by Jo Watson
The girl shook her head and rolled her eyes some more, in case we were not aware that she was a sulky teen with a bad attitude. “Just some people for you,” she said. She walked back into the house, dragging her feet down the passage.
I looked at the staircase in front of us as I heard feet coming down it. The feet turned into ankles, knees, a torso, and finally an entire body. “Hey, where are you going?” he asked, as the teen slunk into one of the rooms.
“Watching TV,” she said.
“Not until you’ve helped your mom with the dishes,” he said.
“God, this is so unfair. It’s a Sunday; it’s not my fault you guys decided to have a dinner party last night.”
“Now!” her dad said, in that voice that is terrifying to teenagers. The voice that lets them know they’re about to get an iPhone confiscated.
I heard a sigh and then a stomp. “Fine!” She marched down the corridor and burst through the door at the end.
“Sorry.” The man turned to us and my heart thumped. “What can I do for you?” he asked.
“Uh . . . I am Becca Thorne and this is Mike Wooldridge. Mike is from Willow Bay, in Sou—”
“Has something happened to her?” His eyes widened. “Is she, uh . . . ?”
“No, no. She’s fine. She’s totally fine,” I stated, and then I stopped. “Actually, she’s not fine. At all,” I said. “In fact, she is anything but fine. She goes wandering around, almost every day, looking for you. Mike has to fetch her from the beach, people’s houses and even from the side of the highway once.”
“God.” He put his hands to his face.
“All she talks about is you, and she wants to see you so badly and to meet her grandchildren for the first time and . . .”
He hung his head and looked at his feet, as if he didn’t want me to see the emotion on his face.
“Your mother isn’t well. The nurses at the home don’t think she has much time left,” I said.
At that, he stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind him. “I . . . I don’t want my children to hear about this.”
I nodded at him.
“Thing is,” he started, “she and my dad disowned me when I got married. I didn’t do anything but fall in love with the wrong person, in their eyes. I never wanted this rift between us. They did, not me. And it really hurt me, for years and years.”
“I don’t think your mom wanted it either, and now that your dad is gone . . .” Suddenly, I wondered if he even knew about this. Clearly, he did.
“I heard that. I didn’t go to the funeral.”
“The point is, she’s desperate to see you.”
He looked at me, his eyes welling up with tears. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her.”
“Why don’t you stop thinking about her and go and see her? Or start with a call, even.”
He started nodding, slowly. I could see he was taking this all in, listening to every word I said.
“I had this idea of what my life would be like,” he said. “I imagined hot Sundays by the river, my parents playing with their grandchildren. I imagined family holidays and birthdays, and I imagined that my children would grow up in Willow Bay, like I had. But that all changed when my father kicked me out and disowned me. He killed my dream, that day—killed the dream of the life I wanted to have. Everything I’d ever hoped and dreamed of was taken away from me, that day. All because of him, and her—even if she didn’t want it, she was still complicit in it and never said anything to my father. I’m not sure that is totally forgivable, either,” he said, and my heart plummeted. This wasn’t going to be as easy as telling him his mother was dying and wanted to see him one last time. This man had a lifetime of anger and resentment inside him.
“They had no right to do that to me. To take the story I wanted for my life and to rewrite it without my permission. Do you know what it feels like to live a life you never wanted to live?” he asked me, and I nodded. Because I knew exactly what he meant.
“I . . . I actually do know what it’s like. I also know what it is like to be estranged from your mother, not sure if you can forgive her for what she did to you, for the life she forced you to have, without asking your permission.”
The man nodded as he looked at me. I understood him. And, suddenly, I understood everything. The truth about my entire life was laid out in front of me. And the truth was that I was living in someone else’s strange version of what I thought my life should be like. That wasn’t really my story. That wasn’t what I wanted. I wasn’t living the life I’d imagined for myself, and that’s how I’d found myself here, plagiarizing someone else’s story because I’d lost sight of my own. And, in that moment, I knew what I was meant to do. I was meant to write my own story.
“I’m sorry,” I said to him. He looked at me, our eyes met and I mirrored back to him the emotion I was also feeling.
“Thank you,” he said to me. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.” And then he started closing the door on us. That was it.
When it was closed, I turned to Mike.
“Do you think he’ll contact her?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I replied. Because I didn’t. I hoped he would contact her before it was too late, but a part of me didn’t think he would. Too much pain had passed between them and maybe everyone doesn’t get to have a happy ending. But, fuck it, I was going to get my happy ending, or at least something as close to a happy ending as possible. I wasn’t going to become like the Van der Merwes and live with a lifetime of regret because I hadn’t lived the way that I wanted to, because I hadn’t lived a true and authentic life and spoken my truth out loud, like Edith hadn’t. Suddenly, I smiled and I threw my arms around Mike. I pulled him into a hug and we held each other tightly.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
I pulled away and looked at him. “I know what to do,” I said. “I know what to write.”
“Really?” he asked, looking excited.
I nodded. “I need to write my own story. Not someone else’s story.”
“What story is that?” he asked.
