by Bronwyn Sell
He pulled the curtain closed. It billowed in the breeze. ‘You can’t tell Sanjay about me and Amy,’ he said, turning. Pippa was searching the cupboard above the sink.
‘For goodness’ sake, Josh,’ she said, selecting a glass.
‘It’s not what it looks like.’ Lame.
‘How so?’
‘Okay, it is what it looks like. But it’s not …’ Not sordid, not dirty, not him taking advantage. It hadn’t been like that at all. The opposite, in fact. It turned out that the very real connection he felt with Amy outside the bedroom was just as strong inside the bedroom.
‘It looks to me like one of two things,’ Pippa said, pushing his discarded jeans off the tiny kitchen bench and dropping her handbag on it. ‘Either you’re well on the way to breaking this girl’s heart, which will make things difficult for your father, or you’re on your way to some description of relationship and that will make things …’
Josh put it together. A relationship that would make things difficult for her. A woman who’d always been on the outside looking in, who was about to witness her ex-husband and her son being inducted into a new family. And now she found her son was in deeper than she’d feared.
She filled the glass and downed the lot. ‘I need to unpack and get sorted. I don’t have much time and I need to scout the locations.’
‘It was a one-off, Pippa. No strings. We both know the deal and she’s cool with that.’ He silently cursed Sanjay. What had he been thinking, inviting Pippa? He could be so tone-deaf.
‘In my long experience of doomed love affairs, there’s always one person in the pair who wants it to be more, no matter what agreement you think you’ve made. But that person is never you, is it? Tread very carefully, Joshie.’
‘Pippa, I—’
She held up her hand. ‘Your problem, not mine. I would have thought you’d have figured this stuff out by now. I’m not your mother anymore. Well, I am, but you’re a grown man and I’ve had a long trip and I have a long day ahead of me. Like I say, not my problem, and I need a shower. If it’s presentable in there.’
He swallowed. The discarded condom was in the rubbish bin, but it could well be sitting in plain view, which was not something you wanted your mother to see, no matter how old you were. ‘I’ll just finish brushing my teeth,’ he said, backing in and shutting the door.
Wrapping up the evidence in toilet paper served up a reminder of the half hour or so they’d spent in there. The way that girl moved her body …
He picked up the cufflinks, turning them this way and that under the lights, like Amy had. There’s always one person in the pair who wants it to be more, no matter what agreement you think you’ve made. Amy had made it very clear she was fine with their agreement. So where did that leave him?
As he brushed his teeth, it came to him. The eyes in the mirror narrowed. It felt different because this time it wasn’t just him pushing her away.
It was him pushing himself away.
Trip Review: Curlew Bay
Rating:
Review: I went there hoping to meet someone but all the guests were coupled up.
33
Harry
Harry hadn’t even finished his summary of the previous evening’s events before Cody began to melodramatically bang his forehead on the bar. ‘No, no, no, no,’ he groaned, each ‘no’ emphasised with a bump.
‘Bro,’ Lena whispered as she poured Harry’s coffee. ‘People are looking.’
‘What did I do wrong now?’ Harry said to Cody. ‘I did exactly what you said, which was a big surprise to me. I gave her the choice, and she made it, and I respected that choice.’
‘You didn’t give her the choice,’ Cody said, sitting straight again, a red mark on his forehead.
‘Yeah, I did.’
‘You really like this woman, right? I’ve never seen you this into anyone, even whatshername.’
Harry shushed him. The pavilion was filling with guests. ‘What’s your point?’
‘Did you tell her that?’
‘That I like her? It’s pretty bloody obvious.’
‘But you told her you couldn’t be a “factor” in her decision. You’re sitting here claiming you gave her the choice, but you didn’t offer yourself up as an alternative. You took that particular option off the table instead of laying out the facts and trusting her to make the call. You did it again, bro. You protected her from the truth because she’s a weak woman who can’t possibly have the intelligence to make up her own mind. Am I right?’ He gestured at Lena in a back-me-up-here way.
