The Goodbye Ride

by Lily Malone

  By the time Liv emerged into Margaret’s row and spun toward the older woman. Margaret’s entire body was shaking.

  “Margaret? Hold on!” Liv rushed up the vine row. It was only as she got closer, she realised Margaret’s shakes were from suppressed laughter, not pain.

  God. She’s hysterical. Do I slap her?

  “Oscar-winning if I say so myself. You two are such a pair of suckers.” Margaret wiped tears from her eyes and patted Liv on the arm. “I’m fine, Liv. I wanted a chat with you without my big lug of a nephew around, that’s all. There’s no bee. Now come here and let me look at you. Show me your hand.”

  Liv baulked, still trying to make the light-year jump from paramedic to palm subject.

  Margaret flashed a smile. “You don’t mind?”

  “No, I don’t mind. Just let me get over my heart attack.” Liv peeled off her work gloves. “Does it matter which hand?”

  “Some people say a woman’s dominant hand shows more of her past and the other shows the future. I think that’s baloney. It doesn’t matter which hand.”

  Liv chose her left. “If it says I get hit by a bus tomorrow. I don’t want to know.”

  Margaret grasped Liv’s hand with fingers that were wrinkled with age. First, she held Liv’s hand in both of her palms and then she examined the back of Liv’s hand before she turned it over.

  “What do you know about palm reading, Olivia?” Margaret asked.

  “I read a magazine in a doctor’s surgery once that said if you have fat thumbs you’ll end up rich.”

  Margaret rolled her eyes. “It’s these little criss-cross lines I’m interested in,” she said, indicating across the top of Liv’s palm where faint vertical lines intersected a single deeper horizontal stripe. “My nan used to call these shine lines.”

  “Shine lines?”

  Owen’s aunt nodded. “Nan always said they had a different kind of light. She said the skin around them shone. I see them that way too.”

  “They shine?” Liv stared hard at her hand. Margaret’s fingers were tracing a section of her palm that looked like a drunken doctor had sewn up a scar. “So what do mine say?”

  “They tell me your life needs a haircut.”

  “That’s way too cryptic for a Sunday morning.”

  “Think of it like this: sometimes a girl has a few split ends and she can get a pair of scissors and snip them out. Sometimes she can change her conditioner or her shampoo and that helps. Sometimes no matter what she tries, those split ends just get worse. That’s when she takes herself off to the hairdresser and says cut three inches off. When she walks out of that salon, it’s amazing how her whole world seems lighter.”

  “O-kay,” Liv said doubtfully. Owen’s aunt had officially lost her marbles. “So I need a new hairdo?”

  Margaret laughed and let Liv’s hand down, placing it gently at her side. “You just need to snip out the things in your life that don’t make you happy, love. Concentrate on the things that do.”

  Right.

  “Speaking of which,” Margaret murmured under her breath. “There you are, Owen love.”

  Liv turned to see Owen jogging toward them. He was gasping for oxygen, his face red.

  “Mark said… he didn’t know anything… about you being allergic to bees...” Owen bent, rested his hands on his knees and squinted up against a sun now high in the sky. “The only thing we could find was hayfever tablets...” He pulled a packet from the pocket of his shorts.

  “False alarm I reckon, love,” Margaret said cheerfully, patting Owen on the back. “It must have been a March Fly. I hate those buggers. Phew, you look a bit puffed. Did you run all the way?”

  “March fly? It’s June.”

  “Nature is her own timekeeper, Owen.”

  Owen’s mouth opened, then closed.

  Liv put her hand to her mouth to hide her giggles and turned to find her way back through her obstacle course, to her place in the vine row.

  ****

  “Let’s call it quits,” Margaret called hours later, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “I can finish up during the week.”

  Liv checked her watch. It was four-thirty in the afternoon and she could almost smell a celebratory beer. All around her, Margaret’s Folly had been tamed. Neat brown shoots stuck up from vines stripped bare.

  “Let me just finish these last two,” Liv called, making a host of final, strategic cuts on three more metres of canopy, before switching the Felco off for the last time.

