Three Words: A Novella Collection (15 page)

“
So, what’s so important that it almost made you miss the
boat?” Tara asked, once they were set up with coconut shells filled
with some type of rum concoction.

“
You’ll never guess who I had coffee with today.”

“
Bruno Mars.”

“
Uh. No. Do you think I’d be this calm if I’d had coffee with
Bruno Mars?” The girls shared a liking for the dark haired singer.
His voice did it for Georgie. Tara was enamored with his
dimples.

“
To state the obvious, you don’t look calm at all. You look
like you’re about to explode. That pirate girl dress is rather
fetching by the way. Very wench-ish. You could totally get some
action in that.”

Georgie
ignored her. There was only one kind of action she wanted now and
it had nothing to do with cutlasses and pantaloons. “I saw
Nate.”

“
Nate Adams, Nate?” Mid sip of her coconut cocktail, Tara
began to choke. Georgie gave her a slap on the back.

“
The one and only. He was jogging along the foreshore. I
practically ran into him.”

“
Well, I’ll be. Fancy that. And how is he?”

Georgie cast
her mind back to earlier in the day. “He looks well. He’s very
handsome.”

“
Of course, he’s handsome. He’d have given Leonardo DiCaprio a
run for his money when we were young. Don’t you remember how all
the girls used to call him Romeo in the last year of
school?”

A frown passed
over Georgie’s face. “I thought that was because of me. You know,
Romeo and Juliet
, star-crossed lovers and all that.”

“
God, no. Jessica gave him the name after we watched the film
in English. How could you have forgetten?”

“
Because I’ve been trying to block her from my memory since
Year Nine.”

“
So, tell me all about it. No, wait! Let me get another drink
first. I have to be fully focused for this.”

Georgie
wondered at the correlation between alcohol and being focused but
she refrained from asking. When Tara returned with fresh drinks for
them both, she began her story.

“
I was out for my jog and I stepped in dog poo and as I was
wiping it off I saw him running towards me.”

A sigh doleful
escaped Tara’s lips. “It’s just like in a movie. Go on.”

“
It wasn’t that romantic. He didn’t even recognize me at
first.”

“
That was because of your hair, I suppose. I’m buggered if I
can pick you out in a crowd. I keep expecting that surfer girl to
walk through the door, the one with the messy strands always
falling from her ponytail. Not the coiffed beauty we get
today.”

“
I’m not coiffed.”

“
Yes, you are. Since you came back from Sydney, you’re all
hipster with your indie clothes and vintage handbags. I swear on my
mother’s golf clubs that girl sitting next to us at lunch the other
day was drooling over your shoes. Drooling! It’s like you got an
overdose of café culture or something. Not that it’s a bad thing.
But you do look a lot different.”

Her appearance
had
changed, Georgie supposed, but didn’t that come with
growing up? There was a time when you were too old to be prancing
around in overalls and Doc Martins and as those elements had
disappeared, so had a lot of other things. It had years since
Georgie had been surfing. What with the move to Melbourne — where
nobody in their right mind would surf without an arctic thickness
wetsuit — and then the social life in Sydney, her former life as a
surfer girl had been swept away, too.

“
I can’t remember the last time I hit the waves,” Georgie
thought aloud.

“
Maybe you could go with Nate. I bet he still gets in a tube
or two before breakfast. Are you seeing him again?”

Georgie had no
doubt he did. Nate’s body had the trademark physique of a surfer.
It had been one of the first things she’d noticed today. Not that
she’d been eyeing him off or anything. It was mere curiosity.

“
I don’t think his girlfriend would be happy about that,”
Georgie replied. “She was giving me daggers as it was.”

“
He took you for coffee with his girlfriend? The absolute
cheek.”

So Georgie
went on to explain all that had happened, from her dip in the drink
to the fact that Nate carried a photo of them around in his wallet.
When she finally drew breath, she discovered that Tara was peering
at her in a very odd fashion.

