Brilliant

by Lark O'Neal

  “I bought in Kaikoura,” I say.

  He clasps the dolphin in his palm and puts his fist to his heart. “Thank you,” he says with meaning, and his eyes are filled with an emotion I can’t quite read. “Open mine.”

  It’s a large flat package, heavy. When I tear the paper away, it’s a collection of three of the shots from the day with the dolphins, frozen instants of the most perfect hour of my entire life. The main one is of me with my hand on a dolphin who seems to be laughing as he rises out of the water, and one of the two of us, side by side, surrounded by the sea creatures, our faces transcendent. The final one is the dolphin who coaxed us into the water, poking his nose up beside our kayak. “This is amazing, Kaleb,” I whisper, and I look up at him so he can see that I am moved to tears.

  He holds my gaze for a long moment, his fist still to his heart, then he abruptly stands. “I’ll be right back.”

  I start to follow him out, but Darcy holds my arm. “Let him go.”

  * * *

  The day is packed. A crowd of relatives come over to the barbeque, cousins and uncles and friends—Katie’s and my dad’s, some of Darcy’s and Kaleb’s. My nan has gone to Australia to see her youngest grandchildren, but I met her during my birthday week. She was tiny and leather-skinned and tough, and she cried when she saw me.

  At the end of the day, everything is winding down and I’m helping Katie bring things inside. “You’re going to want to get things packed soon,” she says, tucking plates into the sudsy water. “I can do this if you want to go up.”

  “I don’t mind helping.” Melancholy is stuck in my throat, fills up my chest as I look out the window at the people scattered around the garden with glasses of wine and bottles of beer, the lowering sun giving it all a thick gold look. “I want to make this movie,” I say slowly, “but I wish I didn’t have to leave to do it.”

  She touches my arm. “It’s like going to uni, isn’t it? You have to go away to find yourself.”

  A truck comes roaring down the road, sending up dust. Katie scowls. “What’s he doing here? I thought he was living in Russell.”

  “Is that my dad’s friend? The one you don’t like?” I grin at her.

  “Yes. But mum’s the word. You never let a man know you hate one of his friends, love. They’ll think of every great thing they ever did together.”

  “Okay.” I put the plates I’ve been drying on the counter. “Maybe I’ll go up and start packing then.”

  But before I can get to the stairs, my dad and his friend come in through the back door, laughing. My dad is sunburned and a little tipsy, happy-tipsy, and his arm is flung around his friend’s shoulders. “Jess, there you are. I want you to meet my mate, Billy.”

  I turn and there’s the guy from the picture, only his beard is gone and his hair is clipped short, like a businessman, and the instant I see him, my skin goes ice cold and I would do almost anything to avoid shaking the hand he’s holding out toward me. “Hi,” I say without enthusiasm.

  “Billy and your mum were good buddies,” my dad says. “He’s wrecked to find out she’s dead.”

  “Girl, you look exactly like her,” he says, and there’s something raspy-strange about his voice, like it’s caught in a machine. The sound of it grates all the way down my spine and again, I just want to leave, get out of here.

  “People say that.”

  He inclines his head, creepy ice blue eyes like chips of something unholy rest on my face. “You don’t remember me at all, girl? We used to go to the beach all the time.”

  “Nope,” I say, and look toward my dad. How does he like this guy?

  My dad catches my discomfort, and swings his mate around. “Let’s not keep her. She’s got a lot of packing to do. Big movie and all.”

  “I heard that. Come out and sit with us when you can, why don’t you? Catch me up on what your mom did after she—”

  A thick discomfort falls into the room, hot and sweaty. “Yeah, I’ll try,” I say, and flee.

  Upstairs, I open the suitcases and check out all the cool pockets and features. The big suitcase will probably hold everything I own, and I guess I need to take most of it with me since we’ll be on location for months.

  Months. I sit on the bed, airless, looking at the collection of posters and postcards I’ve tacked to the wall, mostly pretty windows in all kinds of places. I don’t know why I love those shots so much, but they intrigue me—outside looking in. What’s inside?

