Taking His Own

by Jessica Wildblood

  “Shut up.”

  My Dad looks up from his breakfast plate of coconut rice, spice paste and egg. Nasi lemak, what his mother used to make him for breakfast when he was a kid, and now what my mother’s learnt to cook using the ingredients from the local market. “Have you fallen out with that boy?” he asks gruffly. Chance is always that boy to my Dad. Hell, I should be pleased Dad notices there’s one particular boy at all.

  “We haven’t fallen out,” I say. My stomach drops into my bare feet as I speak. I realise I have no idea whether or not it’s true. “I just haven’t heard from him in a few days. I’m worried.”

  Dad puts down his chopsticks and stands up. He’s tall, considering he’s half-Malaysian – when I was growing up I always thought there was no-one in the world as big or as strong as my Dad. His black hair and the ginger scrub of a beard he inherited from our Scottish grandfather give him a look that’s just as wild as any of the orangutans he’s come here to study. Chance was never afraid of Dad, like all the boys Mariam used to bring home – but Dad never thought much of anyone, Chance included. I’m cringing to think what he’s going to say next.

  “It’s tough being so far apart,” he says, with surprising gentleness. “You two ought to be proud of yourselves for sticking it out this long.”

  “It’s only been a month,” I protest. I don’t like the tone of finality he has when he says this long. As if he’s expecting the worst.

  “All the same, Zara. No matter what happens next, you can rest easy you gave it your best shot.”

  I can tell he’s trying hard to comfort me, but this is the last thing I want to hear. I turn around and run back up the stairs, to my unfamiliar bedroom where my clothes are still half packed in my suitcase. I hadn’t wanted to finish unpacking. Part of me hasn’t wanted to accept that the move is real.

  I sit on the edge of the bed and let tears drip slowly from my eyes. I know that Chance and I are going to make it. I could be on the moon and he’d still come for me. They’ll all see in the end – when he gets here, when he buys us our first home with the money from his business and when we’re living together as husband and wife, then they’ll have to see…

  There’s a soft knocking at the door that can only be my mother. She slowly pushes it open without waiting for a reply. In her hands is a bowl of chopped purple dragonfruit – my new favourite – and a glass of juice.

  “I really can’t eat,” I say.

  Mum sits next to me and pulls my head onto her shoulder. She starts stroking my hair gently, the way she used to do when I was a little girl. I got my hair from my Dad – dark and thick, where Mum’s is thin and pale and turned an early grey. She keeps it hanging in a long, complex plait down her back. I used to be fascinated by its intricacy every morning, watching her fingers wind the plaited knots.

  Our blue eyes, though, the same eyes that twinkle out of Grandma Christine’s face, those are the same.

  “You’re not the only one who’s finding this tougher than expected,” Mum whispers to me, once my tears have dried. “It’s a long way to come for someone else’s dream. But the most important thing is that we’re all together, Zara. We can get through anything as a family, and we’ll get you through this.”

  “I don’t need getting through anything,” I say. “Chance is just… busy. That’s all.”

  I’m lying to her. She knows it. I know it. We sit a moment in silence.

  “Mariam says Chance was hoping for some money to come through,” Mum says awkwardly. “Apparently he’s starting up some kind of business with that awful tearaway James Kelsey. That doesn’t sound too wise to me…”

  “The business is doing well,” I say coldly. “Mum, they’ve made –” I stop myself. I don’t have Chance’s permission to share his success, yet. He’s never actually asked me to keep it quiet, but I know he doesn’t want it splashed around. “Mum,” I whisper, trying to make it clear I’m speaking in confidence now, “they’re signing contracts with banks. With big businesses. They’ve got a lot of money coming in, Mum. It’s really happening. Mariam doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “Hmm.” I can tell she doesn’t believe me. That’s fine. I don’t need her to believe it. Chance is going to get here in five months’ time and then she’ll have to accept he’s everything I say he is. “If that were true, Zara, I would have to ask myself whether he would want to give that up to come here at all.”

