1
Screens.
They were forever in hands.
Smartphones.
Everyone I knew spent the majority of their
life looking at one. It was a wonder they bothered with windows at all anymore.
We could black them all out and no one would notice. They’d simply sit in their
darkened boxes, staring at glowing screens and swear they were ‘connected’.
Except me. I was probably the only eighteen-year-old
girl in existence who chose not to own a phone. If you wanted to talk to me,
you’d have to do it the old fashioned way – face to face.
I lifted my eyes to the charged air as the
lights flickered and thunder rolled around us like a discontented beast.
“How can you keep staring at that when
there’s a magnificent storm happening off the coast?” I glanced at my best –
and probably my only – friend, Zeke, who kept his dark head bowed as he
shrugged his shoulders and continued scrolling through his Instagram feed,
pausing occasionally to look more closely at photos from whichever busty model
type or band member he’d chosen to follow recently.
Instagram made him the ultimate voyeur.
“You can get struck by lightning through a
window, you know,” he pointed out, his head still down, his thumbs still
scrolling.
“Where’d you learn that? YouTube?”
He grinned, glancing up at me for the first
time through his too long dark hair. It hung down past his liquid black eyes as
he peered through the soft falling strands. His gaze was positively heart
stopping.
“Probably,” he admitted.
Returning my attention to the window, I
watched as rivulets of water streaked down the glass as the rain continued to beat
down. It was torrential, as if someone was standing on the roof and spraying a
hose on the world as opposed to the clouds leaking their usual shower of
liquid. Out on the ocean, flashes appeared in the dark sky, cracking the horizon
in zigzag patterns that lit up the water, creating colour where there seemed to
be none before.
Blue. Purple. Silver.
“Seriously, Zeke, come and see this. It’s
like the gods are at war.”
Conceding, he set his phone to the side and
climbed off my bed. Coming to sit beside me, he folded his long jean-clad legs knee
first on the window seat I’d been occupying and pressed his face up against the
glass.
Flash. Pause. Boom.
I smiled, caught up in the magnificence of
Nature’s wrath then clutched his muscular forearm as I spoke in hushed awe. “Did
you see that?”
He didn’t respond, and I turned my head,
noticing he wasn’t even looking out to the ocean like I was.
“Dawn?” He said my name as a question, his
voice sounding preoccupied as he leaned closer to the window, his gaze lower
than mine. “Who is that?”
Leaning closer to him, I followed his line
of sight and saw movement in front of the house next door. It had been vacant
for most of the year. Its previous occupant was an elderly lady by the name of
Joan. But, her family had moved her into a nursing home and put the house up
for sale when she’d fallen and cut her head open on the edge of the stairs. It
wasn’t anything terrible, but her family thought it best to keep her under
constant guard. So, off she went, never to be seen again. It was sad because I
liked her. She baked ANZAC biscuits for me and loved to talk about the Golden
age of cinema, which was something I was in love with too. It had been an odd
combination – an old lady and a teenage girl – but, I’d really enjoyed visiting
her. It felt odd seeing someone moving into her house.
“Looks like we’re getting a new neighbour,”
I stated, watching as moving van rattled to a stop out front.
“Do you think it’s just a summer person?”
We watched as two men rushed through the
storm and began to unload furniture protect by sheets of plastic, carrying a
long couch up the path to disappear into the soft yellow glow of the house.
“No. I think they’re moving in.”
Flash. Pause. Boom.
A few feet away from the moving van, in the
centre of the lawn, a girl twirled about like a child. With a smile on her
face, she tilted her head back and let the rain thump against her skin, her
hands above her head as her long saturated hair flicked about her like a
windmill. Spinning. Spinning. Laughing. Laughing.
Zeke and I pressed our heads together.
Watching. Watching. It was hard to tell from this distance, but she appeared to
be our age, which is what made the sight that much more wondrous. Most eighteen-year-olds
did everything they could to behave like an adult in order to be taken more
seriously, and here was one who obviously didn’t give a fuck about being taken
seriously at all.
As we continued to watch, it was as if we
held a collective breath, afraid that if we made any sort of noise the spell
would be broken, and the girl on the grass below, who looked like freedom
itself, would be gone.
“Who do you
think she is?” Zeke whispered, his voice filled with wonder as he continued to
stare. Transfixed.
“I have no
idea.”
Turning my head,
I allowed my breath to exhale as I took in the expression on Zeke’s face. The
way he watched her. They way he looked at her. Zeke and I had been friends
since he moved in across the street in second grade. And in all that time, he’d
never looked at me the way he looked at her in that moment.
Reaching up, I
tucked a stray lock of my dyed black hair behind my ear and tried to ignore the
pang in my chest as I forced my eyes away from Zeke and down to the twirling
girl. Even I had to admit that she was quite magnificent, like a breath of
fresh air in our small seaside town.
When she
suddenly stopped twirling, she looked up at us, somehow sensing our eyes. She
smiled then gestured for us to join her.
“I’m going to
say ‘hi’.” Zeke scrambled off the window seat and was out the door in a streak
of denim and faded red from his t-shirt. He’d moved faster than I’d ever seen
him move to get to her. When I looked back at the girl, she was still looking
up at me, seemingly unbothered by the rain and wind lashing about her face. She
cocked her head to the side – a curious creature – and kept her eyes on mine.
