An Endless Summer

by C. J. Duggan

  Tammy nodded at everything Sean whispered to her. Brows narrowed, it seemed her inner warrior had appeared for battle. I half expected Sean to rub Vaseline on her brows, pop in her mouth guard and rub her shoulders before she stepped into the boxing ring.

  By now we had gathered quite the crowd of onlookers, both amused by Tammy’s dreadful technique and no doubt, entertained by how Sean and I were matching each other shot for shot.

  What I hadn’t expected were the cheers and whoops of encouragement for when Tammy lined up the cue.

  “Come on, Tam, you can do this!”

  “Come on, honey, bring it home, all the way.”

  My eyes darted around at the newly-formed Tammy fan club. She had the whole room cheering for her. How had this happened? When had she turned everything around?

  I straightened, fighting to uncrease my forehead and tone down my penetrating glower at my former best friend as she lined up for the shot. Sean leaned next to her, his hand placed lightly on her back as he whispered into her ear some last words of advice. I gripped my Cruiser so hard I feared the bottle might shatter in my hand.

  “You okay?” Stan whispered.

  I snapped out of my terminator vision and half smiled, before taking a swig.

  “Never been better.” I took another long, deep swig.

  “Tammy! Tammy! Tammy!” the crowd began to cheer.

  Oh, for God’s sake.

  I took another swig, hoping against hope that she would miss. I envisioned after Tammy potted the game-winning ball, the uproarious crowd would engulf her, lifting her onto their shoulders to parade her around in her victory, after she and Sean embraced passionately.

  I felt sick.

  “All right, all right, everyone, keep it down for a minute,” Sean said, motioning everyone into silence.

  It was so quiet now, even the jukebox volume had dimmed and all I could hear was the drumming of my heartbeat pounding against my chest.

  Miss, miss, miss, miss echoed in my mind as Tammy drew in a deep breath and pulled her elbow back slowly, then tapped the white ball into motion.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The white ball glided along the felt. It tapped the black, pushing it smoothly and directly into the pocket.

  So perfectly and tapped so directly, the white ball followed the black into the pocket, meaning Stan and I were the winners! Perhaps someone should have explained the rules to Tammy who, after her double-pocketed shot, squealed and jumped up and down like a lotto winner.

  “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” She bounced up and down. “We won! We won!”

  The spectators slowly peeled away. Sean pinched the bridge of his nose when the white followed through. He ran his hands through his hair before smiling at Tammy.

  “You’re a winner all right, Tam, just not tonight.”

  It slowly registered with her that what had happened was not something to celebrate. The volume to the jukebox was turned up and everyone went back to their usual business.

  “We lost?” she said, the look of dismay lining her face.

  “Well, look on the bright side, you pocketed a ball so now you don’t have to do the table run with your skirt hitched up,” I said, genuinely feeling for her.

  “Good game, everyone.” Stan beamed as he came over to shake my hand and Tammy’s.

  As Sean unloaded the balls out of the pockets for the next players, I couldn’t help but steal a moment to shake his hand. Good sportsmanship and all that.

  I sauntered smugly up to him, holding out my hand. “Bad luck, but you’re a plucky kid and I like your style. Maybe if you keep practising, who knows?”

  Sean grabbed my hand, engulfing it in his. It was as if an electric current exchanged between us. He held my hand, shaking it slowly but firmly. My mouth went dry as he looked down at me in amused silence, telling me I was a little smart-arse. His lips twitched but he didn’t let go.

  “You’re loving this, aren’t you?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “It’s always nice to win.”

  “I’m not talking about winning.” He squeezed my hand before letting go, his fingers sliding across mine in a slow caress that made my tummy tingle.

  His eyes never left me as I struggled for something to say, but as quickly as the oddly electric moment had swept over us, it was just as quickly doused with an ice bucket of water.

  “You and Stan make a good team,” he said in all seriousness.

  There was an edge to his words that had me thinking he wasn’t only talking about playing pool.

  I smiled. “He’s a good guy.”

