Forever summer (Summer # 4) (6 page)

But no matter what I chanted internally I could feel unmistakable angry tears welling in my eyes. I needed to get out of here. My heels echoed on the dampened footpath. I concentrated intently on the sound and my breaths, wrapping my arms around me to still the chill from the night air.

I would have walked forever in the same direction my quickly blistered feet were taking me, no clear focus other than to best stop at the red light that flagged my attention and prevented me from walking out into traffic, even though in that very moment it was precisely what I felt like doing. Dramatic? Perhaps, but after the week-long build-up of excitement and my first date in what was, well, forever, I had never planned on my night ending quite like this, nor did I expect myself to jump out of my skin as my phone chimed to attention and buzzed in my hand. The fright irritated me more than the car that in the same moment sped past, flicking up the edges of street water filth upon my ankles.

Okay, now I’m pissed!

And without missing a beat I slammed my thumb on the button.

“Listen arsehole I’m …”

“Arsehole? Wow, Parker, do you speak to your mother with that mouth?”

My mouth gaped for several seconds, my brows lowering in confusion as I pulled the phone away from my ear and did what I hadn’t had the chance to do. I read the name on the screen. An incredulous smile lifted the corners of my mouth as I slowly put the phone back to my ear.

“Adam?”

Chapter Five

“How’s the date?”

Adam’s words jarred me from momentary shock; actually they pushed me into an all-new deeper kind of shock.

“How do you know I’m on a date?” I asked, genuinely confused. Our last text message had been over a week ago and had been so uneventful I couldn’t even remember what it had been about.

“Tess told me: Rory Franklin, hey?”

I stopped in my tracks, gritting my jaw as I looked up at the night sky, blinking back my angry tears and praying to the gods above.

No-no-no-no. Not now, not this.

I refused to talk about this with Adam. The humiliation was far too raw, as in five-minutes-ago raw. In the movies, Rory would have come running after me, chasing me down the street in the rain, swinging me around dramatically as he confessed he had been an utter fool, and then of course giving me a perfectly logical explanation about the text before crushing his mouth to mine. We’d then live happily ever after raising a boy and a girl in a beautiful, affluent, leafy suburb of Maitland. Instead, I stood in the middle of the street with Adam on the phone asking me a question that had me feeling like an utter loser, and that was something I hadn’t felt since that night rereading my old diaries whilst on a wine binge. I made a promise that I wouldn’t let myself feel like that again, not ever. And yet, with one simple, harmless question, I had been plunged back there all over again.

I hated feeling this way and more importantly I hated Adam adding to the feeling; there had been a time when Adam would be able to cheer me up, but at the very sound of his voice, all the old feelings hit me in the gut again. So I did what I had to do: I had to lie through the skin of my teeth.

“Ah-ha, he is AMAZING!”

“Really?”

“He took me to this place where they served the most incredible duck, and ordered the most delicious red off the menu.”

“Wow, he can read?”

“Shut up!” I snapped; he was ruining my lie.

“He just dropped me off actually, in some red sports car, nearly gave me a heart attack, talk about powerful.” Which wasn’t exactly untrue: the way Rory had zipped around the city streets in his Porsche made me feel rather ill.

“That’s early; is there a bomb shelter curfew in Maitland then?” Adam mused.

Crap! I looked at my watch: 9 p.m. on a Saturday night, hardly something to brag about. I wasn’t very good at this ad-lib-lying thing, clearly.

“No, it’s just he has footy training in the morning and he is really dedicated.”

“I’ll say; it’s cricket season.”

FUCK! I knew jack about sports.

“He still has to keep fit.”

“On a Sunday?”

“Yes!” I snapped.

“Well, I could think of a few better ways to keep fit,” Adam said, mainly to himself.

“What?”

“Oh nothing; he’s a better man than me. Well, glad you had a good night.”

“I had a GREAT night!”

“Cool.”

“In fact, we’re going out again next weekend.” I lifted my chin with great triumph, feeling rather empowered by my fake life.

Silence fell on the other end of the phone; I had almost thought that Adam had hung up until he spoke. “So, you’re bringing him to the engagement party?”

Wait. What?

Now it was my turn to be silent.

“Didn’t you get the memo?”

