“Nope,” he said. “It’s far too long. I miss you already. Every day we aren’t together will seem like a wasted day,” and he sighed dramatically to emphasise the point.
She knew that she would never get tired of listening to him talk like that, or of feeling so wanted and adored. She had known him a sum total of twelve days and in that time life had changed dramatically. Gone were the days she craved solitude, now she wandered the house like a wraith, physically aching, if she was ever apart from him. Not that they were apart much, only the hours during the day while he studied and she manned her mother’s florist shop. He finished first and would head straight to the shop, propping up against the side of the counter and watching her adoringly as she served customers or pretended to tidy the shop, when all she was really doing was moving dust from one spot to another with the duster, ever conscious of his eyes upon her.
Typically her mother would pretend to get fed up and let her finish early, and the two of them would run from the shop free and happy and in love. Sometimes they went back to the treehouse, taking food and blankets and on two occasions spending the night, making love under the starry sky and feeling like life was as wide open and endless with possibilities as the sky. Every hour they were together they devoured the other, never tiring of their voice, face of the feel of them.
Now they were faced with separation, and both were keenly aware that five days was an eternity when you felt the way they felt. But she wouldn’t let her family down, she would never be that person.
“They do say absence makes the heart grow fonder,” she said.
“If it doesn’t kill you first,” he answered morosely. Then he realised he was depressing her so he rallied, jumping to his feet and pulling her bikini top from the case on the bed.
“What the hell do you call this?” he asked in mock outrage.
“I would have thought it was fairly self explanatory.”
“There’s no way you’re taking this,” he said, stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans, “you’ll have men drooling all over you and you won’t want to come home.”
“Hardly.”
He rummaged till he found the matching bottoms and took them as well.
“Give them back.”
“Make me.”
She made to grab them and he lifted them out of her reach. She started jumping, laughing and soon they were on the bed and packing was forgotten for some time until her mother tactfully knocked on the door and told her that they had to leave now to pick up June and meet the others at the airport if they had any hopes of making their plane on time.
At the car Walt pulled her in close, fighting the urge to never let go.
“I love you,” he said, and even though Ivy had already known this, it was the first time he had said the words. They fell like rain onto parched grass and she let them soak into her and nourish her.
“Keep her safe,” he told Pat, who rolled her eyes at the dramatics of youth and told him of course she would.
“We’ll be back before you know it,” she said.
And then they were gone.
Chapter nine
Bali was hot. Hot, colourful and an assault on the senses, but in the most wonderful way.
When they arrived late on Thursday night they were tired and at least half of them were drunk, courtesy of drinks on the plane, so they headed straight to the hotel to check in. They decided to dine in the hotel restaurant that night and get some sleep, then explore outside the walls the next day.
When Ivy, who was sharing a room with her mother, woke the next morning she immediately thought, ‘that’s one night down’ and then felt guilty for wishing herself home already. She whispered a promise that she would focus on the reason they were here, her sister, and do her best to hide her homesickness for Walt. Then she promptly forgot that promise two minutes later when she walked out on to the balcony of their room and the view of the ocean was startling and stretched as far as she could see. She immediately remembered the view from the treehouse and she had to hold on to the railing to stop herself from collapsing with the ache that came over her.
Ivy and her mother dressed quickly and headed down to the breakfast buffet, where they ate tropical fruit and sampled a variety of juices. The air was already muggy and it was barely 9.00am. After twenty minutes or so the other girls in the Hens party started to trickle through the doors in singles and pairs, some bleary eyed but all in the mood to continue celebrating. They pushed a couple of the tables together and planned the day’s activities while they ate. Most were in favour of the pool or the beach, so it was decided to start with one and then head to the other. Some however wanted to shop at the markets, so a small group decided to head there first and skip the pool, then they would all meet at the beach later.
Ivy watched her sister laughing and joking with her friends and felt affection well up in her chest. She was going to miss her when she was married, which was silly because June hadn’t lived with them for a few years anyway so really, nothing was actually going to change all that much. But still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that things would. Her sister would belong to a new family unit, with Craig and, soon enough, their own children. June had been born to be a mum. Growing up she rescued orphaned baby animals, some injured, adopting them and doing all in her power to keep them alive. As is the way of Mother Nature some were beyond her help and she mourned each one deeply, holding funerals in the backyard to which they were all ordered to wear black and attend.
In the playground she was always attracted to the loner children, the ones who sat on their own on the wooden benches framing the playground. June hated to see anyone lonely or left out, and made every effort to include them in games. More than one well adjusted adult back home had June to thank for altering the path of their childhood.
An unexpected layer of melancholy crept over Ivy and she shook it off. She was happy for her sister. Craig was a fantastic guy and they were at the dawn of a wonderful life together.