She had light eyes. I could see that even in the dim light of the storm and
from the second floor of my family home. I lifted my hand, and I waved – just a
small wave, barely even a finger wiggle. In return, the girl beamed, took a
hold of her dress in one hand then spun around in sheer abandonment. She had so
much joy inside her that I couldn’t help but smile back.
She stopped
spinning when Zeke stepped out in to the rain with her, and she waited until he
walked toward her. They spoke. They smiled. She held out her hand.
I stepped away
from the window. I didn’t want to see anymore.
***
On the Eastern edge of Australia, tucked away between the headlands, is a
picturesque suburb of less than fifteen hundred people called Hargrave Cove.
Unless you live in the area, you’d have no idea we existed, for we’re hidden on
the edge of a national park in the Illawarra region. The winding road you’d drive along to get to
us is so steep that you feel sure you’re imminent death is just around the
corner. It’s enough to turn many away. But, those who brave the treacherous
drive become addicted to our shores, wishing they could live here, coming back
time and time again to our pocket of paradise.
To cater for the summer tourists, we have a sprinkling of bed and breakfast
establishments, one hotel, a caravan park, countless holiday rentals to cater
to the high demand, and typical to most Australian towns, more pubs than one
town really needed. But, Aussies love to drink, so all of them have managed to
stay in business over the years – even in the quiet season.
Our homes are built on the edge of two hills that create a windbreak
against everything but a direct headwind, and the wildest of summer storms.
They say Hargrave Cove is the kind of place postcards are made of. The sand
is white. The water is clear. And almost every window has a sea view.
It’s the kind of place those living outside of Australia dream about. It’s also
the kind of place most Australian’s dream of as well.
Unless of course, you’re me, and you’ve lived here all your life and have
never, ever fit into the seaside way of doing things. I couldn’t wait to leave.
This summer would herald my final months of failing to fit into the sun and
surf culture of Hargrave Cove. Zeke and I had graduated high school only weeks
before, and with our university acceptance letters on the way, we were so close
to saying goodbye to this place and starting a whole new life in the city where
there was more than sand and pubs to offer, and the people actually wore shoes.
Finally, our social life wouldn’t revolve around the tiny group of kids from
our high school, drinking cheap beer and cask wine while passing a joint around
a bonfire, thinking the epitome of cool was knowing all the lyrics to Nirvana’s
greatest hits. It was all so lame. I was so over it. I couldn’t wait for
Hargrave Cove to be nothing more than an introductory page in ‘The History of
Dawn Tucker’ – I was destined for bigger things than bonfires and surfing. I
felt it in my bones, and while Zeke and I sat on the outskirts of popularity,
we had planned our future, far, far away from here.
This was just the beginning…
2
“Dawn!” My eyes cracked open when mother
called my name from downstairs. “Dawn!”
I rolled to the side, peeking out from
under the bed sheet as daylight assaulted my eyes. What time was it? A quick
glance at the old fashioned alarm clock – one of those brass ones with the
bells on top – that sat on the white built in shelves on the wall furthest from
my bed, informed me that it was only eight in the morning.
“It’s holidays!” I yelled, pulling my sheet
back over my head. It was way too early to be up. What the hell was she even
doing up? Normally she was passed out in bed until lunchtime after yet another
desperate date from some guy she met online.
“Come downstairs, petal.” Petal. She only
said it when she was trying to be nice to me. She’d started calling me that
when I was young. I remember her sitting me in front of her dressing table
mirror and brushing my golden hair, telling me I was going to grow up to be a
beautiful rose, just like she was. Would
you like that? she’d ask, Would you
like to be as pretty as mummy? I’d nod enthusiastically, wanting nothing
more than to grow up and become as beautiful as my mother. But, as I grew, my lack
of popularity confused her, my hair was thick and didn’t hold much of a style,
and my face never became quite as pretty as hers. I had a pointy chin and a
dimple in one cheek that never completely vanished, my dark blue eyes were too
big, and my lips were too full. I looked odd while she looked like a model, and
really, at close to fifty, she still does. Her frustration with me grew when the
more she tried to change me – to fix me – the more I pushed back, until I
didn’t really look like her daughter at all. I became a black haired rockabilly
version of someone she didn’t even know – someone she didn’t want to know.
Perhaps my looks reminded her too much of my father. I didn’t know. I just knew
I’d disappointed her. She hadn’t been expecting to have a daughter with brains.
“You have a visitor, Dawn.”
I sat up.
A visitor? Besides Zeke, no one visited me. And Zeke would have just come
straight up to my room.
Pulling the sheet off my body, I stood up
and straightened my nightgown before running my hands through my knotted black
hair, wiping the sleep from my eyes as I trotted down the cool wooden
staircase.
“Hi there.” That girl from last night
greeted me from where she stood in the entry hall. With her hair dry, she
looked like summer itself. I felt as though I paled in comparison to her
natural beauty and even felt a slight jolt of jealousy when I noted my mother
looking at her in admiration.
This
is what she wanted, I thought. This is the kind of daughter she’d wished for. Not me.
