Push Me, Pull Me

by Vanessa Garden

  His slid his hands beneath his head and sighed, almost wistfully.

  “I want to travel one day too.” Byron’s eyes glazed over and I thought he bit his bottom lip as he stared up at my ceiling. “Europe,” he said quietly, as though to himself.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” I said, more out of needing to fill the awkward silence. It actually gave me a secret thrill to have him on my bed.

  Byron raised his brows at me and half-smiled. “Oh, that’s right. You invited me in for sugarless tea.” He rolled onto his side, leant on one elbow, and cleared his throat. “Okay.” Blue eyes roved from my face to my bare feet and back up. “I’m ready.”

  I folded my arms across my chest and gasped at his audacity. I’d let a stranger into my room and now he was getting flirty on my bed.

  And I liked it.

  A sudden panic set in. My future, imaginary life with a boyfriend flashed before my eyes. I had Jay to think about. There wasn’t any room in my life for going to the movies or romantic picnics or for getting all ditsy and spacy with love.

  “Sorry, but I’m actually tired. Looking after a two-year-old can make you obsessed with what little amount of sleep you get.” I kind of hoped the bit about looking after a two-year-old would give him the hint and turn him off at the same time. That is, if he felt something for me. Which I was sure he didn’t.

  “So, let me sing you to sleep then.” He shifted to the left side of the bed, tossed Piggy to the floor, and patted the mattress. The bed groaned provocatively beneath his movements. “I promise I won’t bite.”

  A little thrill danced around inside my stomach, to imagine that voice, low and husky in my ear.

  “Um, I don’t know…”

  I wanted to. I really did.

  “Okay, I can take a hint.” He sighed and sat up, his long legs dangling off the edge of the bed. I had to admit he looked a little worse for wear, like he could use a decent sleep. Still, he was a sexy sight in that rocker, shadows-beneath-the-eyes, and static-hair kind of way.

  “Does playing always leave you this wrecked?”

  “Sort of.” He shrugged and scratched the back of his head, his eyes finding mine. “Can we talk about something else other than me looking terrible?”

  It was weird he was so sensitive about his appearance when he had the sort of face that would most likely garner a never-ending string of broken hearts wherever he went.

  “No, you don’t look terrible at all.” I stared right back into his eyes and willed my pulse to settle. “I actually think you look pretty good—tired, but good—really good.”

  His lips curved into a half-smile. I couldn’t believe I was being this forward with a practical stranger.

  “Thanks, I think.” He shook his head and said, “This is strange.” Then he shook his head again and rubbed the back of his neck. “I know we’ve only just met, but I kind of know that I like you already.” A short, soft laugh escaped his lips before he bowed his head and stared at his black boots.

  My pulse whooshed so fast I thought I was going to faint.

  “Me too.” I closed my eyes for a few seconds before opening them again, and shook my head lightly from side to side. No. Surely I didn’t just say that out loud.

  “So, you like yourself?” Byron said after a long silence. He frowned, still staring at his shoes, but I could see a playful smile forming on his lips. “That’s great that you have such solid self-esteem.”

  When I didn’t comment any further, he swallowed thickly and slowly stood up, so that we were only inches apart. His scent was all around me; the clean chalky smell of soap mingled with fresh sweat, the sweetness of the wine he’d been drinking earlier.

  My body swayed in the headiness of it all and when Byron caught my hand with his, I clutched at it tightly.

  I’m in my room, holding hands with a stranger.

  I laughed. It was a weird, girly, high-pitched laugh. My entire face felt like it was baking in an oven. Sweat trickled down my spine.

  Byron exhaled a long and shaky breath that tickled my hair before he let go of my hand. His gaze travelled down to my lips, making my heart stutter, before locking with my eyes once more.

  “Goodnight, Ruby. Since you mentioned I’m looking so haggard, I’m off to snatch some hard-core beauty sleep.” The corner of his mouth twitched with an almost smile, making my heart stop and start.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  He moved towards the window, his body a lean silhouette against the half-moon’s light.

