“I don’t know. Maybe he’s always had it easy and never had to try?”
“No way. He moves too well, carries himself with pure confidence. There’s no bravado there. Which you’d notice if you took a look by the way.” She purses her lips in my direction.
“Fine, Nana, I’ll look at your candy.” With a reluctant sigh, I turn my attention to this Leo character and try to appreciate him for the ‘specimen’ Nana thinks he is. I don’t need to look for long.
Wow.
Dark hair, slick from hard work. Glistening skin, tan and taut, stretched against the most perfect six-pack I’ve ever seen outside a magazine. He even has that V thing that makes my insides do a little flippy cartwheel that steals my breath and makes me go, “Oh.”
“Exactly. Doesn’t matter how old you get, a body like that doesn’t go unnoticed.” Nana lifts her hand like she’s about to call him over.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m calling him over. A bit of a flirt is good for the soul, dear.” She grins and calls out, “Yoo-hoo, Leo,” while she flicks open her fan and flutters it at him like she’s performing some Victorian era courtship ritual.
My eyes go wide in horror. I am so not OK with him coming over. He’s too beautiful and I’m a mess. Looking at men from a distance is one thing but calling them over and engaging in conversation when I’m, oh God…when I’m wearing one of Nana’s kimonos. Which wouldn’t be a problem if Nana wasn’t also wearing a kimono. We’re sitting here in matching outfits. Kill me now.
And now he’s running towards us. Great.
And he’s smiling. Eyes moving from Nana to me. She’s wearing a pink kimono, mine is blue. We look like the fairies in Sleeping Beauty fought over colouring us and neither of them won.
And now he’s smiling even more.
Fantastic. He thinks I’m a joke.
“Hey, Esme,” he says as he gets close, eyes meeting mine with an overly amused smile. “Hi. I don’t think we’ve—”
“JOHN CENA!”
I see my son diving through the air but I don’t realise what’s going on until it’s too late. “Archer, no.”
Oof.
Oh shit. My hands cover my mouth as Leo goes flying sideways, taken out by a tackling eight-year-old practising his WWE moves.
“Da da der dah,” Archer sings, holding his fists triumphantly in the air. I rush to where Leo is lying in the sand, gripping his knee and groaning.
“Are you OK?”
“My knee. I think I tore something.” I help him sit while crouching beside him.
“Oh God. I’m so sorry. He’s…” I try to search for the right word as I inspect Leo’s sore knee. “Rambunctious.” I glare at Archer who’s suddenly looking very sheepish.
“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” Archer swears, his voice high, distressed. One harsh word and he’s going to burst into tears.
Leo nods and waves a hand. “It’s OK, kid. This knee’s been playing up for years.”
“It doesn’t look dislocated or anything,” I say, prodding it lightly and watching for his reaction. “But it is starting to swell.”
“Can you stand, Leo?” Nana asks, taking Archer by the hand and holding him safely beside her. “Darcy here studied osteopathy at university. You can come to my apartment, ice that leg, and she can take a proper look at you.”
“An osteo?” he asks, grunting as he lets me help him up. He has the most magnificent eyes. I’m not sure if they’re green or light brown or both.
“It was the plan. But I didn’t even get past the first year. Became a mum instead. But I can definitely ice it and help you strap it if needed.”
“I’m game.”
Helping him walk the short way across the street to Nana’s apartment building, I settle him on one of the outdoor chairs then go inside for ice. Nana is walking back slowly with Archer by her side. They’re talking and I’m wondering what’s being said while I place the bag of ice on the table and shift another chair over to elevate Leo’s leg.
“I’m Leo,” he says, holding out his hand while I’m standing with his foot tucked under my arm, placing cushions beneath it.
“Oh, I’m sorry. We haven’t properly met, have we?” I drop his foot. “I’m Darcy.” He winces in pain as his foot slips past the cushions and bangs against the chair. “Oh no. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Can this get any worse? “I’m not normally this clumsy. Here.” I pick up the bag of ice, my movement hasty as I try to recover. But instead of handing it to him, I toss it and he doesn’t catch it. It sails past his long legs and lands on his lap, clocking him right in the cojones.