Memo? As far as I knew there was only one pending engagement party. The one for my best friend Tess and Toby, one that had yet to be scheduled a date for, the one for which I was pretty certain I would have been the first to know if there had been a date set. I felt a bit hurt: was this what happened? Leave Onslow and it’s out of sight out of mind?

It killed me to ask. “What memo?”

“Oh shit, hang on a sec.” There was rustling on the other end, as if he was juggling the phone from one ear to the other. “You there?” he asked, this time in a lowered voice.

“Yeah,” I said, a bit uncertain. Anytime Adam lowered his voice normally meant he was up to no good.

“So Tess and Toby have set a date then?” I said, trying not to sound as though I was seriously pissed off by receiving the sloppy, second-hand news.

“Well, yes and no,” said Adam, which only made me more confused.

I sighed. “What does that mean?” I was seriously losing patience: my feet were hurting, my pride was in tatters, and as I glanced around me, I soon realised I had no ride home.

Perfect.

“Sean is throwing them a surprise party at the lake house next weekend.”

Crap! It sounded exactly like something Sean would do, give him any excuse to throw a party at his place. There always seemed to be a pre-celebratory party to every event amongst us; we had even managed to have farewell drinks there before I left. My heart sank; there really was nothing more spectacular than a party at Sean’s lake house. Unofficial engagement party aside, it wasn’t something anyone would blow off, and to see the look on Tess’s face would be completely worth it.

“So Tess has no idea?”

“Hasn’t a clue. I’ve been avoiding her since I found out; I’m shit scared of letting something slip.” Adam laughed.

I smiled. I knew the feeling; I would have to do the same. Poor Tess was about to get a major complex. I was suddenly relieved in only now having to carry the burden for a week of keeping this from her.

“You’ll have to sneak into town,” Adam said, echoing the very same thought I was having. It was seriously disturbing how similar our thought processes were.

“You could stay here; I could check with Chris. I’m pretty sure we could get the door frames widened so Rory could fit his head through.”

I burst out laughing, which considering I was supposedly dating him was probably not the most appropriate reaction.

“You don’t even know him, he is really down to earth.”
LIES.
“He is a complete gentleman.”
LIES.
“You would really like him.”
Lies-lies-lies.

“Well, guess I’m about to find out,” he said, in a way I could imagine him with a crooked little grin. I loved that Adam instinctively disliked Rory, forever the overprotective friend. It made my heart clench just thinking about it. When did I feel the need to lie to Adam about anything? We have always been honest with each other.

“Well, see you next weekend,” I said, wincing. This was definitely not a part of the plan. It would have me back in Onslow way before I was ready. I had wanted to completely reinvent myself before walking back through the doors of the Onslow. I wanted to be a distant memory to the town folk, so when everyone turned around on bar stools, all their mouths would be agape, and everyone would be elbowing one another with speculative whispers: “Who’s that girl?”

Instead, I could clearly imagine the reality of going home next weekend. I would walk through the bar, no one would blink, not one person would give me anything other than a glimpse and a “Oh, hey, Ellie.” I hadn’t even been gone long enough to really garner a “Where you been?”

“Yeah, let me know if you need anything for when you come. Like a spanner to tighten Rory’s bolts in his neck; seriously, anything.”

“Goodbye, Adam.”

And before he could answer I ended the call, smiling, and feeling a little bit better at the mere trash talk of Rory fucking Franklin, until the reality hit me of the situation. How was I going to explain rocking up to Onslow desperate and completely dateless?

Chapter Six

A lie within a lie.

I would usually unfold my disastrous date with Rory to Tess, word for word, play by play; I might even have a bit of a self-indulgent cry and no doubt fits of laughter over my damaged ego. Instead, I played it down majorly and like Adam, avoided contact with her by feigned sickness. She now thought the date was good and he was really nice. I was becoming a prolific liar, struggling to determine which was real and which was fake. Never more so than when I arrived home from work to find a delivery of beautiful flowers at my doorstep. My heart rate soared. Surely not? Could it be a peace offering from Rory? I nearly dropped my keys and bag as I made my way up the narrow path from the gate to the doorstep quickly. I wasn’t exactly pining for Rory Franklin, but if he could admit what a giant dick he had been, then perhaps it would mend my somewhat bruised ego. I flipped over the card and read:

Get well soon, beautiful girl. Love Tess xo

I all but stilled, frowning, thinking that this was a mistake. Then, of course, I remembered my lies. That’s right, I was sick with the flu, and couldn’t talk—cough, cough, gotta go! Oh no; my shoulders sagged. I really was an awful friend. I gathered the beautiful and, what was worse, pricey bouquet into my arms, trying my best to unlock the door, thinking that I would make it up to her by buying her a really big and outlandish engagement present.

