by C. J. Duggan
That’s right! The real swear word, I was that pissed.
“What makes you think I don’t want to be here?”
Wait.
What?
Sean stalked towards me, backing me into the door. I thudded against it, my mouth gaping in surprise.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Amy Henderson. I don’t put myself anywhere I don’t want to be. And yeah, I knew what you were doing; I didn’t need Adam to give me some bullshit spiel about staying away from his precious cousin. Unlike you, when I walked up those stairs, I wasn’t playing any game. But I guess that’s the big difference between you and me.”
Before I realised what he was doing, he reached for the handle. He flung the door open and walked out into the hall, pushing his way out of my room without so much as a backwards glance. I stood in the hall, stunned at what had just happened.
What did he mean he wasn’t playing? He had to have been.
I hadn’t even given a second thought to Adam until I heard the loud snore over the animated play of music. Adam was passed out cold with the game console still in his hand. I watched the words flash across his screen.
Game over. Game over.
I sighed, walking over to click the power off.
It was game over, all right.
Chapter Thirty-Two
My heart stopped.
My watch read eleven a.m. After a double-take through one squinted eye, I sat bolt upright, leapt out of bed, and ripped the bedroom door open, a feeling of dread spiking through me. There was no way Chris would have let me sleep in this late, not in a million years.
I instinctively looked into Adam’s room, half expecting him to still be passed out in his bean bag, but all I found was an empty room. I rushed to check Chris’s room but I was greeted with the same empty reception. My last checkpoint was Dad’s apartment, but again, nothing. I stood in the middle of the lounge gathering my thoughts when I heard distant shouts and banging. I headed towards the balcony to see what all the noise was, but stopped and thought better of it.
It wasn’t until I was mid-shower that it dawned on me. I dropped the toothbrush and clasped my soap-sudded head in dismay.
“Shit! The working bee!!”
I ran around in nothing more than a T-shirt and my undies, dragging a brush through my tangled wet hair, cursing the world and everyone who lived in it. Of all days, why hadn’t Chris woken me? Of all days, searching through my dresser to pull out my aqua Mambo mini, I stood on something pointy.
“Ah, faaaaar out.” I threw my miniskirt in a fit of rage as I sat on my bed and rubbed at the sole of my foot. It was then that I realised exactly what I had stood on.
The Rubik’s Cube.
I picked it up and held it in my palm. In the light of day and after a rather haphazard night’s sleep, all I could do was cringe at the way I had behaved last night. I was not some siren, some sexy vixen … obviously. What had I been thinking? What had possessed me to think that I could honestly pull that off?
Maybe I was still little Amy, the publican’s daughter.
I cupped my head in my hands – when had everything become so complicated?
***
After the mad rush of getting dressed, I decided to take a breath and focus on making myself look semi-decent. Blow-drying my hair, putting on natural toned make-up and some Fire and Ice perfume. I wanted to look nice at the working bee, but I sure wasn’t going to admit to myself why.
I stood back and gave myself a long, hard look in the full-length mirror. Hmm. The miniskirt was not exactly working bee attire, but I could at least make a grand entrance even if I wasn’t entirely sure what greeted me downstairs.
Swinging around the bannister and into the foyer of the restaurant, the very last thing I expected to see was Ellie and Adam standing on drop sheets. They were singing Van Halen’s ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’ into their paintbrushes as it blared from a paint-splattered old radio. They laughed at each other as they applied brush strokes of paint on the wall.
“Will you two concentrate?” Tess’s voice called out over the music.
I hadn’t even noticed her cross-legged on the floor near the skirting boards with an edging brush. She shook her head and went back to her work until her eyes landed on me.
“Amy, hey!”
Ellie and Adam spun around, no doubt spotting the look of confusion on my face as I eyed the stacked cans of paint, drop sheets, rollers on extenders, all waiting to go. Adam cringed and hid behind Ellie, grabbing her by the shoulders like a human shield.
