TWENTY
Twenty
Over the next week, Bel did a total of five radio interviews and two more interviews with television shows. She’d expected the fuss to have died down by now, but it seemed the country, and even some other parts of the world, were invested in the whole #WhereIsElvis campaign. She’d been encouraged to do daily updates on her social media, which had included reposting a legion of supposed Elvis sightings, ranging from very alive versions of roosters that looked like Elvis from all around the world, to one gruesome, yet kind of funny, image of a pile of feathers in a what-was-left-of-Elvis photo. Her posts sparked a thread of why-did-the-rooster-cross-the-road jokes, along with some humorous alternative ransom notes. It was as crazy as it was confounding, and it came with an unexpected windfall: tourists. And lots of them. For the first time since their tourism campaign had started, the town was seeing results.
A steady stream of mobile homes and caravans had been rolling into town ever since that first morning show broadcast and they hadn’t stopped. It was now almost impossible to get a park in the main street.
Bel smiled ruefully as she passed the supermarket window and saw the poster someone had put up with a cartoon drawing of Elvis the rooster captioned ‘Who stole Elvis?’ The signs had been popping up all over town as everyone got behind the push to find Elvis.
‘The whole place has gone nuts,’ Dean muttered later when they met for coffee. She’d been shopping when he’d messaged to tell her he was in town to pick up a part and had a few minutes to catch up. Lately, that was pretty much all they’d been able to do. Between the harvest and the kids, there wasn’t a lot of alone time.
‘I know, right?’ she said with a chuckle.
‘Whoever was behind this is a freaking promotional genius, though,’ he added, looking over at her thoughtfully.
‘What?’ she said nervously.
‘Nothing. It’s just that you turn up in town and suddenly this whole Elvis thing goes off. If I didn’t know any better I’d think maybe …’ He let the words trail off sheepishly.
‘That I had something to do with it? Well, Sherlock, there’s one small flaw in your theory. He went missing before I came back, remember?’
‘Oh. Yeah,’ he said, sounding a little disappointed.
‘I can’t believe you think I’d resort to stealing as a PR stunt,’ she said with only the slightest tone of indignation. Actually, she was more miffed that she hadn’t thought of it. It really was next-level clever. Although, until she’d posted about it, nothing had really happened. It was all just a huge fluke.
‘Stealing for a reason would be a little better than trying to figure out why someone would take a dusty old bird from a museum in the first place, don’t you think?’
He did have point there.
‘Well, well, well,’ Larrisa said as she came to the table with their coffee order. ‘I see maybe the rumour mill is actually right for once?’
Bel resisted the urge to squirm in her seat as she forced a smile onto her face. They hadn’t really spoken about what this relationship was, and they certainly hadn’t spoken about what to do when they appeared in public together … like now. Rookie mistake. Everyone in town knew they’d been helping out at Fernvale, and apparently already had them picked as a couple.
‘Come on, Larrisa, you should know by now not to listen to rumours,’ Dean said with a smile.
‘Well, in certain cases, like with the ones that were going around about you and me a few months ago,’ she tossed back. Bel hesitated, cup halfway to her mouth, glancing up at Dean.
‘Uh, yeah. Like that.’
Bel wasn’t sure, but it looked like he might have been blushing.
‘I think it’s great. I always thought you two would make a great couple,’ Larrisa said, turning back to the counter to serve as other patrons entered.
Dean shifted a little in his seat in the short silence that followed her departure. ‘So, you and Larrisa were an item?’ she asked lightly.
‘No,’ he said, a little too quickly.
Bel lifted an eyebrow.
‘I gave her a hand finishing off some of the renovations in here, so I was in the cafe a bit. That naturally started a few tongues wagging. We didn’t date or anything.’
‘Why not?’
‘What?’ He looked up at her, surprised by her question.
‘You were both single. She’s a lovely person,’ she said. ‘How come you two didn’t get together? It’s not like the dating pool is limitless around here.’
‘I don’t know.’ He glanced down at his cup briefly before looking back up. ‘She’s great, but I guess … she wasn’t you.’
She smiled. ‘You say that. But we weren’t dating before I left.’
‘If that knobhead hadn’t come to town, I’d like to think we might have.’
Bel looked at Dean across the table. ‘I know Emma was trying to play matchmaker,’ she said.
‘I made a dick of myself trying to work up the courage to ask you out.’
‘To think, I had no idea that was what you were after.’
‘Do you really think I needed to come into the store as often as I used to just to buy a bag of chips?’ he asked dryly.
