Page 72 of Catch a Kiwi
“No,” Gray said. “Very young marriage.” He looked grim.
“And that’s where all of you were, Dove?” Summer asked. “Until when?”
“Just a bit ago, for me,” Dove said, and that was all, but Priya went on, “The rest of us have been Outside longer. Daisy left ages ago, when she was sixteen. One of our brothers is Outside, too, but he doesn’t … he’s more separate, the way people are here. In Mount Zion, everybody lives together, but his wife doesn’t …” She trailed off and glanced at Gray, looking half-afraid.
“Fortunately,” Gray said, “I enjoy a bit of chaos. Sportsman, eh. You won’t get more personalities than you do in a rugby squad, though this runs close.”
“Esther came from there, too?” Summer asked. “And you didn’t know, Roman?”
“No,” I said. “Esther doesn’t talk about her private life.” I hoped she was OK out there with Daisy, but I told myself that if she wasn’t, she was perfectly capable of getting herself out of here. Esther was no shrinking violet.
Summer stirred her vegetables, got out some herbs and red wine, then said, “Oh! My card.”
I said, “You can read it later.” I’d changed my mind. I didn’t want an audience.
“Why?” Delilah said. “Did you write something embarrassing? Do not read it aloud, Summer. I can’t take any more revelations tonight. You keep saying New Zealand is calm and relaxing. I don’t call any of what’s happened relaxing. All right, I’m the one who rolled the car down the hill, but that’sonething! One! And since then, it’s just been all …” She threw up her hands and made a noise like an explosion.
“Ah,” Gray said. “The plot reveals itself.” Sounding nothing but amused, which was annoying, but then he told me, “I had a similar experience. Life, eh. Sometimes it works out pretty well.”
“What do you mean, a similar experience?” Delilah asked.
“He doesn’t want to tell you the story of his life,” Summer said.
“How do you know?” Delilah answered. “Maybe he’s dying to tell me. Maybe he’s been burning to talk it over with a sympathetic listener.” At which both Gray and I smiled.
It was Priya who answered. “Gray met Daisy first. When her car went into the river. And then he helped her get Frankie and Oriana out of Mount Zion.”
“And invited them to live with you?” Delilah asked. “Is this, like, a New Zealand male savior thing, or what?”
Gray and I looked at each other, shrugged, and said, “Maybe,” at the same time, after which I clicked my beer bottle against his, said, “Cheers,” took a drink, and felt better. Gray, for his part, said, “It probably didn’t hurt that I liked the look of Daisy. And that I had to talk her into staying with me, and it wasn’t easy.”
Summer said, “So the reluctance was appealing? That makes sense, for a professional athlete.”
“Ah,” I said. “The bloke had to talk you into being with him too, did he? Felipe Moyano,” I told Gray. “The footballer.”
“I heard,” he said.
“If you’d watch the show,” Summer said, “you’d know.”
“You still haven’t watched the show?” Delilah asked.
“What show?” asked Priya.
Summer said, “I am not listening.” After which sheopened the card, read the message, and looked up at me again. Delilah said, “Read it aloud,” but Summer didn’t seem to hear. Instead, she said,“Tell me Esther didn’t write this.”
“Esther didn’t write it,” I said.
At first, I’d just written,Thanks for this,and couldn’t think of what else to say. The greeting card Esther had chosen was a close-up of a koru, the fiddlehead of a fern, about as cliché a New Zealand image as you could get. How was this going to make the credit card any more personal?
I’d set it aside, gone back to work, then grabbed it and written, all in a rush,Swimming with you was the most fun I’ve had in ages. Pack your bikini and we’ll do it again.I’d debated saying something about the waterfall, but decided better not, not with a woman as skittish as a bird. Not one of those friendly birds, either.
Summer traced her fingers lightly over the words, closed the card, and said, “Thank you.” Softly, in that gruff little voice of hers, and I had to clear my throat before I could answer, “No worries.”
“It really matters to you,” she said. “That I come.”
“Yeh. It does,” I said, aware of all of them listening.
She jumped. “Oh! The sauce.” And then turned back to me and said, “Thank you” again. “I keep thinking you’re like him. Like Felipe. And you’re not.”
