by M. J. Hearle
‘Oh.’ Jasmine had been running through tonight’s options. ‘I don’t mind. Whatever you want to do.’
Jasmine’s frown deepened. ‘Everything okay? Are you actually in this car with me or did I leave you back at the house?’
Winter sighed and forced the brightest smile she could muster. ‘I’m sorry, I was just . . .’
‘Bad dreams again?’ Jasmine offered, her voice softening.
Winter was going to deny it, but there was no hiding her feelings from Jasmine’s perceptive stare. She’d been there the night Blake had died and was the only one who knew the truth.
‘Yeah,’ she admitted quietly.
Jasmine nodded sadly, returning her attention to the road. Winter hated seeing her friend’s carefree features shadowed by such an expression. She quickly added, ‘It’s fine. They’re just dreams.’
Without looking at her Jasmine said, ‘You need to stop torturing yourself, Win.’ Stop torturing us, Winter suspected was the true sentiment behind the words but didn’t say anything. She knew she hadn’t been easy to be friends with these past three months – morose, brooding, clinging to her melancholy like it was her favourite perfume. In fact if she were to be honest she probably hadn’t been the best company for longer than that. Since her parents’ funeral anyway.
‘Tell me more about the party tonight,’ she said, pushing all her angst and concern deep inside. Jasmine’s furrowed brow took a moment to smooth completely but soon she was talking happily about the strapless top she’d bought for the occasion and the possible hook-ups she foresaw taking place down on the beach. That was good. Winter smiled and nodded in the appropriate places and that was good too. She’d learnt to hide her pain well, having had extensive practice with Lucy.
Anybody eavesdropping on their conversation as they drove through Trinity’s school gates would have been convinced they were just a couple of teenage girls, discussing the usual – boys and parties. Nothing strange about that. A close observer might see the clouded expression in Winter’s eyes, but considering the banality of their conversation would probably assume it was nothing more serious than a bit of boy trouble.
Sadly, Winter supposed that’s all it really was when you came right down to it.
A bit of boy trouble.
Chapter 4
The morning was spent preparing for the graduation ceremony. Separated into their home classes, the students’ first stop on the graduation express was with Mrs Loramy. The Religious Studies teacher spent an excessive amount of time taking them through the process as though walking up to a podium, shaking hands with the principal, taking a piece of paper and smiling for a photographer was a complicated piece of choreography. After they finished with Mrs Loramy they were then herded into the cafeteria, which had been transformed into a makeshift wardrobe department. There were boxes of black graduation gowns and caps stored hygienically in plastic bags labelled either ‘Large’ or ‘Small’. There was no medium, and those on either extreme of the range – Anthony Hilkejmeyer’s gown barely reached his middle thigh, and Josie Bell’s pooled around her feet like an oil spill – were out of luck. Fortunately, a ‘Small’ suited Winter just fine and after slipping the soft black fabric over her head she went outside to find her seat.
The ceremony was to take place in the quadrangle with the multi-purpose hall serving as an alternative location should the weather turn nasty, a prospect that was looking more and more likely, Winter thought, staring up at the grey skies as she made her way to the seating area. There were about twenty rows of chairs leading back from a small stage where a wooden lectern and microphone stood. The first five rows were reserved for students, the rest for teachers and parents. A dark green banner hung from the lectern emblazoned with Trinity’s credo in flowing gold script, Suma Tentabo. Strive for Excellence. Next to the stage stood a three-tiered platform where the graduation class would have their photograph taken once the last diploma had been awarded.
A little daunted by the sea of chairs, Winter was relieved to see someone had gone to the effort of printing out the graduation names on tiny tent cards so finding where she was supposed to sit was easy. There it was in the front row – ‘Winter Adams’. Right between Samantha Abercrombie and Jules Ballard. Jules was already there, chatting to Alice Brager (who, as usual, was wearing far too much make-up – thick orange foundation and heavy mascara), however, there was no sign of Samantha. Presumably her homeroom class hadn’t made it to the cafeteria for gown selection yet.
