Chapter 18
As the weather got warmer, more people were booking rides on the weekend and Mum and Ness’s business was taking off.
James and I were back to being mostly friends again, riding together almost every day and working together some weekends. I kept my comments about other people to myself and pretended everything was okay between us and it seemed to work. In fact, we were probably getting on better than before, which was weird. He now smiled when I said something funny (which was pretty frequent because I can be amusing when I try, and I was trying pretty hard because I definitely preferred it when he was friends with me). If his eyes were his best feature, his smile was definitely his second best.
In late Spring Ness called me to ask if I’d help one Saturday afternoon.
“It’s a bigger group than normal,” she said. “A whole extended family thing. The people are from Sydney and they want to go out for three hours.”
Ness paid good rates and I wanted the money so I said yes. Josh and Charlie had other things to do so I ended up working with just Ness, James and Tessa.
The group was celebrating a 60th birthday and I was guessing the birthday girl was the mother of the family because she was smiling widely and bossing everyone else around.
“I love riding and I hate parties,” she said loudly to Ness, who smiled patiently. “So I decided that at the age of 60 I could do what I wanted. No party! Instead, I’m making all my family ride with me. I’ve roped them all in and they can’t get away!”
The family were classy. Even if I’d wanted to laugh at them, there would have been nothing to pick on. They dressed well, they looked expensive and the younger ones appeared bored in a cool way. Kind of like Saffron and Tiger, I thought, and a tiny blob of jealousy started to bubble up in my brain. I was supposed to be saddling up but I couldn’t stop looking at them. There were about five or six boys and girls about my age or a bit older standing at the back of the group waiting to be fitted for helmets. I took a deep breath and remembered I was supposed to be working. Stop getting distracted, I thought.
But that was before I saw him.
The. Most. Incredibly. Handsome. Boy.
Ever.
He was surrounded by the others but as the group thinned out, there he appeared like a rainbow in the sky. Yes, I know it’s a cliché but I’ll admit to another one as well. It’s slightly embarrassing, but the second my eyes found him, my heart made a tiny little noise which could really only be described as ‘pitter patter’.
I lost my grip on the saddle I was throwing over Boldy and it went too far and landed on the ground on the other side. Boldy pulled back in fright.
“Sorry, boy,” I said. “Sorry.” But I wasn’t really trying to calm him down. My eyes were still locked on Mr Gorgeous.
A tiny bell went off in my brain. For some reason he looked familiar. I ran through all the possibilities—was he a brother or cousin of one of my friends? An acquaintance of an acquaintance? It was odd, but I couldn’t figure it out and in the end I had to conclude I’d never met him before. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t stop looking at his dark eyes, dark hair, muscles and a jaw line to die for. I melted slightly into my boots.
It was at that point I realised I was wearing very ugly boots. As well as dirty jodhpurs and a flanny.
Great. So much for thinking it wouldn’t matter what I wore just because I was riding.
I tried to hide behind Boldy so the boy could only see my head. At least I had some mascara and eyeliner on. I could hear his mother worrying at him: “Dee, do you have the right kind of jeans on? Can you make sure the others all put on their helmets?”
“Yes, Mum, take it easy.” He patted her on the back to reassure her but when she turned away he made a rude face. I laughed inside. If Ness saw that she’d have something to say. Once Tessa had done the same thing to her and she got a dressing down like I’d never seen from Ness.
“You don’t get to treat me like that, young lady,” she’d said. “I don’t mind if you tell me what’s on your mind. I don’t mind if you’re angry with me. But you say what you think. Let it out. You don’t walk away and pretend and then blow me off like that. It’s not honest. It doesn’t work for anyone in real life and it’s not going to work here.”
Dee had gone back to talking with the others. They were circled around him, giggling while he talked. The three girls were all trying their best to give him big-eyed looks and at one point he reached out to one of them and circled her in a hug.
Too bad! I said to myself. He’s got a girl... but I couldn’t finish my thought. James tapped me on the shoulder.
