Tall, Dark & Distant

by Julie Fison

  Nik fished in his pocket, pulled out his car key and tossed it to Mei. ‘Your new Ferrari is in the car park behind the surf club.’

  ‘She can’t even drive,’ Ella protested.

  ‘I’ll learn,’ Mei snapped, clutching the key to her chest. Georgia rolled her eyes. It was typical of Mei’s morals to crumble as soon as there was something in it for her.

  Next Nik took off his sunglasses and strolled down the beach to choose a beneficiary for his designer shades.

  ‘I think he’s serious,’ Mei mumbled as Nik stopped a ten-year-old and handed him the sunglasses.

  ‘What a waste,’ Ella said. ‘They’re Ferragamo.’

  Then Nik took off his shoes and handed them to a toddler who was digging a hole nearby. The little guy used them for cymbals for a bit, but when they didn’t respond the way he wanted, he tossed them in his hole and started throwing sand on top. His mother rushed over to find out what was going on, and she was rewarded with Nik’s shirt, which she seemed surprisingly happy with (or maybe it was Nik’s bare chest that made her smile). Nik turned in Georgia’s direction and unzipped his shorts, revealing his Calvin Klein undies underneath.

  ‘I think he really is serious,’ Ella said.

  Georgia marched down the beach towards Nik. He smiled and zipped up his shorts. He’d got what he wanted – the chance to talk to her alone.

  ‘I’d give everything up for you, Georgia. I want to change. I want you to help me.’

  Georgia swallowed hard, trying to move her heart from her throat. She fought the urge to kiss him.

  ‘I’ll do whatever it takes,’ he whispered.

  Nik took her hand, but she pulled it away, even though she was aching to hold him.

  ‘Nik, I don’t want you to give everything up.’

  Nik stiffened. ‘You mean you don’t care what I do. And you wish you’d never met me.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  Nik just stared at her.

  ‘Okay, I did say that, but I didn’t mean it. I was angry. I’m still angry. But I don’t want you to change your life for me. We’re different. It’s never going to work.’

  Nik’s eyes pleaded with her again. ‘Georgia, I want you in my life.’

  ‘That’s easy to say.’

  ‘I mean it.’

  Georgia wanted to believe him. She wanted more than any-thing for Nik to tear down the barricades, to welcome her in. She wanted to forget about his tabloid reputation, his girlfriends, the Morozovs’ dodgy dealings. She was desperate to feel his arms around her, to kiss him and feel his skin against hers. But could it really work? She looked at the bracelet on her wrist. Was it a beautiful bribe or a token of his love? She wasn’t sure. Her heart was saying yes, but her head was still saying walk away. So that’s what she did.

  ‘Georgia, I want to change!’ Nik called after her. ‘How can I prove it?’

  ‘Get a tattoo,’ someone nearby replied unhelpfully. By then half the beach had taken an interest in developments.

  Georgia didn’t actually know what Nik needed to do to prove himself. But this spectacle he was making of himself on the beach wasn’t it. She walked slowly back towards Ella and Mei, glancing over her shoulder to look at him one last time.

  Nik was standing with his shorts around his ankles, his thumbs in the waistband of his underwear, poised to take it off. What was he doing? Did he think public nudity would make her reconsider? There were kids everywhere! It would get him arrested. It might even get him deported. It wasn’t going to make her trust him.

  Georgia shook her head, unable to take her eyes off Nik’s undies. She wasn’t the only one. One woman had her camera out, filming him.

  ‘Enough! You’re not proving anything,’ Georgia called.

  Nik pulled up his shorts and walked towards her. ‘Then let me show you I can change. Come sailing with me tomorrow. I’ve bought a new boat.’

  ‘What?’ Mei said. ‘How is that normal?’

  ‘Georgia, stay strong,’ Ella whispered.

  But then Nik ruined everything. He turned to Ella and Mei. ‘We could all go sailing.’

  ‘What kind of boat?’ Mei said, eyes shining.

  Nik shrugged. ‘Just a little yacht I picked up. It was very cheap. Plenty of space for a party, though. And we can get the jet skis out, too.’

  ‘Okay, fine. No point you partying on your own,’ Ella said, as if going sailing would be doing Nik a favour.

  And so it was settled.