  Sean nodded and looked away. “That he is. He suits you.”

  Whoa, okay, this was definitely not about playing pool.

  “Oh yeah, I was thinking of even getting him to walk me to my bedroom later,” I joked.

  Sean’s eyes darted back to mine, a deep burning behind them as his brow creased. My smile slowly faded.

  I had meant for it to be a lighthearted quip, but it had gone down like a lead balloon.

  Tammy came to stand beside me. “Hey, Amy, sorry to be a party pooper but I have a ten-kilometre run in the morning so I’m going to head.”

  A ten-kilometre run? Of course she does.

  “No worries, thanks for stopping by.” I struggled to focus on Tammy. Sean had turned into Mr Broody before me.

  “Thanks for the game, Sean. Sorry I was such a disappointing partner,” she smiled sheepishly.

  Sean’s mood lifted. “You a disappointment? Not possible,” he said, shaking his head, his beautiful eyes making contact with Tammy’s, causing her to look down and blush.

  “Yeah, well, drive safe!” I threw in, breaking their moment.

  Sean finished the last of his beer. “Hey, Tam, you think you could give me a lift home?”

  “Oh, yeah, of course, sure.”

  My head pivoted around between the two of them. “Uh, Sean lives at the old Ellermans’ lake house,” I said. “It’s on the other side of the ranges,” I added helpfully, hinting that it wasn’t exactly on her way.

  “Oh, I don’t mind.” Tammy waved me off. “I never get tired of seeing that place.”

  Sean smiled. “You sure it’s all right?”

  “Absolutely!”

  My heart sank as Tammy jangled her keys from her bag and gave me a hug goodbye. I couldn’t look at Sean. Instead, I turned to make my way towards the bar, but it couldn’t prevent me from hearing the cat-calls and laughter as a few blokes egged Sean out of the door as he followed Tammy.

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, kids,” teased one local.

  I guess I knew what type was Sean’s: Tammy Maskala.

  ***

  The next day, the hotel shone like a newly polished diamond, inside and out thanks to the raving success of the working bee. Toby and Ringer were in the bar replacing the down lights with new bulbs while Chris reaffixed the blackboards that housed the new lunch and dinner menus. It wasn’t a broad selection, but it would be enough to satisfy. Fisherman’s basket, steak and chips, Guinness pie and mash, vegetarian lasagne and the crowning glory … chicken parmigiana.

  “Well, I don’t know about anyone else but I reckon you’ll have the usual suspects trial the menu,” Toby said as he climbed down from his stepladder.

  “It’s nine a.m. and you’re already thinking about lunch?” Chris threw over his shoulder. “Is this straight?”

  “No!” the three of us said.

  “What do you mean the usual suspects?” I asked Toby.

  “Don’t you know? We’re all lobbing here for lunch. Sort of a working bee celebration.”

  I was going to argue that I didn’t know; my head was all over the place at the moment so there was every possibility that I had been told but it just hadn’t registered.

  “Don’t stress, Amy, they’ll be paying customers,” Chris said. He thought he was so clever, reading my mind.

  To be honest, it was the last thing I was thinking about. “I wasn’t even t
hinking about that,” I defended.

  Chris just ignored me as he stood back from the blackboard and took a good look. “Bloody hell, crooked as a dog’s hind leg,” he mumbled to himself.

  Toby and Ringer worked on in awkward silence. Great! They probably thought I was being a tight arse, worried about people not paying their way at lunch. I cursed Chris and his big mouth. But how could I defend my real thoughts, and explain that the reason I was walking around like a space cadet was because all I could think about was Tammy and Sean?

  I fought against it, tried not to think about them, but as I had tossed and turned last night, punching my pillow and kicking the sheets off my bed, all I could think about was the two of them. Alone in the night, the car stopping, Sean inviting her into his sprawling, beautiful house on the lake that I was secretly dying to see inside of. He would give her the grand tour and there would be lots of blushing moments and stolen looks. They would bond with getting-to-know-each-other conversations. Aside from her gorgeous exterior, he would soon realise that she was a fitter-than-fit biomedical genius.

