by Dale, Lindy
“You’re late,” Tara chided, handing Georgie a red bandana with a skull and crossbones printed on the front, and an extremely long plastic sword. Georgie looped the bandana round her hair and tied it in a knot. She shoved the sword into her belt and adjusted her peasant top. She felt like Keira Knightly, only slightly fatter and hugely more ridiculous.
“No, I’m not. The boat’s still here.”
Tara shook her head and directed Georgie up the gangplank and onto the deck. “Always with the smart comments. You’ll never change, Birdie.”
“That’s why you like me. Now where’s the bar? I’m dying for a drink and I have some news to tell you. After you tell me why we’re all dressed as pirates for a coming home party, that is.”
“Oh, like, duh, it’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day. We’re killing two birds with one stone.”
Tara pointed to a spot at the stern of the ship and the girls made their way towards it. Despite the fact that this was a private booking, Tara had managed to fill the back end of the huge ship with people. Georgie had never laid eyes on half of them, but that was nothing new. Tara collected friends like Imelda Marcos had collected shoes. And any number of them could have been Jim, her boyfriend’s, mates.
“So, what’s so important that it almost made you miss the boat?” Tara asked, once they were set up with coconut shells filled with some type of rum concoction.
“You’ll never guess who I had coffee with today.”
“Bruno Mars.”
“Uh. No. Do you think I’d be this calm if I’d had coffee with Bruno Mars?” The girls shared a liking for the dark haired singer. His voice did it for Georgie. Tara was enamored with his dimples.
“To state the obvious, you don’t look calm at all. You look like you’re about to explode. That pirate girl dress is rather fetching by the way. Very wench-ish. You could totally get some action in that.”
Georgie ignored her. There was only one kind of action she wanted now and it had nothing to do with cutlasses and pantaloons. “I saw Nate.”
“Nate Adams, Nate?” Mid sip of her coconut cocktail, Tara began to choke. Georgie gave her a slap on the back.
“The one and only. He was jogging along the foreshore. I practically ran into him.”
“Well, I’ll be. Fancy that. And how is he?”
Georgie cast her mind back to earlier in the day. “He looks well. He’s very handsome.”
“Of course, he’s handsome. He’d have given Leonardo DiCaprio a run for his money when we were young. Don’t you remember how all the girls used to call him Romeo in the last year of school?”
A frown passed over Georgie’s face. “I thought that was because of me. You know, Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers and all that.”
“God, no. Jessica gave him the name after we watched the film in English. How could you have forgetten?”
“Because I’ve been trying to block her from my memory since Year Nine.”
“So, tell me all about it. No, wait! Let me get another drink first. I have to be fully focused for this.”
Georgie wondered at the correlation between alcohol and being focused but she refrained from asking. When Tara returned with fresh drinks for them both, she began her story.
“I was out for my jog and I stepped in dog poo and as I was wiping it off I saw him running towards me.”
A sigh doleful escaped Tara’s lips. “It’s just like in a movie. Go on.”
“It wasn’t that romantic. He didn’t even recognize me at first.”
“That was because of your hair, I suppose. I’m buggered if I can pick you out in a crowd. I keep expecting that surfer girl to walk through the door, the one with the messy strands always falling from her ponytail. Not the coiffed beauty we get today.”
“I’m not coiffed.”
“Yes, you are. Since you came back from Sydney, you’re all hipster with your indie clothes and vintage handbags. I swear on my mother’s golf clubs that girl sitting next to us at lunch the other day was drooling over your shoes. Drooling! It’s like you got an overdose of café culture or something. Not that it’s a bad thing. But you do look a lot different.”
Her appearance had changed, Georgie supposed, but didn’t that come with growing up? There was a time when you were too old to be prancing around in overalls and Doc Martins and as those elements had disappeared, so had a lot of other things. It had years since Georgie had been surfing. What with the move to Melbourne — where nobody in their right mind would surf without an arctic thickness wetsuit — and then the social life in Sydney, her former life as a surfer girl had been swept away, too.
