Just Say (Hell) No (Escape to New Zealand Book 11)

by Rosalind James

  “Oh,” Carol-Anne said. “Well, obviously, we’d make that information available to them when they’re older. We do understand open adoption. Is your grandmother Maori, then? I didn’t see that. Although that’s fine,” she hastened to say.

  “No,” Ella said. The thumbs were going at double speed now. “But the baby’s dad is Samoan. Half. I guess you know that, though. His mum’s Pakeha, but his dad’s from the islands. Does that matter?”

  “No,” Adrian said. “It doesn’t. They’re boys. Tall, if you’re anything to go by,” he told Marko. “Tall’s good for boys, and so is strong.”

  “Tall girls are bad?” Ella asked. “Strong girls?”

  “No!” Carol-Anne said. “Of course not. Just… it can be awkward for girls, can’t it, if they’re too tall. And big. Samoan wouldn’t be the best for that, would it?”

  “But since you’re not having girls,” Adrian said, “the point is moot.” Definitely a lawyer.

  “And you’re white, anyway,” Carol-Anne said. “So it’s not really an issue.”

  The words dropped into the room with all the buoyancy of a weight stack falling in the gym. Ella had gone completely still, and on Marko’s other side, so had Nyree. As for Marko? He was breathing. In. Out.

  “Pardon?” Ella finally asked.

  “Oh,” Carol-Anne said. “I just meant—obviously, you’ll want the boys adopted into a family that shares your culture. Which we do. Three quarters, anyway, which is close enough. Basque is good. Basque is fine. Spain, France. That’s fine.”

  A long, long silence, with the couple looking at each other, then away again. Carol-Anne had her mouth open to say something, but Ella got there first. “My grandmother is Aborigine,” she said. “So not really.”

  This time, the weight stack dropped through the floor. “You mean,” Carol-Anne said, “Aborigine as in… what? Maori? But you said… the information we got said…”

  “As in Noongar,” Ella said. “As in Australia. As in Aborigine. So I don’t think you exactly share my culture.”

  They were at a random café in Albany, and Marko still didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t a feeling he experienced much. He wasn’t enjoying it.

  At the too-neat house in Orewa, the decision had been easy. Ella had stood up like a jack-in-the-box, Nyree had stood with her, and Marko had told Carol-Anne and Adrian, “We’ll let you know. But I don’t think so.”

  Carol-Anne had kept talking, and Ella had kept walking. They’d headed to the car in silence, and when Ella had climbed into the back seat, Nyree had handed Marko the keys and said, “Drive.”

  He’d driven. Heading down the motorway with no destination but a vague ‘Home’ in mind.

  “I don’t think I’m wrong,” Ella had finally said, after kilometer upon silent kilometer spent looking out the window at nothing. “Am I wrong?”

  “No,” Nyree had answered. “I don’t think so. It’s a feeling, isn’t it. It was the wrong feeling.”

  “They were nervous,” Ella had said. “I get it. I was nervous, too. But they weren’t just surprised to learn about Amona. They were shocked. Weren’t they? How can I give the babies to somebody who doesn’t think Amona’s awesome? She’s, like… strong. That Adrian, he thought it was good for the boys to be strong, but he doesn’t even know what that means. They’re meant to be the adults. Shouldn’t they know that?’

  “They should,” Nyree had said. “Who are you texting?”

  “Tom. I thought… I thought I was going to be done. I thought this was it. Now I’m wondering, how am I going to know at all? Do I have to meet, like, everybody in order to find the right ones? And what if I think I have, but they hide it? What if I don’t know, no matter what? What if I don’t find the right people at all, and I give the babies to the wrong ones?”

  That was when Marko stopped driving mindlessly. When he exited the motorway and said, “Nyree, find me a café, please,” and she did.

  That was why, twenty minutes later, they were in the Willow Café, a tiny venue hidden behind a business park, and Ella was tucking into eggs bennie on corn cakes, nobody’s diet breakfast, and looking like every calorie was helping.

  Marko finally got to ask Nyree, “What color were they? Carol-Anne and what’s-his-name?”

  “She was dark yellow,” Nyree said. “He was blue. Better than her.”

