Paradise City

by C. J. Duggan

  We finally pulled into the driveway. Uncle Peter was still deep in conversation about building permits when we dived out of the car, caring little about being quiet. I chased Amanda up the garden path and through the entrance, dumping our school bags just inside the front door. We ran down the hall into Amanda’s room, her beating me by a clear mile, she was so bloody fast.

  Amanda launched onto her bed, laughing so hard she could barely catch her breath; I was trying to catch my own as I slumped in the doorway. She clawed herself into a sitting position on the edge of her bed, her eyes wild with excitement. ‘Shut the door,’ she said breathlessly.

  I didn’t hesitate; I closed it and dived onto my own bed, ruffling up the immaculately made sheets. ‘What do you know?’ I bounced on my bed like an eager child on Christmas Eve.

  ‘Sixth period was woodwork with Boon,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘How romantic,’ I mused. Trust Amanda, who didn’t strike me as the crafty type, to choose woodwork for Year Twelve – the things you do for love. I tried to appear all casual, but my heart skipped a beat at the thought that maybe Boon had said something to her.

  Amanda sighed. ‘He sanded my birdbox for me.’

  I snorted. ‘Wow. Is that what they’re calling it these days?’

  Amanda blinked at me, before my words slowly registered. ‘Oh gross!’ she said, throwing a pillow at me. ‘And here I thought you would be the biggest prude.’

  I dodged the pillow, laughing. ‘What made you think I would be a prude?’ I asked, genuinely intrigued by what her answer would be.

  Amanda’s head canted, as if it was obvious. ‘Well, let’s face it, playing with waterbombs at the Red Hill Field Day is a little less advanced than what you’ll find here.’

  My attention piqued. ‘Oh?’

  Amanda pushed off from her bed; walking over to her dresser and pulling her lip balm and loose change from the pockets of her school dress, chucking them into the glass bowl next to her perfume stash. ‘Let’s just say the boys in Paradise City will only hold hands for so long.’

  It hadn’t gone unnoticed. Year Seven girls wearing foundation, the senior boys having to shave their five o’clock shadows and driving. I didn’t know if it was something in the water but everyone seemed so much more advanced in every way; well, except academically. That’s where I could hold my own.

  How depressing.

  Even Amanda walked with an air of confidence: her hips swayed, her head was held high as she lazily applied lip balm before chucking it back into the dish. I could pretty much guarantee that she wouldn’t be a virgin; she seemed too street smart, overly confident and super comfortable in her skin. Even though she blushed like mad at the mention of Boon’s name, I had no doubt that she was doing more than hand holding, and here I was over the moon that Ballantine had used my bloody pen. Amanda was right; she had me pegged as tragic from day one.

  Well, that was about to change.

  I was here for a good time, not a long time, and if it meant experiencing every pleasure this city had to offer, then so be it. The last thing I wanted was to have any regrets or wasted opportunities. Now, with Amanda by my side and in good spirits, I would have to think of a plan. Even though I was not wholly comfortable with having to hang with Amanda, Gemma and Jess, she was the link to the Kirkland surfers, to Ballantine.

  I straightened my spine, trying not to focus on the waves of anxiety overtaking me. ‘So, what do you know that I don’t?’ I tried not to make out like I really cared, asking it with a nonchalant attitude, knowing that the more she thought I cared, the more Amanda would string out the information. I had to play this cool.

  ‘Let’s just say that a little birdy told me something very interesting in woodwork today.’

  ‘This wouldn’t be the same little birdy that sanded your birdbox, would it?’

  ‘Lexie, please, I simply cannot reveal my sources. But, yes, Boon told me.’

  I laughed. ‘Remind me never to do a bank job with you.’

  Amanda shrugged. ‘Hos before bros.’

  I grinned fiercely; I was loving this new connection with Amanda. I clasped my heart. ‘That’s the most beautiful thing you have ever said to me.’

  ‘Yeah, well, if we’re going to be double dating we’re going to have to get along.’

  ‘What?’ I barely breathed out the question.

  Amanda beamed. ‘Boon told me someone likes you.’

