Antipodes

by Michele Bacon

  She played it again.

  “Right on,” he said.

  She played it once more and didn’t really want to give the guitar back. “What’s next?”

  “‘Revolution #9.’”

  She pulled the strap over her head. “Sorry. Don’t know that one.”

  Hemi didn’t reach for the guitar. “‘All of Me’? John Legend.”

  She shook her head again. “Learned too long ago for that.”

  “Simon and Garfunkel, ‘Sound of Silence.’”

  “No, but I know ‘Feeling Groovy.’”

  “Sweet as. Erin, this is Rico. You know Ruby.”

  “Hey.”

  Rico didn’t know the chords, but he knew all the lyrics. Ruby harmonized with Erin’s chords, which was awesome. Hemi’s voice was crystal clear. The moment was a throwback to childhood summers when Erin and Grampa played guitar and Tea harmonized when she could. Tea knew all the lyrics, because she knew everything. She was the crafter and the baker and the builder and she knew all the mom stuff.

  Erin missed Grandma Tea so much her heart hurt. Tea had loved Simon and Garfunkel and all the Beatles tunes. She knew every song from the fifties and sixties, and she could sing anything. On rainy summer nights, they played, and played, and played.

  That had been exactly what she loved doing, and exactly the people she loved doing it with.

  Maybe her life didn’t fall apart when the Quigleys arrived in Wheaton. Maybe her life started falling apart when she switched to cello and started intensive study. When she stopped enjoying music and it became work.

  Today, she’d focus on what she wanted and what made her happy. And she’d start with Hank.

  SIXTY-SIX

  Erin saw Hank nearly every day. They climbed at The Roxx before dinner, or he came for dinner and stayed to hang out. He introduced her to Spencer Beach and the Botanical Gardens and punting on the Avon. When she lauded the merits of retail therapy, he introduced her to Re:Start, an open-air mall comprising shops in shipping containers. She shared her artwork from term three and, once, snuck him onto Ilam’s campus to see her current watercolor.

  Together they explored the demolished Central Business District and talked at length about the big earthquakes. Hank confessed that he still had trouble sleeping all these years later. Erin had felt a few quakes since the bike fiasco and had come to regard them as part of Christchurch. They happened, and she moved past them.

  Erin reveled in Christchurch’s freedom and fresh air. And, many nights in the wop wops, she reveled in Hank.

  The third or fourth time they had sex, Erin paused the kissing to again ask: “Is this good for you?”

  “I wish you’d stop that,” Hank said.

  Erin recoiled.

  “Don’t get me wrong—I like it. I like everything. But you’re always asking if I’m okay or happy or feeling good. What do you like?”

  “It’s all fun.”

  “What’s all fun?”

  “I like being with you, out in the world or in here, naked.”

  “And when we’re naked, what do you like best?”

  “Making you feel good.”

  Hank rubbed his eyes. “But why?”

  “It makes me feel good?”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. Giving me pleasure makes you feel good? Well giving you pleasure would make me feel good. Take something for yourself here, Erin. What can we do to make you feel good?”

  “I do feel good.”

  Hank shook his head. “Nah. This is a team sport. I want you to get as much of your own pleasure as I do.”

  Flustered, Erin said, “I don’t know how to do that.”

  Running his hand up her thigh, Hank smiled. “So let’s figure it out.”

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  Hank played tour guide anywhere Erin wanted to visit, so Saturday morning he drove her to Akaroa.

  During the twisting ninety-minute roller-coaster ride, Erin kept her eyes on the shifting horizon and kept her breakfast in her stomach.

  Hank parked a few feet from the bay. “Morning tea?”

  “Coffee.”

  Holding hands, they walked to a tiny café overlooking a small, black beach where children teased seashells from the sand and dodged tiny waves lapping at the shore.

  Akaroa was a volcanic crater filled with seawater surrounded by mountain.

  The bay was large enough to seem majestic but not so large that Erin couldn’t swim across with a bit of effort.

