As if on cue, light poured out of the temple around them, basking every inch of the walls in a soft orange glow. Lizzie sighed and stood up. ‘Come on, let’s go back. I’m famished.’
Samantha looked up from her steaming plate of market food and watched Jaddi, head bent over her mobile and scrolling furiously. Couldn’t she ever just relax and enjoy the lights, the buzz, the smells of this vibrant city?
‘Oh my God.’ Jaddi’s voice rang with excitement as she drew her phone closer to her face. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’ Jaddi pulled her eyes away from her mobile and glanced at Lizzie and Samantha.
‘What?’ Lizzie asked.
‘I’ve just checked our Facebook page and there are thousands of comments from people wishing us good luck.’
‘That’s nice,’ Lizzie said, nodding, her eyes already veering back to her half-eaten plate of noodles.
‘No, no, hang on, that’s not the amazing bit. One comment got half a million likes, so I read it and it’s from …’ Jaddi paused, her grin widening. ‘You won’t believe this when I say it … Guy Rawson.’
‘No way,’ Lizzie said, reaching towards the phone in Jaddi’s hand.
‘Yes!’ Jaddi giggled, pulling her mobile closer to her body and out of reach. ‘It says: Lizzie, caught your interview on Channel 6 Breakfast. You’re awesome. Hope you can make it to my concert in Los Angeles next month. VIP passes waiting for you and your friends at the gate.’
‘It’s a con.’ Samantha shook her head. ‘It’s probably one of those fake accounts, created by a diehard fan.’
‘I checked. It’s definitely the official Guy Rawson.’
‘But he’s a megastar,’ Samantha said, her tone still tinged with scepticism despite the exhilaration now coursing through her veins. ‘I mean … I grew up with posters of him modelling swimwear on my walls. We listen to his albums all the time. He must be one of the most famous men on the planet.’
‘Oh, come on, he’s not just one of, he is the most famous man on the planet.’ Jaddi squeaked. ‘Do you remember that time we stayed up half the night, waiting for his concert tickets at Wembley to go on sale.’
‘Remember?’ Samantha smirked. ‘I’ve still not forgiven Lizzie for that one.’
‘Hang on.’ Lizzie laughed. ‘I will fess up to getting the time they went on sale wrong, but it wasn’t me who forgot to set the phone alarm.’ She grinned, waving her finger at Jaddi.
‘Well, this makes up for it.’ Jaddi jumped up and down, twisting the screen of her phone to face them. ‘VIP tickets means front-row seats.’
Lizzie opened her mouth to say something, but stopped as her eyes scanned the screen of Jaddi’s mobile. ‘What’s that comment next to it?’ She grabbed Jaddi’s arm and pulled it towards her, bringing the mobile with it. ‘Does that say Harrison?’
‘I don’t know.’ Jaddi shrugged. ‘I’ve not had a chance to read through them all.’
‘It does.’ Lizzie’s forehead furrowed. ‘It’s from Harrison.’
Ben adjusted the lens and stepped closer. ‘Who’s Harrison?’
After a pause, Jaddi spoke. ‘Harrison is a guy Lizzie dated for a few weeks in London last year.’
‘Not just dated.’ Samantha grinned, swept along in the excitement of Guy Rawson’s message. ‘He was Lizzie’s one that got away.’
Jaddi nodded, flashing a smile into the camera lens. ‘Harrison moved back home to Australia before anything could get going between them and—’
‘I thought he was from America,’ Samantha said.
‘Anyway,’ Jaddi said, ‘he’s put a message on the comment board, which says: Can’t wait to show you around Sydney. Message me when you get here.’
‘Can you message back through that page?’ Lizzie asked.
‘To Guy Rawson?’ Jaddi asked. ‘I definitely want those VIP tickets.’
‘No –’ Lizzie shook her head ‘– to Harrison.’
Samantha snorted. ‘A world-famous, incredibly gorgeous and talented singer invites you to front row seats at his concert, and you’re asking about a boy you went out with a few times?’
Lizzie shrugged. ‘Well, can you?’
Jaddi tapped a button on her screen before handing her phone to Lizzie. ‘Just type what you want to say there.’
