Page 36 of Kiwi Gold
Lachlan
My phone rang at seven-twenty-two the next evening, and I swore, looked at the screen, and picked up with resignation.
“Hi,” I told my sister Lexi. “Is this an emergency? I have a date.”
“And she won’t wait five minutes? She in a café, then, reading over your texts, thinking that must’ve been a stock photo, becauseclearlytoo hot to be real, and looking around for the short bald fella? Imagine her surprise and relief when you walk through the door instead. Worth waiting for, eh.”
I said, “Not an emergency, then. I’m ringing off.”
“No, wait. Don’t. It’s … not an emergency, exactly. Urgent, we’ll call it. Yeh. Urgent. We need your help.”
I did not sigh. “With what? If there’s a bat in Lark’s house again, she’s got a husband.”
“Who’s useless in those sits.,” she said, “and you know it. Whereas you’re disgustingly retro, but also so bloody capable. It’s a dilemma for a modern woman. Natural to lean on your authority figure, though, surely.”
“It’s now seven twenty-five,” I said. “You have exactly two minutes to lean on your authority figure. And if you think I don’t realize that you’re buttering me up in order to ask me a favor, think again.” I checked myself out in the bathroom mirror. Not too bad. White shirt, dark-blue jeans, flash black jacket that I’d bought in the Gulf, because those blokes had serious style and every high-end shop known to man, and dark-brown shoes ditto. Fresh shave around the edges of the beard. The best mix of “unintimidating and informal, but made an effort” that I could come up with. Good as it was going to get, anyway, because I was going to ring off here and walk out the door.
“Right,” Lexi said. “Here you are, then. You know how Lark asked you to tell Mum about the sperm donor?”
“When I said no, you mean? I meant it. You decided to do this. You can tell Mum.” I waited a beat, and then, somehow, I was saying, “If you need me to sit with you while you do it, I will, but I’m not doing it for you.”
“And you see,” she said, “that’s all we wanted to ask. Perfect. Put off the café for a half hour or so and come by, will you? Speight’s. You can have a beer.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” I said. “I am leaving for this date in …” I checked my watch. “Three minutes. If you want my support, it’s going to have to be tomorrow.”
“You don’t get it,” she said. “It can’t be tomorrow. He—the donor—changed the meet to tonight. Going out of the country, he said. We thought we could manage by ourselves, but now Liana’s nearly crying and talking about how it’s not fair to Dad, Lark’s lost her patience and is nervy as hell, and I keep swearing and getting that passive-aggressive stick from Larissa about it until I want to slap her. The bloke’s going to take one look at us and run for his life, which is OK with me, but Lark says we need to know our genetic history. Maybe our kids are carrying genes for … dunno. What are bad things to carry genes for? I can’t keep up with the paranoia. That’s why I’m not having kids. Descent into maternal madness? Cheers, but no.”
“So, wait,” I said. “Mum’s with you—which I thought she wasn’t going to be, and which sounds like too much pressure on everybody—and you’re meeting this bloke atSpeight’s?You couldn’t have found someplace more intimate than a brewpub? And you haven’t even told her yet? This is the bat all over again. Just do it. Put on gloves and long trousers, stop screaming the house down or laughing hysterically—that’s why the bat got so stressed and wouldn’t settle, and who could blame it?— bung the box over it, slide the cardboard underneath, carry it outside, and let it go. You don’t overthink it, you just do it. Same here. Where are you now?”
“Told you,” she said. “Speight’s. Neutral territory, we thought. Casual, except it’s not. Tension you could cut with a knife, because Mum’s arrived, and nobody can bring themselves to start. Extremely jolly atmosphere. Lark was meant to tell her earlier today, and then I found out, two minutes before Mum turned up, that she’d lost her nerve and hadn’t done it. Worthless.”
“So why don’t you do it?” I asked, against my better judgment. I did not need to be involved here. This had nothing to do with me.
“Because I’ll do it wrong, obviously,” she said. “You know I have no tact, and we’ve got less than a half hour until he’s here. We need younow.”
“And I have tact?”
“No. You’ve got zero tact, like me. But you’re calm about it. Straightforward, eh, which people never think is as bad when a man does it. Sexist as. But then you don’t react, no matter how much of a wobbly anybody throws about your deadly honesty. You’d think that would be bad, but it’s oddly calming instead. Also, he’ll probably feel better with a man there. The sperm donor, I mean. Just saying. You could bond.”
I looked at my watch. It was now seven-thirty-three. I said, again for no reason I could ascertain, “I’ll come to help you tell Mum, because she needs to find out ahead of time, but that’s all. Ten minutes max. After that, I’m leaving.Withmy date, unlesssheruns for her life, which she’ll very likely do, so cheers for that. Our booking’s at eight, and I’m not losing it. It’s also three hundred meters down the road, or I’d be saying no to the whole bloody thing.” Would I? I honestly had no idea. “And tell the others to be …” I had to pause. How did I fill in this blank? “Uninvolved,” was what I came up with, “as far as the date’s concerned. She’s the wallpaper. You’ll tell Mum, she can decide whether to stay or go, my date and I will bugger off before the bloke gets there, and you can ring me later and tell me how it goes.”
“Which you’ll be thrilled about,” she said, “just as you’re getting busy with yourdate.Unless I tell her she’s the wallpaper. Honestly, Lachlan. The wallpaper?”
“Trust me,” I said, “I have my reasons. And it’s romantic, not a hookup.” Which I hadn’t meant to say and had said anyway. “Right,” I went on fast. “Ten minutes max, and I’m out. See you there.”
“Should I order you a beer?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “You shouldn’t. I won’t be there long enough to drink it.”
* * *
Laila
My right fist was in the air and moving toward Lachlan’s door when he opened it. Which meant that I startled and fell forward, propelled by my momentum and the tilt of my heels, until he caught me, his hands around my upper arms, my chest practically on his. He set me on my feet again, said, “Sorry,” and grinned. And instead of being mortified, I was laughing back.
He said, “I know I’m late. I’ve got a reason. We’re, uh … I need to change the plan a bit. Something’s come up. Urgent.”
The laughter that had been filling my chest died. “Oh,” I said. “That’s OK. That’s fine.”
