Ally pulled Maddie away from the door as the café filled with morning coffee-seekers, people out for an early breakfast before work. ‘I think your gut instinct about this man is right. Maybe Evan is different. You could always follow his lead and share about what happened to Riley.’
Maddie pulled out her car keys. ‘Come on, I’ll run you up to Uni. I’ve got time before my shift.’
Ally’s five-foot-nine-inch athletic build blocked her way. ‘Don’t ignore me.’
Maddie sighed. ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to explain about Riley, and I really don’t know what Evan was thinking telling me about the cancer. I doubt he planned it that way, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s wondering why on earth he did.’
Ally shrugged a grey jumper over her white shirt, defining her student status indisputably. ‘Maybe he feels better about telling someone. It must be a massive secret to deal with alone and sometimes bottling it all up makes things ten times worse.’
Maddie hadn’t missed the subtext of Ally’s remark, but she wasn’t ready to talk about Riley with Evan. She wanted him to know her for who she was now, not as a woman who’d imagined a future with another man. And besides, Riley’s mum’s words still rang in her ears after more than a decade, and Maddie couldn’t help but question her own grief and whether she had any right to feel this way, especially after all this time.
Maddie climbed into the car and paused, her key in the ignition. ‘It’s not the confiding in me that’s the problem though, is it?’ She did a head check before she pulled out into the traffic. ‘It’s the risk of losing someone I care about all over again.’
‘It’s pretty huge, I agree,’ said Ally. ‘But can I ask you one thing?’
‘Sure.’
‘Would you want to go on a second date if he hadn’t told you about his testicular cancer, if there wasn’t this looming cloud of loss hovering over you?’
Maddie drove on as the traffic lights changed to green, her mouth set in a defiant line till she finally said, ‘Yes, without a shadow of a doubt, I would.’
Chapter Eight
On Monday morning, for the first time ever, Evan slept through his alarm. Last night he had tossed and turned, alternating between dreams of Maddie and their date with the worst ending in history, and dreams about the impending surgery and the lasting effects on his anatomy and manhood. But when he arrived at Huntley Primary, he had no time for tiredness or fixations on anything else other than his classroom full of energetic five- and six-year-olds.
Evan had been at Huntley Primary for the last nine years, and it was the job he had dreamt about during his study and his teacher training. His enthusiasm didn’t wane when he had to raise his voice above the din to hush his class, directing them to the crates to deposit their lunch boxes, morning tea boxes and drink bottles for easy reach later; and it didn’t wane when he pulled a few rambunctious boys into line as they began a game of kicking each other as a fun way to start the day.
At last the children took their seats at desks with individual name cards on each. ‘Good morning, class,’ said Evan.
‘Good morning, Mr Quinn.’ The class were well versed at the greeting now that they were well into the first term.
Arriving later than usual, Evan had seen another teacher usher his class into line just before he turned up in the playground. Had he been much later, then a change in routine that would’ve been minor to older kids and adults would’ve been a big deal to some of these children. Take Lainey for instance. Most girls were wary of men and found women more nurturing, but Lainey had practically clung to him for the entire first term. He watched her now, marvelling at how in the groove she was with another girl, Dexi, who had become a firm friend. He had been traded in and that, to Evan, was mission accomplished.
Glad to be there for his class, Evan moved between tables as the class beavered away adding colour to their projects on Australian animals. There were fierce looking crocodiles, questionably shaped koalas and peculiarly coloured kookaburras. Perhaps a few more educational images on the smart board wouldn’t go amiss this term.
‘Mr Quinn?’ Paul, a child with a serious snot issue raised his hand. He sniffed, predictably.
‘Yes, Paul.’ Evan passed over the box of tissues and the boy reluctantly took one. It never ceased to amaze him why kids made such a fuss about blowing their noses when it was a million times more comfortable once it was all out.
‘Why were you late this morning?’ Paul waited expectantly for an answer.
The question, of course, was inevitable. Young kids liked their routines, and anything out of the ordinary had to be explained, sometimes to a painful degree. It was part of what he loved about being a teacher though. He loved that these kids were trying to make sense of the big wide world, and it was his job to help forge that vital connection for them.
Evan crouched down beside Paul. ‘I overslept, that’s all.’ He also knew that telling kids anything before you knew for sure would set you up for failure: promise too much and you could fail to deliver; tell them anything negative and you could upset them for no reason. He leant over and pulled a picture book, Possum on the Porch, from the bookshelves surrounded by brightly coloured bean bags. He did his best to help Paul sketch something that resembled the Australian animal by using the illustrations, and the distraction served its purpose for now.
At the start of his career, plenty of his mates had been sceptical and teased Evan for doing a girl’s job, or being a babysitter. But Evan’s comeback was that he loved his job, and while they were working in silence at their desks, hunched over a computer, he was kicking a ball around in sports class, out on excursions or getting messy with paints. Of course, he only told them the good stuff. All the paperwork and planning side of being a teacher wasn’t nearly as much fun, but he never tried to argue the point as they, like many others, couldn’t see past the long holidays and the early finishes at half past three.
