Grease Monkey Jive

by Paton, Ainslie

  Dan turned, ready to walk back into the main area of the club. “This time she did that all by herself.”

  Mitch stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. “Yeah – but you’re not helping her see it any other way.”

  “It’s better this way.”

  Mitch rapped on the side of his head with his knuckles. “You need your skull read.” It made Dan screw his eyes closed tight. He pushed Mitch away.

  “If I ask you nicely, will you leave it alone now?”

  Mitch grunted.

  “Mitch.”

  “I’ll leave it alone. Mitch rolled his eyes. “I don’t get it, but I’ll leave it alone.”

  Dan gave him another shove for good measure. “Now come and help Katie distract the blonde again so I can get out of here.”

  58. Aversion Therapy

  Trevor wasn’t sure what to make of the email. He printed it out and handed it to Scott.

  Scott interpreted it with a loud swear word. “Now what do we do?” he said, when he’d finished being dramatic.

  Trevor retrieved the piece of paper from the desk and folded it in half. “I guess we let her decide.”

  “That’s incredibly reasonable,” Scott huffed on an eye roll.

  He folded the paper in half again. “What would you do?”

  “Something much less reasonable.”

  “Like what?” Trevor folded the paper again and made little triangular wings appear while Scott spun around in the office chair.

  “Oh, I don’t know, drag them together kicking and screaming till they realise their differences don’t matter and fall into each other’s arms.”

  Trevor laughed. “Did you watch Titanic? Again?” Scott scowled as he flashed past in the spinning chair. “I don’t think we can do anything else but ask her what she wants to do.”

  “If she’s stubborn enough to say no, what then?”

  He made little tail fins in the paper. “She’s a grown up. It’s her decision.”

  “Crap.” Scott brought the chair to a stop. “That won’t fly.”

  “Well, what’s your suggestion?”

  “No, I mean that won’t fly.” Scott nodded his head towards the paper plane in Trevor’s hand.

  Trevor pulled the plane up to his shoulder and aimed at the open doorway. “I used to be good at this.” He thrust his hand forward, elbow tight to his side, and let go the paper plane. It hit the doorjamb and tumbled nose over tail to the floor. “Crap.”

  “Crap,” Scott repeated and he wasn’t referring to pilot error.

  Half an hour later Alex arrived, and Trevor tried to keep the echo of parent out of his voice. “It’s your choice, Alex. It doesn’t matter to the competition at all. You can say no.”

  “I need to think about this,” Alex said at last, a copy of the email crumpled in her hand. “You’re sure you don’t care if I do it or not?”

  Trevor smiled, “It’s up to you.”

  “It’s up to Dan too. Even if I agree to do it, I can’t think why he would.”

  “He clearly wants to be friends, Alley cat.” Scott did a good job of trying to hide his excitement, keeping his voice steady.

  Alex nodded. She wasn’t sure she could be friends with Dan Maddox. She was less sure she could handle dancing with him again in a highlights performance on the last night of the competition. Even if she could sort those feelings out, there was no reason Dan would agree to do it. But it was all she could think about, the chance to dance with Dan one last time, to feel his hands on her body, to look into his eyes, to know his strength and his gentleness again. And to know it would be the last time. It felt like the perfect way to finally say goodbye properly without the surprise and anger.

  Of course it was a dream. He’d most certainly moved on and whatever his little fling with the dance floor had meant to him, it was over now. Which left one more thing she could do. She could say goodbye.

  He cracked the door, “Oh, God.” A visitor he’d not expected. “I know I’ve been off the rails lately, but what did I do to deserve you?”

  “I love you too. Now let me in; it’s freezing out here.”

  Dan slid the side door of the Kombi open and Katie clambered in, causing great tail wags, whimpering, and front feet prancing from Jeff until Dan banished him to the front seat.

  “Fluke said you’re camped out here.”

  “I’m on holiday.”

