Daughter?’ He can’t even say it.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ I say.
I can’t just let Robbie in and give him the key. Mum says people have to earn their place. Robbie hasn’t earnt the right to be my father, but Mum didn’t give him a chance to. And if people never grow out of needing mothers, maybe they never grow out of needing fathers either. Robbie might have missed the first seventeen years, but there’s the next seventeen. And the seventeen after that.
‘I know you were meant to be doing all the question asking,’ he says, ‘but can I ask you something?’
I nod.
‘I imagine you’ve probably wondered who your dad is over the years, but am I . . . are you disappointed?’
‘That it’s you?’
I don’t want to tell him that the music makes more sense to me now. My voice, my love of lyrics, the poetry of it. That I can imagine us sitting down in the years ahead, writing songs together, thrashing out the lyrics. I shut the door on those thoughts. It’s too soon. I don’t know how reliable he is. There’s a reason Mum felt the need to protect me from disappointment, after all.
So all I say is, ‘No.’
He brushes his eyes, as if he’s got dust in them. Then coughs. I never imagined meeting my father and having him cry.
‘Finding out about you . . .’ he says. ‘Jesus, it’s sent me into a bit of a spin, Ruby. I mean . . . you’re amazing. That incredible voice of yours, your song writing . . . You’re this whole beautiful human I didn’t even know existed. And I made you. Me. I’m so proud of what you can do.’
I laugh, and he laughs along with me.
‘I want the world to know about you, Roobster. I want you to open for the reunion show. With an original.’
‘What?’ I hear my own voice as if it’s someone else’s. And I sound almost angry.
The stage, my voice, my songs. Written by my own hand, wrought by my own pain. The stage that has haunted my dreams since forever. An audience that won’t mock me. But I know what he’s doing. Why he’s doing it.
‘I don’t want favours,’ I say, looking off into the street.
The reality of what he has just offered me hasn’t really sunk in. The idea of it is fearsome, terrifying, awesome, but Mum and I both know where we stand on charity.
‘I should have known you’d have your mother’s pride,’ he says. ‘Listen, Ruby, you only ever earn half your fortune. The other is a roll of the dice. And when someone offers you a chance – any chance – you take it and run.’
‘But I haven’t earned any of it,’ I say. ‘I won’t be handed something just because I’m the daughter of Robbie Vetter. I’ve spent my entire life living under the shadow of Celeste Matthews. I won’t do it again. If I’m out there, it’s on my own – my music, my style, my voice. Nobody else’s. Can you help me do that? That’s the only kind of help I want.’
He checks something on his phone. Hands it to me. ‘You’re gonna play hardball, huh?’
Oh god.
It’s the clip. The one I haven’t dared to look at since that first time in the hangar. Cringe-worthy, panic-attack inducing. My face, frozen, slightly skewed centre frame. Now I don’t feel so brave. So certain. Now I feel like crawling away. I wish I’d never called Robbie. Never seen him. Now he’ll tell me I can’t do it on my own. Look at the comments, Ruby. Are you still so proud?
‘Have you seen how many plays it’s had?’
I shake my head and look away. But when I finally look up at Robbie, he’s smiling.
‘Are you serious? Whoever shared this around did you a favour, Roobster. After I heard you sing that first time, I googled you. YouTube’s how most young musos start off. I thought I’d find you there, but all I found was this – shared a few thousand times in just over a week. Are you telling me you haven’t read the comments? I shared it on to people I know, here and in the UK. Look at the numbers.’
Over three hundred thousand views.
Three hundred thousand people have watched me humiliate myself publicly.
And liked it.
‘It’s fucking brilliant, Ruby. It’s vulnerable and raw and artistic . . . that’s the beauty of your song. Not pop star cut-out. I’ve got a couple of producers asking about you. That’s what I went to see your ma about the other day. One of them, Martha de Lange, is an industry heavyweight. She wants to hear you, Ruby. I think you’re ready, but your ma says no. And I guess I have no right to tell her that you are. The trouble is, ships sail. If you don’t jump aboard, it can be too late.’
‘Yes,’ I say.
And I’ve never been more certain of wanting something in my life. My heart is pounding, and my hands are shaking, but it’s a yes.
‘Yes, you’re ready?’
I think of what Grandad said to me about trusting someone, taking chances, pilots being made of storms and lightning. I’m a singer. Even if my life is Plan B, singing is my Plan A.
‘Yes, I want to sing for her.’ I swallow the lump in my throat. ‘I don’t know if I’m ready, but I want to do it.’
‘I’ll let her know,’ Robbie says calmly. ‘And I’ll walk you through it, okay? But right now I think I need to drop you at school.’
