Entwine

by Rebecca Berto

  Sarah looked at the buttons on her friend’s mum’s top. Sarah realised that, as of a few weeks ago she could lie without a break in her voice, without a stutter or mix-up of words, so long as she didn’t look the person in the eyes. “It’s a family emergency.”

  It was, sort of.

  Sarah slipped out of the house and saw her mum warming her hands on the heating vents. She slipped in the door. Her mum’s hands remained the same, but her eyes were locked on Sarah.

  Sarah dumped her school bag on the floor between her feet and held her hands out, rubbing them in front of her heater.

  “Well, I’ll just get out of their driveway, won’t I?” her mum said.

  She reversed, and made it as far as a few houses down before the car slowed. Her mum seemed as surprised by this as Sarah was, with staggered movements as she checked the side mirror, turned in and slowed. Their car stopped on the side of the road and Sarah’s mum moved her hand closer to Sarah’s vent, and Sarah realised she should move hers closer. When their hands touched, her mum grabbed onto her hand and entwined their fingers together.

  “I’m not even sure where to start. I was so worried where you were. I was mad at you for just disappearing—I’m your mum! I was …”

  Her mum drifted off, and Sarah dared to look at her. A single teardrop was balled at her eye; then it burst and dripped down her nose, the side of her lip, and then plopped into her lap. Sarah bit her lip. She told herself to be strong, and looked out of her passenger-side window, counting the houses until they became dots down the hill and disappeared on the other side.

  “I found out two weeks ago.”

  So she wasn’t talking about Sarah staying out, but Sarah knew that anyway. This was so much worse. She would have been able to handle hearing her mum going ballistic at her, and Sarah would say her apologies, and sleep, and feel shitty that her mum had ruined her night. Sarah already knew before it happened how much tougher it would be to receive this speech.

  “We decided not to tell you until things were formalised, until the so-called ‘dust’ had settled a bit. God, even the end sounds so calculated. Like everything else.”

  “I knew for a few weeks,” Sarah said after watching her hands on the vents. By now, they were toasty, but the warm, burning feeling soothed her. “I knew, I got scared, I ran back to a party, and then you guys told me off when I got back. After, I wasn’t sure how to tell you, and if I said anything, I felt like I would be betraying you or dad. I chose wrong …” Sarah decided it was easier feeling the heater burn the tips of her fingers, so she did it, letting her mum eat up all those huge words.

  “I can’t stay with him, and it’s nothing to do with you. I love you so much, Sarah. But I would rather be a role model and stand up against being treated like a … no, he treated old Lucky better than I was treated. I’m leaving him not to show off my rights as a woman, but as a person with morals, and as a role model for you, my daughter. Your dad isn’t a bad man to the bone, but he’s made mistakes too big to forgive after all these years of his lies, and I don’t have to have a partner to keep me company who goes on and hurts my heart. You can come live with me if you want. I won’t mind if you go with him, though. I know you love him lots.”

  Sarah looked at her mum from under her lashes, not moving her head.

  Her mum said lots that Sarah could have responded to, but Sarah replayed the phrase, To forgive after all these years of lies in her mind.

  Sarah felt like she too were a pawn in her dad’s game. Her dad didn’t care about her after all. How could her daddy have a whole other life for all that time and not tell her? Sarah even told her dad first when she got her period.

  Sarah asked to go to McDonald’s. It was the middle of the night before they drove back home. Sarah was full of sweet crunchy pieces of candy, and bloated with fries and ice cream. But she was sick knowing too much about her mum, who had read so many of her words and was hurting because of them.

  Sarah had so much weighing her down that, when she got home and her mum tucked her in, she didn’t remember falling asleep, but she knew she didn’t even get to think up a poem, like she usually did, before she went to bed.

  It was then she realised it was all too much for a teenager like her. And she wondered what type of guy she’d ever love, if not even someone as perfect as her dad could be trusted.

