by Becky Siame
“Call me after the date…” she’s saying as I press the end call key.
I resume packing, humming a tune. Abe races into the room, flying a toy jet, while Fi is playing with her dolls on her bed. “Mummy, what’s a date?”
I stuff her socks inside her suitcase. “It’s when people have dinner or see a movie or do something fun together.”
“Why are you going on a date?” she asks.
I smile. “Because a friend asked me.”
Abe wrinkles his nose. “A boy friend or a girl friend?”
“It’s a friend who’s a man,” I reply.
Abe scrunches his entire face. “There’s a girl at school who tells everyone I’m her boyfriend and once she tried to kiss me, but I pushed her down and ran away.”
“Abe, it’s not nice to push girls. Don’t do that again. And my friend isn’t a boyfriend. He’s just a friend.”
Fi’s eyes grow wide. “Are you going to kiss him?”
“Ew!” says Abe.
“No!” I laugh.
“Why don’t you want to kiss him?” she asks.
I finish packing and zip the suitcase shut. “Fi, you shouldn’t ask questions like that. We’re just going quad biking, that’s all. No kissing.”
“I wanna go! I wanna go!” Abe jumps up and down.
“You can’t, baby. You’ll be at your dad’s, and it’s a date without kids.”
“Aw,” Abe pouts. “I never have any fun.”
“That’s not true. You love going to your dad’s,” I remind him.
“But he won’t let me have a Playstation,” he whines.
The roar of an engine alerts us that Tiresa has pulled into the driveway. The kids grab their luggage and tumble out of the house with me behind them.
Tiresa steps out of her car, looking stunning, as usual. “Hurry up. We’re meeting your dad for dinner,” she says.
Fi tugs on Tiresa’s skirt. “Doesn’t Mummy look pretty? She lost weight,” she tells her.
Tiresa scowls in my direction. “I didn’t notice.”
“Of course you didn’t,” I smirk at her. Nothing, not even my snotty older sister, can take away my joy at losing weight and having a date in the same week.
Abe throws his suitcase in the trunk and, unexpectedly, hurries back to me and gives me a hug and a kiss. “What was that for?” I ask, hugging him back.
Abe shrugs. “Dad says I need to be extra nice to you and show you lots of love when people make fun of you.”
“Oh,” I say, astonished by Mika’s sympathetic behavior. “Don’t worry about that, honey. I’m going to get skinny and no one will make fun of me again or tease you. How does that sound?”
Abe hugs me again. “I love you.”
Tiresa, hearing our exchange, snorts and rolls her eyes. It’s easy to translate: Yeah, right. You, skinny?
Abe and Fi skip to the car. “Don’t forget to feed Snowball,” Fi calls as she climbs in the back seat.
Tiresa slams the door behind them. Instead of putting on his seat belt, Abe leans out the window and calls, “Have fun on your date, Mummy.”
“Date?” That stops Tiresa, one foot in the car.
I smirk again. “Yes, you know, man, woman, spending time together? Dinner, romance?” I know quite well my date with Jae will involve neither, but she doesn’t need to know that. “Oh, that’s right. Mika’s probably too busy at the office to go on dates anymore. Yes, it’s when he keeps making excuses about having to stay at work that you gotta worry. But not tonight, right? You’ll be one big happy family tonight. Just you and Mika and Abe and Fi. Bye-bye kids!” I wave, turn on my heel and walk inside the house. I peak through the lace curtains in the window to see Tiresa still standing with one foot in the car. She looks like she’s about to explode.
I spend most of the evening worrying about what to wear tomorrow. I want to impress Jae, even in jeans and a casual top. After deciding what to wear, and then changing my mind three more times, I finally settle down (without my usual glass of wine - “Too much sugar,” says Sands) to catch up on recorded episodes of Shortland Street. When I hit the sack around 11 p.m., I’m tired yet my mind is in a whirl: tomorrow’s date, the sense of accomplishment at losing weight, what else could I do to ease Pa’s boredom, and how satisfying it felt to see Tiresa squirm. I smile to myself. Life is crazy, but at least it has its good moments. And hopefully tomorrow will be one of those moments.
