Chapter 2 Rock Pools
rock pools
Some lives are like the ocean, always moving, always changing. Then there are lives like mine. Rock pools. Stuck, waiting for the wave that left them to come back.
My pocket buzzes.
My agent.
. . . they’ve decided to go in another direction
A sticky laugh escapes. My grip on my phone grows sweaty. At least they bothered to give a rejection at all.
I should be used to this feeling.
It wasn’t a big role. Just enough for rent, groceries, and a month of not spiralling into overdraft. I tap my phone and shake it, like maybe I can magic up a different response.
With heavy limbs, I sink the few steps to the bus stop.
A seagull lands on the pavement beside me, sizing me up. It squawks, like some kind of judgement, and takes off again.
Spying the bus trundling down the road, I quickly check my snapper card. Twenty cents in the minus. The bus doors hiss open, and I shake my head and move away from the stop. I’ve got thirty-five dollars left, and I promised—swore—I’d pay last month’s studio costs upfront this time.
A gust of wind kicks a kid’s beach bucket across the footpath. The ocean is a series of rumbling crashes as waves pull in and out. I kick off my jandals and step onto the sand, bury my toes and blink against the glare off the water.
Near the rockpools, a little girl stops short.
“Mum,” she calls, pointing. “Look! A family of starfish.” She inspects closer. “Oh, this one’s dead.”
Her mother, already a few steps ahead, sighs and doubles back. “Don’t touch it.”
I pass close enough to catch a glimpse. The starfish is dried stiff by the sun, and curled in on itself.
The mother hesitates, then crouches. Scoops up a handful of sand and lets it spill over the body. “Better not let the others see.”
The girl watches and nudges the pile with her foot. Her mother takes her hand, and they move on.
The wind shifts. The sand scatters.
I don’t mean to stop, but I do.
For a moment, I just look.
Something in my ribs tightens; a familiar clench, like trying to keep balance when a wave withdraws too fast.
I crouch, dig into the damp, heavier sand beneath the surface, and press it over the mound.
The tide is as far out as it gets. This’ll stay hidden a while.
Just as I straighten, the wind kicks up again, carrying something across the sand—tumbling, flipping end over end until it smacks against my calf.
I glance down.
A scrap of crinkled paper.
I pick it up.
WANTED: Man, mid-twenties, actor. Room and board provided. One year. Serious inquiries only.
No number. No company name. Just an email address.
I frown, scanning the beach. No one seems to be looking for lost paper.
The wind stills, like it’s waiting. The edges of the paper glisten faintly, damp, like it’s been passed up by the tide. As if the sea itself wanted to hand me something.
I hesitate.
A free place to stay. A full year.
My current contract is about to end anyway; I could use rent money to keep the studio.
I take my phone and open my email.
It’s the second time in less than an hour that I’m standing in front of this red and gold boutique theatre. The first time, I went in on a laugh with my actor buddies, mutually complaining at how tough gigs are to land here in Welly.
This time, I go in with something strange twisting in my stomach. Not quite hope, not quite dread. Something sharp-edged and restless, swinging between.
The paper hasn’t cooled, still sunbaked—in my hand, then my pocket. I’d got a message back right away.
Could you meet now? Empire café. Guy in orange shirt – Trent.
Trent.
There’s a river in Britain named that. It also goes by The Flooder.
Maybe that’s why I see it now: a tsunami warning sign, the kind nailed to the posts along Wellington’s beaches.
Like the one I glanced at before heading back here.
I shake off the stray shiver and try not to think that I’m many blocks away from those blue lines marking safe distance.
I run a hand through my hair, do a cursory check in a reflective windowpane, and kick inside the café.
He’s wearing the exact colour of that dead starfish.
His head is bowed over The Post, a half-drunk black coffee at his elbow. His fingers tap the table—not quite random, not quite rhythmic. A beat. A clock hand. No, music.