  HUSH BUSINESS

  NOW

  He took her past the food court, which made Sarah wonder where they could be going. On first dates it was usually a coffee that the guy would buy her, and even with friends, if they weren’t at the movies or a bar, they’d go to a café for coffee or the like.

  But he took her into a shop called City Guy. He brushed his fingers past hangers of different coloured business shirts—white, beige, blue, even pink—and settled for a thin pin-striped patterned shirt that Sarah had her eye on. She followed him to the dress pants and they all seemed the same but, in a similar manner, he brushed his fingers along the tops, snagging one into his fist and flipping it over, only to settle on another one that seemed identical, anyway.

  Sarah found a wheelie stool and sat, waiting on it, outside his change cubicle. After moments, images of him unbuttoning and pulling his sleeves off his arms flustered her, and she turned and fixed her hair in the mirror. She unwound her hair tie and swung her locks out so it fanned over her back and her shoulders. She even combed her fingers through it to remove tangles, but now it looked like she was trying to impress him so she picked it up, twisted her hair, and piled it up in a loose bun on top of her head.

  Sarah was securing the hair tie back in place as his cubicle door swung in, and his fingers emerged, then the rest of him in his pin-striped shirt and black slacks. Her hair fell from her grip, and she blinked a few times, rapidly. It was then she remembered to smile, which she did as she stood, and moved to the side so he could step out and show her the full circle.

  Sarah really had to wonder at that moment if he was gay, but she deduced she couldn’t be this attracted to him if he were. He must have known how sexy his confidence was to a woman. To her.

  “Go on, spin for me,” she insisted.

  He nodded once, tight-lipped, as if secretly impressed, and spun. For that second, she unashamedly could gawk at his ass. It wasn’t flat, but shaped. Even through the relatively loose material, it hinted at the cupped figure of his cheeks and on the sides, as it rode with the indents.

  It felt like the longest second of her life.

  He stopped, facing her again, with his hands shoved in his pockets. Her sight scattered between the broadness of his shoulders and the way the shirt contoured with his body, and how his thighs were thick, and capable, and how his legs seemed long.

  She wiped those thoughts and then said, “Looks good.”

  “Done,” was his reply, and he turned and shut himself back in the cubicle before she could ask what he meant or if he liked them.

  When he came out, he was back in his old work clothes, which looked just as good. He crushed the new shirt and pants in his fist. He paid at the desk, and the price that rung up made Sarah choke on nothing at all. She doubted he fell for her, “Sorry, I swallowed my chewy” excuse. This man seemed to be in tune to the finer details. That’s something other dates would fall for, which she realised then was odd, because she’d known them for a few weeks, and this guy for only an hour.

  “Did you like them, though?”

  Sarah had to ask. Along with finding out his name, he was making her curious. Why was his hair hot and short, like he’d had an army buzz cut? Why were his eyes so damn brown? Who was he? She had questions like those.

  “I did,” he said in a courteous tone.

  “Oh, okay.”

  While walking to another mystery destination, he turned his attention fully on her. She was as impressed as she was worried. There was an after-work rush but his eyes didn’t waver from hers as others pushed by them.

  She said, “You didn’t seem to be interested in them, or com
ment, so I wasn’t sure.”

  “If you like them, I trust they’re good enough.”

  “Good enough? For?”

  Again, he didn’t answer her, but he took her to the food court and refused her money while he stood in line at a store, instead telling her to find a table. When he joined her, he slid her coffee across the table into her open, waiting cupped hands.

  “Good enough to impress you if you’d like to go watch a movie with me.”

  Just as she was about to take a sip he spoke, and by the time he’d said his piece, she had a mouthful. Which she spurted out when he said what he did.

  She’d been waiting for that.

  She wanted to ask the question herself.

  And now he’d said it, she’d choked on her hot coffee, and sprayed it all over him.

  Her cheeks flushed. She grabbed a napkin and started to clean the table, and the heat through the flimsy paper was unbearable.

  “Oh, sorry! Sorry!”

