Page 63 of Sexy as Sin
And then there was Brett, who’d been here for almost two weeks, and who spent most of his time on his laptop and on the phone. He never talked about going back. She was fairly sure he thought about it every day, though, because she’d never met a more focused man. She was also sure that he was under pressure to go. How many people depended for their paychecks on Mr. Brett Hunter? It had to be heaps.
It was hot under the duvet, and she kicked it off. Outside her window, a kookaburra laughed, the sound harsh and mocking, and another answered.
Well, bugger this. What was she going to do? Lie here and let herself die quietly, a minute at a time? Every time the clock ticked around was a piece of her life, and she’d come too far to give away any more pieces of her life. At least she could get out of bed.
Ten minutes later, she was changed into her bikini and a pair of shorts, had her surfboard strapped down, and had her bike pointed toward Main Beach in the gray light before dawn. Only a few cars on Middleton Street at this early hour, and the summer madness of souls seeking paradise not yet crowding the pavements, either, but the cockatoos and rosellas were rattling the palm fronds and uttering their first raucous calls as she pedaled past, as if laying claim to the dawn hour. The sky was already showing a faint band of pink, and she rode faster. She wanted to be there to see it.
Around the roundabout, zipping ahead of a sedan with all her muscles working in sync, and she was nearly there. The scrubby gums that edged the beach were lined up ahead of her like soldiers, and the sky was pinker still. She was jumping the curb and hopping off her bike in seconds, shoving it past the Peace Pole and locking it to a rack. Another minute, and she had her surfboard unfastened and her thongs kicked off and in her hand, her toes sinking into the fine white sand on the track down towards the water. Above her, the clouds glowed pink and gold, and on the film of water left by the ebbing tide, their reflection shone like a magic mirror, one that showed you only the most beautiful things, the rainbows and the dawns and the sunsets.
When she shoved her board into the sea and flung herself onto it, she got a rush like cool water in her veins. And when she got out beyond the breakers, the sun came up in a glow of gold that hit her straight in the heart.
Sea the blue of a robin’s egg, ruffled like your grandmother’s best bedspread. Sky a pale fuchsia shading into purple, the green grass of Cape Byron rising to the north, shining luminescent green, and the lighthouse a graceful column of white. The first place in Australia to see the sun, and at this one perfect moment, she felt like the first person to do it. There were other surfers in the water, a dog walker on the beach, all of them taking their moment, too, glad they’d got up early to experience it. That was all right. She could share her moment.
And then, beyond her in the sea, an arced shape, a gray shine. A dolphin, its body arching out of the dawn sea like the personification of joy. Another rising with it, then another, until she counted five of them surfing the dawn tide. She watched them until they were gone, let the grace of their presence sink deep into her soul, and with it, the gratitude, the thing she’d forgotten. And then she found her wave, got her balance, popped up on her board, and surfed into the sunrise.
Surely this was God, and surely, it was good. She let the strength and the purpose come, stretched her arms out to receive it, and felt her heart open like opening a door.
The dawn was hers, and so were the rainbows and the dolphins and the birds, the clouds overhead, and the diamond sparkle of sun on the waves. All she had to do was let them in. She might lose some of her money. She might even lose most of it. She didn’t have to lose her hope, though, did she? Nobody was in charge of that but her.
If she was going to wait for everything to work out right, how long was she going to stand around waiting? Money or not, success or not, she still had everything she’d started with. Her drive, her skill, and the strength to keep going. She’d kept going through everything life had thrown at her so far. She was going to ride that fear like she was riding this wave, and then she was going to leave it behind. Let it chaseher.
And, yes, it could be she’d have to remind herself of that four times a day, but you did what you had to do.
The light and the truth had been there all along, and they’d wanted to come. It had been that thing Brett had said last night, in the dark. His voice had been calm and sure, but she knew now that he hadn’t always felt that way. That strength had been built on the solid rock that was his character, and it had been built one painful layer at a time, exactly as she’d once imagined.
“Every morning of my life since I was twelve years old,” he’d said quietly, the way he said most things, “I’ve said the same two things to myself. The things the minister who married my parents and buried my father told me to say, when he was standing beside my dad’s grave with his hand on my shoulder. It felt like the only thing holding me there, because I’d let go of my dad’s hand.”