“
You’re still in love with him. After all these
years.”

“
I’m not.”

“
You are. It’s in your eyes. God, this is so romantic. That’s
why you wouldn’t marry that Matt fellow. It was nothing to do with
him being the reincarnation of Casanova; it was because you still
love Nate. Matt’s affair just made it easier for you to end
it.”

Georgie opened
her mouth to deny it but, seriously, what was the point? She knew
Tara was telling the truth.

*****

Later on that
evening, as the sun was setting, and the ship made its way back to
the harbor, Georgie stood on the bow, her sword anchored to her
side, watching the waves. Down in the water, a pod of dolphins
leapt along beside the boat, playing chasings and a couple of small
craft, filled with fishermen, called out pirate obscenities as they
passed, completely unnoticed by Georgie.

Georgie was
pensive. Seeing Nate earlier on had dragged up memories, ones she
had tried for so long to forget. If she were Kate Winslet in
Titanic,
and her Leo was here with his arms outstretched and
his body leaning into hers, everything would be perfect. As long as
they didn’t hit an iceberg, of course. Georgie had always hated the
end of that movie. Jack should have lived to run away with Rose.
Just like she should have run away with Nate when she had the
opportunity. But it was no use thinking about the past. What was
done was done; she may as well get over it. Nate had a girlfriend,
and even though Perth was a very small place, she’d probably never
see him again.

As the crew
tied up the boat, Georgie went below to gather her things and
prepare to disembark. It had been a fun night despite her
melancholy mood now and she was keen to move on to the next stage
of the evening, a dinner at a restaurant overlooking the river. She
wanted to shake the blues away, to get back to being fun Georgie,
not this stick in the mud no-fun one.

“
Coming, Georgie?” one of the other guests asked, as he headed
down the gangplank and back to shore.

“
Yep.” She took the offered hand and stepped lightly onto the
walkway at the very moment a cargo vessel decided to blast its
hooter.

Startled,
Georgie squealed, jumping higher than she’d ever jumped in high
jump competitions at school and hitting her head on some ship
paraphernalia.

“
Ouch!”

She raised her
hand from the rail to rub at her head, which of course was the
completely wrong thing to do. In front of her, the large wake from
the passing boat was causing the walkway to wobble and her eager
helper was making it worse by clutching at anything and everything
in sight, including the plastic sword at Georgie’s hip. Georgie,
despite having the balance of a seasoned board rider, found herself
teetering with him until, finally, they toppled over the
unprotected side of the gangplank and straight into the water. Her
only thought as she spluttered her way to the surface — other than
hoping nobody had emptied bilge water in the near vicinity — was
‘not again.’

“
You’re supposed to hold
on
to the rail,” Tara tutted,
as one of the crew used the boat hook to fish Georgie out of the
river. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“
Nice night for a dip?” Georgie laughed, wringing out her wet
pirate dress and smoothing her bedraggled hair. In the kerfuffle
she’d managed to lose one of her boots and her hairclips. Her dilly
bag — because a clutch was not appropriate pirate attire — had
sprung open in the fall, revealing its intimate contents to the
other partygoers. They were currently being retrieved with a net.
Georgie didn’t care about the bag or the lipstick. She just hoped
her keys were still inside and that her phone was in working order.
The last time she’d seen it, it had been floating down the river
right side up and she had a feeling she may need it to call a taxi
any minute. Tara looked extremely peeved.

“
This isn’t a laughing matter, Georgie. You can’t come to the
restaurant looking like that. You’ll have to go home and get
changed.”

Georgie was
well aware that she couldn’t go looking like a fish left out of
water too long but seriously, Tara was going overboard. It wasn’t
as if she’d purposely gone for a dive. And it wasn’t her fault. The
man standing next to her, who looked like he’d been put through the
heavy-duty cycle on a washing machine, was more to blame. He’d
grabbed her sword and pulled her into the water. If anyone should
be getting a tongue lashing, it should be him.