  My heart pounded wildly in my chest; all I could do was stare wide-eyed at my deliriously smug cousin.

  ‘Who?’ I managed, swallowing deeply. Oh God, I’m going to be sick. Suddenly every interaction with Ballantine ran through my head: the times we had made eye contact, the times he had sat next to me in detention, our first real playful display on the beach . . . My heart soared with hope and with the disbelief that something I wanted so badly could possibly be true, that my time in Paradise was going to turn from shit-ordinary to absolutely magical.

  Amanda moved to sit next to me, her eyes alight with excitement. She bit her bottom lip and grabbed my hands, forcing me to turn towards her as she looked me in the eyes.

  ‘What do you think of Woolly?’

  Wait. What?

  I blinked. Twice. I could literally hear a record player scratch in my mind, right before the bone-jarring feeling of disappointment plummeted down to my feet.

  Amanda must have read it all over my face. ‘Oh, that much, huh?’

  ‘I– I don’t even know him.’

  ‘Of course you don’t, you don’t know anyone, dummy.’

  I blinked again, the true weight of the situation washing over me.

  Amanda rolled her eyes. ‘Relax, he wasn’t offering a marriage proposal; he just thinks you’re cute. Trust me, you could do a lot worse than Woolly. He’s actually one of the better Kirkland boys.’

  Perhaps he was but I really didn’t care, he could be a saint for all that mattered. I wasn’t interested. Nope, I had hoped beyond measure that Amanda would speak of Ballantine’s undying infatuation with me. I dreamed of him knocking on my window of a night, me flinging my arms around him at the bus stop, passing love notes to one another in detention, me holding his towel for him and waiting for him to emerge from the ocean like the Adonis he was. Okay, yeah, maybe I had given all these thoughts way too much attention. But I couldn’t help it. Try as I might to forget about Ballantine, each and every day seemed to have me crossing his path, and it did strange things to my insides. When I thought about experiencing new things in Paradise, what I really wanted above anything was for Ballantine to be a part of it, not Woolly.

  ‘Well, that was anti-climactic,’ said Amanda, her shoulders slumping. ‘I had it all worked out, someone to talk to on our dates while the boys talked about surfing.’

  ‘Are you and Boon going on a date?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, not exactly, that shit only really happens in the movies. Still, a girl can hope, yeah?’

  She certainly could, I thought. She. Certainly. Could.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I thought I was dreaming when I heard the tap on the window.

  A delicate tap-tap-tap that, at first, in my half-asleep state, I thought was a tree branch tapping against the glass, but of course I knew better when I felt the pressure on my bed and heard the sound of curtains flinging apart.

  The window made its painful slide across the aluminium track, causing me to bury down in my covers. I had little to no interest in another late-night sneak-out; the last thing I wanted was a forced hook-up with Woolly. No, I think I’d enjoy some much-needed sleep. But instead of the hushed voices getting quieter, and the pressure lifting off my bed, the voices got louder and it felt like a stampede.

  ‘Shit, be quiet.’ Amanda giggled. ‘Come on. Watch out for Lexie.’

  The weight lifted off my bed and I burrowed deeper into my doona, forcing sleep onto myself as I tried desperately to ignore the whispers that were now in the room. Ugh, I didn’t even want to know. With a sigh and
a determined attitude to get back to sleep, I felt another dip on my bed, as if two feet were planted on my mattress top near my legs.

  Oh my God. Oh my God.

  Someone else had climbed into our room. I lay deathly still, squeezing my eyes shut, praying that Boon hadn’t brought Woolly with him, that this wasn’t him playing Cupid setting up the double date from hell. Just stay asleep, I told myself, slip into a coma until they take the hint. But worse still, the legs on my bed moved and I could feel the whole weight of a body now sitting on my bed. There was a boy on my bed – an unwelcome boy – and dread swept through me.

  Don’t move, Lexie. Don’t. Move.

  ‘Is she breathing?’

  My eyes whipped open, I sat bolt upright in bed at the sound of Ballantine’s voice. Holy fucking shit, Ballantine was sitting on my bed with a devious smirk on his face. I blinked. Was this a dream? A very real dream.

