by Lisa Glass
‘Just the sponsorship. And of course I’m aggressive. I want to win. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like you. I think you’re great, Iris.’
OK, she was psyching me out. She had to be. She had no reason to think I was great. Nobody thought I was great, with the sometimes exception of Kelly and my mother.
I heard myself saying, ‘Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I just got caught up in the moment. And I was listening to Christina Aguilera.’
She frowned. ‘Which song?’
‘“Dirrty.”’
‘Oh, then I totally blame Christina too.’
And so we spent twenty minutes talking about Christina Aguilera songs and then another half-hour debating the merits of the British Voice compared to the American and Australian versions.
As I walked home, I wondered if in another universe, me and Saskia could be friends. Nah, I thought. I could never get used to that accent. It’d be like hanging out with Kate Middleton.
chapter fifteen
‘Come over,’ Zeke had said. ‘It’s gonna be fun.’
I’d dressed in my nicest Fornarina jeans and a black strapless handkerchief top, which was pretty skimpy as it knotted beneath my shoulder blades and was otherwise open at the back. I’d even borrowed my mum’s blue Kurt Geiger pumps, which I could barely walk in as they had a four-inch heel. Kelly had a late shift at Hendra so said she’d meet me there.
My idea of a fiftieth birthday do was obviously different from Zeke’s dad’s, whose party was like something out of The Great Gatsby. The streets around South Fistral were totally blocked with cars, and when I got to the house the front lawn was covered in a marquee. I couldn’t see anyone I recognized in there so I turned into the house and caught a glimpse of Garrett, who handed me a bottle of Budweiser. He was holding a plate of cheese and pineapple cubes stuck together with cocktail sticks.
‘Pa made these but no one’s eating them. They’re all fighting over the caterer’s fancy canapés.’
‘Really? I love these things,’ I said, stuffing a cocktail stick in my mouth and skimming off the cheese and pineapple with my teeth.
Garrett handed me the plate and said: ‘You gotta eat at least ten.’
‘No problem. Cool party,’ I said, putting the plate down for a second to take a sip of beer, which tasted really strong.
‘This? Nah. Basement is where you’ll find the real party.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Hell yeah.’
‘Zeke down there?’
‘Where else?’
An older man with a deep tan and a ponytail came up to us. He had a big smile on his face and a ‘Fifty Shades of Awesome’ badge pinned to his chest.
‘This lovely young lady your girlfriend, Gar?’
‘Not mine. Zeke’s, I guess. Bachelor life for me, Pa.’
‘Well, well, so you’re Iris?’ he said. But why did he sound so surprised, and what had Zeke been telling him about me?
‘That’s me. It’s nice to meet you, Mr Francis.’
‘Call me Dave. So how did you meet my youngest son?’
‘Yoga class.’
‘Christ, his mother will love that.’
A couple of girls about my age came up and hugged Dave, before loading brightly wrapped presents into his hands. ‘There you go, Uncle Dave. Don’t say we never get you anything decent. And the bottle of Laphroaig on the kitchen table is from us.’
‘Too much, girls, but thank you very much, my sweethearts.’
One of the girls, who had long ginger hair down to her bum, looked up at me and said, ‘One of the long-lost cousins from Penzance, are you?’
‘Um, no. Zeke invited me.’
She smirked at the other girl in an obvious way. ‘You better get downstairs, then. My favourite cousin is getting stressy waiting for you. No offence, Gar.’
‘None taken. Can’t compete with Superboy, can I?’ he said, sighing.
The basement had obviously once been a games room, but someone had kitted it out as a nightclub. There was a proper bar with a dance floor and squashy sofas around the edge of the room. It even had its own cloakroom and bathrooms. To all intents and purposes, it was the nicest club in Newquay.
‘Not bad,’ I said to Garrett, which was something of an understatement.
There were about forty people down there already, mostly teenagers, but a few older hangers-on too.
I sat down on an empty chair, finished my beer and felt hands over my eyes.
I squirmed in his light grip and turned to face Zeke, who was literally glowing with happiness.
He kissed me lightly on the forehead and then grabbed my hand.
