The Patterson Girls

by Rachael Johns

And Charlie and Mitch got back to task. Once they’d carried everything they wouldn’t need right away to storage, Charlie already felt like she’d done a day’s hard labour and she leant against the wall to catch her breath. ‘I’m buggered.’

  Mitch laughed as he stooped down to grab a bucket and some cloths. ‘Toughen up, princess. We’ve barely started. And I promise you the end result will be worth the effort.’

  Pushing aside the thought of how good his butt looked when he bent over, she gave him an evil glare and straightened. ‘Why do I get the feeling I might regret letting you help?’

  He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re going to drive me crazy with your moaning and complaining?’

  She bent over, picked up a paintbrush and went to whack him with it but he dodged out of her way, laughing as he started towards the motel rooms. ‘Which room’s up first?’ he called over his shoulder.

  Jogging to catch up, Charlie overtook him and dug her master key out of her pocket. ‘Number fifteen.’ It was the one she and Mrs Sampson had agreed was most in need of a makeover and she couldn’t wait to paint over the weird looking stains on the walls. Although she wanted to do the bar and restaurant as well, she’d decided to start on a vacant room while she worked out the logistics.

  For the next couple of hours, Charlie and Mitch worked like pack horses, prepping the room for its first coat. This included moving the furniture into the middle of the room and covering it with drop cloths, scrubbing down the walls and then using special blue tape to cover up the light switches, cornices and power points. Halfway through, Mitch drove home to get his stereo. When he returned, talking and singing along to their favourite tunes made the time pass quickly. Although you still couldn’t see much evidence of their progress, Charlie felt good about what they’d achieved.

  At eight o’clock a knock sounded on the door and she looked up to see Dad standing in the doorway, holding two pizza boxes and a sixpack of beer.

  ‘Hey Dad,’ she said, putting the paint roller in her hand into its tray. She crossed to the door, kissed him on the cheek and took the boxes. ‘You might be my favourite person in the world right now.’

  ‘Oi,’ Mitch protested, gesturing to the wall he’d been painting. ‘I thought that was me.’

  Dad laughed, stepped into the room and put the beer down on the pile of furniture. ‘You kids have been working hard. Dinner is the least I could do.’

  ‘Thanks, Brian,’ Mitch said, coming over and picking up the sixpack. ‘You having one too?’

  ‘No thanks.’ Dad shook his head. ‘I’m heading off for an early night soon and the doc told me I should cut back on the grog anyway.’

  ‘Harsh, but understandable.’ Mitch put the beers back down. Charlie smiled at him, grateful he wasn’t going to drink in front of Dad.

  ‘Anyway, enjoy.’ Dad nodded towards the boxes of pizza. ‘And don’t work too hard. Don’t want you running yourself ragged, Charlie.’

  ‘I’ll look after her,’ Mitch promised, sidling close and wrapping and arm around her shoulders.

  Despite the fact he was a little sweaty from the hours of hard work, Charlie stilled at his nearness as her belly did a weird fluttery thing. She really had to get a grip on those errant hormones. Extricating herself from his grasp, she said, ‘Thanks for your concern boys, but I’m a big girl and I can look after myself.’

  Dad took that as his cue to leave. As he turned to go, Charlie opened the first box of pizza. Identifying it as meat lovers, she shoved it towards Mitch and then took the other box and sat down on the floor, leaning against the bed. Mitch joined her a few moments later with two bottles of Coopers Pale Ale. As he cracked them open, Charlie took her first bite of Rob’s vegetarian pizza and moaned with pleasure. Back in Melbourne she rarely ate fast food, but she had to admit, this was good.

  ‘Food tastes so much better when you’ve worked for it,’ she said.

  ‘As does beer.’ Mitch handed her a bottle.

  ‘Amen to that.’ She took a satisfying sip, then alternated more between mouthfuls of pizza and beer.

  ‘You and Lisa looked to be having a good chat today,’ Mitch commented.

  She nodded. ‘Yes, she’s still as sweet as she was in high school and her kids are gorgeous. She invited me over for coffee sometime.’

  ‘That’s nice. Although pray it’s during her kids’ naptime. I’ve seen her boy in action and he’s a terror.’

