At ten, she went next door to Mejida’s house. Mejida and her husband owned a car service business; sometimes Mejida helped her out and rolled the car fare into the rent.
“Sorry to bother you again,” Larissa said. “But I think something is wrong with Kai’s bike, and I can’t get in touch with him. I’m afraid he might be stuck in town. Would you mind terribly…?”
“I don’t mind driving you,” Mejida said. “But it’s three weeks into July and you haven’t paid the rent.”
Larissa was shocked and embarrassed. Kai usually paid Mejida; Larissa thought it had been all taken care of.
“Not only not taken care of,” said Mejida, “but Kai paid me only half of June. I won’t even mention the hundred dollars in cabs you took between then and now.”
“Oh,” said Larissa, stepping off the porch. “Thank you for not mentioning it. I’ll be ready in five.”
She sat like a stoic in the passenger seat, not even enough guilty courtesy for a grateful conversation, too mortified that a month and a half’s rent was due, and she knew, knew, they didn’t have even a hundred bucks put away toward August. Mejida was an attractive, heavy Indian woman who always smelled of curry spices. Cumin, coriander, and cardamom like a savory rice pudding. Tonight, the sickly sweet spices were making Larissa subtly nauseated.
“So is it true what Bart tells me?”
“I don’t know, Mejida. I didn’t even know you talked to Bart.”
“Of course I do.” Bart and Bianca rented out skis and toboggans to the tourists whom Mejida and Umar then drove to Thredbo.
How could Larissa forget. “What does he tell you?”
“Well…” Her soft Indian voice belied bluntness of her words, “Bart said you had a husband and children in the United States you left to be with Kai.”
“Bart told you this?”
“Actually, Bianca.”
Larissa stayed composed. “Why would Bianca talk to you about me, Mejida? That’s weird.”
“No, not weird. I complimented you and Kai on your commitment to each other despite your age difference, and Bianca told me that you sacrificed quite a lot to be with him.”
Larissa said nothing, digging her sharp nails into the palms of her hands to force herself to keep steady and silent. She didn’t remember ever telling Bianca anything. She didn’t talk about personal things to their new friends. Perhaps Kai did? Except Kai was even more closed-mouthed than she. He talked only about the weather; he sang songs; he told jokes.
“Well, I think it’s incredible,” continued Mejida. “Not everybody can do it, view the rules of society as nothing more than a contrivance. Kudos to you. You the individual triumph over social constraints. Have you kept in touch with them?”
“Have I kept in touch with them?” What a strange question! “Um, no.” The rules of society? What was she talking about? It had nothing to do with that. It had to do only with love. When were they going to be there? Didn’t Mejida see the arms twisted around Larissa’s stomach to stop her from hearing more questions?
Mejida clearly didn’t see, busy driving down dark winding roads, because she continued evenly. “It’s odd to imagine you as a married woman with children.” She chuckled. “It doesn’t seem like you at all. You fit so perfectly with Kai. You both give off a slightly dislocated vibe. Like two journeymen. A mother, a wife doesn’t jibe with that.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“I can’t imagine you as a mother at all,” Mejida declared as she drove. “Motherhood is a word that has too many geographic limitations. I don’t feel that with you, either the sacrifice or the convention.” She smiled pleasantly in profile.
“You don’t have any children, Mejida?”
“No, we just got married.”
“Three years just.”
“We hope to have children soon, when the business is more established. We want to be a little more secure.”
“Yes, it’s always good to be certain of the future,” Larissa said through her teeth. She and Jared waited to have Michelangelo until they were more secure.
“Well, you probably don’t think so. You’ve proved that. But it’s important to us.”
Larissa said nothing, wanting this conversation to end, this ride to be over.
“How come they haven’t visited you?” Mejida asked. “They’d like it here; all children do. They could learn to ride horses, ski.”
“Well, we have horses in America,” Larissa managed to get out.
“Yes. But I’m sure they’d like to visit you.”
“I suppose,” Larissa said.
“Oh, my goodness,” exclaimed a startled Mejida, turning her face to Larissa. “I just understood. You haven’t been in touch with them at all, have you?” She sounded shocked. She stammered a little. The two women fell silent.
Staring straight ahead, Larissa spoke scornfully. “Mejida, obviously I can’t explain it to you. You don’t have children.”
“Ah,” said Mejida, calm again, mild. “Do you think, Larissa, that if I had had children, it would make it easier for you to explain to me how you could have left yours?”
“This’ll be good,” Larissa blurted suddenly. “Drop me off here. It’s fine.”
Mejida pulled into a little parking lot near a closed trinkets shop. They were still half a mile away from Balcony Bar. “Thanks so much for the ride.” Larissa slammed the door so hard, the empty beer can standing upright nearby fell over and rolled down the roughly paved lot.
She was glad for the walk in the dark, to will herself to calm down. She had never liked Mejida. She felt judged by her, critically appraised and dissected. She couldn’t believe her friend Bianca talked about her to that woman, of all people! Oh, the spirit of idle talk, the malicious banter. What did Mejida care what Larissa did with her life, anyway? Since when did she become Larissa’s confessor? Larissa couldn’t believe they owed that woman and her lewd husband rent money. But perhaps that’s why Mejida talked to Larissa like that—because she knew she could. The conformity of it, the illusion of control, the threat of eviction, of blackmail. Larissa wished she had longer to walk to get to Balcony Bar.
