by Zana Bell
“I can’t believe I’m driving through a pop song.”
The house blew her away. Built high on stilts, it was right on the beach, with the Gulf of Mexico spread before it. Inside, the place was large and gracious—fat sofas, enveloping armchairs, big beds heaped with pillows, several gleaming bathrooms and a huge kitchen with every appliance she could think of, plus a few she’d never imagined.
She tried texting her sisters, but her cell phone didn’t work in the States. “Cheap piece of crap!” She tossed it on the table in disgust.
“You can use mine,” said Adam, yawning, “but not now. C’mon, Cressa, bed.”
“It’s only five o’clock,” she objected, but at that moment she, too, yawned widely, almost dislocating her jaw. Adam didn’t argue. He simply grabbed her hand and dragged her into the main bedroom, which overlooked the sea. The sight of the bed proved irresistible, and within minutes both had stripped and tumbled between the sheets to fall instantly asleep.
When Cressa awoke, the room was in darkness and she was disoriented. The regular slush of the waves was reassuring, however, as she slowly realized she was indeed in America. Beside her, the bed was empty. Squinting at a clock on the nightstand, she saw it was 4:30 a.m. On the back of the door she spied a long dressing gown, and she slipped it on before going in search of Adam.
When she stepped outside, she was immediately struck by how hot and humid the night was. It felt deliciously languid. Adam was on a swing out on the deck. He’d showered and shaved, and was wearing clean jeans and a black T-shirt. In the moonlight he looked like a French philosopher, all moody elegance with deep, shadowed eyes.
His face lit up when he saw her. “Hey. Glad to see you’re alive. You were so sound asleep when I left you I wondered if you’d ever wake up again.”
He scooted over to make space for her, and she leaned into him, enjoying the athletic strength of his body.
“You look beautiful.” His hand slipped beneath the satin robe.
“It’s so lovely here.” She gestured to the tranquil scene. The sea was black, and the faint moonlight picked out the whitewash breaking rhythmically along the beach. No hills interrupted the horizon and the sky arced high.
Adam smiled down at her. “Isn’t it.”
She’d never seen him so relaxed. The heat and the serenity of the night had somehow dissipated his usual coiled energy. Or perhaps he was just content to be home again. In New Zealand he’d always seemed exotic, but here, on this deck swing, he suddenly belonged.
“I can’t wait to show you all the sights. Galveston’s beautiful, and I’ll take you into Houston for some shopping. Then there’s the Alamo, of course. Seeing as you’re fond of pop songs, I can take you up to Pasadena.”
She laughed, arching under his stroking hand. “I want to see everything, but you also have to study. I’m not here to distract you.”
“Not sure if I can resist.” He kissed the top of her head.
“Seriously, I’ll be out of the house from early morning to evening. No way will I interfere with your work. It’s too important.”
His arm tightened around her. “Yeah, it is. Thanks.”
She smiled. He was finally learning to say that something mattered, to say he cared.
HE TOOK THE FIRST DAY OFF, however. They unpacked, and he was delighted to find a letter from Cole waiting for him.
“I told him about the MCAT and said I’d be staying here,” Adam said as he ripped open the envelope. “He’s banned me from visiting until the exam is over.” A grin spread over his face as he unfolded the paper. “Actually, it’s for you, Cressa. Look. I sent him a couple of pictures of you.”
He passed her a cartoon sketch of a kiwi and a coyote snuggled together. The sketch made her chuckle, because the kiwi had her eyes, her nose fusing into the bird’s characteristically long beak, while the coyote had Adam’s features. There was a note at the bottom:
Hi, Cressa. Adam told me all about you. I’m really looking forward to meeting you, but I hope you understand if I say I’d rather we wait until I’m released. Cole.
She glanced up. “I thought he wasn’t getting out till the end of the year.”
“He isn’t.”
“I’m only here for a month.”
“I know.” Adam bent over and picked up the cartoon, his hair falling forward to screen his face. “He’s really clever at drawing, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, I’ll frame it when I get home.”
LATER THAT MORNING Adam drove her into Galveston. She was enchanted by the long piers, the lovely houses and old storefronts. They ambled down the sunny streets of the main shopping area.
“Man, I’m going to have to buy some different clothes,” she said. “Jeans are way too hot.”
She dragged Adam into several surfing shops to get an idea of the prices. In one store window she saw an advertisement for a temporary assistant.
“That’s me!” she said.
“Cressa, it’s supposed to be your holiday!”
“Nah, I enjoy working. It’s the best way of getting to know a new place. Besides, it’ll keep me out your hair. Come on.”
Mike and Tim, who owned the shop, were at first dubious. They were both in their early sixties, faces ravaged by too much sun, too much surf and probably too much pot. Despite their renegade looks, their long hair and surfer clothing, they were disconcertingly bureaucratic.
“Have you got a green card?”
However, when they inquired about her accent and chatted a bit about the surfing scene in New Zealand, they were less worried. Then she let slip that Jake was her cousin. “Jake Finlayson? The Jake Finlayson? No way, man!”
