Forever summer (Summer # 4) (23 page)

“I’d kind of like to do it again.”

***

I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face; if I could whistle properly I would be belting out Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah all the way to work, via the best coffee joint in the city, as my daily ritual would demand. I inhaled the strong, rich brew, basking in the fresh morning sunshine and how glorious life was right now. I couldn’t hear birdsong exactly, so I revelled in the city surrounds of the traffic, and general hustle and bustle from the manic crowd off to work. I took it all in, thinking it almost sounded like my name rolling across the wind, a very distant cry. Ha, today really was poetic, now I was hearing things, until of course I paused mid-sip, my eyes narrowing as the sound became louder, less sing-songy on the wind and just damn well annoying.

“Hey, Ellie, wait up.”

Oh God, please, make it not be so.

I slowly turned, thinking maybe my mind was playing tricks on me; sure enough, as soon as I turned to the sound my eyes widened, as right before me, closing the distance a good head and shoulders above the commuters, came Rory Fucking Franklin.

Chapter Thirty-One

I sat opposite Rory Franklin, my arms folded and a sceptical curve to my brow.

“You’ve got five minutes.”

“Yeah, look, mate, I’m not going to keep you long.”

Mate? Did he honestly just call me mate?

Long gone was the custom-made black suit and square-tipped Italian leather shoes. Instead Rory wore green baggy running shorts over his bike shorts and a grey sweat-stained singlet top. He didn’t look like an expensive, high-end athlete. He was just a boy that could have been training with the Onslow Tigers, for all anyone knew. It kind of had me not thawing, but certainly less on edge as I saw him stumble over his words.

“Yeah, um, I just wanted to tell you that I was sorry, you know, for what I said.”

He looked down at the tablecloth for most of his delivery, but the one time he did look up, his baby blues looking at me, damn it if he wasn’t sincere because regardless of however big of a dick he was, I know he meant what he said.

I thought for a long moment, assessing Rory with great interest. I had often thought about what I might say to him if I had ever the chance to bump into him again. My fantasy was usually quite dramatic, where I would indeed spill another beverage on him, followed by a killer line and a hair flick, while I walked to the sound of Aretha Franklin’s ‘RESPECT’ (obviously the two were not related). But in that moment, nothing grand or abusive came to mind, no matter how many speeches I had rehearsed in my head.

“It’s not just what you said, Rory, it’s the fact that you thought it was acceptable to objectify me to your mates like that. To make a judgment based on my looks and intelligence within, I’m guessing, two minutes of me sitting in your penis extension of a car.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I hired the car for the date,” he said sheepishly.

I burst out laughing. “What, to impress me?”

Rory shrugged. “Did it impress you?”

“NO! It was hideous,” I said, continuing to laugh. “Listen, Rory, if any girl wants to be with you based on the balance of your ATM receipt or what kind of car you drive then, seriously, they’re not worth it. And just so you know, if any girl settles for anything less than being treated like she is worthy of all a man’s respect, well, I just hope those girls don’t get lured by the bad boys and fast cars.”

“Look, just please accept my apology and know that I will never do anything stupid like that again.”

I picked up my bag, slinging it over my shoulder.

“I hope you’re right, I really do.”

I left Rory at the table, sitting there, watching on and hopefully at least retaining something, and, sure, there was no hair flick, or Diva music playing in the background, but I sure as hell felt like an utter bad ass.

***

If I said I didn’t want anything to change then that was kind of a lie. I welcomed change, the new normal was most certainly different. I rang Adam every night on my commute home from work, and he rang me back before bed. Our conversations were as effortless and random as they ever were throughout our lives, but there was one very obvious difference. I lived to hear his voice, for him to tell me about his day, or for him to text me random, mental things throughout the day like ‘Who would win a fight between a crocodile and a shark?’ So yeah, usual Adam stuff. And then there were the later calls, the kind of calls that had me smiling and yawning throughout the daytime as I recalled Adam telling me what he wanted to do to me the next time he saw me; yeah,
those
kind of calls.