Georgie
sighed. “It’ll take at least an hour to get home, changed and back.
And I’ll never get another taxi. Not on a Saturday night. I’ll just
go home and stay there. You go without me.”

Tara gave a
low, cross grumble and stomped towards the minivan that was taking
them to the restaurant. “God, you’re hopeless. Get in the taxi. And
sit up the back. I don’t want you dripping all over me. He can take
you home after he drops us off.”

“
It’s okay, she can get a lift with me. I’m sure I’ve got a
bit of plastic in the back of the car so she doesn’t ruin the
leather seats.”

Standing next
to the minivan was Nate.

Georgie
swallowed in surprise. What in heavens was he doing here?

Tara was not
as subtle. Her cheeks were positively glowing at this new arrival.
“I should have known you’d show up sooner or later, Adams. You
never could stay away from Georgie.” Then, like a mother hen with
her chicks, she gathered the remainder of the group who were
wearing dry clothes and bundled them into the minivan, leaving the
‘lovebirds’ to it.

“
Ring me in the morning,” she called through the open window
like a wayward fairy godmother. “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t
do.”

“
That doesn’t leave much to the imagination,” Nate
said.

“
You can say that again.”

As they
watched the taxi van speed off in the direction of the restaurant,
Georgie, who was beginning to feel the cold in her damp dress and
pantaloons, turned to Nate.

“
What
are
you doing here?”

“
After I got home, I got to thinking and I think I liked
seeing you again this afternoon and I want to see you some
more.”

“
But you have a girlfriend. I’m not going to come between
you.”

“
Lydia? She’s not my girlfriend. I think she’d like to be,
though. She’s just a girl I know through a bloke at work. His
girlfriend was trying to hook us up but she’s not my type. She’s
loud and her boobs are way too big.”

Now where had
she heard that before?

Georgie began
to search through her dilly bag for a comb. She must look an
absolute fright. “How did you find me?”

“
I took a punt that your parents still lived in West
Leederville. I rang your old number.”

“
You spoke to Mum?”

That was all
she needed. Georgie’s parents had never been very approving of her
relationship with Nate, once it changed from friendship to love.
They thought he stifled her, made her give up on her dreams, that
Georgie never had a mind of her own when he was around. What they
never realized was that it was
them
who’d been stifling.
Georgie had done everything she’d done to make them happy but none
of it had made her happy.

“
She gave me your number. I don’t think she knew it was me. I
tried to call you before I left home but it went straight to
message bank.”

“
Possibly because my phone’s been floating in the river for
the past half an hour but that still doesn’t explain how you found
me.”

Nate gave her
a look. “How many tall ships are there in Perth, Georgie?”

Hmm. He had
point.

“
It wasn’t exactly rocket science. All I had to do was Google
the location.”

“
Well, I’m glad you’re here. It’s nice to see you.”

“
You, too.”

They walked
along the jetty towards the car park. The moon had risen fully now
and Georgie was getting chillier by the second. She didn’t care
though. She was with Nate. “I don’t mind that I’m missing out on
dinner now you’re here. I didn’t know many of the people in that
group. It would have been a night of small talk.”

“
Or pirate talk. Why are you dressed in pirate garb anyway?
The Leeuwin isn’t a pirate ship.”

“
It’s
International Talk Like A Pirate Day
.”

“
No shit? They have such a thing?”

“
Apparently.”

They came to a
stop beside a shiny new car. Nate pulled the keys out of his pocket
and flicked the remote. Swinging the rear door open, he searched
around for a second, before pulling out a large plastic bin
liner.

“
So the Red Devil went to car heaven, then?” Georgie
asked.

A faint smile
lit Nate’s his face. “That car was the best.”

“
As long as you don’t count the time we got stuck in sand
dunes at Lancelin, or when we broke down in the middle of the
freeway during peak hour.”