Just Come Over

by James, Rosalind

  Casey asked, when they were through the doors and headed down to their section, “Where is he?”

  Zora didn’t ask who “he” was. She knew. There was some reason Casey didn’t call him “Dad,” or by his name, either. She was in in-between land, still. “Your dad?” she asked, keeping it calm. “He’s up in the coaching box.” She turned with Casey and pointed up to the glassed-in boxes above them.

  “Oh,” Casey said. “But the Chicago Bears coach is always down there next to where they’re playing, because he has to yell at people.”

  Zora laughed despite her tension. “Rugby’s a bit different. All the coach can do during the game is watch. If he has to yell, he has about ten minutes at halftime to do it. Otherwise, the players make the decisions themselves, while they’re out there.”

  “Oh,” Casey said, and considered. “They must be very smart.”

  “Uncle Rhys was,” Isaiah said, absolutely unexpectedly. “That’s why he was an All Black, and why he’s the coach. He had spectacular on-field vision. That’s what this one article said. That means he can tell what’s happening, and what he thinks is going to happen next, and he’s usually right. I read about it. My dad wasn’t as good as Uncle Rhys. He was good at running, but he made mistakes. Uncle Rhys didn’t make mistakes.”

  Wow. Zora needed to address that. How, though? “This is us,” she said. At least she hoped it was. Three seats empty at the end of the row, and next to them, the one face she knew best, and the one she knew would be welcoming. Jenna Douglas, married to Rhys’s assistant coach, Finn, and still sitting with the wives and girlfriends, because they were still her friends.

  Other than Jenna, though, this definitely felt awkward. Most of the wives had called, when they’d heard about Dylan’s illness, had asked her out to lunch, to see a movie, offered to watch Isaiah for an afternoon. Everybody had been kind. She’d wondered, at the time, Did you know? Did everybody know? Besides, she’d had a five-year-old whose world was changing too much, and a husband who was hurting and scared and so afraid she’d leave him alone. The world of rugby, of strong bodies and mending injuries and training as hard as you could to earn your starting place, had seemed far away, like she was looking at it through wavy glass.

  Dylan hadn’t even wanted to watch the games on TV anymore, after a while. After he’d known this was it, and there was no coming back. Instead, he’d wanted her to read to him. Murder mysteries, and funny things. P.G. Wodehouse, humor from decades ago, and still funny. Oddly, those quiet moments had been the closest she’d felt to him in years, when she’d seen the man she’d fallen in love with once again, funny and sweet and needing her so much. She’d resented him, she’d felt sorry for him, and she’d loved him, in an exasperated, hopeless, pitying way that was nothing like anything she’d felt before.

  None of which was necessary to think about now, except that maybe it was. She needed to remember the good parts, too. Bitterness got you nowhere. She was so tired of bitterness, of feeling cold. She needed sweetness and laughter and warmth and life, and so did Isaiah.

  Jenna’s face lit up on seeing her, and she jumped up, hugged her with one arm while she juggled a chubby-cheeked two-year-old in a Blues jersey in the other, and said, “Finn told me you’d be here. What a lovely surprise. I saved you seats at the end, by me. And you’re Isaiah. I haven’t seen you since you were a little fella. And Casey, too. Hi. I’m Jenna. My husband works with your dad. Is this your first rugby game?”

  “Yes,” Casey said. “It’s supposed to be kind of like football, but it doesn’t look like football at all.”

  Jenna said, “You’re American. Me, too. Never mind. If you sit by me, I’ll tell you what I know about it.”

  “OK,” Casey said. She had on her stolid look again, and Zora put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Isaiah,” Jenna said, “scoot on past and sit with Harry. Just don’t expect him to be too excited. He watches more closely than he used to, but he still isn’t impressed by rugby. How about you?”

  “I like to play it best,” Isaiah said. He could be shy with strangers, but you couldn’t be shy with Jenna. It was something about her voice, maybe, or the way she remembered everybody’s name. “I don’t watch too much on TV, because Mum doesn’t like to. Come on, Casey. I’ll explain.”

  Wonderful. Zora had been outed even before she’d sat down.

