Echo Point

by Virginia Hale

  “Sleep well?” Jackie asked from the end of the table.

  Bron flicked on the kettle. “Fine.”

  “Hurry up, Annie,” Daniel called from the back veranda. “I’ll be in the ute waiting for the both of you.”

  Ally stood, a half-eaten slice of toast perched between her perfectly straight teeth. “C’mon, Goldilocks,” Ally said. She picked up Annie’s plate and dumped it in the sink.

  Copying Ally, Annie struggled to grip her own leftover toast between her teeth, the slice almost as wide as her face.

  “You’re eager to get to school for once,” Bron laughed, wiping a few crumbs off her cheek with her thumb.

  “Ally’s taking me!” Annie mumbled.

  Squeezing Annie goodbye, Jackie grinned across the kitchen at Bron in bemusement as she followed her niece outside.

  “Have you got your homework book?” she called after her, watching as Ally opened the back door for Annie.

  “I think so,” Annie called back, tossing the rest of her toast to Tammy, who gobbled it up in an instant.

  “What about your spelling book?”

  “I think so.”

  She leaned against a timber beam and crossed her arms. “You think so or you know so?”

  Ally slammed the car door closed behind the little girl and Annie’s reply was lost. Before she climbed into the passenger’s seat, Ally nodded toward Bron. “See ya.”

  She was halfway down the steps when she stopped. Ally was already on it. Her upper body was bent over the console as she leaned into the back, pulling the black strap across Annie’s lap to be sure Annie was buckled in, that Libby’s baby girl was safe.

  “Have a good day, Daniel!” Bron called as she watched her brother lock the tray of the ute. She threw a look toward the car, making sure Ally had the air on rather than the windows down. In a lower voice, she said just for Daniel’s ears, “Keep an eye out for yourself today, too, Daniel. Okay?”

  Knowing exactly what she was implying, he scowled. “Go get some work done for once, Bron!”

  She waited until the ute rounded the corner at the end of the driveway and onto the street before she went back inside. Jackie had a cup of tea waiting for her. “That’s a nice dress, love.”

  “Thanks.” Bron scooped the crumbs from Annie’s toast into her cupped hand and tossed them into the sink. “It was Libby’s. Still had its tags,” she added.

  “Looks very nice on you, my girl.”

  Bron sipped at her tea and sighed. Jackie always made it perfectly.

  “Wasn’t that southerly heavenly this morning?”

  She hummed her agreement as she sat down at the table. “Especially heavenly when I didn’t have a restless six-year-old sweating the bed next to me.”

  “Yes,” Jackie chuckled. “I heard on the grapevine that she’s found a new best friend. She’ll tire of Ally soon enough.”

  She scoffed. “I doubt she’d even notice if I left and went back home.”

  “Bron,” Jackie grumbled. She smothered her toast in a thick layer of heart-smart butter, defeating the purpose. “Now that Ally’s out of prison, it changes the dynamic. You’ve got to understand that Al is familiar. She’s been a constant in Annie’s life since she was born.”

  “A constant?” Bron would have been outraged by what she was hearing if it wasn’t so laughable. “How can somebody be a constant from behind bars?”

  “I’ll tell you exactly how. Annie’s spent every second Saturday morning in that horrible prison crèche since she was this high.” Jackie reached her hand two feet above the kitchen floor. “She went out there and visited Ally every time Libby did. And, let me tell you, Ally has adored that girl since the day Libby forced Annie’s itty-bitty body into her arms. For heaven’s sake, we’ve got photos of Annie pretending to blow out the candles of her third birthday cake in the visitor centre because, for obvious reasons, they don’t let you light candles in there.”

  Bron shook her head. “Prison is no place for a child. Even if it is just for visiting.” She paused. “Didn’t she ask questions?”

  “Lots of questions. And Annie probably learned more about forgiveness and what it means to be a good person from her visits with Ally than she ever could have in a church.”

  Bron raised an eyebrow and got up from her seat. “Well, I never would have thought that a statement like that could come from Mother Theresa herself.”