Before taking her seat, Winter paused, shielding her eyes from the overcast sky’s glare to see if Lucy had arrived yet. She couldn’t see Lucy anywhere, but there was still at least half an hour before the ceremony was scheduled to begin so there was plenty of time.
‘Hey, Win, you excited or what?’ Jules asked, breaking off his conversation with Alice, who looked a little put out to be ignored in favour of Winter. She shot Winter an irritated glance and took out her phone to play with.
‘Pretty excited,’ Winter replied, doing her best to mirror his enthusiasm. He was a nice guy, always willing to chat to Winter when they passed in the hallway despite the fact that Winter ranked considerably lower on the social ladder than he did.
‘Can you believe we actually made it? I keep thinking I’m gonna wake up and it’ll be the beginning of the year. It doesn’t feel real, you know? Like it’s a dream.’
Winter nodded. ‘I get that.’ It wasn’t a lie either. The whole thing felt unreal. She just couldn’t believe this was the last day she’d ever have to spend at school.
‘You picked your college yet?’ Jules asked her. Winter could just make out the tan blotches of the pimple cover-up smeared on his chin. The box might have said ‘skin tone’ but Winter had never met anyone whose skin matched the colour cooked up by the geniuses at the cosmetics company. She realised she was staring at his chin and quickly looked away, replying, ‘I’m not sure I’m even going.’
This answer appeared to floor Jules. ‘You’re kidding right? What are you going to do then? Not stay here?’ The way he phrased this last bit suggested staying in Hagan’s Bluff was some kind of prison sentence. Winter might not have had any plans but she had no intention of staying in Hagan’s Bluff any longer than she had to. Not with so many memories and bad dreams connected to the town.
She shook her head firmly. ‘No, I’m not staying here.’
A cold wind began to blow and she was grateful she’d kept her jacket on beneath the gown. The buzz of people talking grew steadily louder as more students emptied out into the quadrangle. They roamed the aisles searching for their name tags, stopping to wave at their parents seated at the back. Samantha Abercrombie was in one of the final groups released. Sitting down next to Winter, she said, ‘I’m so nervous!’ and Winter had to restrain herself from asking why. All they had to do was sit here, wait for their name to be read out and then go up to accept their diploma. It wasn’t like they even had to say anything. Just walk up to the podium, smile for the camera, and sit back down again. Hardly rocket science.
Once the last of the students had found their seats, Principal Sorensen walked to the centre of the stage and tapped the microphone experimentally. Winter had always been slightly terrified of Sorensen. While the ex-nun had wielded her authority benevolently – she never went out of her way to be cruel – there was something about her stiff aspect, her severe features, that intimidated Winter.
‘Good afternoon everyone,’ Sorensen said, her voice booming through the speakers on either side of the platform, accompanied by a brief whine of feedback. ‘It looks like we’re going to have to get the ceremony started or risk getting wet. If it should start raining please move in an orderly fashion into the hall where we will continue.’
Winter looked up and saw that the cloud cover had thickened considerably. They’d be lucky to make it through the ceremony dry.
Sorensen cleared her throat. ‘We’ve gathered here today to witness the closing of a chapter. Life is marked with a few sig
nposts along the way . . .’
Winter allowed herself to zone out, uninterested in Sorensen’s mixed metaphors. She twisted around in her seat to try to see Lucy. Unfortunately, due to the angle of her seat she could only make out the first two rows of the parents’ section. An image of her parents sitting with all the others popped into her head. She could see her dad with his black curly hair smiling proudly. She could see her mum wearing bright red lipstick, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue and laughing at her own tears. The image hurt, but made Winter smile just the same.
Sorensen drew to the end of her speech – some pap about ‘a new chapter was ready to be written’ – she wondered if Sorensen trotted out the same speech every year – and then the school band played a brief interlude while the photographer set up his camera at the base of the stage. When he’d finished positioning his tripod he gave Sorensen the thumbs up.
