Call Me Evie, page 13
It’s a strange thing seeing two people you know so well suddenly acting differently around you. I only wanted Dad to like him, that’s all.
“Come on through to the lounge—dinner won’t be far off.”
Dad got himself a beer, offering one to Thom and asking me if I’d like a glass of wine. I was grateful that he wasn’t treating us like little kids.
Thom and I sat next to each other on the couch, our legs touching at the thigh. Embarrassed by the intimacy, I shuffled over a little.
As Thom grew more comfortable in Dad’s company, he started to ask him questions.
“So you’re retired now?”
“No, not entirely. I stopped playing rugby but I’ve been working. What about yourself, Thom? Any plans for the future?”
Thom shifted in his seat. “I want to be a photographer.”
They seemed to be getting on, yet still the silences filled the room like rising water.
“I’ll put some music on,” I said, standing up from the couch to put on the playlist Thom had made me for our four-month anniversary.
“What’s this crap, Kate?” Dad said, and Thom blushed.
“It’s my playlist,” I said. “I love it.”
Dad raised his eyebrows at Thom.
When we ate dinner, Thom led the conversation, asking questions and following up the answers with more questions. Dad asked him if he followed rugby at all.
“Yeah, I kind of do. But I’m not that big on sports in general. I like to watch UFC.”
A small flicker of irritation behind Dad’s smile. “The blokes trying to kill each other in a cage? That still counts as a sport, Thom.”
“Well,” Thom began, looking to me for a second, then back to Dad. He seemed embarrassed. “I mean, it’s not really a sport. I’m not that big on it anyway.”
“You don’t participate in any combat sports, do you, Thom?”
“No,” Thom said with a small smile. “I don’t have it in me.”
“Too bad. You’ve definitely got the build.”
Dad looked down at his plate for a second, then, looking up, he studied Thom’s face. Thom, busy helping himself to more salad, didn’t notice the way Dad’s stare lingered.
Dad washed up the dinner dishes. Thom offered to help but Dad waved him away. “No, you kids do your own thing,” he said.
I showed him up to my room for the first time, leaving the door open behind us. We stood close, leaning in, and Thom draped his arms around me, his fingers laced at the small of my back. Then I kissed him softly with my eyes open, watching the door.
“Remember when your dad used to confiscate your phone? I can’t even imagine it. He’s a nice guy.”
“Yeah, he is.”
“He likes me, I can tell.”
“Yeah. You were great.” But you’re wrong.
“I was just shooting the shit with good ol’ Bomber Bennet.”
He wandered around my room looking at the photos on the walls, running his hand along the top of my dresser and touching all the trinkets and seashells I had carefully lined up. The postcard he took from the art gallery, the saltshaker from a café, a small crystal from a store in Fitzroy, a flashlight, a yo-yo. All those pilfered keepsakes that were special because Thom had stolen them for me; he had risked something for me. Those otherwise meaningless items were freighted with memory.
I had a few other keepsakes on my dresser. A mini Statue of Liberty Dad had brought back from a trip to New York when I was a baby. Mum’s wedding ring strung on a silver necklace. The photo of me as a baby in Mum’s arms.
“Seriously, Kate, your dad is fine. I don’t know why you made such a big deal of introducing me.”
I closed the door a little further. Clearly sensing I didn’t want to talk about it, he smiled and took my cheeks in his hands, kissing me again. It felt like burning where my chest touched his. He ran his hand down my back and around my waist, unpicking the front button of my jeans.
“Don’t, Thom.” I placed my hands on his chest, pushing gently. He grabbed my wrists and made a noise in his throat like he was holding back a sneeze. He gripped with such force I felt a sort of ache where his thumbs dug in.
“My dad’s downstairs,” I reminded him.
“Okay,” he said, still with that intensity in his eyes. Then abruptly he let out a laugh. “Relax, Kate. I wouldn’t do anything—we’re not ready, remember?” He was repeating my own words back to me. We had been going out for five months—from September through most of summer. We were both sixteen. He had presented so many clever arguments but still it didn’t seem right yet.
I felt bad, like it was my fault and I should somehow be different. And that’s how they get you, boys like Thom. The obligation to protect them from their insecurities by conceding, bending. I leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips.
I thought about one time when I had been at Thom’s and, while he went to the kitchen, I opened his laptop. The screen had filled with naked flesh, a manufactured sensual whine issuing from the speakers. I knew most guys were into porn, but until then I’d thought Thom was different. There was something almost forceful about it. I had watched for a few seconds, curious.
That afternoon we’d had our first fight. I could tell he was embarrassed by what I’d seen and that his embarrassment made him angry. He told me never to go through his things again. He said if I did, we would be through. I cried and he didn’t apologize, but eventually we swept that episode aside, never mentioning it again.
“It’ll happen soon,” I said now.
* * *
• • •
Later that week Willow texted me.
It has literally been a month since I saw you. Please can you visit me soon?
I thought for a moment. She always had lots of friends. Basically all of my friends were her friends first. At least Thom was all mine. I suppose he was the reason why Willow and I hadn’t been seeing much of each other, that and the needling fact she had lied to me about him.
