‘Coffee?’
‘Sounds good,’ I said. ‘My place or yours?’
‘The coffee’ll be better at your place, but mine’s closer. Up to you.’
‘I hate these decisions.’
‘My place, then,’ he said, standing up and pulling me to my feet.
Chapter 21
In almost complete silence, we walked back down the beach and climbed into my car. Jed drove the ninety-odd seconds to Green Street and parked on the sleep-out’s spindly lawn. He preceded me up the narrow porch steps, unlocked the door and reached around it to switch the light on.
The inside of the sleep-out was tidy, but otherwise utterly devoid of charm. There was a double bed in one corner, covered with a velour blanket featuring a sultry-eyed unicorn, and a sink and portable hotplate in another. The sofa stood against the far wall beneath the uncurtained window, a plastic toy bin at one end and one of those nasty, perennially unstable coffee tables made from a ring of pine tree with the bark still on at the other. The walls were painted acid yellow, the floor was covered with worn grey carpet tiles and the light came from a naked hundred-watt bulb hanging from a flex in the middle of the ceiling.
I put my handbag down on the end of the tiny sink bench and smoothed my damp palms down the front of my dress. I hadn’t thought to retrieve my shoes from the footwell of the car, and I wished I had. High heels might have lent me at least the illusion of poise and self-assurance.
‘What would you like to drink?’ Jed asked, coming to the sink beside me to fill the kettle. ‘I can do tea and coffee, hot chocolate, lemon and ginger herbal stuff . . .’ He switched the kettle on and rested his hands on the edge of the bench, looking as uncomfortable as I felt. I opened my mouth to say, ‘Tea, please,’ and was swamped by a random surge of happiness. With it came the conviction, clear and calm and simple, that for once in my life I was in the right place at the right time. Speechless with relief and delight, I pushed his shoulder gently to turn him towards me, reached up and kissed him.
The kiss I had in mind was of the sweet, poetic variety – the sort where you draw away after a while to stare wonderingly into one another’s eyes. But he pulled me tightly up against him and kissed me back almost savagely, and his approach was such an obvious improvement on mine that I abandoned all thoughts of softness and romance on the spot. I slid my hands up under his shirt against the smooth, warm skin of his back, and he slid his down my sides past the hem of my dress, then back up underneath it. It was lovely.
It was at this point that I became unwillingly aware of a niggling, persistent feeling of unease – the mental equivalent of a prickle in your sock. I stiffened, both puzzled and annoyed, and Jed let me go.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Shit. Sorry. Coffee?’
‘No!’ I said, catching his hands and replacing them firmly on my bottom.
He looked at me doubtfully, and then smiled. ‘Aurelia?’
‘Yes, Jessamy?’
‘You have a really nice arse.’
I laughed. ‘That’s so romantic.’
‘Yeah, it sounded better in my head,’ he said, and kissed me again, and that irritating tickle of disquiet grew and sharpened.
No! I thought. I would not live at the mercy of these imaginary bloody premonitions of trouble. But . . . ‘Jed,’ I whispered.
‘Hmm?’
‘Sorry – hang on . . .’ Twisting out of his arms I turned the light off, which plunged the room into near-total darkness. ‘Damn it,’ I said, flicking it hastily back on.
Jed crossed his arms and leant back against the end of the kitchen bench to await further developments.
‘I just – I suddenly felt like we were being watched,’ I said, turning to look out through the black, uncurtained window behind the sofa. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I doubt it. There’s a dirty great hedge just out there.’
‘Right. Good.’ The prickling sensation at the back of my neck had vanished now – along with the mood. I sighed. ‘Any chance you could pretend I’m not acting like a crazy person and kiss me some more? Or have you gone off the whole idea?’
He put his hands on my hips and pulled me closer. ‘Lia, I don’t think you’ve quite grasped how much I like you,’ he said.
