Meet Me in Bendigo

by Eva Scott

  ‘You took me by surprise.’

  ‘I gave you plenty of notice.’ He leaned in, the look in his eyes triggering her body’s warning system. ‘You knew exactly what you were getting yourself into.’

  The couple at the next table got up and left.

  ‘Just leave me alone,’ she said slowly through gritted teeth.

  ‘Fine.’ Ed got up and transferred himself to the table next to hers. He sat so he could see the door. ‘Better?’

  ‘Barely.’ Why couldn’t he leave her alone? Every cell in her body was on high alert, responding to his proximity in a treacherous way. She didn’t need the distraction, not when she was about to meet the man who had captured her heart. Why was her body so bloody rebellious?

  Ed occupied himself with his coffee while she kept her eyes resolutely on the door, willing GardenerGuy94 to walk in.

  The doorbell tinkled and an elderly couple entered.

  ‘Nope, not him,’ said Ed.

  Annalisa ignored him.

  A biker with a long white beard and wearing a battered vest walked in.

  ‘I hope for your sake that’s not him,’ said Ed with a chuckle.

  ‘You’re assuming this is a blind date.’ Never in a thousand years would she admit to him that she had no idea what GardenerGuy94 looked like.

  ‘Let’s see what evidence we have, shall we? You’re meeting in a café far from home. You’re as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. Every time that door jangles, you jump.’ He counted off the clues on his fingers. ‘You’re wearing that ridiculous flower and while I haven’t known you very long, I do know that’s not the sort of thing you go for. How close am I?’

  ‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’ She tried ice cold to see if she could freeze him out. It worked, for about five seconds.

  ‘Do you remember the first day we met?’

  Of course she remembered. ‘You mean the day you came to my shop and lied to me about who you are.’ She watched him out of the tail of her eye, enjoying the flicker of annoyance that darted across his face.

  ‘That was not the first time we met.’

  Annalisa knew that. She’d never forget the day she’d met him. The moment had been electrifying.

  Ed stood up and transferred seats with panther-like grace. ‘The day we met I saved your unicorn.’

  ‘And that gives you some kind of special permission to annoy me?’ She narrowed her eyes.

  ‘I saved your unicorn cake. Let me save you.’

  ‘I don’t need saving.’ Where was this headed? Back to the buyout deal? A part of her longed to hear what he had to say, to find out the amount Carpenter’s Warehouse was offering to make her go away. She could take that money and start a new life somewhere else, somewhere with fewer ghosts.

  ‘Of course you do,’ he said earnestly, leaning in across the table. ‘What do you think is going to happen when Carpenter’s opens? What little business you have is going to disappear. The goodwill you’d be relying on for business value will be gone and all you’ll have to sell will be the bricks and mortar.’ He shrugged as if to say both of them knew the building wasn’t worth much.

  And he’d be right.

  ‘I’ve got my doll-house business and my craft classes, both of which are ramping up nicely for your information.’ Annalisa boosted herself up onto her high horse, determined to stay in the saddle.

  ‘Right,’ Ed withdrew, ‘your doll houses. Don’t get me wrong, they are pretty impressive but there’s no way you can get that business up and running in time. There won’t be enough money coming in to sustain you. You’re at least six months away from a proper income, maybe more.’

  ‘Okay, I get it,’ she snapped. ‘You know so much more about business than I do, and you’re right, it will take a while to get the craft business up and running. I acknowledge that. I also acknowledge that Cappelli’s has got through tough times before and we’ll get through them again.’

  What did he think she was made of, sugar? She wasn’t going to melt in the first downpour of difficulty.

  For the last hundred and sixty-plus years her family had weathered bigger challenges than some hyped-up superstore moving into the neighbourhood. If they could survive, so could she. Determination gave steel to her backbone and she sat a little straighter, shoulders back, with the first flush of fierceness flooding her veins.

  She was the most frustrating woman on earth. How could he get through to her that he was trying to help her? If he couldn’t manage that then how was he going to broach the other subject?

