by Ash Harlow
Stella is beyond competent, backing the tractor and trailer into the sea and getting the boat in the water. She climbs aboard, starts the engine while I hold it facing into the swell. Then she motors to the end of the small jetty, ties up where I meet her to load all of the gear on.
She needs her camera and laptop. My requirements are a cap with a brim I can tug down over my face, and dark glasses. With the addition of my full beard and the fact that nobody would expect to see me in a small town at the bottom of the world, I should be completely unrecognizable.
I’m honestly about as comfortable in a small boat on a big sea as I am in a small plane flying through a thunderstorm over mountainous terrain—both events that New Zealand has thrown at me. I’m learning to operate outside of my comfort zone, and the biggest area this is taking place is opening my heart and trusting Stella.
It takes about thirty minutes to reach the small town of Waitapu. Apparently in summer, the tourist numbers swell the population ten times its current size, but today it’s reasonably quiet—something that helps me stay relaxed. I’m good at ducking and hiding in public, but today it’s crucial. I don’t want to blow what Stella and I have going on.
Ox, the massive guy who dropped me over to Ahunui, is on the jetty and helps us tie up. He hauls Stella from the boat and pulls her in for a hug and kiss that propels my possessiveness to new heights.
We shake hands, and if the guy wasn’t so strong, and my right hand not so vital to my craft, I’d have turned it into a bone-crushing pissing competition. Somehow I manage to stay polite. Ox is clearly an old friend of Stella’s.
I carry Stella’s gear as we make the small walk into town. Apart from what seems to be every citizen calling a greeting to Stella, and giving me the once-over, I’m generally ignored.
“See? Nobody recognizes you.” Stella digs me in the ribs. “You’re not as famous as you think,” she continues in a stage whisper. I retaliate with a tug of her ponytail.
She leads me to a place that apparently makes the best coffee. Her phone’s been going nuts since it received a signal, and she has to deal with messages and send her photos to the gallery.
“It won’t take long,” she explains. “I’m only sending low-res stuff for them to pick which ones they want for the exhibition. Once they choose, I’m going to have to head up to Auckland and spend some time in my studio, making prints.” She leans across the table. “That’s when the magic happens. You can come and feel me up in the darkroom if you want.”
I lean forward so that our foreheads rest against each other. “I prefer to finger you in full light so I can watch you as you come.” I steal a quick kiss, then shift back in my chair. Stella’s flushed.
“I can’t honestly believe this…us.” Her hands wave in the space between us. “It’s like a dream, the best dream. Is it real, do you think?”
Even just looking at her across the table makes my heart race. We have so many decisions to make, things to consider. I want to talk about them, but she needs to work.
Her conversation with her grandfather is animated and makes her smile. It’s filled with teasing, the words coated with the love she clearly feels for him.
She chats away to a friend as she dispatches the photographs, and then we’re done. I help her pack up her laptop and Stella announces she wants to take me on a tour of the town on our way to the market. She’s the best tour guide ever, giving me a potted history on virtually every shop, landmark, dog and person we pass.
Outside the market there’s a young kid busking, and I’m flooded with memories. He’s just like me when I started, his focus fixed on a point a few feet ahead of him, too shit-scared in his mind and uncomfortable in his body to engage with the passers-by. It must be even worse in a small town where you know most of the people. At least I had the anonymity of a city.
Just as we enter the market, I hear the opening chords of one of my songs. Played badly. I stop to listen, wince a couple of times as he sets off in the wrong key.
“You go on in, Stella,” I tell her. “I’ll find you in a minute.”
She squeezes my arm. I get the feeling she knows what I’m up to.
12 ~ STELLA
The worst part about staying on the island is having to do the bulk shop. Being inside the grocery store, trudging along the aisles under fluorescent lighting, harms my soul. At least that’s what I used to tell Granddad to encourage him to allow me to phone an order through and have it delivered to the island.