He doesn’t hear my approach, but he senses a shift in the air, or perhaps the flash of my bright shorts catches his eye. He raises his head slowly. The moment his gaze fixes on mine, the hand tapping a beat freezes mid-air.
He has a hard jawline under the shadow of a day-old beard, and his nose has dents at the bridge where his sunglasses—now resting at his collar—have recently pinched.
His hair is short, his round head hinting at good parents who must’ve turned him regularly when he was a baby.
But that would’ve been a long time ago. Thirty years, perhaps?
There’s a tightness to his dark eyes, yet no lines where there should be from years of laughter. His lips are set firmly too.
What with all that and the dead starfish he’s wearing, I should be skidding the chair I just dropped into back and bolting.
But the way his hand hasn’t dropped to the table . . .
“You’re Dylan?” His voice vibrates like an echo in my stomach, dropping deeper and deeper. Dylan. Dylan. Dylan.
I shift abruptly and my foot bounces, jandal popping off. There’s a pitcher of water on the table and I grab it, splash water into an unused cup. Gulp it down. Too quick—I’ve finished when I wonder if this really was an unused glass. Or an emptied one.
The difference is massive. And the heat rising to my cheeks? Surely enough to burn away every trace of him I’ve just swallowed.
Jerkily, I pull out the warm paper I’d slipped in my pocket. If only I could go back to those seamless seconds gliding around tables towards him; that swing between hope and dread. That bliss of not knowing what kind of connection I’d have with this stranger.
I flatten out the folds and my finger feels twice its usual size, foreign and clumsy as I point. WANTED: Man, mid-twenties . . .
Suddenly, those words sharpen, and I choke as I speak them. “You want a man.”
He wants a man. What is he after, exactly? I snap my head up and my flashing gaze meets his steady one. Steady, like he’s read my mind and no, not just my imagination and possible wishful thinking—that’s exactly the kind of act he wants from me.
Room and board provided. One year.
What kind of room? A . . . shared one? “Who are we acting for?” I ask, swallowing.
He answers immediately, not so much as blinking at the “we” in that question.
“My grandfather.” He hesitates, thumb tapping once on the paper. “His memory . . . He believes things so fiercely some days it’s kinder not to correct him.”
Living with him. For his grandfather. “Why a year?”
“That’s all he has left.”
The words sit between us like wet sand. I search for something to say and come up empty. “I’m . . . sorry.”
He mustn’t care for shallow sorries either; he cuts in before mine has finished sinking.
“I want to make him happy.”
Right. Assure the grandfather Trent the Flooder will be okay once he’s gone. That he has a partner.
“It’s . . .” Trent pauses. “It’s asking a lot.” It’s his turn to shift on his seat. His jaw tightens; he drops a frown to the paper and folds it slowly. “To be clear, what I’m asking . . .” He taps a fist to his mouth.
He has a large hand. Veins travel down the back of it to strong forearms. His movement is swift and sure, and his throat-clearing cough is deep. It’s all supposed to say: I’m confident. But the very act of hesitating betrays him.
There’s a sharp tug in my stomach. The need to set him at ease. The need to bring levity to the table.
I remind him he’s not alone in his awkwardness by nudging his glass I foolishly used. “We could say I’m already in character?”
He glances over sharply.
I smile, a rush of laughter, and lean over the table. “Fake boyfriend? Sure. Done it before.”
Maybe this job would come with handholding. Kissing. Public displays of affection. Something, at first glance, I don’t think I’d mind.
The vibe from him appeals to me. Some invisible unchosen connection, a wavelength we’re riding together.
I’m giddy with it, until on an inhale his scent hits me. There’s more to his vibe. Like there’s more to a wave than what’s seen on the surface. Deeper, stronger, and it shivers. Something that warns: don’t get carried away.
I pull back, just slightly, somehow keeping my smile steady. Telling myself not to be silly, not to worry so much.
Then his hand drops to his coffee cup and squeezes. “I need a man to play my dead brother.”