Just Say [Hell] No

by Rosalind James

Small chance of that working. Her hand still tingled. She’d swear her heart was being pulled away from her and onto that plane, as if he’d stolen it when he’d looked into her eyes and kissed her palm.

  Face it. Her heart always spoke louder than her head, and now? She couldn’t hear anything else over its beat, exactly as if Marko’s music had come to lodge inside her. Since her heart insisted on dominating the conversation, and this was her day off from Bevvy, and possibly because she’d had some trouble sleeping since that kiss on the deck, she changed into her workout clothes and did the same run she’d done that first day, through Dingle Dell and up to Achilles Point. She even ran down the stairs to the beach this time, after which she took a photo from the bottom and texted it to Marko.

  Recognize these? she asked him. I can’t promise I’ll run them. But I’ll ambulate up them somehow. I may even try a few pressups at the top. Depends if anybody’s looking.

  She wasn’t expecting an answer. Really. And she didn’t get one. Not for hours. She was checking her work on the trailer hitch, in fact, when her phone dinged, and she was pulling it out of her pocket even as she told herself that she was busy.

  Three words.

  I’d be looking.

  She hesitated, and then her thumbs were flying.

  I did do them. Only bcs nobody was up there. I’m not as impressive as you. I know the point is exercise, not looking good blah blah. Don’t care.

  I’m guessing you looked good, he texted straight back. And if you think that wasn’t why I was doing them, I’m even more rubbish at this than I thought.

  Maybe you are, she answered. It didn’t work, remember?

  I know. Bugger. That’s why I haven’t done them for you since. Working on my subtle moves instead. Bus at hotel though. How’s my mate Colin?

  She laughed out loud, then texted, Madly in love.

  Tell him to back off.

  She stood there in the street and tried to haul some air back into her lungs. Beside her, Colin said, “Talking to the fella, eh.”

  She jumped. She’d forgotten he was there. “Oh, no. Silly, that’s all.” She shoved the phone back into her pocket.

  “Yeh, right,” he said. “Young people, eh. Always thinking they’ve invented some new step. There aren’t any new steps. It’s always the same dance.” His blue eyes were full of amusement. “Never mind, though. It’s still the best one there is.”

  Twelve days later, the front of the Air New Zealand Dreamliner was early-Sunday-morning-after-late-Saturday-night subdued, and Marko’s body was sore and battered in the same old familiar way as always. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except that the three hours from Sydney had never lasted so long.

  He’d typed his final text a couple hours earlier from the comfort of the Koru Lounge, surrounded by big, tired bodies, male energy, and the comfort of the well-trodden path.

  Can’t do anything about it, he’d written. That’s how the cards fall.

  There, he’d thought. That sounded casual, like you weren’t hanging out there all alone with everything on the line. But then he’d pasted in his mum’s message and read it over again. For possibly the fifth time. Or so.

  The Two of Cups. So many Cups this week. I can’t remember that ever happening with you before. All those fertility and sensuality and heart chakra cards could be about Ella, and some of them probably are. But I think they could mean something more. You can’t see the message any more strongly than you do in this one. It’s about letting yourself feel every moment, even the hard ones, even the scary ones. Even the ones that aren’t about discipline and progress. There’s more than one way for a person to move forward, and more than one kind of obstacle. How can you touch another soul when you’re shielding your own? I know how hard it is to take that leap. But remember this, baby. There’s more than one kind of courage, too. They’ll never hear the words you never say. They’ll never cherish the things you never do.

  He’d hesitated with his thumb over the Delete key. He’d shared every card so far, even the embarrassing ones. Because Nyree had asked him to, and because he’d wanted to see what she sent back to him. She’d answered every time, and she always made him smile. A little flirty, a whole lot saucy, and all the way warm. But none of them had been like this one.

  He could forget to send it. He had every excuse, including a few stitches in his earlobe and a deep thigh bruise that was giving him trouble. Or he could go ahead and move this conversation to where it needed to go without any cards or anything or anybody else in the wide world. He didn’t need his mum to tell him so. Everything in him was shouting it. No reason to share something this… personal.

  Harden up, boy.

