by Clare Kauter
“So take Grace along,” Tim said. “There’ll be other kids there anyway, right? McKenzie’s nieces and nephews?” My mum was best friends with McKenzie’s mum, so all our ‘family’ events involved the McKenzies too. “So she’ll have someone to play with.
I sighed. “Yes, but I can’t babysit!” I said. “I’m boring and I don’t know how to talk to children.”
“You are a child,” Adam said.
In a display of how mature and totally unchildish I was, I stuck my tongue out in response.
“You won’t need to worry about her,” said Tim. “Trust me.”
“Does she need a bottle? Do I have to put her down for a nap?”
“She’s seven, Charlie.”
“So? That number means nothing to me!”
“Honey, Gracie needs less looking after than you do,” said Tim.
“But –”
“Charlie, you’re taking her,” said Adam. “You can pick up your tickets at the airport. I’ve sent you the check-in details.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “When did you book the tickets?”
When he didn’t answer immediately, everything suddenly clicked.
“Wait, you brought me along entirely for this purpose?”
He shrugged. “I knew Ellie would bring Gracie and I didn’t want her waiting around here all day. I got you a return flight when I booked the flight here.”
“Thanks for that, Adam Backstabber! I thought Tim was dying!”
“Yes, and it was clearly eating you up inside while you were napping all morning. Go to the airport. Gracie will look after you.”
Grace walked around the bed and stood in front of me. “It’s OK,” she said. “I will look after you, I promise.”
Chapter Two
The second we’d stepped out of the taxi at Kingsford-Smith I’d lost my bearings. Luckily Gracie, despite being only seven years old, was in control of the situation.
“Which terminal are we meant to go to again?” I asked her.
She grabbed my hand and led me into the building, right up to the Qantas check-in desk. “We’re here to check in,” she said to the woman behind the desk. “Charlie, do you have any ID?”
“Uh, yes,” I said, fumbling with my wallet.
While I was looking for my licence, Gracie apologised to the woman who was checking us in. “Sorry about this,” she said. “My auntie hasn’t had a coffee yet today, so she’s a little frazzled.”
The woman looked at me and I could see that she was thinking it was going to take more than coffee to fix this mess.
When we’d made it through security, Gracie said to me, “You’re best friends with Tim, right? You and Adam. So you’re basically my auntie even though we don’t know each other yet.”
“Pretty much,” I agreed. The obvious joke would be that it was my first day of being an auntie and I was already getting lumped with babysitting duty, but I think a more accurate assessment would be that it was Gracie’s first day of having an auntie and she was already getting lumped with babysitting duty.
“We should go to a café,” said Grace. “You really do look like you need a coffee.”
“I don’t really like coffee,” I said. I drank it on rare occasions, like when my life was in danger and I needed some extra adrenalin surging through my system, but as a general rule I wasn’t a massive fan. I was about to tell Gracie as much when I caught sight of myself in a shop window. Yeesh. “But I guess I can just fill half the cup with sugar.”
Gracie giggled. “As long as you brush your teeth really well tonight.”
I was glad I had a responsible adult along for the journey.
We had an hour to kill before the flight actually took off so we decided to have lunch at the café. I laced my soy latte with as much sugar as I could before it poured out over the edge of the cup while Gracie watched on giggling.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said and giggled some more. She thought I was ridiculous. She was right.
She ordered an orange juice and avocado on toast for breakfast (so responsible – at her age I would never have willingly ordered something green) while I had hash browns, baked beans and grilled mushrooms. As we chowed down, I decided to engage Gracie in a little bit of conversation.
“So,” I said, “you got a boyfriend?”
She giggled. “No. Do you?”
“No.”
“Really? What about that boy Uncle Adam mentioned?”
I played dumb. “Who?”
“James,” she said, drawing the name out in a sing-songy way.