Sorensen lent into the microphone and said, ‘I’d like to welcome Mr Lorimer to the stage to read out the list of graduating students.’ While Sorensen took her position to hand out the diplomas, Mr Woodley approached the podium a little nervously. He was wearing a corn yellow tie and had combed his hair painstakingly to the left to cover his receding hairline.
‘This is it!’ Samantha said next to her, surprising Winter by grabbing her hand and giving it an excited squeeze.
Mr Lorimer lent forward into the microphone, cleared his throat and said, ‘Samantha Abercrombie.’
Samantha gave a little yelp and jumped up off her seat as though she’d just been awarded the best actress award at the Oscars. She walked quickly up to the stage and shook Sorensen’s hand, smiled dazzlingly for the camera, there was a brief round of applause, and then she walked down to the platform. Winter was just thinking what a lonely figure Samantha looked standing on the back row all by herself when she heard Mr Lorimer call another name.
‘Winter Adams.’
Chapter 5
Winter stood up, feeling that strange unreality again, and walked up to the stage. Mrs Sorensen smiled at her, the first time Winter could remember her smiling in fact, and as she handed the diploma over said, ‘Congratulations, Winter.’ She said something else, that was almost drowned out by the assembly’s applause, something that Winter only registered after she had her photograph taken and went to join Samantha on the platform.
I’m proud of you.
Maybe she’d had Sorensen wrong all these years? Her principal had taken on almost mythic proportions in Winter’s head as a figure of menace. A gatekeeper who had the power to rob Winter of her future, or at the very least an afternoon (more than once she had been forced to while away the hours in the school library as punishment for being late with an assignment). Standing next to the beaming Samantha, it occurred to Winter for the first time that her principal wasn’t some kind of emotionless robot. That maybe she was a human being and had noticed just how hard this year had been for Winter.
Still a little mystified, she smiled to herself and looked out into the audience. Where was Lucy? She might not care much about the ceremony itself but seeing all those rows of parents wearing expectantly proud expressions made her feel a little pensive that there was nobody out there for her.
She sighed in relief when she picked out Lucy’s face towards the back. Although she was too far away for Winter to be certain, it looked like she was crying. Typical Lucy, crying at the drop of a hat. Winter was thinking how embarrassing her sister was when she felt her own eyes beginning to burn. No! She wasn’t going to cry. It was simply too corny. She swallowed the lump in her throat and quickly blinked the tears back. Her sister continued to weep gently, and Winter’s heart softened. Lucy needed a hug, luckily it looked like somebody had already volunteered for the job.
Sitting next to Lucy was Dominic. He was dressed in a plain white shirt and brown tie, and wearing black-rimmed glasses. Winter watched as he reached around and gave Lucy a comforting squeeze with one hand while offering her a tissue with the other. Guys like Dominic always carried tissues around in their pockets.
There was another round of applause as Jules had his photo taken with Sorensen and began to make his way towards Winter and Samantha. He winked at them as he strode up to take his place, but Winter barely noticed the gesture.
Two young men were standing on the edge of the quadrangle in the shade of the large oak tree. One was slightly taller than the other with neatly cut dark hair and dressed in an expensive-looking charcoal suit, an eye-catching crimson-collared shirt beneath. The other was dressed in a tailored leather jacket, its colour a deep burgundy complementing the shirt of his friend. Friend? The two of them could have been brothers. They shared the same fine features, jet-black hair and slender build. Both were wearing dark sunglasses that hid their eyes. Both seemed to be looking directly at Winter. The one in the leather jacket now smirked in a very creepy way, as if he was pleased that she’d seen him.
A knot began to form in her gut – something about those two wasn’t right. But before she could explore this she was distracted by a cold drop of water splashing down onto the back of her neck. This was followed by the soft patter of more drops as they sprinkled the shoulders of her gown, and bounced off the top of her cap. The pattering increased in tempo as Sorensen ran to the microphone and said, ‘Well folks, it looks like the weather isn’t going to hold. If everybody could please stand and make their way —’
BOOM!