The place wasn’t busy since it was Tuesday and none of the locals or the migrants got paid till Wednesday. There were a few people at the bar, a few at the tables, the music was subdued, which meant Creedence instead of Van Halen. She spotted Kai right away, standing in a social circle—Bart and Bianca (damn her) and laughing people Larissa had not seen before—holding a tall glass of frosty beer in his hand and telling a joke. His ukulele lay behind him on the barstool. He looked like he hadn’t a care in the world. What was she going to say to him? Didn’t he know that she’d been alone all day? And was that his responsibility?
When he saw her he waved and, pushing through the group, walked jauntily toward her. He was wearing ragged jeans, black boots, a jean jacket over a gray hoodie. His hair was tied back away from his stubbled face; he left this morning without shaving. “Hey,” he said, “aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. Whatcha up to?” He kissed her without hesitation. And why not? Did she expect hesitation? Was she looking for it?
“Why are your eyes sore?” she said, standing close to him. “I was waiting for you. I made you dinner.”
“I’m sorry.” He put his arm around her. “I didn’t know you were cooking. I thought we had no money.”
“Yesterday you said you were tired of going out all the time.”
He laughed. “I was supposed to get dinner from that?”
“But you went out—without me.”
“Just a quick drink after work.”
“Kai, it’s ten in the evening. Everything closes at six. What ‘after work’ are you talking about?”
The bloom washed off his face, a frozen smile drifted across it. “No fighting,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you were making dinner. How was I supposed to know? What’d you buy it with?”
“What are you buying drinks with?”
“Billy-O bought th
e rounds tonight. I told him I’d take care of him tomorrow when I got paid from Snowfield.”
“Who is Billy-O? And tomorrow we’re going out again?”
“Well, it is pay day.” He grinned. “Come, I’ll introduce you. Billy O’Neal. He’s one of the drifters looking for work.”
“Oh, so more competition.”
“No, he’s a brumbie hunter. Different business from me. Come.”
“You just met him and he’s buying you drinks?” Larissa glanced in the direction of the group by the bar, watching them, waiting for Kai.
“I didn’t say I just met him.” His arm was still around her. His face was close. He kissed her again, sweeter. “Come on. Have a drink. They’re nice. Bart. Patrick. Billy’s hysterical.”
“They’re all nice?”
“They’re all nice.” His free arm went around her waist, to pull her to him. “No one’s as nice as you.”
But when Kai introduced her to his new friends, Larissa was suddenly not so sure that no one was as nice as her. Billy-O’s squeeze in particular…perhaps the girl was tipsy, or perhaps this was the way all Billy-O’s broads giggled at Kai’s jokes, but this one seemed extra pleased to be having a drink in his company. Who was she again? Billy-O was a ranger, a sloppy-looking tiny, tiny dude out of the bush, worn, faded from the sun. He was wiry like a jockey, his face looking like it spent twenty hours of every day outdoors. Larissa assumed he was in his twenties, but the weathered lines in his hands and cheeks made him look fortysomething. The girl’s age? Younger. She was smooth-skinned and pale; she wore a wide-brim hat to shield herself from the Australian winter sun.
With Creedence desperately wanting to know if she’d ever seen the rain coming down, Larissa couldn’t catch the girl’s name, her rank, her connection to the proceedings, her connection to Billy-O. She couldn’t even catch Billy-O’s connection to Billy-O. Who was he again? Horses? Well, then, how did Kai know him?
“Billy-O came here to find work a few months ago,” Kai told Larissa, “and stayed. He doesn’t ski, just like us, but he found work in the local stables taking care of the horses for the winter. He wants to go round up some brumbies for his own business.”
“Billy-O has a business?”
“Yeah, he runs a stable out west. He’s got an amazing life. He goes out into the grasslands, finds the wild horses, brings them back, tames them, and then sells them. But now he’s looking to keep a few of his own; he wants to start a horseback riding business in the National Park. They need to be really docile, though, to withstand tourists on their backs. Most of the horses he owns are barely tamed.”
Larissa stared at Kai through the puzzled pinpoints of her troubled eyes. “You sure know a lot about him.”
Kai shrugged. “We got to talking, became friendly.”
“But where would you meet someone like that?”
Kai shrugged. “I went to look for work at the stables in Thredbo Valley.”
“You? The stables?”
“I know a little bit about horses. I used to clean them in Maui before I got into masonry. I can handle a horse. Anyway, it’s work, what do I care?”
“Did you get, um, work?”
“Not yet. Listen, you want a drink or what?”
