by Janette Paul
‘This is nice.’ Ethan’s voice was so close she could feel his breath on her ear. ‘But it might be easier if we both try to pull the boat up.’
‘Huh?’ Dee turned, saw his face just inches from hers, which was a lot further away than the rest of her body. In recoiling from the slimy thing, she’d wrapped herself around him like a koala baby – legs around his waist, arms around his neck, everything else pressed hard up against him. And what an impressive place to be. Even with layers of wetsuits and life vests, she could feel the firm expanse of his chest, his flat belly, the nicely toned butt her feet rested on. A wave of heat washed over her – embarrassment with a touch of lust – and as the thought formed that she really made a very nice fit, she shoved away, surprised the water wasn’t boiling from the blush in her face. ‘Something was swimming around my legs and I, um, got nervous, and, ah, where am I meant to hold on?’
Between them they got the boat upright, and Ethan lifted himself back in with a quick, efficient hitch. Looked easy enough. Dee lifted a leg onto the side, hung there, one arm, one foot aboard but unable to drag the rest of her body and the bulky life jacket up and over. Okay, not so easy. She dropped back in the water, took hold of the seat and attempted to drag herself in head first.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Well, I’m not playing hopscotch with the sharks down here. I can’t get in.’
Creased brow, small smile. ‘Throw a leg.’
She did, and he grabbed the back of her buoyancy vest, picked her up and rolled her in – not unlike a big fish, really. She lay on the seat, staring up at the deep blue sky, feeling the salt dry on her skin. ‘I imagined you’d do the kind of sailing that involved champagne and high heels. Not that I’ve got heels but a stiff drink would go down a treat right now.’
He laughed. ‘I’ve got a boat like that in Sydney Harbour but I like the real thing. I haven’t done this in ages, didn’t realise how much I’d missed it. It’s great, isn’t it? Look, there’s wind coming. Time to get over here and make good on your job description.’
‘Can’t I be ballast from here?’
‘Only if you want to get rolled back into the water.’ As he said it, the wind snapped at the sail and the boat heeled over.
Dee crawled across. He showed her how to sit on the lip of the boat, gave her a rope to hang on to and they took off across the water.
‘Lean out!’ he called, his voice slipping away on the wind.
She swung her head and saw him leaning backwards, almost parallel to the water. ‘No way!’
‘Come on, Dee. We won’t go anywhere unless you put in some effort. Just don’t let go of the rope.’
‘What happened to “you won’t have to do anything”?’
‘I was kidding.’
She edged further out, tested her back in the position, put her weight against it and they cut through the water. Wind blew across her face like a cold blast from a hairdryer, dragging at her ponytail, drying her eyes. Water slapped beneath them and sprayed over the bow. Don’t let go, Dee. Don’t fall in. And stop smiling so much – it lets the water in.
Chapter Twelve
The wind died as quickly as it arrived and heat hung about them like a solid object as they floated adrift on the lake.
Dee stretched out on her back. There wasn’t a hint of a cloud in the clear, blue dome overhead and the sun was a fireball not yet directly above them. She dropped a hand over the side, flicking water across her face, wishing she was clever enough to design a wetsuit that knew when to keep you cool. ‘Can’t we do something?’
‘Start the engine and motor back.’
‘Great.’ Dee sat up and bumped knees with Ethan in the cramped space. ‘How do we do that?’
He repositioned his legs, one either side of hers. ‘You get out and kick while I stay here and steer.’
‘Right, no motor on a sail boat. Very funny.’
‘Actually, we captains use this down time to test our crew on the finer points of seamanship, get them to tie knots, climb the rigging, scrub the decks, that sort of thing.’
‘I’m pretty sure freelance crews are exempt.’
‘Is that right? Sounds like my freelance crew could be a little apathetic. Maybe I should have conducted more detailed interviews before hiring.’
‘Maybe you should have provided a more detailed job description.’
