Love and Other Battles

by Tess Woods

  Jess’s eyes had almost popped out of her head when Frank’s oldest brother, Patrick, was introduced to her. Frank was right: she definitely needn’t have worried about the Stone family judging her appearance. With his shoulder-length frizzy hair, bare feet and cotton pants, Patrick was every bit the hippie she was. At lunch, he ate a salad roll, just like her, without the meat.

  ‘Did his tour in Vietnam in sixty-seven,’ Frank told her, as he drove her home in his dad’s van. ‘Left here a normal bloke, came back a peace-chanting atheist beatnik.’ He was laughing as he said it.

  ‘Golly, that must have been a shock! How did your parents react to that?’

  ‘Ah, you know how it is. The old lady was a bit cut up that he stopped going to Mass. But what could they say? It’s his life. The rest of us kids are still God-fearing. It’s not like he came home and corrupted us all.’

  ‘Do you talk about the war with him?’ she asked. ‘I mean, he’s against it but you’re still itching to go. Don’t you understand the kind of things he must have seen to make him turn like that?’

  ‘Name one person you know who listens to a word their big brother says,’ he snorted. ‘Did you see the young fellas giving me any respect today? It doesn’t work like that, Flower Child. If there was one person on this earth who couldn’t influence me, no matter what, it’d be Pat in his kaftan!’

  Sighing, Jess looked out the window. What was she going to do? Frank’s family was wonderful, Frank was wonderful — in every way. He was kind and considerate, and he made her laugh more than anyone else ever had. He was sexy and adorable all at once. But there were so many obstacles between them.

  Already she’d been in a violent anti-war protest on the steps of Parliament House. How could she possibly keep dating a nasho? Someone who laughed at his ‘peace-chanting atheist beatnik’ brother when she was a peace-chanting atheist beatnik herself?

  ‘Are you going to try and sneak me in like last week?’ He grinned when they pulled up outside the nurses’ quarters.

  ‘Can’t. Shelley’s there.’

  ‘That’s a bugger, isn’t it?’ He leaned in to kiss her. ‘Maybe next weekend.’

  She gave him a long look. This was the perfect time to end it. To let him go, nice and gently, before it all became too complicated. Before it was too painful. She had already agreed to meet his family when she should have said no. She shouldn’t let it go any further.

  But she let him kiss her, and she remembered how his kisses were the best she’d ever known. How tender he was, how she never wanted the kissing to end. So instead of ending it, she found herself saying, ‘My dad has a golf tournament next Saturday. We could have his apartment to ourselves.’

  How could one more weekend hurt? He was so sexy after all.

  When she walked up the quadrangle to her block, she saw Shelley standing at the window, smiling at her.

  ‘Well, how was it?’ Shelley asked when Jess walked in. She lit a cigarette and held the packet out for her. ‘Were they holier than thou?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it, Shell, they were the loveliest people. Not at all what I expected. I rather liked it there. When it was time to go, I was sorry to be leaving.’ Jess took a long drag. ‘But I’m going to call it off with him, regardless. No matter how nice he or his family are, he’s still a nasho, isn’t he?’

  ‘That he is, my dear. You do need to break it off with him, Jess. Before it’s too late and you go and do something mad like fall in love with him. That would be an utter disaster. Imagine what your father would say!’

  ‘I know.’ Jess pulled her hair out of the bun. Her heart tightened. For the rest of the day, try as she might, she couldn’t shake that dreadful feeling that she’d done something mad and fallen in love with him already.

  But he’d be headed to Vietnam soon enough. The fact that there was a definite expiration date on their relationship gave her some comfort. It wasn’t like she was going to marry him now, was it?

  18 NOVEMBER 2017

  From behind the blinds at her bedroom window, Jamie watched CJ and Finn.

  ‘Look at you spying on her.’ Jess walked up the hallway and joined her at the window.

  Sitting barefoot and cross-legged, CJ could easily have passed for a young Jess. She wore a flowing, jungle-print dress, which her frizzy chestnut curls fell over, and a paisley bandana kept her fringe out of her huge honey-coloured eyes.

  ‘See his T-shirt?’ Jess stood elbow to elbow beside Jamie.