  “I’ll be at the Tea ‘n’ Tale tomorrow if you want to help me find some books.” He rubbed his chin in thought. “Your method intrigues me.”

  Byron’s reference to our second meeting made me smile. It also reminded me that I hadn’t returned home with a book that day.

  “I’m not sure if I can. I’ve got Jay.”

  “So bring Jay. I’d love to meet the little rug-rat. Meet me at nine.”

  There was no hiding my Milton special.

  “Okay.”

  And just like that, my fauxhawked Romeo disappeared out the window and into the night.

  Chapter 8

  After agonising for most of the night about what I should wear to the cafe tomorrow, and then falling asleep with my phone pressed against my cheek, I woke up to a stuffy nosed Jay by my bedside at dawn. His face was flushed and his lips red and puffy. Immediately I sat up and pressed a hand to his forehead, my heart thudding in panic.

  “Jay sore head.”

  His skin felt warm against my palm, but it was hard to tell in this heat if it was a true high temperature.

  “Let’s go to the kitchen, Jay-baby. Ruby will make you better.” I buried my face into the golden curls behind his neck and kissed him there several times. But as I drew away, the stench of his nappy went straight to my nose. Great, diarrhoea was exactly what we needed on a steaming hot day, without air-conditioning, and all the windows sealed tight.

  “Okay, let’s clean you up first.”

  After a cool bath and a fresh nappy, Jay pressed his small clammy hands against my own forehead. “Woo-by hot, Woo-by sick too.” His eyes widened. “Woo-by and Jay die,” he whispered.

  His words had me momentarily stunned. Forcing myself to move, I stood up and folded his towel before hanging it up on the rack, carefully planning my response.

  “No,” I said, when I could finally speak, my voice firm and hopefully reassuring. “No. Ruby and Jay will live a long time, a long, long time.” I knelt down and hugged him tight until he wiggled free from my suffocating grasp.

  Thankfully Jay’s temp, after a quick check with the thermometer, showed nothing scary. The bath may have helped. So with a sigh of relief, and hope that this was just a twenty-four-hour bug, I sat Jay down at the kitchen table and set about making his breakfast.

  “You’ll feel better after a nice piece of crunchy toast.”

  “Coco Bombs make Jay better.”

  “Tomorrow you can have Coco Bombs. Toast today.”

  I kissed him again and set the plate in front of him. With a weak, quivering hand he pressed a corner of toast to his lips and let it fall back down to the plate.

  “Jay tired.” He slid off his seat and laid face down across it instead, coughing a couple of times.

  “Okay, little man, how about some Wiggles?” I said, hoping the promise of four brightly coloured people would cheer him up.

  Jay wrapped his sticky arms around my neck after I scooped him up. “Woo-by carry Jay.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at his cheekiness. Clever little monkey. I’d only just started to ease up on lugging him around on my hip because my back was starting to feel like an old lady’s. But here I was, ignoring the creak in my spine, and heading, yawning and somewhat bleary-eyed, into the lounge room. The scent of Byron on my pillow had kept me awake long after he’d left last night so I’d only managed a couple hours of sleep.

  It was only when I glanced at the wall clock that I realised I’d have to cancel
my date at the café with him, seeing as Jay was struck down with a bug. Problem was I didn’t have Byron’s phone number.

  After setting Jay up on his little fold-out couch in front of the TV, I went into my room to text Martin. He had Byron’s number, his autographed number. But just before I hit send, my finger paused and hovered over the button. The last thing I wanted was for Martin to know about me and Byron, whatever ‘me and Byron’ was.

  “Jay stinky.”

  My little brother stood in my open doorway, a look of shame making his pixie features droop. I groaned but then my heart squeezed. Poor Jay. At least I’d had my mother when I was little and sick. All he had was me.

  “That’s okay. You get to have another bath, Jay, how about that?”

  I set my phone down and repeated the bath/nappy routine I’d performed only twenty minutes ago. After I dressed Jay in fresh pyjamas and set him up on his Elmo couch again, I dragged Dad out of bed and sat him down at the kitchen table.

