Writing Our Song (12 page)

Once all the meetings were finished and Jeremy could take some time off, we checked out of the Hilton and flew to a place called Wellington, the capital of the country.  From there we took a ferry across to the South Island where a car and driver were waiting for us.

A few hours later, we turned left off the main highway into a little coastal town called Kaikoura while I was staring out of the right window at some beautiful snow-capped mountain range.  Jeremy had booked an entire house for the two of us and when I went exploring I counted six bedrooms.

Although that was possibly a bit over the top, I guessed a single bedroom place would probably have been on the presumptuous side.  After a long day of travel via plane, boat, and car we were both pretty tired and enjoyed some delivered food, which couldn’t possibly have been mass-produced, in comfortable silence before retiring to our own bedrooms.

Chapter 12

Kaikoura was a quiet place.  I spent most of my time reading a book from one of the several bookshelves the house had, relaxing on the beach or exploring the town and surrounding area on foot with Jeremy.  We discovered some really nice cliffs overlooking the sea one day, a seal colony on another and went on a dolphin watching cruise yet another day.  They were tiny little adventures, safe and exciting all at once, somehow.

On Monday I walked into the kitchen to find Jeremy talking on his phone.  I waved and went to the fridge, looking for some orange juice.  When I picked the carton up and gave it a shake I doubted there was a full glass in there, a suspicion that was confirmed when I was staring at my half-full glass.

A second search of the fridge didn’t yield any more juice, just some milk and the lemonade that Jeremy had been drinking.  I shrugged and grabbed the lemonade, using it to top up my glass before replacing it in the fridge.  I knew the moment I took my first sip that I’d stumbled upon something good, and I raised the glass to Jeremy in a ‘cheers’ gesture.

“… Yeah but If you
do
talk to Kevin tell him I’ll give him a call tonight, I’ve already spoken to Mom… OK… thanks… love you too… bye.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“My sister, Anna, she’s annoyed that I called her at work.  Family, eh?”

“Hmmm… not everybody can just drop everything at work for a personal call though,” I said.

“Oh sure, an accountant’s work is never done.  Like I’m calling her while she’s busy on an undercover sting operation or something.” Jeremy smiled.

I chuckled. “So what’s so important that you have to risk blowing her cover?”

“It’s my birthday!” said Jeremy.

“Oh!  Why didn’t you… happy birthday!  How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Should we celebrate or…”

“One step ahead of you there, Bea.”

“Oh?”

“Yep… but after breakfast I need you out of the house until just before lunch otherwise my plans are pretty much screwed.”

“The local brothel got an early-bird outcall special on?” I teased.

“Shut up, you.  Is that OK though?”

“Um… yeah, I’ve got a book, I can kill some time easy.”

“Great, thanks,” he said.

I ate my cereal and drank my orange juice and lemonade mixture while Jeremy sat across the table with his own cereal and coffee.  He looked nervous and excited all at once but wouldn’t elaborate at all on what he was planning.  Instead I had to grin and bear his almost conspiratorial smile while I ate.

Still, true to my word, I was out on my own after breakfast.  I decided to do some window shopping on the main street, which was somewhere we’d actually failed to explore already.  After browsing in a few stores I began to look for something I could maybe give to Jeremy as a birthday present.

It was about as difficult as I feared.  What do you give to a man with a ten-figure net worth that wouldn’t seem ridiculous?  A souvenir post card with a kiwi on it didn’t seem very impressive, a stuffed sheep didn’t seem his style.

I managed to find some wrapping paper easily enough but it wasn’t until I walked right past a store and literally had to take a couple steps backwards before going in that I was struck by inspiration.  Maybe it wasn’t the greatest gift in the world, but on such short notice I was pretty happy with it.

*****

When I returned to the house and walked in the door I almost thought the place had been ransacked, the kitchen anyway.  Pots and pans, bowls, cooking utensils, basically everything that had been in a cupboard or drawer was now scattered and looked like they’d been used, maybe not for their intended functions either.

