18. Not Like a Bonfire
Roman
At eight-thirty that evening, I was sitting on the patio in the deepening dusk, working on my laptop, not having a beer, not waiting for anything or expecting anything, because I was in the moment, and this moment was for looking at the government’s proposed solar energy scheme. That was why I wasn’t thinking about any of the following things:
My mum, and how long it would be before she rang me again with a scheme for meeting my lovely new family. My guess was, less than twenty-four hours.
My bio-dad, who sounded like exactly no prize. I’d always assumed my dad was—well, no great shakes as a man, clearly, but I’d thought he’d have some business sense. Some drive. I’d have to have got it from somewhere, wouldn’t I? Not from my parents, though. Maybe from the same place Hemi Te Mana’d got his.
That same Hemi Te Mana, or the rest of my so-called whanau, either, because I wasn’t going to be meeting any of them. I’d built a life that worked for me. I wasn’t begging for scraps from anybody’s table.
Summer. She was the one I was most not thinking about, and definitely not waiting for.
Yeh, she’d looked good in her togs—a bikini, but a modest one, in a deep purple that showed off her pale skin—but her hair had been in a simple plait, and she hadn’t done any of the things my exes would’ve. No extra-slow sauntering, no hip swinging, no hair tossing. She didn’t have a pierced navel, and she didn’t look like she knew what a belly chain was, even though her body had surely been created for one. And all the same, every man there had watched her walk along the sand. It was the cleavage in the purple bikini, the curve of her waist, the length of her legs, the swell of her bum, and that glorious hair, plait or no. That indefinable thing, too, that was charisma. Some people shine more brightly, that’s all, even when they aren’t trying to shine at all. Summer’s shine was of the gentle sort, but I could imagine her as a Disney princess, weaving a spell of enchantment for a group of little girls—and their dads. And then there was the uncertainty in her gray eyes when she turned to me and asked, “Still OK to help me with this?”
My mind may possibly have strayed to that last one, yeh. The way she’d laughed, then shrieked, when we’d plunged into the cold surf. The way she’d grabbed my hand when the wave had come in, and the way she’d felt against me when I’d put my arm around her waist to steady her. I’d asked, “Still want to dive under?” and she’d answered, “Yes. But will you watch me?” And I had.
I’d expected her to be brave, and I hadn’t been wrong. When I’d asked, “Salt water OK on the stitches?” she’d answered, “Stings a little, but hey—I can’t even feel it, I’m so numb!” and laughed. Getting her hair wet, getting tumbled by the waves and coming up again, freezing cold and all the way alive. From something as simple as a dip in the sea.
The way she’d shivered on the way home, wrapped in a towel, and pretended she wasn’t. Coming out of the shower wrapped in a thin dressing gown that clung to every curve, her hair in a towel, and making lunch beside me, asking what I wanted on my sandwich and seeming happy to cook it, then sitting at the outdoor table in the sun, taking the towel off her head, and spreading her hair over her shoulders to dry. Like the first night, with the wet hair and the no-makeup, but the dressing gown was, well, thin. It also showed her legs when she crossed them, and a bit of cleavage, too. She was friendly and cheerful, as usual, but when she looked up from her panini and caught my eye, her breath caught for one long moment. I didn’t look at her breasts, but there was no way she was wearing a bra under there.
All right, I may have glanced at her breasts once or twice. And I had a feeling she could tell.
Delilah said, “Hello? Is anybody listening, or am I talking to myself?”
“You think you and Summer should move to Dunedin after you’re done here,” I said, “so you don’t have to live in a tent.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“You realize we’d be living in some grungy backpacker’s accommodation,” Summer said, “with a bunch of kids on their gap year. And if you’re saying ‘Dunedin’ because Roman’s—” She stopped.
“What, I’m setting you up, because he lives there and he’s rich?” Delilah said. “I’ve given up. He’s all right for an older guy, but you obviously don’t like hot, rich guys anymore, so forget it. And as I’m basically on my gap year myself, living in a backpackers’ would be normal, wouldn’t it? You really think that two of us couldn’t get an apartment, though—a terrible studio apartment—on two salaries?”
“It’s a university town,” Summer said. “Rent’s expensive and places are hard to find, especially cheap places. And I need to keep paying Roman back for the truck. And I can’t—” She stopped.
“What?” Delilah asked.
“I’m going to have trouble renting a place,” Summer said, keeping her voice level. “I went bankrupt, and they check. Maybe they won’t check UK records, but I don’t want to find out.”
“Too bad wherever Roman lives there didn’t flood, then,” Delilah said. “Speaking in a non-setting-up way.”
“Roman is not our provider,” Summer said, a tinge of sharpness in her tone. “Or our fallback plan.”