  ‘Yeah, I remember the great legacy.’ He threw his hands in the air. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but times have changed, Annalisa. This is not the nineteenth century. It’s not even the twentieth century anymore. The world has moved on and so has business.’

  Bloody Oliver. Ed was tired of fighting—his family, himself and mostly Annalisa. He threw away caution. ‘Small hardware stores are a relic of the past and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can get on with your life.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Annalisa, taken aback, frowned at him.

  ‘You’re living with a bunch of ghosts and old people in a business that’s well beyond its use-by date in some misguided attempt to keep the past alive.’ He said all that in one breath, aware that his words shot out like bullets, but he had to make her see the disaster she was headed for.

  ‘Oh!’ All the air rushed out of her lungs and he knew he’d scored a hit. Ed looked away.

  He couldn’t bear to see the pain he’d caused reflected in her eyes. Bet she rued the day she’d met him in the bakery. Bet she had no idea he would turn out to be this cruel. Maybe he was more like Oliver than he’d given himself credit for.

  He turned back to her, noticing a flush along the high ridge of her cheeks. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so harsh.’

  She shook her head. ‘Yes, you did.’

  Ed ran a hand through his hair with an air of agitation vibrating around him. ‘I never meant to hurt you.’

  ‘Didn’t stop you bludgeoning me with the truth.’ Sometime during this conversation she’d turned to stone, her face a frozen mask.

  ‘Again, I’m sorry.’ How could he get her to understand how important keeping her safe was to him?

  ‘You’re running out of time, Annalisa. This offer won’t be on the table much longer. My sister will lose patience and let you fend for yourself. She doesn’t care what happens to you. She’s only interested in avoiding bad publicity. I genuinely only want what’s best for you. Take the money and run,’ he urged.

  ‘Again, no thank you. I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than take your dirty money.’

  Ouch! That hurt more than he’d ever admit. To her, he was no better than Oliver or Rosie, and he was not worthy of her.

  He studied her face. There was so much he wanted to say. He hadn’t gotten close to telling her that he was GardenerGuy94, which had been the whole damn point of the meeting. Instead, he’d been sparring with her about Carpenter’s and taking his fair share of heavy hits.

  Which left him right back where he’d started. He’d always imagined that GoldfieldsGirl would be friendly and open once she met GardenerGuy94. But that was before. And here Annalisa was now, hostile and prickly, her defences primed with nuclear weapons before he’d completed his mission.

  He should go. Try again another day in better circumstances when he was less agitated and Annalisa less angry. He half turned away, gathering himself to leave. The sounds of the café suddenly roared over him like a breaking wave. How had he not noticed the noise in here? And so hot too.

  Ed checked his watch. ‘Looks like your friend has stood you up.’ Why did he have to go and say that? She’d scored a hit on him and now he’d childishly scored one back. The shame was instant.

  ‘He must have a good reason for being late,’ she said between clenched teeth. ‘There’s not a mean or careless bone in his body but I don’t expect you to understand.’
r />   ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ He looked at her sharply.

  ‘He’s completely different from you. He’d never try to seduce me or, when that failed, bribe me to give up my heritage.’ She’d regained the reins of her high horse.

  ‘Excuse me? Seduce you?’ She wanted to deny the chemistry between them, and he wasn’t having any of that. ‘You have got to be kidding me. We’ve already covered this ground. You knew damn well what was happening and, if I remember rightly, participated fully.’

  Her eyes flew to his lips and heat flooded her cheeks and he knew she was thinking about the magic they could create given half a chance.

  ‘You caught me at a low moment. Something he’d never do.’

  ‘Yeah, right. Sure.’ Ed snorted derisively. Little did she know. They’d kissed more than once and she’d been as enthusiastic as he had. Even when she’d been angry. ‘Will you be mean to him too?’

  ‘Of course not. You’re the only person who brings that out in me.’

  He sighed, suddenly worn out. ‘Annalisa, please reconsider. Carpenter’s Warehouse will take away all your business and there’s nothing you, or even I, can do to stop that from happening now.’