  Sarah got up and used the remaining napkins to take to him and fuss over the stains and wetness on his shirt. Why did she have to do this good a job at embarrassing herself and spraying him? His shirt was covered in the same way splattered blood would have coated him if he’d stabbed someone. Except, this was hot and brown, and he must have been burnt. With a fistful of napkins, she patted down the front and swiped down to his belt buckle. His hands came up to pat her away, but this wasn’t fine. His hands were telling her to go, that it was okay, but she’d messed this up so bad. Now he’d have to make up an excuse that she couldn’t bear to hear, and leave.

  She had to keep him busy, so she threw the napkins on the table and patted down his shirt again, which was tucked into his pants. She swiped over the upper top of his thighs in case they were wet, but the table had protected him down there.

  Down. There.

  It was right then, with her hand hovering above the bulge in his pants, that she realised every stupid rom-com in the world had made fun of situations like this, and she’d gone and made an embarrassing situation worse.

  “It’s fine.”

  He held Sarah’s shoulders back in a gentle yet assertive grip, and eyed her chair. Dumbstruck, she nodded and agreed. He arranged himself in his seat, reaching back to grab his suit jacket hanging over the chair and shrugging his arms into it.

  “What about it?” he asked.

  Sarah’s face wasn’t of much use now when it should have been. This guy didn’t stop surprising her. There was nothing else on her mind but the huge memory taking up all her thoughts: hot coffee, hot man, manhandling.

  “I’m sorry, what?” She shook her head to bring herself back to the present. “About what?”

  “The date. The very least you could do after …” he swept his hands down his chest and held an open palm, fingers angled down. “We could watch a movie.”

  She managed a nervous laugh, and looked away to pick up her bag and coffee in her other hand. There were cinemas at one end of the centre, but he was walking the opposite direction.

  “Um, I don’t think that this is the right way,” she said, looking around at shops for markers to double check. She didn’t need to make a fool of herself again.

  He was grinning, waiting for her focus. “No, it’s the right way to the men’s. Have to strip, change into these.” He gave a pointed look at the bag from City Guy. “Lucky grab, huh?”

  Burn, burn, burn. It was all her cheeks had done, this time with him. Now they flamed again. “Lucky grab,” she countered, as she watched him walk off.

  When he came back, she could tell he had his new black slacks on. Must have been the way they fit around his front. She had a fair eye of what that looked like up close.

  Still yet to find out his name.

  • • •

  NOW

  As they stood in line, waiting for tickets at the desk. There was a Jason Statham and a Will Smith movie out, so he went ahead and booked her tickets. Two times he’d taken care of her now. Sarah was not the type of girl who desired a guy to pay for everything, and though it was hardly much in the big picture, it was a nice gesture.

  He had flopped his wallet out on the counter and was pulling out his card when she stepped forward.

  She wanted to say his name, but couldn’t, so settled for, “Please, it’s fine.” And hurried to dig into her own handbag.

  His hand settled on the top of hers, and the heat alone was enough to still her.

  “I didn’t ask you to pay.”

  “I didn’t ask you to pay,” she replied.

  “I asked you out. It’s custom for me to take care of the date.”

  “It’s a date?”

  He nodded and while her thoughts took off, she couldn’t picture anything else but a sign of neon bulbs above her head, flashing, “Girl on a Date With Incredible Guy”.

  No, damn, she had to take care of herself, not let him do that. She kept digging through her purse for what only felt like seconds. Then his hand was on her arm. It was as her gaze travelled up his new, fitted, pin-striped shirt that it occurred to her she’d lost her mind over the way he made her feel; she must have been in a daze while he paid.

  “Your ticket,” he said, handing it to her.

  She checked. It was the Jason Statham movie, and she tried not to smile, although happy bells were going off inside her. Fast, sexy, witty. This movie said everything about what she wanted both her date, and this night, to be like.

  “Thank you.”

  Sarah didn’t like to judge a person by how they looked, but it was impossible to think otherwise of the two barely fifteen-year-olds walking a metre apart in front of them, the girl with her hands crossed over her chest, and the boy with his in his pockets. In front of the cinema, the boy held out his hand. The girl chuckled, and badly attempted to hide it, before disappearing into the blackness with him on her trail.