  She joined Owen and Margaret and the three of them walked up the hill, collecting clothing, water bottles and tools as they went.

  “Thank you so much for your help, Olivia,” Margaret said, standing by the Hyundai while Liv stacked pruning gear in the boot.

  “No problem,” Liv said, not quite knowing where to put herself after she shut the compartment.

  Owen had his hand on the roof near the driver’s door, and his charcoal eyes were fixed on a spot somewhere above her left eye. He was no help at all.

  “Um. Owen?” Liv ventured. “The Duke?”

  “Sorry?” Owen’s head jerked up.

  “The Duke.” She repeated, feeling a bit silly.

  “Sorry. I was miles away,” he said.

  Whoever wrote the Wiki How regarding the transfer of a Ducati in return for a weekend’s pruning, Liv would have welcomed their advice about now.

  “Awkward,” Margaret said, flipping her hand like a hip teenager as she turned for the steps. “You two sort it out. Thanks again, Liv. We couldn’t have done it without you.”

  Liv waved her thanks away. “No trouble.”

  Owen moved closer and Liv lost sight of his aunt’s retreating back and the camellia trees flanking the front steps. She couldn’t see anything but the solid wall of his chest and the mesmerising rise of his hand as he lifted it toward her face. “How can I think about transfer papers when this damn chunk of hair falls across your eye like that? How can I look at it without wanting to do…this.”

  He tucked the stray hairs behind her ear. Roughened fingertips skimmed her earlobe, caressed the skin of her neck and Liv felt all the breath squeeze from her lungs. Could Owen feel her pulse? Surely he could hear it?

  “How should we celebrate all our hard work, Liv?”

  “I don’t care,” she said. And she didn’t. Anywhere with him was fine.

  “Should I surprise you?”

  Liv had three pairs of jeans in her wardrobe, including the pair she now wore. She hoped he wasn’t thinking of anywhere too ritzy. “I never really liked surprises.”

  Owen’s eyebrows arched. “You’ll ride the flying fox in the school playground but you don’t like surprises?”

  “At least give me a clue about what to wear. I can hardly drag out the party heels if we’re riding the bike again.” That’s if I owned party heels.

  “You’d look good in anything,” Owen said, banishing all thought of footwear from her brain as his mouth brushed her temple. “You’d look incredible in nothing.”

  The husky promise in his voice—his hot breath on her skin—it turned her knees to jelly.

  Owen breathed her scent, his nose in her hair. He nibbled a path around her ear. A shudder racked her body and she surrendered to the delicious things he was doing with his lips. Liv closed her eyes, slid her hands up his bare arms, great arms, shaping the muscles she felt there, loving the underlying strength.

  It took a raucous whistle from the house to break through Liv’s trance.

  “Bloody Mark,” Owen muttered against her jaw, lifting his head.

  She took the chance to sidle sideways and hook her fingers under the door handle, face flushed from a hot mix of embarrassment and desire. Owen held the door for her while she settled behind the wheel, glad to be sitting so he wouldn’t see her legs shake.

  “Drag out the party heels if you like, Lovely. We’re not going riding tonight,” he said, big fingers splayed loosely against the window. “Tonight I want to end up somewhere
with you that’s much more comfortable than the back of a bike.”

  Chapter 8

  He took her to a Thai restaurant in the city.

  The restaurant had lighting as soft as the red vinyl booth seats and a wine list as long as the menu. Liv ordered laksa. Owen opted for salt and pepper squid and chef’s special fried rice.

  They debated the pros and cons of Coonawarra Cabernet verses Barossa Shiraz, then Liv decided she wasn’t in the mood for anything heavy and opted for Smallfry Wines’ Rosè.

  “Think I’ll stick with beer.”

  “It’s okay you know,” she teased, leaning forward so that a curl of brown hair tickled her chin, offering him a sip of the wine the waiter brought for her, all pink and glowing inside the glass. “Real men drink Rosè.”

  “I don’t like quiche much either,” he said. But he took the glass, swirled it and took a sip before handing it back. His eyes didn’t let hers go.