As he moved to the next table, Evan found his mind wandering to a place where it had never ventured before: he began to think about Maddie and how she would interact with these children. She would fall in love with Lainey, and Dexi would probably be relegated to the subs bench this time. He wasn’t sure how Maddie would react to the two green lines of snot creeping down towards Paul’s top lip again, but even he struggled with that one and he was a guy. He looked around the room. Maddie would take charge of Bill and roll up the bottoms of his school pants and fix his laces; and she would giggle at Maxine for no other reason than the little girl had this insane, infectious laugh.
Evan shook himself back to the present and passed Paul another tissue. His pulse raced, his palms were sweaty, and it was then Evan realised he was already in deeper than he could ever have imagined with a girl he barely even knew.
Chapter Nine
Maddie’s first patient of the day on Thursday, Arnie, was always up for a good banter.
‘How’s your running going, Maddie?’ he asked when she drew the curtain around the cubicle.
‘I did a personal best at the Tan: seventeen minutes forty-three seconds.’ She perused the previous notes.
‘Awesome. What’s your time around Albert Park Lake?’
‘Twenty-three minutes. I can’t seem to move past that.’
Maddie’s bedside manner was a hit with her patients, and she suspected it was one of the elements of her job that had made her hold on to this career path rather than make the leap into the cake business. Riley always said she had a natural reassuring ability, but then he was biased of course. When he broke his leg, he milked it for all it was worth: meals in bed, massages on call, cupcakes made on demand. She hadn’t minded, though. She had enjoyed playing nursemaid, especially when it allowed her to bake.
Arnie had come to see her for a classic case of runner’s knee, and Maddie treated him with some light massage around the hip and the upper leg and sketched stick men drawings on a piece of paper to show him exercises to do at home.
‘Are w
e all set with the graduation cake?’ he asked as he tried some of the exercises. ‘My daughter Jess loved the photos of your previous work, and the suggestion of the text book and mortar board was genius.’
‘I hope she likes it.’
‘You should go into business. Which reminds me, can I pass your details on to my sister? She’s expecting a baby in a couple of months and fell in love with the cake with the pink bootees and white piping.’
‘That was for a friend’s baby shower last month. I’m happy for you to pass on my details, but keep your voice down around here or you’ll get me fired!’
‘Well then you’ll have to take the leap, won’t you? I’ve seen the sparkle in your eyes when you talk about baking. You don’t fool me.’ He matched Maddie’s grin. ‘So, in between all your personal bests, have you managed to find yourself a man yet? That was the task I set you months ago, or have you forgotten?’
‘How about we find you some tougher exercises? That way you can’t quiz me during your appointments.’
‘Ah, where’s the fun in that? Come on, spinster, tell all.’
Arnie had been calling her ‘spinster’ for as long as she could remember, and in all the time she had known him, she never once mentioned her history with Riley. She knew Arnie would be devastated about all his teasing if she did. Then he would pussyfoot around her, his appointments tainted with the sympathy that made her feel worse. By keeping quiet, she got to enjoy the banter, the jokes that made her feel normal.
‘Not yet.’ She scribbled down notes on today’s treatment and his progress.
‘I’ll have to fix you up with someone. It’s the only way.’
Oh please, no. His idea of someone suitable was bound to be poles apart from what she was looking for.
‘I met someone.’ She silently prayed that he would forget the idea of fixing her up. ‘It didn’t work out.’
‘What happened? Come on, Maddie, usually you’d be telling me how he spent the entire evening talking with his mouth full, or how he talked about himself non-stop, or that his breath reeked. What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Blimey! I have shared a lot with you over the last couple of years, haven’t I?’
‘Yes, and that’s why I know you’re hiding something.’
‘We really hit it off,’ she said. ‘We had a fabulous first date: you know, the kind where you just talk and don’t realise the time, don’t realise that it’s the first time you’ve ever been out with the other person.’
‘I know what you mean. Even I’m not too old to remember that type of date. That’s what happens when you meet “the one”.’
She felt herself blush. ‘Something tells me that you’re an old romantic, really.’
‘Tell anyone, and I’ll have you disciplined for breach of patient confidentiality.’ He pointed a finger at her in jest. ‘So what happened? Did he make a move on you? Come over all sleazy?’
‘No, it was nothing like that. He was a perfect gentleman. Let’s just say he told me something at the end of the date, and I think it was a deal breaker.’ She wasn’t sure if that was the case from her point of view, but it certainly seemed to be the way Evan was thinking as he hadn’t been in touch.
‘Is he married?’ Arnie spoke quietly even though they were as good as alone.
‘No.’
‘Gay?’
She sniggered. ‘No!’
‘You took him to your place and found him dressing up in your clothes?’
‘No!’ This is what she loved about Arnie and why she would never tell him about Riley.
‘So he must be a conjoined twin, then?’
‘Arnie, that’s enough.’
‘So come on then, spinster. Tell me what it is that’s so bad.’
Her mouth twisted awkwardly. ‘I can’t. It’s not my secret to tell.’
