Where There's a Will

by Virginia Hale

  How did I know she’d say that? Trust Beth to pick the cheapest thing on the menu. As she stood, Dylan rolled her eyes and pinched the menu from Beth’s fingers. “No, you bloody won’t,” she murmured.

  She rounded the salad bar and stepped into the kitchen. Mikey was packing the dishwasher, but her father was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where’s Dad?” she asked.

  “Yeah, hi to you, too,” Mikey said, grinning. “They’ve got a problem with one of the gas jets on the stove downstairs and he went down to give them a hand. You here sponging off your parents again?”

  “That’s the pot calling the kettle black, Hamburglar.”

  Mikey had worked for her parents at the club since he’d finished high school a few years before Dylan. She had distinct memories of eighteen-year-old Mikey pinching two three-kilo bags of frozen chicken nuggets from the freezer after he’d had a run-in with her dad over not packing the dishwasher the way her dad liked. It had been The Great Chicken Nugget Travesty of 2004, but her parents had kept Mikey on because he was their hardest worker. Yes, they’d been short two hundred chicken nuggets, but for all the years Mikey had worked for her parents, not a cent had ever gone missing.

  Over a decade later, Dylan still wasn’t ready to let it go. Each Christmas, she made sure to gift wrap Mikey a box of chicken nuggets, and each year when he took the present from her hands, the Santa-decorated paper soggy with its defrosting contents, her dad would keel over with laughter. It was nice for him to have someone around who he could rely on like a son. A son he didn’t have anymore.

  Mikey rolled his eyes. “So what do you want me to whip up for you, Madam?”

  When she’d swapped out Beth’s six-dollar soup request for the chicken schnitzel Beth had ordered the few times they’d been to the pub by the lake, she ventured behind the bistro bar and poured their drinks.

  She had to hand it to Beth—she did an excellent job of ignoring the elephant in the room as they ate, filling each silence with trivial chatter. Was that what she thought Dylan wanted? To pretend that Sunday night hadn’t changed everything between them? Dylan supposed her week-long withdrawal might have given that impression.

  It was saddening to think that even after everything—especially Dylan’s cruel comment—Beth was still trying desperately to hold onto their friendship. Beth had begun by behaving normally that afternoon and was waiting patiently for Dylan to broach the subject. They couldn’t go on like this for much longer. If Beth’s subtle struggle to eat was anything to go by, she seemed to know their time was up too. It has to be tonight, Dylan thought as she watched Beth slice into her barely touched schnitzel.

  “So when do you think you’ll do the next one?”

  Dylan blinked. “Sorry, I was thinking…the next what?”

  “Sleepover. I was saying that next time you do it, the weather will probably be warmer, thank god.”

  Dylan looked up. She watched Beth pick out onion from her side salad. “The way things are looking, there probably won’t be a next one.”

  Beth raised her gaze. Acknowledgement snapped the air between them like a Venus flytrap.

  Steeling herself, Dylan lowered her knife and fork and took a swig of her beer. When she returned the glass to the cardboard coaster, she folded her arms upon the table and looked down at her plate. “So…let’s talk.”

  Suddenly, Beth pushed her chair back and stood. She looked unusually pale. “I’m sorry,” she rasped, “I just need to visit the restroom.”

  She nodded, her eyes widening as Beth snatched up her bag—is she planning on doing a runner—and hurried off. Dylan watched Beth walk away. Her jumper was loose, but her jeans were far from it. Dylan swallowed at the memory of Beth in her arms, the heat of her skin, her frustrated kisses all over Dylan’s body. Beth’s hair fluttered as she practically ran and Dylan recalled the feel of it between her fingers. It was a few inches longer than it had been when she’d arrived all those months ago, and the length was flattering…

  “She’s beautiful.”

  Dylan turned her head to find her mother sinking down into Beth’s seat. “Yeah.” She reached forward for her beer. “She’s pretty.”

  “Very smiley, isn’t she?”

  “Mmm.”

  “I can see why you get on with her so well.”

  Too well.

  “What’s wrong, Dylan?”

  Dylan set down her beer. “Nothing.”

  “I’ve been looking over here all night and you look like you did when you told me you found Lisa’s hens’ night photos on Facebook.”

