I smiled back. ‘Yes, you should. I’m lovely.’
* * *
‘The parents, I presume?’ Anna murmured as they went down the kitchen steps, Craig proudly bearing a pizza box.
‘Indeed.’
‘Look at my pizza, Poppa,’ we heard Craig say as they passed the window.
‘Mm. Looks pretty good.’ Then, ‘Isn’t the dark girl a stunner?’
I smiled at Anna, and she made a face.
‘It’s the other one,’ Jed’s mother hissed.
‘What?’
‘The one Jed likes. The little one with curly hair. But she seems quite sweet.’
It would undoubtedly have been worse if she’d thought I seemed quite nasty, but I was still slightly crushed.
Chapter 20
It was twenty to six when Jed rang. My stomach gave a little lurch, but I continued calmly sweeping the deck. The careful observer, however, might have noticed that truly calm people don’t normally spread the crumbs they’ve just collected back across the section of floor they’ve just swept.
‘Lia! Phone!’ Anna called.
I leant the broom against the wall, from where it fell with a clatter behind a terracotta planter full of portulacas, and went across the dining room to take the phone Anna was holding out. ‘Hi.’
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Good. You?’
‘Good. Um, would you like to go out for dinner tonight? My parents are up for the weekend, and they can look after Craig.’
‘I . . .’ Ratai had two restaurants, hotel included, and I knew almost everyone who worked at both. ‘That’d be lovely,’ I said. What else, after all, can one say? Couldn’t we do something more private? implies either that you’re ashamed to be seen with him in public or that you’re absolutely gagging for sex.
‘What time suits you?’ he asked.
‘Seven thirty?’
‘Sounds good. I’ll pick you up then.’
‘Okay. Cool.’
‘Right. See you soon,’ he said.
‘Okay. Cool. Bye.’ I put the phone down and laid my hot forehead against the cool granite bench top. ‘Oh, the awkwardness.’
Anna turned from the sink, smiling the amused, superior smile of a woman for whom the getting-to-know-you part of the relationship is but a dim memory. ‘What’s the plan?’ she asked.
‘We’re going out for dinner tonight.’
‘Just you two? Not his parents?’
‘How many men do you know who take their parents along on a first date?’
‘Rob did,’ she said, smiling.
‘Did you two have a first date? I thought you just looked at each other across a crowded room for about a second and then went to bed together.’
‘We went out for lunch, thank you very much,’ she said haughtily. ‘With your mother. Now, what are you going to wear?’
‘Long denim skirt?’
‘What about your black linen dress?’
I made a face. ‘That’s a bit over the top, isn’t it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard,’ I said.
She pointed a dripping spatula at me. ‘Neither do you want to look sweet.’
‘Ouch,’ I said.
‘Cruel to be kind. Lia, Jed is a boy.’
‘What? No! Surely not!’
‘Be quiet and listen to your Aunt Anna. Now, men are simple creatures. They like short skirts and high heels. He’ll be delighted if you wear something sexy.’
‘But – my knee,’ I said feebly.
‘What about it? You’re not self-conscious about your scar, are you?’
I looked down at the thick, shiny ridge of my cruciate surgery scar, and sighed. ‘No, not really. It just doesn’t go with a little black dress.’
‘It looks fine. You can hardly see it. Wear. The. Dress.’
* * *
When going through my wardrobe and trying on clothes (not a time-consuming exercise; my bridesmaid dress was the first garment in two years that I’d bought from somewhere other than Kmart), the black linen shift dress was my undisputed favourite. It made me feel like Audrey Hepburn, which is a rare feeling for a woman with red-tinged curly hair and freckles.
But that evening, as I scrutinised my reflection in the bathroom mirror, all I felt was that my skirt was four inches too short. Stuff it, I thought, I’m getting changed. Some of us just can’t pull off the Sex Kitten thing; we might as well accept it and move on.