“Are you actually going to put that saddle on?” he said. “Do you want me to fix it? What are you doing?” He turned to see what I was looking at, narrowed his eyes and then turned back to me.
I hadn’t thought my tongue was hanging out, but he must have seen something that said ‘puppy crush’ and from his look I could see something was wrong. I tried to fix up my face to look disinterested and neutral but it was too late.
“Really, Coco? Are you for real?” he said. He sounded disappointed. Bored even. He turned away to pick up the saddle.
I was annoyed. “So what? I’m just admiring a pretty face. Haven’t you ever done that?”
“He might be pretty, but you can tell straight away he’s not a good guy,” he said. “Look. It’s all about him. He’s not interested in anyone else.”
“What are you talking about?” I said. I looked around. Dee had his arm around one of the other girls now. “He’s cool, that’s all. Cool people don’t have to be interested in anyone else. Anyway, they probably are—it’s just they don’t need to show it. That’s why they’re cool.” I was getting confused. “I mean, it doesn’t matter.” I teased him. “Maybe you’re just jealous.”
“Jealous?” said James. “What would I be jealous of?”
“Maybe that he’s getting some admiration?” I said. I made a face. “Look at Tessa.”
If I’d been gooey-eyed, Tessa was in full on puppy-love mode. Josh was forgotten. Dee was the ‘it’ boy. She was sorting out his horse and trying to get noticed. Unfortunately, when he did notice her, it was because of her, ahem, chest. I saw his eyes go from her bust to her face to her bust again. And then he smiled.
James’ eyes narrowed. “That guy had better watch it,” was all he said. I gave him a look.
“What are you going to do? Arrest him?” I said. “Have you got your handcuffs? Do you keep them in your hat?”
But James walked away without answering and my teasing words fluttered into the empty breeze and then plopped down into a puddle of mud and horse poo all mixed together. I rolled my eyes at him for good measure and said Humph under my breath because sometimes that just helps when you feel a little bit embarrassed.
The ride started. I was on Cupcake, who was great except when she saw a kangaroo in the distance. “Steady,” I said. “Calm down. Keep walking.”
Ness laughed. “She really doesn’t like them. And she hates wombats. You’ll have to watch out she doesn’t get spooked one day. If you go out in the evening, that is.”
I was watching out, but it wasn’t for Cupcake. It was for Dee. I kept my eyes on him, laughing and joking with his friends, the whole time. And on Tessa, who was following along behind, more in love than I’d ever seen anyone.
We wound around the path, up the fire trails, through the creek and into rain forest. Then it was up the cliff face where we stood to admire the view. Half way through we came down again and to the edge of the dam, in a paddock with a wooded bush area to one side.
“We’ll let the horses take a drink,” said Ness and everyone got off. “And we can have some refreshments too.” She got a surprisingly un-squashed cake and a knife out of a saddle bag, cut it up and handed it around. “Happy Birthday, Martine”.
“Oh, thank you!” the mother gushed. “Oh, this is so lovely! I’m so glad I didn’t have
a party. This is just beautiful,” and she went around kissing and double kissing everyone on the cheek while they all said, ‘Cheers,’ and, ‘Congratulations,’ and held up plastic glasses filled from water bottles to toast her.
It was then, in the middle of the noise and happy-birthday-hubbub that I needed to go to the bathroom. We were still a good hour from home and I knew I couldn’t wait that long so I slipped into the bush area away from the group to find a good spot. I was fussy about where I went after the whole slip-and-fall-mud-and-leech episode so I was looking around carefully for a place that was sheltered but not wet, as well as undetectable but not impossible to get into, when I saw someone ahead of me. And some voices. Through the trees, I could see a flash of red, the same colour as Tessa’s t-shirt. And then I could hear the voices get louder, almost urgent. And then it sounded like one of the voices was upset, and saying, ‘No,’ so I pushed through some dead tree branches to see.