  “What do you mean?” Ella asked.

  Marko said, “Nyree sees people in color. You’ve never told her?” he asked Nyree.

  “No. I told you, I don’t tell people. They don’t get it. They think I’m odd.”

  “But you told me. I reckon that’s a good sign.”

  “Wait,” Ella said. “You can love up on Nyree another time. What, Nyree, you see people some special way, and it means something?”

  “To me,” Nyree said, “that’s all. Their colors.”

  “So what’s… dark yellow?”

  “Scared,” Nyree said immediately. “I felt… sorry for her. That she was so scared of stuffing up, but she also needs to make everything around her perfect, too, or it’s not good enough. Rigid, maybe. Hard to explain. Mostly, I got ‘scared’.”

  “Not right, then,” Ella said.

  “Not to me. I don’t think twins will be perfect. I think everybody will make a lot of mistakes. And I’ll tell you what my own grandmother would say right now. My Maori grandmother. When I was feeling like I couldn’t do something, or like I couldn’t do anything. When it was feeling too hard to be the person I was.”

  “What?” Ella said.

  “E whiti e,” Nyree said. “Shine. Shine your own light, your best light. Trust what’s inside. Shine.”

  Ella was paying attention, and then she wasn’t. She jumped up, and Marko tore his own attention from his avocado smash, which was an effort. Ella wasn’t the only one who thought better on a full stomach. He sighed when he saw Kors coming through the door and said, “Figures.”

  “No,” Nyree said. “Better.”

  She sounded sure enough that Marko tried to see what she was seeing. The two of them embracing, belly and all, which wasn’t all that fantastic a sight as far as he was concerned. Kors kissing Ella’s cheek, then tucking her into his body and wrapping her up tight. Possibly letting her know she wasn’t alone.

  All right, that probably was better.

  Marko had looked pretty tense for a minute there, but Nyree could tell he’d relaxed now. And Ella had definitely relaxed.

  Nyree had always needed to be around people. Sometimes, though, that could be overwhelming. Too many emotions, too many colors swirling in her head.

  No choice this time. Ella and Tom came over and sat down after a minute, and Ella started to work on her breakfast again as Tom said, “So. No good, eh.”

  “No,” Ella said.

  “You know,” Tom said, “there’s another answer.”

  “I know,” Ella said. “If at first you don’t succeed, blah blah. I get it. Moving on to Number Two on the list. I’ve got fourteen weeks to go, probably, if I make it to thirty-six like the doctor says. That’s more than three months. Heaps of time to find the right ones. I just have to believe. You don’t have to say it.”

  “No.” Tom glanced at Marko, then back at Ella. “You could keep them yourself, if that’s what you want to do. I could help you do it.”

  Nyree thought Marko was going to stand up and turn the table over. That was how hot the pulsating color felt coming off him. “No,” he said flatly. “That’s a hard no.”

  “Excuse me?” Ella said. “It’s not your life. It’s my life.”

  Nyree put a hand on Marko’s arm. “Wait. Give her a chance.”

  He subsided, but his face was at its most grim. Nyree wouldn’t want to be the one trying to stand up to that.

  Tom, to his credit, didn’t back down. He said, “I’m telling Ella it’s an option, because it is. Do you want her to think, five years from now—‘I could have done it. Why did I give my babies away?’ She can choose, but she shou
ld know it is a choice.” He told Ella, “If that’s what you want to do, if that’s the real reason it didn’t work today—I’ll do it with you. I’ve got little brothers and sisters of my own, I’m earning a good wage, and I’m here, putting my hand up.”

  Ella had abandoned her eggs and had both hands pressed to her head. “Whoa,” she said. “Wait.”

  Tom wasn’t the only one who waited. You could call the air “tense.” Nyree, for one, longed to say something. More than one thing. That how you felt at almost-seventeen—or even at nineteen, like Tom—was likely nowhere close to how you’d feel ten years later. That if Ella thought being pregnant was hard, raising two babies while you finished high school and went on to University would be so much harder. That a couple this young would have a rough enough road without two babies. But Tom was right about one thing. Sixteen or not, this wasn’t anybody’s choice but Ella’s.