  ‘Please can I come, too?’ Alice moaned later that night when they were getting into bed. ‘I love boats, and jet skis, you know that. And I’m getting sick of my friends. All they do is bitch.’

  ‘Gee, sorry to hear that,’ Georgia replied sarcastically. ‘But the answer is still no. It’s a small boat. There’s not going to be any space for you.’

  Georgia knew that was unlikely to be true, but she wasn’t feeling generous. ‘And, anyway, you’re too clumsy, you’d probably fall overboard,’ she added.

  ‘That’s so unfair!’ Alice cried. ‘I go in Dad’s tinnie all the time!’

  ‘I think you’ve been out once in the past sixteen years,’ Georgia retorted.

  Alice snarled. She could see she wasn’t going to get her way on this one. Georgia certainly didn’t want Alice around when things were so tenuous with Nik. They hadn’t even really got back together yet. Georgia didn’t need her sister on the yacht, sniping from the cockpit. She didn’t need her within a million kilometres of the yacht or Nik.

  ‘Sorry, Alice,’ Georgia said, rolling over and turning off her bedside light. ‘No can do.’

  ‘I hope you get hit by a tidal wave!’ Alice snapped back.

  ‘Thank you,’ Georgia mumbled. ‘I hope you have a nice day tomorrow, too.’

  It was a mixture of shock, excitement and guilt that Georgia felt when she arrived at the marina the next morning. Despite Nik’s description of his new yacht, there was nothing little about it. Nik waved to her from the deck of a boat that wasn’t just big – it was a whopping motor yacht with a sparkling white look-at-me, look-at-me hull that towered over all the other boats around it. There would have been plenty of room for Alice, and enough space to escape her, too, if she’d come along and turned into a pest. And she would definitely go off her head when she found out what she’d missed.

  ‘What do you think?’ Nik called to Georgia from the front deck as Ella and Cameron joined her on the jetty.

  ‘Amazing!’ Georgia smiled. ‘I thought you were trying to be normal,’ she added under her breath.

  ‘Be quiet. He’s trying to make it up to you,’ Ella said, clearly quite pleased with the perks of her friend dating a billionaire.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll have Nik if you don’t want him,’ Cameron joked.

  Ella hit him on the shoulder.

  ‘Welcome aboard,’ Nik said, extending his hand to help Georgia onto the boat. He gave her a kiss on each cheek. ‘I hope you like it.’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Cameron replied, even though Nik was talking to Georgia. ‘I’d sell my soul for a boat like this.’

  Ella elbowed Cameron. She was embarrassed that he was being so uncool about Nik’s boat. But Cameron seemed oblivious and intent on making the most of his time onboard. ‘Mind if I take a look around?’ he asked Nik.

  ‘Of course not. Be my guest,’ said Nik.

  Cameron disappeared into the cabin. The others could track his location by the shouts of ‘Awesome!’ coming from below the deck.

  There was a low rumbling sound at the end of the jetty and Georgia turned to see Nik’s Ferrari pulling up in the car park. Mei and Dim Simm climbed out of the car slowly – milking their arrival. It looked like Mei had solved her driver’s licence problem by enlisting a very willing driver.

  ‘Don’t think you’re getting that car back in a hurry,’ Georgia said to Nik.

  Mei had adopted an old-style-Hollywood-convertible look – complete with pointy sunglasses, pedal pushers and a little shirt that tied at t
he front, to match her new Ferrari. Despite her claims of Nik being vulgar yesterday, she seemed to have come around to being a Ferrari owner, and so, evidently, had Dim. As he closed the driver’s door, he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face. He walked down the jetty, his arm draped around Mei’s shoulder.

  ‘All set to go?’ Nik called once everyone was on board.

  The crew untied the boat and they motored out of the marina and into the channel, leaving a bunch of boys who were fishing on the jetty drooling pathetically. Nik took the wheel. He looked like a kid with a new toy, a smile on his face and the wind in his hair, new friends around him, his staff preparing lunch. He was in his element This was Nik being normal, Georgia realised, watching him.

  ‘What do you think of the boat?’ Nik asked Georgia as they cruised into the bay.

  ‘It’s fantastic. It’s so … big.’

  ‘I thought you’d be impressed.’ He put his arm around her. ‘I just want to make you happy, you know.’