‘What do I say?’ A spark of excitement lit Lizzie’s face as she looked between Jaddi and Samantha.
Samantha leant forward, peering over Lizzie’s shoulder. ‘Say: That would be lovely, kiss kiss.’
Jaddi laughed. ‘No, that’s too mushy. She hasn’t spoken to him since last summer. He could be seeing someone. Just put, great, see you in a few weeks, then put a smiley face.’
Lizzie tapped at the screen for a minute before handing the phone back to Jaddi.
‘We’d better go,’ Samantha said. ‘Long day tomorrow.’ Samantha closed her eyes for a moment as a yawn overtook her body. Tomorrow they would leave the city and spend eleven hours on a bus to Cambodia.
At least it would be more relaxing than climbing a hundred steps in a million-degree heat, Samantha thought.
CHAPTER 11
Day 5
Lizzie
‘I can’t hear myself think,’ Jaddi shouted over the thumping beat of a Gloria Estefan song carrying from one of the bars at the edge of the market.
‘I know,’ Lizzie said, glancing at the three Thai women in bright-pink bikinis and high heels dancing and swaying, beckoning passing men to join them inside the bar. It wasn’t even midday yet.
‘We really need to get to the bus station now, Lizzie.’ Jaddi wiped away beads of moisture on her watch. ‘The bus for Cambodia leaves in an hour.’
Lizzie ran her hand over the row of sunglasses, plucked out a pair with white rims and slid them onto her face. She turned to Jaddi and pointed at her face. ‘I thought you said buses never leave on time here. What do you think of these? Too retro?’
‘They’re nice,’ Jaddi replied. ‘And I did say that, but we should be there waiting just in case. They’ll have markets in Phnom Penh too, you know. Where’s Samantha?’
Lizzie pulled the sunglasses away and turned them over in her hands as someone elbowed her in the ribs. She didn’t bother turning in search of the culprit. Everywhere in Bangkok had been the same – jostling crowds all looking for or at the same thing. She’d loved every moment of their time in the city, but four days of relentless humidity, people, dance music, and noise was enough. She’d begun to crave fresh air and silence.
‘I think she went to get some water and snacks for the bus journey,’ Lizzie replied. ‘She said she’d see us on the street in five. Which ones –’ Lizzie turned to Jaddi ‘– the white or the diamanté?’
‘The white ones.’
‘Good choice.’ Lizzie reached into her pocket for the money.
‘Woah woah woah, Liz.’ Jaddi leant closer and stopped Lizzie before she could hand over the money. Ben stepped closer too, pointing the lens at the sunglasses before focusing on their faces. ‘What are you doing?’ Jaddi asked.
‘Paying for these.’ Lizzie laughed and shrugged at the same time.
‘You don’t pay the price on the ticket.’ Jaddi rolled her eyes and winked at Ben and the camera. ‘This isn’t H&M; it’s Bangkok. That’s the starting price. Here, let me show you.’ She took the sunglasses from Lizzie and spun towards the man behind the stall.
Lizzie watched in awe as Jaddi dipped her head and pulled back her shoulders. A half-smile lit her face as she giggled and chatted with the man on the other side of the stall. Every movement part of a perfected routine Lizzie had seen many times before. It reminded Lizzie of Aaron’s twists and spins on the vault and the way he transferred his weight from one hand to the other as if it was as effortless as walking. They made it look so easy, but Jaddi and Aaron’s skills, however different, were both worlds away from Lizzie’s.
With a twinge of guilt she realised it was the first time she’d thought of her brother in days. It seemed the more time that passed,
the more immersed she felt in their journey, and the less she thought about home or her future. Live in the here and now, Jaddi had said at the start of all this. And that’s exactly what she was doing.
Two minutes later Jaddi turned away from the stall and handed the sunglasses to Lizzie.
‘Thanks. How much did you pay?’ Lizzie asked, slipping them onto her face as they weaved through the market.
Jaddi grinned. ‘Less than half.’
‘Your talents are wasted in PR.’ Lizzie laughed.
‘Tell me about it. Now, can we please find Samantha and get to the bus station?’