  Dylan scoffed. “This isn’t quite like that.”

  “Well what is it then, darl?”

  “She’s leaving, going back to Sydney.” Dylan looked past the tea and coffee machine to the restrooms. “Don’t say anything in front of her, okay?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she promised. “But why is she leaving?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll call you in the morning. But I can’t talk about it right now.”

  “I see.” Maggie said slowly. “Is that why we’ve barely spoken this week?” She paused. “Busy having a bit of a tiff?”

  She looked up. Her mother stared at her like she could see straight through her, as though she could read every fibre of her being. With heated cheeks, Dylan stood. “I think I’m going to get some fresh air.”

  Dylan balanced her schooner on the wooden railing and looked down at the emerald of the pristine bowling green. Behind her, the automatic doors of the bistro opened with a hiss. She didn’t have to turn to know it was Beth.

  An elbow pressed against her own. “It’s cold out here,” Beth said, wrapping her arms around herself. Dylan dared a quick glance at her as Beth rested her arms upon the railing. Her eyes were red rimmed. She’d been crying.

  Dylan took a sip of her beer and shifted away from the touch. “You want to sell.”

  A beat.

  “Yes,” Beth breathed. “I’m sorry, but…yes.”

  They were quiet. A rowdy bunch of men on the floor below argued drunkenly in jest. She let her eyes slip closed for a moment. She missed the tranquillity of home, the safety of isolation. That still peace she was about to lose.

  “I’m not going to stand in the way,” she said softly.

  Beth sighed heavily. “Thank you, Dylan.”

  She opened her eyes in time to watch Beth clutch at the base of her throat in what looked like relief. Dylan stared into her glass. “You think I would have fought you?” she asked. “I’m not unreasonable, Beth.” As she raised her gaze to look out across the green again, her breath danced on the cold air. “Besides, I couldn’t even if I wanted to…”

  Beth shifted closer. As she lowered her voice, Dylan stiffened. “Please don’t think for a minute that I don’t realise what it is that you’re losing. I feel god-awful asking this of you, Dylan. I truly do. I know it’s more than just a job. I know it’s your home.”

  Dylan swallowed over the sorrow rising in her throat. “Don’t lose sleep over it,” she managed.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Beth wetting her lips. “I wish there was some way for both of us to have what we want. If there was some other way…”

  “We both know I can’t afford to buy you out, so let’s not play what-if. It’s depressing.”

  Beth paused. “It doesn’t have to be…you know, we don’t have to sell right now. Brian won’t go anywhere.”

  “No point in dragging it out. It doesn’t sound like you’re going to change your mind. Might as well rip the Band-Aid off.”

  They were quiet, watching as the group below moved away. Then, “I suppose Brian will need a tour guide,” Beth said softly.

  Dylan ground her teeth. Just what I want—to work for somebody else in my own house. The comment was so infuriating that she refused to respond. That rush of anger returned, and suddenly, she felt as she had on Sunday night as she’d climbed the stairs to confront Beth.

  The s
ilence was deeply uncomfortable—Beth obviously knew she’d said the wrong thing. And as Beth always did when she became nervous, she chose to fill the silence with rambling. “I used to love the house,” Beth started. “I was so intrigued by it, so fascinated…”

  Dylan closed her eyes and tried to focus on steadying her breathing, the carefully trained in, out. Images flickered beneath her eyelids—Beth in her lap, Beth between her legs, Beth hot and slick against her belly, dragging against her thigh, pulsing against her tongue…

  “When I met Elma,” Beth continued, “She made it feel like home, and god, this sounds so morbid considering the history, but I just felt so at peace, like I was supposed to be there. The house has felt different this time around, and in all honesty, the only thing that’s made me feel comfortable there these past few weeks is you.” She paused. “You’re the only thing keeping me there, Dylan. But now things are so different and ever since we…argued, I think it’s best that I—”

  Dylan’s head snapped to face her. “Can you just shut the fuck up?”

  Beth’s eyes widened. She blinked, stunned.