Like this girl, I was born a natural
blonde, but mine didn’t stay that way, and by the time I was thirteen, it had become
that dark caramel colour that needed to be lightened so it didn’t look mousy. That’s
what my mother had said anyway. Eventually, and much to my mother’s dismay, I
chose to dye it black to match my constant mood. It was more fitting, and I
thought it made my dark blue eyes pop more and set me apart from everyone
else’s idea of beauty in this town. As I grew and came to except that I was
different, I found it helped that I looked different as well. It served as
somewhat of a warning to those who thought I cared.
So, while my hair colour now came from a
bottle, this girl’s waist length hair was every shade of blonde there was, and
you could tell there was nothing artificial about it as it fell in soft waves
over her shoulders. Her skin was smooth and golden, indicating she spent way
more time outdoors than indoors, and on her face, she wore zero make up, had
eyes the colour of the clearest part of the ocean. Her smile was white, her
teeth naturally straight. She was tall – close to six foot, and she was slim
without being skinny. She was exactly the kind of person Hargrave Cove wanted.
She’d fit in perfectly here. I wasn't sure what she’d want with me.
“Can I help you with something?”
She extended her hand. “I’m Shea. We met
last night. Well…” She laughed. It sounded like the tinkling of bells. I
narrowed my eyes. “We kind of met
anyway. I was the girl spinning in the rain.”
“I remember. And now you’re the girl
standing in my entryway. Is there something you wanted? Zeke isn’t here.” I
don’t know if it was the fact Zeke ran to her so willingly the night before, or
the fact she looked like the boho version of every girl who never had any time
for me. But I wanted her to go.
Another smile. She didn’t seem to notice,
or didn’t care that I was trying to dismiss her. “I was looking for you. Since
I just moved to the area and we’re neighbours and all, I was hoping you’d show
me around.”
I lifted my arm and pointed lazy out the
window. “The beach is there. The surf club is there. The shops run along Beach
St. That’s about as exciting as it gets.”
“Dawn,” my mother interrupted. “Why don’t
you take Shea out and show her what you kids like to do. It will do you good to
get some sun.”
I looked down at my own pale complexion,
kept that way with copious amounts of sunscreen and a penchant for sitting in
the shade. “Eighteen is an adult, mum. I’m not a kid anymore.”
My mother waved off my comment with an
exaggerated eye roll. She’d obviously slept with her makeup on and had mascara
smudges under her eyes. How embarrassing.
Sometimes I wondered which of the two of us were the adult in this
relationship. Ever since my dad moved out to pursue a relationship with a
dental nurse named, Missy, she had reverted back to a flirtatious teen. I
couldn’t even tell you the amount of men she’d met online and had a one-night
stand with. I’d lost count and stopped listening when she talked about it. My
input was to make sure she always had plenty of condoms in her purse. However,
even that had come at a price. Someone at the local pharmacy had noticed my
regular transaction, and as a result, I spent the last year branded as a slut. Thanks, mum.
“Just go out and have fun,” she told me. “You’re
far too serious, Dawn. You can’t spend your entire last summer with your nose
stuck in a book.”
“I watch movies too,” I argued, trying to
somehow flesh out the mediocre plotline of my current life.
My mother took my comment as a joke and
laughed. “Go and have fun with your new friend, Dawn.”
Deciding against arguing any further, I
conceded and turned to Shea. “Just give me a minute to get changed.”
“Why? I love that dress. Have you ever been
to New York?”
Pulling at the ruffle on my Peter Alexander
‘Lady Liberty’ nightgown, I glanced at the statue’s face and shook my head.
“No. But, it’s on my bucket list. And this is a nightie.”
“Oh.” She followed me up the stairs as I
headed to my room. “We actually lived in New York for a year when I was
sixteen. You’d love it.”
“How do you know I’d love it, Shea? You
don’t even know me.”
Grinning, she watched me as I opened my
rustic looking chest of drawers and pulled out some clothing.
“People aren’t so different, Dawn. All over
the world, in all the towns and all the places, they’re intrinsically the
same.”
I raised my eyebrows. “And here I was,
thinking I was different. Excuse me.” Leaving my room, I headed into the
bathroom where I relieved myself and washed before dressing in a cherry red
pair of high waisted shorts, and a black and white polka dot halter neck top. I
wasn’t tall and model shaped like Shea and my mother were, but I was slim and
felt I had a decent set of curves at my disposal. And I made the most of my hourglass
shape with the way I dressed.
When I returned to my room, Shea was
holding a bottle up to her nose from my Gucci mini fragrance set that I had
never touched but kept because I liked the tiny bottles. I moved to stand near
her and brush my hair.
“You look hot,” she stated, her eyes taking
in my outfit as she placed her index finger on the opening of the bottle and
tipped the fragrance upside down. She dabbed lightly behind her ears then
repeated the process for each of her wrists.
I laughed to cover my unease, not really
understanding why someone I just met would want to compliment me in such a way.
Was her comment just a joke? I felt that it must be, because I didn’t look hot.
I looked like someone who didn’t belong in this town – something Shea was about
to discover for herself by spending the day with me. I doubted she’d want to be
my friend once she realised I was an outcast.