  “Thanks,” Zora said, taking a seat at the end of the row, while Jenna scooted one over toward her. “I heard you’d had another baby. Congratulations, though I’m a bit late there. What’s his name?”

  “Ethan.” Jenna joggled him, and he didn’t pay too much attention. He had a dump truck in one hand and a police cruiser in the other, and was engaged in running them into each other on his trouser leg and making them crash, and then laughing. “He’s a happy guy most of the time, and a good sleeper, fortunately, aren’t you, buddy? Good at taking your nap?”

  Ethan said, “No nap,” forcefully enough that Zora laughed.

  “Or not,” Jenna said. “What can I say? He’s two.”

  “Time for another one, maybe?” Zora asked teasingly.

  Jenna was the one laughing this time. “Two girls and two boys already. Some people love art. Some people love jewelry, or luxury travel, or expensive cars. That one, I’ll never understand. I love babies.”

  Casey said, on Jenna’s other side, “He’s not exactly a baby, though, because he talks.”

  “That’s true,” Jenna said. “There you are, then. Look out, Finn. I don’t have a baby anymore. Danger time.”

  “How come they’re going inside?” Casey asked, scrutinizing the field. “Is it over? I thought there was going to be tackling.”

  “They’ve been warming up,” Zora said. “They’ll be coming out again and playing soon.”

  “They don’t have helmets on, either,” Casey said. “And they’re wearing shorts. Football players don’t wear shorts.”

  “They’re too tough for that, is the idea,” Jenna said. “No helmets. No pads.”

  Zora murmured, “Just balls,” and both of them laughed this time. A stupid joke, but true.

  “I’m glad you came,” Jenna told her. “I was happy when Finn told me you were bringing Casey. I missed you, when Dylan left for the UK. Maybe because you’re low-key, like me.” She smiled. “Truth coming out, even after all this time. And I was so sorry, of course, to hear about Dylan. That was a shocker. They get hurt all the time, of course, but . . .”

  “Yeh,” Zora said. “Thank you for reaching out. I just couldn’t, at the time.”

  Jenna touched her hand. “We all do what we have to do. If you haven’t been in that spot, you can’t judge, surely. Finn told me about your flower business, though. That’s exciting.”

  “Earning a living,” Zora said, “but I like it.”

  “Is it awkward if I subscribe?” Jenna asked. “Flower arranging isn’t something I’ve ever really mastered. Funny, what you do well and what you don’t. My Christmas trees generally feature things my kids made in school. I found out that people have theme trees, and I realized that the whole idea had just gone . . .” She passed a hand over her head. “Whoosh. My interior design skills are slim to none, in fact. I could use some beautification, if that’s all right. I could spread the word, too. And don’t worry, nobody will be signing up out of pity, or whatever you’re imagining. Your arrangements are stunning, unless what’s on the website is a cruel hoax.”

  Zora was laughing. “Not a cruel hoax. And if you saw my house . . . I’ve got a bucket in the corner of my bedroom. My roof leaks. Also, my kitchen is red. I don’t mean red accents. I mean it’s red.”

  “Well, red can be . . . homey? Warm?”

  “Or bizarre,” Zora said. “At this point, I’m clinging to it out of stubbornness. I’m oddly fond of my red kitchen. And dining room. We’re extremely red.”

  “Mm. Finn says Rhys’s new place is flash, though.”

  “I don’t know,” Zora said. “I’m seeing it tom
orrow.”

  “Could be strange,” Jenna said, “having him back in your life. And Casey now, too. Nice, I’m sure, but different. I always liked Rhys, maybe because he’s like Finn. The kind of man that appeals to me, I suppose. Wait. That came out wrong. I mean—”

  “Big,” Zora said. “Hard-tackling. Scary, if you don’t know better. Hard man. Good dad.”

  “Is he?” Jenna asked, her face lighting up. “I’m glad. I was surprised, when Finn told me. We were all surprised. It’s been a topic, you could say. Not surprised about the ‘good dad’ part. Only surprised that it was . . . uh, him. Or that it took him so long to . . . that . . . Oh, dear. I’ve boxed myself in.”