The job was hers, beginning the following day. She was almost skipping as she left the shop. “It’ll be such fun!”
Adam laughed and spun her around to kiss her. “I love that you are so wholehearted. So crazy.”
She kissed him back. “What’s crazy? I want to experience everything I can in this month. It’s a way to get to understand you better. Which starts right now. I want to see where you grew up.”
He pulled back. “Definitely not. It’s not pretty. There are much better things to see, instead.”
“I don’t care. It’s important. Besides—” she drew a key out of her pocket “—I told Alicia we’d check up on the place.”
DEFEATED, Adam drove her to the trailer park. She had never seen one before.
“It’s nicer than I expected,” she said as they drove slowly up and down the rows of mobile homes.
“The trailers vary a lot. Some are horrendous. Others have been done up well.”
They certainly were a mixed bunch, ranging from ones painted in jaunty colors like Gypsy caravans, with tiny, well-tended gardens and hanging baskets, to the frankly deplorable, with peeling paint and rusted air-conditioning units.
“This is it.” They stopped in front of a blue trailer. The paintwork was faded, the grass overgrown. It was not so much run-down as unloved. The inside was the same. The unit was small but well-appointed, the furnishings shabby now, but of good quality. The air was stifling and stale, from the place having been shut up so long and Adam opened some windows. Walking through the deserted home felt strange, almost as if someone had died there.
The back bedrooms were tiny. The boys’ room still had the bunks they’d grown up in, and a few faded posters.
“Mom left them up because she said they reminded her of us.”
Sass’s room had been converted into a study. It was filled with books and had a desk under the window, which looked down the trailer-lined road. Cressa imagined Alicia sitting there, marking and preparing lessons at night and over weekends. The room was peaceful enough, but the whole trailer felt desolate, no doubt the result of it being locked up for months. Sass had come in to clean and tidy up, but Alicia had preferred not to return to live in it. She’d wanted to make sure her addiction was truly conquered before she risked sliding back into old habits in familiar places.
Cressa wandered back to the small living room. Hard to imagine having three children here—Sass, driven to succeed; Cole, the golden boy; and Adam. No wonder he’d taken off on his bike, gone wild. This place was far too tiny for a young teenager bursting with energy. No wonder he’d learned to fold in on himself, to hold in his thoughts and feelings. There was no space for privacy. Either people showed what they thought and felt, or they learned to hide it. How different from her own home. Although there had been many sisters, each had had her own room.
What a fighter Alicia was. Cressa smiled as she trailed her finger along a bookshelf, one of many tucked into any available space. Books had been her lifeline, she’d said, after her children had gone.
Cressa looked up to see Adam watching her. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think your mum is amazing—she just battles on, whatever the odds, doesn’t she.”
Cressa loved the way Adam’s dark features lit up with his smile. “Yeah, she’s really something.” He grew serious. “I should have been around for her more, though. Leaving her on her own was wrong.”
Cressa slipped her arm through his. “Kids have to leave home. We all have our own roads.”
He looked down at her, face inscrutable. “How do we know when roads are meant to merge or diverge?”
Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if they were still talking about Alicia. “I don’t know. I guess when it feels right.”
Adam didn’t say anything for a second, then he moved toward the kitchen. “Do you want a drink? We may find some herbal tea or something.”
But she wasn’t going to allow him to pull away from her like that, and she leaped onto his back.
“Hey, whoa,” he said, staggering under her unexpected assault. “Whattaya doing?”
She wrapped arms and legs tightly around him. “Not letting you slip away, Texas. Don’t think you can use those avoidance tactics on me.”
He laughed but crossed his arms over his chest to hold her arms. “What avoidance tactics?”
“You think I can’t tell when you turn impenetrable? Your drawbridge goes up, and just now you were about to bring down the portcullis, too. However—” she bit his ear “—I’m up to your tricks and I’ve stormed your defenses.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said, and backed her into one of the flimsy walls.
“Oof. Yeah. What are you going to do about it?”
“This!” He carried her piggyback through the doorway into his mother’s bedroom and with a twist flung her onto the bed. He began tearing off her sandals.
“Adam, we can’t!” said Cressa, scandalized. “This is your mother’s room.”
She loved the ruthless look on his lean face.
“Yes, we can. You gonna stop me?”
He was unzipping her jeans.
“It’s just so wrong,” she argued as she raised her hips so he could strip the jeans off.
“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” He tossed them aside.
“It’s just—” she objected, her voice muffled as her T-shirt was hauled up over her face “—one of those taboo things.”
He shoved her back so she was prone on the bed, his face alive with mischief and laughter. “But you love being bad. Enjoy it.”
So she did, and far from it feeling wrong, making love here in the home where he’d grown up ended up feeling incredibly right. It was as though she was being woven into the fabric of his childhood, while at the same time they brought new warmth, new love into this flimsy family home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS Cressa was surprised to find herself falling in love with America. She hadn’t expected to be charmed by everyone, awed by the sheer size of everything, from the milk bottles to the cavernous washing machines to the margaritas served in what looked like fishbowls.