  Dylan bit her lip as she watched Beth’s eyes glisten. “I’m sorry,” Dylan rushed. She drew her hands over her face and groaned. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “It’s fine,” Beth said, her voice devoid of emotion.

  “No,” she implored, “It’s not.”

  Their eyes locked. Dylan’s gut twisted. Why did she suddenly feel short of breath? This was it. It was over. She’d known it for a week, known it was over the moment Beth had collapsed next to her, her marked breasts heaving and her belly twitching with aftershocks. “I shouldn’t have touched you,” she rasped. “I shouldn’t have gone anywhere near you.”

  Beth reached out and threaded a strand of hair behind the curve of Dylan’s ear. “I wanted it,” she whispered. “Honey…you made me feel so good.”

  Dylan’s eyes fluttered closed. Against her better judgement, she leaned into the touch of Beth’s hand against her jaw. God. How was it that Beth could make her feel like this? Like they existed in some kind of half-world that was theirs and theirs alone? “So it wasn’t guilt sex?” she breathed against Beth’s wrist.

  “What do you think?” she whispered. Her fingers trailed down to her neck, and Dylan flushed at the memory of Beth’s hands around her neck. “Was that what it felt like?” Beth sighed prettily.

  She opened her eyes to find bright blue boring into her own. Beth’s throat bobbed as she swallowed harshly. “Come on,” Beth said, her voice gravelly. “Let’s go home. I want to finish this in private…”

  Dylan froze. In private? How could she sit alone in a car with Beth when she couldn’t even look at her without feeling like she was tearing from the inside out? Knowing Beth was slipping away only made it harder to resist her. She didn’t trust herself. Shaking her head, she reached for her glass. “I’m going to get Mum to drive me back.”

  “I’d like to drive you,” Beth insisted. Her hand was gentle on the cuff of Dylan’s jacket, her fingers light as they curled around her wrist. Dylan pulled back. Tears burned in the corner of her eyes. She scratched the back of her neck.

  “Dyl.”

  “I’m sorry, I just need to…”

  Beth didn’t try to stop her. The automatic doors parted, and her feet carried her to the restroom in the back corner of the bistro. She closed a cubicle door behind her, broke off a square of thinly plied toilet paper and dabbed the rough sheet at the corners of her eyes. God, she needed to get her shit together. Drawing a deep breath, she rested her head back against the cubicle wall, stared blankly at the meat raffle flyer on the back of the toilet door. I just need a minute, she told herself. Just a minute.

  When she dragged herself from the cubicle, she didn’t dare look at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. But as she washed her hands, she noticed the miniature tube of toothpaste, uncapped, abandoned between the second and third sinks. She looked over to the vanity dispenser on the wall and tried to ignore thoughts of Beth alone in the same bathroom minutes before, so anxious she’d made herself sick.

  Beth was standing by the seafood smorgasbord in the bistro, deep in conversation with Dylan’s mum and old Jane Hinkey from the pokies lounge downstairs. Dylan steeled herself as her mum looked up. Dylan forced a smile, but Maggie didn’t buy it—a flicker of knowingness crossed her expression. What’s wrong? Dylan shook her head subtly. Her mother knew better than to pursue it in front of Beth and Jane.

  When Jane finally drew breath long enough to acknowledge Dylan with a hug and kiss, Maggie got a word in. “Beth said you’re heading off now?” Dylan’s heart raced. Beth had her trapped. How could she reject Beth’s offer and ask her mother to drive her home with Jane standing there?

  “Ready?” Beth asked, and Dylan didn’t miss the way her hands moved to the belt of her coat, nervously drawing it firmer around her midsection.

  Dylan rested her temple against the car window and let the chill of the lightly vibrating glass soothe her. In the pitch black, Beth’s high beams were lulling Dylan to sleep like she was under a spell, the juddering of the unsealed road rocking her into exhaustion. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so tired, so weak. Dylan sat up straighter, turned down the radio and pointed ahead. “Come in a bit…”

  “It’s okay, I see it,” Beth murmured, manoeuvring the car around the dead kangaroo on the side of the road, the large body marked with a pink “X” to indicate it had been checked for a joey, and was ready for collection.

  “It must have taken ten years off of whoever hit him,” Beth said.