I smiled again, and then I leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s the only story I need to tell. And I have two weeks to tell it, so we better get back.”
CHAPTER 75
Two weeks later
I walked up to Mike and handed him the manuscript I’d been working on for an entire two weeks. The weeks had passed in a kind of dazed, confused, caffeinated sugar haze. There is this strange place that writers go to sometimes, where at least one liter of their blood is replaced by pure sugary caffeine fuel, and where they totally disappear and time becomes meaningless, as days blur into nights and nights blur into weeks.
I’d stayed at Sugar Manor after Mike insisted that I come back with him and work there. I stayed mainly indoors, emerging every now and again to eat something that was kindly offered to me by Emelia or Ash, or when Mike brought in a bag of wasabi-flavored crisps from his private stash.
Mike and Ash had also started renovating another room in the house for guests, and sometimes I would sit in the corner with my headphones on, listening to some soundtrack, typing away, while I watched them paint the walls and polish the wooden floors.
In the evenings, after my work, we would all have dinner together, mostly crowded around the fire, as the evenings got colder. We all talked and laughed, and I don’t think I had ever talked and laughed so much in my entire life. And then Mike would walk me to my room, we’d say a slightly strange goodnight, and then he would hand me an espresso as I headed back to write into the night again. We’d all fallen into this strange and comfortable routine, and I felt like I belonged here. In a way, I felt like I had always belonged here, but I just didn’t know it.
And then the day finally came when I typed those two words that I had been heading towards like a high-speed train: The End. But I didn’t stop to bask in it; I rushed to the video-shop-come-internet-cafe-come-printi
ng-mecca, and I printed out my entire book. I’d sat on the veranda all day, waiting for Mike to come home from work.
I heard his car pull up on the gravel driveway and my heart started beating faster. What I was about to do . . . What I was about to do . . . The thought terrified me and excited me, all at the same time.
“Hey,” I said, as he walked up to me with a small smile.
“You’re not in your room.” He climbed the stairs and stopped in front of me. “Does that mean . . . ?”
I nodded. “It does!” I pulled the manuscript out from behind my back and held it out for him to take.
“Oh my God!” He pulled me into a half hug, making sure not to squish the papers between us. “Well done—I am so proud of you.” He kissed me on the forehead and I closed my eyes and relished the feeling.
“You are?” I asked.
“Of course I am,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I be? My God, what you have done, and in two weeks! You’ve finished an entire book! It’s insane. Not that you will tell me what the book is about yet, but I bet it’s going to be amazing, like your last one.”
“You’re proud of me,” I harped.
He nodded and then looked confused. “You look like no one has ever said that to you before.”
“No one has,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“No one has told me they’re proud of me for writing anything,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I guess I don’t surround myself with that many people who can tell me things like that.”
“Well, now you’ve surrounded yourself with people who are proud of you, I can’t wait to tell Ash and Emelia, they’ll be . . .” Then he paused. “In fact, we should all celebrate tonight! We should go out and have dinner and drinks, and celebrate this success.”
“No, really, it’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. What did you say? ‘When we tell you not to make a big deal of something, we really mean you should make a big deal about it.’ ”
I smiled. “The girl code,” I said, and nodded my head. “Okay. That sounds cool—unless, I mean, Ash and Emelia might be busy tonight.”
“Are you kidding? This is important. I’m sure they’re not busy. Or, if they are, they will cancel their plans for this.”
He started walking towards the house. “Come. Let’s get ready. I’ll tell them.”
“Wait!” I said, almost forgetting my reason for being here.
“Yes?”
“I need you to read this,” I said, handing him the manuscript.
He took it and looked at it. “I’d love to.”
I shook my head. “You don’t understand. I need you to read this.”
“Okay,” he said. “I can’t wait.”
“And neither can I; you have to promise you’ll start tonight,” I urged.
“Sure, as soon as we all finish celebrating.”
I nodded. I wished I didn’t need to wait that long to tell him what I needed to tell him. Maybe I was being a coward, not saying the words out loud, but rather putting them down on paper for him to read. But it wasn’t just those words that I needed him to hear; I needed him to hear all the words. The ones that aren’t necessarily said out loud, that happen in the moments of silence. The words that happen in the bits in-between. But, sometimes, those are the most important parts. Because it’s in those silent spaces that the magic and the unexpected happens. It’s in those silent places that you realize you have fallen in love . . .
CHAPTER 76
“Well, congratulations!” Ash held up her glass and I clinked mine against it.
“Thank you,” I said. “I seriously couldn’t have done it without you guys.” I looked at them all.
“It’s so cool that we know a famous writer,” Emelia said.
“Ah . . . thanks,” I replied coyly.
“What’s everyone congratulating about?” Techno Tannie asked, as she came to our table with our second round of drinks.
“Becca is an author. She just finished her book!”
“Really?” she said, and then suddenly and unexpectedly sat down at our table. “What’s your book about?” she asked.
“Yeah, what’s it about?” Ash asked. “You’ve been very secretive about it.”
