Page 42 of Catch a Kiwi
“I can’t stand it,” Delilah said.
“Fine,” Roman said, and set down the nail gun. “I’ll take you.”
“Getting into my suit!” Delilah sang out, and vanished.
“Great,” I said. “I really appreciate it.” And smiled.
18
NOT LIKE A BONFIRE
Roman
At eight-thirty that evening, I was sitting on the patio in the deepening dusk, working on my laptop, not having a beer, not waiting for anything or expecting anything, because I was in the moment, and this moment was for looking at the government’s proposed solar energy scheme. That was why I wasn’t thinking about any of the following things:
My mum, and how long it would be before she rang me again with a scheme for meeting my lovely new family. My guess was, less than twenty-four hours.
My bio-dad, who sounded like exactly no prize. I’d always assumed my dad was—well, no great shakes as a man, clearly, but I’d thought he’d have some business sense. Some drive. I’d have to have got it from somewhere, wouldn’t I? Not from my parents, though. Maybe from the same place Hemi Te Mana’d got his.
That same Hemi Te Mana, or the rest of my so-called whanau, either, because I wasn’t going to be meeting any of them. I’d built a life that worked for me. I wasn’t begging for scraps from anybody’s table.
Summer. She was the one I was most not thinking about, and definitely not waiting for.
Yeh, she’d looked good in her togs—a bikini, but a modest one, in a deep purple that showed off her pale skin—but her hair had been in a simple plait, and she hadn’t done any of the things my exes would’ve. No extra-slow sauntering, no hip swinging, no hair tossing. She didn’t have a pierced navel, and she didn’t look like she knew what a belly chain was, even though her body had surely been created for one. And all the same, every man there had watched her walk along the sand. It was the cleavage in the purple bikini, the curve of her waist, the length of her legs, the swell of her bum, and that glorious hair, plait or no. That indefinable thing, too, that was charisma. Some people shine more brightly, that’s all, even when they aren’t trying to shine at all. Summer’s shine was of the gentle sort, but I could imagine her as a Disney princess, weaving a spell of enchantment for a group of little girls—and their dads. And then there was the uncertainty in her gray eyes when she turned to me and asked, “Still OK to help me with this?”
My mind may possibly have strayed to that last one, yeh. The way she’d laughed, then shrieked, when we’d plunged into the cold surf. The way she’d grabbed my hand when the wave had come in, and the way she’d felt against me when I’d put my arm around her waist to steady her. I’d asked, “Still want to dive under?” and she’d answered, “Yes. But will you watch me?” And I had.
I’d expected her to be brave, and I hadn’t been wrong.When I’d asked, “Salt water OK on the stitches?” she’d answered, “Stings a little, but hey—I can’t even feel it, I’m so numb!” and laughed. Getting her hair wet, getting tumbled by the waves and coming up again, freezing cold and all the way alive. From something as simple as a dip in the sea.
The way she’d shivered on the way home, wrapped in a towel, and pretended she wasn’t. Coming out of the shower wrapped in a thin dressing gown that clung to every curve, her hair in a towel, and making lunch beside me, asking what I wanted on my sandwich and seeming happy to cook it, then sitting at the outdoor table in the sun, taking the towel off her head, and spreading her hair over her shoulders to dry. Like the first night, with the wet hair and the no-makeup, but the dressing gownwas, well, thin. It also showed her legs when she crossed them, and a bit of cleavage, too. She was friendly and cheerful, as usual, but when she looked up from her panini and caught my eye, her breath caught for one long moment. I didn’t look at her breasts, but there was no way she was wearing a bra under there.
All right, I may have glanced at her breasts once or twice. And I had a feeling she could tell.
Delilah said, “Hello? Is anybody listening, or am I talking to myself?”
“You think you and Summer should move to Dunedin after you’re done here,” I said, “so you don’t have to live in a tent.”
“Thankyou,” she said.
“You realize we’d be living in some grungy backpacker’s accommodation,” Summer said, “with a bunch of kids on their gap year. And if you’re saying ‘Dunedin’ because Roman’s—” She stopped.
“What, I’m setting you up, because he lives there and he’s rich?” Delilah said. “I’ve given up. He’s all right for an older guy, but you obviously don’t like hot, rich guys anymore, soforget it. And as I’m basically on my gap year myself, living in a backpackers’ would be normal, wouldn’t it? You really think that two of us couldn’t get an apartment, though—a terrible studio apartment—on two salaries?”