Or what, Kai. Or what. Out of their remaining few dollars, he bought her a Jager. They lived without cell phone service, without a bicycle, without a car for her, and the rent was two months late. But he had to spend three bucks to buy her a Jager. If only they had something to drink at home, maybe they could go home to drink it. Maybe if they had something…but what was it? What did she want from her cottage on Rainbow Drive? Perhaps a little bit of Bellevue Avenue? But which part? The domestic part? The cleaning and cooking part? The laundry part? The unread books? The soft down bed in which she spent her winter mornings? Or something else? It was something else, something larger, yet smaller, something indefinable. The glass of Red Bull and Jagermeister liqueur in her hand started to shake, duly noted by Kai because he turned his shoulder to her and started talking to Billy-O and his girl.
As he was talking, Larissa, with incomprehension, watched Kai pour off a little of his beer into Billy-O’s girl’s glass. She hadn’t even asked! As he was chatting away, he just held the girl’s glass steady and poured. Maybe Larissa’s narrowed eyes were failing her. It was dark in the bar, and Creedence was now demanding to know who was going to stop that damn rain, and then Steppenwolf informed her they were on a magic carpet ride, and all this questioning noise and darkness made it hard to think in a place where the jukebox was loud and other people joyous, standing too close to hear each other; other people, not Larissa. She was squinting, constricted, tired, feeling unbeautiful, standing wondering who it was that had the emptying glass into which her lover poured a bit of his cold beer. When were they going to leave? When would this end?
The girl’s name was Cleo Carew. Larissa found her name pretentious and pornographic. It sounded made up, created specifically for stripper work: first name from the name of her horse, second name from the street where she lived as a child, e.g. Bunny Highland or Josie Mary. As if her real name had been Martha and she changed it to appear more slutty. As if she needed help in that department, with her jeans three sizes too small and her pink sweater too thin, too small and too low. She wore a horror-show amount of makeup, laughed obnoxiously loud, flung her slick blonde hair around and thought herself disproportionately attractive. Yet Kai poured his beer into her glass. What was up with that?
Larissa couldn’t wait for the opportunity to ask him.
“Ready to go?” she said after another half-hour had passed.
“One more drink and we’ll go.” It wasn’t a question.
She wanted to shake her head, say, look, no more drinks. After all, I’m on the back of your bike. The uphill road is dark and twisting. But he obviously didn’t want to go home. And something inside Larissa rebelled against making him. If he couldn’t see straight to the time of day, she wasn’t going to be the one to point out to him it was quittin’ time. Not here, anyway. She shook her head to another drink, and tried in vain to participate in a conversation she neither heard nor cared to hear. Cleo was giggling non-stop.
She watched Kai drag out finishing his drink, like he was chewing gum long after the flavor had gone out. She watched him as he talked, his animated face, his straight-up spine. And when she glanced away for a moment, in the dark, she noticed that Cleo was watching him also, his animated face, his straight-up spine.
“Well, it’s time I go,” he said to Cleo. Not time we go, but time I go.
“So soon?” whined Cleo. “Come on, have another drink. My round.”
“Thanks, but no.” He smiled. “I won’t be able to ride my bike.”
“I’ll drive you. I got a car.”
“I think the designated driver might need a driver,” muttered Larissa, and Cleo laughed, and Kai too, and Cleo said, your girlfriend may be right about that, and Larissa cringed after being so superficially acknowledged by this female stranger.
Cleo stuck out her hand to Larissa. “It was nice to meet you,” she said. “You have a cool accent.”
“I don’t have an accent,” said Larissa, reluctantly shaking hands. “You’re the one with the accent.”
Cleo laughed like it was the funniest thing she’d heard all night—and that was saying a lot. “You’re in our country, now,” she trilled. “Do as the Romans do.”
Larissa didn’t know what that meant. Was an accent something the Romans turned on and off at will?
“Does she even know who the Romans are?” she said to Kai as they walked out.
“Oh, come on,” he said, taking her hand. “Sure she does. She’s a good kid. Nothing wrong with her.”
“Who is she?”
“Not quite sure. Friend of Billy-O’s, I think.”
“What’s she doing in town?”
“Looking for work. Like everybody.”
“Gee, there must be something a girl like her c
ould do around here,” remarked Larissa.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s with the tone?”
“What tone? No tone. You had too much to drink.”
“Be that as it may, there was still a tone.”
Thing about a bike, it wasn’t like a car. You couldn’t fight on it on your way home, so that by the time you reached your house, you were halfway done arguing, and all that was left was the makeup sex. On the bike, Larissa had to hold on to him, sit behind him, and he had to concentrate on the road so he wouldn’t crash. They didn’t speak. When they got home, they hadn’t even begun.
His tactic when they walked inside the house surprised her. He took her in his arms. “I’m sorry,” he said, bending to nuzzle her neck. “I’m sorry I didn’t come home and eat dinner. I know you’re upset, but I don’t want to fight with you. Honest.” He smelled like strong beer, like smoke; he held her tightly.
“Kai…” she wriggled away so she could look at him, “why would you go out knowing I’m home and we have no money and I have no car, and I’m waiting for you?”
“I’m sorry, Larissa,” he said. “It was thoughtless. I wasn’t thinking. I lost the job at the Ski Village. They didn’t have anymore work for me. I was upset, and I needed to think.”
“To think or to drink?”
“To think.”
“You went to a bar to think? You lost your gig, the money that comes with it, and then you went to a noisy smoky bar and spent money we don’t have so you could clear your head?”