He licked a finger, drew a stroke in the air. That would be one to Dee. The boat lurched as Ethan swung a leg over her knees and crossed his ankles on the bench beside her. Dee grabbed at the mast, worried about tipping overboard again. He watched, grinning slowing as she released her hold and settled back on her seat.
‘So, sailor,’ he said, ‘what do you do when you’re not at sea?’
She copied his position and propped her feet on the opposite seat, their legs making four parallel lines. ‘You know, the usual: drinking, carousing, bar fights, getting tattoos.’
‘Tattoos, eh? What have you got? “Mum” written across your chest?’
‘That would be worth it just to see the look on her face. Actually, no tattoos. Could never decide what would hold its shape when my skin got old and saggy. How about you?’
‘Never saw the need. Figured I’d make an indelible mark in business instead.’
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘So what about the yoga business? Can you make a buck out of it?’
‘Let’s just say I’ve got a career that makes me rich on the inside.’
His mouth curled a little, just in one corner, and his shoulders did a quick up and down in a brief, quiet laugh.
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘You’re always giving me that look. That one right there, like I’m completely strange, an alien or something, that’s done something inappropriate but vaguely amusing, like drooling. Like I’m a drooling alien. What’s that all about?’
His shoulders did several more ups and downs and his leg bumped against hers as he finally laughed out loud. ‘I can honestly say I’ve never thought of you as a drooling alien.’
‘Nice to know. So what is it then?’
‘You’re a surprise packet. Different. The opposite of everyone else.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Like saying you’ve chosen a career that makes you rich on the inside. Most people would be desperately defending their business, saying it was still finding its legs or they were looking for the right market entry.’
‘I don’t even know what a market entry is.’
‘See?’
‘So is opposite good or bad?’
He studied her a moment. ‘Neither. Just different.’ Then, as though he’d had enough of that, he raised a fist and squirted a spray of water at her, grinning.
‘Hey!’
As she wiped her face, he interlocked his hands behind his head, the lighter flecks of colour in his eyes almost gold in the intense sunlight. When she was done and settled again, he tapped his leg on hers, a ‘Hey, Dee’ kind of gesture. ‘So how did you get into yoga?’
She glanced at where his thigh was now lying against hers, spreading warmth from his sun-heated wetsuit, and wondered if he’d left it there on purpose or by accident. There wasn’t another boat within shouting distance and the space between them felt intimate, safe, and as water lapped on the hull like a beat to their conversation, she decided she didn’t mind telling him her story. Something good came from the bad. That was always worth telling. But only the bare bones, she told herself – the flesh still hurt if it was pressed too hard.
‘I was in a car accident about ten years ago.’ She always thought it was strange she couldn’t remember the day that had changed her life. Not that it was a complete blank. She remembered laughing with Anthony and the sharp balls of shattered glass under her hands and the sound of the electric saw cutting the door off and the smell of blood. And the pain – like an electric cow prod plugged into her coccyx and switched to high.
‘Got pretty battered up, cr
ushed some discs in my back, broke a vertebrae and a leg, smashed a few other bits and pieces.’ Lost her fiancé – not actually in the accident but walking out because he couldn’t deal with what was left of her, which always made it feel like one and the same. ‘I was lucky really. It could have been worse. Spent a few months in hospital and a year in a back brace.’ The cow prod had been turned off by then and replaced with a jack hammer – one with a big, flat plate that beat a constant dull drum.
‘I did loads of physio, which got me back on my feet, but I was still in a lot of pain. Tried all sorts of things: Pilates, chiropractors, osteopaths, acupuncture, magnets, witch doctors, you name it. Then I tried yoga.’ At the time, it was just another attempt to get some relief.
She pulled at the salty hair stuck to her neck, twisted it into a rope and draped it over a shoulder. Ethan watched motionless. He was so close he could have reached out and caught the drips from the bottom of her ponytail but he seemed more fascinated in the way it slowly unravelled.