•
Saturday morning I awake to the roll of thunder. “Oh, no,” I moan. I don’t want rain to ruin our outing. I hurry to the hospital to visit Dad for a while, but spend most of the visit looking out the window to see if the cloud cover dissipates. It does not.
“Bella, if you need to go somewhere, go. I’ll be waiting here when you get back,” Dad half jokes as I peer through the window blinds again.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” I go to his bedside. “I’ve just got my mind on other things.”
“Such as?” he prods.
I grin. “I have a date this afternoon.”
“Good for you. Who’s the lucky fellow?”
“His name is Jae and he’s starting his adventure tourism company, so we’re going quad biking.”
Dad chuckles. “My, my. Do me a favour.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Don’t break your neck. It’s terribly inconvenient.”
I leave the hospital at 11:30 and it’s beginning to sprinkle. But when I open the door at Jae’s knock, the day turns bright with his sunny smile. “Are you ready for some adventure?” he asks.
“Ready if you are,” I say, grabbing my purse and locking the door behind me. Jae’s spotless hunter green Jeep is parked behind my dirty car. So much for agonising over trying to make a good impression in casual clothes. I should have washed the car while I was at it. Too late now.
He opens the door of his Jeep for me. “Thank you,” I blush as he offers a hand to help me step up inside. He shuts the door and I have a panic attack as I reach for the seat belt. Most vehicle seat belts do not accommodate extra-large people. My own car has a seat belt extension added to the driver’s side, a pricey but necessary addition. I feel around the seat for the adjustment lever and scoot the seat as far back as it will go, then grasp the belt buckle just as Jae approaches his door. I do not want him to see me struggle with something so basic.
I yank the belt all the way out and, with the quickest of prayers, pull it over me and buckle myself in just as Jae opens the door. Presto! It fits, albeit snugly.
He climbs in beside me and I catch a hint of cologne. Stetson, perhaps? “It’s about an hour drive to where we’re going. Do you need to stop anywhere, get anything?”
“No, I’m fine,” I reply.
Jae turns on the ignition, the Jeep roars to life, and it begin to rain in earnest.
“Oh no,” I say, disappointed.
Jae looks up through the windshield. “Don’t worry. I checked the weather and it’s supposed to clear up soon. Clouds are headed north and we’re headed south.”
“Where to?”
“Nelson Lakes National Park.”
I laugh. “This is an adventure.”
“You’re going to love it.” He turns in his seat to look behind as he backs out of the driveway. “How has your morning been?”
I nod. “Good. I popped in to see my Dad at the hospital. I told you he broke his neck, right?”
“Yes,” Jae replies. “How did it happen?”
I shrug. “Accident. He must have slipped on something in the garden and fallen against the fence. He’s in a neck brace and really can’t move for the next few weeks.”
“That sounds awful. No wonder you want to be with him,” Jae commiserates. “Do you have lots of family nearby?”
“Yes, on my mother’s side of the family. I’m the only person my pa’s got.”
“No siblings?” Jae asks.
I squirm. “I have a half-sister - different father. We were separated after our mum died. She went
to live with our grandmother.”
Jae downshifts, brushing my leg when doing so. I blush. “It’s good your father has you at least. I wish him a speedy recovery.”
“Why, thanks. I’ll tell him that.” Cute and considerate, I smile inwardly.
“Are you close to your half-sister?” he asks, pulling out of my neighbourhood and onto the main thoroughfare.
I wish he hadn’t asked that. “Um, no.”
Jae’s eyebrow goes up at my short tone but doesn’t pursue the topic. “How about the rest of your family?”
“Well,” I start, “I’m close to my grandmother. She’s Samoan and very proud of it. She’s the matai of our aiga, the chief of the extended family, since my grandfather died. She tried to teach me about the culture as I was growing up, but being raised by my Scottish dad, I grew up white.”
“Och, so yew loike a wee bit o’ whiskey and haggis?” Jae says in a thick fake Scottish accent.
“Aye, laddie,” I shoot back with an equally broad accent. “And ah like a man in a kilt playing the pipes.”
