Coasting

by Ben Karwan

  My batting efforts are slightly less successful. I stand in front of the stumps with little to no idea of the proper posture or technique. I awkwardly hold the bat out in front of me, waiting for the ball to come. Teddy jogs in a few steps and tosses me the ball.

  I swing, aiming for the space between Sophie and the ocean, but I completely miss the ball and it goes to the guy behind the stumps.

  I manage to hit the ball the second time but the third time it crashes right into the stumps.

  Teddy does a celebratory cartwheel just to be annoying, and I hand the bat to the next player before heading across the sand to my new fielding position.

  I get my revenge on Teddy when it’s my turn to bowl – he hits the ball straight back at me and I catch it, much more comfortably than my first catch. This is actually a lot more fun than I’d expected.

  That night we eat dinner in our hotel room. Sophie has an obsession with Thai food, so we find this little takeaway place and order a bunch of different things. None of us except for Sophie has much of a clue what any of it is, so she’s in charge of the selection.

  I don’t contribute much to the conversation while we eat; my mind is preoccupied. I had a lot of fun today and I’m a little sad about having to leave tomorrow. I don’t want to go home and have to deal with Mum finding out about my new uni preferences, and she’s probably still annoyed about me coming on this trip in the first place. It’s much less stressful lying on the beach and doing my own thing – even playing beach cricket and watching the ball fly through the air …

  Oh my God. I think I just came up with a solution. How do I bring it up, though?

  After dinner, Elliot disappears for a shower. Sophie and Teddy are both on the couch, glasses of water in hand.

  ‘Can I run something by you?’ I sit on the coffee table, facing them.

  ‘Sure,’ says Sophie.

  ‘I know you guys are ready to go home,’ I say, ‘but I really think Elliot needs some time away to get over the whole Nessie thing.’

  Sophie breathes deeply. ‘I know and I feel bad, but we really do need to get home …’

  ‘No, Soph, it’s fine,’ I say quickly. ‘Really, it is. But I was thinking … Since you both want to get home, how would you feel if I bought you plane tickets to get you back and then I stayed with Elliot?’ I say the words quickly. I have no idea how they’ll react. But it works best for everyone, right?

  ‘We can’t let you do that, Jen,’ says Teddy.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s too much money. You’ve already paid for the hotel, petrol, food – even for Movie World.’

  It’s a little strange hearing Theodore C. Block being so genuine. He usually shows his appreciation through insults and jokes. His face is dead serious. It’s a little unnerving.

  I pull up the Jetstar webpage and search for flights.

  ‘It’s not too expensive at all,’ I say. ‘Look, it’s four hundred bucks.’ I show them the screen. ‘Grandma told me to do something crazy, and this is crazy.’

  They look at each other. The water stops flowing through the plumbing – Elliot is finishing up and I want an answer before he gets back.

  ‘Obviously I don’t want to get rid of you two. I’d love it if you stayed with us but you have other things you need to do. This is the only way I can think of that will keep everyone happy.’

  ‘If you’re sure …’ says Sophie.

  ‘Of course. Last time I checked, aeroplanes were a lot more comfortable than cars, too.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says.

  ‘What are we talking about?’ says Elliot, opening the bathroom door.

  ‘Nothing,’ we all say at once, far too suspiciously.

  ‘Right … Anyway, I’m exhausted, so I’m going to get some sleep. Lots of driving tomorrow.’ He gives us a little wave and disappears into the bedroom. ‘Lots of driving’ … Not if I can help it.

  The door clicks shut and I turn back to face Teddy. ‘So? You in?’

  He takes a deep breath. ‘Well, I’m not going to leave Sophie all lonely, catching a plane by herself, am I?’

  I realise I’ve been holding my breath, so I let it out in a quick burst. ‘You guys are the best.’ I really want to jump on them and hug them both but I stay calm and settle for scrolling through the available flights on my phone. ‘If you’re flying, did you want to stay for a few extra days?’

