by C. J. Duggan
Chapter Twenty-Five
The fireworks were spectacular, something to truly behold and remember for all of our lives.
Or that’s what I guessed, since I hadn’t paid any attention or cared in the slightest. The rest of the evening went by in a blur of self-pity. I should have gotten Stan to take me home straight after work, but no, that would have delayed the inevitable, no matter how much it hurt. I guess I needed to see it. See Toby’s indicator flash through the darkness and his ute peel away.
After the fireworks display, and what felt like an agonisingly long time of forced socialising, me, Ellie and Stan mercifully wound back down the hill again. Sean decided to stay on at the Point because apparently the night was young. He had tried to convince me to stay but all I wanted to do was take my sorry self home and fall into a coma for the rest of the summer. Stan’s phone had beeped with a message while he drove but he couldn’t look because it was in his back pocket. We pulled up at my house, and I said my goodbyes and dragged myself up the garden path. I was at the front door when Stan yelled out to me.
“Tess, wait!” He was frowning at his mobile screen. I was about to shush him when he held his phone out to me and said, “This is for you, it’s from Toby.”
I dropped my bag and practically tripped over my own feet as I quickstepped back to the car, suddenly not giving a damn if Stan woke the entire neighborhood. I grasped the car windowsill and tried not to look desperate, but I wasn’t pulling it off too well.
“What does it say?” I asked, trying to keep my breathing even.
Stan passed the message to Ellie; he squinted, struggling to read it. Ellie held it up to the overhead light. She winced and her sad eyes turned up to me, her smile pained.
“He wants you to bring your bike into the shop tomorrow, so he can fix it.”
I snatched the phone from her hand. It did say that, but Ellie had left out the last detail.
So I can get it out of the way.
You know how I said that the turnoff to the Falls was a last nail in the coffin? I was wrong. Fixing my bike was it. He would fulfill his end of the bargain and get me and my bike out of his way. I had been half tempted to get Stan to text back, ‘whatever, never mind’, but then I thought, No! I would take the moral high ground.
To prove even further that I had no-hard-feelings-let’s-be-friends, I chucked in my own deal. I spent the portion of the next morning at the Rose Café making pies. Much to my mum and dad’s surprise, I negotiated some hours helping them out at the shop if I could make up some pies. Mum and Dad kept casting me wary looks as if there was some alien creature in their kitchen. I suppose there was.
“So what are you going to do with the pies?” Mum asked.
“My bike is getting fixed today; it’s a kind of payment, a little thank you.”
“How very Dr Quinn Medicine Woman of you; sure they don’t want to trade for eggs and chickens?” Dad laughed.
I just glared at him as I rolled the pastry with my pin.
“And they’re okay with that?” Mum frowned.
“Yes, it’s all sorted. Apparently your pies are quite the hit among many.”
Mum straightened with pride.
‘Well, I have a new recipe. We should try it.”
I held up my hand. “No, Mum, it has to be made by me, and I’m doing the Summer Berry pie deal.”
I had watched my mum make these pies a hundred, maybe a thousand times, so I was confident in being able to replicate the same crisp, sweet, sugary flavour. I made four large ones in total.
Three were Summer Berry marked with a pastry ‘O’ for Onslow Boys, and one was baked with a ‘T’ for Apple and Rhubarb pie. Toby’s favourite. I didn’t want to take so much pleasure in making something for Toby. I wanted to slap myself for lovingly painting the egg wash on the T with a smile. Until reality flashed back in the form of that flicking indicator that changed everything.
Dad had offered to give me and the bike a lift into town, but it was not an overly hot day. The walk was so calm and peaceful until I made it to the main strip and that peace turned into sweaty-palmed anxiety as I approached Matthew & Son. Hopefully Toby was out and I could just handball my bike to his dad and then hightail it out of there.
