by Karen Wood
There was a collective gasp from around the marquee.
Holly spun around and saw Kaydon’s hand raised. Beside him, Chrissy looked like a cat waiting for fresh fish. She sat cool and confident, radiant in her red dress. Her makeup looked freshly applied, giving her glossy lips and dark eyes. She scanned the room, daring anyone to challenge the bid. The bracelets up her arms jingled as she replaced a strand of hair behind her ear. She shot Holly a tiny, victorious smile.
Holly squirmed. This she could do without. She looked for the exits, but the room was silent and focused on her table. No way would she escape unnoticed.
‘Any more bids over seven hundred dollars?’ the auctioneer asked.
After a brief silence, the auctioneer gestured to table nine with his hammer. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the first dance goes to Kaydon Armstrong.’ His hammer came down with a final bang. Kaydon stood up and grinned across the table to Dan.
There were wolf-whistles and catcalls. The music struck up a new tune. Kaydon walked out towards the auctioneer, pulling his wallet from his jeans pocket as he went.
Okay, so he had a smile that made a girl’s heart go fluttery, he would never have to eat cheese and pickle sandwiches for dinner, and he rode around on a big, muscly stockhorse. And he was nice to six-year-old kids. So what. He came from a different world. A world Holly would be leaving as soon as possible.
20
Kaydon felt his wallet in his back pocket, bulging with the notes that Mr Parker had slipped him. It couldn’t have suited his plans any better. It certainly suited Chrissy’s. And tonight was all about raising money for drought relief in Queensland. He was doing his bit, right? They all were.
Why did it feel all wrong?
During the slide show, Holly’s silhouette had caught in the deep blue light of the projector. In the dark, he had let his eyes wander over her bare shoulders while she watched the presentation. Only moments ago, he had made her smile, and it had made his heart roar like a lion. He wanted to make her smile again.
But this prize didn’t belong to him. It belonged to Chrissy. It had been bought by her parents and his, for her. And he had a bet with Dan he needed to win. It was all set up.
Kaydon shook himself out of it. Why would Holly Harvey care who he danced with?
The entire room cheered as he stood and walked past a smiling Mr and Mrs Parker, to the auctioneer. He handed him the cash and then went back to table nine.
Chrissy was already standing, perfection in red with her hair swept up. She smiled. He walked over and held out his hand for hers, and as he took her hand he felt it tremble a little. She was nervous?
‘Let’s get our seven hundred bucks’ worth,’ he said, flashing a smile. With dancing, confidence was everything.
He led her to the dance floor at the front of the marquee, which had already been covered in dusty boot prints. He put his hand on Chrissy’s waist and held her in a relaxed position. She placed one hand on his shoulder, the band struck up a slow waltz and coloured streaks of lights began whirling around the marquee.
Kaydon started with a simple box-step and three-eighth turns and found he could easily guide Chrissy around the floor. It didn’t take long before they were box-stepping counter-clockwise around the small dance space. The music changed and the band started playing ‘Lady in Red’; Kaydon heard the crowd laugh. There were hoots and whistles and Chrissy giggled.
‘Did your dad organise that?’ he asked.
‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘Dad controls everything, trust me. He’s not just a rock nerd.’
‘What’s a rock nerd?’ Kaydon assumed it was something to do with dancing. He quickened the turns and brought her in an arc around the small grassy floor. A man with a camera knelt at the corner of the floor taking photos.
‘Oh look, photographer!’ Chrissy whispered. She pulled suddenly on Kaydon’s hand and tried to drag him the other way.
He pulled back firmly, hard enough to take back control but not so forcefully as to break the rhythm. ‘Don’t do that,’ he hissed. ‘Tell me where he is and I’ll take you there.’
‘He’s over there, by the dessert table,’ she said, swinging her head back over her shoulder.
‘Then stop gawking at him and keep dancing,’ he said. ‘Unless you want to fall over.’
He let go of one of Chrissy’s hands and opened her out like a book, then twirled her back in again. He waltzed her around some more before lifting her arm over his shoulder into a cape, waltzing forward a couple of steps before bringing Chrissy back into a closer hold. He got on his toes and brought her around into a series of overturned spins and syncopated pivots, making her squeal with delight.
