Just Say Yes (Escape to New Zealand Book 10)

by Rosalind James

  “She wouldn’t want me to.” Holly was working on the garlic. “She’d worry I’d be better than her, like I was when we were at school. Netball, I mean. Hockey. Noelle’s only good at school things. You know, academics.”

  Chloe wanted to snap at that, so she waited a minute before she answered. “Could be, though you could be surprised, too. I wasn’t very good at netball and hockey myself. Not aggressive enough. Not interested in competing that way. And I was very good at ballet. But what would it matter? Who do you imagine would be measuring? Not like either of you is going to have a professional ballet career, so if you’re doing it as a competition, it’s pretty pointless. Of course, you’d have some catching up to do, and that could feel awkward, as Noelle’s worked so hard and has made such strides. But you’d have a coach in me, eh, and I’m not too bad.”

  Holly looked truly surprised, as if she’d never imagined she wouldn’t be a better dancer than Noelle from the moment she stepped into the studio, and Chloe had to smile inside. Life had a way of smacking your assumptions around, and very disconcerting it could be. They worked in silence for a while, until Holly, who was slicing the chicken breast thin and dropping the pieces into the marinade, said, “I guess people change. I mean, it’s university. Things are bound to be different, I guess.”

  Chloe stopped trimming broccoli and considered that. “I never went to Uni, but I imagine that’s true, whatever it is you do when you leave school. The only friend from those days I kept was Josie. And maybe that’s because she was acting. If she’d been at Uni herself, doing something so different from me, who knows? Otherwise, everybody I knew was a dancer, and everything I talked about was dance, with the competition barely under the surface, which can get pretty rough. Josie’s the closest I have to a sister, but she’s good at it. Supportive, you could say. She understands, because acting’s exactly the same. And I never had to be competitive with her, not really. We’re too different, maybe. Thank goodness. She loves me as I am, all the same.”

  Laying it on thick, maybe, but Holly needed to hear it in a way she’d be able to listen to, and a story was always better than a lecture for that. Chloe knew all about hypercompetitive girls and barely concealed ambition. You needed at least one friend who didn’t measure herself against you. Somebody you could show your weak parts to, somebody to whom you could confess your doubts and fears, and know she wouldn’t use them against you.

  A sister, for example. Or a twin.

  Or a lover who could be a partner and a friend, maybe. If you were very lucky. That was meant to be the idea, wasn’t it?

  Holly changed the subject a bit, which was probably understandable. “Were you going out with Zavy’s dad then? When you started?”

  “Oh, no. That was years later.”

  “You went out with lots of men, though, I guess. Being glamorous like you were, I mean.”

  Chloe smiled and went back to chopping broccoli. “Not so glamorous, and not much of anybody. No time for it. Oh, there’d be the randos in the bar when you’d go out with your friends on Saturday night, blokes who thought ballet was sexy and wanted to buy you too many drinks, but who wants them?”

  Holly leaned back against the kitchen bench, and Chloe said, “Slice that onion, will you?”

  “Huh,” Holly said after another minute. “I’d have thought—men waiting outside the stage door and all that. I know Kevin—”

  “What?” Chloe said.

  “Well, you know.” Holly shrugged. “There are girls all the time, wherever the team goes. Not that Kevin talks about that. But Connor and Sean—he’s between Connor and me, in Aussie now—they always wanted to go along to the parties and that, because they could always pull. Not as much as Kevin, of course, because the girls all wanted the fellas on the team most, but still.”

  “They told you that?” Something icy was happening at the back of Chloe’s neck.

  “Nah. I’d hear them talking, that’s all. Joking, you know. And Kevin’s probably not that way anymore,” Holly hastened to add. “Sorry. That was ages ago. I didn’t mean— Just that I guess that’s boys. Men. The way they are.”

  “Not all men,” Chloe managed to say. “They grow out of it, maybe. And you don’t have to put up with it, either. You can decide you’re worth more than that. If he’s gone off you or doesn’t treat you right, you don’t have to hang about.”