No such luck. The radio was blaring with the Eagles and the shop was empty aside from a pair of unmistakable legs that lay under an old, metallic blue Kingswood, one foot tapping to the beat. A muffled voice sang and whistled from under the car. I coughed and rang my bike bell and the voice froze. In one fluid motion Toby wheeled himself out from under the car, casting a winning smile that flashed brilliantly white against his grease stained face. It was the smile that caught me off guard, the one I certainly didn’t expect to see greeting me. Talk about four seasons in one day; one minute he would be all smiles and joking, the next I couldn’t even get a hello.
I tilted my head to the music. “What, no Glen Campbell?”
It was a universally known fact that if you passed by Matthew & Son, you would always hear Glen Campbell from the stereo.
His smile broadened. “Not on my watch.” He maneuvered his way to his feet and wiped the excess grease off his hands onto a cloth.
“Well, you knew I was coming, so I guess I’ll never truly know.”
He crooked his finger and motioned me to follow him. I leaned my bike on the steel pole in the middle of the room and went with Toby into the office. It was a small, paper-infested space with a map-filled cork board and empty boxes piled in the corner from incoming parts orders.
Bills were spiked and clipboards with scrawled details were racked. Toby opened a filing cabinet stacked with cassettes. He grabbed one and held it out to me. I smiled. Glen Campbell’s Greatest Hits.
“I knew it.”
“Right.” He took it from me and placed it back in its slot, and picking up its case, he showed me the inscription on the side. ‘Matthew Morrison’ was written in thick black texta.
“Dad’s stash.” He placed it down, picking up the next box. “Mike’s God-awful stash.” Sure enough, ‘Michael Morrison’ was inscribed on the side. He then picked up the last box, raising his brows. “My stash.”
I eyed him warily as I checked out the spines of the tapes. The Beatles, The Eagles, Credence; sure enough, no Campbell.
“Still quite the mature-aged selection,” I mused.
“I like to think of myself as an old soul.”
I picked up a cassette I wasn’t familiar with. “Sam Cooke?”
Toby’s face lit up as he took it from me. “Ah, now he is an absolute favourite, you’ve probably heard this in my car.” He looked at me expectantly.
I bit my lip in deep thought.
Toby shook his head. “You don’t know who Sam Cooke is?”
I grimaced. “Maybe if I heard him …”
Toby ejected the Eagles cassette, popped in Sam Cooke and pressed play. A melodious tune oozed out of the speakers and I instantly recognised it as the song that had played when Toby had driven me home from Horseshoe Bend.
The wind flapping around the cabin, Toby’s bicep flexed with tension at the wheel. The awkward side-smiles at one another in our first real encounter together. The first time we were alone.
Sam Cooke was singing through the stereo about a cupid casting its bow, and I was lost with the wonder of his beautiful voice.
Our trance was broken by an incoming whistle to the tune, and Toby’s dad entered the office, pausing in surprise at the sight of me.
“Oh, hello.”
“Ah, Dad, this is Tess.”
“Hi, Tess.” He shook my hand with vigour; I could feel the roughened calluses from years of labour.
“So what are you kids up to?”
Toby squirmed uncomfortably, it seemed no matter how old you got, there was a universal trend: parents were put on this earth to embarrass. But I didn’t think Toby’s dad was embarrassing, he was friendly, and charming. He had laugh lines in all the right places with dark blond hair and tanned skin. You wo
uldn’t have automatically thought them father and son but then Matthew Morrison smiled and suddenly there was no mistaking the link.
“We were just discussing Toby’s love for Glen Campbell.” I smiled sweetly. Toby laser beamed his gaze into mine, silently imploring me to be quiet.
Matthew’s brows raised in surprise. “Really?”
“Mm hmm.” I nodded.
“He is the best!” Matthew added excitedly. “Guess all those years with Glen Campbell playing at home finally paid off. I knew you’d come around, son.” He patted Toby on the shoulder. Toby looked pained.
“Why, on his sixth birthday we bought him a cowboy suit and he used to ride around the yard on his stick pony.”
“Right.” Toby snatched the cassette cover out of my hand. “Time to go.” He ushered me towards the office door.
I had to laugh. “Nice to meet you, Mr Morrison.”
