‘I’m on my lunchbreak. I have to go back to work soon.’
‘I know. I heard you come home. That Romeo of yours has a loud meow. I think he’s sexually frustrated. Anyway, you haven’t answered my question.’
April’s mouth dropped open a little. ‘If you must know, yes, I do have your candle. And you can wait until I feel like giving it to you. I’m enjoying a well-deserved break right now.’
‘Let me guess, mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or YouTube videos?’
Was the guy a psychic?
‘I’m … um, that’s none of your business.’
‘You should try meditation. Calms the mind, refreshes the body, that sort of thing.’
‘You should try not calling people you hardly know with your impatient demands and advice.’
Silence.
‘Do you meditate?’ she asked. ‘I bet you do. You seem like the type.’
‘I do. But there is no type. I am who I am.’
‘You’re Zac, a guy who doesn’t feel the cold, has tattoos, a cat called Juliet, and who likes to be. That’s all I know.’
‘Do you want to know more?’
Silence.
‘I should get back to work.’ She cleared her throat. But bubbles of curiosity popped madly away inside. She so wanted to know more. But she couldn’t give in. Men were complicated, and this one was, without a doubt. No complications allowed.
‘Can I have my candle first? Please? Also, I have one for you.’
‘You have a candle for me?’
‘Sort of.’
‘You either do or you don’t.’
‘Come and see for yourself. I’m out back.’ He hung up before she could object.
He probably had one of those cheap, petroleum-based tea light candles he’d half used and would give it to her as a joke. And he’d better pay her for the cinnamon candle, she couldn’t afford to give any more freebies.
She went out to the back deck. Zac was laying on the grass in his backyard, hands behind his head, gazing up at the sky. At least he was wearing a t-shirt. And jeans. His feet were bare. Romeo scooted off to the bushes and April made her way to the fence. She held up the candle. ‘That’ll be thirty-seven bucks, thanks. And add three dollars for home delivery, so let’s round it up to forty.’ She gave a nod, though he wasn’t looking her way.
‘Bring it over,’ he said. ‘Come join me. You have to look at this cloud.’
‘Huh? You want your candle, come here and get it. I don’t have time to laze away the day looking at clouds.’
‘You should make time. You’re missing out.’
April sighed. ‘You can leave the money in my letterbox and I’ll drop the candle over after work when you’ve finished your important cloud-gazing work.’ She walked back up to her deck.
‘Hey, hang on.’
She turned.
Zac got up and walked to the fence, extracted his wallet from his back pocket. ‘Here you go.’ He held out a fifty-dollar note.
She met him at the fence and took it. ‘I’ll have to go inside and get change for you.’
‘Keep it,’ he said, his eyes allowing no objection.
‘Well, um, thanks. Here’s your candle.’
He accepted it and lifted it to his nose. ‘Cinnamon. How did you know?’
‘Know what?’
‘That it’s one of my favourite spices.’
‘I didn’t. But I mean, who doesn’t like cinnamon?’
He shrugged. ‘And three wicks, much better than one. Now I feel special.’ He offered a small smile.
‘It’s just how they make those ones.’ April flicked her hand. ‘So where’s mine, huh?’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘My candle? You said you had one for me.’
‘Oh yeah. You have to come over to get it.’
Yeah … no. He was clearly only interested in one thing, trying to hit on her and invite her over for a midday rendezvous. ‘Nice try. My job is calling.’
‘But if you don’t come and least look at the candle, it’ll be gone soon.’
‘How so? Planning to give it to another neighbour?’
‘You’ll know what I’m talking about when you get here.’ He grinned. ‘C’mon, this fence isn’t too high. Jump on over, I’ll give you a hand.’
It was a shame that someone so damn attractive was such a ladies’ man. If he spoke to people normally and showed respect and didn’t demand they do things, he’d be a decent catch. Not that she was looking for one.