  “Well, this is gorgeous,” Erin said.

  “You’re thinking about swimming, yeah?”

  “Considering it.”

  “Bring your togs?”

  She eyed him. “Swimsuit?”

  “That’s the one!”

  “Not today. Maybe next time.” Erin gazed at the mountains across the water. “This reminds me of my favorite place in the world. My grandparents’ cottage was similar. No mountains, but lots of wild blueberries and strawberries. I lived in the water. I kind of dove in the first day, then swam and floated my way through June, July, and August.”

  Hank smiled. “Sounds like my parents’ bach. On Taharoa. You’d like it: swimming, take the boats out, lie about in swim tubes.”

  “Is there a dock?” she asked.

  “Small one, eh.”

  “Rafts?”

  “It’s not white water!”

  “No, like an inflatable canvas thing you lie on in the water.”

  “Air mats?”

  “Probably?”

  “Yes. We have air mats.”

  “Sounds like a dream.”

  His face turned serious. “Boxing Day, the day after Christmas, I leave on a tiki tour up to the North Island. Come with me.”

  “I’m sorry, a tiki tour?”

  “Like, meandering. I don’t really have a plan. Probably camp roadside. Taharoa’s a bit of a hike.”

  “Do you do that a lot? Just wander aimlessly?”

  He smiled. “I do.”

  “I’d be happy to wander aimlessly with you, but my flight’s booked for the twenty-third.”

  “Tell you what,” Hank said. “Next time you’re here, we’ll go.”

  “Deal.”

  Oh, how she hoped there would be a next time.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Erin had wanted to visit Akaroa to buy souvenirs for her parents and Lalitha but was cynical when Hank directed her to a craft fair.

  In New Zealand, craft fairs weren’t stay-at-home moms knitting afghans and crocheting pot holders; here, artists sold gorgeous art. One woman displayed hand-smocked dresses that looked machine made. A glass-blower sold mouth-blown chess sets.

  A husband-wife team designed jewelry delicate enough for boutiques. Erin chose earrings and two necklaces for her mother and a bracelet for Lalitha.

  For her father, she found a single pair of 100-percent wool socks and a pair that was half possum. Mitchell was just the sort of guy who might delight in the novelty of possum in his socks. The guy who returned Erin’s change was American.

  “It’s my wife’s shop. She’s kiwi. I’m from Ohio.”

  “Chicago,” Erin said.

  His wife, clearly kiwi, butted in. “Ah, Chicago. Winter in Chicago was piss awful. I haven’t thought about that in yonks.”

  Her husband said, “We met in Chicago ten years ago when she was on O.E.”

  Hank said, “That’s her overseas experience. Most kiwis get away for a year or two, then come back.”

  “I know the feeling,” Erin said. “Okay, so tell me, what is with the possum here?”

  The American shrugged. “It’s what we’ve got. Use wool. Use possum. New Zealand doesn’t have a cotton industry, so you either import super expensive stuff or buy what kiwis can make here.”

  “Practical, though, isn’t it? Clothes fade on the line, so you’re going to have to buy new. And manufacturers don’t have three hundred million people to sell to. So, there’s low end and high end. Nothing in the middle. No Gap. No Banana Republic.�
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  Erin loved the word banana on a kiwi tongue. “So glad I ran into you. I have been wondering about the possum for months.”

  “Cheers,” they said in unison.

  Erin circled the remaining artists. She hadn’t planned to buy for anyone else, but a thick crocheted tea cozy shaped like an owl would be perfect for Lalitha’s tea-obsessed parents. Erin would forever be apologizing for the carpet stains that lingered in Lalitha’s mom’s observatory.

  “Thirty-seven and twenty,” the artist said.

  Erin would miss kiwi’s accents. Sea-vin. Tweentee!

  She accepted her change and told Hank she was done. “After all this time, your money still cracks me up.”

  “How’s that?” Hank asked.

  Erin fanned a rainbow of paper—pink, blue, orange, red, purple, green. Each denomination was physically a little larger than the last, so the ten was longer and wider than the five, but shorter and stubbier than the twenty.