  He pressed Send. Then he followed Koti’s jaunty back onto the plane, deposited himself in his Business Select seat, chose the orange juice instead of the champagne from the tray, put on his headphones, and pretended he wasn’t imagining her response.

  The chime of the text woke Nyree. She groaned, reached a hand out for her phone, patted around a few times but couldn’t find it, fell back into sleep again, and dreamed of a sea of darkness, infinite and impenetrable.

  She saw a sprinkle of lights appear in the darkness, followed by another and yet another, as if the stars had been thrown across the night sky, a handful at a time, until the black bowl was ablaze. She saw Tane, the youngest son, dressing Ranginui, the Sky Father, in a cloak of starlight, then adorning him with the brighter light of the moon, and finally, placing the sun on his breast.

  She dreamed of that first-ever sunrise making Ranginui’s cloak glow pink and gold around the edges. She saw it fading and turning to blue, and then the mists rising from the primeval forest. The sighs of Papatunanuku, the Earth Mother, as she longed for the husband from whom she’d just been parted. She dreamed of the morning light softened by Ranginui’s gentle tears, falling to Earth to bless his wife, letting her know that he would be hers forever, even though he could never touch her again. Of the two of them nurturing their children, and the children of the earth, forevermore.

  She dreamed of love undying, forgiveness unlimited, and a soul-deep connection that neither time nor distance could sever. She dreamed of the deepest blue, the brightest silver and gold, the palest pink, and the most vibrant green. And, always, the arrays of blues and greens and purples that made up the sky and the ever-changing sea.

  She dreamed of color. She dreamed of life, of the web that had been woven, strand by strand and season by season, since the dawn of time, connecting all of Earth’s creations one to the other and back again, giving each its place in the world.

  She woke with sobs ripping from her chest, tears soaking into her pillow, and an ache so deep, nothing physical could satisfy it. She rose onto all fours, arching her back and then extending it long, letting the pain and the joy of the dream, of the world, linger. She let them fill her, and then she let them go.

  Afterwards, she sat cross-legged on her mattress in the nightdress she’d pulled on at four o’clock this morning, when she’d finally succumbed to exhaustion after a late shift at Bevvy, then a canvas that couldn’t be resisted. After she’d stumbled into the shower and out again, shivering with the fatigue and cold that came from using every bit of your mental energy. A bare four or five hours after she’d pulled on that nightdress, she blew her nose, wiped her eyes, then closed them again and let the colors wash across her inner vision.

  Finally, she opened her eyes and looked, half-fearfully and half-exultantly, at her canvas. And sighed.

  It was there. Wrong or right, bad or good, it was there. The idea had grown in her head and her heart, had flowed through her fingers and her brush onto the canvas. Halfway finished, and the rest of it ready to come. Something about connection, about being in the right place with the right people. Something about the right colors and the right feelings and the right time. Something about Ella’s courage and Marko’s funny, sweet, half-gruff texts, and something about Marko coming home. Something about her heart settling here and opening wide. So
mething she couldn’t resist, and didn’t want to anymore.

  She didn’t bother with a dressing gown. She couldn’t remember where it was anyway. A quick stop in the bathroom, a brush of her teeth, and a trip downstairs for a cup of tea, and that was all. Ella looked up from the stove, where she was cooking an enormous panful of eggs and vegetables, and said, “Hey. Want some?”

  “Nah,” Nyree said. “Thanks. All right?”

  Ella smiled. “Nyree. Do you even see me?”

  “Oh.” Nyree blinked. “Right. Looking. Yes. Now I do.”

  Ella dumped her eggs onto a plate and started buttering toast. “No worries. Go back to work. I’m all good.”

  Nyree walked back upstairs thinking about the floor. If she painted in a carpet, an Oriental one, all crimson and gold… Then she walked into her orange room, made a pretense of straightening the blankets and pillows on her mattress, looked at her painting again, and set her mug down on the coffee table.

  And went back to work.

  Marko hadn’t meant for his lift home to be Tom Koru-Mansworth, but that was what he got. On the upside, it meant that neither of them had to wait through the baby- and partner-kissing in the International Arrivals hall before they left.

  He’d told Nyree not to come, and she hadn’t. Which was fine. He had a lift, and anyway, partners and babies were for after rugby. That had always been the plan. Focus was everything. Distraction put you on the bench.