  He hoped she knew a last plea when she heard one. ‘In a year or two, no one will remember that your family had a hardware store in Wongilly. You’re fighting for nothing but ghosts.’

  ‘People will remember Cappelli’s Hardware. Plenty of people remember my dad and my grandpa.’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Our store is special. It’s real and authentic. It means something to people. But how could you possibly understand that? You’re nothing but a phoney.’

  Ed held her gaze for a moment as her barb hit its mark. Its prongs, sharp and twisted, took purchase in his heart. She’d wounded him, which was what she’d intended, so how come guilt had arrived like a punch in his gut?

  Annalisa held her breath. The look on his face told her she may have gone too far. Even if she wanted to take the words back, she couldn’t. The way the shutter came down behind his eyes made her panic a little. What had she done?

  Ed stood, temporarily blocking out the light. ‘I can’t possibly stand up to the perfection of your friend and you seem determined to set fire to your life so I’ll leave you to it.’ He pushed the chair in and picked up his used cup, erasing the evidence that he’d ever been there. ‘I wish you well.’

  He turned then and left, depositing the cup on the counter and paying for his coffee before walking out the door. He didn’t look back, not once. It was as if he’d dismissed her existence from his mind.

  Annalisa watched him go with an increasing sense of heaviness in her stomach, as if she’d swallowed a stone. She’d told him exactly what she’d thought of him for the second time, yet any sense of victory eluded her.

  Instead, her regrets echoed loudly in the hollowness that invaded her. She’d burned her bridges. No money. No payout. Not to mention the fact that Ed Carpenter was horribly right about the business consisting of nothing of value but its bricks and mortar.

  ‘Oh, god.’ She closed her eyes. What had she done?

  Nausea swirled into the empty space inside her and she stood up. She had to get out of there. Stumbling her way past the tables filled with happy patrons enjoying their Saturday afternoon, she wanted them all to stop and acknowledge the terrible thing that was happening to her right now. Her world had begun to crumble and not one of them noticed.

  She was going to lose the hardware store—she knew that now. She also knew that GardenerGuy94 had stood her up, that he may never have intended coming in the first place, that it had all been some elaborate joke at her expense.

  Reaching the counter, she pulled her purse out of her handbag. She fumbled with the opening, her fingers having taken on a mind of their own.

  ‘It’s okay, love.’ An older woman in a black apron, Wayfarer’s Café emblazoned across the top in vivid red, manned the cash register. ‘The gentleman took care of it.’

  ‘He did?’ Annalisa frowned. ‘Why would he do that?’

  The woman laughed. ‘Maybe because he’s trying to impress you.’

  Annalisa hadn’t meant to speak out loud. Ed trying to impress her was almost funny. She swallowed hard, trying to get her voice to work properly. ‘Um … thank you.’

  She blindly made her way for the door. Ed’s gesture had confused her. Lust, anger, kindness, meanness—Ed Carpenter had come like a force of nature, uprooting her life and her sense of stability. As she passed a bin, she pulled the plastic flower from her hair and threw it in with the other rubbish.

  Annalisa climbed into her car and sat for a long time staring at nothing.

  She’d struggled to find her feet after Ben died. Coming home to Wongilly and taking over the day-to-day running of the store had given her a sense of belonging, of continuance, when she’d thought she’d reached the end of the road and there was no point going on.

  It had taken three long years to regain her balance. Now that she had it, Ed Carpenter and his family were going to take it away and there was nothing she could do about it.

  She checked her phone. No message from GardenerGuy94 explaining his absence. No reply to her earlier message. She’d been abandoned just when she needed him most.

  One lone tear broke free of her lashes and tumbled down her face. She dashed it away and started the car. Ed and GardenerGuy94 had managed, in a single morning, to sweep away all the protective barricades she’d spent years building back up. The absence of those defences around her heart allowed the loneliness to rush back in, swamping her with its cold, swirling desperation.

  Leaving Annalisa right back where she started from.