  The postcards I bought as we moved around with the tourist company go into my bag, and I start folding all the warmer things I haven’t worn since I got here. Spring was on its way by the time we finished the commercials and all my jeans and sweaters got shoved out of sight. I take them out now, and see how worn out they are, nearly all of them. One thick pink wool sweater has a zipper at the neck. It used to belong to my mom, and it’s holding up really well. It’ll be nice in the mountains.

  A wisp of that sense of my mother moves around me again, that weird disturbance. It’s Christmas and I miss her, and with a sense of sharp, new loss, I put my face into the sweater, wishing I could still smell her.

  “You okay?”

  I jerk the sweater away from my face. Kaleb’s there, looking overheated from the game of soccer he was playing with some of the other guys. He wipes sweat off his forehead.

  “Yeah. Just thinking about my mom, actually. This is her sweater. It’ll be nice up in the mountains.”

  He nods, still standing in the door. “Guess I need to get on that, too. It’s gonna be strange to go from summer to winter.”

  “It’ll be dark so much earlier—that’s what I keep thinking about. The light.”

  He raps his knuckles on the door. “I’ll let you get to it.”

  I hold the sweater in my hands, feeling the ache of loneliness in my chest again. “Did your mom call?”

  He rolls his eyes. “For about five minutes. I’m over it, but it hurts Darcy.” His mouth twists bitterly. “Watch, though—she’ll show up in Aspen, I reckon, looking for introductions to actors and all that.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He leans on the threshold, and it’s not my imagination—he has grown taller. His biceps seem bigger, too, pushing at the sleeves of his shirt. “She couldn’t stop talking about it.”

  I give him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe we can work it out for Darcy to come at the same time as my mom.” His expression sobers. “I’m kind of worried about the visitors, really. I did some reading and we’re probably going to work twelve to fourteen hours a day. Long days.”

  He seems so natural right now that something in me starts to ease. Maybe we can start over as friends and see what happens. That was how it started, right? “Wasn’t it like that for the TV series?”

  “Nah. My part is pretty small, and it’s an ensemble piece, so we played a lot of cards.” His smile is sideways. “You have any?”

  “It just so happens I do.” From the pile of stuff I’ve tossed on the bed, I pull out a fresh, still-wrapped deck. “Want to play rummy?”

  For a moment, he hesitates. “Not this second. I guess I should get to my own packing. We’ll be gone awhile.”

  I look over my shoulder at the vineyard visible through the windows. “I know.”

  “It’ll be here when you get back, Jess,” he says, and I love him for understanding.

  I nod.

  * * *

  Maybe it’s the long day, so many people around, or the stress of getting ready to go, or missing my mother, but I have a massive nightmare that night.

  In it, I am a little tiger cub crawling under furniture, creeping very slowly so I don’t draw attention to myself. My paws are silent as I move from beneath a dresser to beneath a bed. It’s dark, but there is something wrong, something I am very afraid of. When a door swings open, flooding light into the room, I scuttle backward into the farthest, darkest corner and force myself not to breathe. Heavy footsteps move around the
room. Somewhere in the background is loud music, and the sound of people laughing, but in this dark place, there is only the footsteps, menacing and too quiet, and little tiger me curled up in a ball.

  I think I’m safe, that the footsteps are going way, and then a harsh fist nabs me by the nape of my neck and drags me out of the corner. I can’t roar or even breathe and there is total darkness then smothering and pain and more and more and I am so afraid I want to die.

  I wake up yelling, “Nooooo!” and I’m sitting straight up in my bed in the darkness. It feels like I’ve screamed at the top of my lungs and my throat feels raw. I’m sweating and cold at once, and I pull the covers up around my shoulders, blinking. My heart is racing.

  And then I start to shiver.

  It’s very like the nightmare I had in Christchurch and I feel just as insanely terrified. Kaleb might be mad at me, but he’s the one that I want now. Pulling my cover around my shoulders, I start to stand up, but then my door is opening and I’m frozen, scared out of my mind until I realize he’s come for me.

