Page 68 of Something Real with the Sea Monster
He texts back straight away like normal:Yeah. Just finishing something.
Tegan: u wanna get brunch?
Jack: sorry I’m under the pump today. Don’t forget we’re playing bowls with Luke and Mia this afternoon.
I’d almost forgotten. I never thought I’d be the kind of girl who plays lawn bowls as my idea of a fun afternoon, but it is, even without drinking.
Tegan: oh thnx for reminding me. I’ll be there. Anything I can do to help today?
Jack: Nope, just relax. I’ve got it.
Hmm. I wonder what it is. I check the calendar, but there’s nothing there about any meetings or renewals. We just hired a new cleaner who has been fantastic, so he’s not interviewing.
In fact, these days the Inlet Views is like a well-oiled machine. So much so that it’s a quiet afternoon without Jack around.
I have a long lunch, do some online shopping, and debate replacing the brown backsplash tiles in the downstairs units forthe fifth time. There’s nothing wrong with them, just brown is so outdated. Not that we ever get any complaints, mind you. And the last two months our rooms have been booked out every night.
In the end, I text Mia to see if I can get a hint about what Jack might be up to.
Tegan: have you seen my Mr. Wilson today?
Mia: no why? Is he missing?
Tegan: not exactly, just acting strange
Mia: I’m sure it’s nothing
I read her message again. I never said I was worried.Tegan: Mia, what are you not telling me?
Mia: nothing!
I can almost see the too innocent look on her face. They’re definitely up to something, but I can’t work out what.
I still can’t work it out by the time I put on my sneakers and walk up to the bowling club. Not even when I walk in through the front doors and reception is empty.
I’m still puzzling over it when Mia rushes over to greet me. “Teegs. You’re here. Come with me. Don’t ask questions.”
“What?”
She grabs my hand and starts towing me toward the bar. “No questions.”
Laughing, I let her pull me out a side door and toward a ladder and then stop in disbelief when she reaches up and yanks the bottom of the pull-down metal structure to ground level. “Are you kidding me?”
“Teegs! Seriously.”
“OK. OK, but really?” I wave my hands in front of my face when she makes a pleading expression at me, and I grip the ladder. “Fine. I’m climbing onto the roof. Not asking any questions. Especially not asking why the fuck are we doing something so ridiculous. I thought we were here to play bowls.”
Mia’s voice travels up from below me on the ladder. “That’s just a cover. Jack said this is the biggest, flattest piece of grass—oops. OK, please don’t ask me anymore questions.”
By that point I’ve climbed up the last rung to the roof of the club where the solar panels are lined up row on row, and I get my first glimpse of the greens.
I blink.
Instead of neat squares of green grass, the lawns are full of people dressed in bright colors. Someone dressed in red spots me and lets out a shout. The crowd erupts in a chorus of cheers, lifting pom poms and streamers which flutter madly in the breeze, and then a speaker blares to life and all of a sudden, a cheesy ’90s ballad I haven’t heard since I was in primary school blasts across the green and the crowd dissolves and reforms into seven wonky columns I somehow recognize as the wordWill.
“OK, what—?”
Mia has made it to the top, and she clutches my arm. “Shhh. Wait.”