Not a whole month but we’ve been slack. We should hang soon?
We’ve been slack? Not we, Kate. You. But I’ll forgive you if you come see me soon. I’m dying for the goss.
After school I walked the long way home, stopping in at Willow’s. We lay on the rug in the lounge room in front of the television. Sensing eyes on me, I glanced over my shoulder. Her dad was watching us. Or perhaps he wasn’t actually watching. Perhaps he’d glanced up from his iPad at the same instant that I’d turned around. Whatever the case, our eyes met briefly.
Willow asked me something about Thom and I directed my attention back to her. We were talking quietly, but I could tell that he was listening. I liked that he knew how mature I was, that I had a boyfriend. When the conversation edged toward sex, Willow jerked her head toward the stairs and we retreated to her room.
“We’re still waiting,” I told her.
“Right,” Willow said, quirking an eyebrow.
“What? That’s normal. It’ll happen.”
“Well, there’s no point waiting forever. I mean, it’s not like you’re going to marry Thom.”
“Why do you say that?” I didn’t want her to know that I had fantasized about just that, but I couldn’t keep the prickle of annoyance out of my voice.
“Relax, it’s just not likely. Like, statistically or whatever. I mean I’ve been with four guys now.”
“Well, that’s you.”
In the silence that followed, I could hear our breathing.
She swallowed before speaking. “So that makes me a slut? Is that what you think?”
“No,” I said. But I couldn’t meet her eyes.
She let out a huff of anger that spilled into laughter. “You don’t get it, do you. You just don’t see it at all. You’ve turned your back on me and probably all your other friends for a guy you’ve been with for ten minutes.”
“You don’t make an effort with me either. And it’s been five months.”
“It won’t last another five.”
“Admit it, you never wanted us to get together. You tried to ruin it from the start.”
“What are you talking about?” she said, eyes pinched, lip curled in a snarl.
For a single heartbeat I had the sinking feeling that I had read it all wrong, but then I remembered what she had texted me. Perhaps I still had the messages. They like each other. A lot. “You told Thom I had a boyfriend and you told me he was going out with Sally.”
“Okay, firstly, Sally told me he was texting her and I told you because that’s what real friends do. I didn’t know she was lying. Secondly, I never told Thom you had a boyfriend. Thom’s either lying or not remembering it how it happened.” She flicked her hair away from her face. “It won’t last anyway. Trust me.”
Doubt rinsed over me like icy water. She was just causing trouble, like usual. Willow loved drama and was always ready to poke at sore points. She carried those sly jibes around in her pocket like thumbtacks.
Twenty-one
A continent of cloud edged across the sun, darkening the sea from cobalt to gray. The waves were high, crashing close to shore. I’d always been drawn to the beach, remembering those days with Dad down at Torquay and the time Mum, brittle in her two-piece bikini, had lifted me by the hands and carried me out into the shallows down near the house in Portsea. That’s what it was like when I was young—so happy. The sky was always an unbroken blue in those memories. Mum was always smiling. The beach was a magical place.
But now I was at the beach with Thom’s family, not my own. Thom and I walked out into the surf, diving into the first wave. The water was cold until my head went under, then it felt almost warm. The sea grabbed my ankles, pulling me back with the rush of the swell. Thom dived under and lifted me up over his shoulder. A squeal tore from my lips as he carried me forward and tumbled into a wave. The saltwater drilled up my nose into my sinuses.
When we headed back in, we sat on our towels beside his parents, me reading a book, Thom on his phone, scrolling through Instagram, taking snaps. At one point we tilted our heads toward each other and Thom took a selfie, posted it to Instagram. Another image that would eventually become newspaper fodder.
After a while Thom got up and began walking along the beach, hunched over, scanning the sand for something to shoot with his camera.
“I hope you’ve got plenty of sunblock on; skin like yours will burn in this sun,” Suzie, lying nearby, said.
Skin like mine? I looked down at the pale, freckled plane of my stomach, then my eyes traveled farther, coming to rest on the pink scars covering my thighs. Thom would kiss the scars on my legs; he told me he loved them. Maybe it was true. Maybe he was the only one who saw them as something other than a disfigurement. When we were alone with his camera, he took photos of me—I had never felt truly sexy until then.
I rose and walked down along the beach. The stretch of sand was almost vacant except for a few couples and a small group of guys. I wanted to check out the point at the end of the beach. I walked toward it, picking up a knotted piece of driftwood on the way, thinking it might make a nice photo for Thom. I hadn’t gotten far when I heard something sprinting on the sand, and I turned back just in time to see a dog leap up, printing two sandy paw marks on my thighs. A golden retriever stood, eyeing the driftwood in my hand, its long fur shaggy from the seawater.
“Sorry about him,” a voice said. I looked up and a guy in just his board shorts was rushing over. He seemed only a couple of years older than me.
“Oh, he’s fine. He just wants my stick, I think.”
“Come here, boy,” he said, but the dog stayed sitting there, waiting for me to throw it.