  “In the middle of Bondi Promenade? You only live ten minutes up the road. You’re a lunatic.”

  “I go home every so often.” In truth he was going home every night to cook, eat, and sleep. He just wasn’t hanging around there during the days he didn’t work at the garage. But it was more amusing to let Katie think he’d turned nomad.

  She wriggled onto the bench seat and tried to comb the wind from her hair with glossy black fingernails. “What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m sure if I wait a bit you’ll tell me.”

  “Is that supposed to egg me on?”

  “Doesn’t it?” Dan grinned. He was pretty sure this visit wasn’t social, more Katie’s version of Bondi Rescue. She rolled her lips back into her mouth, a sock puppet expression; it was a face Fluke pulled too and it made him laugh.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “You.”

  “Yeah. I’m real funny,” her voice flared. “I’m not the one living in a van on Bondi Prom in the middle of winter.”

  “Winter is almost over.”

  “Dan!”

  He sighed, long and heavy. There was no jollying her out of getting stuck into him.

  “Fluke said you quit your job and you gave him a car.”

  “I tried to, but he won’t take it. It’s taking up space in the driveway at home.”

  “You’ve lost your tiny mind, haven’t you?”

  “And let me guess, you’re here to help me find it.”

  Katie leaned across the fold out table and glared. “Frigging oath! I’m here to kick your arse.”

  “Might be tricky in here.”

  “At least your eyes are clean.”

  “Ok. That’s enough, Katie.” Physical distance would be good at this point, but there was nowhere to go in the confines of the van except out. Dan had to be satisfied with trying to hold Katie off verbally. “What I do with my life is none of your business.”

  “Fuck off, Dan. It is my business.”

  “Language.”

  “Oh, fuck off!”

  “When did you start sounding like Fluke and me?”

  “When I found out what a fucking idiot you were.”

  “Nice.”

  “What happened to you? You’re like three different people. First there you were with a girlfriend. A frigging girlfriend! And she was gorgeous and you were just – wow – you were just so into her and I know she was into you because I think she might’ve scratched my eyes out if I’d hung around any longer. You were like new, improved, happier-than-ever Dan and I was jealous as.”

  Dan smiled at the memory of Katie interrupting him and Alex at the club that night, the night they danced in the street and made love in the bowling club car park and he’d been happier than he’d ever imagined possible.

  “Then you disappear. When you show up again, no girlfriend, no hair, and you’re thin, and you’ve got these hollows under here.” She reached forward and stroked Dan’s cheek and he closed his eyes on a slow out breath and let her. “And you’ve got women hanging all over you again and you’re trying to act all up, like it’s what you want. But you’re miserable as all hell and Fluke tells me you flipped out on Alex, quit work, went strange, and built him a car.”

  Her touch had cooled his annoyance; her words had softened his frustration. “Ah, Katie.”

  “Is it true?”

  She’d nailed it; he nodded.

  “Why?”

  “There’s a lot of question in that word.”

  “Why would you let her go?”

  “You and Fluke – you’ll be the death of me.
”

  “There are worse ways to go. I’m not leaving til you tell me. I’m going to hang around and cramp your style until you tell me what’s going on.”

  Katie was sitting back, arms folded across her chest, doing her best to be intimidating, but she was still Fluke’s little sister and Dan had no desire to further complicate their relationship.

  “Why am I going to tell you anything?”

  “Because I love you and because Fluke doesn’t know how to beg.”

  He groaned. “We need coffee.” He needed to be rescued or abducted by aliens.

  “We don’t. That’s an excuse. You are the master of avoiding stuff you don’t want to talk about. I’m staying til you cough up.”

  “I’m not talking this out with you, Katie.”

  “Then who?” She went bug eyed and when she saw his jaw tighten said, “Right, thought so. I’m it, mate. Fucking get on with it.”

  Dan put his elbows on the table. “How can I tell you about this? A little unfair after what...”