  Unlike me, Tammy was the complete package. She would cutely confess she’d had a crush on him when she was younger and blah, blah, blah. I’d felt sick just thinking about it, and, more to the point, utterly miserable.

  I couldn’t even focus on the progress we’d made at the hotel, on the truly amazing effort all our friends had made in dedicating their time and money. I felt awful not feeling more emotionally invested in what was really happening.

  I let the boys battle with their finishing touches while I busied myself brewing a coffee from the machine, hissing and whirring some frothy hot milk, the dark coffee oozing slowly into my cup, blacker than deep rich molasses, but not quite as black as my mood.

  I hadn’t bothered to blow-dry my hair this morning, instead letting it dry of its own accord. I shuffled my bunny slippers across the floorboards, carefully carrying my coffee. I eased the sliding door open and stepped out to the beer garden – the new and improved beer garden. All that remained of the previous mess was a pile of clippings by the side entrance that Ringer said he was going to dispose of after he had finished up with Toby.

  After a long-awaited, much-needed trim, the morning rays of sunlight finally pierced through the ivy canopy. I could even manage to sit on a chair that was now freshly repainted, and the table top also sported a slick new coat. The concrete had been blasted clean by Toby’s dad’s pressure washer and looked bright and brand new. I sighed as I took a seat, almost laughing to myself that this is exactly what Dad would have done. Well, the old Dad. He would have religiously shuffled out here with his coffee in the morning – all that was missing for me were the paper and a packet of cigarettes.

  Sitting out in the beer garden made me feel close to my dad; sitting in his space, imagining him looking around the garden in deep thought like he always did. I would often walk past the sliding glass door and see him staring off into the distance and wonder what he was thinking about. Surely once Dad came home and saw this place looking like new again, once he sat back out here like old times, he would realise that he couldn’t let it go. That this was home.

  Dread swept over me – what if the new and improved Dad didn’t sit in the beer garden? Maybe the new Dad would be running alongside Tammy Maskala for ten kilometres instead. My mood blackened at the thought of it, and, like a bad dream, as if conjuring up some cursed image simply by thinking of it, the sliding door opened and out popped Tammy’s head with a brilliantly beaming smile.

  “There you are! They said I could find you out here,” she said as she stepped through the sliding door.

  Oh, fucking perfect!

  The last person I wanted to see.

  She had short-shorts on with a matching hot pink sports bra … as you do. Her perky ponytail swished from side-to-side as she approached. She hooked her bag over the chair, placed her water bottle on the table and sat down.

  Make yourself at home.

  “Been for your run?” I asked unenthusiastically as I sipped on my coffee.

  Tammy stretched. “Yeah, this morning; I had some brekkie and showered so I could come over.”

  And then got back into her skimpy sportswear for a trip to the pub. Awesome.

  I stirred my coffee and stared into the cup.

  “So did you have a nice night?” I tried to keep my voice even, non-committal, and as soon as the words were out I inwardly grimaced. Why did I care? I didn’t want to hear all the details, the last thing I wanted was to be bloody Tammy Maskala’s confidante in life again, bosom buddies; it wasn’t as if we had anything in common anymore.

  Tammy took a swig of her water bottle, shook her head and smiled. “You know, it is so funny how I used to be so terrified of talking to Sean Murphy, remember?” She laughed.

  Remember? How could I possibly forget?

  “Yep!”

  “I don’t know why. He is so sweet and funny and easy-going,” she said dreamily.

  Each trait she listed was like a knife in my chest.

  “Well, good things come to those who wait,” I deadpanned. Okay, I was going to have to try to fake nice a lot more, but I couldn’t. With each word Tammy uttered I sank deeper and deeper into depression.

  “He’s even taking me out on his boat today; we’re going waterskiing. I love waterskiing! I may not be able to play pool, but waterskiing … now that I can do.”

  Wow, that really felt like a punch in the face. Sean had never offered to take me out on his boat. Maybe she really was his type; it was something I would never be able to do. My long-standing phobia of the lake meant it was a definite no-go zone, but here Tammy was about to go full blast into the water sports with him. My heart sank.