  Ella, for her part, sat up straighter and took Tom’s hand. It was as if somebody had pushed the Mute button on the Sunday-brunch crowd, because all Nyree could hear, all she could see, was whatever would come next. She grabbed Marko’s hand herself and pressed it tight, maybe to help him wait, too.

  It took Ella another moment to start. What she finally said, she said to Tom. “I love you. Not just because of this, but—yeh. Because of this, too. Marko’s going to say I can’t know what that means, that I’m too young, but I’m not. But the thing is—I need to make the choice that’s right for the babies, too. And it’s not me.” Her chin wobbled for a second before she went on. “I think that’s what being a mum means, isn’t it? Doing the best you can for your kids? And that’s this. I know it is. I feel it is. It hurts so…” She stopped and took a couple breaths. “I lie there at night, when they’re moving around inside me, and I feel like it’s too hard, but there’s no choice, not now. And I know it’s better for me, too. I thought, at the beginning—this was something I could do for somebody else, somebody who wanted a baby more than anything. It’s been harder than I ever knew it could be, though. I know it’s going to get even harder, and I’m… I’m scared.” Two tears had spilled over now and were making their slow way down her cheeks, but she plowed on. “So, yeh, I’m scared, but I’m still right. It’s better for me, too. The babies will have a better life, and so will I. It’s a… a win/win. Or it will be. I know it will. I just have to hold on. But it hurts.”

  Nyree was going to lose it. Her hand was over her mouth, her chest aching with the pressure of the tears inside. Tom’s handsome face twisted, and he had to try twice before he said, “I love you, too. That’s all.” Then he took Ella in his arms. Her shoulders heaved, and finally, she cried.

  She cried like her heart had already broken. Like it was going to keep breaking, and she knew it. And like she also knew that she’d have to keep going anyway. She’d started on her road, and there was no choice now but to keep walking to the end, and then to leave that road behind and turn onto another one.

  But maybe, just maybe… she’d have somebody’s hand around hers, walking the road with her. And when she couldn’t take another step, maybe he’d carry her until she could walk again.

  More than one somebody, of course. If anybody had ever had a whole squad of somebodies standing behind her, it was Ella. But one who mattered most of all right now, because he was showing her that there was more life to come. That there was another road after this one, and it might even lead somewhere beautiful.

  There were storms, Nyree thought, and then there was this. Too much sadness, and that light, barely a glimmer, at the end of it.

  But when Ella had gone to the Ladies’ and come back again, the tears were gone, proving that what she’d told the Wrong Couple had been true. There was more than one kind of strength, especially for girls. Surely, this took more strength than a sixteen-year-old should have to produce.

  This particular sixteen-year-old proved it by sitting down at the table again and saying, “So that was pretty awkward, crying and all, but at least I know what I need to do. I need to find somebody better, that’s all.”

  Marko said, “I have an idea. First, though, I need to say the same thing as before. You’re the buyer, not the seller. It’s your choice. But I think we should give it a try. It’s even on the way home.”

  “What?” Ella said.

  “Just—meet some people for me,” Marko said. “No expectations, no pressure.”

  He wouldn’t say anything else until they were on the motorway, when he finally said, “I realize this could be awkward, which is why I didn’t mention it before. Could be, though, that I realized today that anything you do would be awkward.”

  “Geez, thanks,” Ella said.

  “No,” he said. “I mean that it’ll be tricky, with anybody you choose, to know who they really are. Even though Nyree sees in color, and even though I’ll be looking and listening as well. Only so much you can learn from emails and phone calls, eh, or even from a meeting. Which made me think that you may want to go with somebody who’s already vetted. People who haven’t rehearsed what to say to you, too.”

  “OK,” Ella said slowly. “So—who?”

  “Hugh Latimer,” Marko said. “The skipper. Somebody I ought to know, since I’ve been playing with him on the All Blacks for years. I know him at training, I know him with the younger boys, I know him under pressure, and I know him at the pub after the match. Top player. Even better man. And Josie Pae Ata, of course. And wait,” he said when Ella would have interrupted him. “They wouldn’t fit on your matrix, I know. They have kids already, and they’re as flash as they come. But let’s meet them anyway.”