“All right,” Delilah said. “Keep your shirt on. Whoops, you’re not wearing a shirt. Isn’t it a little provocative, sitting out here in your robe, if you’re not trying to get him to pony up another couple of weeks here? Isn’t he going to get a mixed message?”
Yes, I thought. “No,” was what I actually said. “She’s fully covered, and I already got her message.”
“You’re probably acting like this because you’re not meeting anybody living up here,” Summer said to Delilah. “Sorry it’s boring, but it’s for two weeks. Less than two weeks. We only have about three days’ worth of work left here.”
“Flirting skills getting rusty, eh,” I said.
“My flirting skills are excellent,” Delilah said. “Though I prefer to think of it as character study. Men are easy, is what I’ve studied so far. It’s not like I’m sleeping around, either, or whatever Summer thinks will lead to my life turning out like hers, which is basically, ‘Do everything right for your entire life and keep your nose to the grindstone like a Boomer until you marry the filthy-rich guy who takes you away from all this, which will turn out to be the Biggest Mistake Of Your Life,’ so the lesson is … what? Stay home with my fourteen cats? Never take a risk again? You know what grindstones do? They wear you down. And hello? I’m not gorgeous, and I’m not an insane rule-follower, either. I’m sure not all gracious and charming like Summer. Nobody’s ever asked me to wear an evening gown and accompany them to the baccarat tables of Monte Carlo, and they’re never going to. I think I’m safe.”
I said, “So a dodgy guy without money is less risky than a dodgy guy with money? First time I’ve heard that.”
I wasn’t sure which of them I’d asked it of, but Summer answered. “He can be, because you’re less careful. Wish fulfillment is a dangerous thing. And I’m sure you’ll agree I’m not all that gracious and charming anymore.”
Delilah sighed. “It’s like Valley of the Overcautious Forty-Year-Olds up here. Maybe I don’t want to stay in Roman’s house anyway, despite the tent alternative. Swimming in your pool and using one of your many steam showers isn’t really worth it, because—wait! You also have to clean all of those showers! Waitressing is better than brushing down the sides of the pool for ages, not to mention scrubbing the showers and all the ceilings with mold remover—you’re probably not doing my reproductive potential any favors with that stuff—with the highlight of my day being driving all the way to Dunedin for the riotous pleasure of meeting the guy at the carpet cleaner’s. He has almost no teeth, and he’s about seventy-two years old. That’s my social life, the old guy with no teeth. Does New Zealand not have dentists, or what? I thought it was all single-payer medicine here, consumer nirvana. Apparently not dentally. Good thing I have straight teeth. Well, straight enough. My canines cross over my other teeth a little, and whitening strips make my teeth hurt. Another death knell for my gold-digger career. Inadequate dental fabulousness.”
Summer said, “Good thing you’re going to college, then. And scrubbing down the pool walls won’t kill you. It was one time, because of the storm and having to empty the pool, but the vacuum is taking care of it now. I’m sorry that I can’t manage the scrubbing with the stitches, but?—”
“Way to make me feel ungrateful,” Delilah said. “I know you’re doing more. I just don’t see why we have to set the land speed record for flood cleaning.”
I said, “You’re welcome not to set that record, and to stay on a week or so longer after you finish the scrubbing and so forth. Summer’s stitches won’t be ready to come out for another week, because I heard the doctor, and your head probably still hurts, Delilah. You surely don’t want to move on before you get those things sorted. There’s that job at the café, too,” I told Summer. “You said you liked it.”
“Which I can do from a tent,” she said, “if I want to. Alfie says I can do laundry in his machine, and one of the servers told me we can take showers at her place. That way, I could work and stay at the beach for Delilah. In our roomy new—well, used—tent.”
“Thought you didn’t take favors from men,” I decided I should point out. “A bit cozy, isn’t it, folding your clothes at Alfie’s place?”
“He’s married,” Summer said. “And not interested. I told you, I’ve lived in this body a long time.” She stood up. “I do need to get to work, though. I’ll get back on schedule here tomorrow. Also, you really don’t have to make pizza for dinner.”
“Oh,” I said, “I think I do. I’ll save you some, unless you’re eating at work.”
“I should,” she said. “It’s free.” Hanging onto the back of her chair with one hand, her body language saying, I’d rather stay here with you this afternoon, sit by the pool and read a book, make pizza with you later and drink some wine and maybe smile at you over my glass. If relaxing isn’t too decadent. If it won’t throw me off track.
I wanted to say heaps of things. I didn’t want to say them in front of Delilah.
“I need to get ready,” Summer said. “But Roman—” She looked straight at me and spoke for once with no holding back. “Thanks for the beach. I did feel safe with you. Thank you for doing that for me.”
There was something blocking my throat, and a tightening in my chest. All I said, though, was, “No worries.”
Stupidly.