  ‘Expecting someone else?’ he said, curving an inquisitive brow.

  ‘NO!’ I said a bit too loudly, a bit too quickly.

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘I– I wasn’t expecting anyone.’

  ‘Sure you weren’t dreaming about a certain woolly-headed surfer?’ Boon eyed me knowingly, as he crashed on Amanda’s bed, linking his hands behind his head.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, making it perfectly clear that that was never going to be the case.

  ‘That’s a shame. Woolly really needs to get a root.’

  ‘Boon!’ Amanda’s head nearly spun off her shoulders.

  ‘What? I’m just stating a fact; he’s such a grumpy prick these days. Isn’t he, Ballantine?’

  Ballantine rested his elbows on his knees, nodding sombrely. ‘That he is.’

  ‘Yeah, well, sorry about that.’ I sat in my bed, clutching a pillow to my chest, wishing I hadn’t worn my skimpy summer PJs tonight. Although it wasn’t like I’d had any way of knowing boys would be infiltrating our bedroom.

  Boon sat up on the bed and turned to Amanda. ‘Wanna come for a ride?’

  Amanda smiled. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Sa-weet.’ He stood, pulling Amanda up off the bed and planting a chaste kiss on her lips. ‘Let’s go!’

  It wasn’t until this point that I realised Amanda was fully dressed – she must have known about their arrival and prepared for it. She was like a ninja getting dressed in complete silence: impressive if not a little scary.

  Ballantine scooted across, letting Boon and Amanda climb out the window without so much as a backwards glance. He then stood, stretching his arms up to the ceiling, causing his tee to lift slightly, exposing the toned wall of his stomach. His arms fell to his sides as he began to climb back over my bed, working to hook a leg over the windowsill, then he paused, looking back at me.

  ‘You coming?’ he asked.

  I fought not to smile. ‘Woolly isn’t out there, is he?’

  Ballantine laughed. ‘No, big bad Woolly is not with us.’

  ‘Okay.’ I threw my doona off while jumping out of bed to head to the wardrobe, only to pause and spin around to Ballantine. ‘Wait, where are we going?’

  He didn’t answer me straightaway, he simply looked – looked at me in that way that shows a boy appreciates a girl. In my eagerness to move I had momentarily forgotten I was wearing my short-shorts and sheer top. I stood in the middle of the room feeling completely exposed, more so with the way Ballantine’s eyes were resting on me. He coughed, quickly looking out the window, squinting up at the moon.

  ‘Ah, nowhere fancy. Meet you out the front.’ And just like that he climbed out through the open window.

  What was that?

  I know my mind often played tricks on me but I hadn’t mistaken that look, no way. The heat in his eyes as they’d dipped to my rather skimpy attire, the way he’d seemed to shift awkwardly, as if almost embarrassed for being caught staring. A thrill shot through me just thinking about it. Regardless of whether a boy like Ballantine could be interested in a girl like me, I saw that look for what it was. He was, after all, a male, and an experienced one, no doubt. If I wanted to see that look again I was going to have to stand out, be noticeable. I grabbed for some denim cut-offs, and a spaghetti-strap singlet top; the evenings were warm enough to be wearing such things. I quietly opened the bedroom door, pausing for any sign of life from upstairs before creeping to the bathroom. I vigorously brushed my teeth, combed my knotty hair, applied a light dusting of powder and lip balm before spraying some of Aunty Karen’s expensive French perfume and walking through it.

  I climbed out the window, making sure to slide it closed, leaving a little gap so as not to lock it shut. I crept along the edge of the house, under the cover of the shadows as I tiptoed around the front, where I came to a complete stop.

  Ballantine waited near the tree in the side yard. The moonlight made only his silhouette visible, but I knew it was him. Even in the shadows his tall, lean physique was unmistakeable.

  He turned, straightening from his casual recline against the gum tree.

  ‘Hey,’ I managed. As if we hadn’t seen each other five minutes ago.

  ‘Hey,’ he replied.

  Yeah, there was nothing weird about our exchanges.