  ‘No,’ says Sophie. ‘We don’t have anywhere to stay. It’ll be heaps easier to find a place if it’s just the two of you.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Teddy nods. ‘Plus it’s frickin expensive and you’re not spending any more money on us.’

  I hold his gaze for a moment and nod. ‘Okay. So you want to fly back tomorrow?’

  ‘Sounds good,’ says Sophie.

  A few minutes later, I get a confirmation email. The tickets are booked.

  ‘All done,’ I say. ‘I’m going to go and tell Elliot.’

  He’s lying on the bed when I enter the room.

  ‘I have some news,’ I say, closing the door. It slots back into its frame with a soft click.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘We’re not going home tomorrow.’

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because we’re going on a road trip.’

  He sits up. I think he’s trying not to look too hopeful, cautious I might be lying. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I know you don’t want to go home yet. Sophie and Teddy do, because Sophie needs to get back to Luke and Theodore misses his lover. But we don’t have anything to go home to.’

  ‘You make it sound like we live in an endless spiral of depression.’

  ‘The point is,’ I say, ‘that since we spend basically all of our spare time together anyway, why don’t we go the long way home? We can stop wherever we want and just enjoy it.’

  ‘You just said the others want to go home.’ He eyes me suspiciously. ‘How does that fit in with your plan?’

  ‘For many years,’ I say, ‘there have been these organisations called “airlines”. Their specialisation is providing aircraft services to transport their customers across the globe. Modern aircraft are capable of travelling from the Gold Coast to Melbourne in around two hours for a surprisingly low price.’

  ‘You’re an idiot,’ he says. ‘But are you serious?’

  I nod. ‘I used Grandma’s money and bought Sophie and Theodore plane tickets for tomorrow. Then it’s just you and me for as long as we want.’

  He stands up and hugs me hard. ‘With absolutely no exaggeration,’ he says, pulling back to face me, ‘you are the greatest thing that has ever existed.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The airport is busy. Very busy. Most of the people seem to be heading home from a holiday; there’s no buzz of pre-holiday euphoria. Sophie and Teddy check in and Elliot and I wait with them until boarding.

  ‘Babe, I can’t believe you actually bought us tickets home. Thanks heaps,’ says Teddy.

  Elliot and Sophie have both gone to find coffee. We sit against a greyish wall. Why do airports insist on being so visually boring? Airports usually mean distance travel and I’d have thought people would usually associate distance travel with high emotion. The juxtaposition hurts my head.

  ‘Nah, it’s fine. Sorry for basically kicking you off the trip.’

  ‘Well, at least it’s less time with you,’ he says slyly.

  ‘Hilarious.’

  Every two minutes or so we’re interrupted by a prerecorded announcement warning us about security risks, behavioural regulations and the prohibition of smoking – nothing groundbreaking.

  ‘Too much of a good thing, you know?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Finally, Teddy and Sophie’s flight is ready for boarding. Outside the gate, Sophie and Teddy both hug Elliot and me.

  ‘Thanks for this, Jen,’ says Sophie. ‘The whole trip was so much fun. Sorry we can’t stay for the journey home.’

  ‘Yeah, agreed,’ says Teddy. ‘Real
ly – thanks.’

  ‘Have a safe flight,’ says Elliot.

  ‘I love you,’ I call to Sophie. ‘And I tolerate you,’ I add to Teddy.

  They’re still waving when they disappear through the gates to board the plane.

  ‘So, kiddo, it’s just you and me,’ says Elliot, placing his arm around my shoulders. ‘Thanks for staying.’

  ‘It’s going to be so much fun,’ I say, hooking my arm around his waist. We head for the exit.

  ‘Seriously,’ he says. ‘I can be an absolute arse to you but you stick around. You’re a good kid and I’m really glad you’re my friend. The whole Nessie thing really got to me, and I need to get it out of my system. I want to surround myself with positive –’

  ‘All patrons are reminded: smoking is strictly prohibited in this airport –’

  ‘Excuse me,’ he says to the roof, ‘I’m halfway through a heartfelt soliloquy and –’

  ‘Monologue,’ I correct.