She spent a few hours poolside, during which it was too hot to sunbathe for any length of time so she swam for most of it, round and round the pool, watching loved up honeymooners nuzzling on sun loungers and dreaming that one day that would be her and Walt.
It seemed everywhere she looked something made her think of him. Walking to the beach after eating a delicious chicken dish at a roadside restaurant, she stopped to inhale the scent of a beautiful red flower, and closing her eyes she imagined it tucked behind her ear while Walt twirled her purposefully around a barrel in a vineyard in Tuscany. She observed couples wrapped around each other on the backs of scooters, and remembered the feel of Walt wrapped around her in bed and moaned. Five days seemed an eternity to be without him. The possibilities of where they could go and what they could do together were endless, and he was right, every day they weren’t together seemed a day wasted.
She floated on her back in the clear waters of the ocean and let the currents relax her and massage her body, and she dreamt of Walt.
Chapter ten
Pat spread her towel over a sun lounger, got her book, sunglasses and bottle of water out of her bag and put them on the small table beside the chair and then sat down with a contented sigh to relax. The sun was deliciously warm upon her skin and she felt any tiredness left in her body from the flight and the anticipation of this holiday melt away.
Ah, this is the life, she thought.
This was her first ever trip overseas and she was so grateful that she got to do it with her two girls. Watching them splash and shriek with laughter in the water she experienced a moment of pure contentment. She was so proud of them both, and not for the first time she wondered how she had ever got so lucky. Together with her late husband – god rest his soul – she had created these wonderful, beautiful girls and she still marvelled at the miracle of life and creation and that humble old her could have done something so clever as to turn out something so amazing as them.
It seemed like only the other day she had pushed
them out into the world and wept tears of joy as the pink, chubby little babies were handed to her and she was blessed with the new title of parent. It was a job she took seriously, perhaps too seriously at times. When the girls were babies she had never let them out of her sight as she was so worried something might happen and she wouldn’t be there to prevent it. She ran herself ragged ensuring they never cried, were never hungry, and were never put in any situation that was outside of her control. No one else was allowed to drive them anywhere, or take them to the playground.
Then she got the call from her husband’s boss to say he’d collapsed and died of a heart attack while eating his lunch. And after some time, when the clouds of grief finally started to disperse and she could think straight again, she realised that things went wrong no matter how carefully you prepared against them, and she loosened her grip on the girls and let them take their own tentative steps into the world. But she was always there to catch them should they fall.
June, her first born; embracing the world full throttle from the moment she emerged into it and never looking back. Adopter of waifs and strays, lover of chocolate and the Winter season. June displayed a strength beyond her years when her father died, comforting Pat instead of the other way around. Pat was so happy that June had found the love of her life and that she was starting this journey with him. She was looking forward to grandchildren of course; the next generation to breathe life into the family.
And Ivy. Her little Ivy. So different to her sister; timid with the world when she was a baby. Never cried, just observed everything from underneath her eyelashes, content to let her sister take the lead. She had come into her own in recent years. Pat had tried to encourage her to go onto further study after finishing school but Ivy was content to work in the shop. It was undemanding; let her fade into the fabric of life without any undue expectations. Pat knew the time would come when Ivy would make her mark on this world, but in the meantime she was happy to have her by her side. Watching her fall in love for the first time had been such a magical experience. Ivy had blossomed overnight, and already she was gaining in the sort of confidence achieved only when you’ve learnt what it is to be loved.
She stretched. Life was good. There was absolutely nothing she would change about her life right now. The girls were happy, and that was all she could ever hope for. She decided she would use this trip to tell them about the man she had just started seeing. His name was Dave and he had come into the shop last Mothers Day to buy flowers for his mother. Ivy had been at lunch so Pat served him and they’d got to chatting. It took her awhile to realise he was flirting with her, as she was so out of practise. Since her husband had died she’d dedicated her life to the girls. Love, she’d convinced herself, hurt. If you didn’t open yourself up to it then it couldn’t let you down. But maybe it was seeing June and Craig so happy, or maybe it was just cosmically the right time, who knows, but she’d found herself flirting back, a little rusty at first but it wasn’t long before it all came back to her. They’d been out a few times since then, and lately she’d even spent the odd night with him, sneaking back home before dawn, shoes in hand and dodging creaky floorboards like some errant teenager.
He was a nice man, caring and gentle and he made her laugh, which at her age she considered more of a necessity than making her knees tremble, although he did that too.
The sun and the heat started to make her feel a little dizzy, so she had a drink of water and then got up and joined her girls in the ocean.
This is the life, she thought again.
Chapter eleven
June turned the shower nozzle off and stepped out of the shower. The heat immediately embraced her again and she quickly deodorised under her armpits before sweat had time to gather.
