Page 95 of Catch a Kiwi
“No, thanks,” I said. “Roman and I are going out to dinner soon.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’m not coming, not that you’ve asked me, so take a deep breath, Roman, because you’re saved. I’m meeting some people for pizza and possible video games. Let me guess: I’m not welcome to bring them back here, even though this place is just made for hanging out.”
“No,” Roman said. “You’re not. Probably something about parties in the contract, for one thing.”
“Uh-huh,” Delilah said. “And that’s the only reason. All right, I can tell when I’m not wanted. It’s something about theway you’re not jumping up, Summer, and giving me a whole quiz about who these people are and where we’re going. It’s girls and boys, OK? It’s hanging out. Should I announce that if a guy gets fresh with me—that’s the word from back when you were young, right, Roman? Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth?—you’ll give him a beatdown?”
Roman said, “In too good a mood to be baited, sorry, but if anybody crosses the line, feel free to mention my name. And to ring me. If you do, I’ll be there, no worries.”
“Does everybody actually know who you are?” Delilah said. “Enough to be scared of what you’d do?”
“It’s a very small country,” he said.
“Huh,” Delilah said. “OK, then. I’m going to take a shower and get out of here, then. I’ll be back when I’m back.” Pushing, possibly, but what could I reasonably say?
I settled on, “Throw your suit and towel in the wash before you go.” Whoops, somehow I’d forgotten that. “You should do that too, Roman, and I’ll start the machine. I need to get your shirt dried and ironed before we leave here.” Not that I wanted to worry about even so small a task as that, or about Delilah, either. I wanted to be what I’d never been, except, weirdly, possibly on that survival show. Free.
“No, you don’t,” Roman said. “You don’t need to think about any of that tonight. If it needs cleaning before I’m back in Dunedin, Esther will send it out.”
“Must be nice,” Delilah said.
“It is,” Roman said. “Thought you were going.” He glanced at his watch.
“Allright,”Delilah said.“I can take a hint.”
“Maybe if somebody hits you over the head with it,” Roman said, and I laughed and stood up.
“I’ll go get ready myself,” I said. “Otherwise, I may fall asleep right here. Do I have half an hour?”
“You have a good forty-five minutes,” Roman said. “Take your time.”
Roman
The forty-five minutes went by, and I focused on my solar-power research and didn’t think about tonight. After that, ten more minutes went by during which I didn’t focus nearly as well. Finally, I headed down the stairs. Summer was nothing if not punctual.
Nothing down here but bedrooms and baths. Four doors, three of them closed. I called out, “Summer?” Hearing nothing, I looked in the open door first, and found a bedroom whose windows faced the sea. Clothes tossed higgledy-piggledy across the bed, a towel on the floor. Delilah’s, because if Summer was ever messy, I’d be more than surprised. “Control” was pretty much Summer’s middle name.
Three more doors. I knocked at the one closest to Delilah’s, even though it wouldn’t have a sea view. Silence, so I cracked the door a bit and peered in. Empty bedroom.
The second door, then. Again, not facing the sea. Also empty.
One more. I listened outside the closed door and heard nothing, then rapped quietly and called, “Summer”? Listened hard. No answer. No sound anywhere, in fact, but the muted hum of a heat pump and the faint swoosh of a washing machine.
Half of me thought,She’s changed her mind. Feels backed into a corner, and gone out the back to get some space.I was so sure that had to be the answer—Summer wasn’t exactly an uncomplicated person, or an unconflicted one—that I checked my phone for a text, even as I was also telling myself,Find somebody who wants you, mate. You know there are enough of them out there.And felt no desire to do it.
No text. I turned the handle—unlocked—and opened the door.
She was sprawled across the bed in the dim light of drawn shades, face-down, still in her dressing gown, her hair across the one cheek I could see, her body still as death.
I wasn’t even aware of moving. I was on my knees on the bed, my hand on her shoulder, shaking her, calling out.
One gray eye, opening. Her palms on the bed as she tried to sit up and couldn’t—because I was over her—and her knees shifting under her.
“Oh. Sorry.” I sat back. “You were asleep.” I tried to laugh.
“What are youdoing?”Sitting up, her hands at her hair, then down to check her dressing gown, which, yes, was open a bit—nothing under there but that body—and yanking it shut.
“Thought you were unconscious,” I said. “Possibly dead.” And didn’t look down her dressing gown.