I blushed, felt my cheeks go hot, and I looked down. “I can’t tell you. Not now, anyway.”
“Why?” Emelia asked.
I looked over at Mike and then quickly looked away. “Not until Mike’s read it first.”
“Apparently, I need to read it,” he said.
“Aaaah, I see,” Techno Tannie said.
“What do you see?” Mike asked.
“Well, clearly you’re in it, or she wouldn’t make you read it.”
“Am I?” Mike turned in his chair and looked at me.
“Well, actually, you’re kind of all in it—names changed, of course.”
“Who?” Emelia asked. “Are we in it?” She indicated herself and Ash.
I nodded.
“Wait . . . You mean you wrote about us?” Ash asked.
I looked at everyone. “No, I wrote about me. It’s my story, but you’re all a part of that, even you . . .” I turned and looked at Techno Tannie.
“Me? Really?” She perked up.
“Seriously, now you have to tell us what this book is about,” Emelia said.
“It’s about me and this insane journey that I made, here, into your crazy little town, with all the cats and dinosaur porn and crazy eco people.”
“Hear, hear!” Techno Tannie said, holding up a glass that she’d taken from Emelia. “I’ll drink to that. Those people are nuts.”
“Mmmhmmm,” I said. “You have no idea. Did you know that the floors of the houses there are made of cow dung?”
“WHAT?” Ash almost spat her drink out.
“I can believe that,” Techno Tannie said.
“So, wait, let’s just reverse here . . .” Mike said. “We are all in the story?” he asked.
“I mean . . . if that’s okay. I did make up names and places, and it’s not really about you guys, at all. It’s about me. It’s my story. You just all happen to have been such a big part of it, in a completely good way.”
“What’s it about, though?” he asked.
I smiled at him. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
“Okay, well, now we really have to rush this celebratory dinner, so I can get home and start reading.”
“I want to read it, too,” Ash said.
Emelia put her hand up. “Me too.”
“And me,” Techno Tannie said. “Did you put in there that I make music? You should. I just posted my new track on Spotify, if you want to listen,” she said.
I nodded. “Your music is in there. A lot of music is in there.”
“Now I’m dying to read it,” she said.
“You’ll all have your turn, but Mike has to read it first.”
“Why?” he asked.
I smiled to myself. “You’ll see,” I said nervously.
I heard the knock on my door at about six thirty a.m. I was sleepy when I got up, unsure and a little disorientated. I walked over to the door and opened it. Mike was standing there, holding the manuscript. I could see that the corners were crunched and crumpled, as if he’d been reading it. He held the book up.
“Uh . . . so I read this,” he said.
“And?” I asked, waking up with a yawn.
“It’s . . . it’s incredible,” he said.
“Really?”
He nodded. “And the letters you wrote are so beautiful. I mean, they are completely made up and so different to the real ones, but they are still so accurate. You captured the feeling in them perfectly. You captured everything perfectly. The town, the people, yourself . . . everything.”
“I didn’t think I was going to be able to write those letters and do them any kind of justice, because I’d never experienced anything like it . . . But now . . .” I paused.
; “Yes. Now . . .” he said. “That’s kind of what I wanted to ask you about.”
“Ask away,” I said nervously.
“Well, I read something in the book that I just want to confirm, because I don’t want to misinterpret anything here, and I certainly don’t want to make a complete idiot of myself.”
“What do you want to understand?” I asked.
“So . . .” He flipped the manuscript open and there was a highlighted line in it. “Well, it’s this part, really, that I want to just make sure I’m reading correctly.” He pointed at the line and held it up in front of my face. I read it.
“What about that line?” I asked.
“Well . . .” He turned the manuscript around and cleared his throat. “It seems to imply that you—”
“Have fallen in love with you?” I asked, cutting him off.
“Well, yes.” He looked up at me, malachite eyes shining in the early-morning light that was rushing through the stained-glass window.
“Yes,” I repeated.
“So, I’m not reading this wrong, then?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
He looked back down at the manuscript and started nodding. “Okay. Okay . . .” He looked up at me and then took a step closer to me.
“You’re in love with me?” he asked, with a smile.
I nodded. “Totally and utterly.”
“Really?” He smiled. “And when did that happen?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied breathily. “Halfway up a fence. Under a willow tree. In a small room under a stage. In a cove . . . Take your pick,” I said softly. In fact, our love story seemed to be imprinted on to this town, in the same way Edith and Abe’s was. Where their love story had unfolded, ours had, too. In all those magical nooks and crannies of this small town. The unders and overs and in-betweens.
He walked into my room and, in one movement, he took my face between his hands and kissed my lips. The manuscript fell to the floor with a bang. His smell flooded my senses—coffee and something soapy, the hint of smoke from the fire. The kiss deepened quickly, obliterating the world around us. I felt dizzy, drunk on lust and love and filled with the desire to merge with him. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him closer to me; I needed him to be a part of me, now. I’d waited for this moment for so long. And this kiss was just the beginning, the start of it, the promise of so much more and all to come.
