Just Say Yes (Escape to New Zealand Book 10)

by Rosalind James

  “Hear it? Or tell it?”

  Josie laughed. “You know me. So have I got it wrong? I saw the way he kissed you after that match. Half of Auckland saw that. That was a statement, eh. So—yeh. He’s got all this family around all the time, has spent all these years being responsible, being helpful, being a good bugger, when underneath, he’s ...”

  “Batman,” Chloe said, unable to help a smile. “That’s what Zavy says.”

  “Perfect. Batman. Secret identity. More than what he seems, at least he wants to think so.”

  “He doesn’t just think so.” Chloe was flaring up despite herself. “He is so.”

  Josie was smiling, looking smug. “Yeh. And he wants that. Wants to be special. Wants to be a woman’s everything. But it’s only been a month, so you’re probably wrong about the Batman bit, eh. Deluded. He probably isn’t all that.” When Chloe didn’t answer, Josie smiled more and said, “So here he is, turfing you out, making your life harder, when the only thing he wants to do is make it easier. He’s a man. He sees you have a problem? He doesn’t say, ‘Oh, bugger, that’s awful, I’m so sorry.’ He says, ‘How do I fix this?’ And he answers, too. ‘Easy-peasy. They move in with me. I’ve got my woman in my bed every night, and she doesn’t have to worry about a rise in her rent or who’s looking after Zavy. She’s taken care of, and I’m happy.’ But you wouldn’t go for his perfectly logical plan.”

  “No. Because it was mad. It’s too risky, and you know it.”

  Amelia and Charlie came into the kitchen, Charlie’s hair still sticking up all over his head, and Josie said, “There you are, my darlings. About time. We’ve got about fifteen minutes to eat this brekkie and go. Got to get Chloe into her brand-new apartment. Exciting times.”

  Did Chloe get a chance to digest all that? She did not. Within an hour, she was standing next to Josie again, the two of them maneuvering the back end of her couch around the tiny landing while Connor, on the downhill end, grunted with effort and tried to pretend he hadn’t. She and Josie were both ridiculously strong, but there was no way they’d have been allowed to be on that end. She could all but read the thought-balloon over Connor’s head, too. Why me? Why ever me? Why couldn’t we have waited for Kevin?

  She said as much when they’d slid the couch into the back of the rental truck at last, and Connor wiped his forehead on his T-shirt sleeve, grinned ruefully at her from his good-natured, freckled face, and said, “No hope, not with Brenna working it all out with Josie like that. I know marching orders when I hear them. Pity Kevin was asleep halfway across the world. As soon as he woke up and saw the plan, he was texting me, Wait for me, exactly like you’d think. I’d have been between a rock and a hard place if we hadn’t already told the landlord we were moving, and the deed was done. I wouldn’t say Kevin’s best pleased with me even now, though.”

  Or with Chloe, either. On the drive over from Josie’s, she’d texted Kevin, Good game. Sorry you lost. Your family’s helping me shift house this morning. And hadn’t had any reply. Still stroppy, probably. Of course, he had been in the sheds, doing ... whatever rugby players did after a match. Probably not too different from dancers after a performance. Changing, talking, letting the adrenaline settle. Not writing screeds to their unsatisfactory maybe-partners.

  Holly and Noelle were there, though, carrying the dining table with them, and Chloe stepped out of the way to let them load it, saying, “Thanks, girls. Cheers for giving me your Sunday morning.”

  Noelle said, “No worries,” and Holly didn’t say anything. She was made up more heavily than usual today, although she was wearing old jeans and a jumper. Not happy about helping, maybe. Chloe could’ve told her she was excused, but Brenna was upstairs, directing the action along with Josie, and Chloe had a feeling Holly’s attendance wasn’t optional.

  She set it aside and kept loading the truck, and then Josie’s wooden trailer. Stripping her beautiful little apartment to the bones until it stood empty and bare, all hardwood flooring, cream-colored walls, and endless multi-paned windows painted glossy white.

  Good bones, that was what this place had. Good bones, and grace. And it wasn’t hers anymore. Brenna was in the bathroom, already beginning to scrub it down, to wash Chloe and Zavy away, to make it hers.