‘I met your stepdad,’ I said. ‘Didn’t get to meet his girlfriend though.’
‘Yeah, about that — better not mention Daisy. She left him yesterday.’
‘One day before his fiftieth birthday? Harsh.’
‘I guess his birthday had something to do with it. She was only twenty-four.’
Nice going, Dave …
‘Well, I thought your stepdad was super-nice.’
‘Yeah, he’s the greatest.’
A group of younger teenagers were waving us over and Zeke said, ‘Come and meet my Irish cousins.’
How many cousins did he have?
After being introduced to all eleven of Zeke’s step-cousins, I realized I hadn’t remembered any of their names, which was going to be embarrassing if I bumped into them later. Then somebody produced an empty beer bottle and began spinning it in the middle of the dance floor.
Zeke laughed and shook his head, but people were gravitating towards the bottle, like it was the most hilarious idea ever.
In two minutes, me and Zeke were the only ones not in the circle.
‘Come on, brah! And bring your girl too. Need all the babes we can get for this.’
‘Seriously? Aren’t we a bit old for this?’
‘No way. Who’s too old for Spin the Bottle?’
I was pretty sure that I’d never been young enough to enjoy spin the bottle, but still, if Zeke was up for it, then I wasn’t going to be the only wet blanket in the basement.
Wes was looking uncomfortable and he said, ‘Remind me of the rules?’
‘There are no rules, bro,’ Garrett replied. And then added, ‘Haven’t you ever played this before?’
‘Yeah, like in kindergarten.’
‘Well, what’s there to know? The bottle points to a chick and then points at you, you kiss her. Easy.’
‘What if it points to two girls?’
‘Winner. Game on.’
‘Two dudes then?’
‘You pass on a dude, obviously.’
‘And what about if it points at someone you’ve already kissed?’
‘Kiss ’em again.’
‘OK, got it.’
Wes was even worse at this than I was.
The first spin landed on a dark-haired girl who seemed painfully shy and then on a young blond lad who was much shorter than her. They kissed for maybe three seconds before pulling away, embarrassed. Next up was Garrett and a young woman in her early twenties and both of them were dead game and had the sort of comedy snog that brides and grooms go in for after saying ‘I do’. On the third spin, the bottle pointed squarely at Zeke.
I could see the panic cross his eyes and he looked at me apologetically, because there was no way that the bottle would point to me next. It didn’t. It pointed to Garrett again.
‘Dude!’ Garrett said. ‘That is wrong on so many levels. Spin again, bro.’
I wondered if in his brain Zeke was trying to make some calculation as to how fast to spin the bottle so that it would land on me. It was hopeless though. Like trying to influence the outcome of a roulette wheel. The bottle stopped and pointed between two people to right where Kelly had just walked into the room.
‘You gotta kiss that chick, bro,’ Wes said, laughing.
‘That’s Iris’s best friend,’ Zeke said, looking scandalized.
‘Kiss her!’ one of the gir
ls shouted.
‘Uh, no, you’re all right,’ Kelly said, grimacing at me.
‘KISS, KISS, KISS …’ There was no stopping it. Horrendous. My best friend was going to get a snog off the bloke I was seeing before I did.
Kelly rolled her eyes but was still digging her heels in. The chanting was getting louder and I could see Zeke was on the point of bailing.
‘It’s OK,’ I mouthed to her.
Shrugging, she went over to Zeke and leaned forward.
Garrett shouted, ‘It has to be a mouth kiss,’ when Kelly angled for the cheek.
She sighed and pecked Zeke on the mouth. It was over in a fraction of a second but my stomach was burning.
If Cass’s betrayal had been hard to take, I realized that I would never, ever, get over it if Kelly did something like that to me.
But she wouldn’t, would she? No. And Zeke wasn’t Daniel. He was so far from Daniel that he was practically a different species. Still, I didn’t want to see Kelly and Zeke kiss ever again. Not even a peck.
I was still shuddering when I realized that the neck of the bottle was touching my knee.