  It had been hot in Brisbane, rainy in Sydney. In Auckland, the white clouds were being pushed across the blue sky by a fresh wind, and when the car climbed the crest of St. Heliers Bay Road and headed down the other side, the sailboats were out in force in the harbour. Moving in a stately queue that looked serene from a distance, but masked the frenetic activity of a regatta in progress. The same way the best of the best played footy. Like ducks. Calm and controlled on the surface, and paddling like mad underneath.

  Tom, who’d been as silent as Marko on the drive, said, “Better than Aussie, eh. Not Northland, but not bad.”

  Marko said, “Yeh,” and that was all, and Tom shut up. But when he pulled into Marko’s driveway and Marko had grabbed his duffel from the back seat, he didn’t drive off again. Maybe because Ella was coming down the stone stairs from the front door.

  “Bugger me,” Tom said under his breath, and Marko had to agree. And by the time Ella had made it to the bottom of the steps, Tom was out of the car.

  “Hi,” she said, shoving her blonde hair over her shoulder and smiling. Nervously, maybe. Raspberry-pink top clinging to a firm, full swell of belly, short gray knit skirt, and long, tanned limbs. Not looking quite so young anymore. “Oh—well done last night. Awesome try, Tom.”

  “Not my try,” he said.

  “No,” she said, “you were just the one who sidestepped and made that linebreak, then offloaded in the tackle so the other fella could get in. Hardly anything at all.”

  “Aw, well,” he said, in that way a man did when he was thrilled she’d noticed but was trying to hide it, “that’s rugby, eh. And maybe coming off the bench to replace Koti. Got to lift a bit for that. Big boots to fill and all.”

  They looked at each other, then Ella looked down and Tom didn’t, and Marko thought, You have to be joking.

  At last, Tom said, “New school going all right, then? You’re looking fit.”

  Ella poked a rueful forefinger into her belly, which couldn’t have grown that much in two weeks. Except that it had. “Looking huge, you mean. Twins, did Marko tell you?”

  “Really?” Tom said. “Awesome. Nah, he didn’t say.” Which was because it had been nobody else’s business. Obviously.

  “Yeh,” she said. “Identical, which is cool. They couldn’t tell yet if they’re girls or boys, though. Not that it matters, I guess, since they’re not exactly mine. I mean, I’m trying to have them not be. I’m trying to make it like I’m just… carrying them. Carefully, you know. For somebody else.”

  She fell silent again, and Marko thought, I need to talk to her about that. And wished he knew how to approach it. And after he’d approached it, what the hell he was supposed to say. For now, he said, “Come inside and have a cup of tea if you like, Kors.” Otherwise, they could be standing out here forever. What was he meant to do here? And where was Nyree? He wasn’t going to think about that text. He’d sent it. His choice. His consequences.

  “I was on my way to New World,” Ella said, lifting a couple empty carrier bags. “Catching the bus, eh.”

  “I can give you a lift,” Tom said. “We could go for ice cream after. Have you been to Mövenpick in Mission Bay?”

  “Seriously?” A smile bloomed on her pretty face. Her very pretty face, at this moment. Dark eyes, smooth skin, high cheekbones, and a glow to her as if she were lit from within. “That’s, like, the most thing I want. Strawberry and chocolate. D’you know if they have strawberry?”

  “Dunno,” Tom said. “But you can’t mix those, surely. You have to mix chocolate with caramel or something. Espresso. Vanilla. Like that.”

  “Fruit totally goes with chocolate,” Ella said. “Like on cooking shows, how they put raspberries on chocolate torte, or cherry filling. I know, because I’ve been watching them. I’m hungry even when I’m eating.”

  “It doesn’t go,” Tom said. “Not at all. That’s horrible. But you can have it anyway. I just won’t look.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m going to get three scoops, though. Maybe peach as well. Chocolate and peach.” Tom made a pained noise, and she laughed, looking like the most alive thing there ever was. Looking… ripe.

  Wait, Marko thought. Wait just a bloody minute. He said, “Give us a sec, Ella,” and asked Kors, “Can I have a word, mate?”