  “After what we nearly did? Geez, that was crazy. You’re basically my brother. That was like making out with Fluke. I used to think you were so much cooler than him – well you are, so I still do, despite the hair. Grow it back already. But you and me, what a crock. That was never on. I just wanted you to notice me and I thought I had to compete with all the other women around you to get you to remember I was alive.”

  He put his face in his hands, his, “No,” a muttered mixture of disbelief and regret.

  “Yeah. I was dumb and unfair to you. But you don’t need any reminders of who I am. I’m the one who’s known you nearly all your life and I friggin’ know what you can be and it’s not this, so talk.”

  Dan gathered himself, closed his eyes, tried to centre his thinking to work out how to put into words what he felt. When he opened them, Katie had tears in hers.

  “You did love her and you gave her up because you think you’re not good enough.”

  “Fluke told you that.”

  “No, I can see it. You’re such an idiot. I have idiots for brothers. If Fluke had told me that I’d have been in your face sooner. You’re an arrogant prick to decide for a girl what’s good for her.”

  “What?” It was Dan’s turn to glare.

  “You heard me. You just up and decided. I’ll bet you didn’t give her any say in it. Didn’t tell her what was worrying you. You just aced her out and you thought making it so she’d blame you would be a kindness to her. You did, I can see it in your face, that’s what you did.”

  Dan had no idea what expression he wore, but Katie had nailed it again and it hit like the first signs of a headache, a blinding flash behind his eyes, a tightness at his temples. One of the first things Alex taught him was about bullying, that the worst kind of bully was someone who pretended they were doing you a favour while they got their own way. And this was the second time he’d done it to her – made a decision for her. He put his hands to his temples and squeezed. He was a stupid arrogant bastard, not even smart enough to learn from his own mistakes, but how could he have done anything else?

  “What else was I supposed to do? I was protecting her. I am protecting her.”

  “From what? From the chance to love you, be with you, make a life with you? Yeah, all criminally bad things. I can see why she’d need protection from that.”

  “Katie, there’s too much of Jimmy in me to be good for Alex.”

  “Oh, you are so full of yourself,” Katie’s words smacked the air. “Too much of Jimmy. Too much shit more like. It’s looks-deep, Dan. The rest is all you and it has been since you were a kid. Why don’t you know that?”

  He’d heard this argument before from Fluke and, more subtly, from Trevor, but the shock of hearing it from Katie broke through. Now he had to recognise its truth. The fear of being like Jimmy had always been his driver and he was reluctant to let it go and believe in himself. That’s why he’d kept working at the garage long after he should’ve been doing something else. That’s why he’d never told anyone his dreams, least of all Alex, because they seemed crazy, unreal, and he felt unworthy of them.

  “I fucked up, didn’t I?”

  “Big time. It’s a wonder she hasn’t slashed her wrists.”

  “She probably hates me too much to do that.”

  “Then you must’ve done a real number on her to paint yourself black enough to hate. No one hates you, Dan. It’s impossible, even if you are a smartarse.”

  “Not impossible. My own father hates me.”

  “Jimmy is jealous of you.”

  Katie snapped that off like any other indisputable fact. It was like saying Jeff is a brown dog, Fluke wipes out in big surf, or Ant will take any bet, but it’d never occurred to Dan.

  “Jealous of me?

  “You’re everything he’s not.”

  Was this a fact or an opinion? How was it the women in his life, Alex and now Katie, could see things so much clearer than he could? “I never thought about it like that.”

  “So start now. Go get her back.”

  Dan’s new-found wonder fell into an immediate state of despair. “She won’t trust me again.”

  Katie reached across the table and took his hand, wrapping her fingers through his. “My brother wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop him.”

  “It’s not a little thing.”

  “But it’s not bigger than you.”

  “God.” The tightness in Dan’s temples, now a throb, echoed in his hand as he gripped Katie’s.

  “I’ll send you my bill.”

  He released her hand on a bark of laughter. “You would too, you mercenary little bugger.”