  A cold shock washes over me as if she’s tipped a bucket of icy water over my head. I don’t let on how close to my heart she’s struck. “Chance is busy,” I snap, “and I’m overreacting. None of this would be a problem if you hadn’t made me move here in the first place. I wish I’d stayed with Grandma Christine!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” coos my mother, shocked by my anger. “Your grandmother doesn’t have space for you. She’s too old to take care of you properly. Zara, you may feel like a grown woman but it’s too much to think that you’re ready to start your own life alone while your family are on the other side of the world. You’re better off here with us, child, whether you believe it or not. Family sticks together. No-one else will be there for you when it all goes wrong. I’m afraid you’re about to find that out for yourself soon enough, but…” She sighs. “Your father and I are very impressed that you and Chance have kept your relationship going even for this long, Zara. But you haven’t been eating properly. You’re not sleeping. You spend hours on your computer every day when you should be out exploring the island. Your suitcase isn’t even unpacked, love. He’s stopping you from really living your new life here.”

  “He is my life!” I shout. My fists are clenching in my lap. Mum presses her lips together and holds me even tighter as I try to pull away. Tears burst from my eyes again. A huge, tearing pain rips through me as I feel as if for the first time just how far, how impossibly far away I am from Chance. My heart wants to step out of my front door and walk ten minutes around the corner, knock at his front door, hug his mother and run up the stairs to his room to see what the hell is taking him so long to call. But I can’t, I can’t. There’s nothing I can do but wait. And call. And wait. It’s agony. I collapse into my mother’s arms and howl with pain.

  Once this second, wilder storm has passed, I find myself clinging to my mother’s lap. My head is pounding, my eyes are swollen almost shut. My throat is hoarse from crying. She’s still stroking my hair, humming the little tune she used to sing me to sleep with. It almost starts me crying again to hear it, but there are no tears left in me.

  “Oh, Mum,” I croak. “I don’t know what to do. If I don’t hear his voice I’ll go mad.”

  “Let’s see what we can do,” she says. She leaves the room for a moment and comes back with her mobile and a prepaid phone card for sixty minutes. “Here. I was going to call your Grandma this afternoon, but I can always buy another phone card. See if you can get through to him on this.”

  I grip the phone in my hand and try not to let my fingers shake as I dial his familiar number. My heart thumps in time with the dialling tone as I press the phone to my ear. International calls always take forever to connect. Mum watches me nervously from the doorway, then shakes her head and steps outside, giving my privacy. I know she’ll be listening at the door. She’s got a dog’s sense for earthquakes – she knows something’s wrong.

  His mobile rings off and goes to voicemail. I leave another one, just like every one before it. “Chance, it’s Zara. Please call me. I need to talk to you. I want to hear your voice. I’m getting worried about you. Bye.”

  I’ve got plenty of minutes left on the phone card. Without even stopping to think that it’s the middle of the night in the UK, I dial his house phone. It rings for a full minute, and I’m preparing to leave another voicemail, when Peggy Madison picks up – his mother. She sounds sleepy, but not too annoyed.

  “Hello?”

  “Peggy? Peggy, it’s Zara. Please, is Chance there? I just want to know he’s alright –”

  “Oh
, Zara.” She sighs heavily. I’ve never heard that tone in her voice before. Kind – she’s always so kind – but full of regrets. “I thought it would be you at this hour. My darling, please don’t take this the wrong way. I think it’s best that you don’t call here anymore.”

  “What?” I feel as though she’s slapped me in the face. “But why?”

  “Chance doesn’t want to speak to you. I agree with him, dear. It’s for the best.”

  I wish I could say more in this moment. There has to be something, some magic word I can produce, that will make her pass the phone to her son so that I can speak to him and end this nightmare. One conversation with Chance and this will be fixed, I know it will. Everything will be right again. We’ll be right back where we were.

  But my tongue is lying frozen in my mouth. I’m shocked into silence as Peggy wishes me the best for my new life in Malaysia, as she tells me how lovely it’s been to know me, while she gushes about what a nice girl I am and tells me how sorry she is it’s all ending this way.

  Then she hangs up, and it’s over.