  Holly had been heating oil in the pan, and now, she dumped in the chicken, and things got noisy and busy, and that was the end of that. She’d given Holly something to think about, maybe. And maybe got something to think about herself.

  Chloe’s phone rang again during dinner, which was the first time she remembered the other call, the one she’d ignored. She checked as the phone continued to ring. An unfamiliar number, a local one.

  Maybe, she suddenly realized, it was about the apartment in Takapuna. Maybe Zavy hadn’t put the agent off after all. She got a surge of ... something ... at the thought. Excitement, maybe, or anticipation, or it could have been dread. She said “Sorry” to the girls and picked up.

  “Hi,” a woman’s voice said. “Vanessa Cho here, about the apartment in Northcote you applied for a few weeks ago, 523 Terrace Drive. The tenant hasn’t worked out, and you were next on the owner’s list. Do you want it?”

  “Ah ...” Chloe said while she thought frantically. Northcote, 523 Terrace? That had been the ugly yellow brick house with the metal window frames, surely. The place with no charm. The one close to the motorway.

  She wanted to say, “No, thank you.” She didn’t want to say, “Yes.” What she actually said was, “I’m considering another place as well. Could I decide and ring you back? Tomorrow morning, maybe?”

  “I can give you until nine in the morning,” Vanessa said. “After that, I’ll move on to the next on the list. The owner wants to get it let this weekend, as it’s been so long already.”

  “Thank you.” Chloe rang off, set the phone down, and picked up her fork again, then set that down.

  “What?” Holly asked. “Something exciting?”

  “No. Maybe. One of the places I looked at. Not the best, but not the worst. Apartments, I mean.”

  “Oh.” Holly looked at Noelle, and something passed between the two of them. A twin look, with no distance and no division.

  “What?” Chloe asked.

  “Nothing,” Noelle said. “Just ... that’s awesome. Can you move straight away, then?”

  Chloe put down the fork she’d just picked up again. “Probably. Why?”

  “No reason,” Holly said. “But that’s good, right? I could help you move. I mean, we could. Noelle and me. Kevin will probably want you to wait for him to come back, too, because he’s always like that, like he’s a dad or whatever, but that’s only another week.”

  That was a fair amount of babbling. “Holly,” Chloe said, fixing her with an I-mean-business gaze, “is there a reason I should take this apartment rather than waiting?”

  Holly opened her mouth and shut it again, and it was Noelle who answered. “Just that Connor and Brenna will be glad it’s working out, that’s all.”

  Chloe’s gaze swiveled to her. “Because? Specifically?”

  Another of those lightning looks between the twins, then Holly said, “We should tell her. We should.”

  “Kevin will kill us,” Noelle said unhappily. “You know he will. We shouldn’t have said.”

  “You are telling me,” Chloe said. “You already started. Now tell me the rest.”

  “It’s just that ...” Holly said. “They got a notice. Connor and Brenna.”

  “To end their tenancy, you mean,” Chloe said. Her stomach felt hollowed out, despite the dinner she’d just eaten. “When?”

  “When what?” Holly was looking anywhere but at Chloe.

  “You know what. When did they get the notice, and when do they have to be out?”

  “It’s just that the landlord wants to move his daughter in,” Holly said. “At least that’s what he says. Probabl
y just wants to raise the rent.” Chloe stared her down, and Holly finally added, “A couple weeks ago, I guess? Three? We heard about it last week, when they were here. And they still have a couple more weeks, I think. It has to be six weeks’ notice in all, right? So you see ...”

  “I see that I need to move,” Chloe said. “Straight away.”

  Chloe looked down at her plate, then at Zavy, who was running his cement mixer along the table. Fortunately, Kevin’s furniture wasn’t fragile. “All finished, darling?” she asked him, ignoring the numbness that was her brain focusing on inessentials in order to shut the unwelcome thoughts down. “Time for bed.”

  “Yes,” Zavy said. “But I want to watch cartoons, please, because the TV is very big. I want to watch with Holly and Noelle.”

  Chloe breathed in, and she breathed out. She wanted to take Zavy and get out of here, but she needed to do something else, too. Now, while she’d have the chance. Bloody time zones.