My previous first-time sexual experiences had ranged from pleasant-and-will-probably-improve-with-practice to – and I’m really not proud of this – how-the-hell-did-I-get-myself-into-this-and-how-soon-can-I-leave. This one was in a whole new league. We fell across that nasty unicorned blanket, kissing and laughing and touching each other with growing urgency, until finally Jed disentangled himself and reached for a condom. Putting it on, he turned back and kissed me again, rolling us both over so I was pinned beneath him.
‘Okay?’ he whispered.
‘Yes. Come here.’
‘Say please.’
‘Jed Dixon, if you don’t come here I’ll never speak to you again.’
He laughed and slid into me, and I nearly blacked out from the pleasure of it.
* * *
Afterwards, we lay curled together, his arm beneath my shoulders and mine across his chest.
‘You’re amazing,’ he said softly.
‘So are you,’ I said, and he kissed my hair.
It was all quite excellent, except that lying pressed against a hot-skinned man in a small, tin-roofed shack in midsummer is too much even for the seriously besotted. Getting up, Jed opened all the windows as wide as they would go, and I flung the covers off the end of the bed. He switched the little reading lamp on and the main light off, considerably enhancing the general ambience, and got back under the sheet beside me.
‘How long d’you think it’ll be before you move back to Thames?’ I asked.
‘A couple of months, anyway, I hope,’ he said, turning his head to look at me. His skin looked golden in the soft apricot lamplight, and his eyes very dark.
‘Will Tracey be in hospital that long?’
‘No. They’re thinking another week or so in hospital, and then they’ll move her to the Auckland mental health unit.’
‘Where’s that?’ I asked.
‘Central city. Just beside the hospital.’
‘That doesn’t sound like the most peaceful location.’
‘Actually, it’s not bad,’ he said. ‘It’s just beside the Domain. Lots of trees. But the unit’s for acute cases, so I don’t know if she’ll be there all that long. She’ll probably be transferred somewhere else; it’ll just depend on how she is and where there’s a bed available.’
I nodded, and after a little while he continued, taking my hand and running the side of his thumb to and fro across my knuckles. ‘I’ve had a talk to a lawyer, and I’m going to apply to be made Craig’s legal primary caregiver.’
‘So he’ll live with you full time?’
‘For now, anyway. Later – I don’t know. We’ll probably end up sharing custody.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘is it her responsibility to move to somewhere close to him, or your responsibility to live close to her?’
After a long pause he said, ‘She’s not well, and her parents are in Thames . . .’
‘Fair enough.’
‘I’m sorry.’
I squeezed his hand. ‘It’s not like I didn’t know you were leaving. I can hardly throw my toys about it now. And hey, who knows what’ll happen?’
‘Any hunches? Premonitions? That sort of thing?’
I made a face at him.
‘It was actually a serious question,’ he said. ‘God help me.’
‘Well,’ I said slowly. ‘Just before – before I started worrying about people looking in, I mean – you were standing there asking me what I wanted to drink, and everything suddenly felt perfect.’
‘I’ll take that.’
‘Of course, it may just have been a premonition that you were really good in bed.’
He rolled over and put his arms around me. ‘Or that.’
* * *
Next morning, I woke up filled with lazy co
ntentment. I didn’t want to move or open my eyes, which was normal, and I felt not the slightest trace of guilt for wasting valuable time snoozing, which was so unusual that I’d forgotten what it felt like. I lay and enjoyed it for some time before stretching luxuriously, opening one eyelid and discovering that the sun hadn’t even risen yet. Better and better. Turning my head very slowly on the pillow, I spent another happy little while watching Jed sleep, then cautiously withdrew my left arm from beneath the covers to look at my watch. It was twenty to seven.
Ah. Right. The light was dim not because the sun hadn’t risen but because it couldn’t penetrate the gloom of a thousand pittosporums. Climbing out of bed I began to dress hastily.
‘Jed,’ I whispered as I twisted up my hair.
He opened his eyes and smiled at me drowsily. ‘Hi.’
‘I’ve got to go. It’s quarter to seven.’
‘Shit,’ he said, sitting up and rubbing his face with his hands. ‘Already?’
‘I know. It’s very depressing.’
‘What are you doing tonight?’ he asked.
‘I’m supposed to be going to a barbecue. And you’d better hang out with your parents, hadn’t you?’