  ‘So she says.’ Charlie smiled, unable to imagine those angelic little children causing any trouble. ‘Do you catch up with any of the old crew?’ She didn’t have to tell him she meant the folks they used to hang out with in high school. Unlike her sisters, she’d gone to school in Port Augusta with the other kids from Meadow Brook whose parents weren’t rich enough to send them to boarding school. The Pattersons hadn’t had that kind of money either, but Madeleine, Lucinda and Abigail had all gone away to school on scholarships.

  ‘Occasionally. Tom and Eric farm their parents’ properties now, and since I help Macca out a bit, we often catch up for a celebration after harvest.’

  ‘By celebration, I take it you mean piss-up?’

  ‘You know me too well.’ He grinned and then took a mouthful of beer. ‘Of course I only go along to keep the others in line.’

  ‘Likely story.’ Charlie shook her head. Mitch had always known how to party.

  ‘Maybe we should have some sort of reunion while you’re back in town,’ he suggested.

  She screwed up her nose. The concept of school reunions had always terrified her. All those people spruiking their career and relationship success. ‘By the way,’ he added, ‘Kate and Macca want you to come out for lunch one day. If you can take the time off.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan, but right now, it’s time to paint.’

  Charlie pushed herself up and collected their rubbish. By the time she came back from delivering it to the bin outside, Mitch was back into it, bopping along to the music as he swept the roller up and down the wall. She could easily have stood there and admired the way his arm muscles bunched beneath the cuff of his t-shirt or the strong, tanned column of his neck, which for some reason she’d never noticed before.

  Instead she averted her gaze, crossed the room to her own roller tray and got back to work, reminding herself she was here to help Dad with the motel, not to blur the friendship lines with Mitch.

  Chapter Twenty

  Abigail perched on the end of the closed toilet seat, her knees bouncing up and down as she stared at the little white stick on the vanity in front of her and waited. It felt like the longest one minute of her life. The instructions said results could sometimes be seen within forty seconds but that they could take up to five minutes, so she planned to wait at least a minute before checking. At thirty seconds, she had to sit on her hands to stop herself from reaching out and holding the test kit, staring at it while she willed two little blue lines to appear. Her mouth was dry and her heart palpitating—it actually felt as if the suspense might kill her—so at sixty-one seconds she leapt off the toilet, snatched up the stick and looked.

  No! Her heart slammed into her stomach. Just one little blue line, indicating the test had worked but that she had not hit the jackpot. But … She forced herself to take a breath. There were still three and a half minutes of hope to go. Giving up on trying to think or do anything else, she leaned against the wall, staring at the stick as the seconds ticked down on her mobile phone timer. It seemed to take forever.

  Finally her alarm went off and she glared at the stick. No matter how close she brought it to her face or how hard she peered down at it, there was only one distinct blue line. Abigail hurled the test kit into the bathroom wastebasket, cursing and muttering under her breath. Her period wasn’t due for another two days but this was an early indicator test and although she’d had sore breasts and been a little nauseous, somehow she knew in her heart she wasn’t pregnant, that her mind had conjured up those symptoms.

  She kicked her
foot against the vanity, remembered she wasn’t wearing any shoes and then swore in pain as she collapsed onto the toilet seat again. Dammit. She’d been so certain this was it. Her sex education teacher in high school had made it sound like a girl could get pregnant simply by giving a guy a blow job and that unprotected sex was a one-way ticket to motherhood. The unprotected sex she’d had with Nigel in the airport had been so fine, it could probably have blown her all the way back to London. And she’d been smack-bang in the middle of her cycle.

  If that kind of sex hadn’t managed to get her up the duff, then what would? For one split second the Patterson curse entered her head, but she dismissed it immediately. Her mother hadn’t believed it and either did she, no matter how much that freaky old woman gave her the heebie-jeebies.

  But whether or not the curse had any bearing, one thing was certain. Her get-out-of-London-quick solution had failed. She’d put off calling Nigel’s boss about giving his daughter music lessons because she didn’t want to muck them around when she had to leave. Yet after two weeks of struggling to make ends meet, her situation was dire and Sam and Pamela wouldn’t give her any leeway, so it was time to make that call.