“This is definitely my favourite.” She held
out her wrist for me to smell. “What do you think?”
With my brow lifted, I took a quick sniff
of her wrist as I continued to brush my hair and pull it into an elegant bun on
top of my head. “I think you should keep it. I don’t wear Gucci.”
Meeting my eyes in the mirror, she watched
as I tied a red and black bandana around my head in place of a headband. “Too
good for Gucci, huh?” she asked with a smile. “Then what’s your fragrance,
Dawn?” She picked up my tube of Chanel red lipstick and handed to me. “Let me
guess, you’re a Coco Chanel girl?”
Taking the black tube of lipstick from
between her fingers, I leaned closer to the mirror and slid the perfect shade
of red across my lips, pressing them together before turning to her to answer.
“It’s my signature scent,” I said with a smile as I picked up my white-rimmed
cat eye sunglasses, and as I slid them on my face, I pursed my lips, causing
her to laugh. She had a really nice easy laugh, and I wondered how long it
would take before that laugh was aimed at me instead of laughing with me.
***
“So, what’s the deal with you and Zeke?”
I knew
I’d get asked that question.
We were walking along Beach Street, which
is where everything is besides a few random cafes, the charity store, and a few
pubs. Shea was eating a fruit salad with her fingers, and I was working my way
through a bag of liquorice. I knew all that sugar was bad for me. I just didn’t
care.
“Why do you want to know?” I asked, holding
a piece of liquorice between my teeth and pulling until I heard the length of
candy snap before I started chewing.
“You have the same anchor tattoo on your
ankles.”
I looked down. “They’re fake,” I explained,
looking down at the airbrushed tattoo we’d gotten together a few days before
when we went to seaside markets. It had already faded slightly and would
supposedly wear off within a couple of weeks. But they looked quite real and
we’d even thought that we might get real ones as a promise to always be there
for each other, no matter what the future held. I wondered how she’d seen his
since he was wearing jeans the day before…
“We’re just friends,” I told her.
Across the road, a group of guys I knew
from school went gliding past on skateboards.
“Hey, Dawn.” I made the mistake of looking
up. “Who’s your new friend? Does she suck cock too?”
Scowling, I lifted my middle finger at them
in salute, resulting in the rumbling of male laughter as they continued on
their way.
“Friends of yours?” Shea dropped her
container of fruit salad in a nearby bin, and I threw in the rest of the
liquorice as well, the flavour becoming bitter after the rude jibe.
“That’s Scott Jennings, and the ‘Scott
Jennings Wannabes’. Their interests include surfing, drinking, and fucking –
not necessarily in that order. But, it’s all they ever talk about. I think
there’s some latent homosexuality going on between some of them. They’re all
too willing to strip naked and swing their cocks around in front of one another
to be completely straight.”
“The philosopher Nietzsche seems to think
that sexuality isn’t just one sided, in essence, his writing suggests that we are
all capable of desire toward the same sex, the opposite sex, and even
ourselves. The whole notion of chastity and single committed relationships
between a man and a woman weren’t normal until Christianity became the dominant
religion. Before that, there was quite the ‘anything goes’ attitude.”
“What the fuck are you on?” I asked with a
laugh after listening to her lengthy diatribe.
She shrugged. “Philosophy. Open
mindedness.”
Looking at her, I studied her face for a
moment as she stood before me, smiling as she held her long hair back so the
wind didn’t blow it across her face. She looked just like the girls who grew up
here, but there was something different about her – her ideas, her words –
every time she opened her mouth, an intelligence spilled from her lips that I
hadn’t expected when I first saw her twirling in the wind and the rain.
“How old are you?” I asked after a while.
“How old do you think I am?”
“I had thought you were eighteen like me,
but I’m beginning to think you’re older.”
“I’m eighteen. But, I like books.” She
shrugged her shoulders as if that simple sentence explained everything.
“I like books too, but you won’t hear me
quoting Nei–” I stopped because I couldn’t remember the name she’d used.
“Nietzsche,” she finished for me as we continued
our walk down the path.
“Yeah. Nietzsche. What kind of eighteen-year-old
reads philosophers?”
“It’s interesting as fuck, you should try
it some time.”
A smile broke across my face, curving up my
blood red lips. “Interesting as fuck, hey? See, now you’re sounding more like
an eighteen-year-old.” We walked a few paces in silence. “You know, I didn’t
think I was going to like you. But, I think I was wrong.”
She turned to me. “Funny. I liked you
instantly.”
3
“Thought I’d find you up here.” Zeke folded
his long legs and sat beside me on the grassy area of the cliff edge at the
lookout. It was the place we went to most, as you could see the whole town from
up there without anyone bothering you. “Hi, Shea.” He leaned forward to look
around me and smiled a shy smile.
I didn’t like the way I felt when he looked
at her. Up until that moment, Shea and I had been having a great day. I’d
walked her through the streets and shown her everything there was to see in
Hargrave Cove in a few short hours. Then I’d brought her up to the Lookout to show
her the best view of the Cove. We’d talked and laughed, and really, it had
started to feel as though I’d made a friend in her. She wasn’t what I’d first
thought she was at all. She wasn’t an airhead obsessed with her looks. She had
a quick wit, and understood me when I talked about topics other than boys and
fashion. I’d actually enjoyed myself, and I’d never had a girl my own age for a
friend before, so there was that too. The way she and Zeke seemed to look at
each other, well, it complicated things in a way I didn’t particularly want to
explore.
