Hold On to Me (31 page)

‘Not kidding.' Summer lifted her chin in a defensive pose.

‘You and Duncan are having sex?'

‘Lots of it. And I don't know what you didn't see in him but … ooh boy … he is off the charts.'

Stella couldn't find the words. She held out her arms and drew Summer in for an oily hug. ‘I couldn't be happier for the two of you. See? This is how it was all supposed to work out. Duncan and I didn't have the zing. Clearly, you and Duncan have the zing. That is brilliant news.'

The blush on Summer's face was a joy to see. ‘I wasn't sure what you'd think.'

‘Oh,
Summer
,' Stella said. ‘I want nothing more than for you to be happy. And that's what I want for him too. It's not any more complicated than that.'

Summer smiled and her eyes shone with tears. ‘Good. I never wanted to be anyone's second best. I made that clear to him.'

‘You go, girl.'

Summer smiled and Stella could see in that one moment that her friend was in love.

‘You know what he did for me yesterday? He came here to the studio at the end of the day, after my last appointment, and gave
me
a massage. He said that I spend all day making everyone else feel good and now it was my turn.'

‘Oh, wow.'

‘I know, right?'

‘And I bet that led to sex.'

‘Totally. Oiled-up massage-table sex. It's quite dangerous, you know.' Summer smiled.

‘Everything good in life is,' Stella said with a grin.

* * *

After her massage, Stella returned home, showered quickly and changed into black Capri pants and an ivory-coloured silk singlet top, stowed her bag in the back seat of her car and set off for Adelaide.

Her car, a second-hand Honda, was reliable and low maintenance and enough for what she needed. Truth be told, it sat in her garage most of the time, given how close she was to work and the shops of Port Elliot. She spent an hour singing with Etta James as she drove through McLaren Vale and its rows of vines. She wished she had more time to detour into the town rather than drive right past, to stop at a winery or two and pick up some wine to take to Luca.

Not today. Maybe sometime in the future she could take a Sunday off—have Molly look after the shop when she was a little more experienced. She smiled into the warm sun filtering through her front windscreen. Yeah, that would be nice. Lunch at a winery, enjoying a tasting under a big old tree in the summer heat, platters of food on the table, Luca across from her.

That sounded like the kind of life she could have.

That sounded something like happiness.

Luca opened his front door. Stella's big sunglasses hid her eyes but nothing could disguise the size of the smile on her face.

He didn't say a word but reached for her, pulled her into his arms and kissed her, hoping like hell she could feel in that kiss how much he'd missed her. When she dropped her handbag on the ground and threw her arms around him, kissing him right back with a fervour that had him hard right there on the front doorstep, he figured she might have missed him too.

Just a bit.

Just as much.

When they pulled themselves apart, he saw something new in her eyes. Something unfamiliar. Something good. It took his breath away.

‘Hey, beautiful. What took you so long?' He reached down and picked up her handbag and ushered her inside.

‘I work Sundays, remember?'

‘Don't you work every day?'

‘I do at this time of year.' Stella followed him inside and he watched as she looked around at the hallway, the dark wooden staircase on the right, the dust, the plastic lightshade hanging above them.

‘Welcome to Casa Morelli.'

Stella slowly lifted her sunglasses and pushed them up on top of her head. She tilted her head back so she could take it all in.

‘It's huge,' she said.

‘The ceilings are twelve feet high. There are a lot of original features as well as some fantastic vintage touches, like that lampshade.' He pointed up to the light fitting.

‘It's purple,' Stella said with a snort.

‘You think that's bad? Come see this incredible wallpaper.' Luca grabbed her hand and led her to the front room, to the left of the hallway. It was the room he'd set up as his living area, with his sofa and TV and games console. His big work desk was in the far corner, holding a desktop computer and printer, and there was a full-size filing cabinet next to it. There was nothing stylish about the space: it was a mishmash of things old and slightly less old.

They stood, hand in hand, staring at the geometric patterns of chocolate and gold and white. When Stella reached her right hand to him and held onto his arm, he moved in closer.