It was Tessa, in her red t-shirt of course. But who was she with? I couldn’t quite make it out, although it looked like a boy and it looked like he had dark hair, but he was standing so close, almost pushing her over that I couldn’t quite tell. Is it Dee? I thought. Are they... kissing? But Tessa was kind of pushing him away for some reason.
I didn’t want to disturb her, but it didn’t look right.
“Hey, excuse me,” I said. “Um, sorry.”
As the boy looked up I could see it definitely was Dee. But Tessa didn’t look like she was in love any more. As soon as he moved she tore herself away from him and ran away crying, leaving me face to face with Dee.
An hour before I would have been ecstatic and excited to be alone with him. And don’t get me wrong, he was still gorgeous. But now it felt different. I saw a flash of anger in his eyes.
“Sorry, just looking for a place to go to the loo,” I said awkwardly, backing away.
He looked at me scornfully up and down and then stepped heavily past me without talking.
I stood there for a good minute, confused and almost a bit shell shocked. Should I check on Tessa? I thought. This is so weird. I scrabbled out past shrubs and dead trees and came out to the group who were still eating and chatting. Tessa was nowhere to be seen, so I looked around for James.
“Hey, have you seen Tessa? This funny thing happened,” I said. “I don’t mean funny-ha-ha.”
He raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“She was in that bit of the bush, just like a minute ago with that guy Dee and she looked really upset.”
He turned his head, looking for her. “What happened?”
“Well I don’t know. I mean, he looked kind of, well, angry. And she ran off crying. So...” It was hard to explain. Plus I felt super-embarrassed describing what I saw. “I just think you’d better see if she’s okay.”
James’ face looked black. “I’m going to get that guy.”
“What? No,” I said. “Check that Tessa’s okay. I’d find her but I’m desperate to go, you know...” and I gestured towards the bush and jumped up and down a little bit so he got the message.
When I came back, thankfully with no leeches on my bottom (or at least, none that I knew about) I found Tessa standing off to the side next to Boldy, quiet and angry and shaking her head. James was talking to her. He looked alarmed.
“Just tell me what happened.”
“No, it was nothing,” she was saying. “Just leave it, James. Not here. I’m okay.”
“If he hurt you...” He looked around accusingly at the group of people still milling around, admiring the view. Martine was at the centre of everything, monopolizing Ness and hanging off her arm. “Tell me all about this amazing property,” she was saying. I could see Dee on the other side of the group standing with his friends again, laughing and joking. But I could tell that he wasn’t really back to normal. He kept shooting death glances over to James and Tessa for some reason.
On the ride back Tessa and James and I stayed together at the back. Tessa was quiet. I was confused. James was angry. And I mean really angry.
When we got to the stables he waited until they were all about to leave and then he pulled Dee aside at the last minute.
“Watch it, mate.” He had his hand on his shoulder. I noticed that James was taller.
Dee shook him off. “Hey, you don’t touch the shirt.” Then he looked at James’ flanny shirt and his old jeans and laughed up close to his face. But it was more of a smirk. “Don’t touch what you can’t afford, mate.”
“I know your type,” said James. He hadn’t moved. Instead, he just seemed to get bigger.
But Dee could match him. “None of your business, mate,” he said. “Stay cool.” And he shrugged loosely. Then he got in his new model BMW with his laughing friends and was driven away.
It took another half hour to un-tack the horses and put everything away. Ness left us to it. I don’t think she’d realised anything was wrong and after ten minutes Tessa said, “I’ve got a headache,” and went home too. James and I worked in silence as usual but this time it was like walking on sharp knives.
When I finally couldn’t stand it anymore, I blurted out, “So what actually happened? Did Tessa tell you?”
“I can’t tell you,” said James. He had his back to me, hanging up the tack. “She doesn’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t want anyone to know.” But then, a second later, he turned around. His eyes were burning blue.
“I know you liked him, Coco. But you should stay away from guys like that. I know what they’re like. I’ve lived through the hassles they cause. Really. You should stay away.”
