A Story of Now (32 page)

But the thought of
physically
wanting Mia? That hasn’t even offered itself as an option. Or has it? There was, of course, the drunken kiss. But after that? They have barely ever touched each other. Claire doesn’t do touchy-feely. She never has. There was the night that Mia held her as she went to sleep when Claire finally caved to her misery about Cam and her parents and the accident. That felt good. She also knows that it was simply comfort Mia was offering to her in that awful, vulnerable moment, but Claire would never do that with anyone else. And it didn’t weird her out either.

She walks straight past the door of the bar because she needs a little more time. She strides past the shopfronts, closed up for the night, not ready to let this go just yet. She thinks of what Moira said this afternoon about Cal, about the potential of not knowing something about yourself, even while it’s happening to you. Is that what is happening to her too? Is it possible her brain is just catching up with her feelings? She knows that she likes guys, has liked guys. But maybe she just doesn’t know it’s also possible to like girls too? Well, one girl, anyway. That would explain why she’s being so damn weird about Mia and this girl.

Part of her wishes she hadn’t seen it, that she could go back to the blissful ignorance that was last week.

And she wishes she felt closer to answering her question about Mia.

As she chews on her lip, head down, she tries to make Mia immediate in order to answer the question. But Claire can’t form enough of a shape of her in her mind. She can conjure her up in parts, little images, the way her lips thin out when she smiles, or the fall of her hair around her face when she’s reading and forgets to tie it up. And she can picture the way she lays her hands flat on whatever is in front of her when she’s talking out a thought, or the way she crosses her arms when she’s listening carefully. But it’s not enough. She feels as if she needs her right in front of her before she has any hope of figuring out these feelings.

Claire checks her watch and sighs into the fallen darkness. She needs to get to work. There’s no more time for chewing over these frantic thoughts right now. She spins around and walks back toward the bar, ignoring an idiot yelling from his car.

Maybe she is simply overthinking this. Maybe that’s all this is, Claire chewing too hard on something that has weirded her out slightly. Overthinking has, historically, been one of her greatest talents.

Before she knows it, though, she’s back at the bar. She pauses for a moment under the neon light of the sign. For now, it seems, she’s just going to have to sit with this unanswered for a while longer.

She takes in a deep breath, pushes open the door, and steps out of these disquieting new thoughts and into her night.

CHAPTER 40

Claire straightens her bare legs out on the wide wooden railing and listens to Nina and Robbie debate the virtues of the different varieties of grapes as they work their way through a bowl. The two of them are flopped together on the hammock by the door, legs akimbo, arms hanging out as if they are in a boat and could skim the surface of the water as they glide along.

She didn’t even know there was more than one type of grape. She just thought there were different colours. She kind of doesn’t care either, so she tips her head back against the porch post and shuts her eyes against the beaming sun. It’s holidays. She doesn’t have to care about anything but the whole lazy day stretched out ahead of her.

“Hey, Claire.”

She opens her eyes, and her frown turns quickly to a smile when she realises it’s Eli bearing coffee. “Here.”

She takes the cup from him. “Thanks.”

He places his own on the railing and climbs up to lean on the post opposite her and pulls a book out from under his arm. He doesn’t open it, though, just smiles sleepily into the sunlight and rests his head on the post. “It’s kind of perfect, isn’t it? How these railings are wide enough to sit on.”

“Uh-huh.” She runs her hand along the weather-smoothed wood by her leg. “Dad did it when he rebuilt the deck. He said he couldn’t stop us kids from climbing up here and sitting on them, so he might as well make it easier and safer by putting in wider beams.”

Eli looks out at the trees huddled around the border of the garden. “It’s such a beautiful place. Do you spend a lot of time up here?”

“Not lately, but we used to come up here every holiday, practically, if Mum or Dad could get time off. Even in winter.”

“Well, you’re lucky.” Eli rolls up the sleeves of his T-shirt so the late morning sun can touch his shoulders. “We used to go to Bendigo for our winter holidays to stay with my grandmother.”

“Bendigo?” Claire gives him a pitying look. “Boring.”

“And if we were really lucky, we’d get a day trip to the goldfields.”

“Thrill city.” She smiles.