  “Her,” Dylan said. “It was a pink X.”

  “Oh.” She looked over at Dylan. “Is that what that means?”

  Dylan rested back against the headrest. “No. I’m fucking with you.”

  Silence enveloped them. Why do I feel drunk, Dylan wondered. She’d only had two beers. Three was usually when it was just starting to kick in. She felt like she was floating, her body light, warm…

  “I’m in debt,” Beth whispered. “More debt than I let on when I told you about my ex. We had savings and she gambled that away, too. I have a mortgage that I’m pretty sure I’ll be dead before I ever pay back, and my payments are overdue to the point that…look, you don’t even want to know. The week before I got here, I started living off credit. I have never had to touch credit in my entire life.”

  “See,” Dylan stressed crossly, “You should have accepted my rent money.”

  Beth scoffed. “Rent money?” She said it like the offer was laughable. “Rent money wouldn’t even make a dent.”

  Beth pulled into the driveway. A hundred metres from the turning circle, Dylan unclicked her seatbelt. “Calm down,” Beth insisted. In the dark, her free hand reached across the console and tapped the back of Dylan’s hand, but Dylan shrugged it off.

  “You know what your problem is?” Dylan snapped. “You’re too proud.”

  “You think this is what pride looks like? Begging you to sell so that I can heave myself up from rock bottom?” They drew to a stop beside the empty fountain. “Believe me, pride is the least of my concerns. I’m just trying to make you understand. I’m not doing this so that I can run off and live a glamorous lifestyle in the city. This money would change everything for me.”

  “You’re so full of shit, Beth. You’re the most generous, loving, incredible woman I have ever met. Really. I think you’re the salt of the fucking earth. But my god, you are so full of shit. You have money problems? Big fucking whoop. There are so many ways for you to fix this, so many ways around it. You may be in debt, but you have millions in assets in this place. You need to pay off your mortgage? Move in with me here to save rent money. We’ll section off one of the less important bedrooms for you. If you really wanted to keep the homestead, we could figure this out. Hell, I’m no financial adviser, I barely even finished high school, but I can think of half a dozen options straight off the top of my head. You want choices?” She ja
bbed her finger toward the doors of the homestead. “Simple. We go inside and we sit down at the kitchen table like the grown fucking women that we are and we figure this out.”

  Her eyes tracked Beth’s pained expression. Beth sat still. Like an uncontrolled reflex, her right knee suddenly jerked, brushing against the keys dangling from the ignition. Dylan swallowed. The fact that the engine was still running told her everything she needed to know. “You don’t want this, and we’ve both known it from day one,” she spat. “This isn’t enough for you.”

  As she stared ahead, Beth looked about ready to pass out. The windscreen had steamed up, clouding their view of the house as it basked in the glow of the floodlight.

  Dylan sank back into the passenger seat. “Let’s not make this complicated,” she husked. “I’m not going to be difficult. We’ll accept the offer from Brian, tell him probate’s almost granted. Nothing can happen until then. Once the title of the homestead’s in our names, we’ll get his offer in writing and have the contracts drawn up. But it needs to be left open to the public—as the museum that it’s always been. Elma would roll over in her grave if they cleared out the homestead and turned it into some kind of Hunter Valley wedding hotspot. That’s why she left it to us, because she trusted us to—”

  “Well now you’re just trying to make me feel bad.”

  Dylan swivelled in her seat. “I’m not making you anything, Beth. This is your decision. If you want us to sell, that’s on you. You’re the one who has to decide if you can live with yourself—not me.” She pulled at the door handle. “For Christ’s sake, unlock the door!”

  “I am,” Beth rasped. “Hold on, hold on! Stop pulling at it!”

  When the door released, Dylan shot out. “It’s done. Go back to Sydney. Don’t bother coming past tomorrow.” She slammed the door closed and started toward the house.

  She had almost reached the steps when she heard the heavy click of Beth’s door opening. “You can’t work all day by yourself!” she called out.

  Dylan spun at the bottom of the south stairs. “I can’t be around you! You want me to understand you, well you need to understand me! I can’t even look at you without feeling like I’m going fucking insane.” She thumped a fist against her chest. “I can’t breathe with you here.”