He, on the other hand, enjoyed a trip to the store, picking what seemed like every item off the shelves and exclaiming or proclaiming something about it. Virtually every statement would begin In my day… Until I’d explain to him that the fact he was alive meant it was still his day!
I get around the store in record time because I want to see what Reuben is up to, and I want to get back to the island in case we have an afternoon breeze kicking in. Our boat is small, and I don’t like the idea of too much chop with that large ocean swell that’s been running since the storm.
I pay for the groceries and arrange to have them delivered down to the wharf. It’s a common request around here as a number of shoppers come across from the other side of the river on the small ferry that operates. Ox will load the boxes onto the boat for me.
Back on the street is a sight that amazes me. Reuben has the young busker’s guitar, which he seems to be tuning. The kid is enthralled, nodding as Reuben explains something to him, his face serious and engrossed.
Once Reuben finishes twiddling, he plays a few chords, then breaks into one of his songs. The kid’s eyes widen as he realizes he’s dealing with someone who clearly knows their way along a fretboard.
Two women on their way to the parking lot pause, dig into their purses and drop some money into the open guitar case.
It makes me giggle. I expect Reuben makes a zillion times that amount when he sleeps. He plays the entire song, but doesn’t sing, which would probably give him away.
When he finishes playing, he passes the guitar back to the boy, then gives him a few instructions. Soon the boy is playing his own reasonable rendition of the same song.
Reuben applauds when he finishes and fishes in his pocket, dropping fifty dollars into the guitar case.
The kid’s face colours. Reuben whispers something to him, then spots me. He ruffles the boy’s hair and comes to join me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and leading me away.
“Poor kid doesn’t realize the bragging rights he’s missing out on by not knowing who just gave him a guitar lesson,” I say.
Reuben laughs. “Right? He told me I was almost as good as Reuben Creed, and I said, ‘No way, man, nobody can touch that guy’.”
“That was kind of you to help him. Seeing as he’s a fan, it was a risk he’d recognize you.”
“I know. I’d love to help the young musicians more, but it’s impossible to do it anonymously. I tried a couple of times, but once people find out about it, the whole scene becomes a shitfest with all the wrong types of people getting involved. Just doesn’t work.”
On our way back to the island we call in at the bay to check on the dotterel nest. I take the boat in as close to the shore as possible, then using binoculars, I see the eggs have gone, destroyed in the storm, and I’m deeply disappointed.
The birds are still there, though, and seeing as it’s early in the season, they should lay again. The stormy seas have dragged away the fencing we’d put up, and it’s tangled on the rocks at the far end of the beach.
“I’ll have to come down and retrieve the tape and poles at low tide tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry the eggs have gone,” Reuben says. “I was looking forward to seeing them hatch and grow.”
“Look at you, turning into a conservationist,” I tease, but the thought that he cared about the dotterels gives me one more item to add to my list of things I like about Reuben Creed. A list that’s quickly becoming things I love about Reuben Creed.
He’s also wonderful
ly strong which means we only have to make a single trip up to the house with the groceries.
At the market today, I relented and bought Reuben a piece of aged eye fillet steak. He joins me in the kitchen, sexy and fresh from his shower. Waving the steak under his nose makes him perform like a starved mongrel. He snatches it from me, drops it onto the bench, before taking me in his arms and dancing me around the kitchen.
“I think you’re perfect, Stella,” he says, kissing me and twirling me so fast we both collapse, dizzy, against the pantry door.
He takes charge of cooking the meat, while I bundle together a salad.
When it’s time to eat, I sit far away from him at the table, pretending the steak offends me. Reuben makes orgasmic noises as he chews and swallows, and when finished, he sings a silly song, thanking the cow and the green, green grass of New Zealand.
You can guess what tune he sings that to.
I tell him his songwriting is rubbish and not to give up his day job, which earns me a swat on the ass that subsequently turns into a full-on make-out session while we clean up the kitchen.