“What do you have there?” Shea asked, using
her eyes to indicate the wrapped parcel Zeke held in his hands.
“Smells like fish and chips,” I said, as I
reached over took it from him before shuffling backward and peeling the tape
from the butchers paper.
“I’m starving,” Shea groaned, reaching for
a golden chip as the paper opened and its contents spilled across the
greaseproof sheet in a steaming heap.
“Thought you might be. Dawn’s mum said
you’d been gone since morning.”
“How did you know to bring it up here?”
Shea asked him, as we all dug into the food. “Did Dawn text you when I wasn’t
looking?”
Zeke laughed and shook his head. “Dawn
doesn’t believe in mobile phones. I just knew this is where she’d be.”
“You too are pretty close, huh?”
He glanced at me, his full mouth pulled
into a dimple producing half smile. “As close as two people can get without
fucking.”
I rolled my eyes but smiled as Shea and
Zeke both laughed. Then I threw a chip at Zeke, and he nudged his body against
mine in that friendly way he always did.
Zeke and I were best friends.
Just best friends.
It was a friendship that had carried us
through our youth and our awkward teenage years, and now it was moving into our
adulthood. Two outcasts, fighting the outside world together – we were
invincible as long as we had each other. We were the anchors to each other’s
drifting boat. We gave meaning to what seemed an otherwise pointless existence.
For a long time, we hated that we didn’t
fit in. I think Zeke was the one that suffered most because of it. I was
teased, but it was because there was something fundamentally different about me
at my very core. For a long time, and to appease my mother, I tried to look as
though I fit in. But, when ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ just wasn’t an option
anymore, I stopped giving a rats arse and began to celebrate my differences. I
listened to my obscure music and devoured ancient horror movies, read books
from every genre I could find until my eyes refused to see anymore. I stopped
trying to be a part of things. I stopped trying to be something I wasn’t. For
me, there was a freedom in that. Not giving a shit forced me to see the world
outside Hargrave Cove. Out in that world
was where I was meant to be.
Zeke however, had a different experience.
He was a boy, and he was awkward, he was shy – it made him a target for the
golden haired bullies who had everything so easy.
When we were in primary school, he was
small and skinny, with wild dark hair and big eyes, so dark they were
practically black. He was so painfully introverted that when he opened his
mouth, most of the time a stutter would emerge instead of his actual voice, and
I ended up talking for him. Of course, that didn't go down well with the
bullies at all.
Then, when high school came around, he had
a growth spurt that caused him to be all arms and legs. Speech-wise, he became
even more awkward as his voice squeaked up and down during puberty. Besides talking
to me, he just shut up all together, speaking only when absolutely necessary,
and even then, he was obscenely quiet. People thought there was something wrong
with him. There wasn’t. They simply never gave him the chance to feel
comfortable around them.
Together we were freaks. Me by design. Him
by force.
Then year
eleven happened. Zeke’s parents took him and his little sister to Bali for
the summer holidays, and when he returned, it was like he’d suddenly turned
into a man – an incredibly hot man. I’d always seen his beauty, and I’d noticed
his body changing, but suddenly, everyone else saw him too. Standing at six
foot three, his body had filled out in all the right places – broad shoulders,
narrow hips, a dimpled smile. If Jamie Dornan and Nina Dobrev had a love child,
Zeke would be the result. He had this manly beauty about him that had started
to turn heads. My jealousy and desire to keep him all to myself was born. I’d
never had a threat of sharing him before then.
On top of his looks, he’d returned with a
confidence that wasn’t there before – partly because he’d lost his V-card while
he was over there – and it meant that he stood a little straighter, spoke a
little louder, and laughed more freely.
I’d thought there was no way he’d want to
keep hanging around with me – the socially inept, Dawn Tucker, once he was
accepted by the masses. He’d gone from geek to smoking hot in what seemed like the
blink of an eye, and honestly, I thought the moment someone like Olivia Hunter
– the most popular girl in our school – showed an interest, I’d lose him.
But I didn’t.
He turned her down.
He turned them all down, later telling me
that he was still the same person he always was. They didn’t like him before.
So he didn’t like them now. I often wondered how true that was, because they
didn’t stop trying. Girls always kept trying for Zeke. Sometimes, they did it
right in front of me. I guess they didn’t see me as any sort of competition. I
wasn’t pretty enough for the likes of him – just ask my mum…
“So, you two have never?” Shea looked
between us, her eyebrows lifted part way up her forehead, a piece of fried fish
held at the ready, about to enter her mouth.
“Why do you want to know?” I asked, trying
to hide my defensiveness by stuffing my mouth with more food. It wasn’t any of
her business whether Zeke and I had ever had sex – which we hadn’t. Obviously…
She shrugged. “Just curious. You’re close.
And from the sounds of things you spend a lot of time together – why not spend
a bit of time between the sheets too?”