  Jackie scowled playfully. “That reminds me, I need to visit St. Stephens after lunch and water the lilies. They’ll be on their last legs with this heat. Can you drop me down there before your meeting?”

  She nodded. Her lips twisted into a smirk as she filled the sink to wash the breakfast plates. The fact that the church had a newly installed, state-of-the-art air-conditioning system had not escaped her. Yes, her stepmother was just like Mother Theresa, if Mother Theresa had founded a missionary in The Hamptons.

  After Bron dropped Jackie off outside the church and Jackie assured her she would get a lift home from Father Jeff, Bron drove on to the heart of Katoomba. With the window down, the warm breeze caught the end of her ponytail, the soft hairs whipping the top of her arm. Even for a Tuesday afternoon, the streets were relatively empty. There were a few backpackers smoking outside the youth hostel on the main street, but she only counted five people on the city-bound platform of Katoomba Station waiting for the four p.m. train. Saturday would be a different story, when all the tourists would swarm in to see The Three Sisters at the bottom of the hill.

  She parked in the vacant lot beside Dougall’s Meats and reached down for the handle to manually roll up the window. She hoped the air-conditioning in the café was working. The last thing she felt like doing was drinking a steaming cappuccino in a sauna; however, it would go hand-in-hand with the discomfort of spending her afternoon making idle chitchat with Alice Wood.

  After picking up her phone from the mobile repair store, she headed south on Main Street. Three stores away, she spotted Alice’s lanky form seated at a small table at the front window of the café. Conveniently, Alice had taken it upon herself to take the one seat at the table that happened to be out of the sun’s glare.

  A chill hit Bron the moment she walked inside, and she sighed at the cool welcome of the air-conditioning. Alice looked up from the large portfolio in front of her. “Bron! Look at you. You’re as tiny as you were in uni!”

  As she clumsily hugged her old friend, she looked over Alice’s shoulder at the myriad of empty tables. When they pulled away from each other, Alice gestured to the seat opposite, and began to sit back down again.

  “Could we maybe sit at the back?” Bron asked, gesturing to a pair of lounge chairs in the corner of the room, directly beneath the air conditioner. “The sun is blinding me here.”

  “Oh,” Alice gasped, her tone poorly imitating sudden realisation. She looked around, as though the room was completely occupied and she was searching for a free seat. “It’s just that I’m all set up here. Did you forget your sunglasses? Would you like to borrow mine?”

  She waved her hand dismissively and pulled out a chair, immediately feeling the heat radiating from the glass and onto her bare shoulder. She should have listened to herself last week before mailing Alice the sketches—when she almost had herself convinced that getting professionally involved with Alice again was a stupid idea.

  “How are your kids?” she dutifully asked.

  “They’re good. Skye is at uni down in Melbourne studying engineering, and Nate’s finishing high school next year.”

  “Wow, you have a kid in uni.” She shook her head. “That’s insane.”

  Alice grinned widely but her features softened after a moment. “I’m very, very sorry to hear about your sister.”

  She swallowed. “Thank you.” Under Alice’s intense, sympathetic gaze, she chewed at the inside of her lip. “How’s the city treating you?”

  “Hotter than up here.” Alice clasped her hands over the cover of Bron’s portfolio. “Bron, these sketche
s are fantastic. Not at all what I remember your style to be or what I’ve seen you do recently.”

  “You’ve been following my work?”

  “Well, it’s hard not to when you illustrate basically every piece of children’s literature under the sun.” Alice grinned. “I’m very happy for you.”

  She smiled at the compliment. “Thanks, Alice. It didn’t happen overnight, but it—”

  “Honestly,” Alice interrupted, “I think you should just give up Yellowstone and come and work for me instead.”