‘First, the meditation really helped with the pain and the nightmares and the anxiety.’ The heartbreak, too. ‘Then my body started responding to the postures. It built muscle that supported my back and developed flexibility that made moving around so much easier. It took a long time but it pretty much gave me my life back. Just not quite the same one.’ There was no Anthony, no wedding, no future like she’d planned. Just a terrible sense of being alone.
‘I didn’t want to be a radiographer any more. Didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Facing your own mortality kind of changes your perspective. Anyway, I got some money from an insurance payout and went overseas for a while. A long while. Ended up in India studying yoga with the real gurus. When I got home, I joined a yoga school and after a few weeks they asked if I’d teach some classes. I got a couple of private students after that and it just kind of grew from there.’
Ethan dropped a foot to the bottom of the boat. Their knees bumped. He gave hers a rub. A friendly, sorry-’bout-that kind of buff that lingered just a tad longer than seemed necessary. ‘And now you’re an advertising star.’
Dee pulled her eyes from her knee. ‘Did you have to remind me?’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘I guess there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just not really me, you know, making a spectacle of myself. I prefer a smaller life. I only did it for the money. That sounds terrible, doesn’t it?’
‘Nothing wrong with doing something for money. Everyone needs to eat.’
‘Mmm, I suppose.’
‘So this debt problem. How bad is it?’
She tried to sound unconcerned. ‘Oh, it’s just the usual post-Christmas money crisis with a few added challenges. Like Leon’s car, remember?’ Ethan nodded. ‘And then he moved out, not because of the car, because of Robert, which is great for him, but now I’ve got no furniture.’ He raised his eyebrows in a question. ‘No, really. Nothing at all. Kind of surprised me when I realised. Which was why I did the ad and now I don’t need quite so much money as I did before.’ Liar.
‘So what are you going to do?’
She casually flapped a hand. ‘It’ll sort itself out. I’ll just teach a few extra classes, live like a monk. Keep my fingers crossed.’
‘That’s no way to exist.’
Here we go, she thought, giving a tight little laugh. Someone else about to tell me what I should be doing with my life. Just when she was starting to think he was nicer than the average man in a suit. ‘You sound like my mother.’
‘I take it your mother would have preferred you were a radiographer.’
‘Anything other than an exercise instructor, as she refers to it. If you listened to her, you’d think I’d been abducted by slave traders and chained to a yoga mat.’
‘What does your dad say?’
She took a second before answering. ‘My dad died when I was eleven.’
A flash of recognition, a hint of pain passed over his face. ‘I’m sorry.’
Dee remembered the picture of Ethan and Lucy on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald the day after their father, Lionel Roxburgh, died of a heart attack in his office. She’d only been teaching Lucy for six months – very stressed, very tight back then. It was midwinter, they’d been rugged up in jackets, Ethan’s hand on Lucy’s elbow as they left the Roxburgh building, their faces partly averted from the cameras. Lucy looked exhausted, as ungroomed as Dee had ever seen her. Ethan stood tall and broad, like a shield for his sister, mouth set, face stoic. The papers said his composure gave shareholders confidence in the face of such an unexpected tragedy. Lionel had been a respected fixture in business, after all, and they were looking to Ethan for the future of Roxburgh Holdings.
Watching him now, relaxed, sure of himself, Dee wondered what it would be like to mourn a parent in public, knowing thousands were watching to see how you handled it.
‘Do you wake up in the night sometimes just aching to see your dad?’ she asked.
Ethan didn’t speak as his face began a slideshow of reaction. His eyes rounded in a ‘bloody hell, what a question’, then his lips pursed ever so slightly, a ‘how dare you get so personal’, followed by a look of dismissal. It got more interesting after that, like a slow dissolve into contemplation, as though the thought had taken a while to sink in but, now it was there, he may as well give it some attention. His eyes slid away from her, staring unfocused into the distance.
‘Yeah. I do,’ he said at last, not shifting his gaze from whatever held it.
‘Me too.’
