The Goodbye Ride (3 page)

Luke used to love the swings.
He’d spend hours on the flying fox. They would climb. Chase. Pretend. Imagine.
Dream.

Liv filled her lungs with the mingled
scents of cheese sandwiches and vegemite, apple cores and orange
juice—ingrained leftovers from a lifetime of school lunchtime snacks. Head
thrown back, wind whipping her hair, she felt her lips shape a smile.

****

Owen had watched Olivia’s pink
beanie and muddy backside until both disappeared behind Dean Lang’s neighbour’s
hedge. He could tell by the stiff way she walked that she hurt all over and he
kicked himself for not offering her a ride. He was out of practice at that sort
of thing. He’d been incommunicado too long. A summer season on Antarctica would
do that.

He tapped the Pantah’s seat.
“Baby, who wouldn’t want you?”

Lang returned in minutes
carrying a plank almost as thick as one of his arms, and a sheaf of transfer
papers.

Owen straightened the bike,
kicked back the centre stand and pushed it from the lawn. The tyres hummed and
picked up grit as he rolled it across the main road. When he looked to his
right, the oak trees flanking the road formed an ever-lengthening tunnel of
stark brown trunks. He saw no sign of Olivia, no flash of pink scarf through
denuded trees.

Lang steadied the ramp and
Owen loaded the Ducati on the back of his cousin’s ute.

“I’ll leave you to it then,
mate,” Lang said, tucking the ramp under his arm and handing Owen the
paperwork. “These are all signed.”

Owen took the papers and
walked around the passenger side of the vehicle. He put the documents on the
seat and pulled a stash of rope from the footrest. “I don’t suppose you have a
phone number for her, do you?”

The corner of Lang’s mouth
drooped. “Who?”

“Olivia,” Owen said patiently,
tying the Ducati to the side rails.

Lang rocked his head back in a
smile that showed too many yellow-stained teeth. “Ah.”

“I thought she could tell me
about the bike,” Owen said, then as Lang continued his broad grin, added:
“Service history. Stuff like that.”

“I guess she could tell you a
thing or two, mate, but nah. I don’t know her number. Sorry. She’d be in the
phone book though. She runs a business here. Livine. Something like that.”

“Levi’s?” Owen tried to
clarify, tugging at his knots. Rope slipped through his palm.

A truck rattled past,
buffeting the air and he missed Lang’s response. The ropes gripped and held.

“She ain’t moving,” Dean Lang
said, clapping his hand on the steel tray. “You got far to go?”

“Not far. My aunt has a
vineyard out near Balhannah. I’m staying with her for the long weekend. I’m
supposed to be helping her prune the bloody thing.” Owen gave his ropes one
last tug. Lang was right. The bike wasn’t moving.

“You can have that job all to
yourself, mate. I have enough trouble pruning Her Inside’s roses.” Lang held
out his hand. “Have a good one, buddy. I hope she runs well.”

Owen shook the big man’s hand.
“Yeah. Cheers. Thanks for that.”

Lang set off across the road
with his makeshift ramp. ‘Her Inside’ must have lit the fire because fresh
white smoke tumbled from the chimney like wisps of Santa’s beard.

Owen tried to think why a
father would make his son sell his bike. Maybe he crashed it. Perhaps his old
man thought he rode too fast. Owen knew plenty of parents who wrapped their
kids in cotton wool. Plenty. Not
his
parents, mind.
Stand up for
yourself, son,
had always been his father’s motto. Someone pushes you
around, push him back harder.

Owen climbed in the ute,
indicated out into the traffic and started up the main street. At Old Balhannah
Road he turned, slowly, so he wouldn’t jostle the bike. He stole one last
glance up the thoroughfare, just in case, but he saw no sign of Olivia and it
gave him the sense he’d let something precious slip through his fingers.

Not a feeling he liked.