From the tables, people cheered and hooted. He grinned at Chrissy. ‘I kinda organised something with the band too.’
Within moments, recorded dance music took over from the band and Kaydon shot Chrissy a challenging smile, before breaking into some ridiculous twerking moves. She responded by slithering into some provocative cat-dancing and the marquee nearly imploded with calls and laughter.
The music eventually slowed and as it came to an end, Kaydon took Chrissy back into a hold. ‘Ready for a dip?’ he warned, before adding an extra side step and sliding his leg behind hers. He turned his body towards hers and lowered her backward, arching her low and taking her nearly to the floor. She screamed before he brought her back up again and he laughed. Throwing a girl into an unexpected dip was always fun.
The music stopped and the MC took over again. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please join Kaydon and Chrissy on the dance floor and have a good night!’
The next song had barely started and Kaydon was still puffing when Chrissy slid her hands from his chest up to his face. She pressed her lips to his, taking his breath away. Before he could think his mouth was open and she sealed the kiss with a quick lick of her tongue before pulling away.
‘There’s your seven hundred bucks’ worth,’ she said in a husky voice.
Kaydon stood gaping while the marquee erupted with applause. From the table where his friends sat came a chorus of guffaws. ‘I thought the rule was no tongues?’ Kaydon said, when he got his faculties back.
‘I changed the rules.’ She took his hand. ‘Shall we?’
At table nine, Matthew had his fingers in the corners of his mouth and let rip a shrill wolf-whistle. Henry drummed his fists on the table and hooted. Dan pushed his chair from the table and walked away. He quickly merged with a crowd of people that descended on the dance floor.
The dance area filled with other couples and Kaydon was patted on the back several times before he and Chrissy got back to table nine. ‘Thanks for the dance,’ he said, returning her to her seat and feeling relieved that his duty was done.
He looked around for Dan and found him by the bar taking another glass of beer.
‘Seems you’re staying put tonight,’ he said, triumphant.
Dan stared into his drink with a hard face. ‘What? Did you bloody pay her?’ he snapped.
Kaydon was taken back. He laughed. ‘Yeah, so what? How’d you find out?’
‘Aaron.’ Dan took a gulp of his beer and Kaydon wondered how many he’d had.
‘She wanted to get her photo taken. I wanted to win a bet. We put in seven hundred bucks for drought relief.’ Where was the problem?
‘Doesn’t mean you won the bet.’
Kaydon’s mood dropped. He looked at his friend, whose face was twisted with anger. ‘Whatever, mate. You wanna be a tool, go steal grain on your own. I’m not coming, because I did win that bet.’
Dan walked away. Kaydon stood there stunned. How did life became so serious so quickly?
As he watched his friend disappear into the crowd, he spotted a girl in a lavender dress slipping out the door.
21
Holly stumbled out of the marquee and into the evening air. Everything seemed wrong, the world out of kilter. Even the stars and the clouds seemed to churn into a hissing whirlpool. The mauve silk dress was strangling her. She longed to rip it
off and shred it into a thousand tiny pieces.
She hurried between catering fridges and piles of empty bread crates. There were bins filled with empty bottles and piles of rubbish bags. She hoisted her skirt and ran along in bare feet, thankful for the pale glow of moonlight that lit the gravel pathways between the polocrosse field and the stable block.
A dim light shone in the far end of the stables, where the barley for the horses had been set to cook overnight. The concrete aisle was cool under her feet, the sounds of horses chewing and the smell of fresh shavings and lucerne were soothing. Relieved to be alone, she leaned against a timber slat wall and slid to the ground, putting her head between her knees.
From here the music and voices, bursts of laughter and lively conversation seemed far away.
‘Holly!’ Kaydon stood in the doorway.
Oh, not now. What did he want?
‘How come you’re out here?’ he said.
She felt her hackles rise. ‘Dad’s not picking me up until midnight and I’m stuck here, okay. Do you mind if I just borrow a patch of concrete for a while?’ How could she tell him that she had never felt so second-rate in all her life?
