Page 51 of Just Say (Hell) No
Nyree hadn’t been sixteen for eleven years, but she remembered enough about it not to be surprised at seeing Ella stiffen. “I’ve handled it so far,” she said. “And I’m fourteen weeks in.”
“Which is nothing,” Jakinda said. “How will you feel when you’re as big as a house and everybody at school is laughing? You think you can fix that by being in Auckland? Girls are the same everywhere. How have they been so far? Welcoming, are they? And I’m not even talking about giving birth to two babies and thinking you’ll give them away, easy-peasy, job done.”
Ella’s face tightened more. “It’s not you, though, Mum. It’s me.”
“Of course it’s me,” Jakinda said. “You’re my child. That’s how it is when you’re a mother. Everything you do affects me.”
Nyree wanted to slap somebody again. Unfortunately, this person was at the other end of a telephone line.
Marko stepped in. “Ella thought she should tell you, Jakinda. It’s been a shock for her as well.”
“Youcan’twant her there,” Jakinda said, shifting her focus just like that. “You have a match tomorrow. You’re meant to be preparing. How are you going to do that while you care for a pregnant teenager?”
“The same way everybody does their job,” Marko said. “I’m not that fragile. There’s a switch you flip, and I’ll flip it, no worries. I have somebody here as well, helping out. Her name’s Nyree. She’s sitting here, so don’t say anything bad about her.”
“What, some woman Ella doesn’t even know? And you think that takes the place of a mother? I’m coming up. I’ll leave work early tomorrow. Somehow. Ella’s going to need me to help her decide and cope.”
“There’s the matter of that match you were talking about,” Marko said, his tone dry as the Canterbury plain. “I can’t collect you from the airport. Sorry.”
“I’ll get there,” Jakinda said. “Somehow. I’ll text Ella my details.”
Three beeps, because she’d rung off. Nyree and Marko looked at each other. Ella ate another crisp and said, “See?”
“Well, yeh,” Marko said. “I do. Right. Time for Call Number Two. I’m ringing my mum.”
Which was why, at four-thirty the next afternoon, Nyree was pulling up in front of Domestic Arrivals and stopping beside two women waiting on the pavement. One with a good-sized suitcase beside her, and one holding a tote.
Nyree got out, but she let Ella lead the way. Ella hugged her mum, then the silver-haired woman whose bone structure and height, not to mention the calm in her expression and the directness in her blue eyes, proclaimed her to be Marko’s mother.
Ella’s mum said, “Oh, my God. You’re bigger already,” and Ella said, “Yeh, Mum. That tends to happen. This is Nyree. My mum Jakinda and my aunt Olivia.”
Nyree shook hands with both, eyed Jakinda’s suitcase, and said, “It’ll be a bit of a squash getting there, I’m afraid, but it’s not for long.” She opened the Beetle’s boot, jammed the suitcase inside, and thought,There’s Step One done.Also,That’s a lot of suitcase for two days. High maintenance much?
Jakinda said, “Let’s go, then. Climb in, Ella.”
Olivia said, “I guess we’d better get used to letting Ella ride in front. Come on, Jakinda. It’s just like my college days. It’s practically the same car.”
“You’re American,” Nyree said.
Olivia laughed. “Not anymore, but the accent never dies, even after thirty-five years. It either drives Ander crazy, or he thinks it’s cute. I’ve never been able to tell. Probably both. But if we’re going to watch Marko play, we need to get this show on the road.” She shoved the seat forward, folded her nearly six feet into the back, and said, “Yep. College for sure. I’d tell you when I was last in the back seat of one of these, but I just met you.”
Jakinda climbed in beside her after a moment’s hesitation, and Ella got into the front. Nyree said as she pulled out—carefully, because she didn’t need to hear about it later—“Here’s the plan. We don’t really have time to go home first, so we’ll battle the traffic into Mount Eden and grab a carpark while we can, spend some extra time in the pub, then walk over to Eden Park. Sound good?”
“Does to me,” Olivia said. “Lead on.”
An hour later, Nyree wasn’t sure if she wanted to slap Jakinda, or just stab herself in the eyeball to make the hurting stop. Every time anyone started a new subject, Ella’s mum shifted the conversation back to the pregnancy, Ella’s education, her future, her mental health, or her favorite: her own stress. Now, she was saying, “I don’t think I slept more than an hour last night for worrying. Did you, Livvie? I’m shattered today. Half of me just wants to climb into bed right now. I hope Marko finally has his place furnished.”
“Not so much,” Nyree said. She was nursing a second beer out of sheer self-preservation. It was lucky that she wouldn’t need to drive again for nearly four hours. Olivia was on her second as well, probably for the same reason. “He’s putting you two into his room, as long as you don’t mind sharing. It’s the biggest bed, and he’s even changed the sheets for you. A man in a million. I’m bunking in with Ella, and Marko’s in my room. And there you are.”
Which was more than a little awkward, not least because Marko’s feet would hang over the edge of her mattress, not to mention that little matter of smelling his scent and feeling all his red in her space, and what that might do to her own peace of mind, but she wasn’t going to be a princess about it. After all, she wasn’t the one who’d be sleeping on the floor after playing a Super Rugby match.
“Oh,” Jakinda said. “But surely Ella needs her mum tonight.”
“Nah, Mum,” Ella said. “You snore, and you have cold feet. Nyree’s warm as a hot water bottle. She slept with me last night and didn’t say anything, which was cool. Aunt Livvie, Marko says I should ask you to do my card of the day. He says we need all the enlightenment we can get. And when he says that, he means I do, because Marko never needs anything. And then do Nyree, please. She’s an artist, did you know? I’ll show you tomorrow. I’ll bet her reading’s awesome.” She told Nyree, “It’s not all woo-woo like you think. It’s really just Aunt Livvie being wise and pretending it’s coming from the cards.”
Olivia said, “That’s one way to look at it, anyway.” Then she pulled an oversized pack of cards out of her tote, tipped them out of the box, shuffled them, and fanned them out face-down. “It works best if you pick your own,” she explained to Nyree. “I do Marko’s for him, of course, or it wouldn’t happen. And then I don’t ask whether he reads my encouraging words. Always best.”
Ella’s hand hovered over the enormous fan of cards as if her choice mattered, and then she chose the extreme right-hand one and turned it over fast.