Life should be grabbed with
both hands. Antarctica taught him that. Grab an opportunity and hold on like
hell, because down there, you might not get another chance.

His aunt’s vineyard was about
four kilometres out of Hahndorf on the bitumen. Margaret’s Folly, she called
it. Owen’s Folly he called his offer to help her prune it. What he knew about
pruning grapevines could be written on the back of the buzz-box Prius that cut
the corner in front of him.

Owen straightened out of the
turn. He couldn’t pick up speed like he normally would, traffic was too heavy.
He was in prime kid pick-up time for the local mums.

He had half an eye on the
traffic when a flash of pink stole his attention. Instinctively, he touched the
brake.

Olivia Murphy was riding the
flying fox in the Hahndorf school playground.

The tail of her scarf streamed
behind her and each breath burst from her lips in a puff of white cloud. With
her arms stretched over her head, the padded jacket hiked up to show him a
delicious band of bare stomach, pulled taut and shining.

She reached the end of the
run, turned on the platform, then re-gripped the handpiece and launched herself
back the way she’d come.

Owen saw the muddy stain
across her backside before her jacket pulled up again, revealing smooth, supple
skin stretched tight above jeans slung so low on her hips, he could see the
shadowy contours at the base of her spine.

“Shit.”

He stomped the brake just in
time to stop turning the Prius into something he’d have to open with a
can-opener. Its driver flipped him her middle finger then gunned her car into
the childcare centre. The traffic freed and Owen breathed again. Releasing the
brake, moving steadily forward, he craned his neck for a better view into the
playground.

Liv turned and re-launched. He
was closer now and he could see the smile on her face—a wide, stunning smile
that seemed to spin across the metres separating them like a slow-motion
chocolate wheel and land in the slot of his brain that read
stop.

Owen indicated left and pulled
into the carpark by the church.

He killed the ignition, leapt
from the car and—spying a gap in the convoy of mums—darted across the road.
With his palm on the cold steel of the playground fence, he launched his feet
sideways, up and over, and landed in a sea of shrubs nowhere near as soft as
they’d looked from the road.

“That will teach you to wear
shorts in June,” Olivia called.

Owen looked up from the killer
conifers in time to see her release the flying fox and drop to the ground. She
landed stiffly on a bed of woodchips and the first thing she did was tug her
jacket to cover her stomach. A blush pinked her cheeks. The tip of her nose was
red and there was a rip in the knee of her jeans. She’d been crying.

All these separate bits of
information buried themselves in his brain. He didn’t analyse them. He couldn’t
think. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen and he wanted to kiss
away her tears and punch whoever made her cry.

“What are you staring at?” She
challenged, digging in her pocket for a tissue and wiping her nose. “Did your
cheque bounce?”

So I guess I know who made
her cry.

He dodged away from the scrape
of a twig way too close to his balls and moved forward more carefully until he
reached clear ground. “Why did your father make your brother sell his bike?”

“Why do you care?”

Owen juggled his keys from his
right hand to his left and wondered where to start without making her run a
mile. If he made any sudden move, he thought she might bolt. “If the bike’s so
special to your brother, why isn’t he the one trying to buy it back?”

Olivia stared out toward the
school oval, where the school gardener rode a ride-on mower across the grass.
Pain tightened her jaw. “Because Luke died three years ago, Owen.”

Shit.
“I’m sorry.”

She shrugged and stepped away,
picking up her handbag from where it lay near the swings. The flying fox jigged
overhead. “Why would you be sorry? It wasn’t your fault.”

“Then why do I get the feeling
I’m on trial?”

“You must have a guilty
conscience. Perhaps that’s about stealing my bike.” She adjusted her handbag
more securely on her shoulder.

“How did your brother die?”
Jesus,
Owen. Ten out of ten for tact.

“In a road accident,” she said
and narrowed her eyes. “Don’t worry. My brother didn’t stack your precious
bike.”