  The only home Chloe had known since Zavy was two weeks old, the place where she’d truly become a mother. Brenna was cleaning the bath where Chloe’s newborn son had lain in his yellow infant tub, cushioned and secure on his foam insert, while she’d washed him so carefully with that baby facecloth, still half-afraid he’d break. Loving him so much that there were no words to describe it, even if there’d been anybody there to hear them. And at the same time, so overwhelmed and terrified by the responsibility of him, so completely alone in it, that she’d wanted to cry.

  The bath where six-month-old Zavy had sat in his doughnut, sucking on a rubber duck, while she’d made the whale jump in the water and he’d given that baby chuckle that made you laugh even as it squeezed your heart. The place where, only a week ago, she’d held him close in the shower and sung and rocked away his fear. Where she’d seen Kevin watching, had smiled at him, and had seen so much warmth in his eyes, as if he somehow understood it all. The joy and the contentment and the terror of being a mother, the crushing responsibility and the soul-deep love. Deeper than self-preservation, and so much deeper than ambition.

  Except that he didn’t understand after all, as it turned out.

  She had to go. The truck had already departed with Connor driving and his sisters crammed into the rest of the passenger compartment. Josie had gone, too, carrying the keys to the ugly yellow-brick house, with Charlie and Amelia riding along, her willing helpers.

  And still Chloe stood, her fingers clutching the windowsill, looking out at the sky, the patches of blue, the scudding clouds, and the water. White-flecked today, with that wind still blowing. She shoved the window open a few centimeters, latching it carefully so it wouldn’t bang, then stood and let the cold breeze wash over her, smelling the salt on the air, hearing the dull hiss that could always and only be the sea. Her sea. The Pacific Ocean, the Hauraki Gulf, Waitemata Harbour, and, finally, Takapuna Beach, where all that endless sea finally touched the land.

  The wind of change. Not always a blessing, but impossible to stop. You couldn’t turn the wind. You could only surrender to it. And the sea, changing the world as well, but so slowly and subtly, you couldn’t see it. The waves rolling in and out again, the tide shifting relentlessly into eternity. The water grinding boulders into pebbles, and pebbles into sand.

  When you were caught in a rip, captured by the current, you didn’t win by fighting. You didn’t swim against it, but you didn’t let it carry you out to sea, either. Both of those were death. Instead, you swam to the side, taking it at an angle, until you were out of that rip. And then, when the water was calm again, when the power was with you again ... you swam to safety. You swam home.

  Twenty minutes later, Chloe pulled up outside the yellow brick fourplex in Northcote. It didn’t look any prettier than it had when she’d first seen it. She didn’t think the architect had come first in his class.

  Nonetheless, it had been her choice. Time to pull up her socks and start swimming sideways, out of the rip and back into a sea she could master. Which was a mixed metaphor, but she wasn’t good at metaphors. She gave it up, popped the latch of the boot, hauled out a box labeled “First Day Stuff,” and joined the parade heading up her new footpath.

  She said hello to Josie, set the box in her bedroom, and followed the sound of raised female voices into the kitchen.

  Something was happening. Something not good.

  “She isn’t going to want it there!” That was Noelle, crouching in front of a carton of pots and pans, exactly like Chloe on that other moving day. “You always unload the dishwasher to the right. It’s natural.”

  “Except she’d bump straight into the dishwasher,” Holly argued. “She wouldn’t even be able to reach the right-hand sid
e. That’s just stupid.” Her color was up, and she was shoving plates into the cupboard to the left of the sink as if there’d be a trophy for speed.

  Noelle saw Chloe and demanded, “Tell her. Tell her that above the dishwasher is better! She won’t listen to me.”

  “Because you aren’t the only person who knows anything,” Holly said. “Just because you’re in Biotech. So what? That doesn’t make you smarter about everything!”

  “What?” Noelle said. “This isn’t about me being smarter. It’s about me being right. About the cupboard.”

  “About bloody everything,” Holly said. “So you think.”

  Chloe took another step forward and did her best ballet-mistress glare. “Stop.”

  It wasn’t loud, but it did the business. Both girls subsided, although they looked mutinous. Chloe said, “I appreciate your help. But I don’t understand.”

  They both started talking at once, and Chloe put her hand up and held it there until the talking stopped. “This isn’t about the cupboard,” she said. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Holly’s been stroppy all day, is what,” Noelle burst out. “Snapping about everything. I can’t do anything right, and I’m tired of it.”