  I closed the distance between us, unable to stop myself from staring at him as he became more and more visible with every step. Gone was the school uniform, replaced by a casual navy t-shirt that accentuated every muscle. I tried with all my might not to let my eyes linger too long on the hypnotic landscape. His tan, frayed boardies looked like they had seen better days. My eyes flicked past his shoulder, noticing a canary yellow HJ Sandman near the driveway. My stomach fluttered, thinking how incredibly hot it was that the Kirkland boys had their licences – like, legally had them – not like the boys I knew who puttered around on the family farm in a rusty beat-up ute. No, it was nothing like that: sleek, shiny yellow with black lined trimmings, perfect to cart surfboards in, no doubt.

  Ballantine followed my eyeline with interest. ‘Oh, yeah, she sticks out a bit,’ he said with a boyish smile.

  ‘I love it!’ I said without thinking, noticing how Ballantine’s head turned my way to see if I was telling the truth. I absolutely was. It was so incredibly cool, so him. But I would keep those raving thoughts to myself.

  ‘Where are the others?’ I asked as we neared the car.

  Ballantine sighed. ‘One guess.’

  •

  This wasn’t a double date, nowhere near it. Boon and Amanda were in the back of the Sandman, the divider curtains closed as Ballantine and I sat awkwardly in the front seat, silently looking out over the vast spread of ocean in front of us at Wilson’s lookout. Well, silent aside from the rustling, laughing and kissing sounds coming from the back of the van.

  Ballantine moved to turn the radio on in an attempt to drown out the noises but it still didn’t alleviate the awkwardness much. He rubbed his palms along the steering wheel, wincing into the night. ‘Do you wanna go for a walk?’

  ‘Yes!’ I replied quickly, and before we knew it, Ballantine shut off the radio and both of us were out of the car comically fast. The burst of salty air blowing in my face was like a cleanser after the stuffy car. The outdoor elements liberated us. Ballantine leant on the bonnet, slid out a strip of gum from a packet, unfolded the foil, and placed the spearmint strip on his tongue. He silently offered me a piece. I took it, marvelling at the simple pleasure of such an exchange.

  ‘This way,’ he said, delving his hands deep into his pockets as he led the way down the sloping sandy path towards the beach. I trudged after him, wincing at the sensation of sand in my thongs. I wanted to say ‘Wait up’ as he expertly made his way along the track, but I knew that would sound lame, so I just did my best to keep up. It got easier as the angle evened out and Ballantine walked closer to the shoreline, where the water made the sand firmer. I did as Ballantine did; he shucked off his shoes and threw them aside, walking closer into the waves, but when his shirt came off and he threw it back to land on
his shoes, I paused.

  ‘W– what are you doing?’

  He frowned, genuinely perplexed. ‘Aren’t you coming in?’

  My wide eyes darted from his naked torso, his perfect, smooth chiselled body, to the dark foamy waves.

  ‘Umm, I don’t think so,’ I said, stepping back so no part of the water was touching me.

  Ballantine watched me with interest. ‘Are you afraid?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t much like being part of the food chain.’

  ‘You are not going to be eaten by a shark, Lex.’

  My resolve melted just a little when he called me that. It was a dirty trick even if he wasn’t using it as a ploy to get me into the ocean. Still, if he said my name often enough I feared I would follow him anywhere.

  ‘So you can guarantee that I won’t be eaten by a shark, can you?’

  Ballantine sighed into the night sky. ‘Look, I am eighty-five per cent sure that nothing bad will happen to you if you come in with me.’

  ‘Eighty-five per cent!’ I repeated, my voice a bit too high.

  Ballantine laughed, taking a step towards me. ‘Okay, ninety per cent.’

  I shook my head. ‘No way.’

  He took another step. ‘Ninety-five per cent?’

  This time I took a step back, but it was too late. Ballantine reached out and grabbed me by the wrists, holding me captive.

  ‘A hundred per cent,’ he breathed, looking down at me with absolute certainty. I could do nothing to squirm away from him; his hold was like granite.

  ‘Don’t,’ I bit out, my eyes pleading, my head screaming inside that I didn’t want to go in, even if my body was completely betraying me by leaning towards him.