  ‘Mm-hmm.’

  ‘She looks happy,’ Jess said softly, as CJ threw her head back and laughed at something Finn had just said.

  ‘Mm-hmm.’

  ‘What’s with the mm-hmms?’

  Jamie let out a long sigh. ‘I’m worried.’

  ‘What about?’ Jess chuckled. ‘That your daughter looks happy?’

  ‘She’s really fallen for him.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that? She’s seventeen. And he looks just as taken with her.’

  Jamie moved away from the window. ‘I just hope she’s going to be okay.’

  She had felt uneasy about Finn when she first met him at his school acceptance interview back in January. He didn’t have the same hunched-over, lowered-eyes nervous energy of other new students. He’d sat up with his broad shoulders firmly back and he’d held her stare, almost as if he was daring her to reject him as a prospective student. And she hadn’t liked the mousey way his mother had deferred to him, like he was the one who called the shots.

  She’d accepted Finn’s application, because on paper he was a perfect candidate: he was an academic high-achiever and a member of the band at his old school, and he came from a family who’d have no trouble paying school fees and who would probably make extra donations. She couldn’t very well refuse a student entry because she didn’t like his posture.

  Since then, he’d stayed out of trouble, seemed popular enough with his peers, and his teachers spoke highly of him. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago, when CJ had come home and deliriously announced that he’d asked her out, that Jamie had remembered how much he’d rubbed her the wrong way when she’d first met him.

  Jess interrupted her thoughts. ‘You know what it is? He’s the first boy your little girl’s been interested in. I remember your father deliberately trying to find fault in that poor defenceless Trevor you dated a few times when you were her age. Remember that?’

  She didn’t return her mum’s bemused smile. ‘He’s too cool for his age, too smooth.’

  Jess scooped up her long grey curls and twisted them into a makeshift bun. ‘Nothing wrong with being cool, sweet. You fell in love with a pretty cool guy yourself once.’

  ‘Yeah, and look how well that turned out.’

  Jess rested her hand in the small of Jamie’s back. ‘He seems just her type to me — he comes across as intelligent, he’s into music; he looks like a bit of a dreamer, just like her.’

  ‘He’s no dreamer.’ Jamie was one hundred per cent certain about that. He was a thinker, that boy, a plotter, not an innocent dreamer. No way. She knew enough about kids to know that.

  But she had to admit that Finn would be the kind of boy to capture CJ’s heart. He had that rock-star charisma that CJ loved. He looked the part with his broody eyes and dark clothes. He even acted the part, all aloof and too cool for school — of course a girl who dreamed of a career in music would be attracted to the only real muso at her school.

  And it was no surprise that he would be drawn to CJ. Her daughter was endlessly talented, whip smart, sweet, friendly and stunningly beautiful.

  ‘I’m off now, love. Don’t worry yourself silly over CJ, okay?’ Jess gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘Will I see you at Sunrise Glades tonight?’

  ‘Bye, Mum. Yes, I’ll see you after tea.’

  ***

  ‘Sounds great, kids,’ Jess called out as she walked past CJ and Finn who were strumming together and harmonising under the shade of the hibiscus trees in full pink bloom.

  �
�Thanks, CJ’s nan.’ Finn smiled at her.

  ‘Kiss Pop for me. Tell him I’ll see him tonight,’ CJ said when her nan bent to kiss her. CJ watched her climb into the car, her rainbow-coloured skirt trailing behind her.

  ‘Your nan’s cool,’ Finn said, once Jess had driven away. ‘She’s pretty different from your mom, eh?’

  ‘Chalk and cheese.’

  ‘Your mom doesn’t like me,’ he announced matter-of-factly.

  CJ didn’t reply. Even though her mum was friendly to Finn, CJ had the same feeling. And she wasn’t sure why. Maybe Jamie was just used to having her daughter to herself, and now that CJ was spending lots of time with Finn she was jealous? CJ didn’t want to ask her.

  ‘So, what did you say again for the next bit?’ He broke the silence. ‘Cloudy greys?’

