Page 60 of Just Come Over
“Yeh.” Gray suit, blue shirt. Appropriate, he’d thought. Looking like he’d made an effort.
“Are we going?” Isaiah asked, looking from one of them to the other. “Because otherwise, we should finish our game.”
“Yeh, mate,’ Rhys said. “We’re going. Pretend you already won. Bring the cards, if you like. Ask Finn if he can teach you to play poker. That seems to draw the suckers in.”
“How come you’re both being all fancy?” Casey asked.
“We’re not being fancy,” Rhys said when Zora didn’t answer. “We’re going out to dinner, that’s all.”
“Oh,” Casey said. “My mom says that high heels means you’re going on a hot date. High heels hurt her feet, because she stands up all day being a waitress, and Zora stands up all day doing flowers and doesn’t wear high heels, either. So I thought it was a hot date. That means you kiss at the end.”
“Ew,” Isaiah said.
“Kissing is romantic,” Casey informed him. “Like, they kiss at the end of movies, because it’s romantic.”
“Shall we go?” Zora asked. “Otherwise, we’ll be late.”
Once again today, Zora was in a car pulling up at Finn’s house. This time, she wasn’t driving. Rhys had said, when she’d seen the car and driver, “Better, I thought. We may want wine. They do these pairings.” Score one for Hayden. Score two, three, and four, actually, because Rhyswaswearing a suit, and a blue shirt with it, and the top two buttons were undone. The jacket and trousers were tailored to his shoulders and his chest and his thighs and every other outsized part of him, his hair was neat, and he was clean-shaven, and still, the dark energy all but pulsed out of him. You know that tattoo was under there, you knew thatbodywas under there, and you could almost see his fire.
Dragon.
Now, she opened her car door, and Rhys said, “Hang on a second, everybody.” He asked the driver, “Could you turn on the overhead lights?”
“Sure,” the woman said, and did it, and Zora turned in her seat to see what was going on.
Rhys pulled a tiny pouch out of his pocket, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Casey, sitting in the middle. “I’m giving this to you now,” he said, “because there’s some leaving coming up, and then there’s more leaving. Leaving, and coming back. So I thought you might need it.”
He set the flax kete—the woven pouch—in her hand, and she asked doubtfully, “What is it?”
“I told you that every Maori has a pendant,” he said. “And that it has to be a present. Remember?”
“I don’t have one,” Isaiah said. “So not every Maori does.”
Rhys’s gaze flicked to Isaiah, then to Zora. She said, “You’re right, love. You should have one. We’ll have to take care of that.”
Casey asked, “Is this mine?”
“Yeh,” Rhys said. He showed her how to loosen the fastening, drew out the thing inside, and laid it in her palm.
It was small, because Casey was small, but it was gorgeous, and like nothing Zora had seen before. One twist cradling another one inside it, with a koru at the heart of the smaller one. The graceful curves were carved from a luminescent mid-green jade, with drifts of lighter green like the path of feathers drawn through the stone, the arcs of color within echoing the graceful lines of the carving.
Rhys told Casey, “Ahakoa he iti he pounamu.‘It is small, but it is greenstone.’ Means it’s precious, given from my heart, and meant to be worn near yours.” He drew his own pendant out from under his collar and said, “I’ve got the fish hook, remember?”
“Like Maui,” Casey said. “But you have a whale tail, too.”
“That’s right. Strength and determination and protectiveness. That means I protect you.” Which had Zora putting a hand on her own heart.
“Mine isn’t a fish hook, though,” Casey said.
“No. Everybody has their own special one, with its own meaning. Yours is a rau kumara, and it’s a twist inside another twist. The twist is for people bound together, who’ll always come back again. For you and your mum, and for you and me. It tells you that the people in your life who love you will always be part of you, even if you can’t touch them any more. You have them in your heart, and nothing can ever take away the people in your heart. He hono tangata e kore e motu; ka pa he taura waka e motu. That’s Maori, too. Means, ‘One can cut a canoe rope, but the bond between two hearts can never be severed.’That’s a saying you could remember.”
Casey traced the curve of the larger twist with her finger, then touched the smaller one nestled inside it. “It looks like my mommy is holding me.”
“Because she is. Always. The little twist has a koru at its heart, see? That’s for strength and starting over, and that part is you.” He drew the braided cord over Casey’s neck, pulled on the ends to tighten it, and said, “You wear it between your collarbones, just below the hollow of your throat, because that’s a special place, an open place, where you can feel your breath and your blood. When you’re lonesome, when you’re sad, you put your hand on your pendant, feel how it’s warm from your skin, and remember that you’re a strong girl who knows how to start over. Remember that your mum’s still there in your heart, and that you’re in mine, and I’m coming back.”
Casey said, “OK.” It was a whisper. The driver, Zora saw, was wiping tears away with the heel of her hand. She caught Zora’s eye and mouthed, “Oh, my God,” and Zora had to agree.
Rhys stroked his hand over Casey’s hair, plaited into a single French braid tonight, and said, “I’m coming back. Tomorrow, twelve days from tomorrow, and every time. You can count on it.”