“Can I throw it for him?” I said.
“Sure.”
I tossed the stick away and the dog sped off after it. When I looked back, I could see Thom down the beach watching me. I dusted my thighs off and walked toward him.
“What was that all about?” he said when I got back to him.
“What?”
“Who was the guy with the six-pack?”
“The six-pack?”
“Macho man, down there,” he said, pointing.
“Oh, him,” I said, warmth spreading in my cheeks. “His dog jumped up and scratched me.”
He looked uncertain for a moment, then a smile broke. “Want me to kiss it better?”
* * *
• • •
That night we had a barbecue and played Scrabble while the kookaburras cackled out in the bush. At bedtime, Thom and I went to different rooms. We said good night, knowing when the lights had been out long enough we would end up in the same bed. Soon enough my door whined open and Thom slipped in beside me. His body relaxed against mine. I sensed him smiling in the dark.
I turned and pressed my lips against his cheek.
“Maybe one day we could just quit school and move here. You could catch fish and I could plant a big garden full of vegetables.”
“So you can be close to your new boyfriend?”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “Are you talking about the guy at the beach?”
“What? No.”
“You’re jealous,” I teased. I kissed him again, resting my hand on his warm chest.
“I was joking, Kate.”
“I didn’t know you were the jealous type,” I said, climbing on top of him. “Lucky I only want you.” He pulled me against him. I wanted to show him what he meant to me and crush the seeds of doubt Willow had tried to plant in my head. Our bodies pressed together, bones on bones, squeezing each other like we were drowning.
“Kate,” he said in the dark. “I . . . I think I love you.”
I wanted to say it back, desperately, but I couldn’t get the words past my throat. I felt his body tighten with anger or embarrassment. Until that moment, the day, the evening, had been close to perfect.
“Then maybe I’ll let you prove it,” I said at last, and lowered my face to his.
AFTER
Twenty-two
Who—who are you? How do you know my name?”
Her face is sun damaged and it is hard to guess her age, but the brightness in her eyes suggests she is not an old woman. The car is muttering under its breath at the road’s edge.
“I’m here to help,” she says, smiling pleasantly.
“Can you take me to Auckland?”
“Auckland?” She laughs, shakes her head. “Not today, doll.”
I look back at the spot where I stood for so long.
“Where are you going?” My words are unraveling at the edges.
“Why do you want to go to Auckland?” she counters.
I don’t answer, just stare straight ahead.
“Look, I’m not taking you anywhere you don’t want to go,” she assures me. “I just wanted to get you out of the rain before you catch your death.”
“How do you know my name?”
She grins at me again. “My son, Iso, said he saw you walking out of town. I’m Donna.”
Clearly he didn’t buy my story about meeting Jim up the road. He and Tiriana must have seen my sign and known I was hitchhiking. Or is it possible Jim knows this woman?
“I’m leaving here,” I say.
“Evie, dear,” she replies, “whatever you are running from, surely it can wait until the rain has cleared.”
“Do you know him? Do you know Jim?”
I can’t read her expression.
Turning back to the road, she sniffs, then winds the window down a little and spits out into the rain. “Jim? That’s your uncle, is it? Never met the guy. I’ve seen him about, though.” She winds her window back up. “People take notice when outsiders start showing up, you understand?”
She does a U-turn and drives back the way I walked.
“Let me out.”
“Evie, it’s not safe out there in this weather. I can drop you back here later, or we can pull over and you can wait in the car for it to clear up. But one thing I’m not going to do is let a skinny little thing like you get sick out in this weather.”
I stare at her. Tiny feet of rain are dancing on the roof. A sixties melody unwinds from the car’s tinny speakers.
“I can take you back up to my place, get you in front of the fire so you can warm up, dry your clothes.”
“Do you know?” I ask.
“Know what, dear?”
“Do you know who I am? What they think I’ve done?”
No confusion or alarm, just sorrow. Smile inverted, eyes shining blue. “What have you done?” An asthmatic laugh. “You’re acting like I’m the one who should be afraid.”
What does she mean? Is she helping Jim manipulate me? I don’t remember agreeing to go back to her place, but it’s too late now. As the car speeds up I begin to hyperventilate. I can’t get enough air, my vision blurs.
Donna slows the car, glancing over with concern. “What is it? Are you all right?”
I reach for the door handle and yank it. I push the door open and tumble out. The gravel hits me like a sledgehammer. I roll and roll. All the clothes around me catch and twist. The car slides in the wet, hurling a wave of stones. A sharp pain stings my elbow. Before I can get to my feet, Donna is there, lifting me up. She wraps her arms around me.
“It’s okay, Evie. It’s okay. I’ve got you. What is it, darling? What are you afraid of?”
“I need to go home.”
“I can drop you home—that’s fine.”
“My home is in Melbourne.”
Her eyes are glossy and her mouth is turned down. I can see she is shaking. Before I know it, she has guided me from the rain back to the front seat. I sit there while she squats down on the gravel, looking into my eyes, holding my hands in hers. A truck passes and the gust rocks the car.