Her voice was drowned out by an apocalyptic thunderclap. Almost immediately the rain transformed from a light drizzle to a stinging downpour, causing pandemonium in the quadrangle. Chairs were overturned, people shoved roughly out of the way as students and parents alike scrambled for cover. Both Samantha and Jules ran towards the hall, but before Winter joined them, she shot a look back towards the oak tree.
The two strange men had disappeared.
The ceremony was completed in the hall, which wasn’t quite big enough to accommodate everyone so some of the parents were forced to huddle outside beneath umbrellas and watch through the glass. Some of the students, girls mainly, lobbied for enough time to neaten their appearance before having to have their photograph taken. Even so, Winter suspected there would be numerous graduation portraits marred by blotchy make-up and damp hair. All in all it wasn’t the most promising start to this ‘new chapter’ in their lives.
Almost on cue the rain stopped the moment the final photograph was taken, and the students and parents filed back out into the quadrangle to mingle. Winter found Lucy standing near the tree where she’d spotted the two young men. Evidently, her sister hadn’t made it under cover in time as the top of her uniform was completely drenched.
‘I’m so proud of you, Winnie!’ she said, pulling her into a tight embrace and leaving wet marks on the front of Winter’s graduation robe.
‘It’s no big deal,’ she replied, her cheeks a little flushed.
Lucy quickly blinked back her tears and shook her head. ‘Fine, play it cool. I’ll be excited for both of us.’
Dominic was hovering a few steps away from Lucy, as though waiting for the polite time to make his presence known. Winter caught his eye. ‘Hi, Dominic. Thanks for coming.’
He leapt forward and awkwardly shook her hand. ‘Congratulations, Winter. I hope I didn’t overstep any bounds in coming today. Your sister said it would be fine.’
‘Of course it’s fine,’ Winter glanced briefly at Lucy, her eyebrows raised ever so slightly. The glance was enough to make her sister’s cheeks colour a satisfactory crimson shade.
Jasmine bounded over to them at that moment. ‘Hey, Luce.’ Her gaze flitted to Dominic. ‘Hey . . . guy I don’t know.’ Grinning, she stuck out her hand for Dominic to shake. The poor guy seemed a little flustered by Jasmine’s cheekiness, but recovered quickly enough to shake her hand.
‘Dominic Westlake. Congratulations.’
‘Thank you, Dominic.’ Jasmine beamed at him, enjoying the effect she was having on this tightly buttoned-up man. She shot Winter a misch
ievous look before giving Lucy a quick hug.
‘I’m very proud of you both,’ Lucy said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
‘I know. We’re awesome,’ Jasmine replied.
Apparently satisfied that Winter was in safe hands, Lucy made a move to leave. ‘Well, we’d better be getting back to work. I might be home late tonight.’
‘Hot date, huh?’ Jasmine asked.
Trying not to smile, Lucy ignored her. ‘Can you manage dinner on your own?’
Before Winter could answer, Jasmine said, ‘Oh don’t worry. We’ll be far too wasted to care about food.’ Seeing the colour drain out of Lucy’s face, she rushed to add, ‘Kidding. There’s a barbecue down at the beach.’
Lucy didn’t seem entirely convinced there was no foul play at hand. ‘The beach?’
‘Yeah . . . didn’t Win tell you? The graduation party is at Lighthouse Beach tonight.’ Her gaze leapt between the two sisters, trying to gauge whether or not she’d misspoken.
Both of Lucy’s eyebrows shot up like they were trying to leap off her forehead. ‘Beach party?’
Winter saw her sister momentarily threaten to morph back into the painfully over-protective figure who had haunted her for the past year. ‘Okay. I guess. Have fun. Safe, responsible fun,’ she added.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after her.’ Jasmine hooked an arm around Winter, pulling her off balance.
Lucy smiled shakily and then joined Dominic on the way to the carpark.
Once they were out of earshot, Jasmine said, ‘That was the coolest I’ve ever seen your sister.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘It’s amazing how a healthy sex life can improve someone’s personality.’
Winter punched Jasmine in the arm. ‘Gross.’
Laughing, Jasmine linked arms with her and led her towards the carpark. ‘C’mon let’s get the hell out of this place.’