I rolled my eyes. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
We were silent for a while as we chewed. I noticed Grace was picking over her second bit of toast, not really eating it. “What’s up, Gracie? You full?”
She hesitated for a moment before looking up at me with a fat bottom lip. “Why did someone hurt Timmy?”
“Oh, honey,” I said. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. Adam wouldn’t tell me anything.”
“Mum wouldn’t tell me anything either.”
“He’s going to be OK, though, and we’ll get to see him again tomorrow. Maybe then they’ll be able to tell us what’s up.”
Gracie nodded and managed to get her lip under control. I was impressed. This little girl had far better control over her emotions than I had over my own.
“Why did they call him a weird name and say he lived in Perth?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It must be a secret that he’s there.”
“He’s hiding from bad guys, isn’t he? That’s why Uncle Adam made you bring me home. He was worried the baddies would show up and hurt me.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think Adam was getting sick of me and sent us off together so it wouldn’t be so obvious that he was just trying to get rid of me.”
Gracie smiled a little at that. “It’s lucky I was here,” she said, “or you never would have found the right desk.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Speaking of finding the right things, you and I had better go and look for our gate.”
It didn’t take us (where by ‘us’ I mean ‘Gracie’) long to find the gate. Before we boarded I shot Lea a text to see if she could pick us up at the other end, and when we arrived she was waiting with my friends Celia and Jo standing on either side of her. Wow, OK.
“I wasn’t expecting a whole welcoming committee,” I said. Certainly not one containing both Celia and Jo. I wondered how Lea had engineered this. Up until very recently, Celia hadn’t been on the best of terms with the rest of our friendship group. (There had been a bit of a fight over James McKenzie in high school, and yes, I realise how pathetic that sounds.) Most of us had made up with Celia, but Jo, head of the James McKenzie Fan Club (even though she was now married to a lovely accountant named Oswald) still had some lingering resentment.
“Hey Charlie!” said Celia, thinly concealed terror evident in her eyes. I was guessing she hadn’t had the best morning. “Who’s this?”
“I’m Grace. What’s your name?”
Celia, Lea and Jo introduced themselves before Lea said, “Well, back to our house for a girls’ day?”
Great.
On the trip back into town from the airport, I sat in the middle of the back seat with Celia on one side and Jo on the other. While Lea and Gracie were having a grand old chat in the front, things in the back were not so much fun. Every few minutes, one of the girls would lean over and whisper something in my ear.
From the right, Jo: “She wants to go to a movie. Just the two of us. I don’t think I’m ready for that level of pretending I don’t hate her yet.”
From the left, C: “She said she wanted to watch some stupid movie – Transformers 17 or whatever number they’re up to – and I offered to go with her because no one else will, but then she freaked out and told me she had to powder her nose that night. Like, she didn’t even get the brush-off right!”
Jo: “Every time she sp
eaks to me all I can see are her lips and then I fall down a rabbit hole thinking about her making out with McKenzie and kissing him all over his –”
“OK! That’s enough, really,” I hissed back.
“What’s she saying about me?” C whispered.
And so on and so forth, the whole hour it took to get back to Gerongate. Finally we pulled up outside my house and the five of us made our way inside. I may have run ahead a little to try and escape, though really it was futile since they just followed me in.
We made our way to the kitchen. Lea, Joe and Celia sat at the dining table while I helped Gracie up onto a stool at the breakfast bar and then sat next to her.
“So…” said Celia.
Then came the awkward pause.
After a few moments, the silence was broken by a knock at my front door. I heard it creak open.
“Charlie?” called a voice. Oh god. It was James McKenzie. “Lea messaged me and told me you were back. I just wanted to check that everything was OK. Sorry I was so out of it when you left this morning.”
Celia wiggled her eyebrows at me while Jo sat perfectly still, eyes wide, her face a picture of panic, looking like she might pass out. James rounded the corner and stopped dead. He looked at me and mouthed a ‘sorry’. Yeah, thanks James. Bit late for that. I shrugged back at him. I was already dead. Jo turned to look at James.