Well, now that he mentioned it … she supposed that had been odd. She still coudn’t believe she’d never suspected he’d been trying to ask her out. Then again, why would she have noticed? Her head had always been buried in a book.
‘I sort of did ask you out, in a roundabout way. To the movie night. We were going to meet up there. But you met that Tate bloke.’
A trickle of discomfort ran through her. ‘I didn’t realise that’s what you were thinking … I mean, I was going to be there with Em and the kids.’ She winced a little, thinking how he must have felt when she’d left to go off with Tate.
‘It was my fault. I should have told you I liked you. I guess I figured I had all the time in the world. It wasn’t like there was much chance of any other competition moving to Wessex,’ he said. ‘But then that bloody wedding brought in all those Barbie and Ken lookalikes.’
Bel smiled slightly. ‘If it makes you feel any better, he turned out to be a big mistake.’
‘It doesn’t make me feel better that you were hurt.’
‘I think … he was supposed to enter my life when he did for a reason.’
‘I’m not sure I believe in any of that destiny stuff.’
Before she’d left town, his easy dismissal of something she believed in would have made her more than a little defensive. Now, though, all she felt was kind of … sad. Her manifesting list hadn’t exactly played out the way she’d thought it would, yet it had worked. Sort of. ‘Really?’
‘Nah. I think you make choices and those choices give you consequences. Good or bad, you either learn from them or you don’t.’
‘But you don’t think that maybe something put those choices or whatever in your path for a reason?’
‘Not really. It’s the results of those choices that have a roll-on effect to other people.’
‘Like how?’
‘Take this whole thing with Craig. He made the call to get up on the tractor that day and as a result of that decision, he hurt himself. That decision, in some way, then changed your trajectory, bringing you back here, which then put you and me back on track. And it was all because of a wrong choice on Craig’s part that had a wider effect on other people.’
‘I guess you could look at it like that,’ she conceded.
‘As opposed to some higher power having all this mapped out ahead of time. If that was the case, then Craig got a pretty sucky part in this whole lesson.’
‘Craig’s lesson might have been something different,’ Bel countered. ‘Maybe he’s going through this whole experience so he can use it somehow in the future?’
‘I think I prefer to think of it as, I’m making my own decisions in life, not just being a pawn in some greater power’s game of chess.’
Bel had never been particularly religious, but she liked to think that there were guardian angels and that some kind of universal karma system was watching over everyone, sending little signs to help guide the way now and then. Maybe she was too na?ve.
Dean was right about one thing—Craig didn’t deserve anything he was going through. He was a good guy and a great dad and husband. If the universe was supposed to be watching over them, why would something this horrible happen to Craig? And what lesson could be worth so much heartache and pain?
‘How many more interviews do you have left to do?’ Dean asked, interrupting her troubled thoughts.
‘None. That was the last one yesterday. I think we’ve gone as far as we’re going to go.’
‘It’s about time. I still don’t get this whole social media hype thing.’
‘That’s because you aren’t on it.’
‘Yeah, I am. I just don’t use it.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘I’ve had it for a while, but I don’t really look at it much. Em made me get on it. She used to show me your videos after you left. I can see why you have such a big following, you’re a natural.’
‘I don’t know about that. It helps if you’re interested in what you post about.’
‘It’s more than that. You aren’t fake or following any stupid trends. You’re just you. People like that.’
She wasn’t sure what to say to that. It was one of the nicest compliments she’d ever received. ‘Well, it’s not always like this. I mean, the whole Elvis thing is pretty unusual. One of those things that had all the right bits to make it go viral, but social media is great for lots of other stuff too. You can find old school friends, and follow pages to do with farming and even your regen stuff. There’d be heaps of groups set up with people helping each other and sharing information.’
‘I’m already in touch with any old friends I want to still be in touch with, and if I want information, I go out and search for it. How do you know any of these people in these groups even know what the hell they’re talking about? They could be full of shit.’
‘Hopeless,’ she muttered, shaking her head in dismay. ‘Seriously, for a progressive farmer, you’re a dinosaur when it comes to technology. I don’t know how you think you’re going to stay up to date with everything going on.’
‘The old-fashioned way. I watch the news and listen to talkback radio in the tractor.’ He smiled and reached over to link his fingers through hers. ‘And for everything else, I’ve got you.’
‘Like I said.’ She smiled softly. ‘Hopeless.’
‘I gotta get back,’ he said, gently rocking their linked hands back and forth. ‘But I’ll come by later tonight?’