‘I’m meant to have a late note,’ I say.
‘Are deadbeat dads allowed to write those?’ he says, half joking.
‘Not really. I’ll just tell them I had a meeting with a music producer. Mum will have to find out sometime.’
Robbie walks me to the bright orange, low-profile spacecraft he calls a car. A couple of people stop on the sidewalk and stare as the doors open upwards, like wings on a ladybird.
I climb down into it, literally down. I feel like I’m sitting on the road. A very soft, black, leather road.
‘You don’t do subtle very well,’ I say. ‘And it’s first lunch at school so I’m not exactly going to slip in unnoticed.’
Robbie laughs. Puts on his lair-ish sunnies and turns to me. ‘If you wanna be a rock star, Ruby Tuesday, you can forget subtle. You’re gonna turn up in style or not at all.’
I’m leaning against the low metal fence by the bus stop, the heat from the afternoon sun scalding my skin, when Lukas, Jack and Joey walk past. I have no idea whether they stare at me or blank me because I ignore them. Don’t even reach for my phone as a distraction, just look away, lift my chin a little higher. There’s nothing left to say. I don’t have to pretend or play the nice girl or tolerate them ever again.
The bus pulls in and the doors hiss open. I join the end of the queue, and I’m just shuffling up to the doors when a car horn blares. I turn around.
Pulled in behind the bus is a blue ute. And getting out of that ute is Erik.
‘I thought I’d missed you,’ he says.
I walk towards him, and he leans down to kiss me. I lose time and space and everything else, until I hear a whistle. We break away and look up. A couple of junior kids are pressed to the bus window, staring. One of them slides open the window and says, ‘Get a room!’
I laugh because I don’t care. They can say what they want.
‘I thought I’d surprise you,’ Erik says. ‘But then I was running so late . . .’
Mrs Aversa comes bustling over, her face flushed with irritation. ‘Excuse me, you’re parked in a bus zone. Move your vehicle immediately.’
Erik grimaces. ‘Sorry. Absolutely.’
As we drive out around the bus, Erik says, ‘A pilot is looking for a co-pilot again. You wanna come?’
‘Come where?’
It’s exactly what I’ve been hoping for. Another chance at freedom, utter abandon in the sky.
A smile creeps across Erik’s face. ‘Patience, Forest Queen, is a virtue. Possess it if you can.’
‘Patience. Seldom found in woman,’ I quote back to him, ‘Never found in man. I can’t be home late, though. I have something urgent I need to tell Mum.’
> ‘Sounds intriguing.’ He turns to look at me for a second. ‘Something about this morning?’
I nod. ‘Alex knows and I’ll tell you, but it’s top secret until I’ve told Mum.’ We sit in silence for a moment, but I can’t hold it in. ‘Okay, so that clip from the party – it’s kinda gone viral. Robbie, my – ’ I almost say ‘my dad’, but it feels wrong. ‘Robbie has a producer interested in meeting me. She wants to hear me sing. And I’ve said yes.’
‘Wow,’ Erik breathes. ‘That’s incredible, Ruby.’ He reaches across and squeezes my shoulder. ‘You’re amazing. Do you want to tell her right now? I can take you home.’
I should say yes, but the thought of being with him, flying with him to some secret location . . . it’s more alluring. And I don’t want to admit how nervous telling Mum makes me.
I shake my head. ‘I’ll tell her at dinner. Are we doing circuits?’
‘Not exactly.’ He smiles like he knows some secret that I don’t. ‘Trust me, you’ll like the destination.’
I buzz us through the security gate to get airside, and enjoy the frown on Erik’s face. ‘Were you watching the other night?’ he says.
He’s alongside me as we head for the hangar. ‘The code hasn’t changed in years,’ I say. ‘I used to come here with Alex.’
‘To the airport? Why?’
‘We used to sing here,’ I say. ‘In the hangar. It has good acoustics.’
We’re at the hangar door now, so I punch in the code and push it open.
The vast quiet of the space engulfs us, our footsteps echoing off the concrete.
Erik cups his hands round his mouth and calls out, ‘Coooeee.’
His voice bounces off the metal walls, the roof, the floor. It has that deep bass tone that spaces like this lend. I wonder how Robbie’s voice would sound here.
‘So it does,’ Erik says. ‘Will you sing something for me?’ His face is open with the asking and, god, I really want to.
‘Maybe next time.’
Erik heads upstairs to log a flight plan and get the weather forecast, leaving me alone with the Bluebird again.
The stairs creak as he comes back down.
‘Let’s hit it.’
Ruby Tuesday Page 20