He fell silent. “Tell me,” she said. “I’d love to hear.” And held still, so he’d do it.
“Right.” He exhaled the word on a breath. “He said, ‘You think this is it for you. You think everything good is gone, and nothing will ever feel safe like that again, the way it feels to fall asleep in the back seat in the dark in your pajamas with the radio on and your sisters on either side of you, knowing your mom and dad are up there driving the car, and you don’t have to worry about anything. But that isn’t where safety comes from, not when you’re not a kid anymore. Not when you’re growing up to be a man. Safety doesn’t come from somebody else, and it’s not something you can hang onto. It’s not getting what you want, either, then squatting down and hanging onto it tight like a dog with a bone. It comes from having faith that even after the longest, darkest night, the sun will rise again, and you’ll keep going. I want you to wake up tomorrow and say two things to yourself.Start again. Start from here.You might go to bed feeling defeated, and that night might be a hard one to get through. That doesn’t make you a loser. It doesn’t have to make you miserable, because everybody who’s ever lived in this world has had dark nights and dark thoughts. As long as you get out of bed again in the morning, you’ve got another shot. I want you to promise me to wake up tomorrow morning and say to yourself, ‘Start again. Start from here.’ Saying it is the first step to doing it. I should know. I’ve been saying it for nearly fifty years.’”
Once again with Brett, she’d been struck dumb. She’d held him tight, had thought,Whatever happens, remember this,and had been engulfed by a wave of tenderness that had bowled her over. And a wave of sadness, too, that she finally knew what love was, and she’d found it with a man who was going away.
There was gratitude there, too, though. There had to be. How could she have given up knowing him? There would be pain in the future, but there was always pain in the future. That didn’t mean you needed to feel it now. Right here and now, she wasn’t powerless, and she wasn’t alone.
Time to stop hiding, then. Time to push back. Time to start again.
The ride home was harder, as always, the day already getting warm, the crowds beginning to pour onto the pavements, going in search of breakfast.
Porridge with rhubarbfor breakfast, Willow thought, standing on her pedals for the last uphill bit, thankful for a body that did everything she asked of it.
When she let herself into the flat, she heard nothing. Azra was still asleep, then. Just as she thought it, she heard the scrape of a drawer closing, went to Azra’s room, and popped her head around the door. When she stuck her head through the door, though, she came face to face with an exquisitely groomed older woman in a pair of deep-gray wide-legged trousers and a cream blouse that were both so glossy and perfectly cut, they had to be silk and from a designer, and black satin shoes whose delicate heels and pointed toes were narrow enough to tell the wearer that her comfort was not their concern. Willow was pretty sure the shoes alone had cost more than everything in her closet put together. Including her surfboard.
At her entrance, the woman turned from the closet in surprise with a load of dresses over her arm. As for Azra, she was standing by the bed, the tearstains on her cheeks telling their own story.
“Good morning,” Willow said. “I’m just back from surfing.Saba?ul khayr,Azra. Would the two of you like breakfast?”
The woman, who was tall, fine-boned, and slim, with smooth, honey-colored skin, black hair drawn back in a chignon, and black-winged brows, looks that made Willow wonder exactly how short and fat Azra’s father was, asked Azra in Arabic, “Is this why you’re so insistent on staying here to design? In order that women like this can go out on the street in their underclothes like prostitutes?”
“No, madam,” Willow said in the same language, “it is so we can go to the beach in our swimming costumes like surfers. Personally, I don’t dress like a prostitute until night. That would be mysecondjob.”
Azra gave a little squeak, then stood up straighter and said, still in Arabic, “Mother, this is my flatmate, Willow Sanderson. Willow, my mother, Jamila Amal.”
“I am honored to meet you, Ostaaza Jamila Amal,” Willow said. She was damned if she would let this woman make her feel small inherhouse.
Azra’s mother’s face had flushed. Now, she gave a nod and said stiffly, “I beg your pardon. I didn’t remember you spoke our language so well. I shouldn’t have said that in any case.” She shifted the hangers to one arm and extended a regal hand, like a woman who was equal to any manners contest.
It was on, then, but Willow had been raised in the home of a diplomat. A slightly deeper nod of her own, the lightest press of the other’s hand, and she let it go again.