She didn’t miss her family as much as she’d thought she would. She talked to her sisters on Skype regularly, and now she had different adventures and experiences to share with them. Her Facebook pages were lively with comments about the photos she’d posted of new sights, from beach mansions on stilts to ornate graveyards and the beautiful wooden counter of the milk bar.
There were other surprises, too. She had never expected to return to accounting, but one look at the shop’s books had so appalled her that she’d taken the paperwork in hand. She hadn’t expected the satisfaction of getting systems going, and was shocked to discover that beneath her freewheeling persona lurked her mother’s military precision. Tim’s and Mike’s delight made her feel good. Surprisingly good.
But most of all, she hadn’t expected to relish the day-to-day domesticity of living with Adam. She loved seeing his boots by the back door, his razor in the bathroom. She didn’t even mind picking up his socks, though she could tell that would get old pretty soon. She loved kissing him goodbye in the morning as though they were straight out of a 1950s movie. When she came home, Adam would rise from his desk to wrap her in a huge bear hug that lifted her off her feet. Sometimes he carried her straight off to the bedroom or took her then and there, against the wall or on the floor.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he explained. “Gotta make the most of every opportunity.”
She wasn’t complaining. Not at all.
Cressa knew how hard he had to struggle to hold his restless energy in check, knew it demanded every scrap of his fierce determination to focus on his studies rather than obey the demands of a body that craved action. When his incarceration became too much for him, they’d jump on his bike and drive into the night along the endless highways, beneath huge Texas skies.
Other nights they’d make simple meals and veg out in front of the television before going to bed for incredible sex or slow gentle making out or even just sleep, which in some ways was almost more intimate than sex—a comfortable sharing on a whole new level she’d never experienced.
There were other changes, too. Because of the languorous heat, Cressa bought a couple of skirts and some gauzy tops. Alicia’s blouse was perfect. Having a new image was fun, like discovering a different side to her personality. One night she found silver-and-turquoise earrings and a bracelet tucked under her pillow.
“Oh, Adam!” She flung her arms around his neck. “How did you know I’ve been lusting after Mexican jewellery?”
He kissed her nose. “Seeing you being brave enough to be feminine these days is great.”
She stepped back a pace. “What do you mean?”
He gestured to the skirt and top, her loose flowing hair. Touched one of the hoops in her ears. “Don’t get me wrong. I love your tough girl image, too, but it’s like you trust things enough to be more vulnerable.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right. Any more of that sort of talk and you’ll be the vulnerable one, mate.”
But deep down she knew what he meant. She could feel the heat of Texas melting her from the inside out, the warm Gulf winds eroding her edges. Sometimes when she loitered along hot streets, idled on the long piers, she felt she was floating inside a magical bubble where nothing was real except Adam. Here he was the center of her universe, the core of her being.
She hadn’t expected any of this.
Most of all, she hadn’t expected to keep forgetting about her upcoming job and to start imagining a different future. She thought what fun it would be to travel up through the States to Seattle. She’d always wanted to check out those houses on the water, having watched Sleepless in Seattle. It might be fun to cut across to Wisconsin because of That Seventies Show. She wanted to do Pasadena, San Francisco, El Condor Pasa and all the other songs. Maybe she could come back over during Adam’s holidays and they could have adventures together. A long-distance, no-strings relationship could work. It would have all the fun and none of the boring bits of a normal relationship.
Cressa’s thoughts were fully engaged in considering such exciting possibilities one bright Saturday morning, two weeks after her arrival. She was stacking the dishwasher when Adam burst into the kitchen, his face
alight with excitement.
“Cressa, you’ll never guess!”
“What?” She was hard put to think of anything that could have chased all the shadows from his face.
“She’s answered me. She’s finally contacted me.”
“Who?” But even as she asked, Cressa felt a chilly hand steal around her heart.
“Stella! Isn’t that incredible?” Laughing in disbelief, he snatched Cressa up in a hug and began spinning her around and around. She tried to laugh, too, but she was rigid in his arms. He was too happy to notice. “She’s still here in Texas! In Dallas. And she wants to meet me. I just can’t believe it.”
“Adam, set me down and tell me about it.” Cressa made an effort to sound pleased for him. He placed her back on her feet, but too excited to stay still, he began pacing.
“It was on my Facebook page this morning. She says she’s checked out all the photos and things, and now she wants to meet me.”
There was wonder in his face. Joy lent it a new beauty. “I’ve sent her my number and said she can call. Or for her to send me her number and I’ll phone her.” He held up a hand and stared at it. “Can you believe it? I’m shaking.”
“I’m not surprised.” Cressa struggled to sound happy. “It’s fantastic news. Just out of nowhere.”
A lightning bolt, destroying her fantasies in one strike.
Adam suddenly appeared anxious. “What if she doesn’t like me? What if she thinks I’m nothing?”
This made Cressa smile. “Adam, she will think you are the most amazing person ever.”
“But her stepdad is some rich prick. I won’t be able to compare with him.”
Adam looked so vulnerable that she stroked his arm. “You’ll be different, that’s all. She’ll still think you are wonderful.”