“I invited him over to watch movies last night,” said Lea, stepping in to save me. “He slept on the couch.”
Quick thinking, Lea. We were safe for now, but having me, Jo and Celia together in a room with James was a ticking time bomb.
“Hi,” said a little voice to my left. Gracie! In all the drama, I’d almost forgotten she was there. “I’m Gracie. I’m Charlie’s babysitter.”
James grinned at her. “I’m James. Looks like Charlie’s in good hands. I guess I’d better –”
“Join us!” said Lea. Celia and I whipped our heads towards her and glared. (Jo was too busy staring at James, watching him like a creepy porcelain doll.) No, Celia and I said silently. On what planet would that be a good idea? Get him out of here!
“Good idea,” said Jo woodenly as she turned back to look at the main group.
Argh, of course. She’d do anything to have a few minutes with McKenzie. She was still unhealthily obsessed with him, even though she’d been married for nearly a year now. When I’d moved into this house, which used to belong to James and still contained all of his old furniture, she started coming over to ‘hang out’ far more frequently. Sometimes I caught her sniffing my lounges, trying to catch a whiff of McKenzie’s ‘impeccable butt’. Yes, she was very much insane.
I knew what Lea was doing. She was taking the whole ‘Jo and Celia making up’ thing to the next level by putting them in the most potentially volatile situation. While it wasn’t a totally terrible idea, I didn’t think now was the right time. Ideally this meeting should have been conducted in a padded room without furniture. Any potential weapons needed to be removed first, and there should definitely not have been a child present.
I glanced around and caught sight of the knife block on the counter. While the others were distracted, I surreptitiously moved it from the bench into a cupboard. There were still plenty of objects that could be used as weaponry (that marble clock, a Chasseur cast-iron saucepan), but they would require a little more imagination than the cleaver would. Gracie was watching me. I put my finger to my lips in a ‘shh’ motion and winked. She giggled and winked back.
“Um, right,” said James. I shook my head furiously at him, trying to make him go away, but he ignored me. “What are you guys up to?”
“We’re having a girls’ day in,” said Gracie. “But you’re welcome to stay if you behave yourself.”
I could only aspire to one day be as cool as this little girl.
“Cross my heart,” said James. “So… what exactly does a Girls’ Day In involve?”
He looked at me. I shrugged. I had no idea what Lea had planned. She was like a mad scientist. I crossed my legs and caught sight of my pyjama bottoms.
“I think the first thing it involves is me changing my clothes,” I said, standing.
“Why?” Lea asked.
“Who are you trying to impress?” Celia asked with faux innocence. She knew very well who, and I’m sure Lea suspected. I only hoped Jo and James hadn’t caught on.
“Gracie,” I said. “The poor girl’s had to put up with her crazy auntie dressed like this all day. I think she’d probably be grateful for a change of scenery.”
“I love you,” said Gracie, “but yes, I really want you to get changed.”
“Gracie has spoken,” I said, standing and climbing the stairs to my bedroom.
Once upstairs, I decided it was probably a good idea to get ready for tonight’s barbecue now. It was only a few hours away, and getting dressed twice in one day seemed like way too much effort. First of all I took a strategic shower to wake myself up and clean my dull-looking hair. I added some product Lea had given to me while it was still wet and then blow-dried it. I had to hand it to Lea, that product worked. Usually I looked like a blonde Orphan Annie post blow-dry, but today my hair was hanging down a little past my shoulders rather than sitting in a solid ball on my head.
Next I picked out an outfit. I’d recently started following some fashion boards on Pinterest (I know, I know – who was I these days?), which made it far easier to pick what to wear of a morning. Today I went for a high-waisted black skirt and a white top with black stripes, finished with white Converse low-top sneakers and big, round, black-rimmed glasses. Just prior to adding the glasses I put on a little mascara and lip-gloss. When I was done, I surveyed myself in the mirror. Not bad, Charlie. Not bad. Not that I was trying to impress anyone other than a seven-year-old girl.