  “It’s like Monopoly money. Have you seen ours?” She pulled out the American bills sitting idly in her wallet. “All green, all the same size, fitting neatly into my wallet.

  “Fine for you, innit? But what if you don’t know your numbers?”

  “Maybe if you don’t know your numbers, you shouldn’t be handling money.”

  Hank couldn’t counter that. “What about people who are blind? Colors don’t matter to them, but they can tell by size whether they’re using the right note. Or whether someone is trying to cheat them.”

  Now Erin had no counter. She studied the New Zealand bills. Every bill had a bird on the back—no kiwis—and royalty on the front.

  “And who is this woman?”

  “Kate Sheppard.”

  “Past … president?” Erin asked.

  “Women’s suffrage.”

  “Voting rights for women. Pretty recent, then?”

  “Nah, nineteenth century. New Zealand was first in that race.”

  Stunned, Erin stared at her money again. History wasn’t her thing, but she knew women hadn’t been able to vote until the flappers. Nineteen twenties, maybe?

  What else could New Zealand do better than the States?

  SIXTY-NINE

  One sunny Friday in mid-November, everyone celebrated Show Day, which meant no one had to work. Erin had taken a hard pass on Pippa’s invitation to what sounded like a county fair, and instead found herself lying next to Hank in his hammock. His left leg hung over the side, so every few minutes he rocked them gently.

  Waiting for Gloria and Jade, with whom they were heading to a beach bonfire, Hank said, “I could live in this hammock. For a while. I could be happy here for a whole holiday.”

  He closed his eyes.

  “I badly want you to meet Lalitha.”

  “You think we’d get on?”

  “I know you would. And Marama, too. Honestly, I think Litha’s jealous of both of you. You’re in my time zone. You both get me in person. On more than one occasion, she’s referred to my time as ‘sloppy seconds.’ She knows how much I like you.”

  He smiled.

  “Hank.”

  Eyes open.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything”

  “For the first three months I knew you, I was not interested. And then I got to know you. You’re kind. And you’re smart. Clearly. And well-read. So, why did you leave school? I get that New Zealand needs people in construction, but you’re smart enough to go to school.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not what I want. I like using my hands and working outside.”

  “Going to college would keep your options open.”

  “That’s not a good enough reason to go.” He rolled onto his side to face her, not smiling. “I could be in year thirteen right now, but for what? Pass my exams and go to more school. For what? Engineering? Architecture? More school? More school, so I can sit at an office for the rest of my life.”

  “But you could have a much better life!”

  Those deep chocolate eyes stared at her blankly. “Better how? I’m happy.”

  “Everyone is always so happy here. My bus driver, my teachers, the people who work on the roads are smiling half the time, even in the rain. Checkers at the grocery store. They can’t really be happy, can they? Are they just complacent?”

  “It’s just where they fit, Erin. I’m great with my hands. I love working outside. I was finished with sitting in a classroom all day.”

  “But you’re so smart. You should use your brain to make something of yourself.”

  He rolled onto his back, staring at the remarkable, cloudless sky. “I am something. I’m a very, very happy bloke. I can support myself and have pretty much everything I need.”

  “Get a better job and you could have great vacations and a much, much bigger house.”

  “Yeah? So tell me about your life back in Chicago. Tell me about this much, much bigger house.”

  Feeling defensive, she said, “It’s fabulous. Four bedrooms. Four full and two half baths. All our baths except the second guest room’s have extra-wide tubs.” She described the basement exercise room, the flat-screen TVs, and the dining room that sat twelve.

  “How else is your house in the States different than here?”

  “There’s just more room! The third floor was my playroom as a kid, and now it’s where I practice cello and hang out with … people Saturday nights. I have a huge walk-in closet.”

  “Your parents have one, too? I assume they didn’t give you the best room in the house.”

  “Their suite takes up the whole back of the house. Bedroom, walk-in closet, and a great bathroom with separate shower and Jacuzzi.”