For some foolish reason I decide to retaliate, flicking him with the tea towel. It’s one of my stupidest moves to date, because it turns out Reuben’s a bit of an expert at tea-towel snapping.
“Watch, and learn,” he says. With careful precision, he dunks one corner of the towel in the sink of water to really make it sting. Twirling it, he gives me a wink before proceeding to open every cupboard in the kitchen with a simple flick of his wrist.
Then he turns on me.
His grin is wicked, and I’ve somehow allowed myself to become trapped in the corner. Reuben snaps the towel around my feet, making me jump about like the loser guy in an old Western having shots fired at his boots and being ordered to dance.
“Surrender to me, Stella,” he says.
“Never.”
The towel pops less than an inch from my toes, and the snaps are coming faster. I’ve been dancing about so fast I can hardly breathe, so I raise my arms at the end of the next flurry. “I surrender,” I gasp.
“I know,” he says, grabbing me, and kissing me hard. “You surrendered days ago, I just needed you to admit it,” he whispers.
The sky has completely cleared, and even though it’s night-time, Reuben drags a sun lounger out into the middle of the lawn. We lie on it together, on our backs, and watch the stars.
There’s no light pollution here, and the Milky Way looks like Tinkerbell has swept her wand across the sky, and all the magic that came from its tip has frozen there.
We watch satellites make their slow, blinking journey from horizon to horizon. There’s a plane on its way to South America, the distant drone of its engines completely out of sync with the visual. I point out the constellations of the Southern Cross and The Pot—the only two I know.
Reuben indicates another group of stars and asks their name.
“Oh, that’s the uterus,” I say, because if we’re looking at the same thing, that’s what I’d call it.
His silence suggests he’s considering whether I’m pulling his leg. Then I snort, because I can’t hold it together any longer.
“You take me for a fool, girl?” he teases, and starts tickling me. Reuben pulls my arms over my head, trapping me, his fingers running up and down my ribs, my armpits. All I can do is giggle. It’s impossible to catch my breath, and I’m wriggling and kicking, begging through my gasps for him to stop. I draw my knees up to my chest, and he hooks his arm beneath my thighs and holds me, curled into him.
He brushes the tears from my cheeks that have come from so much laughing. “You fit me perfectly, Stella,” he says gently.
I fiddle with his beard. “I think you should keep this forever so that when I see you on the television one day, in years to come, I can recognize you and remember the way it felt when you kissed me and licked me.”
I feel his sigh in the long lift and fall of his chest. “I wish this could be our forever, you and me here, separate from the world. Living without the daily pressure and demands. In LA I’m forced to hide, to disguise myself, to give every move I make way too much consideration. I can’t be spontaneous. I can’t step out the door without being harassed. On Ahunui I might be in hiding, but I feel utterly free.”
His words are a warning to me. I’m part of the picture, but I’m framed in the landscape of Ahunui, the place where Reuben feels safe, protected from the outside world. Here he’s free to be whoever he wants, but Reuben will return to LA and his celebrity life, and I’ll be a memory, the holiday romance.
“I hope you remember me fondly,” I whisper. It’s pathetic. I’m not used to the depth of feeling I have for him, and I don’t know how to bring it up for discussion.
Once I hear back from the gallery, I’ll return to Auckland to print my photos. I have to. I need the money, and I need to do my work in a creative sense. When that’s done, there really is no reason for me to return to the island.
Apart from Reuben.
Right now he feels like my reason for everything, but this is his retreat. He came here to be alone, and I can’t continue to insinuate myself into his life. It makes me no different than the groupies who hound him.
“How could I possibly forget you, Stella?”
My chest tightens. Reuben strokes my head the way you’d comfort a child, but his words aren’t the promise of a future together.