Cough.
When I walked back into the kitchen, the scene that confronted me was not what I’d expected. Lea was having her hair done by Gracie while C painted her toenails. At the other end of the table, James was giving Jo a manicure. Jo looked like she might die of shock. James McKenzie – the James McKenzie – was touching her hands. Voluntarily. She hadn’t even had to kidnap/tie him up first. They were even engaging in vaguely normal conversation.
“I like the orange colour,” said James. “It suits you.”
“IT GOES WITH MY HAND SKIN.”
Alright, so not totally normal conversation.
“That nail polish looks kind of like the fake tan you had at your formal, Charlie,” C joked.
Before I had a chance to react, Jo went into soccer mum mode.
“Charlie looked beautiful at the formal! How dare you insult her like that? There was nothing wrong with her tan. It looked totally natural.”
I was touched. Apparently the one thing that could pull Jo out of her McKenzie-induced stupor was the overprotectiveness she felt for me. Celia looked a little terrified. James looked amazed. I don’t think he’d ever heard Jo say more than one sentence at a time.
“It’s OK, Jo,” I said. “She’s just joking.”
“No, it’s not OK! Why are you bringing up the formal, Celia? We all know you looked attractive and you brought Prom King here along with you” – she nodded at James – “but need I remind you, you’ve since broken up so there must have been some sort of trouble in paradise. Why are you trying to make Charlie feel small?”
“I really didn’t mean –”
“I thought you had more class than that, Celia, I really did.”
“Honestly, it was just a silly joke. Charlie and I were looking at old Facebook pictures the other night and there was one that was really oversaturated –”
Jo held up a hand to stop her. “Apologise. In this friendship group, we’re about building each other up, not teasing each other or dating someone else’s crush or –”
“I’m sorry,” said Celia. “Really sorry. And I’m sorry about the – the thing that we all argued about.”
“I’m literally sitting righ
t here,” said James.
Jo whipped her head to him, looking scandalised. “Who told you?”
“Um…”
He looked intensely uncomfortable.
“Celia? Seriously? You go and date the guy I’d been in love with for years – I mean, I’m totally over you now, so don’t go reading anything into that, but anyway – what was I saying? Oh, right, you not only dated him even though you totally weren’t even interested in him – no offense, James –”
“None taken.”
“– and then you tell him I’m interested in him?”
“That’s not really how it –”
“I kind of guessed,” said James.
“What? How?”
“Uh…”
“Well, whatever, it doesn’t matter. It’s all out in the open now and I think we need to talk about it.”
“Definitely,” Lea agreed. From the glint in her eye, I suspected that this is what she’d been wanting to happen all along.
“Communication is the key to lasting relationships,” Gracie added.
I said nothing, but kind of wished I could die. I tried to tell myself that this was a good thing, but all I could think about was what would transpire if anything ever happened between James and me. Even if he was interested, which was unlikely, after this little display he was going to be way too terrified to get involved with me. He was a brave guy, but nobody was that brave.
“OK, then we’re agreed. I want to know why you two broke up.”
Shit. Out of all the questions Jo could have picked… I could see Celia panicking. I knew the reason they’d broken up, but I was one of a privileged few. Celia and James hadn’t really been dating in the first place – James had just wanted to be ‘in a relationship’ so people would stop trying to crack onto him, and Celia had wanted a ‘boyfriend’ so she wouldn’t have to worry about people working out that she liked girls. She’d introduced her girlfriend, Gina, to our friends as her roommate, so I was guessing she wasn’t quite ready to come out to everyone else. I wracked my brains, trying desperately to think of something to interrupt the conversation with.
“That’s kind of an inappropriate question,” I said. “What if, um, James has a tiny penis or something?”