  “And where do you spend your time in the house?”

  “My room or the third floor. The basement if I’m watching movies.”

  “And where do your parents hang out?”

  “Dad reads at the kitchen table after dinner, usually until bed. Mom works on the sofa if she’s working. Or watches TV in the living room.”

  “So you three spread out all over the house, so you never see each other at all. If I got a big job with big pay—which doesn’t really work here like it works in the States but, you know, sake of argument—I get this huge house, and for the few waking hours when I’m home, I will have more space. And when I go on holiday—and I haven’t a shit show of going on holiday after I’ve paid for a mansion—you think I should stay at a hotel alone instead of an RV park. That’s not life, Erin.”

  “No! My parents spend lots of weekends on their law partners’ sailboats. See? Money can get you a sailboat.”

  “Erin, I have a sailboat now.”

  “You do not.”

  “I do. Walk ’round the shed.”

  Erin crawled out of the hammock and circled his shed to find an old sailboat—not a sunfish, but a genuine sailboat.

  Hank laid his hands on her shoulders.

  “You snuck up on me,” she said.

  “Sorry. I know I came down too hard on you. I’m not saying owning things is bad! I’m just saying there’s a trade-off between buying everything you want and trading away your life to get them. I don’t want to work sixty-hour weeks. I don’t want to work Saturdays. I already have lazy Sundays at home and several holidays a year. Why would I want a four-bedroom house like your parents? Where two bedrooms go unused ninety-nine percent of the time? I want to live. I want to work enough at something I’m good at that helps people and lets me pay for the things I need and the things I really, really want—which is mostly exploring, anyway. Enjoy living. I want to see the whole world as truly as possible. I want to find the things that make me happy and enjoy them as long as I can…. And, Erin?”

  Those eyes.

  He was quieter. “I want the same for you.”

  She kissed him, holding onto the back of his head because he might go away at any time.

  He wanted a life of happiness for her. A lifetime of happiness. That was the kindest wish anyone had ever made for her. If
Ben had said anything remotely like that, he would have gotten into her pants instantly.

  And that was the thing, wasn’t it? Here was Hank, absolutely sincere. Not even considering getting into her pants at this moment.

  Erin said, “So, where do we go from here?”

  “Always ask for what you want, and always do what makes you happy. That’s a start.”

  “You’ve said that.”

  “And also, I need you to reserve December twenty-second for me. The whole day.”

  “The whole day? What are we doing?”

  “It’s a surprise. A Christmas prezzie. An experiential gift.”

  Two car doors slammed, and Erin emerged from behind the shed.

  Gloria yelled, “Come on, you wanker! Let’s get a move on. Sorry, Erin. I didn’t mean you were a wanker.”

  Hank ran around the shed. “Nope, she is!”

  And they were off, again.

  Mitchell and Claire had departed before breakfast, complaining about the double bed. For years, Claire had implored her parents to buy a house big enough for everyone to spread out.

  Clad in bathrobes, Erin and her grandparents devoured sausage and pancakes drowned in syrup.

  “Let’s relocate you from the pullout sofa to the guest bedroom,” Grampa said. “We can do anything you want, all summer.”

  “Swimming!” Ten-year-old Erin tore off her bathrobe to reveal a velour swimsuit.

  “Is that it? Are we going to swim all summer?”

  “Boating!”

  “Don’t get him started,” Tea said.

  Grampa laughed. “I had an idea. What if we have a midnight paddle into the middle of the lake and go stargazing?”

  “Yes!” Erin said.

  Grandma Tea said, “I’ve added it to the list. What else?”

  “Hiking! Music! Ice cream! Daddy Frank’s!”

  “Should we take the boat to Daddy Frank’s today?” Grampa asked.

  “Swimming!” Erin said.

  “You are a fish, my sweet granddaughter. Give us a minute to get dressed.”

  Grandma Tea whipped off her bathrobe to reveal her own swimsuit. “Time waits for no man. Let’s go, Fish.”