“But why?” I said. “Did he and Tessa have an argument or something? Why were they even in the bushes?”
“Are you really so naive?” said James. He looked at me like he was just seeing me for the first time. “He’s a creep. He was being creepy,” he said, his eyebrows furrowed, but not with anger. It was more like he was trying to kindly explain something to me. “Do you get it?”
“But I don’t understand...” I said. “He looked... I don’t know... nice. He looked cool.”
James made that noise that people make when they’re annoyed and they kind of breathe out through their nose but really sharp. Shmhhhhn.
“Yeah. He looked cool,” he said. He took a breath and then let it out again, like he’d thought about saying something else but then decided not to keep talking. “You know what? I’m done. I’m going home.”
I saw him shrug his shoulders and shake his head as walked across the driveway and up the path to his house. I looked after him, confused. Really? Creepy? That’s so weird.
Chapter 19
You’d think by this time I would have had enough changes in my life. You’d think that I would have deserved just a little bit of peace, a little bit of space, a little bit of tranquillity.
You’d think.
Ha.
Something was about to happen that would change everything, all over again. And just like before, I had no idea it was coming.
After the Tessa/Dee incident I decided to again try my tactic of pretending everything was okay between James and me but I didn’t really even have to because I hardly saw him at all. It wasn’t because he was avoiding me, or because we weren’t getting along. The main reason was that our house was actually, finally getting built.
The walls were going up and everyone was getting roped in to help.
It was a messy business. Dad wasn’t kidding around when he’d first mentioned mud brick. He actually meant bricks made out of mud. So we made mud bricks. And then we put them together into walls of mud bricks. And then we covered the whole thing with more mud.
At the same time we covered ourselves with mud.
No one got a break. Every single one of us ended up brown and mucky, head to toe, every single day. It was disgusting. But there was no getting
out of it. Dad was a surprisingly hard taskmaster. At first I complained and whinged and was kind of grossed out but honestly, once you’re covered with mud, it really doesn’t matter if you get a bit more on you. Somewhere around the third week it became normal. Plus as the walls got higher I actually got excited. The house was a good design and I liked to walk around on the slab floor and picture where my room would be.
But at the end of the day, every day, I was a mess.
The new solar panels were heating up water which was nice. We didn’t have to boil drums of water for hours like before, but now the length of our showers were strictly policed by Dad who had some kind of outside control built in.
“Coco! One more minute,” he’d yell, “and then I’m turning off the hot water.” A couple of times I stayed in too long and got completely frozen when he got sick of waiting for me. The shower was never long enough for me to really get my hair clean and it was a sad day when I realised that I’d said a permanent goodbye to shiny. Now my hair was pretty much stiff all the time. It looked like it had that really expensive product in it that boys use to get that ‘bed hair’ look. In fact, Josh’s hair looked awesome most of the time. But I’m not big on bed hair and the whole mud-as-a-stylist-product thing wasn’t really doing it for me.
A couple of times Samantha emailed me and suggested we chat on Skype but I put her off. I didn’t want her to see how I was looking. I could hear the criticism in her voice without even talking to her. So I just said that there wasn’t enough reception on our dodgy internet, that the video link didn’t work properly and the audio was scratchy.
But secretly, I was starting to not care so much about how I looked, especially when we were working. I dressed up to go out, of course, like I always had, but I wasn’t that fussed when no one else except family could see me. It kind of felt comfortable. And when we were all muddy, and all working, it was actually pretty fun, even though I didn’t really want to admit it.
The other thing I didn’t want to admit was that I was confused about Dad.
By this time, I hadn’t actually spoken to him for months, not since my birthday. We’d developed a sort of habit of communicating via Mum (although she still didn’t like it) but I think Dad was seeing if he could outlast me. Before, he would have either yelled at me or he would have begged me to talk and offered gifts until I did. Now, it looked like he was determined to do some sort of new parenting thing and wait me out.
So it was up to me.