‘You did kind of reject her, Hazza,’ Lena said, ‘by omission.’
‘Did not!’ Did he? What even were the facts? That he was attracted—it was no more than that, not in a week—to a woman he was perfectly wrong for? A woman who was perfectly wrong for him?
Harry gulped his coffee, which was too small to buy him any thinking time, but hot enough that he lost half a minute scrambling for a water chaser. Cody couldn’t be right twice in twenty-four hours, could he? Here Harry was, thinking he was doing the right thing in standing back and giving Sophia the space to choose …
Cody crossed his arms. ‘Did you tell Sophia about your pathetic history with whatshername?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And is she making up your mind for you on this, knowing about your one serious attempt at a relationship?’
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Why is she not making up my mind? I don’t know.’
‘Yeah, you do.’
Yeah, okay, maybe he did.
Cody slapped the bar. ‘Because she knows you’re an adult. Because she respects you. Has she even once tried to talk you out of this for your own good?’
‘Ever thought it might be me I’m protecting?’ Harry said, because the alternative was to admit that Cody had a point. It might not be the complete truth but if Lena and Cody were circling, the best defence was to throw in an actual feeling and watch them recoil like vampires struck by daylight. Sure enough, Lena stepped back, palms up as if to say, I’m out.
‘You’re such a coward,’ Cody said. ‘You’re gonna be miserable your whole life, you know that?’
‘And what are you, Little Miss Sunshine? What was I even thinking, taking advice from an emotional amoeba?’
‘We live on a small island with our family. If you’re gonna sit on your fat arse waiting for some perfect woman to rock up in the perfect circumstances—’
Something hit Harry in the forehead and bounced onto the bar. A coffee bean. Beside him, Cody cried out as one hit his nose. Lena pelted several more, making her brothers duck and dive.
‘Quit the floor show, losers,’ she said. ‘People are gonna think we’re a bunch of inbred wackos.’
Harry grabbed his second coffee and headed for the beach. Cody didn’t know the half of it, didn’t know just how close Harry had come to telling Sophia outright not to waste years of her life trying to make her relationship with Jeremy work. Because that was just him projecting his bitter experience onto her. But should Harry have offered himself as an option? Was he an option? How the hell could they possibly make a thing like that work?
He’d guessed when he’d woken an hour ago to the sound of the sliding door closing that Sophia was heading out to yoga. And he’d guessed right—there she was now, lying still on her back on the yoga deck in among a dozen guests, eyes closed. And just where was her mind wandering to? He dusted the sand off a lounger so his suit trousers didn’t get coated, laid his jacket over the top of it and sat, shamelessly watching her chest rise and fall. He stretched his neck side to side. The sofa hadn’t made the most comfortable bed—he’d been curled up like a bird in an egg. If things had gone differently, maybe he’d be lying next to her in his bed right now, waiting for her to wake up.
He detected the odd twitch in her expression—in real life, not in his imagination. Definitely cheating on the meditation. She’d had a lot on that busy mind even before her ex had arri
ved—if he was even an ex. And all that goanna bullshit. What a mistake. They’d given themselves permission to avoid facing reality and to go places they shouldn’t have gone. Maybe it was lucky Jeremy had turned up to jolt them out of it. Living in the moment was just an excuse to give yourself a leave pass from reality.
After a few minutes, the ethereal music faded away and Rosa gently brought her class back to the present and excused herself, citing wedding prep. Sophia rolled up her mat and put it away, walking slowly. Gliding, even. She’d evidently found some calm. By the time she’d packed up, they were the only two people in sight. She cast a dreamy gaze around the bay, stilling when it locked on him. Again, her expression twitched.
‘Check you out, Wall Street,’ she said as she reached him. She slowly scanned down his shirt and trousers. Was this more her kind of guy? Even in the glimpse of her ex last night, Harry had realised how far he must be from her type—scruffy, usually dirty, only relenting to get his hair cut when his mother threatened to snip it while he slept. When Sophia noticed his bare feet, she laughed.