April smiled to herself. Time to scare him off with the reality of my situation. Then he’d probably leave her alone to live her life in peace and he could continue cloud gazing and meditating and whatever the heck he liked to do. Or be.
‘Yeah, I can’t just jump on over,’ she said. ‘Even if I wanted to.’ She bent down and rolled up the fabric of her left trouser leg, exposing her prosthetic limb.
Zac peered over and looked for a moment.
‘Still want me to “jump on over”?’ She made quotation marks with her fingers. When she’d signed up to internet dating she’d clearly stated in her profile that she was an amputee, so that if anyone wanted to meet her they knew in advance and she wouldn’t have to do the big reveal. That was why when someone had wanted to meet her and then stood her up as a stupid April Fools’ joke, it had made her angry. Just once she’d wanted something to go right in her life.
‘Sure,’ Zac said.
Huh?
‘Come around the side gate.’ He started walking down the side of his house. ‘You coming or what?’ He looked at her like he didn’t have all day. Which he clearly did.
No one had ever reacted like that before. Or non-reacted. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what happened to my leg?’
He shrugged. ‘Right now, I just want to show you this candle.’
April edged slowly along the fence, towards her own side gate that mirrored his, her eyes not leaving his gaze. He wasn’t pretending that the prosthesis hadn’t surprised him, he appeared genuinely uninterested, unaffected.
Without speaking, she unlatched her gate, walked around the front towards his house, then through into his backyard.
What on earth am I doing?
Zac returned to his spot on the grass, lying on his back. ‘See?’ He pointed to the sky.
April peered up, shading her face.
‘You have to get down here to see it properly.’ He gestured to the ground.
‘I’m supposed to lie down next to you, get grass stains on my work clothes, and look at the sky?’
‘Yep. Hurry up.’
April laughed, shook her head, crouched down, and manoeuvred herself onto her back.
‘See?’ Zac said. ‘That one over there. The bit at the top looks like a wick, and that cloud puff is like a flame. Cool, eh?’
It took a moment until her brain formed the image from the cotton wool clouds. ‘Huh. There you go.’ If she’d had her phone she would have taken a photo, but Zac must have read her mind because he got his from his pocket and snapped a picture.
‘Just sent it to you.’
She turned to glance at him, only realising then how close his face was to hers. The sun gave his stubble a light sparkle. There were slight creases at the corners of his eyes, and his irises were dusty green with flecks of orangey-brown, like … cinnamon. ‘Thanks.’ She quickly looked back to the sky. ‘But you lied. You can’t give me that candle, only show me.’
He chuckled. ‘Oh, but I did. In here.’ He tapped his temple. ‘Material things are never really ours, only our memories. Like the clouds that move and change shape, life and things are fleeting.’ Zac got up and released a masculine-sounding exhalation. ‘Back in a sec. Have to write that down!’ He scurried into his house.
April sat up and leaned back on her hands. She shook her head, which she seemed to be doing a lot around him. He’s a writer. That must be it. ‘Are you some famous novelist living a secret life in Tarrin’s Bay, and that’s why you won’
t tell me what you do?’ she asked when he returned.
‘Nope. I just write poetry. On my blog. That’s it.’
‘And you make money from that?’
He shook his head.
‘So it’s a hobby?’
He shook his head again. ‘It’s way more than that.’
Okay, maybe he was a billionaire who wanted to see how the other half lived for a while. Or he could have won the lottery and didn’t want people to know he never had to work another day in his life.
April stood. ‘I’ll stop being nosy. Thanks for the, ah, cloud candle, and I hope you enjoy yours. Even though it’s not really yours. I hope you enjoy it … in here.’ She tapped her temple and smiled.
‘I already am.’ He smiled back.
April walked to the side gate. She turned. ‘One more question, though. What did you mean, your poetry is way more than a hobby? I mean, if you don’t make money from it?’
Zac held the cinnamon candle in both hands, close to his chest. ‘Without it, you would not be standing here, in this yard, talking to me right now.’