I wasn’t thinking about that now, though, or the futility of this whole mad arrangement in terms of my ever getting what I wanted, which was, obviously, sex. Preferably all kinds of it. Hard and fast or achingly slow and patient—both of those would work for me, working on that body. Working out that body. Seeing her lose that caution, that reserve, and surrender to pleasure.
Surrender to me.
But I wasn’t thinking about that now. I was reading my report in the soft, fading light, my bare legs stuck out in front of me, after a hard swim in the pool and a shower. I was loose. I was relaxed.
I was ready for anything. Or, of course, nothing.
Summer
Did I think, driving home from Owaka after my shift, about Roman? About how hard his body was in his swim trunks, about the water beading on that bronze skin and the breadth of his shoulders and chest? I tried not to. I focused on remembering the icy-hot shock of the water on my skin, so cold it was nearly painful, and the roller-coaster almost-terrifying sensation of diving under a wave and feeling the water take me in its grip and tumble me, and how I’d clambered to my feet again against the pull of the outgoing tide, laughing, and found Roman beside me, watching for me. Every time. How I’d asked him to help me, and he had.
Wait. That was the part I wasn’t thinking about. That, and standing next to him in the kitchen as I pressed paninis on the stove’s built-in griddle and he heated soup in bowls, and how, when he stepped around me in the confined space, he’d put a hand lightly on my low back, so faintly I almost wouldn’t have felt it, except that I felt it. How his eyes had smiled when his mouth hadn’t, listening to Delilah complain, and how his face had looked when I’d told him thanks for the swim. Softer. Harder. Something.
Intense. That was the word. He’d looked intense.
Stop it. You’re a good-looking woman, and he’s used to going to bed with good-looking women. With good-looking women who are living in his house? He’s completely used to it. That doesn’t make him your prince.
I wasn’t exactly relaxed, coming down the drive and getting out of the car. And when I walked up to the house and saw him sitting on the patio in the fading light, the sky already tinged with pink, I really wasn’t relaxed. Even though that was how he looked. His long bare legs stuck out in front of him, his feet crossed at the ankles and resting on another chair, his laptop on the table, scrolling through a document with a slight frown on his face.
I said, “Hi.”
He looked up. “Hi. Good night?”
“Yeah.” I dropped down beside him, because why not? Why shouldn’t I take a minute and enjoy his company without overthinking it? “How about you? You look busy.”
He shut the laptop. “I’ve done enough for now. Want a glass of wine? I’ve waited for mine, and it sounds good. Some of that pizza? Got a pretty good salad as well.”
“You really made it.” I was absurdly gratified.
“Told you I would. I think I mentioned that I keep my promises. Did you believe in me enough not to eat dinner already, that’s the question.”
“Well, yes,” I said. “I did. Believe in you.” It felt like an admission. I reached back and took the tie out of my hair and shook it out. It was getting long, since I hadn’t been excited about paying for haircuts, and shaking it out made me feel a little like the sea had today. Lighter. Freer. Like the person I wanted to be and had never managed to find.
“Five minutes, then,” Roman said, and went into the house.
I could have gone in with him, said hi to Delilah. I didn’t, because … because the low lights in the landscaping had come on with the fall of dusk, and were shining up into the well-tamed greenery in the beds around the turquoise gem that was the salt-water pool. Light and shadow on ferns and subtropical plants edged by artfully placed boulders, with fern trees, lemonwood, and peppertrees rising above them, while a fountain splashed its way down rocks that looked as natural as a waterfall, burbling away with that watersong that’s more relaxing than any music. Below the house, green hills undulated down to the sea, the corrugated folds of water glowing aqua with the sunset, the wisps of cloud at the horizon tinged with purple and pink. Roman had lit the outdoor fireplace, too, and it was warm against my side, taking away the evening chill. I slipped off my shoes and socks, put my feet on another chair in the same way he had, and let myself drift with the day. And, possibly, let myself feel that this was a little romantic. Which I wasn’t interested in, but how long had it been since a guy had cooked for me? Had sat with me with Roman’s stillness, his sureness?
Never, that was how long. Never.
Sure enough, he came back with a tray. A plate of pizza showing the red, white, and green of the Italian flag, a bowl of salad, a bottle of wine, and glasses.
“See what you think,” he said after he’d poured two glasses of the straw-colored stuff. “Te Mata Cape Crest Sauvignon Blanc. Happened on it when I was working up in Hawke’s Bay. Quite nice, I find, especially for summer.”
I sipped. And sighed. “That’s so … I don’t know. Tropical? Creamy? Complicated? Like …”
“Mango and lime,” he said, and grinned when I looked at him in surprise. “I’m no connoisseur. I read the label.”
“Hawke’s Bay is in the North Island, though,” I said. Sauvignon Blanc wasn’t a very expensive wine varietal, but I’d bet this kind was. Not that it mattered to me. I wasn’t into rich-guy porn.