He whistled and his eyebrows arched at the same time. ‘It must be something pretty dark to make you so secretive and to convince you not to see him again.’
‘I’ll leave you to get dressed.’
‘You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Maddie,’ he called after her. ‘Whatever this guy is, or whatever he’s done, you’ll know the right thing to do.’
*
When Maddie arrived home at her apartment on St Kilda Road, she pulled on her running pants, a striking violet singlet and a new pair of runners that had been worn in and finally felt comfortable enough to go the distance. She got through a pair at least every six months, more so if they had taken a battering in winter weather or on muddier terrain. She opened up the balcony door and breathed in the cool evening air as she fastened her pink Garmin watch round her wrist. She went through a stretch routine she would repeat when she arrived home again to cool her body down and give it a chance to recover before she hit the shower.
She thought back to that afternoon with Arnie and wondered whether anyone really got a second shot at finding ‘the one’. Right now, any second chance felt as though it were on the other side of the Berlin Wall, and she had no idea whether she or Evan had the stamina to climb over it, or whether it was even an option anymore. And if she ever did find that person, would it mean Caitlin had been right all along?
Outside the apartment block Maddie let the light breeze blow away thoughts of Riley’s mum as she pushed her headphones into her ears. She pressed the button to start the GPS on her watch, and it signalled the start of the route that would bring the feeling of freedom with every step she took.
As she pounded the pavements the familiar running playlist ran through Pink’s ‘Raise Your Glass’, Taio Cruz’s ‘Dynamite’, Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger’ and more. Running had been her saviour in the early days after Riley’s death and every day since. Whenever she felt the walls closing in, she pounded the pavements, the promenade, even the sand on the beach when she wanted to work off her anger at the sheer unfairness of it all.
She ran along the pavement to the end of St Kilda Road, across at the lights and onwards to where Fitzroy Street met the beach. A rollerblading pair split up and zipped past on either side of her as she kept on running, beneath towering palm trees on the promenade, soaking up the last moments of light as the sun gave up for the day. She tried to match the beat of the music as she ran down the concrete slope and on to the sand, but even with the frustration inside of her and the eagerness to block out memories, the challenging surface rendered it next to impossible.
And then it was as though the sand had suddenly thickened, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t lift her feet to move anymore.
She looked at Evan coming towards her. His feet seemed to have stopped working too as he pulled a black and red cap down tighter over his forehead when the sun headed straight for him.
‘You look well,’ said Maddie and immediately regretted it. He had hardly been at death’s door last time she saw him, and her comment sounded as pathetic as she felt. ‘Sorry, I just meant …’
‘No worries.’ His smile was forgiveness itself, and his words came out between breaths as he let his heart rate recover. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine, I’m good.’ She was making a right mess of this conversation. ‘Have you run far?’
He wiped the back of his hand across his upper lip. ‘Not really, but I thought I’d add the sand challenge today for something different. I’ll run all the way to the end and then do a big loop through St Kilda.’
Maddie pushed her sunglasses further up her nose; they had slipped from the sweat and the sunscreen, and although the sun was behind her now she daren’t take them off because she knew that if he could see her eyes, she would feel even more vulnerable.
‘Have you heard anything?’ she asked.
‘You mean, about the operation?’ He shook his head. ‘I kind of want it over with, but on the other hand I want to be normal for a bit longer.’
Normal? Maddie hadn’t felt normal in such a long time. Meeting Evan had made her believe that eventually she would, but here she was barely able to
manage more than a stilted conversation. It was completely different to how they had gelled in the restaurant and on the walk home.
‘I really did have a good time the other night.’ The intensity of his stare could have burnt a hole right through her sunglasses.
‘I did too.’ Riley’s name was on the tip of her tongue. She thought about explaining why she was so shocked at his news, why she wasn’t quite the rock he probably needed at the moment.
But he spoke too soon. ‘I’ll see you around.’ And with that, the moment was gone. Both Evan and Maddie carried on running in different directions, both struggling their way through the sand as though their lives depended on it.
Maddie took a slope up to the promenade and the relative ease of concrete in comparison. Her pace had increased, her determination was fierce, and she continued all the way to the pier. But instead of continuing past as she usually would, across the road and doubling back to go down the other side, she ran all the way to the end of the wooden structure. She stopped, bent over, hands resting on her thighs, trying to catch her breath. She yanked the headphones from her ears as the music started to sound like voices in her head, taunting her that she couldn’t get a grip on reality.
Was she relieved that she hadn’t told him about Riley? Did keeping Riley a secret keep her precious memories under lock and key? Did mourning him still after all these years, and chasing away any man who showed more than a passing interest, prove Caitlin wrong? Her behaviour for more than a decade had been Maddie’s coping mechanism, so much so that she barely knew how to behave any differently.
She stood for a while beside a man sitting on the edge of the pier, legs dangling over the edge with a hopeful line cast into the water. She watched the sea lapping around the posts beneath her, listened to the seagulls squawk overhead as they penetrated the fug in her mind, let the sea air into her lungs and hoped it would flush out the confusion. But it didn’t.
Handle Me with Care Page 6