  For once, Owen had dressed for the occasion. He wore a long-sleeved pale green shirt, buttoned to just beneath the crisp tangle of hair on his chest. Liv couldn’t look at his exposed throat without wanting to bury her fingers in that emerging tug of curls.

  She picked up her fork and leaned across to spike a piece of Owen’s salt and pepper squid. The spice coating melted on her tongue and her teeth cut through calamari flesh as if it were butter.

  “This sure beats what my mother had on the menu for Sunday night,” she said, and bang, every atom of oxygen in the restaurant squeezed from the room. Liv’s shoulders slumped back against the booth’s vinyl padding.

  Owen spiked a fat prawn from his plate of fried rice and offered it to her on the fork. “You have to tell me what’s going on with your parents some time, Liv,” he said quietly.

  She bit at the remnant of prawn tail to loosen it from the meat, tasting garlic and coriander and an underlying hint of what might have been soy, or salt from unshed tears. “They get back from Melbourne tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Why is that such a big deal? I’m sure they’re not ogres.”

  She knew it was going to come out then, all of it. She knew by the sting in her eyes and the vice that threatened to crack open her ribs.

  “No. They’re not ogres.”

  Liv swallowed the prawn before it became an immovable lump of cardboard in her throat, and returned Owen’s fork.

  “I’ve been living with my folks since just before Christmas. I used to rent a cottage out near the football oval.” That was as far as she got before her nose started running and she had to duck under the table to find a tissue in her handbag. “God I’m hopeless.”

  “That laksa must have some kick,” Owen said.

  “It’s not the laksa.”

  “I know. I’m trying to give you an out.”

  “Such a gentleman.” Liv blew a long, wet stream of snot into the white square.

  “Hell yeah, and look at you. Such a lady.”

  She giggled through the tears. She couldn’t help it. He had a knack for making her world better. “Thank you.”

  “No problem. You were explaining something about your parents. At least, I think that’s what you were doing.”

  “My parents hit the roof when they found out about Luke—at least, my father did.” She dropped the wad of tissue in her handbag.

  “You knew he was gay, right?”

  “I guess I’d always known, way back since school. Luke didn’t want me to say anything. All Luke ever wanted was for dad to be proud of him and all dad ever wanted was for Luke to be normal, like him.”

  “So you were living at home when they found out...” Owen prompted.

  She nodded. “I heard my folks arguing… well, I heard my dad arguing, mum’s never been much of a fighter. I was studying late. I came out of my room and I heard my dad shouting at mum that someone told him they’d seen Ben and Luke riding the Ducati together. Riding double.” She emphasised the word, putting the same raw disgust in her voice, that she remembered hearing in her father’s.

  “Dad said: ‘They go riding together every Sunday. Our son’s a faggot, Alison. They ride double on that bike. Double. When I was a boy I only wanted girls behind my bike.’”

  Owen sat forward in his chair, eyes dark and deep. “Why didn’t Luke move out? Couldn’t he and Ben have lived together?”

  Liv reached for Owen’s hand and gave it a squeeze before she let go. “Thank you for saying that. You don’t know what it means to me that you don’t act like my brother was some spider that crawled out from a rock.”

  Owen scooped a forkful of fried rice and shrugged. “I’m no saint, Liv.”

  “Luke never had any money. He wasn’t the kind of guy who could get by on a wardrobe full of tee-shirts and three pairs of denim jeans. My parents paid his university fees—they paid mine too but I paid them back.

  “A week after dad found out about Ben, he made Luke sell the Duke. He told anyone who asked it was because if Luke had to contribute his own money towards his university fees, he’d take his studies more seriously. But we knew dad was trying to stop the Mannum rides. He did it for control.”

  The waiter came to ask if they needed anything else and Owen said no and waved him away.

  “My dad’s not a bad man, he’s just old-fashioned. You know? If Luke had been anyone else’s son, it would have been okay. He just didn’t want his son to turn out gay.” Liv could feel her nose clogging again. “Damn. I’m out of tissues.”

  “Hold on.” Owen got out of his seat and walked across to the cashier. He picked up a handful of white serviettes off the counter and brought them back. “Here. Blow.”