‘Look there she is.’ Lizzie pointed across the road to Samantha, leaning against a dark-red car with a small Thai man in faded, blue jeans and a loose, blue shirt.
Samantha waved and motioned them over.
‘I got us a ride to Cambodia,’ she called as they darted between the traffic.
‘What ride?’ Jaddi shook her head. ‘I told you, we’re getting the bus. It’s leaving in an hour.’
‘I know that was the plan –’ Samantha smiled ‘– but this is Tic. He’s a taxi driver. He can drive us in his air-conditioned car to Phnom Penh for the same price as our bus tickets. I’ve already paid.’
Lizzie watched Jaddi’s face as she processed Samantha’s change of plans. It always amazed Lizzie how two people so different could live so harmoniously together. It wasn’t often that Jaddi’s need to be the driving force of their plans, or her daredevil side, clashed with Samantha’s common sense organisation, but when it did an argument was sure to follow. That was unless Lizzie could smooth the way.
‘You OK with this, Liz?’ Samantha asked, a note of hesitation in her voice.
‘Absolutely.’ Lizzie nodded. ‘It’s a great idea. Come on, Jaddi, where’s your sense of adventure?’
‘But …’ Jaddi stared between them again. ‘But sitting in a car is not exactly an authentic experience. Besides, it’s also dangerous. We don’t know this guy. What if he’s an axe murderer?’ Jaddi nodded her head towards the driver.
The three of them turned to look at the skinny body of Tic. He grinned widely at them before opening the boot of his car.
‘He doesn’t look much like an axe murderer.’ Lizzie frowned, shrugging off her backpack and passing it to Tic.
Jaddi shrugged, adding her backpack to the boot. ‘Fine, let’s do it.’
CHAPTER 12
Jaddi
‘Welcome to day five.’ Lizzie smirked into the handheld camera. ‘We are currently stranded on a dirt road somewhere in Cambodia, although we have no idea where. It’s five pm and still sweltering. The taxi that was supposed to take us all the way to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, drove off about an hour ago.’ Lizzie laughed at her own words. ‘So it looks like we’ll be spending the night here.’
A gust of hot wind blew against Jaddi’s neck. She half expected to find someone standing behind her with a hairdryer. For the past hour she’d perched awkwardly on her backpack, elbows on knees, head in hands, as frustration had seared through her, while Ben watched and filmed with his ‘I’m here to capture your story, not be part of it’ attitude. Damn him! How could they have been so stupid? Alone on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere with only half a packet of crackers and a few bottles of water between them. What did Lizzie find so funny about that?
Jaddi stood up and stretched her arms above her head. She blew out a loud puff of air and glanced towards Samantha, sat in a similar position beside her. ‘I told you this would happen,’ Jaddi muttered before stumbling down a bank of hardened dirt and into the dense, avocado-green undergrowth, and instantly regretting the spite in her remark.
‘No, you didn’t,’ Samantha said, following Jaddi down the slope.
Jaddi twisted her head in a sharp movement and glared at Samantha. She jabbed her finger in Samantha’s direction, powerless to stop the irritation from boiling out of her. ‘I was the only one who said we should get the bus, like we’d planned to do in the first place,’ she snapped.
‘Yes,’ Samantha nodded, raising her eyebrows, her tone just as hard as Jaddi’s, ‘until you’d sat in the air-conditioned car for two minutes. I don’t remember you arguing for the bus then. In fact, I think your exact words were, “Who cares about authentic? This is the way to travel.”’
‘It’s not exactly worked out though, has it?’ A pressure swelled in Jaddi’s bladder.
Warm sunlight dropped like torch beams through gaps in the tree canopies. An outburst of high-pitched bird chatter screeched from the treetops above.
Jaddi weaved further into undergrowth and kicked at the shrubs covering the ground around their feet. ‘Let’s see, shall we? It hasn’t cost the same amount really, because our happy little driver, Tic, demanded we pay him two thousand Baht if we wanted him to keep driving us to Cambodia. Then, when we said no, he threw our backpacks out of the boot of his car, forcing us to get out with them.’
She threw a glance behind her in case Ben had followed. He hadn’t.
‘You were the one that refused to pay,’ Samantha hissed, also throwing a furtive glance back to the road.