  Extract from The Goldfields Gazette, Thursday 7 April 1932:

  DO NOT LET THE DEPRESSION DIVIDE US!

  On Wednesday morning Mr Marco Cappelli awoke to discover his store, Cappelli Hardware & Supplies, had been vandalised.

  The police report states that a number of articles and an amount of money was stolen. They had no known leads at the time of publication.

  Mr Cappelli found the racist slurs painted on the walls and windows the hardest blow. ‘My family have been here since the very beginning of Wongilly. Raffa Cappelli opened the store during the goldrush days. We belong here as much as anyone else.’

  The increasing violence and anti-Italian feeling amongst the Australian public reflects the rising rate of unemployment and reliance on the susso. Many see the Italian immigrants as taking their jobs which they believe should go to Australians.

  We here at the Goldfields Gazette encourage the people of Wongilly to unite against this kind of bigotry and remember the Cappelli family have been upstanding members of our community for over one hundred years. Despite their Italian surname, we call them Australians, one and all!

  Mr Cappelli is not deterred. ‘We will repair the damage and continue as before. We know the people of Wongilly have good hearts.’

  Police believe the acts of vandalism and theft may have been undertaken by itinerant workers unable to find employment in the area.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘How did you go?’

  ‘Is he gorgeous?’

  Annalisa stumbled through the door, wishing she could bypass all the people waiting for her. Nonna had offered to mind the store while she went on her date, and Mel had promised to call in to see how it all went. Both women turned eagerly towards her, their faces lit with anticipation.

  ‘He was unavoidably detained.’ She dumped her handbag on the counter and braced herself for the inevitable questions.

  ‘He stood you up?’ This from old Joe who sat in his customary position by the wood stove.

  ‘No,’ she said, screwing up her face against the truth. ‘He was just … unable to come today. That’s all.’

  ‘He stood you up.’ Mel’s flat tone told her that she hadn’t bought Annalisa’s cover-up story. ‘What a ratbag.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Annalisa. ‘He’s a great guy. I’m sure he has a good
reason why he couldn’t be there.’

  ‘You mean he didn’t call to let you know he wasn’t coming?’ Nonna narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest, a gesture Annalisa knew well from childhood. Nonna was about to blow.

  ‘It’s okay, Nonna.’ Annalisa raised her hands, backing down from her grandmother’s anger. ‘He’ll get in touch with me. Something must have happened.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Joe snorted his disbelief. ‘Probably got picked up by immigration.’

  ‘That makes no sense,’ she said, exasperation wearing the edge off her patience.

  ‘Of course it does,’ said Mel. ‘If he’s a foreign scammer.’

  ‘Don’t encourage him, Mel.’

  ‘She’s right,’ said Nonna. ‘He could be deported as an illegal immigrant.’

  ‘And they raided his place in the early hours of this morning,’ said Mel.

  ‘Yeah, and he couldn’t take his phone with him to call you,’ said Joe, enthusiastically.

  ‘He’s probably in a detention centre now wishing he’d never started this mess.’ Nonna looked satisfied at GardenerGuy94’s imaginary comeuppance.

  Annalisa placed her hands flat on the counter and hung her head. ‘God, give me strength,’ she muttered beneath the curtain of her hair.

  She stood up. ‘Look, guys, I appreciate your concern, I do. But all this conspiracy theory rubbish doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Nonna, returning to her former position of indignant grandmother.

  ‘Makes sense to me.’ Mel joined her, hands on her hips. ‘I mean, you don’t know his name.’

  ‘Or where he lives,’ said Nonna.

  ‘Or what he looks like,’ said Joe. ‘Makes perfect sense that he’s a foreign scammer.’

  ‘Okay, let’s go over this again for the record.’ Annalisa’s head began to pound in time with her heartbeat. ‘Number one, foreign scammers are, by definition, overseas. Number two, if scammers are overseas they cannot be deported for being illegal immigrants here in Australia. Number three, all scammers are operating illegally and a scammer has to want something from you, and GardenerGuy94 has never ever asked me for anything, let alone money.’