  “Ugh. Gross.” But she took it because sniffing was worse. Then she had to figure out what to do with the soggy mass. No waiter deserved to pick that up.

  “Here.” Owen held out his hand.

  No way. Liv scooted out of her chair. She collected the mush of tissues and serviettes, wrapped a dry serviette around the lump, dropped it in her handbag and told Owen she’d be right back. Threading her way through the tables to the Ladies’ toilets in the back of the restaurant, Liv dumped the pulpy wads in the bin. When she put her handbag over her shoulder, it felt half a kilo lighter.

  In the mirror, her eyes weren’t too bad, though her nose was red. She blew it again and splashed cold water on her face, then she tried a few running repairs with a concealer. When she’d finished, she searched her face for any sign that would tell her she regretted sharing her family’s dirty laundry with Owen.

  Another woman came into the Ladies’ room and smiled sympathetically. “That chilli sure has a kick.”

  “Doesn’t it,” Liv agreed.

  Nope. No sign at all.

  She walked back into the restaurant, feeling lighter than she’d felt in years. Like a woman with a brand new haircut.

  ****

  Owen paid for the meal. He would have paid for the coffee and cake at the café they walked to afterwards, but Liv insisted dessert was her treat.

  He could see her at the counter, charming the pants off an Italian waiter. The guy handed Liv a table number on a silver pole, smiling at her like she was sweeter than all the sugar in his cake cabinet.

  Liv ferried the table number back to where Owen sat, trying to keep his knees and elbows within the confines of the table and chairs. The place was jam-packed and there was a queue at the front door. The heaters were on and with the crush of patrons, it made it bloody hot.

  “I got you chocolate fudge brownie with cream and ice-cream,” she said, settling in her own seat and looking far more comfortable there than he felt. “The waiter said it’s the best in the house.”

  “I think he thought you were the best in the house.” He smiled to keep the comment light, nudging her shin with the tip of his shoe.

  “Me?” Liv glanced over her shoulder to check the service counter. “I don’t think so.”

  “You so don’t know how men think, Olivia Murphy.”

  Italian guy caught her looking and turned o
n the hundred-watt smile, picking up a plate of dessert and dipping it at Liv as if he played a real-life chef on a crap reality cooking show. He banged the bell on the counter with an over-blown flourish and one of the serving staff came running.

  “A-ha,” Owen said, and Liv ducked her head back to him, cheeks pink. Owen couldn’t remember ever seeing a girl look so beautiful when she blushed. “He’s not the man for you, Lovely. He’s a pussy really. A real man—a man like me—would have brought your dessert over myself.”

  He saw her shoulders jiggle as she tried to suppress her giggles. Then the waitress arrived. She placed their servings on the table, picked up their table number, and asked if they’d ordered coffee.

  “A long black and a latte. We did, thanks,” Liv said.

  The waitress put the silver pole back on the table, shuffling it between a small white bowl filled with sugar sachets and a red candle in a glass holder and said she’d find out what was happening with the coffees.

  Liv cut her spoon through a slice of blueberry cheesecake and dragged it through the cream to the side. She had slim fingers, neat, short nails. A ring he’d thought was a ruby but Liv said was a garnet, sat lightly on the middle finger of her right hand. He hadn’t noticed a ring before—and if she’d worn one, he would have. She’d told him at the restaurant it had been her grandmother’s.

  Now the ring sparkled as she attacked her cheesecake.

  Owen cut a wedge out of his chocolate brownie and wolfed it down. “Your waiter friend is right, by the way. This is awesome.”

  “We deserve a treat. We’re awesome.”

  He met her gaze, held it a few seconds too long. The levity of the last few minutes vanished.

  “I’m glad you think so.” As he said it, Owen reached under the table and laid his hand on Liv’s knee, rubbing denim that was warm beneath his touch, well-lived in. His fingers found a threadbare patch and scratched through, touching bare skin.

  She jumped hard enough to make the table number wobble on its pole. Owen gave her knee one final squeeze and let go.