Bel nodded, already looking forward to seeing him. She felt only a flicker of apprehension when he leaned down to kiss her goodbye, hoping no one noticed, but by the time his lips lifted from hers, all she felt was regret that he had to go back to work. She didn’t care who knew they were seeing each other. Dean Preston left her feeling a little giddy.
The chook pen was almost finished and not a moment too soon. Much to everyone’s relief, Craig’s progress hadn’t stopped and he was slowly getting stronger. Emma was due home at the end of the week for a visit with the kids and a break from the hospital, and the pen would be a lovely surprise—something happy she could take back to tell Craig.
Bel let her gaze roam freely over Dean as he hammered a final piece of wire into place to make the enclosure safe for the assortment of black, red, white and speckled hens that scratched and pecked around their feet. He didn’t have to be spending so much time over here helping. He had more than enough to do at his own place, but he’d given up hours and hours to help out his friends. She had nothing but admiration for him. She liked the way he did things without any fanfare or expectation. Like the other day, he’d noticed the kitchen tap leaking and went out to his car only to return with some tools to replace the washer, all without having to be asked. Nothing bothered him—kids running through the house, arguing or having tantrums. He took it all in his stride.
He looked up and caught her watching, giving her one of his brief side grins that she found more than a little distracting. A flutter of awareness raced through her as she thought about later this evening. It had been hard to find any quality time together lately, between his long hours harvesting and her duties with the kids. But tonight, he wasn’t working. They’d planned to spend the whole day together, getting the house sorted for Emma’s return tomorrow, and he was staying for dinner.
The kids were putting the finishing touches on the outside of the hen house, each painting their own sections, when Bel left them to fetch a bag of laying pellets from the shed so she could fill up the new self-feeders Dean had made.
It took a second for her eyes to adjust from the sunlight outside to the darker interior of the shed as she headed across to the stack of various feed bags neatly stored on pallets.
As she pulled one of the bags free, she noticed a timber box behind it that seemed strangely out of place. It looked old and had faded stencilled signage on the side, the kind that second-hand stores put eye-watering prices on to sell as vintage collectables.
Inside was a hessian bag. Curiosity well and truly got the best of her and she opened the bag, jumping backwards and letting out a startled scream as she revealed the stiff body of an animal. A stuffed animal or, more precisely, a very familiar stuffed rooster.
What the hell?
As she leaned forward to inspect the contents of the bag, she felt something drop behind her. In the split-second it took to turn and register what the noise was, her mouth had already opened in a silent scream, which suddenly turned into a shriek of utter horror when a fat, extremely long snake slithered across the floor.
Within moments, Dean was rushing through the doorway, and he quickly spotted her perched on top of the stacked feed bags she’d somehow scaled, though she couldn’t recall how.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘There’s a snake,’ she stammered.
‘What kind?’ he asked, carefully scanning the corner of the shed her shaky finger indicated.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, was it black or brown? A red-belly?’
‘I don’t know!’ she said, her voice raising frantically. ‘It almost fell on me.’
‘Fell on you?’
They both glanced upwards and Bel let out a startled squeak when they spotted a second snake, looped around the rafters above.
‘It’s just a python,’ Dean said, sounding relieved.
‘That’s another one!’
‘Its mate probably fell down while they were getting frisky. It’s mating season.’
‘It’s still down here somewhere,’ Bel said nervously, torn between keeping an eye on the snake above and searching for the one that had fallen.
‘I got him,’ Dean said, crouching down by some nearby equipment.
‘You what ?’ Bel’s eyes widened as she watched him reach under and withdraw the reptile. ‘Oh my God. Are you insane?’
‘He’ll want to get back up to his girlfriend. There you go, mate,’ he said, taking him across to the wall, where the terrifyingly large snake proceeded to cautiously navigate the rough timber walls as it made its way back up onto the exposed rafters above.
Bel gave a shiver of revulsion, scampering off the pile of feed and out of the dim shed.
‘They aren’t poisonous,’ Dean said. ‘He was probably more shocked than you were.’
‘I highly doubt that,’ she said as another huge shiver wracked her body. So gross . ‘Are you just going to leave them in there?’
‘They keep the rats and mice away.’
‘And now me. I’m never going in that damn shed again.’
‘You probably won’t even see them after this.’
‘That’s not comforting at all.’ Not seeing them was far more terrifying than seeing them, now that she knew they were there. Then she suddenly remembered the other thing she’d found.
‘Dean, there’s something else,’ she said, pointing at the wooden box. She watched him retrieve it and bring it outside. He lifted the lid.
‘What the hell is that doing here?’ he asked.
Bel shook her head. ‘I have no idea. But I know who will.’