“I can’t remember the last time I hit the waves,” Georgie thought aloud.
“Maybe you could go with Nate. I bet he still gets in a tube or two before breakfast. Are you seeing him again?”
Georgie had no doubt he did. Nate’s body had the trademark physique of a surfer. It had been one of the first things she’d noticed today. Not that she’d been eyeing him off or anything. It was mere curiosity.
“I don’t think his girlfriend would be happy about that,” Georgie replied. “She was giving me daggers as it was.”
“He took you for coffee with his girlfriend? The absolute cheek.”
So Georgie went on to explain all that had happened, from her dip in the drink to the fact that Nate carried a photo of them around in his wallet. When she finally drew breath, she discovered that Tara was peering at her in a very odd fashion.
“You’re still in love with him. After all these years.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. It’s in your eyes. God, this is so romantic. That’s why you wouldn’t marry that Matt fellow. It was nothing to do with him being the reincarnation of Casanova; it was because you still love Nate. Matt’s affair just made it easier for you to end it.”
Georgie opened her mouth to deny it but, seriously, what was the point? She knew Tara was telling the truth.
*****
Later on that evening, as the sun was setting, and the ship made its way back to the harbor, Georgie stood on the bow, her sword anchored to her side, watching the waves. Down in the water, a pod of dolphins leapt along beside the boat, playing chasings and a couple of small craft, filled with fishermen, called out pirate obscenities as they passed, completely unnoticed by Georgie.
Georgie was pensive. Seeing Nate earlier on had dragged up memories, ones she had tried for so long to forget. If she were Kate Winslet in Titanic, and her Leo was here with his arms outstretched and his body leaning into hers, everything would be perfect. As long as they didn’t hit an iceberg, of course. Georgie had always hated the end of that movie. Jack should have lived to run away with Rose. Just like she should have run away with Nate when she had the opportunity. But it was no use thinking about the past. What was done was done; she may as well get over it. Nate had a girlfriend, and even though Perth was a very small place, she’d probably never see him again.
As the crew tied up the boat, Georgie went below to gather her things and prepare to disembark. It had been a fun night despite her melancholy mood now and she was keen to move on to the next stage of the evening, a dinner at a restaurant overlooking the river. She wanted to shake the blues away, to get back to being fun Georgie, not this stick in the mud no-fun one.
“Coming, Georgie?” one of the other guests asked, as he headed down the gangplank and back to shore.
“Yep.” She took the offered hand and stepped lightly onto the walkway at the very moment a cargo vessel decided to blast its hooter.
Startled, Georgie squealed, jumping higher than she’d ever jumped in high jump competitions at school and hitting her head on some ship paraphernalia.
“Ouch!”
She raised her hand from the rail to rub at her head, which of course was the completely wrong thing to do. In front of her, the large wake from the passing boat was causing the walkway to wobble and her eager helper was making it worse by clutching at anything and everything i
n sight, including the plastic sword at Georgie’s hip. Georgie, despite having the balance of a seasoned board rider, found herself teetering with him until, finally, they toppled over the unprotected side of the gangplank and straight into the water. Her only thought as she spluttered her way to the surface — other than hoping nobody had emptied bilge water in the near vicinity — was ‘not again.’
“You’re supposed to hold on to the rail,” Tara tutted, as one of the crew used the boat hook to fish Georgie out of the river. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“Nice night for a dip?” Georgie laughed, wringing out her wet pirate dress and smoothing her bedraggled hair. In the kerfuffle she’d managed to lose one of her boots and her hairclips. Her dilly bag — because a clutch was not appropriate pirate attire — had sprung open in the fall, revealing its intimate contents to the other partygoers. They were currently being retrieved with a net. Georgie didn’t care about the bag or the lipstick. She just hoped her keys were still inside and that her phone was in working order. The last time she’d seen it, it had been floating down the river right side up and she had a feeling she may need it to call a taxi any minute. Tara looked extremely peeved.