It was seven twenty-six when I made this decision, and seven thirty-three when I located my denim skirt in the washing basket, unwashed, underneath a pile of tea towels. As I pulled it out a car came around the corner of the house and stopped outside the kitchen. I sighed, gave the hem of my dress a last, fruitless tug and went up the hall to the kitchen.
Jed, wearing jeans and a blue cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up and looking even better than usual, was getting out of my car.
‘Thank you,’ I said, going out onto the porch.
He shut the car door and turned to face me. ‘For?’
‘Bringing my car back.’
‘No worries,’ he said. ‘The brake pads are all sorted.’
‘You’ve charged me for all this, right?’
He smiled. ‘Like a wounded rhinoceros, mate.’
‘Good.’ I locked the kitchen door behind me, and then reached up to put the key on top of the doorframe. This, in that dress, was a mistake. ‘Stupid dress,’ I muttered, hurriedly dropping my arms.
‘I think it’s a great dress,’ said Jed.
We looked at each other, and my stomach gave a slow roll of pleasure and excitement. I don’t care if it’s a cliché, and the theme of every second pop song ever written; knowing that the boy you like likes you back really is the best feeling in the world.
‘How was Craig’s pizza?’ I asked, going carefully down the porch steps in my unfamiliar high heels.
‘Pizza?’
‘Your parents brought him in this afternoon. We made cheesy pizza.’
‘Oh, God, no,’ he said.
‘Your mum’s nice,’ I offered.
‘She’s a menace.’
Reaching him, I kissed his cheek. ‘Well, one can be both.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, putting his arms around my waist. He looked about five years younger than he had the night before – it took me a moment to realise it was because he was happy.
‘Jed, how old are you?’ I asked, suddenly apprehensive.
‘Twenty-six. Why?’
‘I’m twenty-eight.’
‘Older woman – mint,’ he said, and kissed me, and the twinge of alarm shrivelled up and died.
* * *
We went to Bob’s Bar and Grill; a nice, unpretentious place on the main street with red-and-white-checked tablecloths and a whole school of stuffed and mounted game fish on the back wall.
‘Hi,’ said Jed to the waitress who came forwards to meet us. (Nikita Ellis; I used to babysit her.) ‘Dixon, table for two.’
I smiled at Nikita, who looked firmly at the carpet and scurried in front of us to a table.
‘Thanks, Nikita,’ I said as we sat down.
There was no answer, as she was already retreating rapidly towards the kitchen. Mum’s friend Carole, however, waved and smiled from where she sat with three other ladies across the room.
‘Busy day?’ Jed asked.
‘Yes, but good busy, not insane. I even managed to reconcile some accounts. Thank you.’ This to Nikita, as she reappeared bearing a bottle of water and two glasses, put them down perilously close to the edge of the table and fled again.
‘How’s your mum?’ Carole mouthed at me.
‘Good,’ I mouthed back, which wasn’t true, but was all I was prepared to mouth across a restaurant.
‘Lovely dress.’
I smiled in thanks and looked away. Jed was pouring water, a strip of sticking plaster across the knuckle he’d split on Isa
ac’s jaw. ‘How’s your hand?’ I asked.
‘Good,’ he said, flexing his fingers. ‘Nearly healed.’
There was a pause while we both tried to think of potential topics for conversation.
‘What do you think of that picture?’ I asked at last, nodding towards a canvas on the wall above us. It depicted a lone surf caster, arms bent at frankly impossible angles, poised on a shiny grey boulder between shiny turquoise sea and shiny mustard-coloured sky.
‘I think it’s hideous.’ Then he looked wary. ‘You don’t know the person who painted it, do you?’
I squinted at the signature in the bottom corner, and smiled. ‘Yes, actually. He comes in for coffee sometimes. But don’t worry, I think it’s hideous too.’
‘Not only hideous, but it costs nineteen hundred dollars,’ he said, looking wonderingly at the price tag.
‘That’s probably quite a smart move. If he charged fifty dollars for it everyone would know it was a piece of crap.’
‘But for two grand people might think it’s serious art?’
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Did you go in to the garage today?’