“Get off me, you have paint all over your hands!” Ellie squirmed away.
Adam’s brown puppy dog eyes blinked at me. “Do you still love me?”
I eyed the brush in his hand. “You’re painting; I will say anything to keep that going.”
Adam smiled. “I’ll paint the whole hotel, doesn’t worry me.” He turned to attack the wall again with renewed vigour, taking it as a sign of forgiveness. I would have probably pushed the issue but I was distracted by the paint cans near the bar.
Picking one up, I tilted my head to read the permanent marker scribbled on the lid. My eyes narrowed as I looked from the lid to the wall and back again.
“Portland Stone?” I said, mainly to myself.
“It’s a great colour, don’t you think?” Tess groaned as she climbed up from the floor and admired the partially painted wall.
Huge ten-litre cans were stacked on a drop sheet. I hadn’t planned to repaint the dining room; it wasn’t something I had worked into the budget. To me it was just a crazy pipe dream and, apart from my mum, no one knew what colour I liked, bar one other person … Sean.
“Where did all this paint come from?” I asked.
It wasn’t a difficult question; well, at least I thought it wasn’t, but the looks Ellie and Adam cast each other and the way they were stammering with unease made me ask it again. “Where did the paint come from?”
Adam rubbed the back of his neck; he cleared his throat and stepped forward, as if volunteering for the firing squad or something.
“Uh … It, um, fell off the back of a truck.”
Ellie nodded quickly. Tess scrutinised her fingernails and avoided my questioning eyes.
“Off the back of a truck?”
“Yeah, the darnedest thing.” Adam shrugged.
Right, so I obviously wasn’t going to get anywhere here, but I would get to the bottom of this. I pushed my way through into the main bar where Chris was. He held up his hand to silence me as he spoke into his mobile.
“Yeah, we have some stuff in Uncle Eric’s shed, but extra wouldn’t hurt. Yeah. Just need some muscle power to tidy up that vine, it’s a bloody mess out there …”
I sighed impatiently, which only gained me a dirty look from Chris.
I wasn’t exactly sure why I had to be so silent – there was a thunderous noise blasting out the front of the hotel that had my attention faltering from Chris for a brief moment.
What the hell is that?
I shrugged off the thought, and waved my hand in front of Chris on the phone.
“Yeah, no worries, mate, that would great … Okay, see you soon.” Chris ended the call. “What now?” he asked, looking at his phone, annoyed.
My mouth gaped – what was that supposed to mean? I shook it off.
“Chris, where did the paint come from?”
Without meeting my stare, Chris answered in a monotone, pre-rehearsed, robotic voice. “It fell off the back of a truck.”
Oh, okay. So this was the way it was going to be – I sleep in once and everyone had already pre-plotted the day without me. Even though I knew exactly where the paint had come from, I wanted – I needed – someone to confirm it for me. It wouldn’t have been cheap and there was so much of it.
I really didn’t like the thought of any more of Sean’s charity, but I also didn’t like the opposite prospect – that I’d receive some huge bill in the mail for something I hadn’t planned on fixing in the first
place. After last night’s episode, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to rip the beams out from the very balcony he’d fixed.
“Fine, be like that,” I said to Chris.
I would continue my investigation elsewhere. I walked to the front door to head out towards the commotion out front. I paused before pushing my way out.
I turned back to Chris who was just pocketing his phone. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
Chris shrugged. “You locked up for me two nights running. Seemed only fair.”
“Yeah, but today’s the working bee. I thought that—”
“We have everything under control. Some of Uncle Eric’s mates are coming around to get stuck into the beer garden and there’s more people coming to lend a hand by lunch, but don’t worry, they have all been sworn to secrecy.”
“Good!” I nodded. “Wait, shit! I haven’t organised lunch!” I panicked.
“Lunch is at one. Melba and the McGees are prepping in the kitchen – they’ve picked up the meat and the salads are done. Don’t stress, it’s fine.”
“Oh.”
