Page 7 of One Sweet Day in Lovely Bay
‘I've just been looking at courses. I feel like I'm on a new trajectory, like there's this whole world of possibilities opening up before me. And I want to explore that, to see where it might take me. That sounds a bit airy-fairy. Do you know what I mean, though? I never had the option foranythingbefore. No time, no money and not a lot of inclination.’
Eloise's face lit up. ‘Sounds good, and yeah, I totally get what you mean. You’ve been waiting around helping everyone out for too long and now’s your chance to open your wings a bit.’
Cally nodded. ‘One thing I know: I can’t stay on that chatbot much longer. It’s doing my head in.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
Cally paused for a bit as two coffees and two Chelsea buns were put down in front of them. She looked at Eloise and sighed. ‘I have no idea what course to do.’
Eloise took a sip of her coffee and shrugged. ‘I guess the universe will tell you which one…’
‘Yeah, I’ll keep looking until I see something I fancy. Do you reckon it’s a good idea to do a course?’
Eloise nodded emphatically. ‘Yup, if you’re getting that calling. Life's too short not to do things.’
‘Exactly what I thought when I was in the library. I've spent so long playing it safe, settling for what fitted in around caring.’
Eloise nodded again. ‘Tell me about it. And you don’t need to do that anymore. Woohoo. How good is that?’
No words would ever be able to describe how good it felt for Cally not to have responsibilities. ‘I can’t even compute it sometimes. Sometimes I think the bubble will burst.’
Eloise smiled warmly. ‘Anyway, how’s it going with Logan?’
‘Yeah, fine, better than fine. Really good.’
‘You’ve got over the two different backgrounds thing?’ Eloise asked, raising an eyebrow.
Cally rolled her eyes. ‘Ha. No, not really. It’s still there. I’m justchoosingnot to focus on it. It keeps coming up for me, but I have to suck it up. It is what it is.’
‘Right. Good. Honestly, you need to get over that, though. You’ve found your person. You have that one-in-a-million connection,’ Eloise said earnestly.
‘Do we?’ Cally contemplated for a second. ‘Maybe that’s it. Sometimes, I feel like there's still so much I don't know about him, though.’
Eloise frowned, tilting her head. ‘Really? First I’ve heard of it. What? Like what?’
‘I don’t know. Like his past. I actually don’t know ahugeamount about that,’ Cally admitted with a frown.
Eloise cocked her head. ‘What? Haven’t you talked about it?’
Cally shook her head. ‘Not really, no. I mean, I know bits and pieces, little snippets here and there. But whenever I try to dig deeper, to ask about his childhood or his family, he sort of changes the subject or gives me these vague, noncommittal answers that don't really tell me anything at all.’
‘You’ve not mentioned it before,’ Eloise said, her forehead furrowed in concern. ‘Where has this suddenly come from out of the blue?’
‘I don’t know, really. It came to me the other day and then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. You know how once you notice something, it looks so obvious?’
‘What are you saying?’ Eloise asked, leaning forward and narrowing her eyes.
‘No idea. It's not that I don't trust him. I just suddenly realised I don’t know much about the nitty-gritty stuff. You know?’
Eloise shook her head. ‘Right. I suppose everyone has their own pace in sharing stuff.’
Cally nodded slowly. ‘Suppose so. It’s not a biggie. I just realised it the other day. Or maybe he’s not got as much baggage as me, ha!’
‘I reckon just focus on the present. The rest will come in time. I'm sure of it,’ Eloise added.
‘Ever the voice of reason.’
‘One of mymanyskills.’ Eloise chuckled.