‘Just for a couple of hours in the afternoon.’
‘Monty would have been pleased to see you.’
Jed smiled. ‘Yeah. He’s full of plans for –’ The rest of the sentence was drowned out as a group of about fifteen people surged through the restaurant door.
‘What was that?’ I asked when the noise subsided a little, leaning across the table.
‘He’s got a friend of a friend with –’ But a burst of laughter obscured whatever it was that Monty’s friend’s friend had.
Nikita emerged from the kitchen and seated the group at a long table in front of ours, and a woman began handing around party whistles and paper hats from a carrier bag. This seemed ominous.
‘A friend of a friend with . . . ?’ I shouted.
‘A house,’ Jed shouted back. ‘And –’
‘Do youse guys want a drink?’ Nikita asked from behind my left shoulder. Two small children belonging to the group had begun to do laps, and one of them, dressed in a Spiderman costume, ricocheted off the side of Jed’s chair.
I turned to reply and froze, appalled, as I saw Isaac’s parents standing just inside the door. Eileen Harper’s eyes slid over me as if I wasn’t there at all, but the deep unhappy lines on either side of her mouth grew deeper and unhappier. There was only one other table set for two, and it was much too close to this one . . . But no; a waitress was leading them to a bigger table across the room. Either they’d asked to sit as far away from me as possible, or someone else was joining them. If it’s Isaac, I thought, I’ll – I’ll –
‘Actually,’ said Jed, pushing back his chair, ‘we might pass. Thanks anyway.’
I stared at him in shock. We couldn’t just leave. We’d drunk from the water glasses – the group at the next table might think it was because of them – Eileen Harper would take it as further confirmation of my bad manners and poor upbringing . . . Little Spiderman went around again, stomping on my handbag as he passed, and I stood up.
Jed reached the door first and held it open for me before following me outside. We looked at each other for a moment without saying anything, and then he grinned.
I smiled back, giddy with relief. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’
‘We can go back in, if you like,’ he said.
‘Hell no.’
‘Kebab?’
‘Sounds great.’
‘Excellent,’ he said, and reached for my hand as we went up the street to get them.
* * *
Ratai’s kebabs were not, to be honest, bursting with flavour and delectability. They were light on meat and heavy on limp lettuce, but they had two excellent points in their favour: I didn’t have to cook them, and we wouldn’t be eating them anywhere near Eileen Harper.
The woman behind the counter was reading the paper when we went in. ‘You’re looking sharp, there, Lia,’ she said, looking at us over the tops of her reading glasses.
‘Thanks, Joy,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
‘Oh, could be worse. What can I get you people?’
We ordered a chicken kebab each, and as she began to assemble them I asked, ‘How’s your little grandson?’
She beamed. ‘Gorgeous. He’s an angel. I had him all day on Wednesday. Miriama’s new man’s dad has a yacht, and he invited them to go out for the day. I told her just to go and let her hair down for a change; I’d have wee Jacob.’
‘How old is he now – six months?’
‘Nearly eight. Crawling flat out.’ She looked Jed up and down with the practised eye of a woman on her fourth husband and added, just to see what sort of reaction she’d get, ‘About time you had one yourself, isn’t it?’
‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘But I was thinking I’d wait for the second date to bring it up.’
‘So this is your first date?’ She shook her head at Jed. ‘And you’re taking her out for a kebab? Jeez.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Nothing but the best. Drink?’ He opened the door of the drinks fridge.
‘Fanta, please,’ I said.
‘I hope at least you’re paying,’ Joy said as Jed put a can of Fanta and one of Sprite down on the counter.
He sighed deeply and took his wallet out of his pocket. ‘Yeah, alright.’
We took our kebabs and fizzy drinks to the beach and walked up the smooth hard sand from the surf club car park. I left my high heels in the car, delighted to have a legitimate excuse to ditch them.
‘Here?’ Jed asked when we’d gone a hundred metres, nodding at a sand dune.
