Chapter Seven
The Sunday lunchtime shift was dead. It was like a graveyard shift at best.
But why wouldn't it be? Everyone was lake bound and enjoying themselves. My heart ached as I looked out through the windowpane of the poolroom, which was, incidentally, my job for the afternoon: to clean off drunken blow fish marks from Saturday night.
"I don't remember reading this in the brochure," Ellie said glumly as she sprayed Windex and cleaned fingerprints off the jukebox. Her bracelets clinked with each vigorous rub.
"Melba said we had to 'earn our keep'," I air-quoted.
Chris was nowhere to be seen. He had his own room upstairs; more 'lurks and perks' of managing the bar, on top of lock-ins, was, obviously, free board. That left Uncle Eric in charge of the day shift, something he was much more accustomed to. The place was breezy; slower and less high maintenance during daylight hours with just a handful of church-skipping tradies having a quiet cold one as opposed to the rowdy twenty-something crowd of a Saturday night.
It would be our second day into the Irish Festival and I was prepped; I wore my infamous Guinness top with a black skirt so I didn't look like a body double for that 1960s chick from the Avengers. We had a few lunchtime walk-ins, mostly tourists all damp and sun-kissed from swimming or lying out by the lake. Seeing them put Ellie and I in a whimsical mood, so we made plans to break away to Mclean's Beach between shifts.
But until then, forced to endure everyone else enjoying their holidays, the afternoon dragged on. I couldn't stop myself from turning each time the front door opened, my heart skipping a beat in hope, but the Onslow Boys never appeared. I guessed that they had better things to do on a Sunday afternoon. I could only hope they'd venture out when the sun went down.
At shift's end, we bolted down the hill in a highly unlady-like fashion, bags bouncing on our shoulders, arms flailing, breaths laboured. Our minds focused solely on reaching McLean's Beach at the hottest part of the day. It would be crowded and overrun, no doubt, but not so much by tourists. The beauty of Maclean's Beach was that it was always crowded by locals rather than tourists, just the way we liked it. Although I would often complain about tourists, I did get it. How could I not? My parents constantly reminded me.
"No tourists, no livelihood, Tess."
Mum and Dad's cafe on the main strip of Perry - a direct line into Onslow - proved to be the perfect busy stopover. Mum was an excellent cook, taught from Gran and no doubt her Gran before her. She specialised in traditional family home-cooked recipes and Mum's homemade pies were a big hit. It had made my heart clench when the Onslow Boys gave them the tick of approval as the 'best pies in town'. I wondered if Mum would remember them coming in. I'd have to ask in a way that wouldn't make her suspicious or have me sound like a stalker.
As time ticked on towards the dinner shift, Ellie and I packed up our towels we had stretched out on for an afternoon sunbaking session and headed for the hotel. We walked past the mechanics, where I knew Toby worked. Naturally, it was closed on Sunday, but I did have the slightest hope that Toby might have been in there, anyway. He could be doing a bit of weekend catch-up. Being a sweltering summer afternoon and all, if he was in there, he'd most likely be shirtless. Hey, it was my fantasy.
My gaze skimmed the exterior of the closed building. Faded block lettering read 'Matthew & Son' on the tangerine and blue workshop. Toby's dad, Matthew Morrison, had been the local mechanic for as long as I could remember. It was where everyone went. Since he was the only mechanic in town he could have named his price, but he was a real decent bloke and always charged reasonably. Or so my dad said. I squinted at the sign; it should have really read 'Matthew & Sons' seeing as Toby and his older brother, Michael, both worked there. That in itself was a real testament to their dad. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love my parents, but I could never work for them. And believe me, they had tried. One of the upsides of working at the Onslow was my parents stopped pestering me. They seemed pleased enough that I had stepped out of my comfort zone and was trying, at least. One look at my lacklustre waitressing skills, and they would probably thank their lucky stars I'd never agreed to work for them.
"Well, look at you."
Ellie gave me a side-on look.
"What?"
"Checking out Toby Morrison's workshop. It's Sunday, Tess, he'll be long gone."
I should never have told her about liking Toby. She was like a dog with a bone. Even more frightening was the scheming matchmaking side to Ellie that I knew she'd lose control of sooner or later. Probably sooner. Ugh, why had I told her?
She frowned at me. "What's stopping you? Tell me one good reason why you won't go there, Tess."
We crossed the main street, leaving Matthew & Son behind.
I half laughed at her. "One? Ha! I'll give you five!"
"Go on, then!"
I held up my thumb to begin the count.
"One! Before two days ago, I am pretty sure he didn't even know that I existed."
Although he did know my last name.
"Two! And this is a pretty big one: he's what? Twenty-two? And I'm seventeen. You do the maths."
Ellie shrugged. "Maths isn't my strong point."
It was five years too many.
"Three! He is Toby Morrison. Popular, gorgeous, charming ? and I am TIC TAC TESS."
Ellie sighed. "You're struggling."