‘Because he would’ve driven us to another remote destination before repeating the same thing all over again.’
‘He might not have done, but since you refused to let us pay, I guess we’ll never know.’
Jaddi rolled her eyes before kicking again at the ground.
‘What are you looking for?’ Samantha asked.
‘Somewhere to have a pee,’ she muttered.
‘Oh.’ Samantha glanced towards the road again. ‘I’ll block you from view,’ she said, turning her back on Jaddi.
Jaddi unzipped her shorts and crouched into a squat.
‘How long do you think it will be before another vehicle passes us?’ Samantha asked.
As Jaddi opened her mouth to reply something brushed against her ankle. She yelped and wobbled before jumping up and kicking the bushes again. No creature emerged.
‘Are you all right?’ Samantha asked, without turning around.
‘Fine.’ Jaddi squatted back to the ground a few paces back from her original position. The frustration and the pain eased as she relaxed the tight hold on her bladder. Perhaps she’d been a little hasty refusing to pay Tic. It wasn’t the money so much as the principle of it. But what was the point of principles if you were stranded on a deserted track with nothing but trees in every direction?
‘How long—’
‘Who knows,’ Jaddi cut in. They’d passed a three-wheeled truck pootling along a few hours ago, but it could have turned off on any number of side tracks since. Jaddi briefly considered whether they should try to trek back to the shack they’d stopped at hours ago for a lunch of soggy rice and either very hardboiled eggs or a meat of some kind. Or did they gamble and continue in the direction they were heading in before Tic pulled over? Neither appealed.
She glanced back to the road. Lizzie had stopped filming her video diary and appeared to be arguing with Ben about something. She’d better hurry up and get over there before it escalated.
Jaddi sighed. Everything that had happened since the day Lizzie had walked through their front door on that blustery October night had been Jaddi’s idea, and like it or not, she was responsible. She hadn’t fully appreciated how draining that responsibility would be. Lizzie’s happiness, her health, their rapport with Ben, how much fun they were having, Samantha’s worries for Lizzie, and how much the camera bothered them, all fell on Jaddi’s shoulders, weighing her down more than any backpack could do.
The burden had been made all the worse by Lizzie’s seizure and the uncertainty it had triggered in Jaddi. All Jaddi had wanted to do was give Lizzie the best last three months imaginable, but it was harder than she’d imagined to stand by as the days slipped away. Were they making a mistake?
Just then, Lizzie leant forward and punched Ben on the arm, causing a laughter to break out between them. The tension snaking Jaddi’s shoulders eased. Mayb
e they weren’t bickering after all.
Ben had relaxed around them over the past few days, or maybe they’d relaxed around him. Either way, he’d lost the abruptness to his voice and he smiled more. Not much, but more. Although, they’d yet to convince him to have a beer with them when the camera was off.
A moment later, Jaddi stood and zipped up her shorts.
‘What’s going on with you today?’ Samantha asked. ‘You’ve been weird since you got back last night. Don’t tell me you struck out with those blokes? Or are you still peeved about changing plans?’
Jaddi paused and considered Samantha’s question. Why was she being such a moody cow?
The drinks she’d had with the two shaggy, well-travelled Americans the previous evening had been fun at first, but the exhaustion from climbing the temple, along with the formidable humidity, had given her an instant hangover.
She’d left her new friends and walked the streets alone for a while. Her flirtatious banter with the Americans had reminded her of Suk and how much she missed their weekly clandestine meetings in back-street pubs and restaurants in remote parts of London.
Jaddi had meant what she’d said at the airport – she wasn’t ready to get married – but there was more. Jaddi liked the secrecy. Her relationship with Suk belonged only to her, and she belonged only to Suk. She didn’t want everything to change by getting married, and she wasn’t prepared to lose her family by not getting married. Then again, everything would change when they returned anyway, Jaddi reminded herself.
Jaddi pulled in a long breath of stifling air and stepped alongside Samantha. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lash out at you. I’m tired and letting the heat get to me, that’s all.’
‘Really?’ Samantha tilted her head to one side.
Jaddi shrugged. ‘It’s nothing. You wouldn’t understand.’
One Endless Summer Page 7