Laughing as though the idea of us sleeping
together was some kind of a joke, Zeke shook his head. “No. We haven’t done any
of that. Best friends and fucking don’t really mix. Right, Dawny?” He reached
over and took my glasses off my face, sliding them over his own eyes as he
threw a chip over the edge of the cliff face and a seagull swooped down and
caught it. He laughed. No matter how many times he didn’t that, it never ceased
to amuse him.
Squinting in the sun, I waited until I’d
finished my mouthful before answering. “Right,” I agreed with a smile, noting
the tightness to my voice as the word came out. Am I really that undesirable
that the idea of sleeping with me is comical? I cleared my throat then
filled my mouth with more food, glancing at Shea as I did. She was sitting
there, eating a handful of chips, one at a time, with her head tilted to the
side in a way that told me she was assessing everything we said. When she met
my eyes, I knew she knew full well exactly how I felt about my best friend.
Abruptly, I stood up and dusted myself off.
“I think I hear Jack calling me at The Palms.” I took my glasses back from Zeke
and slid them over my eyes. “You coming?”
I held out my hand and Zeke took it,
standing before offering his other hand to Shea. “Jack is Jack Daniels. She wants to go for a drink,” he explained.
“I gathered,” Shea replied, allowing him to
help her up while I bent down to pick up the remains of our lunch. I’d walked
her past The Palms on the way up to
the lookout and told her that was where my mate ‘Jack’ lived.
As we walked down the dirt path from the
lookout, Zeke continued, “There are probably only three places in town that
Dawn actually likes. The lookout is one of them, then there’s The Palms, and
the post office.”
“The post office?” Shea asked.
I had been walking in front of them and
turned around with a flourish and struck an exaggerated catwalk pose. “Because
they’re the only reason I have such amazing fashion sense.”
“She’s an online shopping addict,” Zeke
elaborated with a laugh as they stepped past me.
“You’re not much better,” I added, as I quick
stepped a few paces then jumped onto his back – used to this, he caught my legs
and carried me without giving it a second thought.
“True. There’s a lot of stuff you just
can’t buy in Hargrave Cove.”
“Maybe,” Shea put in. “But, they seem to
have everything you need. There’s a beauty in that, you know. I’ve travelled
all over, and so far, this looks as close to paradise as I’ve ever seen.”
Zeke and I looked at each other then burst
out laughing.
“Why is that so funny?”
I jumped off Zeke’s back. “It’s just that
you’re saying that to probably the only two people who live here and don’t
agree with you. Zeke and I are counting down the days until we get our
acceptance into Uni so we can make plans to leave this place. It’s paradise to
some, but to us, it’s been more of a prison.”
Her azure blue eyes met mine for a moment,
filled with a dreamy softness that you didn’t see often in someone so young. It
was reserved for those much older while they looked back and remembered, I
recalled seeing that look in my old neighbour’s eyes as she regaled me with
stories of her youth.
“Perhaps you’re just looking at it the
wrong way.”
4
Locals didn’t spend a lot of time at The Palms Hotel & Bar. It was a kitschy
surf themed bar that was purely for tourists, decorated to look like a straw
hut with surfboards, tiki lamps, and those strings of fake hyacinth fairy lights.
They served pub-style food that you could eat outside on a balcony that
overlooked Hargrave Beach and always smelled like citronella lamps to keep away
the summer mosquitos.
The music was cool though, the manager, Luke,
was a single dad who grew up in the Cove, and from what I knew, never had the
inclination to leave. He was obsessed with folk rock and played Ben Howard,
Angus & Julia Stone, and Keaton Henson, giving The Palms a relaxed feel
that I totally loved and Zeke didn’t mind.
“Dawn has a crush on the bartender by the
way,” Zeke informed Shea as we stepped through the doors.
“I do not.” I shot him a warning look and
slapped him on the shoulder, then the chest, causing him to laugh and hold his
hands up defensively. Adorably.
“We’ll grab a table outside if you want to
get the drinks,” he said, steering Shea toward the side doors that lead out to
the balcony. My eyes couldn’t help but linger on the place his hand rested –
the small of her back. I took a deep breath and turned away.
“Did Zeke find another unsuspecting tourist
to ditch you for?” Luke asked as he saw me approach the bar. Luke wasn’t a fan
of Zeke’s. He’d walked me home once after Zeke had gotten a little too drunk
and forgotten his best friend duties when he left the bar with some random girl
from another town. I’d told Luke I could take care of myself, but he’d
insisted, saying that friends didn’t abandon friends to walk home alone in the
dark. Zeke had felt like an arsehole and apologised profusely, and he’d never
ditched me again, but still, Luke held a grudge.
I shifted my glasses to the top of my head
and slipped onto the barstool in front of him, pulling a short black straw out
of the caddy and placing the end of it between my teeth. “She’s a new resident.
Moved in next door to my place last night.”
His eyebrows lifted. “During that storm?”
Without waiting for me to order, he began to mix a Jack and Coke for me then he
pulled a Bundy Draught for Zeke.
“Yeah. Right in the middle of it.”
“She’s game. What’s she drinking?”
“Give her a vodka orange, she seems the
type to me.”
“How do you rate her?” he asked, placing
all three drinks in front of me.
I gave him money for the drinks along with
a single shoulder shrug. “She seems OK. She’s smart. So, that’s cool.”