“What I feel in my heart for you,” he continues, “is something beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. I want every piece of you, Stella. But I don’t want to bring you into my crazy world. It’s so destructive, and it would break us. I want you to be able to do your beautiful work, craft stunning images, without the distraction of the chaos that comes with me. In my business, in my life, there are a thousand grabby hands pulling in different directions. I came here shredded, and you’ve laid me out, piece by piece, and stitched me back together. You’ve made me whole again.”
“I’m scared…”
“Don’t be. We’ll work this out.”
***
Our lovemaking last night has a new depth to it, an emotional connection that feels more possessive, a need deeper than the drive to simply climax. When we finish, Reuben is quiet, and at some stage, I fall asleep.
I waken as the sun splits the horizon with an orange streak. Rueben is already in our favourite place, playing music. I make coffee for us, and sit at his feet while he works on his new song.
Once the tide is low enough, we hike around the cliff and collect the bird fencing that is strewn around the rocks. When we return to the house, Reuben helps me untangle the nest of knots, and together we wind up the tape and store it away until the birds make another attempt to nest.
Back in the house I discover my phone has messages. “We have cellular coverage and Wi-Fi again,” I say. “Did you bring a phone with you?”
“Yeah, it’s somewhere. It’s not charged, and I don’t have the right plug for this country, so I’m off the hook.”
I go to the pantry and jump to reach a box on a high shelf.
“Need some help there, cracker?”
Reuben’s hands are at my hips, and he hoists me high. I take the box and hand it to him. “Grandma again. Adapter plugs for every electrical plug known to man.”
“The way your grandmother covered bases is astounding. But I think the best thing she did was raise you into a beautiful woman.” Reuben puts the box back on the shelf. “Okay, I know they’re there. My phone’s going to blow up when I finally connect, but I’m not ready for that yet. I sent a message to my manager when I was at the airport and told her I needed a month but that I might take two. The percentage I pay her is large enough for her to deal with the aftermath of my disappearance.”
My phone buzzes on the counter.
“You see, that’s what would be happening all day long if I charge my phone,” Reuben says.
I glance at the screen. “It’s the gallery.”
“I’m going to work
in the sunroom for a couple of hours. Come and find me when you’re ready.” He kisses my forehead. “I hope it’s good news for you, cracker.”
I retreat to a spot on the veranda where reception is good and take the call.
“Hi, Prue.” My heart is thumping. I’m sure the images are up to standard, but you never know if the gallery will think the same.
“Two words, Stella. Love them.”
“All of them?” I sent twenty, but I only expected them to want half a dozen.
“Every one of them. How soon can you make prints? We’d like to exhibit them next month in our Watch This Space show.”
“You’re kidding me.” Watch This Space is their annual showing of up-and-coming artists from the southern hemisphere. It’s garnered a massive following over the years because Prue and her brother, Jake, have proven to have an excellent eye for picking winners.
“Not kidding. Jake is drooling over the photo with the broody guy. Who is he?”
What. The. Fuck.
I can’t even respond. I only sent the Aftermath images. Twenty in a selected folder. A wave of panic runs through me. “Prue, I’m sorry, that image…” I stop. The signal has dropped.
I’m pacing the veranda, too scared to even enter the house because I know my panic is right there on my face for Reuben to see. I can hear him with his guitar in the other room. Hopefully, he’ll be some hours and I’ll have time to sort out this monumental fuck-up.
I nip inside and grab my laptop. The first thing I have to do is check the file exchange and see what I sent. It seems to take an age for my laptop to open, and then another year or so before I manage to connect to the server.
There is the folder for the gallery, and my heart plummets when I see it contains twenty-one, rather than twenty images.
My finger trembles on the trackpad as I open the folder. Sure enough, instead of dropping my favourite image of Reuben into my private folder, I’ve dropped it into the gallery folder and sent it to them.
No wonder Jake loves it. It’s an incredible shot.
I cover my face with my hands. I have to think this through. If I make too much of a fuss they’re going to want to know who it is. Then I’m really in trouble. First off, though, I have to ensure they understand they are not getting the image for the exhibition, nor are they to show anybody.