“What happened here?” I asked.

Jeremy was just closing a big basket when he heard me speak.  He looked at me, then to the clock, and then back again.  He looked absolutely adorable.

“I did it!”

“That’s good, owning up to whatever it is you’ve done, taking responsibility.  But what is going on here?”

“I made everything for a picnic.  I haven’t cooked anything more complicated than grilled cheese in a while so this is a big thing.”

“Wow… I’m actually impressed.  It smells good, what is it?”

“All kinds of things, wait and see.  I was thinking we could have a picnic on that peninsula walkway looking down over the water,” he said.

“Good choice!  I’m game, breakfast was a long time ago.”

After all my walking around in the morning followed by another forty five minutes of walking to a nice place looking down on the ocean, I was definitely ready for lunch, a fact confirmed by my rumbling stomach.  Jeremy laid the picnic blanket down in the long grass to the side of the walkway and I helped trample it down so it was somewhat flat.

We sat down and Jeremy began working at the latch to the basket, which had become tangled or stuck somehow, as I took the time to appreciate our surroundings.  The ocean was a deep calm blue and aside from some rocks protruding from the surface near the shore, absolutely empty of land, boats or anything else.

I knew that somewhere under the surface those dusky dolphins that we had seen on the dolphin cruise were doing their own thing.  Now
they
looked like an animal that had it all figured out, so playful and carefree.  The way they acted it was like they didn’t have a worry in the world and they wouldn’t even be able to comprehend the concept of sadness or guilt.

The sea disappeared over the horizon and I could actually see the curvature of the earth.  Somewhere, several horizons away, I knew the blamelight was still looking for me but it hadn’t found me yet and that was a good thing.  A damn good thing.

“Aha!”  Jeremy flipped open the basket and began pulling things out.  “This is a quiche, avoid if you are allergic to broccoli or bacon.”

“Mmmm, bacon.”

“This is the vegetarian option, Greek style vegetable kebabs.”

“Interesting.”

“And, final option, chicken and salad sandwiches.”

A cool and inconstant breeze was taking the edge off the spring sunshine nicely, the distant sound of waves crashing on the rocks below added a wonderful white noise to the background.  There were no signs of other people in either direction along the walkway.

Everybody else in the world might have winked out of existence at that very moment and we wouldn’t have been able to tell.  It was just the handsome billionaire and I having a picnic and nothing else seemed to matter anymore.

“You shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble on your own birthday.  I wish I’d have known,” I said.

“Nah, it was kinda fun.  You can do the dishes when we get back if you’re
really
desperate.”

“Thanks.  Hey… what is the date anyway?”

“October fifteenth,” said Jeremy.

“Oh.  It was my birthday yesterday.  I guess I’m twenty now.”

“
What
?  What?  And you’re busting
my
balls about not telling in advance?”

“I forgot.”

“Of course you did.  Hey, do you have anybody you want to call?  It’s still your birthday back home, they’d probably want to hear from you.”

“No.”

“What?  You worried about the international charges?  Here, use my phone, I don’t mind.”

Jeremy fished out his cell phone and held it out to me.

“No, there’s… there’s nobody to call.”

“Parents?”

I shook my head.

“Brothers?  Sisters?”

“Only child.”

“Friends?”

“Think Rod Stevens would like to hear from me?”

“Oh… Bea…”

“No!  Stop.  Please… don’t feel sorry for me.  I don’t want your… pity.  I don’t want you to look at me like
that
.”

“How
do
you want me to look at you?”

A little over a week ago I wouldn’t have wanted him to look at me at all.  I might have punched him if he dared look at me like I was something he could have.  I might have punched
myself
if I had entertained the notion that being looked at by him was a good thing.

Now something was different.  I wanted him to see me as the girl he could laugh with, like at our dinner in the sky tower and so many times since.  I wanted to catch him looking at my body with appreciation like when he had helped me out of the swimming pool when I was wearing my bikini.  I liked the way I looked when I could see myself reflected in his eyes.