I hadn’t seen who had spun it as I’d been in a silent conversation with Kelly, where she was mouthing things like, ‘Sorry about that,’ and, ‘Our lips barely touched.’
‘Er … who am I kissing?’ I asked, as casually as I could, to hide the fact that I was freaking out.
Zeke’s eyes darted to his brother Wes.
Seriously, what kind of masochist would enjoy Spin the Bottle? The only thing worse than seeing Kelly kiss Zeke would be having to kiss one of Zeke’s brothers. It was horrific. And once again my brain was reminding me at one hundred decibels that Zeke and I hadn’t even properly kissed yet.
Wes was hesitating and even Garrett was saying something like, ‘Awkward, bro, real awkward.’
And then Wes did the most ludicrous thing. He said, ‘What the hell?’ grabbed my shoulders and snogged my face off.
It was a weird kiss. There was literally no chemistry whatsoever, but Christ almighty he was making a meal of it.
I pulled away and turned my palms upwards, in a peace-out way, but Zeke jumped to his feet and said, ‘Screw this,’ and stormed across the room to the steps that led out of the basement.
Wes followed him and put his hand on Zeke’s shoulder, but Zeke turned and pushed him off, sending Wes halfway across the dance floor. Zeke left and Wes walked sheepishly back.
Garrett smiled at me and said, ‘Yo, I think Zeke likes you.’
‘Wes! What was that?’ I said.
‘What? It’s Spin the Bottle. I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do.’
‘Yeah, well, you did it,’ I said. ‘I better go after him.’
‘Nope.’ Garrett put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Leave him be. He like almost never loses his temper these days, but when he does, he needs space to chill out. Seriously uncool, little brother,’ he said to Wes.
‘What? She’s not even his girlfriend!’
‘You know he likes her. He’s been seeing her almost every day.’
It was so strange. Wes had done that deliberately, for some reason. He clearly didn’t fancy me, as there was no spark at all between us. But why would he do that to his brother? There was obviously way more going on than I understood.
Spin the Bottle carried on and I just sat there, waiting for Zeke to come back. The only other person I kissed was Kelly, and that was just a granny peck. Kelly, on the other hand, seemed to kiss about ten guys, and unlike her kiss with Zeke, she really went for it. On the last round she got Garrett, and the moment they touched, I could feel the air in the room change. It wasn’t a stupid game kiss: they both came out of it looking dazzled, like they’d just come up from being held in dark water. Kelly actually blushed. I had never in my entire life seen Kelly blush.
Then, as quickly as it had started, the game was over.
Zeke was not in any of the main party rooms or in the marquee. Eventually I found him in the garage, furiously planing a foam blank that would one day be a surfboard — well, if he didn’t mess it up, and he wasn’t exactly doing a stellar job on it. He looked up at me but didn’t smile.
‘Fucking Wes. Can’t believe he did that.’
‘He’s probably just rendered,’ I said.
‘Huh?’
‘Drunk.’
‘He’s totally sober.’
‘I didn’t kiss him back,’ I said, which should have made it better, but somehow didn’t.
‘See,’ Zeke said, ‘this is the crappy thing about having brothers. It’s all swell until they hit on the girl you like.’
‘You like me?’
‘Sure I like you. I really like you. You’re different. You’re your own person. I knew that from the first moment I met you.’
‘In yoga class? When I was wearing those horrible old shorts?’
‘I wasn’t looking at the shorts.’ He put down the plane and I slowly walked over to him.
‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ I said. ‘It just seemed to spiral out of control and I didn’t really know what was going on. But I didn’t want to kiss Wes.’
‘So kiss me,’ he said.
Walking backwards, Zeke led me deeper into the garage, where there was a blue-and-green striped hammock. I couldn’t quite see how we were going to both get in though, as it didn’t look wide enough for us to lie side by side.
Zeke stretched back on to it and pulled me on top. Our bodies fell together, and for the briefest of moments, our lips touched.
And that was the moment that a seriously beautiful older woman in a headscarf and a tie-dyed floaty dress walked in with a huge smile on her face.
‘Zeke, honey!’ she said. ‘Who’s the saltwater betty and why are you squeezing her to death on that hammock?’