At the beginning I’d said I wasn’t going to talk to him for a year. But a year was starting to feel kind of long. On the other hand, even though I was feeling happier, I still felt cross that he had moved us. If we hadn’t come here I wouldn’t have been feeling bad to begin with, so it wasn’t as if he had actually done anything good, right? And I was still very much planning to go back to Sydney.
The reason I was even thinking about it was because I nearly forgot the whole thing one day. We were lifting bricks and he said something as simple as, “Watch out Coco. Don’t want to fall backwards,” and up into my mouth came the words, “It’s okay Dad,” and then I suddenly remembered that I wasn’t talking to him and shut my mouth so they didn’t come out but I looked at him and he looked at me and really the words were completely beside the point because we’d communicated anyway. And I couldn’t tell him so but the look we had felt warm and familiar. And I realised I’d missed him. A lot.
And then I didn’t know what to do. But I thought I’d better stick to my word and see the year through, even though I didn’t really want to anymore. I still had to show Dad that he couldn’t push me around because I was still angry about it even though I was a bit happier.
I know. It sounds complicated. My head hurt when I thought about it.
Sometimes when Dad was building he got Mum to go into Kangaroo Valley to the post office or to pick something up from the little hardware-shop-that-was-not-a-hardware-shop. This shop sold everything: hardware, fishing tackle, chickens and, get this, antiques. (Seriously, country businesses make me laugh. Does someone just wake up one morning and say, “I know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I’d like to open a shop that sells building supplies, poultry and vintage goods. Oh, and I’ll cater for the local fisher folk as well”?)
If we decided to go with her, Mum would usually buy us a hot chocolate at a little cafe without a name (the owner turned out to be a woman called Charlie which our Charlie liked a lot, plus she made the milk really fluffy and always added a marshmallow). Other times we’d get to look in the shops which turned out to be kind of cute. I mean, I’m not into rocking horses or wooden bowls but there were some earrings even I would have worn in one of the gift shops. And Charlie can never walk past homemade fudge.
I didn’t realise that it would be in the sleepy little village of Kangaroo Valley that everything would change all over again for me.
The day that it all started turned out to be a normal Spring day. Charlie, Josh and I had been working with Dad on the house all morning and Mum had been working with Ness. Suddenly she came tearing across the paddock. “I’ve got to go get some horse feed and this is the only time I can do it: do you want to come?”
It’s weird how one decision—one tiny little decision that hardly even seems important—can have everything to do with your future. I didn’t know that this trip was going to have bigger consequences than I could imagine. I couldn’t have known that my dreams and hopes were going to be tossed around again without me even being aware of it.
“Yes or no. Right now,” said Mum.
“Yes, okay,” I said, shrugging, and climbed in the car with Charlie.
It was only then that I looked at her and she looked at me and we both said, “Yuck!” Our hair was muddy, our clothes were caked and our gumboots could hardly be seen because of the layer of brown all over them. Even Charlie’s face had brown splatters on it.
But it was such a beautiful day that I was more interested in enjoying the sunshine than looking at myself. Anyway, no one knew me in Kangaroo Valley, so how could it matter if anyone saw me?
We dropped into the hardware shop and put the mortar and the horse stuff in the bag. “Hey Charlie, look,” I giggled. “You could buy eggs and paint.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Or screwdrivers and a vintage chair.”
“Stop it, you two,” said Mum. “The man will hear you. You’re being rude.” She got out her credit card and went to pay. “I think we should probably go straight home,” she said in-between pressing buttons on the machine. “Dad will be expecting us back and Ness needs the feed this afternoon.”
“Noooo,” whined Charlie, like a five year old. “Can’t we get a drink? Please? Pretty please?”
I added my voice to hers. “Go on Mum. It’s like the first time we’ve seen actual buildings and people for weeks. I think my body is saying that I neeed a hot chocolate too.”
Mum clicked her tongue against her teeth and gave us a look. “Okay. But just a quick one. We’ve got to get going.”
