Chapter 15
Lily loved all four of her aunts. Aunt Jane was like a second mother to her: always there, always ready to listen.
Aunt Lizzie was a whirl of vibrant energy who inspired anyone who came into her orbit.
Aunt Mary had only visited from India a handful of times, but she created a strong impression on Lily as a child with her scent of essential oil, her commitment to veganism, and her refusal to have anything to do with single-use plastics.
But it was Aunt Kitty whom Lily had always thought was the coolest. She lived in Melbourne, where she had worked in theater (the experimental, fringe kind) for years before she became a teacher.
After so many comings and goings of exhausting characters, Lily was glad to share what was left of the summer at Pippi with her favorite, least dramatic, and most reliable relation.
When they arrived on the three o’clock ferry, Aunt Kitty and her partner, Hanna, could not have looked more out of place: all pale skin and dressed in Melbourne-black from head to toe.
“It’s like they’re going to a funeral,” muttered Lydia as they rushed down the jetty to meet them.
“Lyddie! Jane!” exclaimed Kitty as she buried herself in a hug with her sisters.
“You look like a vampire,” said Lydia into her sister’s hair.
“And you look like a cheap tropical cocktail.”
The sisters reunited over gossip and early gin and tonics. Kitty and Hanna were most interested to hear about the famous cliff house visitors.
“Casey and Juliet are practically boyfriend-girlfriend!” spouted Kat.
Juliet’s cheeks colored. “No we’re not!”
“They kissed,” insisted Rosie. “A lot.”
“Shhh!” said Lily to her sister.
“You shhh!”
“When are you two coming down to visit?” Kitty asked Juliet and Lily, sensing their desire to change the subject. “Now that school’s over you can come anytime. We can show you around—check out a museum or two, see some theater.”
“Ugh,” grunted Lydia.
Kat frowned. “Why would Juliet go to Melbourne when Casey’s going to the Gold Coast?”
“All the more reason,” declared Hanna.
Lily was committed to working and saving up for her trip to the US and couldn’t visit until later in the year, but Juliet was easily convinced to go sooner. Lily was glad to see her cousin actually make a plan and smile. She had done neither since Casey’s sudden departure.
Aunt Kitty and Hanna fit easily into the Pippi Beach lifestyle, despite their very Melbourne way of dressing.
They jumped off the jetty with the young folks, shared gossip and jokes, and joined in socializing with the whole community, including the French backpackers—and Alex.
Lily was quietly delighted to introduce him to Kitty and Hanna.
He was as charming and smiling as ever, remembered their names after hearing them only once, and complimented Hanna on her vegan leather beach bag.
Aunt Kitty’s opinion of anyone and anything carried a lot of weight with Lily; Lydia’s approval was too easily lost and Aunt Jane’s was too easily won.
“He’s very charming,” Kitty said.
Lily waited, but she said no more.
“You don’t like him?” Lily asked.
“I didn’t say that. And my liking him shouldn’t influence how you feel.”
“But?”
“I’ve been around a while, Lily, and I’ve been stung by charming pretty boys and girls just like Alex.”
Kitty paused, but Lily didn’t say anything.
“You’re a smart kid, Lily. I don’t need to warn you or tell you what to do. I just know from experience—and your mum’s—that a relationship takes more than a nice smile and sweet words.”
“Nice line,” said Lily. “Do you work in theater?”
“I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“I know.”
Lily thought of Cecilia’s brief warning and what Juliet had relayed from her chat with Casey.
“You’re not the only one who’s wary of him,” said Lily.
“He’s got a reputation, then?”
“It appears so.”
She turned her gaze back to the water to see Alex grab Rosie around the middle and tumble into the shallows with a splash and a squeal.
“I trust you to make good judgments, Lily.”
“I will. I do. I have.” Lily smiled back and wondered at herself for not feeling any sense of regret over Alex King. In the end, she had been right to hold off, and she was glad she did.
The last weeks of January slid by in a wash of sparkle, swimming, kayaking, and jumping off the jetty.