  “Awesome,” I said in my best upbeat voice.

  “You should come out. Stan and Ringer are taking their boats out, too, everyone is going.” Tammy insisted.

  “Oh no.” I clicked my fingers. “I have to work the bar today.” I thanked God – the thought of being out on the lake made me feel nauseated.

  “Oh.” Tammy’s shoulders slumped. “That’s a shame.”

  “Yeah, a crying shame,” I agreed, finishing the last of my coffee.

  Tammy’s head was tilted to the side as she watched me intently. “Sean’s going to meet me here. He shouldn’t be too far away, actually.”

  “That’s awesome.” Ugh, I really needed to extend my vocabulary.

  “He is so sweet.” She smiled to herself.

  “Yeah, I know, you told me that already.” I sighed, turning my now-empty coffee cup with my fingers.

  “Have you been to Sean’s house? It is amazing!” She straightened.

  “Yeah, I bet,” I nodded, turning my cup on its saucer round and round.

  “So let’s work this out …” She started to count on her fingers. “… Sean Murphy’s funny, sweet, gorgeous,” she emphasised. “He has a nice car, beautiful house …”

  It was like I was being slowly tortured, as if I needed Tammy to reiterate all the wonderful things I knew about Sean. But she had only spoken to him in one night and she had already gathered all this from him.

  I knew it all already, though, and more. He was generous, he constantly made smart-arse quips that I supposed would have been funny if they weren’t directed at me and he was gorgeous (I wasn’t blind to the fact that in any room your attention always turned to Sean). He wouldn’t have to say or do anything other than just stand there and exist, and he had that cute dimple that magically appeared with each boyish grin. The way he looked at me, his blue eyes watching and waiting for every infuriated reaction; they would then change into something completely different at the thrill of knowing he got under my skin. I knew all those things about Sean Murphy, I just didn’t bundle them with nice house, nice car, nice package. There was so much more to him than that.

  “Yeah, he’s all those things,” I agreed.

  Tammy sighed dreamily. “It’s hard to fathom that he could be all those things and,�
� she leaned forward, looking directly at me, “be so good in bed.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  My cup flew out of my hand and smashed into a thousand pieces against the concrete.

  It was fitting, really, as it was exactly the same thing that had happened to my heart.

  Tammy looked expectantly at the mess and back at me in horror. I wondered if it was the same horror I wore on my own face as I felt a raw, searing emotion rise up inside of me.

  “Oh, my God, Amy, you do like him,” she said, astonished.

  I rapidly blinked, praying that the tears would not come as I moved quickly to kneel down and pick up the pieces of porcelain. My hands were shaking and fumbling as I tried to grab the shards.

  “Oh, my God, I am such a bitch,” Tammy cried out. She knelt down beside me, grabbed my hands and forced me to look at her.

  “Amy, Amy, look at me! I was joking, I didn’t sleep with Sean.”

  I froze and peered into her earnest eyes that were filled with mortified apologies.

  “I’m sorry, I’m such an idiot. I only said it because … well, because I had a feeling but I wasn’t sure. I just wanted to see how you reacted.”

  I pulled away from her. “Were you satisfied with my response, then?” I asked coolly.

  Tammy touched my shoulder gently. “Does he know how you feel?”

  Oh, fuck off!

  I stood still, not wholly confident that I could stop myself from bursting into tears. My heart raced at a million miles an hour.

  “Tammy, you’ve been around for all of five minutes, so thanks, but I really don’t need your advice.”

  Tammy crossed her arms. “You may not want it, but you’re going to get it anyway.”

  I gaped, stunned at Tammy’s sternness – this was a hard-arse Tammy.

  “It may not be any of my business, but I’m not stupid or blind. I may only have been on the scene for five minutes but that’s all I needed to know that you two obviously have something going on. So you can go on sulking into your coffee cups in the beer garden or you can march up to him and tell him how you feel and bloody well just get on with it.”