“Okay, enough; seriously, I don’t want to know,” declared Tess. I could just imagine the look of horror spread across her face.

“What?” I laughed.

“Look, I am all for you and Adam but I seriously don’t need to know about my two best friends having phone sex every night of the week.”

“It’s not every night of the week; besides, don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.”

The line went silent, long, guilt-ridden silence.

“Tess McGee, well, I never!”

“I’ve gotta go, talk to you tomorrow.” The phone went dead.

I laughed, hearing the dial tone. “Well, well, well, you think you know someone.”

***

Thursday night meant many things. It was the eve of my mum’s visit so it would be my last chance to have some real privacy before the weekend and as much as it would be nice to have Mum stay, all I could think about was Adam, and how easy it would have been to head back to Onslow for the weekend and sneak up the back fire escape into his room. I might even use that as a possible storyline for our late-night phone call as I dialled Adam’s number with a goofy grin on my face.

“Hey,” he answered. It was amazing how well you really knew someone that you could tell so much from one simple word. He sounded flat, really not Adam.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” he snapped.

Geez, attitude much?

“How’s your mum?”

“Yeah, she’s good.”

“You sound really tired, maybe our late-night phone calls are wearing you out?” I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Oh God, what was with him tonight?

Anxiety swirled in the pit of my stomach; who was I talking to? It was like I was on the phone to a stranger; this was the kind of conversation you would expect from Chris, not Adam, never Adam. What was wrong with him?

“So, what are you up to on the weekend?”

Was I really resorting myself to small talk? What was next? Talking about the weather?

Adam sighed; he sounded tired, maybe that’s all it was. Maybe helping Chris at the Onslow was wearing him down, that and the added pressure of his mum’s health. I could be patient, of course I could.

“I think I’ll head out with the boys and go camping for the weekend.”

“Oh, yay! That sounds great. It will be good to get away for the weekend, do some male bonding, swap ghost stories, chant in the woods, hold a smoking ceremony or whatever you guys do.”

“Yeah.”

Oh my God, he wasn’t even laughing at my jokes; he really was rock bottom.

“Listen, I better go. I have to get all my stuff ready for the weekend, so …”

“Oh, okay, sure, um, you’re probably getting picked up at the crack of dawn.”

“Yeah, pretty early.”

“Okay, well, you get some sleep and call me when you get back.”

There was no immediate response; perhaps he was nodding his head. “Night,” he managed.

“Night.”

I held the phone to my ear, listening to the sound of the dial tone for the longest moment. Worried, deeply worried.

Chapter Thirty-Two

“The bloody doctor clearly has no bloody idea about bloody anything.”

I followed my mum who, despite a rather painful varicose vain problem in her right leg, still managed to storm through the hospital reception area pretty fast.

“April! Bloody April! I have to wait till then, can you believe it?”

“Nope, I can’t bloody believe it.”

“Don’t mock, Ellie,” Mum, snapped.

“I’m sorry, but can we please get something to eat, I’m starving!”

“I thought we were going to go to that place you liked?”

I stepped closer to Mum, accentuating the words so she clearly understood my desperation.

“If I don’t get something to eat I am going to bloody faint.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Ellie, no need to be so dramatic.”

Mum walked away, leaving me and my incredulous open mouth to follow.

Me? The dramatic one?

“And stop trying to catch flies,” she called over her shoulder, leading the way to the hospital cafeteria. It wasn’t exactly a flash city luncheon, but don’t be fooled: they had a mean butter chicken in the bain-marie.

Mum winced in pain, taking her chair. I actually felt really sorry for her; her whole existence seemed to be waiting lists and specialist appointments. If it wasn’t her tennis elbow, it was gallstones; she really had been in the wars these past eighteen months, it was one of the greater reasons I delayed moving away from Onslow.

I checked my phone for the millionth time, hoping that Tess would have gotten back to me by now. I had left a rather sooky message on her phone last night in a desperate bid to find out what had been wrong with Adam, if she had known anything.