  ‘Whatever. The point is that interrupting me is rude. Besides, what airport can you smoke in?’

  He waits for the announcement to finish before he continues. ‘Where was I? Oh yeah, positive people. You just … You’re always there for me and I know I can rely on you. You’re super-easy to talk to. I love you, Jen.’

  ‘And I you,’ I say. After a moment, I add, ‘So where’s our first stop?’

  ‘Wherever we are when we get sick of driving,’ he says, smiling.

  The car feels empty without Sophie and Teddy but not as if anything is missing. I love them both, I really do, but they wear me out so I’m kind of glad it’s just me and Elliot now; he’s one of the few people I find unconditionally tolerable.

  Though I’d noticed him all through year seven, it wasn’t until late in the year that we first hung out. He was in a group with all these jocks who spent their lunchtimes playing football and talking about their success rates with girls, a notion that’s flawed not just for its implicit misogyny but also for its implication that these year sevens had active sex lives, which simply wasn’t the case.

  We first hung out in November, on the day before Melbourne Cup Day. Technically it’s not a public holiday and school still runs, but most people just take the day off anyway and claim a four-day weekend. Only five people bothered to show up that day: Lily, Jasmine and Mia, a group of best friends who kept to themselves, and Elliot and me. Since the teachers didn’t give us any work, we spent the day together and that’s when our friendship was born.

  Elliot’s friendship with the jocks was, he said, a product of social convenience rather than of any real affection. He was adopted into their group on Orientation Day, before we started year seven.

  Sophie and I had pretty much been friends since the first week of year seven. We both went to a weekly lunchtime creative writing class and we were the only two year sevens there, so naturally we stuck together. Teddy was on Elliot’s cricket team, which is how I came to meet him. By the end of the year, we’d formed this socially inept group who didn’t really talk to anyone but each other. The label ‘socially inept’ always bothered me – we are the four most charismatic and frankly hilarious people I know.

  For the first few months of our newly formed friendship group, I was particularly concerned with how those outside our group perceived me, and worried about whether they’d make fun of my hair or my face on that particular day. Eventually I realised that my friends liked me and that’s really all that mattered. We were the social outcasts to the jocks in the same way that they were the jocks to us.

  It strikes me now that I was perhaps a little unfair on them at school. All those people in other social groups were just side characters in my life – I knew nothing personal about them at all. But I’d say that, to them, I was that person too, just a side character in their lives, even though I have a complicated life with connections to a bunch of people – Elliot, Sophie, Teddy, my family – and so do they, just with different people. The universe is populated with so many people that it’s impossible to know them all. It’s a weird thought.

  ‘Question,’ says Elliot, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Are you as sick of driving as I am?’

  ‘We got in the car literally half an hour ago.’

  ‘Point being,’ he says, ‘you want to make Byron our first stop?’

  It takes us about an hour in total to get to Byron Bay. It feels like a smaller, cosier Gold Coast. It has the same beachy vibe and the sunlight bounces off everything, radiating happiness. I doubt it looks this pretty in winter.

  We find this cute little pub called Brand Five, which has a motor inn attached to it, where we book a room for the night.

  There are only two sections: a bathroom and an everything-else room.

  ‘What’s missing from this picture?’ says Elliot. He stands in the bathroom doorway with one hand raised a little, as if he’s scanning the room with his index finger.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look around,’ he says. ‘Aren’t we missing something?’

  A couch faces a television; against the wall is a small dining table with a pile of linen on it; and a microwave and kettle are both on a bench … I shrug at him. ‘It seems fine to me.’ It’s a motel. What did he expect?

  ‘Where do we sleep?’ he says.

  That’s a good point. There’s no bed. ‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘Maybe on the couch?’

  Elliot runs his hand along the bench. ‘I guess. Why’d they give us sheets, then?’

  The couch is not super-comfortable and one of the cushions has a tear in it. ‘I don’t know. Should we ask at reception?’ I don’t really want to ask, though. I’d feel incredibly awkward asking the receptionist where our bed is.