  “But I met her already,” Ella said. “She won’t even look at me. She’s snotty as. That’s not who the babies need. That’d be even worse.”

  Nyree said, “Huh. Are you sure, Marko?”

  “I’m sure it’s worth checking out, anyway. If you don’t want to stay, Ella, we won’t stay.” He was off the motorway and into the charming peninsula town of Devonport now, inching along Lake Road in the Sunday traffic with Tom following behind. “We don’t even have to say that’s what we’re there for. I’ll make something up, and then it’ll be down to you. If you still think they’re wrong for this, we leave again with nobody the wiser.”

  They parked in front of the dairy on Church Street, with its advert touting the “Biggest Ice Creams in Auckland!” and waited while Tom found his own spot. When he’d joined them, Ella said, “Right, the house is pretty, but Devonport’s flash as. Devonport’s, like, the definition of flash.”

  “It’s a villa, though,” Marko said, which indeed it was. Across the street, not too big, and painted white. Wide front porch, scalloped trim, and all the requisite historic chocolate-box prettiness, with the green slope of Mount Victoria rising behind it, two beaches a few hundred meters away in two directions, a cricket ground a couple streets over, and a tire swing hung from the huge old tree in front. Family-friendly, but then, so was Orewa. “My house is probably more flash than this,” Marko pointed out, “and nobody can say that I am. We won’t know until we see.”

  By the time they’d ascended the stairs to the porch, Ella was hanging back. Marko rang the bell, and after a minute, he rang it again.

  “Nobody’s home,” Ella said with obvious relief. “Let’s go. One a day is enough anyway.”

  The door opened on the words, and, yes, there was Jocelyn Pae Ata. Wearing trackpants, fuzzy socks, and a Blues T-shirt, with her hair in a Maori knot, looking nothing like the cool, polished figure Nyree had seen so far. She’d apparently been folding the washing, because she had a sheet in her hands.

  “Oh,” she said blankly, then smiled. She was an actress, though, so what did that mean? “Come in.” She stood back and waved them in, but then, she was Maori. Thus, hospitable. “Haere mai. What a lovely surprise.”

  “I know you weren’t expecting us,” Marko said, stepping inside and taking off his shoes as the others did the same, “but Ella here had to use the toilet fairly desperately
, so I took a chance. She’s pregnant, eh. And bursting.”

  Ella made a choking noise, and Nyree knew what she meant. That was the best Marko could do? Josie said, “Oh! Of course,” and led the way down the passage. “It’s just through that door, Ella.”

  There was a hammering noise coming from farther inside the house. Hugh and Josie were doing the washing and their home repair, it sounded like. At that moment, a young teenage girl came rushing into the rimu-floored passage, skidding in her socks and shouting over her shoulder, “It is not, Hugh. It’s normal. I’m going to ask Josie!”

  Hugh appeared behind her, looking big, bearded, and harassed. “It may be normal,” he said, “but it’s still not on. Hi, Marko. How ya goin’, mate. Didn’t know you were stopping by.”

  The girl had whirled on Josie. “Hugh says this top’s too low, Josie. Tell him it’s normal.”

  “Sorry, love,” Josie said. “It is low, a bit. We could pin it. I’ll show you.”

  “Fine,” the girl said. “I’ll be the only one wearing a tent, that’s all.”

  Josie laughed, but it didn’t sound unkind. “Nah, darling. You won’t be. Wear the red one instead, or wait and I’ll help you pin this one. Either way, you’ll be pretty as anything.”

  The girl sighed, said, “Fine” again, and stalked down the long central passage to the back of the house.

  “Sorry,” Josie said as a door slammed. “That’s Amelia. Forgetting my manners, aren’t I. Come into the kitchen.”

  They trooped down the passage after her and Hugh, and discovered the source of the hammering. A boy, a young one, who was… tap dancing. Not something you saw every day. He was turning circles like a top, arms outstretched, feet flying, before finishing in a crescendo of furious tapping, dropping to one knee, and throwing out his arms. After which he jumped up, breathing hard, and said, “That’s it. What d’you think, Josie?”