“This isn’t a laughing matter, Georgie. You can’t come to the restaurant looking like that. You’ll have to go home and get changed.”
Georgie was well aware that she couldn’t go looking like a fish left out of water too long but seriously, Tara was going overboard. It wasn’t as if she’d purposely gone for a dive. And it wasn’t her fault. The man standing next to her, who looked like he’d been put through the heavy-duty cycle on a washing machine, was more to blame. He’d grabbed her sword and pulled her into the water. If anyone should be getting a tongue lashing, it should be him.
Georgie sighed. “It’ll take at least an hour to get home, changed and back. And I’ll never get another taxi. Not on a Saturday night. I’ll just go home and stay there. You go without me.”
Tara gave a low, cross grumble and stomped towards the minivan that was taking them to the restaurant. “God, you’re hopeless. Get in the taxi. And sit up the back. I don’t want you dripping all over me. He can take you home after he drops us off.”
“It’s okay, she can get a lift with me. I’m sure I’ve got a bit of plastic in the back of the car so she doesn’t ruin the leather seats.”
Standing next to the minivan was Nate.
Georgie swallowed in surprise. What in heavens was he doing here?
Tara was not as subtle. Her cheeks were positively glowing at this new arrival. “I should have known you’d show up sooner or later, Adams. You never could stay away from Georgie.” Then, like a mother hen with her chicks, she gathered the remainder of the group who were wearing dry clothes and bundled them into the minivan, leaving the ‘lovebirds’ to it.
“Ring me in the morning,” she called through the open window like a wayward fairy godmother. “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“That doesn’t leave much to the imagination,” Nate said.
“You can say that again.”
As they watched the taxi van speed off in the direction of the restaurant, Georgie, who was beginning to feel the cold in her damp dress and pantaloons, turned to Nate.
“What are you doing here?”
“After I got home, I got to thinking and I think I liked seeing you again this afternoon and I want to see you some more.”
“But you have a girlfriend. I’m not going to come between you.”
“Lydia? She’s not my girlfriend. I think she’d like to be, though. She’s just a girl I know through a bloke at work. His girlfriend was trying to hook us up but she’s not my type. She’s loud and her boobs are way too big.”
Now where had she heard that before?
Georgie began to search through her dilly bag for a comb. She must look an absolute fright. “How did you find me?”
“I took a punt that your parents still lived in West Leederville. I rang your old number.”
“You spoke to Mum?”
That was all she needed. Georgie’s parents had never been very approving of her relationship with Nate, once it changed from friendship to love. They thought he stifled her, made her give up on her dreams, that Georgie never had a mind of her own when he was around. What they never realized was that it was them who’d been stifling. Georgie had done everything she’d done to make them happy but none of it had made her happy.
“She gave me your number. I don’t think she knew it was me. I tried to call you before I left home but it went straight to message bank.”
“Possibly because my phone’s been floating in the river for the past half an hour but that still doesn’t explain how you found me.”
Nate gave her a look. “How many tall ships are there in Perth, Georgie?”
Hmm. He had point.
“It wasn’t exactly rocket science. All I had to do was Google the location.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here. It’s nice to see you.”
“You, too.”
They walked along the jetty towards the car park. The moon had risen fully now and Georgie was getting chillier by the second. She didn’t care though. She was with Nate. “I don’t mind that I’m missing out on dinner now you’re here. I didn’t know many of the people in that group. It would have been a night of small talk.”
“Or pirate talk. Why are you dressed in pirate garb anyway? The Leeuwin isn’t a pirate ship.”
“It’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day.”
“No shit? They have such a thing?”
“Apparently.”
They came to a stop beside a shiny new car. Nate pulled the keys out of his pocket and flicked the remote. Swinging the rear door open, he searched around for a second, before pulling out a large plastic bin liner.