‘I think that pattern is bold and amazing. It seems to be in good condition. And thank god they only put it on one wall. All four and it would give you a migraine. You could paint the other walls white and make that a feature. With the right furniture in here, this could be fabulous.'

‘Keep that wallpaper?'

‘It's really on trend right now. Although some people might think it looks like the set of a 1970s porn movie.'

He turned to her and couldn't contain his grin and his appreciation for the fact that she'd been in his house for two minutes and already they were talking about sex. ‘How would you know about that?'

‘I've lived.' And then she smiled and raised her eyebrows at him and something slammed against his ribs. He tugged her hand and she followed him.

‘Come see the rest of the place.'

Luca showed her the second room on the ground floor, dark and musty, and what passed for a kitchen and a bathroom, and then guided her up the stairs to the landing. Light flooded in and highlighted the beige shag carpet.

Stella looked down. ‘I was right. This
is
the set of a 1970s porn movie.' He led her into his bedroom and she took in the size and the space—and his bed—before walking out the open French doors to the balcony.

‘This is beautiful,' she said over her shoulder to him. He came up behind her, slipped his arms around her and nuzzled his chin against her neck, breathing in the scent of her, loving the fact she was there with him. It felt right, he decided. He'd been nervous as hell all day, knowing that she was coming to him. Knowing that he was opening up his house to her just as he'd opened up his heart.

Because he was gone. Off the market. Crazy about her.

He had been, really, since that first day, but hadn't known it back then. It felt right to have her here in his arms and in his house. His castle.

They stood in companionable silence and took in the view of the square below them, filled with trees in full leaf and green lawn. A group of teenagers kicked a soccer ball back and forth to each other and laughter and chatter from the nearby coffee shop wafted up to them. The gentle sounds of the early-evening traffic buzzed in the background but it was strangely peaceful and quiet up so high.

‘If you can't have the ocean, this isn't half bad,' Stella said as she leant back against the strength of him.

‘Not bad at all.' Maybe even perfect, he thought. ‘You hungry? Want to get something to eat?'

Stella turned in his arms. ‘I'm starving.'

Stella and Luca walked hand in hand along Gouger Street past its numerous restaurants, towards a noodle bar Luca had mentioned. The warm weather had brought people out and the street gave off a relaxed and happy summer holiday vibe. Stella liked it. She liked that she could walk along hand in hand with her man and not be recognised. A walk in Port Elliot meant stopping to talk. Here, she could take it all in, relish being with Luca and not having to say a word to anybody else.

Up ahead of them, she saw a smudge of green. It was another patch of grass, this one across from a familiar building with sand-coloured walls and large overhanging verandas. Something shot through Stella like a bolt of lightning. She stopped, closed her eyes. Forgot to breathe. Goose bumps prickled all over her despite the heat.

Luca took a step before he realised Stella had stopped, and then stopped himself. When he looked back at her, his grip on her hand tightened.

‘Stella? You all right?'

It was the South Australian Supreme Court. She'd forgotten it was there, near the restaurants and the Central Market. She'd been away from South Australia—and Adelaide—so long that she'd forgotten this part of it, although most likely she'd packed the memory away for entirely different reasons. It all came back to her now in a shuddering rush.

She knew there was a huge staircase inside the old building, which was itself filled with a stifling and ominous quiet, and there was a domed roof above the stairs. She'd been there before, dragged along by her mother when her father was sentenced and sent to jail. It was there that her already fractured world had begun to fall apart. Stella remembered standing out the front on the footpath, patting her mother on the back like an automaton, as she hunched on the footpath, crying and dragging viciously on a cigarette. It was just the two of them. Her parents had over the years burnt everyone in the family who might have been there for them at such a time, so there were ten-year-old Stella and her mother, alone and invisible. Even the television cameras and journalists gathered like a swarm further down the street ignored them, busy shoving microphones into other people's reluctant faces, then chasing a man in a wig down the street.