Ringing the drinks up on the register, he
handed me my change. “She into all those crazy books you read?”
Zeke knew Luke didn’t really like him, so I
was always the one ordering for us, and while waiting for drinks, I often
talked Luke’s ear off about books and films, and anything else I felt like
rattling on about at the time. He was a good listener, and he was a nice guy
who seemed to have all the patience in the world. We got along well, and Luke
was incredibly easy on the eyes – so, maybe I flirted with him a little. But,
despite Zeke’s teasing, there wasn’t anything going on. I think Luke saw our
friendship as more of a big brother type of thing that developed over the
couple of years Zeke and I had been hanging out of The Palms. At first we went
there for their spectacular fries and ice cold Coke during high school, but
once we hit eighteen and were legally allowed to drink, we shifted to the
harder stuff and upgraded to their wood fired pizzas.
Luke was thirty-five. He was a widower with
a five-year-old son who now lived in the same street he grew up on so his
mother could help watch his son while he worked. He had light brown hair that
fell in a wispy mess that’s only style was however it dried after his early
morning surf. He was tanned a golden brown all year round and had kind green
eyes with flecks of brown in them. His strong jawline forever looked as though
he’d forgotten to shave and he always wore a pair of tan cargo shorts with a white
cotton t-shirt and an open Hawaiian themed short-sleeved button up. The only close-toed
shoes he owned were canvas boat shoes that didn’t require laces. But, if he wasn’t
working, he would wear flip-flops or go bare foot.
“She’s read Nietzsche,” I offered in
explanation as to why I’d stated that Shea was smart.
“What’s that book about?” he asked, busying
himself in the quiet of the afternoon lull by polishing glasses from the
dishwasher.
“It’s not the name of a book.” I smiled. “Nietzsche
is a philosopher.”
He frowned and looked off into the distance
before returning his gaze to mine. “What does he philosophise?”
I gave him a bounce of my shoulders. “I
have no idea. I haven’t read his work.”
Pressing his lips together, he nodded and
returned his attention to the glass in his hands. “She must be smart then if
she’s read a book that you haven’t.” Luke had it in his head that I was the
smartest girl around, and often commented that he thought I’d be running the
country some day.
“Right?” I grinned then thanked him for the
drinks before carrying them outside to where Zeke and Shea were sitting across
from each other and talking as they looked out over the balcony.
“Have a good chat to your boyfriend?” Zeke teased
as I set the glasses down and took my seat in between them around the circular
frosted glass top table.
“Quit it, Zeke, he’s like, thirty-five –
way too old for me.”
Shea sat forward and looked inside to where
Luke was serving an older looking couple at the bar. “Age is just a number,
Dawn. He’s hot. I reckon he’s got an ace body under that shirt.”
“You think he’s hot?” I queried, putting my
feet up on the rung under the table as I slid my sunglasses back over my eyes. “So
you’d do him, and not care about his age at all?”
She picked up her vodka and orange and took
a sip through the half sized straw. “Of course. I’m an adult. He’s an adult. As
long as you’re both into it, what does it matter how old he is? He’s obviously
interested in you, Dawn.”
“I doubt that,” I replied as I looked back
at Luke, watching as he busied himself behind the bar. He was definitely hot, I
wasn’t blind to that, but I was fairly sure he was just being kind to me
because I was a regular customer. It wasn’t because he liked me. The guy had
been married and had a kid of his own. There was no way he looked at me the way
she was saying. I was just a kid to him.
“Believe me, Dawn. I know men.”
Considering she was only eighteen as well,
I highly doubted she knew as much as she said. Frowning in thought, I turned my
attention to my drink and used my straw to stir it, watching the ice swirl
about in the dark liquid. “Well, it doesn’t really matter what you think,
because it’s not like that between us. We’re just friends.” I lifted my eyes to
meet hers. Who was she to come into my life and start poking her nose around
where it wasn’t wanted?
“Friends can have benefits, you know. It
doesn’t have to mean anything.” She grinned at me, moving her leg so she nudged
mine gently with hers. I shifted away slightly, feeling uncomfortable with her
insinuation. I didn’t like the way this conversation was going.
“I think it should mean something,” I
retorted. “The whole ideal of ‘swiping left’ and ‘Netflix and chill’ leaves a
lot to be desired in my opinion. No one seems to care about having decent human
connections anymore.”
Zeke sat forward, placing his hand on my
forearm to silence me before I went off on a rant. “Relax, Dawny, she doesn’t
know your stance on the subject.” He turned to Shea to explain while I looked
away and rolled my eyes. “Dawn feels very strongly about the current hook up
culture. She thinks things should be more old fashioned.”
“And what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong
with dating and being committed to each other before jumping into bed and
screwing?”
“Nothing.” He turned back to me. “But
that’s your opinion, and not everyone here shares that.”
Looking away, I chewed the inside of my
bottom lip to keep myself from ranting again. The amount of flack I’d copped
from covering for my own mother’s exploits, when I knew those mocking me changed
their partnerships as often as they changed their swimsuits, had me feeling as
though I was the only person left on the planet who cared about actually
getting to know a person before you got all naked and horizontal with them.