‘No point putting shoes on until the ceremony,’ he said, standing, ‘they’ll only fill with sand. Really, we should be doing this in shorts and bare feet but Carmen insisted on ordering tailored suits with all the trimmings. For some reason, she didn’t think my graduation suit would do.’ He pulled the bow tie and cummerbund from his pocket. ‘I don’t even know what half this stuff is. I can’t remember the last time I wore a bow tie, and this isn’t one of those cheat elastic ones. Gonna have to look up a how-to video on the internet, if I can get any signal.’ Shit, he was babbling.
‘Let me help,’ she said, holding out a palm, her smile easy compared with the strained one of the previous night. Some kind of weight had lifted from her mind.
‘You look happy,’ he said, handing them over. Jeremy would no doubt be capable of assembling his own suit.
‘Happy,’ she repeated, like she was learning a language and it was a new word. ‘I don’t know about that but I feel calmer.’ Her smile widened. ‘In fact, I haven’t felt this calm since I was lying in the water at Stingray Island, before I got sprung by your brother. For a few minutes there, everything cleared—and then it fogged up again. But someone whose opinion I greatly respect said there’d be better times and worse times before things come right, so I’m going with the current rather than forcing it all back into alignment.’
He stood rigid as she fitted the tie around his neck and expertly manipulated it, unable to stop from picturing her in the water, her naked body rising and falling with the swell, even as he took the opportunity in real life to stare at her face while she wasn’t looking. There was something otherworldly about her, and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He swallowed and she glanced at his Adam’s apple. So what now? Would Jeremy go back to Sydney? Would she stay on? Would Harry get another chance? Would he take it?
‘There,’ she said, patting the tie. She took the cummerbund, ducked behind him, reached around from the back and fitted it over his shirt and waistband, her fingers skimming his hips. ‘It’s too long,’ she muttered. ‘I’ll have to adjust it.’ He looked over his shoulder. She had the strap between her teeth and was tugging it, and he got another mind picture—of her taking it off with her teeth tonight after the wedding reception. Would she stay in his apartment again? Would he still be on the sofa?
Like the lady said, go with the current. She refitted it. ‘Perfect,’ she said, reaching around and pressing a palm onto the part that covered his stomach. ‘Can you hold it firm here while I clip it at the back?’ Their hands brushed as he took over, and a second later he felt the tension in the fabric release as she hooked it. He braced for her to touch his hips one last time, checking the placement, smoothing out a crease. She didn’t.
He cleared his throat. ‘Thanks.’
‘I’m glad all my months of wedding prep came in handy for something.’ She lifted his jacket and held it open for him. ‘This is like a ritual. The Official Dressing of the Master of Ceremonies.’
‘I won’t put the jacket on until the last minute,’ he said. ‘Lucky it’s a morning wedding.’
Her smile turned wicked, and she shook the jacket, an elegant toreador to his hulking, snorting bull. ‘Humour me?’
Fitting him into her mould? He shrugged the jacket on and she adjusted the collar. ‘You’re enjoying this,’ he said.
‘Playing dress-ups is always fun.’ She stepped back to view the result. ‘Perfect,’ she whispered.
‘You can come along to the wedding, you know. It’s down the north end of the beach. Carmen wants all the guests in position by eleven.’ Hang on, had he just invited her to be his wedding date? With her ex/current fiancé somewhere on the premises?
‘I don’t think a wedding is a great place for me today.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ Numbskull.
Her breath sawed. ‘And anyway, I’m going home. I changed my flight.’
A coldness rolled down his face. ‘When?’
‘I’m taking the midday boat.’
‘What? Today?’
She nodded. Her smile morphed into a grimace. ‘I’m going back to work on Monday. I might even go in tomorrow. I think that’s the best escape I can have at the moment.’
‘Does your ex—Does Jeremy know you’re leaving?’