  “No more hanging out in the van,” she instructed.

  “No,” he said with conviction.

  “Go get your old job back or get a new one.”

  “Yeah, I’m working on that.”

  “Eat more.”

  “I got it.”

  “Give me the keys to the Charger.”

  Dan grinned. “You figured you’d just slip that in, did you?”

  “Ok, I’m joking, I’m joking.” Katie put both hands up in submission. “I think I know why you built Fluke the car. It’s what you do for the hopeless one in the family.”

  “Fluke has always had my back and he’s not been as lucky with money as the rest of us,” he shrugged. “It’s a mates thing.”

  Katie shifted her legs out from under the table. “It’s you and your extreme favours.” She stood. Her work here was done. “Keep the crop; it’s dead sexy.”

  “Katherine Dean!”

  “I might be your sister, but I’m not blind, Dan.”

  He swung the Kombi door open and pointed, “Getoutahere,” and when he followed her out and folded her in a hug, it was the sign of a bond nothing would break.

  The idea of going to his flat felt too intimate. Alex didn’t think she could be there and not be storm-tossed by the memory of how happy she’d been with him, swamped by the feeling of what was lost and unrecoverable. So going to his flat was out. A public place, where they’d be more inclined to watch their manners, would be better.

  He wasn’t at the garage and they didn’t seem to know when he’d be back. The boss laughed when she’d asked. Said he wasn’t working there any more – at least not regularly. That was puzzling; he’d loved the garage, loved his work. It would’ve been nice to think he got a better job, but the impression the boss gave her was that he’d gone walkabout instead.

  In a strange way, that was another dose of aversion therapy. It settled Alex’s stomach, like the aftermath of seeing him at the club had done. Made her see him true, without the rose-coloured glasses. He was a good time boy and he lacked the ambition to make himself a better life or hold onto a job. At least on those two scores she’d not judged him too harshly.

  On a whim she tried the beach and found the Kombi parked on the Promenade. It was closed up, but she could see Jeff sitting up in the passenger seat tracking seagulls. No s
urf to speak of and no surfers out there. She was wondering if she should knock and see if he was home or abandon the idea as a bad one altogether.

  She could hear Scott calling her coward again in that scathing and self-righteous tone of voice, so she got out of the car, but before she started across to the van, the door flung open and a girl with vivid red hair tumbled out. Fluke’s sister, Katie, the one who’d knocked the competition out at the club, and Dan was hugging her long and close and tight and Alex felt like a voyeur to the emotion in that hug. This was different to the scene in the club played out in public; this was a private moment.

  At least he wouldn’t have spotted her. She turned and fled back to her car. But Scott’s accusation was still dancing in her head. She was a coward. That scene had taught her no more than she already knew, even if it did make her hands shake and her eyes scratchy.

  There was no problem with speaking to Dan civilly – they’d been polite, cooperative, friendly, when they were only teacher and student. She would be grown up, solve the problem of the invitational performance, and get herself a civilised goodbye.

  Dan had only just closed the door against the wind when Katie knocked again. He flung it open. “No, you can’t have the keys.”

  Not Katie. Dan had no breath, no way to stay semi-upright in the van without holding on to something. In the front seat Jeff went wild, whining and prancing and wiggling furiously.

  Alex was luminously pale, tendrils of dark hair teased by the wind whipping around her face and her “Hi,” was almost drowned out by the roar of surprise in his ears.

  His “Hi,” came out guttural and forced and he had no other words to follow it. He stood in the van, bent forward against the low ceiling, trying to take in the fact she was here. Not quite smiling, not happy to be here, but here and close enough to touch.

  Alex clearly didn’t want to get in the Kombi, but the wind was cutting, so she needed to get in or he had to come out. His feet were stuck to the van’s floor.

  “Dan, are you alright?”

  “Come in.” He said it on a cough, moving back to make room, holding Jeff by the collar to stop him from leaping all over her.