It was the perfect glorious summer of lazy hours with salt in your hair and nothing to do but enjoy yourself.
Even Lydia relaxed for the last week. While she loudly lamented the end of the holidays, the start of work, and her sisters’ departure, part of her looked forward to a return to life in which she was pretty much in charge.
On the last Sunday of the last weekend of the summer holidays, the locals gathered to say farewell to the last ferry of the day.
Lydia had already shut up the back pavilion; Jane had taken Martin and Kat back to Sydney to prepare for the school year and go back to work.
Juliet had gone straight to Melbourne with Kitty and Hanna.
Pippi returned to its natural state, where wildlife, locals, their boats, and their dogs dominated the social landscape.
Even the building site slowed down. Half the backpackers split their time with another site over at the Point.
The tents were taken down and the steady stream of passing backpackers and workers reduced to a trickle.
Alex drifted out of Lily’s life as easily as he had drifted in, and neither was more than superficially disappointed that the summer flirtation-that-never-really-was had come to its natural end.
“I think I did really like him,” Lily explained to Juliet on the phone. “But only as long as he liked me more,” she added with a laugh.
With Kat gone, Rosie started spending more time over on the other side of the bay at the backpackers’ hostel, where she took up with a twenty-year-old surfer girl called Florence who wore a straw hat and sarongs.
By the end of the first week of school, Rosie was in a straw hat and a sarong too, asking to be allowed to go and work on a farm picking fruit with all her new overseas traveler friends so she could save money to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef.
Lily felt the world shift beneath her feet.
For the first time, the first school-run ferry of the year left the jetty without her.
Nicola was on it, off to her new job at a shopping mall bakery.
Both she and Lily had to save up for their trip to America, which was exciting, but it seemed a long way off and Lily felt the emptiness of the months ahead and beyond.
She still hadn’t made a decision about what to study or, in fact, what to do with her entire life.
Over the holidays, she hadn’t been so aware of the void in her future.
Now it loomed large. While there was no immediate pressure to make a decision, she couldn’t help feeling a little lost. She didn’t want to repeat the mistakes her mother had made and drift along, letting accidental fortune or other people determine her life’s shape.
But she didn’t know exactly how to take charge.
Lily watched the ferry chug across the bay just as she started her first big cleaning job of the year: the cliff house.
The irony. She scrubbed out the tub that Cecilia had frolicked in, swept under the bed Dorian had slept in, removed cobwebs none of them had even seen, all the while listening to her mother’s running commentary of judgments on rich people, architecture, cleaning methods and products, and how most people have more dollars than sense and if she, Lydia, had the chance, she’d show them all.
At the end of the day, exhausted and grumpy, the family of three shared a plain little meal in the kitchen.
Rosie complained about school the whole time.
“I guess this is adulthood,” Lily laughed to Juliet on the phone later that night.
“It’s not fair,” cried Juliet. “Why don’t you get a job in the city? You could stay with my mum. Or Aunt Jane.”
“No, no, no,” insisted Lily. “They’ve done more than enough for me already and they’re paying for my flight to the US—the least I can do is earn my own spending money.”
“I just don’t think—”
“It’s good work. It’s just funny, that’s all.”
“As long as you’re okay.”
“I’m fine! It’s mindless enough. While I clean I think about all my travel plans, where we’ll go, what we’ll do. Are you sure you don’t want to come too?”
“To America? I don’t think so. Melbourne suits me. It’s pale and kind of thoughtful.”
“You’re not thinking too much about a certain someone?”
“Who? Oh no. I’ve practically forgotten about him. I know now it was just a summer fling.”
She brushed away Lily’s concern, but Lily could tell she was far from over Casey Brandon.
Lily stalked him on social media—and couldn’t be angry with him.
His open smile was just too guileless. It was Cecilia whom she blamed and, most of all, Dorian Khan, who glowered out from under his moody fringe on his social media, magazine ads, and billboards everywhere she went.
How dare he be so good-looking—and so incredibly hurtful?