  “Yeh,” Zora said, and finally relaxed, just as the announcer’s voice swelled, the torches below sent out gouts of flame, and the team ran out onto the field. “I was surprised, too. But I think I’m getting used to it.”

  Zora pulled the van to a stop in Rhys’s driveway at exactly nine o’clock on Sunday morning. It felt like an occasion. It felt too momentous. It had been going to see the rugby, probably, and all those complicated feelings it brought up, especially her attraction to men who ran hard, tackled their hearts out, and battled as long as they could draw breath.

  She wasn’t nearly as modern a woman as she ought to be. She also didn’t seem to have learned much over the past ten years.

  “It does look like a doctor’s office,” she told Casey. “A bit.” Well, that would make it easier to resist the temptation, mad as it was, to stay here with the kids while Rhys was gone. She’d envisioned something totally glam, multiple levels of spectacular high-end housing. Instead, she was looking at a dark-wood rectangle with four tall, narrow windows and a door for a two-car garage. Otherwise? A concrete pad for cars, and a flat patch of tiny stones overlaid by more concrete pavers leading to an absolutely plain front door, with a few small bushes to break the monotony.

  She wasn’t overly materialistic, she hoped. If she ever had been, she’d got over it. Rhys was a practical man, and this looked as low-maintenance as you could get. There was probably some back garden on the downhill slope, anyway. There had to be, if there was a rabbit hutch down there. Better views, too, surely. Scenic Drive was the most tree-intensive and winding of streets, with views that justified its name and a price tag to match, and wound around a ridgetop and into the Waitakeres, the mountains that lay between Auckland and the rough, wild western shores of the Tasman Sea. Nobody would build a house up here with a view of only a few trees.

  “Come on,” Casey told her, climbing out. “I’ll show you my room.” She raced over to one of the narrow windows, and Isaiah went with her. Casey put her hands around her eyes and peered inside. “It’s kind of plain,” she told Zora, “but it’s going to get better.”

  Zora took a look. That was no joke, about it being plain. A queen-size bed and bedside table, a wall of built-in white shelving and desk, and that was all.

  “The next one is mine,” Isaiah said. “Except the bath is in between.” With glass-block windows, so you couldn’t see in. Which made sense. And—yes. “Isaiah’s room” was another queen-size bed and some more white shelving.

  The door opened behind her, and there was Rhys, dressed in rugby shorts and a gray T-shirt in the end-of-summer weather, and with the kind of breadth to his shoulders and warmth in his eyes that could cause breathing problems. A warmth that was meant for Casey, because she ran to him, and he swung her up into his arms, gave her a cuddle, and asked, “How did you like your first rugby match, then? Ready to join the team at school?”

  “Yes,” she said, her arms tight around his neck and her face pressed to his. “Because it’s very fierce and fast. Except I need you to teach me.”

  He laughed, a warmer, more relaxed sound than Zora had ever imagined coming from him, until the past few weeks. “I could do that,” he said, “along with Isaiah. How you goin’, mate? Have a good time, did you?”

  “Yeh,” Isaiah said. “Except the Blues lost.”

  Rhys made a face. “You aren’t supposed to mention that, not straight off the bat.”

  “Did you yell at people?” Casey asked hopefully.

  Some more smile. “Nah. I’ll yell at them tomorrow, no worries. Or, rather, I’ll go over where we fell short and what we need to do better next week. Here’s a secret. Losing’s on me, too. On me most of all, you could say. Winning’s my job. If we didn’t win, I need to do my job better.”

  “Nobody wins every time,” Isaiah objected. “Even the All Blacks have only about eighty percent of winning. That means they lose two times out of every ten games they play,” he told Casey. “And ninety percent winning for the last ten years. That’s nine times out of ten, and one time, they lose.”

  “If you keep saying the L-word,” Rhys said, “I’ll lose all my happy feelings and won’t be in the mood to buy bunnies at all. That would be tragic.” He looked, finally, at Zora, and his expression, instead of hardening the way it sometimes did, got . . . what? More intense, maybe, but not harder, not this time. “Hey,” he said, and there was that smile again, around his eyes. “All right?”