"Four! He works, I'm still at school. I doubt he would be interested in coming to Deb practice."
Ellie rolled her eyes stubbornly. "I must say, I'm still unconvinced."
"And number five," I breathed out. I had a horrible suspicion. Although I hoped it might not have been true, I seriously doubted it. "Number five," I said again, "Toby has a girlfriend."
And her name was Angela Vickers.
You would have had to live on another planet to not know Angela Vickers. 5'10", blonde, hard to miss. She was School Captain when I was in Year Ten, and, oh, how all the boys mooned over her, with her perky blonde hair and perfect perky breasts. None of which would have mattered, only that even the likes of Toby Morrison was obviously not immune to her or her assets. It bewildered me that Toby was like all the other predictable males when he seemed so different from them. I had been in love with Toby ever since the first time I saw him.
At the end of Grade Six, all students from Perry Primary were taken for a one-day orientation at Onslow High School. We all gathered around like sheep staring in wonder at the 'big league' we were about to enter after our summer holidays. I was drawn to the burst of laugher that had me turning to see a boy, a boy with the most brilliant smile I had ever seen. I decided I simply had to know his name, and then, like a gift, one of the boys he was laughing with said it.
Toby Morrison.
I found out that his dad owned the mechanic shop in town, so any chance I had, I would deliberately walk past it hoping for just a glimpse or to cross paths with him. My heart was all aflutter with the sight of him, and merely the thought of him was what had me anxious to start high school, to the point I started marking down the days on my calendar.
Of course, I learned the hard way that he was in Year Twelve and had graduated by the time I started high school. So that was that. My crush on Toby faded away and life went on, even if I did always think of that smile every time I walked past his dad's shop.
For the next few years, I saw him only every now and then at the Sunday markets or more fleetingly down lakeside with his mates. It was by pure chance one time, when I was fourteen, that I walked past Matthew & Son and saw him out the front in grease-stained overalls, talking to a customer about their car. He looked older, his hair longer, hands covered in greasy remnants of a hard day's work.
He was working for his dad! And I nearly ran into a pole.
My heart had pounded just as it had that first time at orientation. My secret crush was just that, an utter secret. I told no one; I didn't even confide in Ellie or Adam. Especially not Ellie. I was always terrified about confiding in h
er over my secret crushes as I'd learned from experience that it usually resulted in her marching up to the boy I liked and blatantly grilling them with the most obvious question of all: "So what do you think of Tess McGee?"
So Toby had become a non-negotiable secret, for the years that followed I would obsess about him only to myself. Until one infamous day in Year Ten woodwork when the latest rumour had circulated to my table. The big news that Angela Vickers was going out with the mechanic's hot son. My heart withered at the thought, and, just for the record, bad news during woodwork is not ideal; I nearly lost a finger that day. I had to accept it: the Angela Vickers of this world would always get the boy, and I would always be Tic Tac Tess.
But then, at the Onslow Hotel I wasn't Tic Tac Tess anymore, I was just Tess or McGee. I was like anyone else. The horrors of high school would soon become nothing more than a distant memory, even if that was little comfort to me now.
"Toby has a girlfriend?" Ellie asked. "No, he doesn't. Who?"
I sighed. "Yeah, perfect Angela."
"Oh yeah, we hate her," Ellie said.
For the smallest of moments, I had forgotten. Like when he stepped out of the darkness at the party, or the way he looked at me when I brought the meals into the bar, or the feel of his hand touching mine. No doubt I had over-analysed his every movement, his every facial expression, but I'm allowed to. That's what girls do. For those fleeting moments, however, I had managed to forget all about Angela Vickers.
"So they're still together?" Ellie asked.
"I see her car parked at his place all the time," I said.
Ellie gasped. "What are you doing outside his house? You total stalker!"
"Shut up!" I said, blushing. I could feel the familiar burn in my legs as we started our climb up towards the Onslow. "It's not like that. His place just happens to be on the main road to Perry. It's kind of hard to miss."
You had to crane your neck and look really hard, of course, but I would leave that little fact out. I knew Toby had his own place, though I didn't know how I knew. It was like knowing Sean's name or Stan's name. You don't know how you know, you just know. It's what's part and parcel of living in a town with a population of less than 3000; you knew all kinds of irrelevant stuff about each and every one of them. Toby's place was a mission brown shack, set back off the main road with a long sweeping driveway hidden amongst immense bushland. Even though it was set back and private, you could always tell if he was home. His navy Ford ute parked in the drive or, worst case scenario, Angela's red Lancer parked behind it. He had lived there since he was in Year Twelve, and I thought it was so grown up that he moved out of home, unlike most eighteen-year-olds in town.
I tried to imagine what the inside of his house was like, or if he could cook and use the washing machine. I would imagine that he would be pretty good with his hands, seeing as he fixed cars for a living. All of the little quirks I had been obsessing about since I was thirteen were now back in the forefront of my mind. And admittedly, I had never felt so unhappy about it.