Page 131 of Catch a Kiwi
“I did,” I said. “Because I do.”
59
STILL LEARNING
Roman
If that day wasn’t anything like Summer, it was just as little like me. We both skived off work. We ate and we talked and we laughed and we made love again and she cried a little more and I held her and was glad to do it. Not much ceasing to hope going on, but heaps of seizing the day.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t as far gone as I’d have liked, because when I suggested that she move in with me once Delilah left, she said no. She said more than that, of course, because Summer would always explain. “I lived with my mom and Delilah until college,” she said. “Then with roommates. Then on the show, in a shelter on the sand with a whole lot of people, and then with Felipe. When Delilah leaves, it will be the first time I’ve ever lived alone.Ever.I think I need to do it, even if it’s just in a caravan. I need to know what I actually want. How much I want … noise and music and conversation, and how much I want silence. Tell me you don’t know that about yourself.”
“I know that,” I said. “Probably because I’m not as good athanging onto people as you are. You’ll be lonely without Delilah, though, surely.”
“I may be,” she said. “But I think I have tobelonely. I have to feel my feelings now, with no goldfish bowl around my head. I have to find out how good it feels to come and be with you. And you have to find that out, too.”
“As you’re lying naked on top of me at the moment,” I said, “with your hair tickling my chest in a way that’s driving me mad, the answer is, ‘pretty bloody good.’”
“Yes,” she said, “but we won’t always be having sex.”
“Yeh,” I said. “Pity.” And she laughed. But she still didn’t agree.
Six days later, though, she let me drive her to the airport. I’d take my victories where I found them.
Summer
Delilah said, “You realize you’re being weird.”
“What?” I blinked. We were standing on the porch of the main house, under the sheltering eaves. Roman had said on the phone last night, while I’d been watching Delilah pack and trying not to panic about it, “I’ll walk down and get you. Carry Delilah’s bag, eh. Good for a man to have something to do.”
In the end, though, I hadn’t been able to sit there and wait for him. I’d been up since six on this Sunday morning, unable to sleep. I’d have gone down to the garden and weeded just for something to do, if it hadn’t been late May with nothing growing. And, of course, raining. I’d walked all the way to Tunnel Beach instead, down the steep track to the hidden spot amongst the cliffs, had felt the spray of surf in my face from the rough seas, and then had had to climb allthe way up again, soaking wet. It had helped, though. I hoped.
Delilah said, “Excuse me?”
“Excuse me?” I said. “What?”
She sighed. “You cannot seriously want me to stay.”
“No,” I said. “I want you to live your life. Spread your wings. All that. Of course I do.”
“Besides,” she said, “you have Roman now.” She made air quotes with her fingers. “Looooove.”
I said, “Do you think that’s all it is? That I need somebody with me, and it doesn’t matter who?”
“Well,” she said, “yeah. Probably. I mean, look at the evidence. Felipe goes to prison, and you come collect me like a left-behind package. I’m about to leave now, and, well …”
I said, “No. It wasn’t just needing company. It was needingyou.And thinking you needed me.”
She blinked mascara’d lashes, because she’d begun doing more of the girly thing lately. She and Priya and Frankie, going to the Op Shops and the makeup stores, trying on. Experimenting. The girls because they’d grown up in a cult, and Delilah because … Well, I wasn’t sure why. I decided to ask. Why not? “Why are you wearing more makeup these days?” I asked. “Dressing up more? You look pretty, and it’s not too much. I’m just wondering. Experimentation is normal, of course, at nineteen, but—why?”
She stared at me. “Do you actually not know?” She had to say it a little loudly, because the rain had picked up and was beating hard on the tin roof of the porch.
“Well, no,” I said. “I don’t. I assumed it was just that. Experimentation.”
She would have answered, but my phone dinged with the gate notification, and I told Roman, “Buzzing you in now.”
“OK,” Delilah said, picking up her suitcase. “Let’s get thisshow on the road. My new life, starting now.” And I got another pang straight to the heart.
The spatter of tires on gravel, and Roman’s car came down the hill. He was out of it the moment it stopped, taking the porch steps two at a time, grabbing the suitcase from Delilah, then stopping to look at me and ask, “OK?”