In a daze, April left, gathered her things and walked back to work. With every answer he gave, more questions swirled up inside, desperate to be asked, answered, and understood. Suddenly all the candles in her store seemed insignificant and uninteresting compared to the variety of colours, shades, and flavours of this intriguing human being who lived next door.
Chapter 8
What was abnormal to her was normal to him. He’d thought he’d noticed something a little different in the way she walked, the way she held herself. The way she favoured her right leg. Seeing her prosthesis was actually a welcome relief. Finally, someone who knew. Someone who’d experienced something major. Someone whose blessed life had been marred by the reality of something that ‘only happens to other people’. Not that he’d wish trauma on anyone, and not that he didn’t wish April hadn’t been through whatever she’d been through, but as morbid as it was, it was reassuring to find someone who in some way might understand the life he’d lived.
Zac went back inside and looked around his sparse house. Still more to do, but no rush. But there was something missing. Something he needed to do soon, to make the place feel right.
He went to the corner of the living room and opened a box marked ‘personal’. He retrieved a tattered shoebox and opened the lid, memories gushing out and hitting him like a blow to the head. Although it hurt to look at the photos, ignoring them would be worse. He would not do that to his best friend, the person who’d been the closest thing to a brother he’d ever had. Zac placed the framed photo of himself with Johnny, when they were about eleven years old, on the mantle above the fireplace. All goofy grins, skinny limbs, and tanned faces from many Australian summers spent in tropical Far North Queensland. Next to it he placed the photo of Johnny in his army uniform, taken before his first rotation in Afghanistan, and another of himself with Johnny, before their second rotation, and only months before …
The visual memory formed with painful clarity then shattered into thousands of tiny shards. How had Johnny gone from alive to dead so quickly? At what point had he ceased to exist? What was his last thought, his last sight, his last feeling? It had all happened so fast. It was so incomprehensible, so unfair, so …
Zac’s thoughts and memories never finished themselves, never rounded out, always broke off and hung about in uncertainty and disbelief, without the closure he needed. That’s one of the reasons the poems helped. He could finish a poem, he could try to make sense of things and give it an ending. That elusive little dot at the end of a sentence. September first, in just under five months, would be that little dot. It would mark the end of one thing, and the beginning of another. Getting there in one piece was another matter, but if there was one thing that growing up without a proper family had taught him, it was to rely on himself. Get himself through. He could do it. He had to. If not for himself, for Johnny.
Zac straightened up and that familiar pull of the muse beckoned him. Or was it resolve? Resolve to not just get through, but try to make the most of his existence. He’d been the lucky one, though the guilt had paralysed him for too long. Maybe now it was time to not only survive, but thrive. He owed it to the ones who didn’t come home. Somehow, he would find a way to live for all of them.
Zac opened his laptop and typed into his blog. The subscriber list had grown by around a hundred in the last week alone. He didn’t know how. He didn’t do much promotion. But word had gotten out. Who is the mystery poet? some would comment on his posts. Who was he, really? That, he was still figuring out.
THE ILLUSION OF TIME
Life is fleeting though we realise too late
Before we know it we’ve sealed our fate
We think that forever will take much longer
But time grows weaker and our regrets, stronger
An affinity for infinity has always ruled my mind
But here in this body, time is my bind
I believe in the eternal, for the soul not the flesh
And so while I am here, body and soul I must mesh
Live bravely with passion, don’t let pain make you numb
And don’t rely on forever, it will not come
Life is in the now, that’s where we have to live
Don’t wait, don’t hold back, give all you’ve got to give.
* * *
He seriously got you to lay on his lawn and look at clouds??!!
Zoe’s text reply to April’s detailed summary of her lunchbreak spent with Zac came with several emoticons showing varying states of surprise and shock. She’d also sent the same summary to Olivia, who’d replied:
Reading bedtime story to Mia, will reply properly later!