  “Then why don’t you go unpack something else?” Holly flung back at her. “Quit hanging about, if I’m so terrible. I know you don’t like me. That’s not news!”

  “Me?” Noelle gasped. “I’m not the one who doesn’t like somebody! I’m not the one sighing and muttering all over the shop. I’m just trying to help Chloe!”

  “Sit down,” Chloe said. “Both of you. Right now.”

  “Where?” Noelle asked. “There’s no place to sit.”

  Chloe sank onto the floor and crossed her legs. “Here. Right now.” She gestured at both of them, graceful and imperious as the Sugar Plum Fairy. She held their gazes, one after another, until they both sank down with her.

  “Now,” she said. “First off, we’re going to close our eyes and breathe together.” Maybe this would work and maybe it wouldn’t, but it was all she could think of. “Palm below your tummy button. Right now. Breathe all the way to that hand. I want you to feel the air getting down there, pushing into your body, filling every centimeter, every rib expanding to hold it. And now breathe it all out. Slowly. Get the air all the way up from your hand. Slo-o-o-wly. And ... inhale again. Inhale all the cool blue air, the fresh air. All the way down. And ... slowly ... out. All the red air, all the anger.”

  She led them through two more rounds, then said, “Open your eyes and look at your sister. Look at her face.”

  They did that, and their shoulders were lower, their ribcages more open. It had worked. It had helped, at least. Breath was life. Breath was the foundation and the resting place.

  “See who that is?” Chloe asked. “That’s your sister. That’s your twin. That’s the person who knows you best. Loving her is almost like loving yourself, because she’s in you and you’re in her. Your eyes are open, so open your heart, too. Tell your sister what’s wrong. Let her see your heart.”

  Either this would help, or it would be a bust-up for the books. Either way, it had to be better to get it into the open. This had to stop. It wasn’t good for the girls, and it wasn’t good for Kevin.

  Something was happening, anyway. Holly’s overly-made-up eyes were reddening even as Chloe watched, her nose getting blotchy. A heaving, gasping breath, and a sob ripped from her chest, ugly and ragged. And Noelle’s face twisted, her arms came out, and she was holding her sister, as if she couldn’t help it.

  The two of them, almost mirror images and separated by too much, on their knees, swaying together, wrapped around each other the way they must have been in the womb. Holly cried, and cried, and cried some more. Her shoulders shook, Noelle patted her back, and Chloe got up, grabbed the box cutter, and set about finding paper towels, one box at a time.

  Everything was harder when you moved house. Even crying.

  By the time she came back with the roll, Holly was sitting back, gasping, her hand wiping under her nose like the little girl she was and wasn’t. Chloe gave her the paper towels, Holly cleaned herself up, and when her face was wiped clean of makeup and was a mess of swollen nose and eyes and splotchy red cheeks, Noelle finally asked, “What happened, Holl? What’s wrong?”

  Holly shrugged disconsolately, looked at the floor, and said, “Broke up. With Tom. Last ... night.” Her chin quivered again.

  “Oh,” Noelle said, and it was a sigh. “Sorry.”

  “He broke up with me, actually,” Holly said. “And I just feel ... I felt like I’m ... failing. At him, at Uni, at ... You’re adulting so much better, like you know how, and it’s so ... hard.” The tears were pooling again, and she wiped them away and sniffed.

  “Nah,” Noelle said. “I don’t know how. I’m guessing.”

  “It’s harder to keep up than I thought,” Holly said. “Uni, I mean. Lectures.”

  “Yeh,” Noelle said. “It is. But we’ve just started, eh.”

  Silence for a long moment, then Holly said, “Chloe thought maybe I could ... that I could take ballet as well. Something we could do together, maybe. But I thought you wouldn’t ... want me to.”

  “I wish you would’ve,” Noelle said. “I wish you would. The first day? I was so scared. If Kevin hadn’t taken me, I’m not sure I’d have had the courage. And I remembered how we started Year One together, how scared I was, but you weren’t. We held hands, walking. Do you remember that?”

  “No,” Holly said, and smiled. It was wobbly, but it looked genuine. “You always remember better.”