He shook his head, stared at her a moment longer, then crossed the barn to sit beside her.
‘I just want to be on my own,’ she groaned.
He didn’t move.
‘Shouldn’t you be back in there with the lady in red?’
‘Is that why you’re upset?’
’No,’ she snapped. Boy, did this guy have tickets on himself. ‘I’m not upset. You can dance with whoever you like. I don’t care.’
He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms loosely around them. ‘Her dad paid me five hundred bucks to dance with her.’
‘So what?’ She didn’t care how much he was paid. Wait. What? Did he say five hundred dollars? Holly looked him dead in the eye to see if he was lying. His face was open and earnest. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yep. The other two hundred was from my folks. It all went to the charity,’ he said.
A burst of shocked laughter shot from her chest. ‘How much for the big kiss at the end?’
He shrugged and looked uncomfortable. ‘That was an optional extra.’
Holly shook her head, unsure of what to think or say. ‘You sure do things differently out here.’
He looked down at the floor.
There was a long silence and Holly wondered why he had followed her out there. Charlie’s speech still echoed in her thoughts and it occurred to her that maybe things weren’t so rosy in his life either.
‘I feel bad about what I said the other day,’ she finally said. ‘About the feedlot. Charlie’s story was heartbreaking. I didn’t realise how tough farmers were doing it.’
‘Yeah, my dad’s just hocked half our property to try and make things work.’
’I know how that girl feels.’ Holly’s eyes started welling up and she blinked to keep the tears back. ‘We lost our home, the bank took it. I had to give my horse away. Dad sold all our stuff in a garage sale.’
‘That’s rough.’ His voice was gentle but matter-of-fact, and she was glad he didn’t ooze sympathy. It would have made her situation all the more humiliating.
’I hate this dress,’ she said.
‘Wanna get changed? There’s some polocrosse gear in the tackroom.’
‘You have everything in that tackroom.’
He disappeared, returning moments later with a handful of fabric. ‘Boardies and an old polocrosse jumper. They’re kinda clean.’ He shrugged and pulled a face.
Holly had never been so grateful for anything in her whole life.
In the tackroom, she tore the dress off any way she could before stepping into the board shorts. She pulled his rugby-style top, white with a large number 2 sewn on the back, over her head and inhaled. Lucerne hay again, insanely good. She wrapped the too long-arms around herself, and felt comforted.
When she stepped out the door he was standing in his tuxedo shirt and bow tie, hands in his jeans pockets. ‘Better?’
She looked down at the jumper, which hung on her like a tent. ‘Better than that dress.’
He stepped towards her, and rolled one sleeve back up her arm. She watched his face while he took the other one and did the same. When he was finished, he looked at her directly. His eyes were intensely blue and framed with thick lashes.
Holding his gaze, she undid his bow tie. It came easily undone in her nimble fingers. She threw it on top of the dress and undid his top button. ‘There, you can breathe again now,’ she said, pulling at the collar a bit to loosen it around his throat.
‘Thanks,’ he said. The corners of his mouth pulled. ‘Anything else?’
She looked down to his feet. ‘You could lose the shoes.’
He pushed the heel of one boot with the toe of the other and kicked off his boots, sending them down the stable aisle.
From somewhere outside in the darkness, came a popping sound.
‘What’s that?’ asked Holly.
‘Someone pig-shooting down by the river. Probably one of the neighbours.’
The sounds of crooning country music floated across the paddocks, mingled with voices. He stood in front of her in jeans and mismatched socks, with his white shirt rolled up at the sleeves and his collar loose, his blonde-brown hair dishevelled. ‘Wanna dance?’
’I don’t have seven hundred bucks.’
‘I’ll give you a freebie.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Just don’t tell anyone, it could, you know . . . drag down my market value.’
‘I’m totally dance-lexic,’ she warned him.
He reached for her hands and his fingers wove through hers. ‘Won’t matter.’