Wiping the steam off the mirror she smiled at herself, thinking modestly that she was looking beautiful, and she knew that it was because of more than just the light suntan she had accumulated in the last two days. It was happiness, pure and simple, radiating from every pore. Not long now and she would be a bride and then a wife and, fingers crossed, a mother not too long thereafter.
The phone rang in her room and she walked quickly around the bed to pick up the receiver, knowing who it would be as he had promised to call the same time every day.
“Why hello there sexy,” she purred down the line.
“I hope you’re talking to me,” Craig said.
“Well duh, who else?”
“Just making sure you haven’t got some Australian surfer hunk in your room,” he joked.
She laughed and sat down on the bed, facing towards the open ranch slider and the amazing view it offered.
“A couple have tried,” she teased, “but I turned them down politely of course.”
“Well I suppose I can’t blame them for trying can I? How’s everything going?”
“Oh baby it’s wonderful! This place is so beautiful, and the people are just so lovely. We should honeymoon here. I want to share it with you.”
“You think we can afford a honeymoon after this?”
She turned serious for a moment, “I don’t care if we honeymoon in a tent in the backyard, I just can’t wait to be alone with you again.”
“Me too.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you more.”
“I miss you morest mostest.”
“Those aren’t even real words.”
“I still win.”
“Mmm, I’ll give you your prize when you get home.”
“Oh I can’t wait.”
There was a knock at her door and she called out “come in.” Ivy entered and seeing June was on the phone simply smiled and wandered out onto the balcony to let June finish her phone call.
“Who’s that?” Craig asked.
“Ivy.”
“Say hi from me.”
“Craig says hi,” June called out to Ivy, who gave a smile and a wave back.
“She says hi back,” June told him.
“Well I suppose I better let you girls get on with your evening. What’s the plan?”
“Dinner, then we’re going to go to some bars, indulge in some drinking and dancing.”
“Sounds like trouble.”
“Yep, watch out Bali.”
He laughed. “Have fun beautiful, and be careful.”
“Always.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Chapter twelve
The music was loud and the place was heaving with holidaymakers; dancing, drinking laughing and just generally having a good time.
Ivy had been to bars before, she wasn’t a complete hermit, but nothing like this. Here, everywhere she looked the space was filled with people, and it took awhile before a table big enough to seat them all became available. Two of June’s other bridesmaids spied it being vacated while on their way back from the toilets and one of them, Deborah, nobly defended it from others who tried to claim it while the other, Ann, found the rest of them and led them back to the table. Ivy was grateful for somewhere to sit and survey her surrounds. The music was so loud it was almost impossible to hold any real conversation beyond, “Want to dance?” which her sister, squirming in her seat, asked approximately every three minutes when each new song started.
“Ooh I LOVE this song!” one of the girls would inevitably squeal and they would all jump to their feet and head for the dance floor, leaving Ivy and Pat to keep possession of the table.
“Why don’t you go and dance with them” Pat said to her, “Let your hair down a little and have some fun with your sister. I don’t mind looking after the table.”
“Maybe later” Ivy told her. The girls had been buying rounds of cocktails since they arrived and she’d lost count of which number they were on. The second or third? She wasn’t a big drinker but didn’t want to be a downer so she kept up, and the cocktails plus the glass of wine she’d had with dinner were making her sleepy and longing for her bed. She yawned and tried to cover it but was too
slow. Her mother laughed.
“Oh Ivy,” she said, “it’s a sad state of affairs when your mother can outlast you.”
“I know. Don’t tell June I’m flaking or she’ll make me dance.”
“That might be a good idea, it could help you wake up.”
“Mum, you know I can’t dance. Do you really want me to embarrass myself and you by association?”
“My darling girl I think you’re a wonderful dancer, and I would defend you to anyone who dared say otherwise.”
Ivy smiled and reached a hand across the table to take her mothers. She leaned her head in close so that they could hear each other speak over the thumping music.
“I know you would mum, and I love you for it.”
“I love you too. You know, this trip is the first time I’ve felt like I have two adults for daughters. You girls have always been my babies. Since being here, I don’t know what it is, but I’ve seen you both in a new light. I’m so proud. You’ve become such beautiful women.”
“All thanks to you.”
Pat wiped her eyes quickly before the tears that had welled up could spill over.
“No, I can’t take all the credit,” she said. “Your grandparents really stepped up after your father died. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
“I don’t agree. I know you could have, but it was nice to have them there.”
They were quiet for a minute, both thinking of the same man. One they both loved, but whom only one could remember. Then June and the others came back to the table giggling and the moment was broken.
“Phew,” June said, “is it just me or is it hot in here?” and she fanned her hand in front of her face in an effort to cool off. “I need another drink, and fast,” she added, and Pat shook off her thoughts and got to her feet.
“My round I think,” she said, and Ivy got up to help her but Georgia grabbed her hand and pulled.
When Stars Collide Page 5