  Sighing, she leant forward and scooped her phone off the vanity, swiped it open and then clicked through Nigel’s messages, looking for his boss’s phone number. Nigel had been busy at work so they hadn’t seen each other since that night at his flat but if anyone got hold of their phones, they’d need a bucket of ice over their head to cool down. The text-sex they’d been having was better than actual sex she’d had with anyone else and it suddenly struck her there was an upside to not being pregnant.

  I can go back for more.

  And this time, she’d be prepared. She’d buy one of those ovulation testing kit things she’d seen at Boots and somehow engineer ‘seeing’ Nigel a few times during her fertile window. A tiny jab of guilt pricked her heart at the unethical nature of this plan, but she reasoned it away. She might be using Nigel to have a baby, but he’d openly admitted he was using her for sex.

  Slightly encouraged by that thought, she sent him a quick text. Hey hot stuff, methinks you’re working too hard. Need some help relaxing?

  The good thing about Nigel was that he seemed to be permanently attached to his smart phone and she never had to wait long for a reply. Why sex kitten? You offering?

  She wrote back telling him exactly what she was offering and they made a date for later that night. Then, she picked the pregnancy test kit out of the wastebasket—she didn’t want Sam or Pamela to find it—and took it to the rubbish bin to dispose of.

  It was time to make some phone calls.

  Within half an hour, she’d made contact with Nigel’s boss, Daniel, and agreed to meet him and his daughter Livia that afternoon at their house in Chelsea for the first lesson.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Lucinda had managed to avoid a Mannolini Christmas, so she knew there was no way she’d get out of the annual Australia Day barbeque at Joe’s parents’ place. She took a deep breath and clutched the bottle of wine on her lap as Joe turned their Nissan Pathfinder into the driveway of his parents’ house in Gooseberry Hill. It was a gift for his dad as the national day of celebration coincided with his birthday, but Lucinda already longed for a drink herself.

  If anyone could drive her to drink it was Joe’s mother, but, wanting to be in immaculate health when they went to the specialist, she hadn’t had a drop of alcohol since she’d come home from Meadow Brook.

  Joe turned the key in the ignition, silencing the engine. ‘You okay?’ he asked, reaching out and brushing his thumb across her cheek.

  She nodded and gave him a grateful smile. He’d been so caring and attentive since her near-meltdown in the Indian restaurant and had even started to eat better and reduce his alcohol intake as well. Not that he’d ever been a big drinker, but like most men he enjoyed a beer or two at the end of the day. Even so, he’d given this up since their appointment with Dr Slater.

  They climbed out of the car and even before they’d started up the path to the house, they were ambushed by a troop of children brandishing water guns.

  ‘Got ya, Aunty Luce,’ squealed Emil, one of Joe’s nephews.

  Lucinda laughed as a squirt of water landed in the centre of her back. She spun around and glared at four of her nieces and nephews lined up behind her.

  ‘Hey!’ Joe yelled as they aimed and fired at him. Then he thrust the car keys and his wallet at Lucinda. ‘Get out of the way,’ he hissed as he raced off towards the house.

  ‘Where’s Uncle Joe going?’ asked little Isabella, who did a great job of keeping up with her older cousins and siblings.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lucinda shrugged, although she secretly had her suspicions and tried to distract them. ‘What have you guys been up to these school holidays?’

  ‘We saw Submarines in Space at the movies yesterday,’ shouted Emil.

  Why could little boys never just speak at a normal level?

  ‘Yeah, it was awesome,’ yelled his twin brother, Carlos. ‘The aliens exploded and we saw their guts and everything.’

  ‘Yuk!’ Isabella squealed, just as Joe appeared behind them.

  Seeing the hose in his hand, Lucinda stepped backwards onto the verandah and put everything she was holding out of harm’s way.

  Shrieks and squeals erupted in front of her as Joe blasted his nieces and nephews.

  ‘Hey, that’s not fair!’ Carlos dropped his Super Soaker and perched his hands on his hips as water rained down on top of him. ‘You’ve got a bigger gun.’