“I didn’t—”

“Yes you did. It was the first
thought that crossed your mind.”

“Well, I—”

“Luke was driving home from
his,” —she hesitated and her chin came up— “boyfriend’s place, and a carload of
hoons overtook him on a double white line. There was a car coming the other way
and it had to swerve to avoid the hoons and it ended up side-swiping Luke. He
died in the hospital.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again,
kicking himself on the inside.
Sorry sounds so lame.
“I hate drivers
like that.”

“There’s no shortage of
dickheads around here.” She cocked her eyebrow at him.

Owen had to laugh. “I hope
you’re not counting me in your dickhead tally, lady. I helped pick you off the
pavement, remember.”

She shifted a foot in the bark
chips. The corner of her mouth twitched in a smile she quickly hid. “You did do
that, I guess, before you paid an outrageous amount of cash for my bike.
Okay... I’m sorry.”

Nothing about her looked
particularly apologetic, but Owen was more interested in the colour of her eyes
than her words. Were they grey-blue, or blue-grey?

“Didn’t you hear me before?”
She asked, holding his gaze.

“What?”

“I said my brother was driving
home from his boyfriend’s place.”

“Yeah.”
Blue-grey.

“Luke was gay.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you care?”

“It’s a free world, Olivia.
I’m the last person to judge.”

“You don’t have to pretend on
my account.” Her eyes settled on Mark’s ute and from her expression, Owen got
the distinct impression she’d like to scratch a key through the paint.

“If everyone’s a consenting
adult, I couldn’t care less about your brother’s sexual preferences.”

Olivia seemed to consider that
for a moment.

He didn’t blame her for being
wary. If anyone knew how unforgiving small towns could be, he did. He changed
tack.

“What are you riding now?”

She crossed her arms over her
chest. “Pardon?”

“What bike do you have now?”

“I’m not riding a bike right
now. It’s been a while.”

“And you thought you’d get
back into bikes by buying a collector’s item like the Pantah?” Owen flicked his
thumb towards the Ducati. “Do you know how much power is in that thing?”

“I did and I do.” Her eyes
narrowed into grey slivers. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“Well… it doesn’t strike me as
the best bike for—”

“Don’t you
dare
say for
a girl,” she interrupted.

“— for
learning
on.”

“You don’t think I can ride
it?” Olivia tightened her grip on the strap of her handbag and he had visions
of her launching it at his head like an Olympic hammer-thrower.

“Whoa,” he held up his hands
and took a step back. “Look, do you think we could start over? Maybe I could
give you a ride home? I meant to offer back at the Lang’s.”

She flicked at the same chunk
of dark hair that had felt so warm in his fingers when he brushed it from her
eyes earlier. “Thank you, Owen, but I don’t need a lift. I live around the
corner. I live with my parents. Rent around here costs a bomb and it’s easy for
me here, with my work—” She hesitated. “What?”

“Nothing,” Owen said quickly.
“I’m a bit surprised you live at home, that’s all. I couldn’t wait to get out
of my folks’ place.”

She stiffened and her gaze
dropped away. Rush hour had finished at the childcare centre and the  road was
quiet. “Like I said, it’s cheap rent. They’re away at the moment, they’ve gone to
Melbourne.”

“Dean Lang said you run your
own business. Levise, was it?” He asked, mentally adding ‘parents’ to the list
of unmentionables.
The Ducati. Her brother. Her folks.

“LiVine. It’s a viticultural
services agency.
Liv.
Get it?
Vine.
” She gave him the slightest
smile, enough to make his next breath catch in his throat.

“Yeah, I get it. So are you
working tomorrow?”

“I gave myself the day off. I
planned to go for a ride on that collector’s item you’ve got strapped in the
back of that red monstrosity.”

“I’ll tell my cousin you think
his ute is a monstrosity—it’s his pride and joy. He’s busted his Achilles
playing football, so he can’t drive. I’m borrowing it.”