  By the time Dad took his first, reluctant bite of the multigrain toast I’d set before him it was already past nine o’clock and too late for chasing Byron’s number. He would have left the hotel and would be waiting for me at the café by now. Or maybe not. Maybe he woke up and forgot all about meeting me. Or maybe he was still asleep. He was a muso. His motto was probably ‘play all night and sleep all day.’

  I sighed, not in a depressing way, but in an accepting way. Last night, perhaps giddy with Byron’s beautiful music and his visit, I’d actually lain awake wondering what he’d be like as a boyfriend. To have him visit me each night in my room, the two of us leafing through travel guides and magazines, planning our future travels together. But now, with the reality of a sick toddler and a pickled dad, I knew I’d been stupid to even consider it.

  “Sorry, love,” my Dad’s voice croaked from across the table, as though he’d read my mind.

  My Byron thoughts evaporated as I stared hard at my father. He looked awful, like he’d rolled out of a garbage bin. His face was bright red from all the booze and his skin was covered in stubble of various lengths, as though he’d attempted several times over the course of the week—and failed—to shave completely. His curly red hair was greasy and stuck to his forehead, sweat stains decorated his clothes, and he stank, worse than Jay’s diarrhoea nappy.

  “You were doing so well, Dad.” I said, stirring two sugars into his mug of coffee before sliding it across the jarrah table-top towards him.

  He took a sip, screwed up his face, and nudged it aside with a big, hairy-knuckled hand. “Don’t want it.”

  “It’ll wake you up.”

  “You’re too young to be a bloody nag, Rubes,” Dad groaned. His head collapsed into his hands as if his neck had suddenly disappeared.

  “Do you want some headache tablets? Or ginger?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Mrs. Simich was in my ear last night,” he croaked underneath his hands before slowly raising his head and meeting my eyes with his. Through their bloodshot surface, I could have sworn I saw a flicker of light somewhere deep inside all the bleakness.

  “About what?”

  “She said she’s going to help me through this. She’s going to come over every day, get me into a routine of sorts.” He stopped to cough up a huge wad of phlegm into a hanky that looked as if it had lived inside Dad’s pocket its whole life. “She even has some work in her yard for me to do. After that, if I get straight…” He shrugged his shoulders as if wasn’t quite as sure of the plan as Mrs. Simich was. “She reckons I’ll be ready to return to work.”

  Although Mrs. Simich was a nice lady and cared about us, I wasn’t certain she’d be successful. If his own daughter couldn’t get him sober, how could a neighbour do it?

  But still, I nodded my head and managed to squeeze out a quick, fake smile.

  “Sounds great, Dad,” I said, in the cheeriest voice I could muster, and then, though I didn’t believe my own words for a second, “Mrs. Simich is pretty tough for an old lady, I’m sure she’ll whip you into shape.”

  Dad frowned, but I saw the tiniest barely-there twinkle of humour in his eyes. “Mira is only six years older than me, thanks very much. She’s not old by a long shot.”

  “Oh, it’s Mira, now, is it?” I said, cocking my brows at him.

  Dad’s already red face turned a shade deeper, purple almost.

  “Enough cheek, you. She told me Visko, her late husband, liked his vino too much. So she’s had experience.”

  In the lounge room, Jay’s bird-like voice joined in with the singing on the television, punctuated with little coughs.

  “That’s good, I guess.” My hope meter rose, slightly, but I wasn’t feeling anything close to confidence yet. Dad had attempted going dry before, obviously without success.

  Taking a plate of toast and a clinking glass of iced tea with me into the lounge room, I settled on the couch. Jay climbed onto me, his slightly cooler body a relief, and soon we were both singing. Just as we were about to ‘Wake up Jeff’ there was a knock at the door.

  My stomach did a summersault.

  Byron.

  What if he’d come to find out why I hadn’t shown up at the café? I glanced down at the dress I’d worn last night—that I was still wearing—but before I could change, Jay leaped off the sofa, ran to the door and, on his tip-toes, opened it.

  I sucked in a deep breath. This was it. Byron was about to see me and my family, warts and all. So long as Dad didn’t spontaneously chuck up on the floor, and Jay’s little bottom held off any mini-explosions, it might not be too bad.

