Page 73 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
‘How do you know him?’ Erin’s voice is lower but her anger is still clear.
There are different ways Josie could answer this but most of them would take her back to the start of her relationship with Brett:I met him at the beach. He works in Terrigal. I see him around.That’s not what she wants to say. That’s not what they are to each other any more.
‘He’s my boyfriend,’ she says, and she feels power in that moment. Finally she knows there is someone who is just for her, who will stand with her. Because she knows he would. He has kept showing her he would. Kept showing up for her.
‘Boyfriend,’ her mother almost whispers. ‘Boyfriend.’
Josie nods. ‘Mm-hm.’ Keep it light. Don’t make things worse by giving any more information than her mother has asked for.
‘You don’t need a boyfriend.’
‘I’m old enough to decide what I need.’
‘You’re a pretty girl – he’s only after one thing!’
Is that what her mother thinks is valuable about her – the way she looks? Josie wants to protest – to tell Erin that she and Brett have conversations, that they’ve talked about how they both want to travel, that they both want kids someday, that they want to live on the Coast because they love it so much.
There is no point saying all of that, though. Her parents won’t understand. So she says the first line that comes to her, feeling a tumult inside her, so many emotions moving and rolling: anger, fear, disdain, pity, despair – and love. But the love isn’t strong enough to fight them in this moment, so she has to get out of here, at least for now.
‘Well – he’ll get it!’ she shrieks and doesn’t wait for a response. Just picks up her keys and her bag and rushes out of the house, to the car.
It’s only then that her father does something. As she looks up from the driver’s seat she sees him standing in front of the car, his eyes pleading with her – but for what she doesn’t know. And her pity for him is threatening to turn into dislike, so she has to get away from it.
As she pulls away from the kerb he raises a hand. In farewell? Trying to call her back?
It’s no use. She puts her foot down and heads away, away, away as fast as she can go.
She wants to go back to that beach Brett took her to. Killcare. She loved it there, with him. Unsure exactly how to get there, she heads for the road that will take her to the beaches and she’ll find it from there. So she takes the Woy Woy Road that winds down, toward the water.
Her breathing is rapid. Panicky. She didn’t notice it being like that at the house.
There was a woman in the salon the other day who was breathing like this.
‘All right, pet?’ Trudy said, even though the woman clearly wasn’t. But it’s how Trudy defuses situations. Josie has noticed this. If Trudy were here now she’d probably say, ‘All right, pet?’ then tell Josie to slow down.
She doesn’t want to slow down, though. She wants to get to Killcare. She can’t go to Brett because she doesn’t know where he lives. Isn’t that strange? They’re so close but they don’t know where each other lives. Maybe that’s romantic.
Why is she breathing like this? Panic attack. That’s what Trudy said in the salon to the woman. That she was having a panic attack. Then Trudy got her a paper bag and insisted the woman blow into it and that helped.
There’s no paper bag in this car, though. Just her and her breathing.
Killcare. She has to make it. Can’t stop until she makes it.
Except there are dark spots in front of her eyes now and she’s really having trouble seeing, and this road has so many turns. There’s nowhere to stop. She needs to stop.
Instead she sees a car coming around the bend and those spots are in front of her eyes, and she clips the car.
After that, she has no memory.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
After avoiding Sam as best she could, he noticed. Of course he did, because normally Evie is all over him like a bad rash, as her mother might say.
He bailed her up in the back room one afternoon.
‘Have I done something to upset you?’ He looked upset himself.
‘No!’ she said quickly, and laughed falsely.