  “You can leave him for a bit, if you like,” Noelle offered. She looked miserable, and so did Holly. “If you need to, uh ... you could leave him.”

  Chloe needed to. She stood up, even though she couldn’t feel her feet, and said, “I’ll leave the washing-up to you, then, Holly. Be back in a few minutes. Thank you.”

  It was Zavy’s bedtime, but this couldn’t wait. It should be able to wait. She should wait until the numbness had passed, until she’d processed the information and made a plan, like she always did.

  She was disciplined. She was controlled.

  Except that right now, those things felt impossible.

  The rain had eased off when she went to stand outside on the covered veranda, hugging herself with one arm against the cold. The wind was still blowing, though, rattling the leaves of the palms on the other side of the garden wall, making a hollow sound like dried bones.

  She wanted to run, to dance the agitation out, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even walk somewhere, because her phone would get wet. And she couldn’t, she couldn’t call from upstairs. She couldn’t bear to see her beautiful apartment right now. An apartment she hadn’t even begun to pack up.

  Why hadn’t she done that? She hadn’t brought home boxes, the way you did. Hadn’t sorted her belongings and begun tossing the things that weren’t worth moving, the plastic takeaway containers and the flimsy shopping bags and the underthings that weren’t really good enough anymore, but that you hadn’t got around to chucking.

  Of course she’d known she had to leave. Of course she’d known it was real. Except that obviously she hadn’t, or she would have prepared better, and she wouldn’t be feeling so sick right now.

  Or maybe that wasn’t just about moving.

  Finally, she did what she’d known all along she had to do. She called Kevin.

  Two rings, and she heard, “Hey, baby. I’m not quite up yet. Due at breakfast in half an hour. Can I ring you back in an hour or so?”

  “No need.” She was walking in a circle, needing to move at least this much. “I’ll be quick. I’ve found a place to live, and Zavy and I are moving. We’ll be gone by the time you’re home. Please tell Connor and Brenna they don’t have to worry anymore.”

  “What? I mean, that’s brilliant you’ve found somewhere, if it’s a good place. But I told you. There’s no rush. Wait for me, at least. What, you’re planning to carry your couch downstairs yourself? Who’s going to help you with that, Josie? No. Hugh will say no, and I say no. Wait for us.”

  “Except that you don’t get to say no. Except that there is a rush. There’s all kinds of rush. When were you planning to tell me that they have to move? And soon?”

  A long silence, and then Kevin said, “The girls.”

  “Well, yeh. The girls. Why would you keep that from me?”

  “Why do you think?” He didn’t sound like his usual calm self, not a bit. But then, she probably didn’t sound like her usual calm self, either.

  She said, “I think that you thought, if only you had a couple more weeks, if only I missed you enough while you were gone, you could talk me round, especially if I couldn’t find another place, or I let any I did find go by, because you’d told me there was no rush. But why wouldn’t you want me to move? What would you have imagined would happen? Where’s your trust? Where’s your faith in me?”

  A quick exhalation, and he said, “Is it so wrong that I didn’t want you to worry, that I hoped it would work out, that you’d want to move in? I wanted to make your life easier, yeh. I also wanted to keep you with me, and Zavy, too. Guilty again. And what do you mean, where’s my trust? I’m not the one holding back here. I’m not the one who doesn’t believe. In anything.”

  “I am not holding back. I’m being realistic. I’m being careful. I need to be. You know that, and you still want to push me?”

  There wasn’t one bit of control left in his voice. “Careful. You can call it that. Or you can call it scared. You can call it avoiding risk, or you can call it avoiding life. I know which I call it.”

  It rocked her all the way back. “What are you talking about? I am not avoiding life. How can you even say that?”

  “You had a bad time with a man, so now you can’t trust a man, no matter what he does to show you how he feels. You’re so sure you and Zavy will be hurt. And what’s even worse—you give up the thing you love most. You thought you had to, once. Fair enough. You had a baby, and you didn’t have a husband. Zavy’s not a baby now, though, and you want to dance more than anything in the world. I checked for myself, you know. I checked whether people go back to ballet after injuries, after babies, and they do. If they’re good enough, if they want it enough, they do. So why haven’t you ever tried?”