“Fuck.” He groans and doubles over, jerking back again when his knee objects to the forward movement.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” I’m muttering and trying my best to somehow right a situation that just seems to be getting worse and worse. Then the tears come. I don’t even want them but here they are anyway, leaking out of my eyes and making me look crazy and hormonal. “I’m sorry,” I say sniffing. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
“It’s OK. I’ll live.” He’s still kind of groaning through the pain as he meets my eyes and gives me a wan smile. I catch a note of sympathy there. And that just makes the eye leaking even worse.
“Bloody hell.” I turn away and wipe at my eyes with the backs of my hands.
Leo wraps a large hand around my left wrist and looks up at me with concerned eyes. “Are you all right, Darcy?”
You know when you’re upset, and someone—especially someone who has no real reason to be kind—asks you if you’re OK then you say you’re fine but you start crying just because you were asked? Well, that’s what this is like. One hint that someone sees I’m struggling and I’m a blubbering mess.
“I…” I can’t get any more than that out before my throat tightens up.
“How’s the patient?” Nana sing-songs, pulling open the gate.
Leo gives my wrist a light squeeze before he releases me and turns his attention to Nana. “Nothing a restraining order can’t fix.” He looks at me and winks, offering me a half-smile as he places the bag of ice on his knee. And he’s gorgeous, so the whole comment and accompanying action is completely adorable. I know it’s a joke, but I’m not myself, you see. So, I don’t react like my usual sane self by laughing along and seeing the funny side of the clumsy ‘help’ I’ve given him. Nope, that doesn’t happen at all. What does happen is far more embarrassing: I burst into full blown tears. And not your regular quiet sobs either. No, they’re great big heaving, wailing sobs that make me look unstable.
Unable to stop, I do the only thing I can. I run inside the apartment and lock myself in the bathroom. I’m not coming back out until Leo is gone. Or until I get really hungry…or until someone else needs to use the bathroom…or maybe when hell freezes over. I don’t know. I’ll play it by ear…
SIX
LEO
A door slams somewhere inside the apartment, causing us all to jolt slightly from the sound. It isn’t the first time I’ve sent a woman running in tears, but it is the first time I wasn’t an arsehole before it happened.
Or was I?
I quickly run through the few words Darcy and I actually said to each other, and decide that no, I wasn’t an arsehole…this time.
“Seems like you two really hit it off,” Esme says, an amused glint in her eye as she takes a seat beside me.
“I hear I’m an acquired taste.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Is she okay? Should we check on her or something?” I ask, adjusting the ice so it’s balancing properly on my knee. She was dressed as Esme’s younger twin, and like her grandmother, Darcy is a good-looking woman. Although, judging by the way she ran off crying, she might also be crazy. Which would make sense, I tend to be attracted to women with problems bigger than my ability to fix them. I went to a therapist once who called it a superman complex. Whatever that means…
“Don’t all women run from you screaming?” Esme’s smilin
g and I can tell she’s just joking, so I take no offence. The woman has the heart and humour of a twenty-year-old inside an eighty-something body. She won’t tell me her exact age, but since I live next door to her, she’s told me enough stories about her youth that I’ve done the maths and narrowed it down to a decade. In this whole complex of apartments, she’s definitely my favourite person. A lot of the older women are just busybodies, but Esme is a lot of fun. I have a lot of time for her.
“Nana, is Mummy okay?” the little boy who tackled me asks, tugging on Esme’s sleeve while he stares at me with big blue eyes that match his mother’s.
Esme cups his heart-shaped face between both of her palms. He’s a cute kid. When he isn’t attempting to dislocate knee joints. “She’s just fine, Archer. Tired from too much sun, so I think we should leave her to get some rest. Why don’t you go and have a look in the freezer? I think there might be some Icy Poles in there.”