“Hey, thanks so much for inviting us up here.”

She doesn’t even open her eyes. “Stop thanking me. Just keep cooking.”

Robbie was right. Eli is a really great cook. As soon as they got here last night, he made them dinner, a feast of pasta and salad.

“I’m stunned we even made it up here.” Eli laughs. “After yesterday.”

Claire smiles. It was an epic journey. What should have been a three-hour drive took all day, and they didn’t arrive until the sun was setting. Robbie’s grand plans were completely destroyed by everyone else being so damn scatty and disorganised.

The drive up, which her father always tried to do in the most efficient amount of time, was the longest trip Claire had ever taken to get here. Every five minutes they had to stop for something. Nina needed painkillers for her monster hangover headache, then Claire wanted driving snacks, and then they realised no one had brought sun block. Sometime in the afternoon, they ate burgers at a twee little pub on the edges of a tiny town off the highway. Then Robbie made them pull over so he could take pictures of funny signs on an old building on the side of the road, and then they all posed by the car for “posterity.” Every time they’d get back on the road for any length of time, someone inevitably had to pee or eat or something, and they’d stop again. Claire didn’t care though. They were in no hurry. It was fun and funny, and everyone—even Nina and her hangover—was in an incredible mood as they drove into the sunshine and away from the city.

She has absolutely no idea what time it is now. When she woke, the sun was already high in the sky. It’s probably early afternoon, but all they’ve managed so far is coffee and cereal and to gravitate to the large wooden deck, unable to remain inside while the weather is so seductively good. Not that it matters. They have no plans at all.

Mia and Pete will be here sometime this afternoon. Claire still doesn’t know how she feels about seeing Mia. Part of her looks forward to it; the other part dreads it. She can’t help being embarrassed by all this thinking she’s been doing as she tries to understand the shape of her feelings about Mia. She hasn’t spoken to her since that phone call and that alarmingly revelatory walk to work on Sunday. Now, after days of stewing, she has no idea what it will be like once she actually lays eyes on her. Even though Mia can’t know what she’s been thinking, it feels awkward and strange as if she won’t know how to behave.

It isn’t long until she finds out.

Claire hears the car before she sees it. She opens her eyes and looks down the overgrown trail that leads up to the road. Yep, there’s a car, and the sound of the motor grows louder every second.

“Who’s that?” Nina asks from the hammock, the first peep she’s made in a long time.

“It might be the other two.” Eli puts down his book and leans over to get a better look down the driveway. “Yep, I think that’s Pete driving.”

“Yes!” Robbie flings his legs over the hammock and jumps up. It swings violently behind him. Nina clutches the sides and squeals.

The battered green car pulls up next to Claire’s silver one, and she can make them out through the windshield. Pete says something, and Mia laughs.

She pulls her legs up to her chest and watches them unbuckle their seatbelts. Eli jumps off the railing on the far side and lands catlike on the gravel below. Pete and Mia climb out of the car, already dressed for summer holidays in shorts and tank tops. As soon as Mia opens the door, Blue shoots out. He dashes in hectic to and fros between people and trees and smells, frantic with excitement.

Robbie leaps over to them. “You’re here!”

“Yeah.” Pete gives him a hug in that stupid back-slapping way boys show affection. “It only took a few hours.”

The others crowd in with greetings and hugs. Only Claire stays where she is, watching the scene unfold below her, glued by her awkwardness to her spot on the railing.

“Well, you’re apparently much more efficient than we are. We took all freaking day to get here.” Robbie throws his arms around Mia. “How did it go?”

“Okay, I think.” She lets him go, hugs Nina, and spins in a slow circle, obviously taking in the view of the low-hanging eucalypts and the flashes of water through the scrub. As she turns toward the house, she spots Claire on her perch and waves.

“Hey!” she calls up to her and smiles her warm Mia smile.

Claire crosses her legs on the railing and smiles back. She knows she should probably get down and greet them properly, but she doesn’t. “Hey,” she says instead, giving her a kind of awkward half wave, and stays right where she is.

Mia points at Blue, who sits at the top of the track leading to the lake, alert to something only he can see or hear. “It’s still okay I brought him, right?”

“Of course.”