  Silence for a minute, and then Chloe stood, shook out her legs, and said, “Right. I’m going to leave you two to unpack the kitchen. And so you know—just do your best. If I really hate it, I’ll re-do it later. For now, I’m just rapt to get everything out of boxes and into a cupboard. Meanwhile, I’m going to see what Josie’s doing in my bedroom. And if anybody ever had her own ideas, it’s Josie. She’s a treasure, and she’s a menace, eh. Aggravating as. A bit like a sister.”

  She spent the rest of the day with her Big Girl Panties on. Or wearing her Mum Shoes. Or both. Working alongside Josie and Connor to arrange the furniture in her tiny lounge, her uninspiring bedroom with its view of a concrete wall, Zavy’s even smaller bedroom. Seeing Charlie and Amelia tackling Zavy’s room with the utmost seriousness, making it cheerful for him, tucking his clothes into his drawers.

  Eventually, she thanked Connor with all the sincerity she possessed and accepted his brotherly kiss on the cheek, his grin, his cheerful wave goodbye as he left for home—his new home—on his way to collect Brenna and make yet another move. Into their beautiful apartment.

  After that, it was distributing the enormous number of possessions, more than she’d realized she could possibly own, back into drawers, onto shelves, into closets. Making beds, and, finally, loading the girls back into her car, driving back to Takapuna, and shouting everybody lunch at the kebab place.

  Smiling. Cheerful. Normal. Grateful.

  And then going to pick up Zavy, taking him back to the house. Her house. Their house. Their new house.

  “Is my bed there?” he asked on the way.

  “Yes, love. Your bed’s in your room, and all your things, same as before.”

  “Is Walter there?”

  “No, Walter’s with Kevin, remember? Remember the photo he sent you?” Kevin, who hadn’t reached out to her, but had sent a photo for Zavy, of Walter being held up by a grinning fan in the nearly empty stands.

  Captain’s Run, Kevin had written. Walter watched the whole thing with a new mate.

  “Yeh,” Zavy said. “But is Rainbow Dash there?”

  “Let’s go home and see, shall we?” Chloe said. And when they did, Zavy ran up the walk and in the door as if it were a game, or an adventure, and then ran from room to room, exclaiming, shouting. Like moving was magic. And when he found his room, he jumped onto his bed, hugged Rainbow Dash tight, and said, “Mummy,
the new mopartment has My Little Pony!”

  “Auntie Josie hung that just for you.” Chloe sat on the bed beside him, putting an arm around him and admiring the wall that was now decorated with two posters. Thomas, under a banner reading “No. 1 Engine,” smiling and proud and blue. And ... yes. Another poster featuring “Friendship is Magic” written in swirly letters, and covered by a whole herd of frolicking, big-eyed winged ponies.

  “Rainbow Dash is at the very, very top,” Zavy said. “’Cause she is a very good flier.”

  Chloe kissed his head and snuggled him close for a minute. With nothing to say, because she’d used all her words today, all her energy and all her faith.

  “I like the mopartment,” Zavy said. “’Cause it’s got all my best things in it.”

  That’s about as secure as a boy can get, Chloe heard Kevin say. He’s a good wee man.

  “I like it too,” she told her son. “Because it’s got my best thing in it as well. It’s got you.”

  And if, that night, when the lights were finally turned out, when Zavy was asleep? If she turned over in bed, buried her face in the pillow, and let the tears come at last? If she cried until she was empty, until she was drained, because she’d lost her beautiful apartment, she’d lost her sea, and she was alone again and starting over? If she lay there afterwards, the occasional sob still shaking her, and wondered dully if she’d ever do it right, if the broken places would ever knit so her inside felt as smooth as her outside looked? If she wondered whether her life would ever be enough if she couldn’t be a dancer anymore, and she didn’t have a man to love, and she never had anybody to hold who’d always be hers?

  At least she’d managed to wait until she was alone. At least nobody else had to know.

  Kevin stared out of the jet’s window, even though there was nothing to see but a mass of cloud. His internal clock was fried, and it was going to get more so. The day after their loss, the Blues had flown from Johannesburg to Perth, in Western Australia. They’d trained all week, had played there last night, and now, they were flying home. And if it felt like “at last” ... well, it always did feel that way after a road trip. Just more so this time.