Page 31 of The Vet from Snowy River
‘In the newspaper?’ Vera tended to avoid theSnowy River Star,as well as the national papers. Part of her survival strategy was pretending her old life hadn’t existed, and journalism was part of that old life. ‘What’s everyone saying about your mum?’
‘Yeah. Good question. And I was just about to ask him that, but then my dad went apeshit crazy and told Braydon to watch his mouth, and then his mum went even crazier and told Dad it wasn’t her son’s fault if Dad chose to bring his mistakes back into town and he should have kept his trousers on back in high school even if his science teacher was a cougar and a hussy who should have gone to prison not Sydney, and then Dad went all green-looking and stiff and said in this cold voicemy daughter’s not a mistake,and I was like, what the hell, does she mean me? I’m the mistake? And then Dad saysKelly Fox, I think you’d better take your son and your guinea pig and your vicious bitchy self the hell out of my office,and she started crying and then I started crying and I ran out of there and hid in the alley and wished I was dead. Or maybe in Sydney.’
‘I see.’ Well, that was a lie, because she didn’t see anything at all after that impassioned outburst. Mistakes? Trousers?Guinea pigs?
Poppy shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m just here because Dad made me come see for myself what this stupid town is like. I’m not staying, I don’t care how many puppies he bribes me with.’
‘That’s too bad. My café manager was just telling me we should hire some casual waitstaff to help us. You know, in school holidays especially.’
‘You mean, you’d hire me? Like, if I was up here in the holidays I could work in your café and bake epic meringues and stuff?’
Vera shrugged. Underneath all that mascara and angst, Poppy seemed a sweet kid. And washing dishes and clearing tables was bound to be more fun than crying in dirty access lanes. ‘Yep. Here in my café, although maybe the work would start off with kitchen duties and waitressing and we could work our way up to baking. It’s not every day I meet someone who can cut such a neat square of paper.’
The girl almost grinned. She looked shyly up at Vera, then took a big breath in, let a big breath out.
‘I’ve got to be back in Sydney for school at the end of next week, but I’ve got, like,weeksoff at the end of fourth term. When can I start?’
CHAPTER
9
Josh pulled his truck into the narrow car space at the back of the clinic and killed the ignition. Wherever Poppy had run off to, he hadn’t found the place. He’d checked the movie theatre, the narrow strip of pebbled beach down by the lake, the park, the old cemetery, the shops around the town square … she was nowhere. Only bars and restaurants were still open now, and no barman in town would let Poppy in. Despite the pierced eyebrow and eyeliner fetish, she looked younger than fifteen. Way younger.
Crap. He may as well just get it over with. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, sat there in the dark with it a second before punching in the number.
‘Josh, hi. Everything okay? Poppy texted earlier and said she’d arrived.’
Beth Horrigan. His one-time high school science teacher and mother to his daughter Poppy and, more recently, a five-year-old set of twin boy hellions, courtesy of her husband Ron Seeto.
‘Hi, Beth.’
‘Riiiight. I take it from that tone you’ve seen the eyebrow.’
‘It’s not that. She’s run off. She hasn’t called you by any chance?’
‘No. Hang on a second … Ron, honey? Have you heard from Poppy?’
Josh listened to the rumble of a deep voice in the background, then Beth was back.
‘No, nothing here. It’s getting late, Josh. And is it cold up there? Did you check the bus depot? Maybe she’s trying to get back to the city.’
Hell. No, he hadn’t thought of that. ‘Good idea. I’ll go there now.’ He had a sudden mental image of her standing by the Monaro Highway thumbing a lift from some old guy in a beige sedan who looked like a dad but was really a pervert with a secret room under his toolshed.
He dropped his head in his hands. ‘This is all my fault. I pushed her to come here, Beth. She’s lived her whole life in the city, I don’t know why I thought this was going to be a positive change for her.’
‘Hanrahan is your home, Josh. There have been Codys there for generations. You didn’t want to leave that town; you left for me.’
He did. And he’d do it again in a heartbeat. ‘I’m not ashamed of us, Beth. We are good people.’
‘We were young and stupid people. You were just a bit younger than me, that’s all. And that town was never going to forgive me for destroying the future of their golden boy. First University of Sydney scholarship ever awarded to a student from Hanrahan, thrown away when that same golden boy knocked up his high school science teacher.’
‘Trainee teacher. And I’m pretty sure I’d graduated before you let me get my horny teenage hands under your sweater.’
‘Bloody hell, Josh. Try and remember I’m on speakerphone, would you?’
Oops. ‘Hey, Ron.’
‘Hey yourself,’ said Beth’s husband. ‘Speaking of teenagers with, um, hands, you want me to drive up and help you look for Poppy?’