  Ella said, “What? Marko…” but he wasn’t listening. He headed over toward Kors’s car, and when he got there, he turned and said, “She’s sixteen. And she’s my cousin.”

  If he’d been thinking that Kors would back off, he’d been wrong. “Yeh, mate,” Kors said. “I see all that. And I see that she’s doing something pretty hard just now, too.”

  “So this is, what?” Marko asked. “Your good deed?”

  The brown eyes didn’t shift under his glare. “No. It’s because I like everything about her. And, yeh, that includes that she’s pretty.”

  “And too young for you.”

  “More than two years younger,” Kors said. “Seventeen in June, and that’s too young. I’ve noticed everything else that wouldn’t work about it, too. Pretty bloody obvious. And I like her anyway. So we’re going to New World, and we’re getting an ice cream and taking a walk on the beach and having a chat about her school and Aussie and maybe even the match, if she wants to, and then I’m bringing her home. If you’ve got a problem with that, it’s your problem, not mine.”

  Did Ella stay where she was and let Marko do his meager semi-parental best? She did not. She’d come to join them. “Are you, like, warning him?” she asked Marko. “Could you be more embarrassing? Look at me. I’m already pregnant. With twins. What else do you imagine could happen? Who’s going to be making a move on me anyway, unless he has some weird fetish? And I’ve already learned that blokes don’t necessarily stick around, by the way, so you don’t need to have a talk with me about that, either. I can take care of myself, no worries.”

  “You don’t have to take care of yourself,” Marko said. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Kors said, “Mate. Message received.” Marko stared at him some more, and Kors didn’t say anything else, just stared straight back.

  “Fine,” Marko finally said. “New World. Ice cream. Walk. Home.”

  What the hell, though? Was this OK, or was it not? He wasn’t used to being unsure about things. He wasn’t enjoying it. He needed to talk to Nyree.

  Who hadn’t answered his text.

  When he finally got into the house, he didn’t manage to get rid of his shoes straight away. That was b
ecause Cat was on her Cat Gym.

  “Look at you,” he said. “Got bigger, eh. Got brave as well.”

  She hadn’t climbed far. She was only on the first platform, not even half a meter from the floor. But she was bigger than a tennis ball at last, even louder than before, and just as determined. Now, she gave her funny little cry, bunched herself up, and launched herself at him.

  He caught her in the air with one hand and said, “You need to stop doing that. Only nine lives, eh.” In answer, she climbed his jacket, sat on his shoulder, and started to purr.

  He got his shoes and socks off, then put her back on her platform, stroked her fuzzy gray body a few times, which made her arch her back with pleasure, shrugged off his warmup jacket, said, “Good to be loved, I guess,” and headed upstairs with his bags.

  Nyree’s car was there, but she wasn’t. She’d known when he was coming home, and she hadn’t cared.

  Fine. Back to shielding his soul. He knew how.

  He smelled the paint halfway up and started moving faster. When he got to the top, he saw the half-open door down the passage, and he heard the music.

  And now? The shields were down.

  Flamenco guitar. Energy and passion, with that sensual edge driving the melody. The violin joining in, weaving around the steadying notes of the guitar like a beautiful woman dancing around her man, seductive and sure, beckoning him on. The music of his grandfather and his father. The music that lived in his bones and heated his blood.

  He stood in the half-open doorway, and there she was. In the room that had been bare and white, before Nyree. Now, the terra cotta walls belonged in a house in Spain with jasmine climbing to the windows. Her bed was a rumpled invitation in blue velvet and orange silk, and on every wall, unframed canvases all but exploded into the space.

  Flowers and fruit, that was all. It was enough. Blue flowers in a ceramic pitcher on a rough wooden table, in front of a gold silk scarf pinned to the wall. How he knew it was silk, he couldn’t have said, but he did. Red flowers in a basket on a checkered tablecloth. That was nice. Purple flowers in a white vase beside glass jugs and bowls of peaches in front of a window, looking out onto a garden. And more, too, all of it bursting with color and texture and femininity and… abandon. Delicate strokes, strong result. Absolutely nothing like the picture of the dachshund. And Marko realized he hadn’t understood anything at all about her, because he’d never seen her driving force.