“You’ll take the high road…” Jae starts to sing in a mellow baritone.
I join him, soprano. “And I’ll take the low road/and I’ll be in Scotland a-FOOOOOOOOOOOOORE ye! But me and my true love will never meet again/on the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch LOOOOOOOOmond!”
We end in a fit of laughter. Each time he shifts the gear, his hand brushes my leg. “Oh, sorry,” he says. “There I go again, making passes at you. If you slap me, I deserve it.”
I laugh. “I promise not to slap you. Speaking of which, what about you? All I know of you is that you like fruit and vegetables and grab strangers an awful lot.”
Jae shifts the gear and brakes at a stoplight. “I grew up in Wellington, went to Victoria University, got a degree in Business and Commerce Administration, and then moved to Nelson about seven years ago. Been in business since then, but now I want to do adventure tourism full-time. That is, if I can make it profitable.”
“I’m sure you will,” I encourage him. “So what’s your other business?”
He shifts the gear and hits the accelerator as the light turns green. “Marketing. It was fun and challenging for a while, but the whole sell-sell-sell, come up with a new kitsch phrase to persuade people to buy, is wearing me out.”
“Which is why you yearn for the great outdoors where you can do crazy fun stuff, hey?” I laugh. I wonder if he does the marketing for AmandaE, which would explain his presence in the store the other day. He doesn’t mention it and because of my experience there, I am loath to bring it up.Jae laughs and nods. “You’ve got me spot on.”
“So, do you have family around here? Siblings?”
“No siblings,” he replies. “All my family’s back in Wellington, but, sad to say, I do have a lot of ex-family in town.”
“I hope it was amicable,” I say, referring to his divorce.
He shrugs. “It was. I wanted a family and she wanted to keep climbing the corporate ladder and we grew apart. She spent more and more time away from home, traveling on business. One day we came to the conclusion that we really weren’t married anymore, mentally or emotionally, so we made it official.”
We turn onto the Wakefield-Kohatu Highway and the Jeep picks up speed. The ride is a bit bumpy, Jeeps not being known for their comfort and smooth ride, but the drive affords us a lovely view of the ocean as we leave Nelson behind and later wind through fertile fields with lush forests and soaring mountains nearby.
Jae asks about my kids and I don’t hold back in bragging on them. I also talk about my crazy friends and invite him to join us for coffee at our weekly conclave.
“It must be nice to have a group of friends with whom you can just be yourself,” says Jae.
“Don’t you have friends to pal around with?” I ask, surprised.
“Yes, but they’re not real.” I giggle as he realises what that sounds like. “I mean, not that they’re imaginary; I mean they’re so fake, so stuck on themselves. All they care about is their looks and places they go to be seen and even the coffee shops they patronise have to be THE trendy establishments. I walked into a meeting once with a cup of coffee from a convenience store, and you would have thought I’d brought in a cup full of leprosy. Everyone else had cups from a certain very popular coffee shop chain and their expressions made it clear that I had committed a major It Factor transgression.”
“And they are your friends because?” I query.
“They’re business friends,” he admits. “You know how you naturally hang out with the people you’re around the most, so that’s how I ended up with a bunch of fashion-obsessed, model types whose focus is, well, the very fickle world of fashion.”
“I thought you said you were in marketing?” I ask.
“I am,” he replies a little too quickly, like he let something slip that he wishes he hadn’t. “Marketing for clothing.”
“My friend Riyaan, will be glad to meet you. He’s obsessed with fashion. He’s the most fashionable of our group, which normally would say a lot because the rest of us are female. But Sands lives in gym clothes and Cat is, uh, well, she’s homeless, so her style is very vagrant.”
Jae laughs. “I can’t wait to meet them.”
An hour later we reach our destination. It’s a rustic one-story log cabin building which looks brand new. Next to it is a large metal barn with the sign, “Go 4 It Adventure Centre.” A sign on the cabin lists activities: quad biking, cycling, hiking, boating, canoeing, rock climbing, bungee jumping, skydiving, horseback riding. “Wow,” I say, “This place is amazing.”