  It was what Bron had feared. She was willing to work with Alice on one project, just to keep Alice in her contact book if she ever needed a job in the future. But she doubted she could handle more of Alice than a single project required. Alice was too…frank. If Bron was going to give up Yellowstone for anything, it was going to be for MIT. She couldn’t help but wonder how Alice would react to the news that a position was waiting for Bron in the art history department of one of the world’s most prestigious universities. Teaching was a career change Bron had dreamed about for years. For the past six years, she’d submitted application after application to the Ivy Leagues, and each application had received the same response—her body of published work was outstanding, her postgraduate studies highly impressive, but there weren’t any positions available. Until now. Bron had desperately wanted to share the news with somebody since she’d received the call the day before Ally arrived home, but she was well aware that her overwhelming joy would only serve to upset her family. Now her happiness was a dirty little secret that weighed heavily on her mind each night as she laid down to sleep. She only had until January to decide what the hell she was going to do. Could she actually see herself picking up the phone and turning down her alma mater in a few months’ time when January rolled around? It would destroy that hopeful part of her that was only just beginning to slowly claw its way back home.

  She took in Alice. Clearly, she hadn’t changed much since university. She was still driven, as ambitious as ever. While Bron had taken off to the States to finish graduate school studying art history at MIT, Alice had decided against graduate school and had immediately found work as an intern with one of the leading publishers in Australia. She’d been climbing the editorial ladder ever since. By the time Bron had graduated and was in the early days of establishing a freelance career, Alice was married with a newborn baby. It had become an unspoken, mutual acknowledgment that their friendship had fizzled into nothing more than professional contacts.

  “Well, I can’t exactly throw in the bag with Yellowstone,” she started, “but my contract stipulates that I can work on up to four independent projects annually for other publishers.”

  Alice gestured to the barista, blatantly ignoring Bron’s offer. Bron twisted in her seat and looked toward the counter. As far as she knew, the café had never offered table service. She gathered from the struggle burning darkly in the barista’s eyes as he crossed the room toward them that the café was in fact not table service.

  “A tall, decaf latte—wait, you do decaf, of course?” Alice prompted.

  He nodded curtly and looked to Bron.

  “Could I please have a small cappuccino?” She added a wide smile, hoping it smoothed over Alice’s rudeness.

  When he left, Alice looked down at the sketches. “Bron, I’m senior editor now, and that gives me a great deal of authority in selecting illustrators to be matched with our picture book authors.” She paused, offering a serious stare. “I’m willing to go above what Yellowstone is paying.”

  Bron forced a smile, hating the way her hands trembled beneath the table, hating that this woman—who was nothing more than her equal—could intimidate her. “To be honest, Alice, I don’t know if we work well together.” When Alice’s eyes grew large, Bron placated. “I don’t know if we’re a good match. We both have very strong opinions. Don’t you remember how we clashed working on uni projects together?”

  “Look,” Alice interrupted, waving her worries away with a manicured hand. “You can’t say no to me. I’ve already got an author lined up for you.”

  She was grateful when the barista brought over their coffees and she had a second to get her wits about her. How had her twenty-year-old self managed to spend five afternoons a week commuting all the way to and from Sydney Uni alone on a train with this woman?

  “When are you going back to Boston?” Alice prompted, her tone dripping with the insinuation that she already had it all figured out for her.

  Bron shifted and unstuck her thighs from the wooden seat. “A month or so.”

  “So how about I send you the narrative and you draw up a few drafts for me before then?”

  The commanding question immediately put her offside, but the promise of a higher advance was tempting. She was able to live more than comfortably on her current salary, but she had Annie to think of now—school fees, health insurance, a university fund, the cost of raising a child. With Libby gone, that responsibility fell to Bron, and she was more than happy to assume it.

  “I have another idea.”

  Alice lifted an eyebrow. “Which is?”

  “I give this author you have lined up for me a miss and I start working for you when I come back to Australia—if I don’t decide to continue with Yellowstone.”

  “You’re moving back here?” Alice inquired.

  “Perhaps. I have sole custody of Annie.” She drew a breath, inching farther away from the glass. “I’ll be going back to sort out a few things with Yellowstone, but when I return…who knows? All I’m certain of is that I need to be where Annie is or she needs to be with me.” And that may very well be in Boston with me.