  “I heard you scream. Are you all right?”

  “No.” My teeth are chattering. “It-t’s l-like C-c-ch-rr-istchurch.”

  In two seconds, he’s across the room and sweeping me into a bear hug in his lap, pulling the cover around us. His chest is warm and I curl into him like a child, pulling my legs close to me, letting him wrap me up in his arms. Very slightly, he rocks me. “You’re safe now. No worries.”

  I’m still shivering, pushing the images of the dream away as they try to surface—the smothering sense of terror, the poor little tiger hiding, the sense of pain and loss and absolute terror in the end. Squeezing my eyes tight, I cover them with my hands, as if that will block them.

  Kaleb strokes my hair, my arms. After a moment, he stands and turns around, setting me on the bed, and before I can protest that he might leave, he’s sliding down beside me, pulling me into the cradle of his body, his chin against my hair. “I’ve got you. No worries.”

  We stay like that for a long time. Long enough that my body stops trembling and begins to ease. Long enough that the scent of his skin is making me crazy.

  “Do you remember any of it, Jess?”

  “Yes.” I tell him about the tiger cub and the sense of smothering. “It sounds silly when I say it, but it is so, so, so scary when it’s happening.”

  “I can tell.” He strokes my arm, up and down, almost absently. “I’m worried that you’re starting to remember something you don’t really want to remember.”

  I press myself more closely against his side, my hand curling around his ribs, bare for sleeping. “Me, too,” I whisper. “I mean, if there wasn’t something bad, why did we leave, and why can’t I remember more about life before we got to Colorado?”

  He nods a gesture I feel rather than see. “Yeah.” After a minute he says, “Maybe it’s good that we’re leaving for awhile.”

  “Maybe,” I whisper, and curl as close as I can. “Don’t go until I fall asleep, okay?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he says.

  And he keeps his word. He doesn’t leave until gray morning light creeps into the room, and as he shifts, I wake up. “I have to finish packing,” he says, standing up. “You’re okay now, right?”

  I nod, tucking my hands under my cheek. “Thank you, Kaleb.”

  He leans over and lightly touches my head. “You talked in your sleep all night. Sleep a little longer. We have a long day ahead of us.”

  When he leaves, I roll into the warmth left behind by his body and breathe it in, and the essence of Kaleb—spice and twilight—fills my head, eases everything.

  Chapter NINE

  The morning is dark and weepy, just like I feel. We’re all quiet as we unload our bags at the airport. I am filled with a huge sense of worry as we stand under the walkway, the rain pouring down just beyond us. Katie had to meet a distributor, insisting my dad should be the one to drive us to Nelson. My dad’s curly hair collects raindrops and halos of mist, and I think there are tears in his eyes as he leans in to hug me. “Call me a lot, will you?”

  “Promise.” I hug him hard and my heart is pounding in the weirdest way, like I’m going to fall over. “I’m scared.”

  He rocks me, shaking his head. “No. You’re smart and brave and talented. You are going to be fantastic.” He pulls back and looks me in the eye. “And your room is right there, forever. No matter what, it’ll be there, waiting for you.”

  I nod. “I love you, Dad. I’m so glad I got to come.”

  “You’re coming back.” He squeezes my arms. “This is just a movie. It will end and you can come home.”

  It doesn’t feel like that, though. I feel like I’m being exiled¸ and it’s making my hands shake and my mouth dry, but I nod jerkily to reassure him.

  Darcy hops forward. She helped me pack last night and she’s excited to come see us in a month. “America!” she says.

  “I can’t wait for you to come.”

  “Me, either.” She looks over my shoulder. “Be good to my brother.”

  I make a snorting sound. “If he’ll let me.”

  “He just gets on his high horse. He’ll get over it.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know about that.”