Saltwater betty? That was new, and how did she even know I was a surfer?
But all Zeke had to say was, ‘Mom!’
chapter sixteen
Zeke was stoked to see his mother. There was no doubt about that. And who could blame him? Zeke’s mum was the coolest mum in the history of mums. At least that was the opinion I came to within about one minute of talking to her.
Zeke had jumped out of the hammock the second he spotted his mother and they hugged each other for ages.
‘Iris, this is my mom, Sephy July.’
Well, I had finally met someone with a weirder name than me.
‘Sethy?’
‘With a ph, surfer girl. Short for Seraphina, but who wants that label?’
She gazed up at Zeke once more, and said, ‘You done real good, baby,’ and then she came over and hugged me, which I was not expecting. As she pulled away from me, very quietly she murmured what sounded like, ‘Be gentle with him, Iris. He’s not as tough as he looks.’
‘What are you doing here, Mom?’ Zeke said, missing what she had just said to me.
‘Your pa invited me. Jacob needs to spread his wings, so we had one last day together and set each other free. You know how it goes.’
‘Mom, I’m so sorry. He was a cool guy. Sure you can’t fix it?’
‘Pretty sure. A blind woman could have seen the love was fading out of him. Out of me too. Don’t you worry about me, honey.’
Then she hooked her arms through mine on one side, and Zeke’s on the other side, and connected like that we walked into the house.
Even in her late forties she was a head-turner. People were rushing up to her and asking how she’d been, and I caught at least five blokes checking out her figure.
Zeke and his family spilled out into the garden, having a brilliant time catching up with Sephy. Even Zeke’s dad seemed pleased to see his ex-wife.
The stories she had to tell. She had travelled on her own to rough it in Oahu, living on pineapples stolen from the farms on the North Shore, on the fish she could catch with a spear each night and on coconuts that she climbed for herself. She was still climbing for coconuts when she was eight months pregnant with Zeke.
>
She was one of the original North Shore soul surfers, but the only girl up there, by the sounds of it. Shunned by the blokes, she would go hunt for food and return to find they had buried her surfboard somewhere on the beach, or defaced it with badly graffitied cocks. Once, she had the tyres of her woody surf wagon slashed and her board smashed by an Australian dude who couldn’t catch a single wave at Pipeline. But still she didn’t let it get to her. She kept on trucking and surfed eight hours every single day. Then she married Zeke’s biological father, had three kids, divorced him, and crossed paths with a certain clueless but charming dude from England called Dave. Garrett was to blame, apparently. He saw Dave checking out his mum and lobbed a clump of rotten seaweed at Dave’s head. Zeke’s mum went to apologize for her eldest son and the rest was history.
Zeke’s uncle Chris arrived with Zeke’s Nanna, who he’d just picked up from the nursing home. Nanna was four-feet-ten-inches of sparkly-eyed loveliness.
‘Nanna,’ Zeke said, going over to her wheelchair and holding her hand. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Better now. You’re a sight for sore eyes, my darlin’. Is this the girl you’re courting? Introduce us, dearie.’
‘Iris, this is Nanna. Nanna, this is Iris.’
‘Iris, are you a California girl?’
‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Francis. No, I’m from here.’
‘Do you know, I once visited Malibu. Such a vibrant, busy place.’
‘Iris is from Newquay, Nanna.’
‘Is she?’ she said, disappointed. ‘Well, never mind. Where’s my Garrett?’
‘I’m here, Nanna.’
‘And what about Wes?’
‘He’s keeping his head down,’ Garrett said. ‘Fallen out with Zeke.’
‘Fighting? Oh, boys will be boys. You should all go and surf it out. An evening like this, you shouldn’t be indoors. Get as much of the stoke as you can, because it doesn’t last forever. I only wish I could be out there with you, instead of in this blasted chair.’
‘Did you ever surf?’ I said, surprised to hear an old lady use the word ‘stoke’.
‘No, no, dear. We couldn’t in our day. They wouldn’t allow it.’
‘Who?’
‘Our fathers. Our brothers. Our sweethearts.’