  Everything’s over.

  My whole life, my future, my dreams. Gone. Just like that.

  It’s another two days before I recover from the shock enough even to cry. Oh, but when I do cry, it’s as if the tears are making up for lost time. I’m wracked by sobs which double me over, which throw me to the ground, which pin me to my bed. There’s a constant ache in my head and a pain in my stomach from the breath I have to gasp for. When I walk through the house I feel as though I’m floating through a dream world – or a waking nightmare. I don’t go outside. The sunlight only hurts me, because I can’t see Chance’s face. I barely eat. I don’t want to nourish my body, and the bones in my limbs start poking out awkwardly. My family worry themselves sick, but I hardly notice. My mind consumes itself with this problem, this unsolvable mystery. Why?

  I had everything. I had a life. I had it all planned out: a future, a home, a partner to take me through everything from my first job to raising our children to our dying days. Now it’s gone, and the one person who can tell me why is stuck on the other side of the world, out of my reach forever.

  I beg my father for a plane ticket home, but he refuses. My life now is here. My half-life, my walking misery. He doesn’t understand, even when I grow so bone-thin that you can count every rib on my chest.

  Through it all, I still love Chance. I love him so fiercely that it burns a hole in my heart each night as I lie in bed, fighting to sleep. I love him, I love him, I love him.

  Until the weeks tick into months, and the pain in my heart still wracks me, and I look out at the sunlit world my sister’s enjoying and I realise how much I’m missing by sitting here and loving him. And I try to let go of my pain, my love, and my crushed dreams, and I realise that my heart is still trapped in the memory of Chance’s arms.

  It happens slowly, but it does happen. I can’t go on any longer dedicating each breath to the memory of a lost love. No, I can’t forget him. I can’t wring him out of my heart. But slowly, as the clock ticks off each painful second without him, my love for Chance warps into hate.

  It’s the only way I can find to survive.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Zara

  Present Day

  There are pros and there are cons to having my sister for my boss. A definite pro is the casual work environment: I take the morning shift, which means the Moon Beach Snack Shack doesn’t open until I rock up out of bed. Also on the pros list: the location – we’re right on the edge of one of the most stunning beaches Sarawak has to offer. Mariam was lucky to get this place when she did; just a couple of years after she bought the Shack, a property developer bought the empty lot opposite and built up a posh hotel complex. That means that as well as the usual crowd of surfer bums and travellers, we get an influx of suited and silk-tied businessmen looking for the best view on the island with their morning coffee.

  Of course, what really attracted Mariam and I to Moon Beach was nothing to do with savvy business decisions or even the Snack Shack with its cute wooden rafters and its polished driftwood bar. It’s the same thing that sucks in the hordes of tourists year in, year out – the surf. That tops out the list of reasons I’ll never leave Moon Beach. Forget the A Levels I never managed to finish or the nursing degree I once dreamed of completing. Who needs any of that when you can serve coffee for a couple of hours in the morning and surf all afternoon?

  The Snack Shack’s surrounded by shady palm trees and there’s a tiled floor that needs sweeping clean of sand a few times a day. We hire pot washers from the traveller crowd in return for letting them bunk down in the attic for free. We’ve got it made – well, Mariam’s got it made. And I’m riding the crest of her success.

  That’s not to say there aren’t a few cons here. One, my sister’s head inflated a few inches last year and she decided to have me and the other waitress wear a uniform. That triggered off a few blazing rows. In the end, I gave in. I’ve got too cushy a number here to risk rocking the boat. It’s just a t-shirt with the Snack Shack logo, a cutesy pink I would never pick out for myself, and a little mini-skirt that at least is comfortable in the heat.

  The other issue is that when your boss’s hiring policy is chiefly based on what goes on in her panties, it doesn’t always make for a tranquil working environment. So far this year we’ve had Stuart the Surfer Stud who had to use his fingers to count to ten, Benji the Buff Backpacker who helped himself to the liquor supplies every evening and almost drank us out of business, and worst of all, Kyle the Kleptomaniac Kitesurfer who ran off with the contents of the till one evening, never to return.