‘Yeah, I suppose. Bugger.’ He leant over the edge of the bed and groped around, making his shoulder muscles bunch and shift. Retrieving a cell phone and a pair of pyjama bottoms, he sat up again and said, ‘Can I have your mobile number?’
I gave it to him, and he put it into his phone.
Moments later my handbag beeped. ‘Is that you?’ I asked, picking it up.
‘Yep.’ He pulled on his pyjama pants, got out of bed and came with me to the door. ‘Have a good day.’
‘You too. Oh, can I have your number?’
‘I just texted you,’ he said, smiling.
‘So you did. Ignore me, my brain’s turned to mush.’
He bent his head and kissed me, and I hugged him gratefully. ‘Stay a little bit longer,’ he said very quietly.
I felt the smooth, hot skin of his shoulder against my cheek, and his erection against my stomach, and I wanted to so badly that it hurt. ‘I can’t,’ I wailed. ‘I’m so late already . . .’ I pushed myself away from him and opened the door. Then I shut it again. ‘Two minutes.’
* * *
It was six fifty-three when I nosed the car out onto Green Street, looked right for oncoming traffic – and saw my mother. She was marching along the pavement, already level with the Martinovichs’ mailbox two houses along from Jed’s and closing fast. Smiling, she wiggled her fingers at me.
Tingling delight vanished as if with the touch of a button. What was the woman doing patrolling the street at this hour? Surely she should have been safely tucked up in her own kitchen, sipping her morning cup of cider vinegar or onion juice or whatever the hell she was drinking this week. Cheeks aflame, I wound down the window and waited for her to come alongside.
‘Morning, love,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been for a walk around the new subdivision.’
‘Morning,’ I muttered.
Her eyes danced. ‘Well, I mustn’t hold you up or you’ll be late for work.’
‘Bye.’ I started to let out the clutch.
‘Lia?’
Pausing mid take-off, I stalled the car, which did nothing for my poise. ‘What?’ I snapped.
‘If it’s the walk of shame when you’re on foot, is it the drive of shame when you’re in a car?’
‘You,’ I said, ‘are a horrible woman.’ And starting my car I drove away, leaving her laughing at the side of the road.
* * *
Anna’s car passed the window as I ran up the hall after a ninety-second shower, and I began hastily to measure flour into a mixing bowl, bracing myself for the imminent inquisition. She came up the kitchen steps two at a time, tried the door and, finding it still locked, rapped sharply.
‘Guess what?’ she demanded as I opened it.
‘What?’
‘One of Mum’s cousins rang her and suggested that her daughter should be flower girl at my wedding.’ She twitched an apron off the hook on the back of the door and tied it with a vicious, circulation-impeding jerk around her slim waist.
Mentally steeled for cross-examination, it took me a few seconds to change tack and process this. ‘What, did she say yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Without asking you?’
‘Yes.’
‘She can’t do that!’ I said.
‘But wait, there’s more. She also invited the cousin, her husband and their two other children to the wedding, since their little girl’s going to be in the bridal party.’
‘But –’ I started.
‘But wait,’ Anna continued, her voice rising. ‘There’s more! Mum forwarded me a picture of this child.’ Taking her cell phone from the back pocket of her denim shorts, she swiped the screen, jabbed it furiously a couple of times and thrust the phone at me.
I took it, and saw a photo of a plump, pallid girl with very round eyes, dressed in a tight purple T-shirt and leggings. She had bigger breasts than I did. ‘How – how old is she?’
‘Eleven.’
‘Surely that’s too old to be a flower girl.’
‘I was her mother’s flower girl when I was eleven.’
‘Will you really have to have her?’ I asked.
Anna took the phone back and sighed. ‘They just lost their house, they’re living in a shitty little flat in Manurewa and they couldn’t afford Christmas presents. But that’s okay, because apparently my wedding has given not just little Gabriella but the whole family something really nice to look forward to.’
‘Bugger,’ I said.
Picking up a loaf of ciabatta, she began to slice it for sandwiches. We’d worked silently for five minutes or so when she said suddenly, ‘The big date! How was it?’