  “It’s not ... I’m not ...” She couldn’t think how to go on. “Even if I could get back. Even if it were possible. I have a child. I have a business that I’ve built from nothing. I can’t jeopardize that. Any of it.”

  “Surely businesses can be sold. Children can be cared for. What do you want to do?”

  “Kevin. Come on.” She’d thought he saw. She’d thought he understood. Now he didn’t? “That business is our security. How could I give up everything I’ve worked for, everything that matters, and chase a dream, knowing that if I fail, there’s nothing there but a cliff to fall off? For Zavy to fall off?”

  “Because I don’t believe there’s nothing but a cliff. I think you’re just afraid to believe. And because it is your dream. I’ve read what people said about you, people who knew. And you want it so badly you can taste it. It’s all you’ve ever wanted. You told me so, and you didn’t have to, because I see it. All that gift, all that passion and drive—how can you waste it?”

  “I’m not wasting it. I’m teaching it. And it’s not for you to say.”

  “I know it isn’t, and I’m saying it anyway.” A pause, then. “I’m sorry, baby.” He sounded like Kevin again, and that was the most disconcerting thing of all. “I was thinking about it on the flight. Thinking some more, that is, because I’ve thought it before. And I have to say it. The teaching—that would be all good if it was what you wanted. But it isn’t. And you’re going to say I can’t know,” he went on over her exclamation. “And I’m going to tell you—of course I can. Of course I do. Nobody knows better how much commitment it takes, how much you have to want it, and how it isn’t a choice at all. Not if there’s any way in the world to keep doing it.”

  The hand holding the phone was shaking now. Confusion. Fear. Everything. “Leaving Zavy even more than I already do? How does that make him secure? How does it make me a good enough mother?”

  “Chloe. I’ve got his bear here on my nightstand. The one he gave me to take, because he thought I might need it. That’s about as secure as a boy could be. I know you’re worried about Rich, but Zavy? He’s a good wee man. You’ve done that for him. That’s all you. Maybe you need to care as much about what you need as you do about what he needs. Maybe you matter too.”

  She was shivering. The wind. The cold. And t
oo much emotion. More emotion than she could allow herself. “Dancing is selfish. Ballet asks too much.”

  “Maybe. So does rugby. It’s asking it of me right this minute. Sometimes, though ... you don’t choose what you do. It chooses you.”

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “Chloe. No.”

  “No. You have to go to ... to breakfast. You said so. You have to go with the team. Just like I have to do all the things I need to do.” She was babbling. “I have to go.”

  Kevin said, “Chloe. Wait. Chloe.”

  No answer. No sound. He swore softly and rang off. Bloody hell.

  His roomie, Will Tawera, who’d tactfully headed into the bathroom as soon as the explosions had begun, came out again, looked at him, and said, “One of those, eh.”

  “Yeh.” Kevin hesitated with his thumb over the button, then tossed the phone onto his unmade bed. He really did have to get ready, or he’d be late for breakfast. Poor form. Setting a bad example. All that. And late for a second time in as many weeks, which wasn’t on.

  “You know, cuz,” Will said, “you could look on the bright side. If it was bad ... well, couldn’t happen in a better place. Far from home, eh. Full of pretty girls, Jo-burg. Rugby supporters, too. Some of them may even like your uniform enough to take it off you tomorrow night. More than one way to drown your sorrows.”

  “Yeh, cheers,” Kevin said, taking himself into the bathroom. “That’s helpful. Except that I don’t want it. Haven’t seen you wanting it lately either, so I don’t know why you’d shove it in my face.”

  Will shrugged. “Used to work. Thought it might work for you. When it’s just—go all night and see you later, and know that she probably won’t even remember your name.”

  “I’ve done this job too long for that to sound as good as it used to, I guess,” Kevin said just before he shut the bathroom door. “I’m ready to hold out for something better. Besides, I like the way she says my name.”