‘Looks good,’ I said. I climbed the dune and sat down, knees together and legs folded demurely to one side. I was quite proud of myself for completing this operation without flashing so much as a hint of knicker.
Sitting down beside me, Jed handed me a kebab.
‘Thanks.’ There was still a big swell running, but yesterday’s churning grey water had been replaced by great green waves that rolled in, drew themselves up and hurled themselves at the beach in seething rushes of ice-white foam. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
‘Yes,’ he said, not even glancing at the water.
I looked hurriedly down at my kebab. ‘You were saying in the restaurant that Monty knew someone with a house. For you and Craig?’
‘Yeah. The sleep-out’s less than ideal for two.’
‘Or, indeed, for one.’
‘It’s not that bad.’
‘Well, I suppose not, compared to the back of a van. Where’s the new place?’
‘On Harris Street,’ he said. ‘You probably know it; it’s a little blue house with a big pohutukawa tree out the front.’
‘I do know it. That’s a very cute house.’
‘The people who own it have gone to India for a year,’ Jed said. ‘Apparently Monty’s told them all sorts of lies about how clean and quiet and hard-working I am, and Craig and I can live there rent-free in return for fixing their boat trailer.’
‘Jed, that’s awesome.’ He’d hardly bother moving, after all, if he wasn’t planning to stay in town a while longer.
My bad knee was complaining about the position I’d bent it into; putting my still-untouched kebab down beside me, I carefully straightened my legs, pulled my skirt down and tucked it in beneath my thighs.
Smiling to himself, Jed opened his can of lemonade.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘I was just thinking that you’re being very careful not to let me see your knickers, all of a sudden.’
After a moment’s search for a witty and cutting retort, I said darkly, ‘Jessamy.’
‘Is that the worst insult you can think of?’
‘Something better’ll probably occur to me later. I’ll let you know.’
‘I can hardly wait,’ he said.
I picked my kebab back up. ‘You know, I’m pretty sure you should at least be pretending you think I’m amazing, at this early stage.
’
He laughed, inhaled a mouthful of lemonade and began to splutter.
‘Smooth,’ I remarked.
Wiping his streaming eyes, he smiled at me. ‘Surely you know I think you’re amazing.’
That was smooth. Reddening, I applied myself to my kebab.
‘How are you and Anna getting on?’ he asked.
‘Fine,’ I said, hastily swallowing an under-chewed mouthful which hurt the whole way down. ‘Back to normal. Or nearly normal. We were just both tired and stressed.’
‘She looks like she’s no stranger to stress.’
‘It’s the wedding. Weddings seem to turn normally quite reasonable people into complete cot-cases.’
‘They sure do,’ he said with feeling.
‘Did Tracey turn into a bridezilla?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was your wedding like?’
‘It’s kind of a blur,’ he said. ‘It rained. Is it normal to ask someone about their wedding on a first date?’
‘It could be worse. I could try to convert you to some strange fundamentalist religion. Or talk about yeast infections.’
He smiled. ‘You’re right. That would be worse.’
In the next half hour, as the sun crept further down behind the hills and the waves turned from green to grey, I learnt that Jed had played rep cricket at high school, that he could recite the collected works of Dr Seuss from memory and that his younger sister Katrina did something nebulous in PR in an office in Marble Arch. He did not, however, tell me anything about his wife or her head wounds, and I didn’t ask.
As we pursued this slightly laborious conversation, he folded and refolded the paper napkin that had come with his kebab into a series of complex geometric shapes. Eventually it disintegrated, and he balled it up and shoved it into his pocket.
‘Want mine?’ I offered, holding it out.
He smiled at me ruefully in the fading light. ‘No, I’m good, thanks.’
‘It’s hard work, isn’t it, this getting-to-know-you stuff?’
‘It’s terrifying,’ he said.
I took his hand, and his fingers folded warmly around mine. They were very clean and pink, and I wondered how many layers of skin he’d scrubbed off in the effort to remove all traces of engine oil.
‘Cold?’ he asked.
‘A little bit.’
The Pretty Delicious Cafe Page 16