Silence settled between them. That was okay. Some thoughts needed to have time to roll around in your head before finding a comfortable place. Dee closed her eyes, thought about the ache that still woke her at night sometimes. ‘It’s like a doughnut hole has been punched in my belly.’ She laid her hands across her stomach. ‘I don’t mind it so much now. I mean, I can’t remember the exact sound of his voice any more or the precise blue of his eyes or how long his fingers were but when I wake up like that, I can remember how it felt to be around him. Like our souls still know each other.’
When she opened her eyes, Ethan was watching her with his dark, espresso eyes. She smiled gently. He smiled back. A small intimate gesture that closed the short distance between them, as though he’d slipped in beside her and told her he understood exactly what she meant. It was a smile that said there was a lot more to Ethan Roxburgh than business confidence and a collar and tie. That it might be interesting to find out.
Whoa there, Dee. Did she want to go there? Nu-uh. She still had the scars from the last collar and tie she’d explored. She dropped a hand over the side of the boat, scooped a handful of water, tossed it at him and broke the moment.
He ducked and grinned, picked up a length of rope and twisted two neat circles. ‘What do you like about teaching yoga?’
Nice, safe subject. She stretched her hands above her head, watching the muscles along the length of her arms. ‘I just love yoga.’ She said it suddenly, passionately. ‘I love doing it. I love watching other people do it. I love to see students learn and improve and challenge themselves. And I love to watch their bodies and minds get stronger and more flexible.’ She took a breath then stopped, reining herself in. She was enjoying talking to Ethan, more than she’d expected to, and she didn’t want to curb his interest with an impassioned declaration for all things yoga.
‘Then make it work for you.’
‘Huh?’
‘It’s great you’ve turned your passion into a career but it won’t last if you can’t make a living out of it. A business that doesn’t make a profit won’t survive.’
Easier said than done. ‘But I don’t know how to do it any better.’
As though a switch had been flicked, he lost his wistfulness and got all businesslike and intense again. ‘Dee, not many people get shot from obscurity to notoriety without really trying like you just have. It’ll open doors for you that could make a real difference to your life. Ads pay well but th
ey’re just a launching pad – if you’re willing to have a go. But you need to take advantage of the opportunities you’re getting now because they won’t be there forever.’
She planted her hands on her knees with a slap. ‘Look, it all sounds great, and assertiveness is my new middle name and all that, but I don’t know how to do it.’
‘Okay,’ he said in a now-we’re-getting-somewhere tone. ‘Then you need to decide what you want.’
She’d already done that – standing in the sand, holding the Warrior Pose and pointing her compass to Security Road. ‘Well, money, obviously. I don’t need to be loaded but a bit extra tucked away would be good.’ Surely possession of a nest egg would be considered as having one’s shit together. ‘And I still want to teach yoga.’
‘Then anything you do has to be an add-on to your skills. Make them work for you.’
She smiled, impressed. He wasn’t even attempting to talk her out of the yoga. And he thought she was different. ‘How do I do that?’
‘Start by following up on those business cards you were given at the dinner, see what they’ve got to offer. To be frank, some of them will be rubbish but have a good look before you reject them.’
It sounded simple when he said it. ‘How do I know if it’s a good offer?’
‘Security of the business, reputation of the owner, breakdown of the –’ He stopped mid-sentence at her look of bewilderment. He dragged his teeth over his lower lip, came to some sort of a decision. ‘Why don’t you let me give you a hand? I can take a look at your business, help you get it on track, and I can give you some advice on any offers that come your way.’
Wow. Ethan Roxburgh was nothing if not unexpected. And she’d thought this little day trip had nothing to do with the path to security.
She smiled, ready to be assertive and take him up on his offer, then noticed he was distracted. She turned to see what had caught his attention when a gust of wind pulled at her hair and caught in the sails. Then he was all motion, business forgotten. ‘Get up, Dee. Here comes the wind.’
‘Look what we bought, Dee.’ Lucy and her girlfriends were upending shopping bags onto the dining table. ‘You missed a gorgeous day. We bought so much girlie stuff.’