Page 23 of Catch a Kiwi
10
OUR PRIME PURPOSE
Roman
I was a persuasive man. People tended to do what I said. Except now.
Which is to say that, once I’d worked my slow way up the hill, dragging my rubbish bag with me, to find Summer still swiping at the ground with her rake, but so slowly, as if she were about to drop, and I said, “Lunch. Let’s go,” she answered, “I don’t need lunch yet. I’ll just?—”
“No,” I said. “Lunch. Many cups of tea. Cheese sandwiches. Possibly soup, if I’ve got a packet in the fridge.”
“I’m filthy,” she said. “If I go inside, I’ll have to take another shower just to get dirty all over again. Delilah’s head was hurting pretty badly, so I sent her back to the house for a nap. She might want lunch anyway, though. You could bring me a sandwich, if you don’t mind, and I?—”
I said, “Keep talking, and I’m picking you up again.”
She went stiff and said, her voice absolutely level, “Do not put your hands on my body.”
I held up my hands. “OK. I deserved that. Andyoudeserve to hear that you’re being unreasonable. You’re tiredand hurting, and there’s no reason you need to do all this now.”
She didn’t stop with the rake. “There is if we’re going to get out of here today. I still need to clean out your car and help you mop your house, too, and?—”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “I don’t know what I was thinking, imagining we’d find everything today. No reason for you not to stay another night.”
She looked at me, steady on despite her white face and the shadows under her eyes, the stiff way she was moving her legs. Those knees had to hurt like fury. “Whatever you think is going to happen,” she said, “it’s not.”
“I know. Delilah shared.”
“What?”
“About the motel owner with the free rent. And the exec with the business card, when you were at university. And Barbie at the bachelor party. No worries, I’m up to speed.”
Her mouth opened, and for a moment, nothing came out. “When?” she finally asked. “When did Delilah share all this?”
“Earlier.”
“She had no right.”
“You told me her story,” I pointed out. “Last night.”
“Not the personal parts!” She looked more agitated than she had since she’d been trying to get Delilah out of the van. “I’ll kill her. I’ll?—”
“You probably won’t,” I said, “but you can tell her, if you come up and have lunch with us.”
She did come up with me, and she took a shower and ate some lunch—she wanted to make it, though—and let me re-bandage her hand and knee, which she hadn’t done any favors to with all that work. She didn’t take a nap afterward, either. She headed straight back out there again in the muddy clothes, this time wearing the rescued gumboots and accompanied by Delilah. I said, “I’ll be out in a minute,” andSummer, of course, said, “You don’t have to. You have your house to take care of,” and left without me.
When they’d gone, I thumbed a button on my phone.
“No,” Esther said when I explained.
“I told you, it’s just for a?—”
“No,” she said again. “I’ll get a hotel room for them if you like, and handle anything else you need. But they’re not staying here.”
“They need a place,” I said. “For a week or two. Three at maximum. Help to get back on their feet. To get sorted with a new car and all. Jobs. Once they’ve recovered, because they aren’t in any shape to start on that now. You’re the best at those details, and you’ll see to it that they don’t do too much.”
She didn’t say,You own three homes.She said, “They may well need a place, but it’s not going to be my place.”
“Look. I’d ask them to stay with me, but Summer doesn’t entirely trust my motives.”
