Page 60 of Just Say (Hell) No
I’d be looking.
She hesitated, and then her thumbs were flying.
I did do them. Only bcs nobody was up there. I’m not as impressive as you. I know the point is exercise, not looking good blah blah. Don’t care.
I’m guessing you looked good,he texted straight back.And if you think that wasn’t why I was doing them, I’m even more rubbish at this than I thought.
Maybe you are,she answered.It didn’t work, remember?
I know. Bugger. That’s why I haven’t done them for you since. Working on my subtle moves instead. Bus at hotel though. How’s my mate Colin?
She laughed out loud, then texted,Madly in love.
Tell him to back off.
She stood there in the street and tried to haul some air back into her lungs. Beside her, Colin said, “Talking to the fella, eh.”
She jumped. She’d forgotten he was there. “Oh, no. Silly, that’s all.” She shoved the phone back into her pocket.
“Yeh, right,” he said. “Young people, eh. Always thinking they’ve invented some new step. There aren’t any new steps. It’s always the same dance.” His blue eyes were full of amusement. “Never mind, though. It’s still the best one there is.”
Twelve days later, the front of the Air New Zealand Dreamliner was early-Sunday-morning-after-late-Saturday-night subdued, and Marko’s body was sore and battered in the same old familiar way as always. Nothing out of the ordinary. Except that the three hours from Sydney had never lasted so long.
He’d typed his final text a couple hours earlier from the comfort of the Koru Lounge, surrounded by big, tired bodies, male energy, and the comfort of the well-trodden path.
Can’t do anything about it,he’d written.That’s how the cards fall.
There,he’d thought. That sounded casual, like you weren’t hanging out there all alone with everything on the line. But then he’d pasted in his mum’s message and read it over again. For possibly the fifth time. Or so.
The Two of Cups. So many Cups this week. I can’t remember that ever happening with you before. All those fertility and sensuality and heart chakra cards could be about Ella, and some of them probably are. But I think they could mean something more. You can’t see the message any more strongly than you do in this one. It’s about letting yourself feel every moment, even the hard ones, even the scary ones. Even the ones that aren’t about discipline and progress. There’s more than one way for a person to move forward, and more than one kind of obstacle. How can you touch another soul when you’re shielding your own? I know how hard it is to take that leap. But remember this, baby. There’s more than one kind of courage, too. They’ll never hear the words you never say. They’ll never cherish the things you never do.
He’d hesitated with his thumb over theDeletekey. He’d shared every card so far, even the embarrassing ones. Because Nyree had asked him to, and because he’d wanted to see what she sent back to him. She’d answered every time, and she always made him smile. A little flirty, a whole lot saucy, and all the way warm. But none of them had been like this one.
He could forget to send it. He had every excuse, including a few stitches in his earlobe and a deep thigh bruise that was giving him trouble. Or he could go ahead and move this conversation to where it needed to go without any cards or anything or anybody else in the wide world. He didn’t need his mum to tell him so. Everything in him was shouting it. No reason to share something this… personal.
Harden up, boy.
He pressedSend.Then he followed Koti’s jaunty back onto the plane, deposited himself in his Business Select seat, chose the orange juice instead of the champagne from the tray, put on his headphones, and pretended he wasn’t imagining her response.
The chime of the text woke Nyree. She groaned, reached a hand out for her phone, patted around a few times but couldn’t find it, fell back into sleep again, and dreamed of a sea of darkness, infinite and impenetrable.
She saw a sprinkle of lights appear in the darkness, followed by another and yet another, as if the stars had been thrown across the night sky, a handful at a time, until the black bowl was ablaze. She saw Tane, the youngest son, dressing Ranginui, the Sky Father, in a cloak of starlight, then adorning him with the brighter light of the moon, and finally, placing the sun on his breast.
She dreamed of that first-ever sunrise making Ranginui’s cloak glow pink and gold around the edges. She saw it fading and turning to blue, and then the mists rising from the primeval forest. The sighs of Papatunanuku, the Earth Mother, as she longed for the husband from whom she’d just been parted. She dreamed of the morning light softened by Ranginui’s gentle tears, falling to Earth to bless his wife, letting her know that he would be hers forever, even though he could never touch her again. Of the two of them nurturing their children, and the children of the earth, forevermore.
She dreamed of love undying, forgiveness unlimited, and a soul-deep connection that neither time nor distance could sever. She dreamed of the deepest blue, the brightest silver and gold, the palest pink, and the most vibrant green. And, always, the arrays of blues and greens and purples that made up the sky and the ever-changing sea.
She dreamed of color. She dreamed of life, of the web that had been woven, strand by strand and season by season, since the dawn of time, connecting all of Earth’s creations one to the other and back again, giving each its place in the world.
She woke with sobs ripping from her chest, tears soaking into her pillow, and an ache so deep, nothing physical could satisfy it. She rose onto all fours, arching her back and then extending it long, letting the pain and the joy of the dream, of the world, linger. She let them fill her, and then she let them go.
Afterwards, she sat cross-legged on her mattress in the nightdress she’d pulled on at four o’clock this morning, when she’d finally succumbed to exhaustion after a late shift at Bevvy, then a canvas that couldn’t be resisted. After she’d stumbled into the shower and out again, shivering with the fatigue and cold that came from using every bit of your mental energy. A bare four or five hours after she’d pulled on that nightdress, she blew her nose, wiped her eyes, then closed them again and let the colors wash across her inner vision.
Finally, she opened her eyes and looked, half-fearfully and half-exultantly, at her canvas. And sighed.
It was there. Wrong or right, bad or good, it wasthere.The idea had grown in her head and her heart, had flowed through her fingers and her brush onto the canvas. Halfway finished, and the rest of it ready to come. Something about connection, about being in the right place with the right people. Something about the right colors and the right feelings and the right time. Something about Ella’s courage and Marko’s funny, sweet, half-gruff texts, and something about Marko coming home. Something about her heart settling here and opening wide. Something she couldn’t resist, and didn’t want to anymore.
She didn’t bother with a dressing gown. She couldn’t remember where it was anyway. A quick stop in the bathroom, a brush of her teeth, and a trip downstairs for a cup of tea, and that was all. Ella looked up from the stove, where she was cooking an enormous panful of eggs and vegetables, and said, “Hey. Want some?”