“Please call me Matthew.” He tilted his head and smiled.
I grabbed the edge of the door, buying some time as Toby pushed me forward.
“Well, Matthew, I would really love to learn the rest of that story someday.”
Matthew rubbed his lightly whiskered chin. “I dare say I can even drag out some old photos.” He winked.
“Oh, now that I would love to see.”
“Out!” Toby grabbed my hand from the doorframe.
Back in the garage, I grabbed my bike and brought it forward for inspection, but I was more keen to unveil my prized pies.
I wheeled the bike over. “I brought you a present.”
Toby looked over the bike, looking not in the least bit excited.
I rolled my eyes. “In the basket.”
This only resulted in a curved brow of skeptical interest as he lifted up the blanket over the basket as if he were expecting a striking cobra to rear up.
“No you didn’t …” He ripped the white and red check cloth from the top.
“Freshly made this morning by yours truly.” I beamed.
He cocked his head as he noticed the pastry initials.
“Oh, um, these are the Summer Berries. ‘O’ is for Onslow Boys.” I blushed. “And ‘T’ is for … well, it’s your favourite Rhubarb and Apple.”
He looked into the basket with a deep affection as if it housed a litter of fluffy kittens. He looked up at me.
“You didn’t have to do that, you know.”
I shrugged. “I know.”
We looked at one another for a long moment, and then all of a sudden the speaker dipped and stopped and Sam Cooke was playing again, crooning out ‘You send me’. Toby’s gaze quickly darted down, with what I thought was a blush.
I mentally slapped myself for getting carried away. I was here so he could fix my bike, and the deal would be finished and there would be no more obligations to one another; he now had pie so all was fair. It was then I noticed Toby had looked back at me.
“What?”
He frowned, making me feel uneasy. He stepped closer looking at the side of my face.
“Keep still.”
I froze “What?!”
“Don’t panic, you just have a little something.” He reached out and wiped his finger down my cheek.
“There.”
The penny dropped as I saw his face break into a cheesy grin. I walked to peer into the side mirror of the nearest car to find a long, black streak down my cheek and Toby trying not to drop my bike as he laughed, waving his dirty hand at me.
“Oldest trick in the book.”
I rubbed my cheek. “Almost as old as your taste in music.”
“Right, that’s it.” Toby leaned the bike next to the car and held out his greasy hands to grab me.
I ran, squealing. “Toby, don’t!”
I reached the safety of the street outside and Toby paused in the archway.
I wiped my cheek vigorously. “Is it gone?”
Toby shrugged with a devious smirk on his face. “Guess you’ll never know, just like the Onslow Boys are never going to know about those pies.”
I gasped. “I am so going to tell them.”
He shook his head. “I have your bike for ransom now.”
“You’re a cold-hearted man, Toby Morrison.”
Toby leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed as he looked me squarely in the eye. It was unnerving, as if he was peering all the way deep inside me, into my soul. All of a sudden he wasn’t smiling anymore; his whole demeanour had sobered.
“So I have been told,” he said in all seriousness, and with that he straightened, uncrossed his arms and turned and walked back inside, leaving me in the street, breathless and confused.
Chapter Twenty-Six
To keep my mind busy, and to the utter shock of my parents, I offered my services to the Rose Café’ from Mondays to Thursdays.
I know, right? I just couldn’t take lying on my bed being in my head all day. Or worse, hanging with the Onslow Boys. With Toby and Angela.
Once over their own shock, Mum and Dad had agreed wholeheartedly and even insisted I was paid properly and everything. Looks like that top I had been eyeing off wasn’t so far away, after all. It was good to be there, we all liked it. Over summer, the peak tourist season, I usually rarely got to see my parents at all.
And it’s not like I had anything better to do. Ellie started spending her every waking moment with Stan. Adam had headed back to his nan’s in the City.
It wasn’t until Thursday afternoon at the café that I saw a familiar six-foot-three figure at the counter, peering into the glass cabinet. He was wearing his navy work shirt and pants and an impressively fluorescent orange safety vest, with reflective trimming.