  “Hello, Ruby. I’m here for your father,” said Mrs. Simich as soon as I stepped into view. Her lips were a thin line, her brown eyes sharp and alert. Her greying blonde hair was scraped back into a harsh bun, ready for the job ahead of her. In her hands she clutched a cloth bag filled with what seemed to be a pot and some crockery. She meant business. If only I could believe that Dad was ready to go cold-turkey.

  Still, I was happy to see her, really happy, in the way that flowers are happy to see the sun after a cloudy day, and I was also kind of relieved that she wasn’t Byron, so much so that I reached forward and gave her a quick, light hug. The skin on her cheek was velvety soft and her rose perfume sweet. My arms tightened to squeeze her once more before I pulled back and smiled, my face reddening at my little burst of affection.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” she said between chuckles. “At least somebody’s happy to see me. I can’t imagine your father is too excited though.”

  I stepped aside and held the door open. “Come in. Actually…well, Dad does seem sort of excited.”

  Her smile fell away and her face turned military serious again. “I’ll do my best, Ruby, dear.” She peered over my shoulder at Jay who’d flopped back onto his little couch, pretending he was asleep. “That little one of yours deserves a strong male role model.” She reached out and patted my arm. “And you deserve to have your father back.”

  I chewed on my bottom lip and shrugged.

  “He needs your belief in him, Ruby. That’s half the battle.”

  I nodded, ashamed that I hadn’t been able to keep Dad on the straight and narrow myself.

  Mrs. Simich was the only person outside of our family to be privy to our private business. All the Milton skeletons had come dancing out of the closet before her. Not only had she found Mum on the bed that afternoon, she was now going to see my Dad at his weakest, that is, if she hadn’t already. And as I followed her into the kitchen, I realised that I’d been so wrapped up in our own family drama the past few months that I’d never thought to ask Mrs. Simich about her dead husband, whom I remembered as a serious, red-faced man who wore a faded denim cap, but always had a lolly in his pocket for me when I was a kid.

  “Ready, Jeremy?”

  Mrs. Simich, dressed in blue jeans and a button-up cream shirt, stood with her hands on her bony hips, staring at my father who was face down on the kitchen table and snoring.

&n
bsp; I stifled a nervous laugh, even though I knew Dad’s predicament, our predicament, was far from a laughing matter.

  However, by lunchtime, Mrs. Simich had marched Dad into the shower, forced two thick black coffees that she’d brewed in a funny looking pot and served in tiny china cups—“Real coffee from my homeland, Dalmacija.”—down his throat and then marched him to the butcher, the fruit and veg shop, and lastly the hardware store—the latter for the fix-it jobs she’d planned for him to do in the evening when it was cooler.

  Apart from a few random oaths muttered beneath his breath, Dad was taking it all on the chin. Actually, it was kind of nice seeing him in the company of a woman. I’d forgotten how much of a gentleman he could be, all manners and holding back on the f’s and c’s.

  Jay liked having Mrs. Simich around as well. After lunch he sat happily on her lap, his eyes owl-like while he listened to the story she read to him in her accented English. On the other couch Dad was sprawled in front of the stick-fan, wooden spoon in hand—to whack it when the motor stopped—and a grimace of a smile while he pretended his head wasn’t throbbing like a jackhammer.

  As I rested my head against a pillow on the floor, Mrs. Simich’s voice lulling me into sleep, somebody knocked on the front door.

  Byron. This time it had to be him.

  Thankfully I’d taken the time to shower and change into fresh clothes, a tank and shorts.

  “I’ll get it,” I said, before running for the door. But to my surprise, when I swung it open, a red-eyed and extremely distressed looking Martin wearing the same clothes he wore last night stood leaning against the doorframe.

  “Martin! What—”

  “Ruby…” Martin said breathlessly, as though he’d run all the way here. “You forgot to use a movie line.”

  I shook my head. Then I took a good look at him, at the dark circles beneath his eyes, his ashen face, and swallowed thickly. “So did you.”