“Human’s aren’t meant to be monogamous,
Dawn,” Shea pointed out. “We’re not penguins. Sex should be fun. It should be
natural and unrestricted.”
“So you advocate random fucking?”
Smiling, she shook her head. “You
misunderstand. I advocate unrestricted love.”
“Unrestricted? Surely you don’t think laws
should be broken?”
Her expression stayed serene as she tilted
her head slightly. “Of course not. They’re there for a reason. But everything
else…I think it should be explored, and I don’t think there should be any shame
attached.” She exchanged a glance with Zeke that had my chest tightening.
Looking away, I knocked back my drink and
placed the glass with the remaining ice on the glass table with a thud. “Can we
change the subject please?” Discussing monogamy and sexual desires was
something that, unless you’ve witnessed the heartache a cheating partner caused,
wasn’t something you could discuss with me lightly. Zeke knew that. It was why he
never discussed girls with me, and why, besides sometimes picking them up in
front of me, he tended to conduct any sort of casual relationship he had going on
outside of my knowledge. I had no idea when and if he ever slept with other
girls, and I was much happier that way.
I think.
I looked out to the water as Zeke took over
the conversation and asked Shea where she’d lived before coming to Hargrave
Cove. She answered that she’d lived all over. It was stuff I’d already heard
throughout the day, so I sat quietly, half listening, half watching the world
go by, thinking about how much better life would be if men could keep their
dicks in their pants, and women could find value in things other than a
reflection in the mirror. The shallowness of the world made me sick.
On the beach I could see Scott Jennings throwing
a football to one of his Wannabes, his tan muscular body making every movement
look choreographed. Off to his right, Olivia Hunter was laid out on a towel,
her own entourage of Sunshine Barbie girls surrounding her, bikini tops untied
as they baked and completely ignored the Skin Cancer Council’s recommendations
regarding sun exposure to get the perfect line free tan. Every time I saw them,
I reminded myself that I wasn’t like them. I didn’t care about how pretty I was
or wasn’t. I didn’t care about hooking up with some guy at a bonfire every
week. I didn’t care…
Or so I told myself anyway.
Pushing the thoughts from my mind, I
focused on the fact that each day was one less day I had to spend watching them
all from the outside. School had finished a couple of weeks ago, and we had a
little more than three months until the University term would start. It was one
last summer of not fitting in. One last summer of being judged for who I was –
one last summer…
“Are you staying in town permanently, or do
you have plans to go to Uni next year?”
“Oh, I don’t think University is the place for
me. I prefer to get my education from life experience. It’s served me pretty
well so far. And, as for staying here…” She looked out to the water and closed
her eyes for a moment as she let the breeze caress her face. Then she turned
back to us, her blue eyes mirroring the water behind her as she took a breath
to speak. “I’ll let the wind decide.”
We let the comment sink in for a moment, as
if it carried some sort of great meaning within its words. Then Zeke and I
glanced at each other; his eyes were so full of amusement that I started
laughing. “The wind? Who are you –
Mary Poppins?”
Zeke had begun to laugh as well, and I
suppose Shea saw the funny side of it too, because she reached into her drink
and pulled out some ice, throwing it across the table at each of us. It started
a war of flying ice and laughter that ended in Luke having to tell us to take
it somewhere else.
“I’m sorry,” Luke said, his eyes meeting
mine, genuinely apologetic.
I shrugged to tell him it was fine, and we
all stood to go.
“Oh, lighten up, beautiful Luke.” Shea
jumped up and twirled toward Luke, wrapping her arms around his neck as she
looked up at him with a smile. He blushed and chuckled uncomfortably, gripping
her hips to push her away while he looked to me for help. “We’re just having a
little fun.”
I took a hold of Shea’s arm. “Come on,
Shea. We still haven’t seen the beach.”
With a giggle, she released a very relieved
looking Luke and spun around to grab both Zeke and me by our hands. “We should
go swimming.” I waved goodbye to Luke as she pulled Zeke and me down the stairs
to the beach.
Once we hit the bottom, she reached down
the pulled her dress up over her head, letting it fly in the wind as she raised
her arms skyward and let the billowing fabric go, running toward the water in a
tiny black string bikini that left very little to the imagination. I felt the
need to look away. But Zeke watched, tracking her movement with hungry eyes.
Instantly, my chest felt tight. Zeke wanted
her, I could see that. And given her views on sex and relationships, I could
see it would be very easy for that want of his to be fulfilled. Sex. They all
wanted sex. What was so wrong with wanting more than that? Why couldn’t it be
special?
Feeling like the third wheel, I considered
going back up to The Palms to get another drink and talk to Luke, who didn’t
seem to lose his mind over the attention Shea gave him. If anything, it seemed
to make him uncomfortable. Fleetingly, I wondered if perhaps it was because he
did like me in the way Shea had insinuated, but I dropped that idea as quickly
as it appeared in my mind. It was more likely that he was uncomfortable because
Shea was so young, and he was a grown man. Shea was just a kid, just like me.
He was out of our league.
Letting out a small sigh, I found the closest
bit of shade and headed over to it, leaving Zeke to stare after the most beautiful
girl Hargrave Cove had ever seen.
Big hint – it wasn’t me.