‘Not yet. He was still asleep when I sneaked in to get my yoga gear. I’m about to go there and pack, so I guess I’ll see him then. He won’t be surprised after last night. I was somewhat … harsh.’
Good. ‘You don’t have to go just because he’s here. It’s a big enough island, and it turns out there are a couple of rooms available, if that would make you more comfortable, not that I mind …’ Wait. That was his self-interest talking. ‘But if you think leaving is the best thing?’
She tipped her head to one side. ‘I need to get Operation Get Your Shit Together back on track. Until now, I’ve always known what I wanted and what I didn’t want—in everything. Work, relationships, hairstyles, paint colours. Limbo is scary new territory for me.’
He brushed the backs of his fingers down her temple. So smooth. She closed her eyes, and breathed again. ‘And now you seem sad.’
‘I’m everything all at once. That’s part of the problem,’ she said, her eyes fluttering open. ‘But it’s a different sadness. A week ago, it was raw grief, though perhaps I didn’t realise it because it was so mixed in with anger and confusion. Now it’s more about fear of the unknown, maybe—which is so strange because I’m going back into the same life I had two weeks ago, more or less, just not the same future.’ She smoothed her hands down his shirt, from shoulder to chest, pushing the jacket aside. His turn to breathe deeply. ‘And I don’t like the unknown. I really don’t like the unknown. Harry, I know we’re not making any promises here, but you’ve given me hope that perhaps there is life beyond this crisis, even if I don’t know what that life looks like, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that. But I can’t leap into something just because I feel the clock ticking—not that it feels like I’d be doing that with you.’
‘I get that. I would try to change your mind but unfortunately I respect you too much.’
‘Unfortunately?’
He checked they were still alone, shielded from the pavilion by palm trees, and rested his hands on her hips. ‘I don’t want you coming to me with doubts, or leaving with regrets, but is it unheroic that I’m glad you have mixed feelings about going? I get that it’s what you have to do, but I can’t help wishing …’
‘Me too.’ She looked down at her hands, still on his chest. ‘But I don’t want to be that woman falling for the idea of you. You deserve better. And this can’t be about him versus you, or worse, the reality of him versus the idea of you. Because the idea of you?’ She made a show of blowing out a breath. Was there something lacking in the oxygen today? ‘I have to get my head together first, deal with the fallout, like you said. Until I’m me again, or whatever version of
me comes out the other side of this, I can’t have a you. And it’s a relief to suddenly feel that I’ve started on that journey, and a lot of it is because of you, and your family. The worst is over. I hope.’ She looked up again, a new thought crossing her expression. ‘Will you say bye to Amy for me? She wasn’t at yoga and I don’t want to go knocking on her door this morning …’
Harry nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘I feel like I’ve broken up with two men in a matter of hours.’ She grinned again, but it wasn’t convincing.
‘I can’t—’ He stopped himself from finishing. I can’t imagine not seeing you again. She was right. This was a break-up, the end of the road, before they’d even properly set out. How could they even begin a relationship? Sure, he got down to Sydney occasionally, and she could come to the island, but they couldn’t really road-test anything. ‘Just to be clear. I really like you, Ms Sophia Wicks, and I’d love to see you again.’ There, laying out the facts. He imagined Cody giving a smug nod. ‘But I won’t hold you to it.’ The imaginary Cody rolled his eyes.
‘I really like you, too, Mr Harry Tova, and so would I.’ She adjusted his coat lapels. ‘You look so together.’
‘Because I’m wearing a suit?’
‘You’re not wearing that suit, you’re owning it. I’m going to be together, too, next time you see me.’
Next time wasn’t a time that usually came, in his experience. ‘That will be something to behold.’
She looked around and then tugged his lapels, drawing him to her. Their noses touched for a few seconds, then he tilted his head and they kissed. Sweet and gentle. Not a kiss that started something. A kiss that ended something.
When they broke off, she smiled up at him, her eyes shining. She slid a palm slowly down his cheek. It was probably the first time she’d seen him clean-shaven.