His eyes light up and he runs off, brown hair bouncing, his mother’s distress already forgotten, but then he stops suddenly and turns back around, biting at his bottom lip as he takes a squint-eyed look at my propped leg. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Leo,” he says.
“It’s OK, mate, I know you didn’t mean it.”
Satisfied with my response, he smiles and resumes his run for the freezer. Kids that age are so easy. So different from the moody teenagers they become.
“Seriously though, is Darcy all right?” I ask Esme, keeping my voice low so the little John Cena fan can’t hear me.
Esme nods. “She will be. She’s just had a rough few days, nothing a bit of rest and reprioritising can’t fix.”
“She’s the granddaughter you keep talking about, right? The one with the husband who won’t let her visit?” I didn’t get a good look at them side by side to see a family resemblance. Darcy has light blonde hair with big blue, sad puppy-dog eyes. While Esme has almost metallic grey hair with sharp dark eyes that take in everything around her. They have different energies too. Something I’ve only started noticing since Esme opened my eyes (well, senses) to them. We have some very interesting conversations.
“Not anymore, the husband is out of the picture now.” She says that part real low then holds a finger against her lips so I know that information is secret.
“No wonder she’s upset.”
“Oh, he was awful, Leo. Jo kept me abreast of the situation over the years, and I really don’t understand why she stayed. But that’s neither here nor there I guess. The point is, she’s here now and I feel like I have my girl back.” Esme smiles, looking like she’s revisiting a fond memory. “She’s my favourite if I'm honest.”
“I never would have guessed.” I smile. She loves telling me stories about her granddaughters, Darcy in particular. I get the impression she’d have liked a daughter, but she only had the one son and stopped having children there. I’m not sure why.
“My son didn’t do a lot of good in his life, but he gave me granddaughters so I’m grateful for that.”
“You don’t talk about him much.”
“He passed a few years ago. Complications from alcoholism.”
Oh shit. “I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t realise.”
“How could you? As you said I don’t talk about him. Our relationship was…complicated. When he married, he chose the woman who hated everything outside the norm. A very straight-laced judgemental woman. When they divorced, everything became even more complicated. He went a little wild and I could never get through to him. I think that perhaps we were too similar and too different at the same time. Does that make sense?”
“Oddly, Yes.”
She reaches over and gives my forearm a squeeze. “Of course it makes sense to you, dear. You and I are kindred spirits.”
It sounds ridiculous and cheesy but I have to agree. “You know you’re my favourite person, Esme.”
“Don’t let Arthur hear you say that. He’s the jealous type, you know.”
“Arthur? I thought I saw George down here the other night?” She nods and I can’t help but laugh. “How many have you got on the go this time, Ez?”
“Four.” She giggles like a girl and I shake my head.
“Building yourself a harem, hey? Good for you.”
“What can I say? I have a lot of love to give.” Esme is the most gregarious of the senior citizens in our building. The single and widowed men (and a lot of the married men) all think she’s the sun and the moon. It’s odd to observe, because younger men wouldn’t be as willing to share a woman’s time the way they are. But somehow it works, and they all walk out of Esme’s apartment the next morning whistling with a little more bounce in their step.
“Although, I do think I should drop it to three.”
“Uh-oh. Your list has had a casualty?”
“Not that kind of casualty. I just think Arthur and I need a break. He’s from upstairs—I think you met him at last year’s Christmas party—and he wants things to become a little more serious between us. Doesn’t like sharing with the rest of them.”
“And you aren’t interested in settling down with only one guy?”
“Oh no,” she says, crossing her legs and smoothing her long dress over them. “At my age, serious is the last thing I want. I’ve been married three times, all ended in divorce within the first couple of years, which I took as the universe’s way of telling me to remain a single free spirit. Nothing ties me down. Except the sea of course, I will always be connected right here to this spot.” She takes a deep lungful of air, serenity softening her features. “Did I ever tell you that the house I grew up in and raised my son in was also here?”