“You know your Aotearoa geography,” he said, sitting down beside me again. “I have a new wind field going up there. Probably.”
“Probably? Mmm, margherita pizza. Tomatoes and fresh basil and cheese; what could go wrong?” I took a bite and sighed. “Wow. That’s got the blackened bubbles on the crust and everything.”
“Pizza oven,” he said. “I told you. Don’t be too impressed. It takes about sixty seconds to cook. And ‘probably’ because the storm did some damage. We’re still working out how much.”
“Is that why you were tense earlier?” I asked. “What the phone call was about?” He was being so open tonight, with none of that hard look, was why I asked.
“No,” he said. OK. Not that open.
“Which wife was this house?” I asked, folding my next slice of pizza in half so I could preserve some dignity, mess-wise, while still gobbling it down. I could tease him out of it, maybe. “Somebody who liked pizza, obviously. Let me tell you, it’s not easy to be arm-candy hot and enjoy your pizza. If she could manage it, she’s a better woman than me.”
“She could afford it,” Roman said, but his face had lost the tautness. “First wife. Audrey. Adventure racer. Very keen.”
“Oh,” I said. “Not so much the arm candy, then.”
“No. Well, yeh, she was hot, if you like strong women. Which I do. Pretty driven, though. Like me.”
“Which you thought would work,” I said, and when he glanced at me, “Hey. It’s a conversational topic. Remember, I was married to a professional athlete myself. We can do group therapy.”
He laughed, something I didn’t see a lot. “Don’t think I need group therapy. I’m not wounded, just bad at being married.”
“So comparing your achievements got old,” I guessed.
“Something like that. But you’re right, this house was her idea.”
“I wanted to think the design was you,” I said. “The materials. The taste. I’m going to be sadly disappointed if it’s not true.”
“The materials were me. The size was her. She’d bring the team here to train. Two men and two women, staying for a week at a time, talking about their macros and their VO2 max, drinking green sludge and sucking almond butter out of packets, watching docos about mountain climbing and free-diving. Always a clatter of weights hitting the stack in the gym, and a garage full of kayaks and racing bikes and dripping wetsuits. I admired their discipline, but they weren’t much chop at general conversation.”
“Can you make money at that?” I asked. “Or were you the bankroll?” And when he looked at me, half affronted and half amused, “Hey. It’s an obvious question, and you know by now that I was a gold-digger myself.”
“No,” he said, “I know that you weren’t.” I tried not to let that affect me. “And, yeh, you can get sponsorships and that. Eventually. Not enough to pay for this house, but enough to live on, if you’re good enough.”
“So what happened?” I asked. “Did she have an affair with one of her teammates, or what?” He looked so outraged, I had to laugh. “Sorry. I’m sure you’re very satisfying in bed.”
He grinned. Pretty reluctantly, but he did. “How’m I meant to answer that? She went to Chile to train for the big race down there, then on to Spain. Won a world championship with her team, was finally getting those sponsorships, and decided not to come back. Didn’t seem much point in being married anymore. It wasn’t like we were spending time together. I was building up a couple of ventures at the time myself, so I was probably dull as well, and possibly too sure I was right and that my way was the only way. That was mentioned. On the other hand, ‘When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.’ Shunryu Suzuki, as we’re quoting. We did that, but could be that you can’t have two bonfires at once. Which left me with this house and a pizza oven.”
“Delilah would ask about your sex life here, I’m sure,” I said. “As she has no filter, and then there are those bonfires.”
“We’re going there, are we?”
“Speaking theoretically,” I said, and thought, What are you saying? Back off! Back off! Wait, though. We were having a frank discussion, that was all. “In my experience, athletes are intensely physical, but not always intensely … mutual. Of course, I only know the male version. They like lots of sex with lots of people, but it’s more about quick gratification and possibly fantasy fulfilment than … than partner fulfillment. Maybe female athletes are different, though.”
“Ah.” The dark was falling around us now, the sky purpling, but I could still see the gleam in his eyes. “Hence the lack of sexual feelings. Despite the way you look, and where that’s got you.”
“What, I look like I can’t wait? Seriously? I’m wearing jeans and a T-shirt and trainers! And who told you about my lack of sexual feelings?”
He laughed. “Nah. I meant, being so beautiful. And Delilah told me. Though you’ve also said I wasn’t too bad, or something like that. Made me go all warm and fuzzy inside.”
“All the women around those guys are beautiful,” I said. “Beautiful isn’t anything special, it’s an entry requirement.”
The sound of a car in the drive, which you couldn’t mistake, not up here in the quiet. I said, “Are you expecting somebody?”
“No,” he said, and stood up.
Car doors closing. Footsteps. Three people coming around the corner: a woman and two men.
“Surprise!” the woman trilled before they’d covered half the distance. “Here’s your dad!”