***

I caught the 7:45 a.m. bus that would transport me secretly and have me arrive in Onslow around 11 a.m. Under any other circumstance I would enjoy the element of surprise, the big lead-up and joy of seeing Tess’s face when she discovered our grand plan. But I couldn’t quite get into the spirit of it. For me, going back to Onslow was like heading into a black cloud, one that stirred an inner fear, making me shift in my seat, as I stared out the bus window. Slowly the jagged, modern edges of the city blurred away into the softer, greener shades and then inevitably into the harsh, burnt-orange tinges of stock paddocks before bleeding into the more familiar, lush surrounds of the rolling ranges as we edged our way home. I had rung my parents to tell them I would drop in after the grand reveal, but in true Mum-and-Dad form, they had filled up their social calendar for the weekend with their caravanning friends, and would leave a key out for me. As warm and fuzzy as that made me feel, I declined, thinking I would see them the following week in Maitland when Mum came up for a specialist appointment. Coffee and casual catch-ups about Mum’s varicose veins that needed to be stripped: real mother/daughter bonding moment right there.

Tess once psychoanalysed me by suggesting a reason for my boy-crazy, sex-crazed delinquent behaviour—okay, she hadn’t actually used those words, but facts aside, Tess pointed out something to me, something I at first rejected wholeheartedly. It had been a Sunday evening where Tess and I had planned to go zipping through the streets of Onslow. Tess would ride from her place and meet me out front of my home. As usual, Tess had given me that wide-eyed look she was so famous for when something didn’t sit right with her; this time it was my attire, apparently. My canary-yellow bikini top and short denim cut-offs. Sure, I was showing a lot of skin, but I had worked hard on getting my tan even, and I thought my matching yellow thongs were cute.

“Ellie, if you come off your bike you are going to be shredded,” Tess had said, a permanent line of worry creased across her brow anytime she was with me.

I had learned from a young age never to take anything to heart when it came to Tess’s good intentions: she was the angel on my shoulder, the conscience I seemed to lack.

I had skimmed over my attire, not in a self-conscious way, but in a way that had me totally confused as I’d shrugged. “I look hot.”

Tess had sighed, firming her grip on her handlebars and manoeuvring her bike into position to head out of my driveway. “You know, if you want to get your parents’ attention, you might want to try putting clothes on.”

It hadn’t been the first time I had heard Tess talk about my parents in such a way; she tended to have this whole theory on why I did the things I did, like it was important to our friendship that there was a legit, underlying reason why I played up so much, and if she thought it was due to my parents’ neglectful, selfish lifestyles then that explained a lot. Of course back then I rebelled against the very thought.

“Pfft, as if I want their attention,” I’d said, slinging my leg over my bike and hooking my foot into the pedal. “Let’s go!”

Now, time had passed and having read some of my old diary entries I wasn’t so sure anymore. Mum and Dad had pretty much forgotten to have children. They’d been so entangled with their own lives, their careers, and then out of the blue, little ol’ me came along and royally fucked up their perfect little worlds. I learned from a very young age that doing bad things pretty much guaranteed a response; do good things and the reaction was nowhere near as grand or satisfying. I knew that was pretty screwed up, so much so that I had spent a good portion of my afternoons in the school counsellor’s office once my parents were at their wits’ end with me sneaking out and coming home with a love bite on my neck. Little did they know that Ricky Owens and I gave each other one under the agreement that the story was we had hooked up with some hot random at a party, not each other. We shook hands, sucked necks, which was pretty gross, and then let the wild rumour mill begin. Mine was somewhat more believable and had the gossipers speculating, whereas poor math geek Ricky’s rumours were that he got a love bite with the aid of a vacuum cleaner.