  She looked back at her open notepad and read over the scribbled words. ‘Yeah, I was thinking —’ She broke into song while strumming the chords. ‘Through cloudy greys . . . will you let me play . . . in your bed of leaves.’ She hit the high note with a lilt that dragged out the word ‘leaves’ over two syllables. She stopped singing and explained, ‘You know, to follow on from “come shine your rays”. So it’s,’ and then she sang again, ‘Come shine your rays, through cloudy greys.’

  Finn looked at her in a way that made her blush.

  ‘Nice. Okay, so we’ve got . . .’ He sang the song from the beginning.

  They’d been working together since eight in the morning. It was their first joint song-writing effort.

  CJ knew her mum expected her to spend the weekend studying — it was close to exam time — so she had gone into Jamie’s bedroom late the night before with her argument all prepared. ‘We’ll be done by, like, ten max, which is when I’d be starting to study anyway. I won’t be wasting any of my actual study time, all I’d be doing is getting up earlier.’

  Jamie had put down the novel she was reading but just as she’d opened her mouth to reply, CJ had jumped in with, ‘And I’ve stuck to your rules, Mum. We haven’t hung out together on school nights, I’ve kept curfew on the weekends. Please? It’ll just be a couple of hours, tops.’

  Her mum had given her a small smile then before saying, ‘K’.

  As CJ listened now to her boyfriend’s mellow voice singing her bittersweet lyrics, she thought about how she’d inadvertently lied last night. There was no way she’d be able to focus on studying even a little bit after the magic of this.

  Finn smiled at her while he sang, turning her insides to mush.

  Wearing a faded black ‘Scott Gunn 2015 World Tour’ T-shirt and torn black denim shorts, he used his sunglasses to hold his hair off his face and his dark eyes twinkled at her. His toned and tanned legs were muscular, like the rest of him. Even his feet were sexy. Everything about him turned her on.

  From the day he’d first approached her at her locker, they’d been practically inseparable. Every afternoon, they walked home from school together, where they would kiss on her bed until her phone alarm sounded at four-thirty so he could leave before her mum got home at five.

  Often, he’d tell her about his old life in the US. Yesterday, as they’d walked together, he’d talked about the time Bill Gates had driven his black Porsche through Dick’s Drive-In when Finn had been serving at the drive-thru.

  ‘Hang on, what?’ she’d interrupted him. ‘You worked at a place called Dick’s Drive-In?’

  ‘Yeah. You never heard of it? They’re everywhere over there. Like McDonald’s.’

  ‘Please tell me they don’t serve hot dogs at a place called Dick’s. That would be too tragic.’

  ‘Nope.’ He’d laughed. ‘No hot dogs. It’s burgers, fries, shakes. Bill Gates ordered a cheeseburger and a floating root beer, in case you were dying to know.’

  ‘Root beer, Dick’s . . . what is it with you Americans?’

  ‘Hey, we’re better than the Vietnamese. My dad took us on one of his business trips to Ho Chi Minh City last year, and the big ice-cream chain there is called “Fanny”. So people just go around licking Fannys all over the place.’

  ‘Eww, gross!’

  He’d let go of her hand and grazed her butt with his fingers. ‘Not to me.’

  She’d quickly searched for a change of topic. ‘Hey, so what are you studying tonight?’

  ‘Physics. I’m going to read through my notes on motion and hope that shit sinks in.’

  When they’d reached her street, she’d been relieved to see her mum’s car parked in their driveway. ‘I forgot that Mum finished early today. She had a workshop in the city. Sorry, you can’t come in.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re seventeen and your mom bans you from seeing me on school nights.’

  She’d nodded. ‘I know.’

  He’d dropped his backpack on the ground and drawn her in close. ‘Come here, then, say goodbye to me properly.’

  When he’d kissed her she’d forgotten about everything else.

  ‘Hey, I had an idea.’ He’d nibbled on her earlobe. ‘We should write a song together in the morning. Do you want to?’

  ‘Yes! Oh my God, yes!’

  So this morning he’d turned up bright and early to write their song, and now that the last verse was done, he presented her with a brown paper bag.

  ‘Present.’ He winked. ‘For you.’