  Georgia smiled. She felt like she was starting to understand Nik. So, he was the son of a Russian tycoon and he liked to enjoy himself. Did that make him an ogre? No. In fact, on a glorious summer day like this one, it made him a very good friend to have.

  It was very hard to stay angry with Nik when he was so charming. Just a few minutes on the yacht had somehow erased any hard feelings Georgia had towards him – the concerns about his background, his partying, his family business – all seemed to have been washed overboard. She was too busy having fun to worry. And she was too busy falling in love all over again to care.

  Nik gave the wheel to a crew member and took Georgia’s hand, leading her to the front deck. They sat in the breeze, watching a dolphin play in the bow wave.

  ‘What’s your New Year’s resolution?’ Georgia asked Nik, as they sailed along the coastline. It was still a few days until New Year’s, but she was a believer in forward planning.

  ‘A little early for resolutions, isn’t it?’ he replied.

  ‘Never too early to improve yourself,’ she responded cheekily.

  ‘It’s a big question for so early in the day,’ Nik said. ‘But I’ve decided that next year I’ll give up smoking.’

  ‘You don’t smoke, do you?’

  Nik shrugged and grinned at her. ‘I like to keep my resolutions achievable.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ said Georgia, rolling her eyes. ‘Any other resolutions, then?’

  Nik’s gaze returned to the dolphin as if he might draw inspiration from it, then he turned back. ‘I’m going to get to know you a bit better each day.’

  She smiled. ‘I thought I was an open book. You know me too well already.’

  Nik shook his head. ‘I’m sure there are things I don’t know about you.’ He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Here’s a bit of you I hardly know at all – your little finger. All this time we’ve spent together and I hardly know anything at all about your little finger. It’s so secretive.’

  ‘That’s probably a good thing. I’d say the less you know about my little finger the better. It’s still scarred from a trike accident when I was four.’

  Nik tried to inspect the scar but Georgia pulled her hand away, catching her diamond bracelet on her crocheted dress.

  ‘That’s what you get for trying to be secretive,’ Nik said, undoing the bracelet from her wrist. He carefully untangled the diamond.

  ‘I love my present,’ she said, admiring the bracelet. ‘You know, I brought you a present. A peacemaking present, the day after you told me everything. I went to your house, but you weren’t there.’ She gave Nik a look of mock disapproval.

  ‘Was it a nice present?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not saying. I might decide to give it to you on your Christmas Day.’ Orthodox Christmas was still a week away.

  ‘Well, don’t go to too much trouble and don’t bother wrapping it – I didn’t wrap yours.’

  ‘I always go to a lot of trouble with presents and I’m really good at wrapping. It’s my specialty,’ Georgia lied.

  ‘Really? Handmade paper, ribbons, balloons, the works?’

  ‘Every time.’

  ‘You never turn up with a present in an old plastic bag?’

  She shook her head. ‘Never ever.’

  ‘You never turn up at someone’s house with a present in a plastic bag, then dump the present in their pond, toss the bag in their garden and then bathe in their fountain before banging on their door so hard you almost knock out the CCTV camera?’

  Georgia stared at Nik, her mouth wide open. She was completely busted.

  Nik laughed, just adding to her humiliation. ‘The gardener found the plastic bag. He also found a tiny piece of a blue tail floating in the pond. He’s a bit of a detective, our gardener; he identified it as the remains of some kind of fighting fish. The CCTV footage confirmed its origin.’

  Georgia opened her mouth to speak, but what could she say?

  Nik raised an eyebrow. ‘A Siamese fighting fish?’

  ‘Rocky,’ Georgia pouted.

  Nik laughed again. Then he leant forward and kissed her lightly on her hand. ‘And you, what are your resolutions?’

  Georgia smiled. ‘That’s easy. I’m going to improve my lies.’

  Nik shook his head. ‘Don’t. I love your terrible lies … I love your insane text messages too, especially the ridiculous number you sent me while I was in Aspen.’

  ‘Did you read them all?’ Georgia asked, almost too scared to hear the answer.

  ‘Eventually,’ he said.

  She looked away. She’d said some terrible things to him. But then he’d lied to her – did that make them even?