As much as she tried, Holly couldn’t push the image of Kaydon dancing with Chrissy out of her mind. Kissing Chrissy. She pulled her hands away from his and stepped away. ‘Who is Chrissy?’
Kaydon rubbed the side of his face. ‘She’s my Dad’s partner’s daughter,’ he said. ‘Dad bought Glenvale with them.’ His face dropped and twisted into a frown and she wondered what was behind the look. ‘What’s a rock nerd?’ he asked suddenly.
‘I think it’s a geologist.’
His eyes flickered, as though he was mentally joining dots together. ‘So Dad’s new partner is a geologist?’
‘I could be wrong,’ said Holly.
Kaydon still looked troubled. ‘Dad said he was in finance.’
‘Maybe he’s both,’ shrugged Holly. ‘Maybe he finances mining projects or something.’
His frown deepened.
Outside, voices began rising. There was a crashing sound and somebody screamed.
Kaydon walked to the door of the stables.
Holly followed. ‘That sounded like Jake.’
Something akin to panic shot through her. The last time she had seen Jake he had been downing his fourth glass of beer. The music stopped and angry voices flooded the night air. There was another scream and more crashing, like a stack of bottles had been upturned. Holly began running towards the marquee.
Behind her, she heard Kaydon curse.
People spewed out of the tent in a loud, quarrelling mass. Jake came staggering out backwards on the receiving end of a giant shove from Dan. He collected a girl in a long red dress on his way down and the pair of them crashed through a stack of empty crates, sending them tumbling to the ground. Chrissy landed in the pile of upended plastic squares with a dazed and mumbling Jake on top of her.
Dan looked ready to launch himself at Jake again but several pairs of hands reached out to restrain him. He stood snarling at Jake as if he wanted to kill him, arms pinned behind his back, chest heaving. A mob of people crowded around.
A shocked-looking Chrissy lay gasping. Her dress was up around her thighs and she had lost one shoe.
‘Dan!’ Kaydon pushed through the crowd. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ He reached down to help Chrissy up.
Holly squeezed through after him. ‘Jake! What happened?’
Her brother looked as taken aback as Chrissy. ‘I was only dancing,’ he said, trying to pull himself out of the bread crates. He glared up at Dan and muttered. ‘Neanderthal.’
Dan threw himself against the arms that held him, trying to launch into another brawl. ‘What did you call me?’ Everyone started yelling again, until Pat Armstrong’s authoritative voice boomed over the top of them.
‘Daniel! That’s enough!’ Kaydon’s dad appeared with a ginger-haired man beside him. Chrissy immediately shrugged Kaydon off and threw herself into the man’s chest. The way he wrapped protective arms around her, Holly guessed he must be her father.
Pat walked between the two boys. ‘Aaron, take Dan to the house and get him cleaned up.’ He faced Jake. ‘I think your night’s over, boy.’
Jake muttered something Holly couldn’t hear and took off across the paddocks, leaping the fence and disappearing into the darkness. Holly called after him, but before she could give chase, her father’s voice pulled her up.
‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.
Holly spun around and saw her dad appear from the darkness. ‘I . . .’ she stammered. ‘I don’t know.’ Everything had just gone crazy. How long had he been there?
Pat turned on Kaydon. ‘What are you doing running AWOL out here when you’ve got company inside? I didn’t raise you to behave like that.’
‘I was just . . .’ Kaydon stammered. ‘Holly was . . .’ He pointed to the stables then seemed to think better than to try and explain. Holly was grateful when he stopped mid-sentence.
Her dad interrupted. ‘We’ll be on our way, Pat,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for the trouble. I’ll talk to Jake when I get home.’ Holly felt her dad’s hand on her arm. ‘Get in the truck,’ he said in an icy voice.
‘I think you and your family should find work elsewhere,’ said Chrissy’s father. He still held his shaken daughter in his arms. ‘We’ll get another contractor in to start the job.’
‘That’s a bit extreme,’ said Ken. He let go of Holly and turned to face the man.
Kaydon turned to his father. ‘What is he talking about, Dad?’
‘Yeah, what’s he talking about?’ said Ken.