“Wait till you see the views,” Jae says, placing his hand lightly on the small of my back and sending a tingle through my body. Let’s go inside.”
Jae introduces me to the Chuck the manager, an old university buddy of his. “Nice to meet you, Bella,” Chuck shakes my hand. “You two know each other from where?”
“The grocery store,” I reply.
“She grabbed me in the fruit section,” Jae adds.
Chuck squenches his face in an attempt to not laugh. “Was it by the bananas or kiwis?” he wheezes.
We burst out laughing. Jae smacks his forehead. “That’s not what I mean! Bella, what is it about you that makes me say everything with double meanings?”
“Don’t blame me,” I gasp between guffaws.
Chuck wipes tears from his eyes. “I will always remember this day, the day Mr. Perfect, Mr. Has-It-Together-and-Never-Says-the-Wrong-Thing, says something completely out of character.”
“That’s not true,” Jae defends himself. “I just say them around Bella.”
“So is that what he was like in college?” I ask Chuck. “Always had it together?”
Chuck rolls his eyes. “Drove me barmy. You know, I think he even ironed his underwear. He’s very fastidious. If you looked up the definition of impeccable, Jae’s picture is next to it.”
“At least I wore underwear,” Jae grins at him. Chuck picks up a baseball cap with “Go 4 It Adventure Centre” embroidered on it and flings it at him.
They chat for a minute and I’m glad to see their easygoing interaction. Though friends, Chuck obviously respects Jae as his employer.
Chuck gives us coveralls and rubber boots to wear - I’m given an XXXL men’s coveralls - and we walk to the barn to choose our quad bikes. Jae gets an electric blue one while I get a red one with matching helmet. With quick instructions on how to drive the thing and a couple of turns around the parking lot to prove my ability to handle it, we’re ready to go.
“Whoops, almost forgot the picnic basket.”
Jae jogs to his Jeep and pulls a waterproof duffle bag from the rear. “We’ll be gone a few hours, so I packed us a late lunch, early dinner.”
A few hours?! What a date, I chuckle to myself.
He attaches the bag to the back of his quad bike with bungee cords and put on his helmet. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it!” I laugh, and away we go. Jae speeds
off and I try to keep up, at first along a gravel track which quickly turns into a dirt track. We dodge through a natural pinball game of boulders and trees, then through a pine forest, ducking under low branches. I’m not quick enough and get smacked in the helmet several times, but I don’t mind. The speed and danger of the trail is exhilarating.
We splash through a shallow creek before sailing over bank after bank of small hills. At the crest of each one, I nearly fly off the bike, shrieking with laughter.
After half an hour, Jae stops. “Are you all right? Want to keep going?” he shouts over the quad bike engines.
“Yes!” I reply and off we go again. We come to another shallow creek but instead of crossing it, Jae steers into it, creating wings of water on either side of the bike. At one point my bike gets stuck in a hole. Jae helps me off it and through the shin-deep water to the bank, where I watch him hook a pulley from his bike to mine and slowly ease it out.
When he finishes, he takes off his helmet. “Need a break?”
“Yes,” I say, taking off my helmet.
Jae points to the hill behind us. “There’s a beautiful view up top. Are you game?”
I eye the rocky hill dubiously but don’t want to say no. “Sure.”
Jae grabs the duffle bag off the back of his bike. As we ascend the hill, Jae quizzes me on our trail ride, wanting to know which parts I liked best, if there was anything too tame or too scary, what would I change, and the like. This is, after all, an experiment for his business. Soon the questions cease because I am short of breath. I stop for a break, then resume the climb, unable to talk and sweating profusely.
“Halfway there,” Jae says cheerfully but my heart falls. I know I can’t go much farther. I take another break.
My physical distress is evident to Jae. “Let me help you,” he says and takes my hand. As sweet and exciting as it is for him to take my hand, the thrill is lost in my effort to breath. Together, we climb the rest of the way to the top. Jae goes slowly and encourages me without making it sound like obvious encouragement. Finally, we stop. “We made it,” he says. “Would you look at that sky? Marvelous!” Jae breathes.