April lay in bed, her bedside candle glowing a light pink, though not as bright as her phone. She replied to Zoe: Yep. What’s he doing to me!
Zoe: Seducing you with his charm and quirkiness by the looks of it. Can you send a photo?
April: No! How am I supposed to take a discreet photo?
Zoe: Who said it has to be discreet? Waltz on over there and take charge like he does, tell him to smile, and bingo!
April: I don’t waltz. And that’ll only spur him on.
Zoe: Exactly. A good fling will set you free.
April: ‘Uncomplicated’, remember?
Zoe: Ape, complicated is living next door to a guy who is as hot as you say he is and not making the most of it. You’ll send yourself mad.
April: Zooey, there is more to life than hot guys and flings.
Zoe: I know, like hot neighbours and flings. Seriously, he sounds intriguing. Go with it. Get to know him. If he flirts, flirt back. See where it goes. Enjoy your life, girl.
He was intriguing. And the whole cloud thing was kind of cute. Not to mention him being the only person to treat her like a normal person after seeing her leg. Who was he, really? Some philosophical blogger poet dude with plenty of time on his hands. But what else? Finding out could be more interesting than television, or Facebook. She would give it till the end of April to suss him out further. If he seemed to be just a perpetual bachelor looking to charm his way into her life only to weave his way back out and leave her emotions in a mess, she’d forget the whole thing. But if they had the potential to be friends, then that would be worthwhile. Anything more than that she couldn’t comprehend right now with someone she barely knew, but … images formed in her mind and she shook them away. Just a normal human response, imagining someone naked. Not that she had to imagine too much, after the three am naked-in-the-kitchen Love, Actually incident. She had barely thought of anyone of the opposite sex since Kyle, but the accident was over two years ago. Maybe things were shifting, and like Zoe said, it was time to enjoy her life … get her glow back, like her mother had said when she suggested April take up a new hobby, or do art therapy, or group therapy for amputees, or something to help her deal with what had happened and get that natural spark back in her daughter.
; Her phone beeped and she jumped.
Olivia: Your life is so interesting, why can’t mine be like that?
April replied: You have a beautiful daughter, you’re a lucky woman.
Olivia: I know. And here’s a pic of her sleeping, isn’t she adorable?
Olivia often sent photos of Mia, or posted them on Facebook. Mia, and the bookstore, was her whole life.
April: Takes after her mum.
Olivia: Aww. Hugs. Sooo … read any of that book yet? Might help take your mind of Mr Neighbour. Or make you think of him, one or the other!
April withdrew the rural romance book from her bedside drawer, laughing that it was on top of the unused condom box she’d bought at her friend’s insistence.
She eyed the cover model’s bare chest. Not as nice as Zac’s, she thought, then replied to Olivia: I’ll start reading it tonight.
And though she tried to deny it, she knew that deep down she also meant that from tonight, she’d start enjoying her life more. And if that enjoyment included a certain man with a name starting with Z, then so be it.
* * *
As Zac allowed the water in the bathtub to surrender his tired muscles to the welcome feeling of weightlessness, words floated through his mind. Random at first, then related. Phrases, joining and merging together like one drop of water connecting with another. He’d thought it was another poem about Johnny, or about his tumultuous journey, but no. This time, the words were different. Unfamiliar. Dangerous. But they came anyway. He got out of the tub, not bothering to dry himself off as he walked to his laptop and allowed the words to spill onto the screen:
UNTOUCHED
We’ve smiled, we’ve spoken
Though you don’t know that I’m broken
I’m already caught in your net
But we haven’t even touched yet
The feel of your skin
My yang to your yin
I want it. But I’m scared
I’m open. I’m bared.
He stood, suddenly naked, vulnerable. Then he closed the laptop down hard and went to his room. The calendar next to his bed reminded him to stay focused. No complications, no risks, and that meant no women. He had to keep the status quo until September first. But how could he strike a balance between making the most of his life and making sure he didn’t risk going back to his old ways?
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