No one cared about them and they drew no attention to themselves, a lank-haired sobbing young woman and a lost ten-year-old wishing she were somewhere else. Wishing she were
someone
else.

‘Stella?'

She reluctantly opened her eyes.

Luca was right there, his other hand on her shoulder now. ‘You're shaking.'

She couldn't stop. Her fingers, her hands, her arms, her shoulders, all quivered uncontrollably. The old familiar tightening in her chest turned like a corkscrew. She heard the sound of her teeth clattering together. Her head was spinning and she thought she might be sick.

Luca must have felt it because he held her more firmly. ‘What's the matter, bella?'

Stella couldn't answer. Her throat had clenched shut and her heart was pounding fast and hard. She'd been wondering when the memories would come back to fight with the happiness she was finally allowing herself to feel. Like a stubborn child, they didn't like to be forgotten. Every now and then they rose like bile in her throat, just to make sure she hadn't forgotten who she really was: the child no one wanted.

The child who wasn't enough to stop her parents getting stoned and going to jail and trying to kill themselves.

The child they couldn't love more than they loved drugs.

The child who didn't deserve to be loved.

It all came rushing back to her, twenty-five years later; everything that had subsumed her that day she patted her cowering mother on the back. Her world had felt bleak and hopeless. A cyclist had ridden by and rung her bell and Stella had clamped her eyes shut and wished so very hard that it was Clarence, Jimmy Stewart's guardian angel, who'd arrived just in time to whisk her away somewhere, anywhere else, where she might get a glimpse of the life she should have had.

Today, when she was the happiest she'd felt in a very long time, the memories regurgitated themselves from the depths of her soul, their message loud and clear: people like little Stella Ryan didn't deserve happiness.

‘Stella? Talk to me, for fuck's sake. Do you need a doctor? What's going on?'

She blinked and met Luca's eyes, so full of fear for her and questions and love.

She could see it there in his face, could feel it in the way he was holding her.

She loved him too. And more importantly, she wanted to deserve him. She wanted to be more than her secrets, more than that scared little girl. She didn't want to be alone with them any more. She needed to find the courage to tell Luca who she really was and what had shaped her.

She wanted to give him that gift, of knowing her, and that meant telling him the truth. Part of any journey to her own happiness was having no fears that those secrets could come out and expose her. If she wanted to let go of that fear, she had to be the one to tell him. So he knew what he was getting into. So he knew the truth about the person he loved. So he could decide if he wanted to stay.

She looked up at him, felt the tears drizzling down her cheeks. ‘There are some things I need to tell you.'

Ten minutes later, they were seated at a table in a nearby restaurant. Luca's mouth was pinched shut in a thin line and his eyes were focussed on her. They'd distracted themselves for a few minutes by studying the menu and ordering a couple of dishes, noodles and a seafood curry, and a bottle of wine, and Stella could feel the scrutiny of his gaze like a laser.

‘Luca …' She started and then stopped, unsure where to begin. Her fear was that once she did start, she might never stop.

Luca leant in, crossed his arms on the table. ‘You're killing me, Stella. Is this about us?'

‘No. Yes. It might be.'

‘I'm confused as hell over this side of the table.'

‘Okay. Here goes.' She twisted her fingers together into a painful knot. ‘Remember that time you asked me about my parents, when we were in bed?'

Luca nodded.

‘I said I was an orphan when I came to Middle Point. That wasn't exactly true.' Stella took a deep breath. ‘I've had an interesting life, Luca. Well at least that's one word for it. My parents were teenagers when they had me. They were a couple of screwed-up kids who should never have had a child themselves. But there I was, born when my mother was fifteen and my father was seventeen. It was a disaster in so many ways … for them, for me. I had a terrible childhood. At the time I didn't know how bad, because it was all I knew. But the older I got, the more I looked back and could see what I should have had. And now, I see the kind of families other people create for their children. Like your parents did for you and your sisters. Like Anna and Joe have for Francesca. And Julia and Ry for Mary.'