“Ellie, how many times do I have to tell you? Put it away.”

It was one of my mum’s absolute pet hates in life, for me to be texting during our time together. It was one of her rules, among many.

I sighed, pocketing my phone. “So, food! What do you want? I’ll get you something.”

Mum sighed some more, like the weight of the world rested on her shoulders.

“What’s that orange stuff?”

“Butter chicken.”

“Is it hot?”

“No, not overly, you get rice with it.”

“Oh, okay, well, I’ll have soup then, and a water, make sure it’s from the back of the fridge, it will be colder.”

I sighed; come to think of it, perhaps Mum was one of the bigger reasons why I did move away.

“Coming up!”

I slid my tray along the bench. Was it wrong to feel so giddy about bain-marie food? I could feel my mouth salivating at the mere passive steam that drifted my way. Who needed five-star dining?

“Here you go, pumpkin soup and the coldest of cold waters,” I announced, sliding the goods off my tray and setting them before Mum, who didn’t seem very interested in all the hard work I had done to shove my arm right to the back of the fridge for her. I frowned, irritated by how distracted she seemed as she stared into the distance.

“What are you looking at?” I asked, starting to get really annoyed.

I followed her eyeline, trying to see who she was spying on and hoping she wasn’t being rude; honestly, Mum could really be like a kid in a high chair sometimes, she just didn’t care who she stared at.

“Is that … Kerry? Kerry Henderson?” she asked.

The moment the words tumbled out of Mum’s mouth I knew exactly who she was talking about.

Adam’s mum stood at reception, her hair shortly cropped and dark like her sons. She wore jeans and a fitted pink cardi set that kind of made her look washed out. It was the first time I had seen her since I found out that she was sick. I really wanted to go and put my arms around her and hug her so tight. Kerry had been like an adoptive mum to me, always dropping me off or picking me up from somewhere whenever my parents couldn’t. She was always the best movie night organiser, putting on spreads in the family rumpus room and checking if we needed anything to eat or drink. You would never go hungry or unnoticed at the Henderson house.

“She must be here for treatment,” I said, mainly to myself. “I’m gonna go say hi,” I said to Mum, and just before I could put down my tray something caught my eye. The automatic hospital door opened, and in walked Adam, car keys in hand, shades flipped back. Kerry turned around as he approached and smiled. Right before my butter chicken slid off my tray and went smashing to the bleach-white hospital floor, causing them both to turn and look my way.

***

There was no time to be embarrassed, or to worry greatly about the orange splatter that ran up my legs, or the cries of dismay from my mum who wanted to die a thousand deaths rather than be anywhere near me right now. I looked at it as an opportune moment to tear my eyes away from the likes of Adam’s shocked expression. All I could do was apologise frantically to the poor lunch lady who was on disaster control with her cloth.

“I am so, so sorry,” I kept repeating, but she seemed in good spirits about it, like she had seen this sort of thing a million times before.

Just when I thought the situation couldn’t get much worse two sets of feet stopped in my peripheral vision.

“Ellie? What are you doing here?”

I looked up to see Kerry Henderson smiling down at me, her eyes narrowed in confusion as if I was the last person she expected to see. My eyes shifted to Adam next to her, who looked on all stony and serious.

Yeah, well, she wasn’t the only one that was surprised.

Despite all the questions that were whirling around in my head, I managed to stand and do the one thing that I promised I would do. I stepped forward, dodging the curry sauce, and wrapped my arms around Kerry. Feeling her tiny frame under my arms, I wanted to hug her so much tighter than I dared.

I stepped away, blanching as I looked down at the mess I had created that was now smeared in circles as the cafeteria lady went back to the kitchen to get a fresh cloth.

“Lucky I never spilt anything like this on your beige carpet, Kerry,” I said, eliciting a laugh from her.

“No, just red cordial.”

I cringed. “That was me, huh?”

“Oh, I still love you, kind of makes me smile every time I walk past it. So what are you ladies doing here?”