  “What about the girl’s father?”

  “He’s in Queensland.” She decided it was best not to go into detail about Annie’s paternal woes with Alice. “She doesn’t know him.”

  Alice’s bright red painted lips twisted. “Coming back makes sense. Besides, it’s not like you’ve got your own family to look after over there.” Bron blinked twice, offended by Alice’s bluntness. “Hey, it works for me if you come back,” Alice continued. “Are you absolutely sure you can’t start with this author?”

  As the afternoon sun drooped, Bron refused Alice’s offer three more times. Rejecting her persistent friend was more exhausting than having to endure a slideshow presentation of what seemed like Alice’s kids’ entire childhood. Surely the phone memory would reach capacity at some point, Bron thought as the images scrolled past on the small screen.

  After Alice refrained from pulling out her wallet when they got up to leave, Bron paid the bill and made for the car park just as her phone rang. She looked down at the caller ID and grinned.

  “Aunt Bron, where are ya?” Annie asked.

  She wedged her phone between her ear and shoulder as she started the car. “I’m in town. I’m heading home now.”

  “Nanna says we’re gonna have a barbie, so can ya pick up some bread rolls?”

  She looked down at her watch. “Honey, it’s going to close in five minutes. Is Ally home? Maybe she can run down to the end of the street with you and pick them up?”

  “Nah, she’s not home yet,” Annie said distractedly. Jackie’s voice was muffled in the background. “Nan says can you just try?”

  The bakery at the end of her street was almost closed by the time Bron pulled up in front of the tiny mud-brick store. As she slid the glass door of the bakery open, the nostalgic scent of freshly baked bread assaulted her senses.

  “Hi, Lars,” she called to her first employer. He stopped sweeping the racks over with a hand brush—just as Bron could recall her teenage self doing—and turned toward the door. “Long time no see.”

  “Bronwyn Lee!” He folded his arms on the metal rack. “How’ve you been? Real sorry to hear about your sister. She was such a lovely thing.”

  She smiled softly. “Thanks, Lars.” She looked down at the trays of bread rolls she knew Lars would soon tally as wastage. “I saw your Jan a few weeks ago. She�
��s looking well.”

  “She mentioned it, darl. How’s the States working out for you? Did you land yourself a fella over there for a green card?”

  Here we go again, Bron thought. “No husband. I’m gay. But I’m not one to marry for a green card anyway, so I had to go through the work channels for the visa.”

  Elderly Lars was clearly at a loss for words, but he quickly recovered from the shock of her reveal. “Well, each to their own, love. There’s nothing wrong with that! I knew a gay back in school and he was a top bloke, real top bloke…”

  Thanks for your approval, she thought sardonically, but Lars was old, so she let it go. “Have any hot dog rolls left?” she asked.

  With a bag full of free hot dog rolls and a special treat for Annie for later, she drove up the hill, surprised to find the driveway gates were open. A brief wave of panic swept over her at the possibility that Tammy had gotten out, but as she drew closer to the house, she spotted Daniel’s ute and her heart rate slowed.

  “I’m home,” she called as she unlocked the front door.

  “We’re out here,” Daniel replied. She could smell sausages wafting from around the side of the house.

  “Is Tams with you?” she asked as she dropped her keys on the kitchen table.

  “Yep.”

  She headed out the back through the laundry, but stopped when she found Ally and Annie bent over the deep washtub. Ally stood in a puddle of water in her dirtied work boots. The pair of old work shorts she wore—which had seemed decent on Libby—were almost too short on Ally’s longer legs. Dirty, dusty, toned legs. When she forced herself to look up, Ally’s gaze was on her, observing her calculated stare. Ally smirked and Bron looked away.

  Ally adjusted her hold on Annie, lifting her higher to the sink. Propped on Ally’s hip, Annie giggled as Ally bent over the tub and soaped her hands. She scrubbed all the way up Annie’s arms and created a soapy mess, which earned a loud cackle from Annie as water ran down both their elbows, saturating Jackie’s tiled laundry floor.