Pete opens the boot of the car. “We brought beer and food and stuff.”

Eli peers in. “Wow, you brought a lot of beer.”

“I didn’t know how close the nearest shops were. I was playing it safe.”

Nina looks into the trunk and laughs. “Very safe. And you can carry them in.”

Robbie grabs a knapsack from the trunk and a couple of bags and then looks up, brow furrowed. “Hey, Claire,” he calls up to her. “Where are they going to sleep?”

The small house is already full. Eli and Robbie have taken her parents’ room. Nina is in the other room. And the minute Claire got there, she put her things inside the sleeping porch, the coveted room around the side of the deck she and Cam fought over every single time they came up here. It’s her favourite room in the world, a little nest made of glass and screen that hangs off the side of the house. Surrounded by the green canopies of branches, it feels a little like her own personal treehouse.

“Uh, there’s another bed in Nina’s room, and then there’s the bunkhouse.” She jumps off the railing, glad of something to do so she doesn’t just sit there like an idiot. “I’ll go find the key.”

“Just warning you people if you want to share—I snore,” Nina announces. “Loudly!”

CHAPTER 41

They all slide off the rocks at once and let out a chorus of gasps and squeals at the sudden tingling cold of the water.

No one suggests it; no one commands it, but they all automatically kick out, slowly headed beyond the shaded shore to the sunlit diving platform, a weathered beacon in the darkest blue-green waters of the lake. Pete carries a six-pack of beer on his head as he swims.

Claire paddles around to the ladder, still holding her towel well above the surface of the water, and climbs up. She stretches out on the far side, her chilled skin pressed flat against the sun-baked wood. She shuts her eyes and listens to them laughing as they climb up the ladder and spread out on the platform. The mood is still festive from Pete and Mia’s arrival.

Pete opens a beer and nudges Claire’s hand with the last one. “See, we are the perfect number.”

She takes it from him, slowly sits up, and rests her feet on the top rung of the ladder. The cool water laps over her toes. She stares out across the shifting water. From here she can see all the houses on the far shore of this small arm of the lake, probably empty until the weekend. It’s still early in the summer. Too early for all the jet skis and boats and swimmers, and all the sounds of parties and smoky smells of barbecues that usually fill the place and make it feel alive. In a few weeks, it will be like that again. But for now it’s sleepily all theirs.

Robbie sighs. “This is so awesome.”

Mia kicks her feet in the water and lifts her long, tanned arms over her head. “It’s perfect.”

“Look.” Nina points back to the shore. Blue is sitting on the closest rock to the water, staring dolefully at them. “Poor Blue.”

Mia smiles. “If he were a couple of years younger, he’d probably try and swim out here. He’ll be okay.”

Eli puts his beer down on the wet wood and leans back on his hands. “How were your interviews?”

“Okay,” Pete and Mia say doubtfully at the same time and then laugh.

Robbie pulls off his singlet. “What do they ask you in these things, anyway?”

Pete sighs. “Everything.”

Mia nods vehemently. “Seriously,
everything
. You go to all these different mini interviews and do all this different stuff. Everything from why do you want to be a doctor, to tell us about a time you used leadership skills, to how you feel about euthanasia, to what you are like when you get stressed, blah blah.”

Claire leans against the ladder post, grinning. “Did you tell them about the hot mess you become at exam time?”

“No.” Mia laughs and gives her a look. “Someone even asked me about the last book I read.”

“They didn’t ask me that one,” Pete says. “I did get ‘Tell us about a world leader you admire and why.’”

“Who did you say?” Robbie asks.

“Nelson Mandela, like an idiot.”

Eli frowns. “What’s wrong with Mandela?”

“Nothing, but I bet everyone says Mandela. I wanted to think of someone really cool, but I couldn’t think of anyone on the spot. In fact, the only world leaders I could think of were Mandela and Pol Pot for some insane reason. And I wasn’t about to say Pol Pot.”

“Who’s that?” Nina asks.

“Cambodian dictator,” Eli tells her. “Killed a lot of people.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry, I had to tell them the last book I read was
Best Interview Techniques
.” Mia laughs ruefully and sips her beer. “When I probably should have said
My Brilliant Career
or something.”