  ‘Promise me you won’t change a thing,’ Nik whispered. ‘Ever.’

  ‘Just for you, I won’t change.’ Georgia smiled. ‘I resolve to do nothing to improve myself this year or any other year.’

  Nik laughed.

  ‘Of course, going to Africa might change me,’ she said absently. ‘Do you think that’s possible – for a place to transform someone?’

  Nik shrugged.

  ‘Has that ever happened to you? Have you had a defining moment, an epiphany?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Nik nodded. But then he seemed to reconsider his confession. He shrugged. ‘Maybe not.’

  Georgia felt the shutters come down again. ‘Why is it so hard for you to be open with me?’ she asked, quietly. She wanted to be serious for a moment and understand what was going on in his head. ‘Every time we get close, you put up the barricades again – I don’t think it’s anything to do with your toxic ex, or whatever your excuse is. I think the wild parties, the … girlfriends – they’re the symptoms, not the cause.’

  Nik raised his eyebrows. ‘Doctor-in-training and budding psychologist – you are a talented girl,’ he mocked.

  ‘Nik, I’m serious,’ Georgia said. ‘I want to help.’

  Nik laughed. ‘Too late for that, I’m afraid. I’m an emotional cripple – eleven years, it’s taken me to hone my talent.’

  Georgia frowned. ‘What happened eleven years ago?’

  Nik sighed. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  Georgia stared at Nik for several seconds, trying to guess what might have made him build a fortress against the world. She was pretty sure it had something to do with his mother. A bitter divorce might affect him like that.

  ‘Did you …’ she began, but Nik put a finger to her lip and shook his head slowly.

  ‘Georgia, don’t try to guess, I don’t want to talk about it and you really don’t want to know.’

  Georgia paused, wanting to try again. But Nik made it pretty clear, with his arms folded and a scowl on his face, that she wasn’t going to get anything out of him today.

  Georgia nodded. ‘Okay. But I’m here if you ever need to talk about it.’

  He looked at her. ‘I’ll keep that in mind. But right now, I don’t want to talk. I just want to show you how much I care about you.’

  He pulled her towards him and gave her a long, tender ki
ss.

  Yes, she thought, a lot could be said without words.

  ‘Pass me the wasabi, Georgia, or you’ll be sleeping with the fishes,’ Dim said as the six of them sat down for lunch later that afternoon. Since arriving on the boat, Dim had taken to speaking like a tough mafia boss. He thought he was really funny, but he was starting to annoy Georgia.

  She assessed the meal in front of her. It wasn’t the random assortment of food that passed for a picnic lunch when she was in charge of catering. It was a restaurant-style meal served alfresco on the aft deck. The Japanese chef had prepared a banquet of sushi, sashimi, yakitori skewers, gyoza dumplings, tempura prawns, several types of noodles and fried rice. Georgia knew there’d be wasabi there somewhere, but where had the chef put it?

  ‘I said, get me the wasabi or you’ll get one through the eye,’ Dim threatened.

  Georgia gritted her teeth. Dim’s tough-guy act wasn’t helping her find the wasabi. Nik plucked a dish of green paste out from behind the noodles and passed it to Dim.

  ‘It was just a joke, Georgia,’ Dim said, at last sensing her mood.

  But Cameron decided he liked the accent and picked up the gangster theme where Dim had left off.

  ‘Get me the soba noodles or you’ll be wearing cement shoes,’ Cameron said to Ella.

  Ella glared at Cameron, making no attempt to pass the noodles. ‘Shut up, Cameron. You sound like a douche bag.’

  Cameron just laughed. He and Dim had been behaving like total losers all afternoon – acting like they owned the place. Helping themselves to beer, posing for cheesy photos all over the boat. And then they’d been on their phones, boasting no doubt, and posting their stupid pictures on Facebook.

  Georgia was glad when lunch was over and the boys decided to go off to ride the jet skis.

  ‘Race you across the bay,’ Dim shouted.

  He jumped on a jet ski and Cameron jumped on another, leaving Ella on the yacht to read her book and Mei to her iPod. Things had got pretty tense with the girls.

  Nik looked at Georgia. ‘Ready to go?’

  ‘Can’t we stay here?’ she said, not keen to join a race with Dim and Cameron.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I bet we can beat them.’