  ‘What is it?’ Her fingers trembled. Her first gift from Finn!

  She pulled out a men’s flannel shirt with blue and yellow checks and held it up with both hands. ‘Um . . . this is for me?’

  ‘Look at the pocket.’

  She turned the front of the shirt to face her and saw the embroidered Dick’s on the breast pocket.

  ‘It’s my old uniform.’ He grinned. ‘Thought you might like to wear it to bed.’

  She bit her bottom lip, the smile escaping anyway. ‘Are you sure I can have it?’

  He nodded, and she clutched the shirt to her chest. ‘I love it. It’s the best present ever,’ she said, meaning it.

  ‘Cool. I like thinking about you in it.’

  She reddened.

  ‘All right, back to work. From the top, you ready?’ He played their song all the way through to the end while she sang the words.

  She was Finn Maxwell’s girlfriend. She was making music with him. And he liked her enough to want her to wear his shirt. She thought she might just burst with all those happy feelings swimming inside her.

  ‘CJ, it’s gone ten-thirty, honey,’ her mum called from the doorway. ‘It’s time for Finn to go home, please, so you can study.’

  CJ rolled her eyes. ‘He’s right here, Mum. You don’t have to speak about him in the third person.’ The guilt was immediate when she saw her mother’s raised eyebrows.

  Finn let out a laugh and pulled his sunglasses over his eyes. ‘Going now, Miss Stone. Thanks for having me.’

  He took a step towards CJ but she shook her head. ‘No, Finn. My mum’s watching. It’s weird.’

  ‘It’s your mom that’s weird, babe.’

  For the second time in less than a minute she felt a stab of guilt. Her mum wasn’t weird. She was strict, but she wasn’t weird. Why did he think that? She took a breath to defend her mother, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  Finn left and CJ walked to Jamie, who was still standing at the open door. She gave her mum a tight hug. ‘Sorry I was rude to you, Mum. I didn’t mean it.’

  Jamie kissed the top of her head. ‘Thanks, honey. It’s okay, I know you’re just frustrated because you wanted to stay out there longer. That song sounded beautiful, by the way.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Hey, listen, I’ve got loads of paperwork to do. Want to bring your study notes out here and we can work together on the deck?’

  They often sat and worked beside each other. CJ enjoyed the closeness those quiet hours on their laptops brought them. But she felt uneasy about sitting with her mum now after she hadn’t defended her to Finn. It was almost like she didn’t deserve to be with her. ‘Um, I
think I’d concentrate better in my room, if that’s okay.’

  Her mum gave her a wobbly smile. ‘Sure, whatever works.’

  ***

  Just before midnight, CJ’s phone vibrated on her bedside table.

  Are you wearing my shirt?

  She smiled to herself as she typed:

  Yep. I love it. Thank you so much

  Show me.

  It’s late! I’ll take a selfie in the morning.

  Please take one now. Please.

  Groaning, she switched on her bedside lamp and turned the camera onto selfie mode. She took a photo, but she looked ugly from that angle so she took another one from higher up. That was better.

  Her phone buzzed.

  Waiting . . .

  She hit send, and a second later her phone vibrated again.

  Not like that, take a sexy one.

  She gulped down the hurt. She thought the one she’d just sent him was sexy.

  What do you mean?

  Undo the buttons.

  She gasped.

  No!!

  Don’t cock-tease me, CJ. I gave you my favourite shirt. Please. For me? Dying here . . .

  With shaking fingers, she unbuttoned the shirt and took another selfie. She didn’t like how her face looked in it at all, but he wouldn’t be looking at her face, would he?

  Bile rose inside her when she hit send. She immediately deleted both the message and the photo from her phone.

  His reply came seconds later.

  Sooo good. You’re the hottest. Thank you Sweet dreams.

  Through the sleepless night that followed, with the shirt in a tight ball under her bed and back in her old familiar pyjamas, CJ had the same thought on auto play — I never even asked him for the shirt. It’s not like I owed him anything. Why didn’t I just say no?

  28 APRIL 1969

  Frank stepped onto the platform at St Kilda station and Jess just about bowled him over.

  ‘I missed you!’ She threw her arms around his neck.