  This morning I’m being treated to the delights of Louis, who ought to be frying eggs in the kitchen but who’s spent so much time out front staring at my ass in the mini-skirt that I’ve smelt burning more than once. Haven’t decided yet what his nickname’s going to be. Louis with the Loose Morals, perhaps.

  “That’s one fruit salad and a coffee with sweet milk for table three,” I say, pointedly jerking my thumb towards the kitchen. Where he ought to be. Louis gives me a wink and looks me up and down one last time before he turns around. I don’t bother concealing my shudder. This guy is sleeping with my sister, after all. Not that she’ll take my advice when it comes to men – I know that from experience.

  I’ve never understood what Mariam sees in any of these salty-haired surfer dudes who pass through our coffee shop. Oh, they’ve got rocking bodies for the most part, sure. They can talk about mushy waves and reef breaks all day long, if all you want to do is talk surfing. And a lot of the time I do like that. I love to surf. So do they. If all I wanted in life was to drink beer and surf and talk about surfing and hook up with hot strangers as they passed on by, I’d be in heaven.

  Ok, scratch that. I guess I am in heaven. Because there’s nothing more out of life I’m really hoping for right now.

  Mariam finally shows up as Louis is handing me the fruit salad. He doesn’t leave it on the countertop like he’s supposed to, but makes me walk over and take it out of his hands so he can run his fingers up my arm. I let him do it, seeing Mariam behind him, and jerk my arm away, spilling the salad as if it’s an accident. “Hey!” I shout, louder than I should. “Don’t touch me like that! What’s wrong with you?”

  Customers’ heads start turning. Louis looks at me with hurt in his eyes. Hurt, and a little sick arousal. Ugh. Whatcha gonna do now, jerk?

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Mariam asks. Her hair’s still damp from her morning swim – she’s barely bothered towelling off. Her pierced bellybutton pokes out from underneath the too-tight pink Snack Shack shirt she’s got on, two wet orbs from her bikini top already soaking through.

  “This fucking perv tried to grab me,” I snarl. I’m giving Louis my best dragon glare. He wilts a little.

  “It was an accident! I saw you were going to drop the plate, and I –”

  “Liar!”

  “Ok, ok, calm dow
n,” says Mariam. We’re putting on quite the morning’s entertainment for her clientele. “Louis, let’s step outside a minute, babe.”

  “You’re not going to take her side?” he demands, his narrow eyes flashing. Mariam raises a cool eyebrow.

  “She’s my sister, sweetheart. Are you calling my sister a liar?”

  Everything about Louis’s body language is screaming out guilt. He’s twitching like a rat caught in a trap. His head bobs nervously from side to side, looking for a way out. “Ah, screw it,” he snaps. “I don’t need to wash your lousy pots, Mariam.” He rips the apron off and flings it onto the ground. A smattering of applause follows him mockingly out the door.

  “Yeah! Good riddance!” calls one of our regulars. He waves his cup at me for a refill as I catch his eye. I offer him an ironic little bow and duck into the kitchen to see if I can repair the damage caused by a morning of Mariam’s latest squeeze.

  Mariam stays a minute to check on all the customers and follows me in, shaking sand out of the apron Louis left on the floor.

  “Sorry about the jackass,” I say.

  “Oh, he wasn’t any big deal.” Men never are to Mariam. It’s something I’ve always admired about her – and never quite been able to pull off myself. “You’re going to have to work double shifts till we find someone to take over, though.”

  “Jeez, I get molested by your boyfriend and now I’m put on double time,” I complain. I’m only joking, but Mariam looks guilty.

  “Ok, ok. I’ll step into the kitchen this morning. It doesn’t look too busy out there but I don’t want to leave you on your own.”

  “I can handle it,” I assure her. Mariam rolls her eyes. We both know I wasn’t cut out to be the world’s most excellent waitress.

  “It’s fine. There’s a conference happening in the Sunview Hotel anyway. I’m hoping to catch a few of the big business types, and you know they always order half the menu. Go on out and take Amar his coffee.”