“Right here?” I point downward. I haven’t heard this story.
She nods. “They knocked it down to build this complex. I was one of the first to buy off the plan.”
“Wow.” I sit back, knitting my brows together. “You sold your family home to make way for the apartment building?” I’m not sure I could do something like that.
“Seven other families and I did. I’m the only one who stayed. The rest took the money and ran, I don’t know where.”
“Did you want to sell your house?”
“Not at first. I decided that keeping this view to myself was selfish”—she gestures to the expanse of beach and ocean to our side—“so I sold along with everyone else, allowing this project to go through. I’ve met so many wonderful people because of that decision. I have no regrets. A life shared is a life well lived, don’t you agree?”
“Says the woman who says no to commitment.” I smile. I love her brand of wisdom. Primarily because she reminds me a lot of my late mother. She also lived an unconventional life. She was fiercely independent, never married, refused to rely on anyone else to provide for her. When she fell pregnant with me at forty-one, she’d been around the world twice already. While she didn’t exactly plan on having children, when she learned of my existence, she trusted that The Fates had stepped in to show her a greater plan for her life. And she was honestly the best kind of mother I could ever imagine having. She supported me through every important moment in my life—my rugby career, my marriage, my son…my divorce. She was always there, always ready to cheer me on or listen when I needed to talk, and she was so wise and worldly. I didn’t always appreciate that when she was around, but now that she’s gone, I realise how much I miss her words and guidance. Sometimes I feel like she talks to me through Esme. But that’s probably really weird and something I’d never say out loud, so don’t tell anyone, OK?
Esme waves a hand in the air, the light reflecting off her quartz ring. “I don’t say no to commitment, dear boy. I say no to monogamy, to boredom, to sameness. I can’t live my life on loop, as there’s far too much to do.”
I nod slowly. She’s so right. Every time I have a conversation with Esme, I leave her apartment feeling like my mind has expanded. I’ve realised that in life you need to be more than just book-smart. You need to be life-smart too. When my mother was alive, I was too
caught up in myself to let her wisdom fully sink in. But now that I’m older, more mature, I listen to Esme spout similar theories, and her words connect dots from my past and spark understanding in my present. Most of my life was about football: training, playing, then commentating, reporting. I’ve had ‘a life’—my mother would have called it a big life—but most of it felt like running on a treadmill—so much effort that didn’t really get me anywhere. Each day was focused on football, football, football. Until it wasn’t anymore. I’m not sorry that it’s gone. And I’m not sorry all the hard work paid off financially. I have no real regrets over the way I conducted myself during those years. I always gave it my best and I’ve made life-long friendships, meeting and succeeding goals beyond what I thought possible. But I am glad that I’m not living in that loop anymore.
“I get where you’re coming from, Ez. But I can’t say I agree with you on the monogamy thing. I don’t think I could share a woman I cared about.”
“You do strike me as a one-woman guy,” she says with a smile.
“I am. And I like it that way. But I do agree with you over living a varied life. It’s a little soul sucking to keep repeating the same old routine day in day out.”
She turns a little in her seat, folding her arms across her middle. “If you could change two things about your life what would they be?”
“Only two?” I say, giving it a bit of thought. “I think the first thing I’d do is quit running.” I laugh a little as I lift the ice pack from my knee, which is looking considerably swollen. It’s not dislocated, but I’m pretty sure I’ve torn something. In truth, I probably should have quit running a long time ago and chosen something with less impact on my joints. Years of football have not been kind to my body.
“And the second?”
I look inside to where her great-grandson, Archer is devouring a lemon Icy Pole, kicking his feet that hang over the edge of a chair while he sits at the table, watching some superhero cartoon on the TV. He seems so innocent and carefree. I feel a sense of longing in my heart just watching him. “I’d force my ex to let me spend more time with my son. There is only one year left where I can legally request to spend time with him. After that, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I think I’ll lose him.”
Love is a Beach: a romantic comedy Page 4