  Kaleb is standing there, looking serious, his hair pulled back from his face in a man, scatters of curls falling around that amazingly powerful face. His shirt is thin, but a sweater is tucked under his arm. I warned him twice last night that it’s going to be freaking insanely cold when we land in Colorado—less than zero. He blew me off, and said he knows how to stay warm. He’s been to the south island, he said. In the winter.

  With me, actually.

  So I shrugged. I’m looking forward to buying a real winter coat when we get there, something in super-light down in some Easter egg color—turquoise or pink, maybe. I’ve tucked my New Zealand wool gloves into my carryon and I’m prepared with socks and a couple of sweaters. It will be fun to shop. Maybe Mercedes will go with me. We’ve been exchanging emails over the past two days, and I’m really looking forward to meeting her.

  But as the parting rituals finish up, and all of us have to stand back, wave one last time, and turn away from each other, I can hardly breathe. Kaleb is silent beside me and I wonder if he’s feeling the same way, but we haven’t had a regular conversation since he got home so I am not comfortable saying anything.

  I shoulder my backpack and grip the carry-on handle and stride forward, but as we enter the terminal the edges of my vision get prickly black and my heart is racing so hard I feel like it’s going to explode out of my chest. In a panic, I turn around to see if my dad is still there, but he’s gone, swallowed by the rain.

  And I just stand there, panting. I can hear it and it’s very unattractive, but I can’t catch my breath, and my heart is exploding and the edges of my vision are getting blacker and blacker. “Kaleb,” I squeak out, reaching for his arm.

  And it’s there, under my hand, solid and real. “What’s wrong, Jess?” he asks.

  I can’t speak, and just shake my head. His arm is something to hold onto in the spinning world.

  He’s bending in, bringing his face close, hands on my arms. “Breathe,” he says. “In—” he illustrates “—out.”

  I focus entirely on his amber eyes and follow his lead. In. Out. In. Out. After a minute or two, the sense of panic eases and my heart is still beating too fast, but it doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode. “Okay,” I say, ready to let go.

  “There’s no rush.” He doesn’t let go of my arms, rubs his hands up and down, as if to warm me. “Take a minute and get yourself steady. That was a panic attack if I ever saw one.”

  I breathe deep, feeling the edge of that freak-out coming back. “I keep thinking I’ll never get to come back. That it’s going to all evaporate like some magical kingdom.”

  He searches my face for a moment, then, as if against his better judgment, touches my face with his big warm palm. “I promise you w
ill come back, Jess. No one is stealing you this time.”

  Tears spring to my eyes, and I nod. “Yeah.”

  “Come on,” he takes my hand and pulls me toward the check-in desk. “We’re off on an adventure, girl.”

  A guy with a camera is shooting photos of us, and I recognize him from the day I was driving my dad’s Mini. He’s a short, squat man with a solid belly pushing out his khaki t-shirt. “What are you doing?”

  He shoots me, shoots, shoots, shoots us, then lowers his camera. “I’m going to be your best friend, sweetheart.” He winks, and swings around, whistling.

  Kaleb stands there, watching the photographer walk away. His expression is puzzled. “What’s that about?”

  I take a breath. “I think he might be paparazzi.”

  Kaleb laughs and looks at me. “For real?”

  “For real. He was outside the winery the other day, too.”

  His fingers tighten around mine, and I wonder if he realizes his thumb is stroking the side of my hand so gently. “Should we check KILR for our faces? Start reading the gossip rags?”

  I laugh. “Sure, Kaleb. We’ll be all over the place.” It’s kind of a joke, but then I think about what my dad said, that this is ordinary time right now and we should enjoy it. I look around the airport where there is no one paying us any attention. “My dad said life is going to change for us in a big way and we should enjoy our anonymity.”

  He looks around, too. “I mean, I guess that might be true eventually, but it seems kind of ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

  Just then a woman asks in an American accent, “Hey, aren’t you two the ones in the New Zealand commercial?”

  We look at each other in surprise. “Yes,” I say.

  “What a great omen!” She claps her hands. “I came here because of those commercials.”