“See what happens when you sleep in?” Chris said with a smirk.
I pushed open the front doors and stepped outside to be greeted by a misty spray in the face and the deafening hum of Toby’s pressure washer. Wearing nothing but shorts and a red bandanna tied around just below his eye line, he worked on blasting the dust, dirt and cobwebs from the brickwork and beams. Stan was on standby with his broom, sweeping the excess water from the verandah and scrubbing away any stubborn, lingering cobwebs.
Stan spotted me and smiled, yelling above the pressure washer. “Looks all right, doesn’t it?”
I looked from the side Toby had already done to where he was going and the difference was remarkable. With all the dust collected over the years removed it was as if the Onslow had received a new paint job. Under the layer of dust the paintwork had been protected from the elements (at least the dust was good for something). It was an amazing transformation.
I tore my eyes from their handiwork.
“Hey, Stan, the paint inside—”
“IT FELL OFF THE BACK OF A TRUCK.”
I flinched and then my shoulders slumped. “Oh, Stan, you too?”
He grimaced. “Sorry.”
“You’re all right, I think I know.”
Toby turned the pressure washer off and, mercifully, silence fell. He pulled down his bandanna and wiped the excess water from his brow. He walked over towards us, playfully spraying the excess water still left in his gun at Stan’s feet, making him jump.
“Don’t! That shit will take your skin off.”
“Relax, it’s only a bit of water, isn’t that right, Amy?”
Before I could agree or disagree, Toby grabbed me, embracing me in a huge, soppy, saturated bear hug. “Toby, don’t!” I pushed him away.
I now sported a wet patch all down my side. “Now look what you’ve done.” I pulled my sopping top and skirt away from my skin.
“Relax, Amy, it’s only a bit of water,” Stan said.
It seemed all the Onslow Boys were smart-arses.
My mouth twisted as I tried my best not to look at their boyish grins.
I shook my head. “Boys!”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sean wasn’t anywhere to be seen and so far my investigative skills had failed me miserably.
Apparently, my sleeping in had given him a chance to word them up not to tell.
As if I wouldn’t work it out, anyway. It must have meant that he dropped the paint off this morning and didn’t stay. I didn’t know how I felt about that – either he legitimately had something else to do or he was avoiding me. I didn’t want to ask the boys any questions because, if anything, I told myself I was giving way too much thought to Sean Murphy’s whereabouts.
There was something adamantly clear in my mind, though, now more so than ever: I really didn’t want to have to owe him anything. I thought back to last night and what could have happened, or what Sean had been about to say before we were interrupted. Guess I would never really know. It’s not as if having Sean in my bedroom would have a repeat performance.
After overhearing Chris’s earlier phone call about the shed, it triggered a memory.
Soon forgetting my soiled, damp clothes, I walked back inside with a new mission. “Hey, Chris, is Dad’s Jeep still in the shed?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Do you know where the keys are? I need to go into town.”
“Gee, I don’t know. Sleeping in, forgoing hard work – I don’t know if I support these lifestyle changes, Amy.”
“I’ll get Adam to run me through some boot camp drills later,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Do you know where the keys are?”
Without a word, Chris backtracked to a hook over the register that housed a series of keys. He picked out a key chain with a little figurine of Bart Simpson and threw it over the bar to me. I caught the jingling mass with a huge smile.
“Thanks.”
“You never got them from me, and you keep it fuelled up.”
I was stunned that Chris was even agreeing to let me take the Jeep – I guess it prevented me from borrowing his ute or, heaven forbid, catching a ride with a six-foot-three Onslow Boy. Ha! Fat chance of that.
“All right, I won’t be long. Do we need anything?”
“No, I’m right. For Christ’s sake, just drive careful.”
***
Like a kid on Christmas day, I skipped all the way towards Dad’s Brunswick green boat shed that sat about a hundred metres beyond the back of the hotel. Pulling the heavy double doors open to an expansive array of tools, mower, fishing gear, boat, and ta da! Dad’s soft-top, army-green Jeep Cherokee.