Later, when I thought about it, I realised that if we’d gone back to the farm, everything would have been different. I never would have been seen and the photo would never have been taken. But how can you know the future? And would you want to, even if you could?
We sat in the cafe waiting for our drinks and watching the tourists go by. For such a little town the place was packed. There were bikie couples in black leather, caravan tourists in shorts and joggers, lovey-dovey weekend-away couples and family groups with kids and teenagers.
With sunshine on my back, fresh air in my nostrils and warm hot chocolate in my mouth I couldn’t help smiling inside, even though I didn’t want to let it be known that I thought Kangaroo Valley was actually one of the cutest places I’d ever seen.
“This is such a gorgeous place,” said Charlie.
“I know,” said Mum. “I love it.”
“It’s pretty good,” I said. “I mean, it’s not Sydney, but there are some cute shops. And it??
?s pretty.”
Mum looked at me, pleased. “I’m so glad you’re feeling more at home here.”
“A bit. Not completely,” I said, although I knew I was fibbing. “You know I’m going back to Sydney next year still, right?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she said, still smiling. “Although I wonder how you’ll feel about that after Pony Camp. I have this feeling it’s going to change things for you.”
“Change? Maybe not. But it’ll be an awesome weekend,” I said. “I’m looking forward to it.
The talk about Pony Camp had been building for months. My attitude had gone from don’t-care-a-single-bit to vaguely-but-not-openly-curious to can’t-wait-till-it’s-on. Ness had been running it for years and from everything Tessa and James said about it—the riding, the laughing, the staying up all night telling jokes—I was expecting a very fun weekend. Mum was going to help out with the cooking and looking after equipment but she’d promised to stay in the background so we wouldn’t get embarrassed.
“It’ll be great,” said Mum. She swirled her coffee around in the cup and drank it down in one gulp. “Are you girls ready to go?”
“Do you mind if I just go over to the gift shop and see if they still have those earrings I was looking at last time?” I said. “I’ve got the money in my wallet today. I might buy them. But I’ll be really quick.”
“I’ll come too,” said Charlie but as she stood up she spilt the rest of her drink. “Whoops,” she said, grabbing a napkin and dabbing at her T-shirt. “You go ahead. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be there in a sec.”
So I headed across the road and into the shop. As I went in, I vaguely heard a gasp and the click of a camera but when I turned around to see what it was, the door of the shop swung shut onto my face. I rubbed my nose and blinked a few times and moved away from the door just in time to see Charlie come in, looking puzzled.
“I think someone just took your picture,” she said.
“Who?” I said.
“I don’t know. A girl. I’ve never seen her before. She was sitting in a cafe and I saw her watch you cross the road.”
“Not Tessa?” She was the only girl that I knew here that I could think of.
“No, duh. Of course not Tessa. I think I could recognise her. This one had sunnies on. Kind of trendy. Red hair. A bit snooty maybe?”
“Creepy,” I said. “Maybe it was a stalker.” I made a fake scaredy-cat face. “Or maybe not.” My eyes lit up. “Maybe she’s a model talent scout on holiday in sleepy Kangaroo Valley and she’s just seen me cross the road and suddenly her holidays are over because she thinks I’m super gorgeous and she’s going to call me up and offer me a contract to go to New York and Paris.”
“You think?” Charlie looked towards my mud-spattered outfit. “Maybe in a parallel universe where dirty is clean and clean is dirty.”
“Hmm. You’re right. A shower is probably the first step towards a modelling contract in my case,” I said, looking rueful.
“Yeah, but not with Dad timing you.” Charlie laughed. “You’ve got to actually wash that hair you know.”
The door swung open again, narrowly missing my nose. It was Mum. “Are you girls done yet? We really have to go.”
With the trip home and the new earrings and the talk of Pony Camp, I forgot all about the stalker/model contract photograph thing. It hardly seemed important.
And anyway, something else happened the very next day. I got into an argument. And this one was a big one.