Page 52 of Just Say Christmas
“You’ve seen my flat once,” Luke said. “When you tear a ligament in your knee, the stairs aren’t quite as nice, the kitchen’s pretty small and the bath is smaller, and you have to duck through a doorway to get to it, or you hit your head. You have to stand in exactly the right place to see the park, and some people would say that it doesn’t have storage space. But I like it all the same.”
“Sounds good, though,” Hayden said. “Are you secretly sophisticated, Luke?”
“No,” he said. “I just like it.” When he’d shut his door on the first day, once the keys had been his, and looked out over all those anonymous rooftops, he’d felt free, like those swallows. Free to exist.Free tolive.How did you explain that?
“It sounds very fancy and very expensive,” Casey said. “You can still make your apartment pretty, but you can only have a view if it’s expensive, because views cost extra.”
“That’s probably because French rugby pays better,” Isaiah said. “Itdoes,”he said, when Zora looked at him. “New Zealand rugby only pays about five hundred thousand dollars a year even if you’re an All Black for a long time, unless you’re a verytopAll Black, and French rugby can pay twomilliondollars a year. That’s four times as much.”
“I don’t get paid two million dollars a year,” Luke said.
“We’re not going to talk about what you get paid at all,” Rhys said. “As it’s not very interesting. More beer. Hang on.” He went inside for it.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Hayden said. “Of course, I’m a lawyer, so I have an excuse, but I find money pretty interesting.Nothaving it can get interesting, hey, Zora.”
“It can,” she said.
“Being poor isn’t interesting,” Casey said, “because you can’t do as many fun things when you’re poor. You can do fun things that don’t cost money, though, so it can still be interesting that way. You’re supposed to say ‘broke,’ though, not ‘poor’. ‘Broke’ sounds better, like you might be richer later on, so you just need school lunch for now. That’s what my mom said.”
“True,” Hayden said. “Though in New Zealand, you say ‘skint.’ Means you’re waiting for payday. And, of course, you can be broke no matter how much money you make. All you have to do is spend more than you make, and hey presto, you’re broke. Or skint. Or both. Also, Isaiah, you could consider this important detail. Rugby doesn’t last long. If you’re a lawyer, your career can last until you’re seventy. Longer, if you like, and you’re getting more experience all the time, hence better compensated. That means ‘paid more,’ Casey. Whereas in rugby, you’re done when you’re thirty or thirty-five, if you’re lucky. After that, you have to find something new to do. Coach, maybe. Buy a restaurant, hang your old jerseys behind glass on the wall, and probably go out of business. Very unstable industry, restaurants. Or you could talk about rugby on TV. That always seemed like a good job.”
“Depends how well you talk,” Luke said. “You could do it, I reckon.” Hayden laughed. Curved lines appeared around his mouth, his amber eyes gleamed, and Luke got a warm glow somewhere under his breastbone.
“A scientist is more like a lawyer,” Casey said. “You can be a scientist until you’re old, because scientists in movies always have white hair, and kind of crazy hair. That’s good, Isaiah, since you want to be a scientist. You don’t like to brush your hair. Except that I don’t think scientists make very much money, and you want to make lots of money. That’s the bad part.”
“You have to be a scientist and also invest,” Isaiah said. “I think buying houses would be the best for investing, because people need houses to rent, and Auckland doesn’t have enough. You should probably invest,” he told Luke. “If you have extra money from playing rugby in France.”
Luke had to smile. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do you speak French?” Isaiah asked. “Because it’sFrance,”he told Casey. “And they speak French, not English.”
“I do,” Luke said. “My French is pretty good after eight years, actually.”
“You don’t talk very much,” Casey said. “So maybe you don’t need to know too many words.” And Luke had to smile some more.
“Fair point,” he told her. Rhys came out again with four beers and held a bottle up to him. “No, thanks,” he said. “I’m good with water.”
“Keeping up your fitness in the offseason, eh,” Rhys said, sitting down and offering one each to Marko, Tom, and Hayden. Hayden also waved it off, which was interesting. “Maybe you should mention that to some of the boys at the wedding. We’ll give Marko a pass, as he’s getting married.”
“I’m not drinking much these days,” Luke said.
Hayden looked at him curiously, his head a little to one side, and assessed him. “No?” he asked.
“No,” Luke said. He knew he sounded stolid. He couldn’t help it.
“Why not?” Casey asked.
“Because I’d been drinking too much,” he said. Why were they talking about this?
“Oh,” Isaiah said. “Because you’re an alcoholic.”
“Isaiah.” Rhys’s voice was quiet, but it was firm. “No.”
“Your family’s here, though,” Casey said, “because Nyree is your family. She can do a nintervention, if you’re an alcoholic.”
Rhys said,“Casey Moana.”It was his coach’s voice. Casey looked startled. She probably didn’t hear that voice much, or see that face. “Both of you,” Rhys said. “Luke doesn’t need an intervention. Even if he did, that would be still be his business, and maybe his family’s business, but definitely not ours. And you don’t tell somebody that he’s an alcoholic,” he told Isaiah.
“But hesaid . . .”Casey began.