‘Very nice.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Bob’s. But only briefly. There was a table of about thirty yelling people just in front of us, and then Isaac’s parents came in, and it was all so awful that we ran away and had kebabs down on the beach.’
‘Good on you. And then?’
‘We went back to his place for coffee.’
‘And then?’
‘I stayed the night; I just got home,’ I said. I meant to say it matter-of-factly, but I have a nasty feeling that it came out somewhere between coy and smug. Ugh.
‘Did you?’ said Anna. ‘And you’re going to see him again?’
‘Um, yes,’ I said, taken aback. It wasn’t, after all, as if I made a habit of one-night stands.
She pulled her phone back out of her pocket. ‘Yes!’
‘What are you doing?
‘Texting Rob. He owes me ten dollars.’
‘You guys bet on whether I was going to sleep with Jed?’
‘No,’ she said, texting busily. ‘On whether you’d kick him to the kerb.’
‘I – what? Why would I do that?’
She shrugged. ‘Married man, small child, leaving town . . .’
Bristling with affront, I lifted the food processor off its shelf and dumped it on the bench.
‘Did you actually have sex with him?’ she asked.
‘Why would I tell you?’
‘Because I’m your best friend!’
‘Best friends don’t put money on each other’s love-lives!’
‘Lia, come on. It was a perfectly harmless little bet. I’d never say anything to anyone except Rob; you know that.’
I shrugged peevishly, unwilling to dismount from my high horse too quickly.
‘How was it?’ she said softly, after a few minutes of sandwich assembly.
‘Amazing,’ I muttered, hauling a bag of onions out from the basket beneath the butcher’s block.
‘Good for you.’
‘Thank you.’ Then, ‘Jeez, Anna, would you mind at least waiting till I’m not looking before you share that with my brother?’
Chapter 22
It was a hot day, and
after lunch it grew steadily muggier. Escaping outside for a moment with the compost bucket, I lifted the hair off the back of my neck in the vain hope of a cooling breeze and looked up at the great bank of cloud massing and billowing above the ridge. There was a queasy, apprehensive feeling in the pit of my stomach – I spent three minutes that should have been dedicated to customer service gnawing my lip and wondering if Jed was having second thoughts before realising that, for probably the first time in my life, I’d forgotten both breakfast and lunch. That’s the thing with paying too much attention to your gut feelings; you lose sight of the fact that mostly they’re just telling you about your gut.
‘One mango milkshake and three strawberry,’ Anna called, throwing me a harassed and reproachful look from the till as I went back in.
I made them, cleared three tables, took a cheesecake out of the fridge, thought better of it, put it back and updated the blackboard at the end of the counter to read, Luscious COLD caramel cheesecake in fridge. Just ask us! instead. I made another brace of milkshakes and cleaned about a cupful of yoghurt from the crevices of a high chair while Anna served a gaggle of incoming ladies. There was a lull after that, and picking up a cinnamon bun I leant against the counter and tried to convince myself I’d feel less nauseous as soon as I took a bite.
‘My goodness, this heat,’ said Mum, appearing suddenly in the kitchen doorway. She was wearing a pink singlet and a pair of horrible floral Indian cotton trousers, pleated at the waist and tapering to the ankle. Mum’s normally very stylish, in her own flaky, thrift-shop way, but everyone has off days. Crossing the room, she filled a glass with water and pressed it to her cheek. ‘Anna love, I don’t know if you’re still considering chandeliers in the marquee, but . . .’
‘At the moment I’m considering elopement,’ said Anna. ‘And potentially murder.’
‘Whose murder?’
‘My mother’s.’
Mum beamed and, leaving them to it, I slipped out of the kitchen to retrieve my cell phone, left on my bed in this morning’s wild rush. I had four text messages: one from the dentist’s telling me it was twelve months since my visit and to please call them for an appointment to keep my smile beautiful; one from my friend Donna requesting a green salad for this evening’s barbecue; and two from the same unknown number.
The Pretty Delicious Cafe Page 17