  Dylan had always been moody and grumpy after a loss. Zora said, “Hi” back, then got stuck.

  “Come inside,” he said.

  Oh. Good idea.

  An entry that was nothing but oversized gray tiles underfoot and walls of uncompromising white, and a stairwell leading down. She saw what Casey meant about the scary stairs. The staircase was curved, and it was mostly clear acrylic, with gorgeous pale-gray stair treads standing as if by magic, like something in a story. And when she took that turn? It was really magic.

  “Rhys,” she said helplessly. “Wow.”

  “Good, eh,” he said.

  “Yeh. You could say that.”

  It was like being in a treehouse. The entire front—back—whatever—of the house was glass from end to end and floor to ceiling, looking out on an endless section of native bush marching down the hill to the sea, all palms, tree ferns, cabbage trees, and pohutukawa. There’d be ferns under there, too, she knew, all of it looking as misty and magical as it had hundreds of years before. Jungly trees, Casey had said, and they were. The sky was a clear, impossible blue today, except for a few drifts of white cloud, and the sun dazzled, shining on the flat stretch of water far below.

  “Sea view,” she said. “Harbour view, at any rate.”

  “Yeh. I like seeing the sea. Never got over that one.” He’d set Casey down, and she and Isaiah ran through an open glass panel and down the stairs from this level’s third room. That was an enormous deck, furnished with comfortable-looking couches as well as a dining set, all of it in dark wicker, that stretched the width of the lounge with its black leather couches, the dining area, and a clean, modern kitchen done in white and shades of gray. The deck railing was entirely acrylic again, so you seemed to be perched on the edge of forever. If you had a fear of heights, it would be scary. If you didn’t, it would be magic.

  “All roofed over,” she said. “So open, and so private. I love it. Must be spectacular at night, with the city lights. Of course,” she tried to joke, “I’m pretty spectacular too these days, with my red tile and all.”

  His eyes went to “alert” again, or maybe they went to “more alert,” since Rhys could never look any other way. “Not sensitive of me, maybe, showing the place off to you?”

  “No. Not at all.” She laughed and ran a hand through her hair, wishing all the same that she’d worn something other than shorts, a sea-blue top, and sandals that she’d kicked off at the door. She’d thought the top was cute, with its pintucks, cap sleeves, and buttons down the front, but she’d resisted dressing up too much. What would Rhys have thought if she’d turned up in a mini? That she was trying too hard, which would make him wonder why.

  Especially since she’d somehow changed into short skirts after work every day this week. They made her feel sexy, and she’d wanted to feel that way. Today, though, they were shopping for rabbits. Sittin
g on the grass, probably. And she needed to stop trying to be sexy for Rhys, or imagining that he was looking at her legs. Or looking at his shoulders and his mouth, and picturing his . . .

  No. Stop. Anyway, here she was, dressed in shorts and nowhere near glamorous enough for this house. “No,” she said again. “I want to see where you’re living. Where Casey’s living. Of course I do. It’s a beautiful house. It’s a spectacular house. It shouldn’t feel the least bit cozy or homey, not with nothing but gray carpeting to soften it, no curtains or pictures on the wall, but it does. It must be the trees.”

  “Yeh,” he said. “What I thought. This is my first house, believe it or not. I’m forty, and all I’ve had before are condos. Time for a change, in all kinds of ways.”

  “Victoria liked the low-maintenance high-rises, Dylan said.”

  “She did. But come see this bath. This may be why I bought the place, even though I never use it. Could be I had a vision. Call it a fantasy, maybe.”

  The master bedroom was part of the wall of glass that stretched on two sides, looking out on both the view and into the rest of the house. Roller shades hung at the top of the windows, and here, too, there were no curtains. And on the other side of a king-sized bed, dressed in white and sitting against a charcoal wall, there was a bathroom.

  “Gorgeous,” she said when she stepped inside. It was an ensuite, that was all, of the ultra-high-end variety, except for one thing: the pedestal bath that stood in front of the wall of glass and looked out over bush, city, and sea. “You’d feel exposed, but in such a sexy way. A bit of David and Bathsheba on the roof, maybe.”