“So the Red Devil went to car heaven, then?” Georgie asked.
A faint smile lit Nate’s his face. “That car was the best.”
“As long as you don’t count the time we got stuck in sand dunes at Lancelin, or when we broke down in the middle of the freeway during peak hour.”
Ignoring her, Nate opened the passenger door and spread the bin liner on the seat, tucking the sides firmly down. He gestured to Georgie to sit. “That should do.”
“My hero,” Georgie gushed.
“Get in the car,” he laughed. “You’re shivering.”
Only with excitement, Georgie thought. Nate was back and this time, she wasn’t letting him go.
Chapter 8
People who believed that Georgie and Nate were inseparable when they’d been friends were astonished at how much more time they were able to spend in each other’s company once they became boyfriend and girlfriend. From the morning after their first kiss, Nate had practically taken up residence at Georgie’s house. He had spare clothes in her wardrobe and a wetsuit hanging in the garage. Every time Georgie’s mother turned around, he was there, helping with the dishes, doing homework with Georgie or putting the vacuum cleaner over the living room rug. At one stage, Mrs. Bird declared she was unsure if they’d gained a boyfriend or a live-in housekeeper. Whichever, she knew it wasn’t healthy. Georgie should be out with her girlfriends, not spending every minute with a boy she’d known since she was eight. It had been fine when they were little but the way they made eyes across the dinner table these days was no longer because of some childish stunt they’d planned. There were an awful lot of teenage hormones on the loose in the Bird household and none of them were from the new pair of Lovebirds Mr. Bird had insisted on buying.
For Georgie’s part, once she’d discovered kissing Nate to be akin to an afternoon in the company of a huge slab of chocolate fudge, she’d never looked back. They floated for hours by the edge of the pool, their hands twining and unraveling along with their lips. They lay on the cool grass of the front lawn, their bodies playfully tangled like puppies in a dog basket, a sight that caused Mrs. Longo the next-door neighbor, to barge in the gate late one afterno
on and demand they stop. Seeing Nate fondling Georgie’s bare stomach was apparently too much for her sensitive nerves. Georgie had smirked when Mrs. Longo suggested that if she wanted to watch pornography she’d take up using the Internet. Mr. Longo had been doing that for ages. They’d seen him through the lounge room window.
At Nate’s house, they spent whole evenings on the bed in his room, listening to music and kissing frantically with one ear to the open door in case his mother appeared. And as their kisses grew more ardent so did their need to explore other body parts, with the door shut. Unfortunately, Nate’s mother never seemed to see it that way. She designated herself the guardian of Georgie’s purity and could often be heard stomping along the hall to announce her presence and stating she didn’t think Georgie’s mother would approve if the door were closed. They never got to be alone.
By the time Georgie and Nate reached the age of seventeen, they’d been a couple for almost two years. As far as teenage romances go, theirs had run a marathon at the Olympics and was now in training for the next. Their feelings, far from dissipating as hoped, had escalated into a deep lustful love and while Mr. and Mrs. Bird thought Nate was a very nice boy with impeccable manners, they were under no illusions that Georgie and Nate, if they hadn’t already, were soon to take their relationship to the final level.
The awful realization that the children were no longer children hit home on the day Nate pulled into the driveway of Georgie’s house, a pair of red and white P plates taking pride of place in the front and back windows of the car he was driving.
“Oh my God, Roger,” Mrs. Bird gasped, as she pulled back the curtains to have a closer look at Nate’s new Corolla wagon. “His parents have bought him a car. A wagon.”
“Calm down,” Mr. Bird replied, coming to stand next to his wife. He could see she was about to collapse. “It’s only a car.”
“But it has one of those fold-down seats in the back.” Mrs. Bird was clearly worried at this new development. Her hand was gripping her mouth like it was trying to hold in a cry of terror.