I walked up slowly. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid your attire is in a serious colour clash with our décor.”
He turned abruptly with a surprised smile. “McGee!”
“Murphy!”
“What are you doing here?”
“I work here Monday to Thursdays.”
“Two jobs? You put us all to shame.”
“No I think that fluro vest ensemble puts you to shame.”
I walked around the counter to grab an order docket. “So I have to ask. Did you happen to receive a pie this week?”
Sean looked at me blankly.
“A Summer Berry pie?”
Still nothing. I shook my head. “Unbelievable, you wait ’til I see that Toby Morrison.”
A spark of recognition flickered in his grey-blue eyes.
“If you are referring to a parcel I received at work containing a crust of a pie with a note saying, ‘Tess made us pie. It was delicious’, then, yes, I received a secondhand portion of pie.”
My jaw fell open. “That is so mean. The pies were meant to be for all of you.”
“Pies? Plural?”
I told him about the pies I had lovingly made from scratch and instead of being mad, Sean laughed, scratching his chin.
“Right! Well, I guess this means war.”
“Uh oh!”
“It’s been a long-standing Murphy-Morrison tradition, war has,” he said. “It was his turn for payback. Now it’s my turn. I’m going to have to have a think about the next one. However long it takes.”
“Riiight, okay,” I said, “well, I’m not getting involved. I don’t want my bike mailed back to me in pieces.”
“Fair enough.” Sean went back to studying the contents of the glass cabinet. I watched him as he chose. His cheek dimpled for a second and was gone again. It was an unexpected delight each time he smiled, but he wasn’t really a smiler, more like a wicked grinner. He looked older than twenty-two, but maybe that was because he was so filled out, so muscular, that it made it hard not to ogle him. His short-cropped hair made it hard to decipher what colour it was, probably brown. He wasn’t beautiful like Toby, but he was handsome.
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend, Sean?”
Had I said that out loud?
He leaned on the counter studying me like a bug under a microscope.
>
I blushed, flustered. “Sorry, that’s rude, it’s just I don’t understand why you wouldn’t.”
He nodded. “Because of my dynamic personality and my freakishly handsome good looks?”
“Never a serious answer with you, is there?”
His mouth curved at the corners, and he adjusted the serviette dispenser on the counter. “I don’t know, why don’t you have a boyfriend?”
It was my turn to fidget under scrutiny. “Guess I just haven’t found the right one yet.”
A moment passed between us of mutual understanding. It was nice. It felt like I was connecting with Sean for the first –
Mum sidled up alongside me and pretended to look at something on the cash register. Typical Mum move. She stared at the register with a look of fierce concentration, a scowl that didn’t lift when she rose her gaze to Sean and held it there. Oh my God … what had she heard?
Then I remembered that I wasn’t at the Onslow. Any fun, harmless bantering (if not borderline flirting) with an older boy wouldn’t be looked on kindly by my bosses here.
How much had she seen?
“Tess, honey, why don’t you jump on the coffee machine and fix table five some cappuccinos for me, please. I’ll serve this young man.”
Mum handed me a docket from her apron pocket. In other words, get away from my daughter. Yeah she’d been listening alright.
Sean’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
I would prepare myself for twenty questions later.
I made my way towards the opposite counter and started work on table five’s cappucinos. Funny, considering my early fear of this apparatus, I now fancied myself quite the barista extraordinaire. I even went so far as to make quaint little shapes with a shake of the cocoa powder dust. No wonder my parents looked at me suspiciously. What had I become?
After serving Sean, Mum came over all smiles, an enigma of easy going. I knew she wasn’t feeling easy going, and I knew what was coming next.
“So who was that?” This was just the beginning of my interrogation. I supplied the details she could handle, but failed to mention that Sean and his friends were a big part of my extra-curricular activities. I also failed to mention that Ellie was dating Stan Remington, or that Toby Morrison himself was fixing my bike. I knew if I gave my mother too much information she would piece it all together and draw her own conclusion.