Page 53 of Catch a Kiwi
We’d see whether I could make her forget.
22
BORN AGAIN
Roman
It didn’t turn out exactly like that.
“You’re joking,” I said, when I came into the lounge to find Delilah on her stomach on the couch with an enormous ice pack on her arse, flipping channels on the TV. And Summer collecting a dinner tray from the coffee table, still in the jeans, T-shirt, and ponytail she’d probably worn to the café. Barely five days later, and it looked like one step forward, two steps back, because I wasn’t exactly getting a soft, warm, sweet welcome, the kind where she’d cuddle up close and lift her face for my kiss.
“Nope,” Delilah said, her chin propped on her fists so she could turn her head and look at me. “I bruised my tailbone. Badly. But, hey, good news, I didn’tbreakmy tailbone. You know what the downside of that ACC thing of yours is?”
“No, what?” I asked.
“That when you slip on the wet floor at the rug guy’s place and fall on your butt and practically break your tailbone, you can’t even sue him. I can’t even sueyou,and I was carrying your stupid hundred-pound Oriental rug! The end of it camedown on top of me when I fell, too. Practically ruptured my spleen, but oh no, no lawsuit. All you get is a free ER visit. I don’t call that much of a trade. And my butt is freezing. Also, you’re supposed to be tough here and not need pain pills. Have I mentioned the many ways in which this country sucks? ‘Panadol will do you,’ the doctor said. Hello? I’m getting over a concussionandI have an incredibly sore butt, and still no pain pills? Would I have to be in a body cast? Or is that a Panadol Moment too?”
“Probably,” I said. “I notice you’re drinking wine, though.” I could’ve told that with my eyes closed, because she had a definite slur in her voice, and Summer was still hovering there, looking worried. I wanted to hold her, or maybe kiss her. Gently. I wasn’t a complete arsehole. I could be gentle. At first. Probably.
Since she didn’t look receptive, though, I took the tray from her, and she grabbed the remote and muted the TV.
“Hey,” Delilah said. “I was watching that.”
Summer said, “That was your consolation prize, the wine. Well, I thought so, anyway. The doctor said that if her headache’s mostly gone and she doesn’t have other symptoms, her concussion’s pretty well cleared up, so I said she could have a glass of wine while I was gone, since she hurts. I didn’t say?—”
“She’s upset that this is my fourth glass,” Delilah said. “Maybe my fifth, because the bottle’s kind of empty. Totally legal here. I have a hard head, too, because you can’t tell. I’ve been drinking it over, like, three hours, so I’m not even drunk. Little baby sips, that’s all. Whoops, you don’t like people with alcohol issues. Better hope my tailbone gets better fast.”
“Not that hard a head,” I said, “because I can tell. Wait, though. If it hurts that badly, are they sure it’s not broken? It’s a bone, right?”
“They X-rayed,” Summer said, sounding distracted. “Iwish you’d done more of the ice packs, Delilah. I didn’t want to leave her,” she told me, “but it was last minute, and you can’t leave a restaurant in the lurch like that.”
“Responsibility junkie,” I said.
“Normal level of commitment,” she said.
“I’ve hired hundreds of people,” I said. “You’re nothing like normal.”
“Nice,” Summer said. “Is this some more of your smooth way with women?” Geez, she made me smile. When she wasn’t annoying me with her refusals to go along with my perfectly reasonable suggestions, anyway.
“I am drinking,” Delilah pronounced, waving her half-full glass of red wine in a way that promised nothing good for my furniture, “because my butt hurts. Extremely. Also, they said I had to take stool softeners, and Summer of course went right out and bought them, and also this blow-up doughnut pillow that’s for hemorrhoids, asking for them like la-la-la, I’m not embarrassed to talk about my most revolting bodily processes. She made me take one of the stool softeners already, too. Do you know what those are? They’re for when you can’t poop normally, because your tailbone hurts too much to push, so they want it to slide out easy. The doctor explained all that to me, and you know what was the worst? He was that guy Matiu! That Imet.Talking about how I was going to be pooping! Joke’s on Summer, though, because what if it means I have to run for the toilet, and I can’t run? That’ll be a fun time, and guess who’ll have to clean it up? Is this not the most disgusting topic you’ve ever encountered?”
“A bit too much information, yeh,” I said. “Really?” I asked Summer. “Matiu?”
“Really,” she said. “Just as kind as last week. He was so nice, showing me the X-ray, and I …” she stopped, breathed, blinked, then went on in her usual cheerful tone, “And he thought the stool softener and hemorrhoid pillow were funny, you could tell. Delilah’s total horror.”
Delilah said, “I am not talking about this.”
“You’re the one who brought it up,” I pointed out.
“Huh,” Delilah said. “Must be the wine. Do you have excellent taste in wine, or is all New Zealand wine this good? Wait.” She picked up the bottle from the coffee table, which Summer had pushed up against the couch, and squinted at it. “It’s Australian. Huh.”
Summer said. “They’re not all as good as his. I’m sure that bottle cost serious money, but I couldn’t figure out which were the cheap ones.”
“I don’t buy cheap ones,” I said. “Do me a favor. And Aussie shiraz is better.”
“I’ll replace it,” she told me.
“No,” I said, “you won’t. I can afford a bottle of wine.”