  When Sarah thought about herself and Him, she had to wonder. Of others’ perceptions. Of his perception. They walked to their cinema, which was about halfway down the line of doors. Sarah kept her eyes on the dark blue carpet, splashed with little white and deep red white stars. Luckily, he didn’t catch her gaze. He held out his hand for her and, instead of smiling thanks, she let herself take in the way his shirt creased over the contours of his arm, and the size of his hands. She allowed herself to smile before moving in and feeling him like a ghost behind her, teasing herself with his scent.

  She knew from experience the ads were likely to go on for fifteen minutes, and safe in the darkness of the cinema, she allowed her thoughts to drift.

  What did she know of him? Sitting, waiting, the exhilaration from their meeting sliding, she wondered why he was with her. It didn’t make much sense. The boy and the girl on an awkward first date routine? Plenty of sense. But Sarah was an awkward, first-day-at-her-real-job girl, twenty-two and plain kind of girl. Her hair wasn’t silky and straight, or luscious and curly. Rather, it was an in-between wave that didn’t know what to do with itself every morning. Its shade was a mocha brown, and her eyes were a pale grey. She had a few freckles on her nose, but she didn’t see them, apart from when she had to lean in and layer on her mascara. She wore a B-size bra; plain and small.

  Even if she didn’t know much about him, she knew he was too good for her. It wasn’t that Sarah had low self-confidence. It was just fact. The self-assurance about him gave an extra depth to his sexual tones, and was far greater than Sarah knew she could ever exude. The strong cut of his jawline made her want to stare for the moment he worked it, just to see the way his tendons would move. His hair didn’t say “cute boy”, but it didn’t say “hard-ass biker dude”, either. It said “man”. She could see wisdom in the way he would do something. The way he’d flip open his wallet and peer in, taking time to choose the right note or card. Or just now—how he held out his hand, letting her in. The last time that had happened, Sarah was on a date in high school with Nicholas.

  Young boys and gentleman, Sarah thought. They were the two t
ypes of men for that sort of gesture, which made a shiver run down her spine. How old was he—because he certainly wasn’t a cute little boy. He looked twenty-eight, but she knew he could be a bit older than that. Maybe thirty-two.

  That’s not too old for me, is it?

  Sarah had been in her own little head, occupied by her own little thoughts for the whole fifteen minutes as the big curtains swept back and the lights dimmed further. The movie was about to start.

  “You ready?” he asked her.

  “If I say yes now, it doesn’t mean I can’t blame you later if I hate it.”

  “It’s a Statham. That isn’t possible.”

  “Hey,” someone called behind them. The voice was deep, disgruntled. “It’s very possible to kick youse out. Shut up.”

  With that, he leant in next to Sarah. She was about to settle back, kick off her shoes and wait for the movie to start, but he wasn’t done yet, clearly. With the light from the screen just playing on the edges of his lips, they were all she could see and think.

  “True, what’s to hate?” Sarah whispered, feeling her breath, hot, between the space of her lips and the side of his. “Cars, action … sex.”

  “That’s what interests you, ey?”

  Sarah crushed her eyelids together and hoped he wouldn’t notice. Damn, she was digging a mighty fine, deep hole for herself. Right now, she’d gladly curl up and reappear once he had left.

  Why did she suck at being calm and sexy near him? She was sure her hands would shake if she tried to hold them still, and her heart sure was doing an unhealthy amount of beats per minute.

  She gulped. “’Spose.”

  He traced her jaw with his finger as he said, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “Um, I,” Sarah started saying. She willed her nerves to calm. “No, I come sans an attachment.”

  “Good.”

  His finger came down, from the sweet spot behind her ear to trail down her jaw then petered off. She bit her lip to contain the feeling building in her. He saw that. He brought his finger up along her bottom lip. His breath was like a heater pushing hot air down her neck to her breasts, as he looked down at her mouth.