  ‘We should,’ he says. ‘I can’t be bothered though.’ He comes over to sit next to me but he stops and stares down at the couch. ‘You leave me the torn one? Good on ya.’

  ‘Fine,’ I say, rolling my eyes. I get up and pull the torn cushion off the seat of the couch, planning to turn it over. It’s crusty and stiff and I don’t really want to know what’s on it. As soon as the cushion is out of the way, I realise that we haven’t been given a room without a bed but rather that the couch folds out to become a bed.

  ‘Dude, it’s a sofa bed,’ I say. I toss both of the cushions aside and together Elliot and I unfold the bed. It creaks something awful.

  ‘No wonder this room’s so cheap,’ Elliot says dismissively as we apply fresh sheets. It’s still early afternoon but we anticipate some dysfunctional hand–eye coordination later in the evening so it’s probably best to get the bed ready now.

  After changing into our bathers, we leave one outfit in our room to wear later and take our dirty clothes over the road to a laundromat. Elliot is running out of clean underwear and I want more outfit choices. We dump all of our clothes into a washing machine and start the cycle. I want to go straight down to the beach but Elliot doesn’t think we should leave the washing unattended so we wait. I sit with my back against the machine. It’s almost like a little massage.

  We finally get to Main Beach and it’s packed. The sand grains are pure white, soft and warm against my feet. I lay my towel down to sunbathe for a while but Elliot grabs me and hoists me over his shoulder. He weaves through the crowd and dumps me in the water. I swallow a mouthful of salt water and, presumably, traces of mixed urine from the billions of people who have ever peed in the ocean.

  I splutter as I surface.

  ‘You were supposed to hold your breath,’ he says.

  ‘I hate you.’

  ‘Ily.’

  He knows I hate it when people use text speak irl.

  We swim for a while before I remember I forgot to put on sunscreen, so I return to my towel and cover myself in it. After the mental strain of figuring out a way to extend this holiday, I don’t want sunburn coming along and ruining it. I ask Elliot to do my back, which he does without complaint.

  Having skipped lunch, we’re starving by five-thirty so we head back to
the motel. To Elliot’s disgust, I take a shower to rid my hair of the salt water (he just wants to eat) but we’re at the pub next door by six. (Elliot reckons my shower took forty-five minutes, but I stick by my timeframe.)

  We order our food and we have beer in front of us. The pub is relatively quiet. A digital piano and an acoustic guitar sit on a small stage near the back.

  A group of perhaps six seniors drink together at a table and a tall dark-haired woman, who’s perhaps in her thirties, sits on a stool at the bar.

  ‘How’re you doing?’ I ask Elliot.

  ‘I’m … uh … good?’ He seems thrown by my question.

  ‘No, no, I mean about the whole Nessie thing.’ We haven’t spoken about it since the day it happened. I didn’t bring it up earlier in case he didn’t want to talk about it in front of Sophie or Teddy, but I want to make sure he’s doing okay and not just pretending his feelings don’t exist.

  ‘Oh. Yeah, I’m okay, I guess.’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t mean to put a damper on things.’ I take a mouthful of beer. I’ve never had beer before. It’s bitter and gross – I doubt it will become my drink of choice.

  ‘No, it’s okay.’ He seems to mean it. He drains his glass (which had still been half-full) and goes to the bar to order another. When he comes back, he says, ‘I didn’t assume we were going to spend our whole lives together or anything, but I didn’t think it would end so soon.’

  I rub the back of his hand. ‘If she was unhappy, it’s probably a good thing it ended sooner rather than later. What if you had been in the relationship for a year or two? If she wasn’t happy, that wouldn’t be fair to her – or to you, because she’d be leading you on. It’s the same thing as my relationship with Dylan. I wasn’t happy with him and you’re the one who told me it was better for both of us if I just ended it.’

  ‘But I would’ve been happy for a year.’

  ‘Is that really the most important thing?’ I take my hand off his and look him in the eye. ‘A superficial happiness that’s doomed to fail? I mean, is it really happiness if it’s based on this idea you’ve formed that’s not really true?’