Running my hand along the bonnet and skimming my way in between the boat and the driver’s side door, I unlocked the beast and slid behind the wheel. Nostalgia filled me as I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel with glee.
Dad had taught me to drive in this Jeep, I got my Ls in this car, and I had always had dreams of grandeur of being the first to get my P plates because I was the eldest in my year.
My friend, Tammy, and I had had it all planned: I would get my licence then cruise around town, pick her up and head to the Point with all the cool kids. Of course, my little banishment to the city soon dented that plan quick smart.
The car was stuffy; dust particles danced in the sunlight that filtered through the windscreen. I tipped the visor up and down, familiarising myself with my surroundings. I shuffled through the junk in the console, popped open and rustled through the glove box.
“No way!”
I pulled out a cassette tape and held it up to the light. I squealed in recognition of the familiar cover. I snapped it open and there it was in my sixteen-year-old handwriting: Roxette.
I fired up the beast and popped in the tape, turning up the volume as ‘Joyride’ blared from the speakers.
“Ooooh, yeah!” I put the car into gear and slowly edged my way out of the shed, accelerating around to the front of the hotel. I tooted the horn at the boys and waved like a mad thing.
I turned right on the bitumen road, opting for the long, scenic way into town, past Stan’s parents’ caravan park and sweeping towards Horseshoe Bend down a leaf-lined trail with beautiful lake views. I cruised along, singing at the top of my lungs, the wind flapping my hair all around the cabin. ‘Fading Like A Flower’ came on and I thought I would die of happiness. Not wanting my journey to end, at the crossroads I opted to turn onto MacLean’s Bridge, the impressive, sweeping bridge that crossed Lake Onslow. I felt exhilarated that I still knew all the words as I sang like a Eurovision contestant, putting so much passion into my performance that I nearly sideswiped the side of the bridge.
Shit! Okay, Amy, settle down.
I placed both hands back on the wheel in a sobering moment, before grinning to myself and chucking a U-turn on the Perry side of the bridge. I sailed back over towards town, directly at the very
reason I had decided to go to town in the first place. I had to complete my cunning plan. It was so clever, it bordered on pure genius.
“I’ll show you and your Portland Stone paint fell off the back of a truck, Sean Murphy.”
I almost felt like chucking my head back and cackling, but that sounded a bit scary even to me so I opted for singing to Roxette’s ‘Dangerous’ instead.
***
The bell above the door let out a magical ding, alerting Jan and Roy to my entrance as I walked into their store. They offered up immediate warm smiles.
“Hi, Jan! Hi, Roy!” I beamed.
“You look really well, honey, been keeping you busy on the hill?”
“You know it.” I offered her a double-fingered pow-pow motion and thought, What is wrong with me? Music really must soothe the savage beast.
“How can we help you, young Amy?” Roy asked with a smile.
I wanted to grin evilly, but instead, I opted for cool, calm, and matter-of-fact, like I had rehearsed in the car. “Oh, I just need to run an errand.”
“Can I help?” Roy said.
“I hope so, I just need to pay some money on Sean’s account; he asked me to drop in.”
I waited, hoping I wasn’t met with confusion, as I had just assumed this would be the place. It was the sole store in town with a hardware section and I guessed that Sean would hold an account here.
“Ah, yes, of course, come through, come through.” Roy started towards the back of the store where all the home hardware and DIY essentials were housed.
Bingo!
Until now I hadn’t needed to use my account with my ‘essentials money’ from my parents. Aside from the odd food shopping and cleaning products, I hadn’t touched it at all. It was ridiculous, all that had happened to the hotel, all that had been cleaned, repaired and renovated thanks to Sean’s generosity… Well, it had to stop.
The money was to be used at my discretion so that’s what I was doing. Besides, it was for hotel stuff so I was sure my dad would approve. It’s not like I was going to Amcal to blow it all on Revlon products, however tempting it was.