But this was dangerous, unknown and, frankly, terrifying territory.  This wasn’t just leaving the walls undefended.  This was tearing them down and showing him that poison inside me.  What would he do if he knew everything?  Would he hate me, or worse, pity me even more?

On the flight over here I’d stopped him from digging into the past, from threatening the structural integrity of my walls.  I’d told him not to but he had anyway, just by being himself, just by giving me the opportunity to get away from the constant attacks.  Now there were cracks showing.

I looked at his hand resting on the picnic blanket, the one not holding his phone.  More than anything I wanted to reach out and hold that hand, feel his strength and self-assuredness pour into me and wash that vial of poison out to sea where it would never be seen again.

My heart was racing and somehow seemed to have moved into my throat.  With a force of willpower I tried to make my hand move out to grab his… but I couldn’t do it.  My hand twitched and I cast my eyes down at it in disappointment.

“Can we… can we just eat?”

“OK, Bea.  It’s OK, we can eat.  Take your pick.”

I ended up having a little bit of everything and, especially for somebody who hadn’t cooked in a long time, it was actually pretty good.  I loved how it being a picnic prepared by an amateur made it easier to forget how wealthy Jeremy was.

The food at the restaurants and the food that had been delivered to the house we were staying at were all obviously prepared by high quality and pricey chefs.  That was fine, of course, Jeremy could afford it and the food was spectacular but this was better.  This was all part of leaving everything behind.

With all the fancy stuff taken away, all that was left was a man and a woman sharing a meal and each other’s company.  I was surprised at how easily I was able to calm down again by the time the meal was nearly finished.

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” I said and reached for my tote bag.

From inside I pulled out a little paper bag and from inside
that
I pulled out two cupcakes.  Jeremy smiled and reached for one.

“No, wait!”

Next out of the bag was a packet of birthday candles, wrapped in plastic so tough that I eventually had to use the knife we’d previously used to cut the quiche to open the packet.  The breeze may have been inconstant but it was too much for me to light a single candle in each cupcake so I gave up and threw the lighter back in the tote.

“You’ll have to imagine that the candles are lit.”

I began singing happy birthday to him while he wore an amused smile on his face, an expression that slowly turned to thoughtfulness over the course of the song.

“Now blow your candles out and make a wish so we can enjoy the birthday cake… s,” I said.

Jeremy picked one up and blew a puff of air at the fictional flame before putting it down and lifting the other one.  Instead of blowing this one ‘out’ as well, he handed it to me.

“You’ve got the most amazing singing voice I’ve ever heard in real life, I’ve never heard a version of ‘happy birthday’ that my tone-deaf self or family didn’t ruin.  So I won’t insult you with singing it but, like I said, it’s my birthday here, it’s your birthday back home.  How about we share this one?  Blow it out and make a wish.”

I took a deep breath and held it for a moment as I thought, then blew.  Chocolate cupcake with chocolate icing and chocolate chips, how could you go wrong?  The birthday cakes didn’t last long and Jeremy was slowly packing the leftovers and trash away when I remembered the birthday present I got for him and retrieved it from my bag.

“Ta da!” I said, handing it over.

“Oh no.  Now I feel bad that I don’t have anything for you.”

“Don’t worry about it.  You had even less notice than I did.”

“That’s true.  Now, what could this be?”

Jeremy carefully pulled the wrapping paper off and opened the box, peering in with curiosity.  He laughed and rolled on to his back, holding the box up high, before returning to a sitting position and reaching inside.

“Yes!”

Jeremy held up the roll of duct tape proudly like he was showing off a trophy to some imaginary crowd.  I couldn’t help but laugh.

“It’s just what I wanted, thanks Bea.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You know,” Jeremy set the duct tape down, “I actually do have something for you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.  Um… close your eyes.”