  ‘Life’s not fair, little mate.’ Joe grinned wickedly as he lunged forward and scooped Carlos’s gun off the ground.

  He tossed it to Lucinda and she couldn’t help herself. ‘Come on Carlos,’ she called, ‘let’s get him.’

  The kids all laughed as Lucinda chased Joe around the front lawn. Her feeble attempts to get him must have looked ridiculous—within seconds she was drenched through from her pale pink t-shirt to her denim skirt. She wished she’d had the sense to take off her wedge sandals before embarking on this misdemeanour. She dropped the gun and held up her hands. ‘Joe, I surrender.’

  Laughing, he tossed the hose down on the lawn and swaggered over to her. ‘I’m sorry, my love,’ he said as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her wet body against him, ‘but you look so damn hot sopping wet.’

  So did he. But before she could say this or anything else, they felt the hose on them. Lucinda spun around to see little Isabella cackling as she soaked them even more. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t turn it off.’

  ‘She may look small, but she’s dangerous,’ Joe growled. ‘We’re going to have to tackle her.’

  Thankfully, help came in the form of Joe’s oldest brother Mario, who switched the tap off and yelled at the kids to go jump in the pool instead of wasting good water.

  Joe and Lucinda exchanged glances and tried to stifle their smiles, but within seconds they found themselves alone again and succumbed to hysterics. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d had laughed so much or had so much fun together. How much better would it be, mucking around like that with their own kids? Their own little family.

  As if reading her mind, Joe pulled her into another hug. ‘It’ll happen, you know. Our time is just around the corner.’

  ‘I know.’ Since making their appointment with the specialist, Lucinda felt a lot more positive. It had been easier to get through the last few weeks of school holidays, going through the motions of preparing for the new term, knowing that they were finally doing something about their possible fertility problem.

  ‘Now, we better get inside before Mum sends out a search party,’ Joe said, starting towards the verandah and their pile of stuff.

  As if she’d heard herself being mentioned, the front door swung open to reveal the domineering presence of Rosa Mannolini. She perched her hands on her ample hips but didn’t look half as sweet as Carlos had when he’d done the same. ‘Are y
ou two coming inside?’ she hollered.

  ‘Hi Mamma.’ Joe grinned and waved at her as he picked up his keys, wallet and bottle of wine. He spread his arms and made to hug her.

  ‘Don’t you come near me young man. You’re soaking wet.’

  Geez, point out the obvious why don’t you, thought Lucinda, but she swallowed her annoyance. ‘Hey Rosa. Happy Australia Day.’

  ‘Hello, Lucia,’ Rosa said, as if butter wouldn’t melt. She’d always insisted on calling her that and each time she said Lucia instead of Lucinda was a gentle reminder that Lucinda would never live up to her expectations. She supposed that’s what came of marrying an Italian mother’s youngest son. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’

  Which meant, it’s been a long time since you’ve bothered to visit. Joe had seen his parents since Christmas, but Lucinda had come down with a sudden headache that night.

  ‘You too,’ she said, leaning forward to kiss Rosa on the cheek, careful not to lean against her with her wet clothes. ‘I’m just going to go get dry.’

  She slipped past Joe and her monster-in-law, figuring she’d change into her bathers and then hang her wet clothes on the washing line. In this summer heat, they’d be dry before she could stake her claim on one of the sun lounges by the pool.

  As Lucinda changed in the bathroom, she could hear the shrieks and squeals of the kids outside, music blasting from the stereo and the chatter of the adults drinking and laughing on the verandah. She smiled. That was what family was about. Although each new pregnancy announcement from one of her in-laws felt like a knife twisting in her heart, she liked Joe’s family—well, most of them—and she was glad she’d come.

  Bundling up her wet clothes and making sure her bikini straps were tied properly, she walked down the hallway heading for outside, but stopped at the sound of Joe and Rosa talking. Something in their tone—not loud but almost aggressive—made her heart still as she cocked her ear to listen.

  ‘Mother,’ Joe said, and Lucinda could tell he was angry because he always called her Mamma to her face, ‘stop pestering Lucinda and me about babies.’