Tauranga’s Wharepai Domain is a park on the northern end of an isthmus between two estuaries and close to the city centre. Tourist information has it listed as the “city’s historic playground”. Fronted by imposing 1921 War Memorial gates, the park was once graced by white wooden fences, flower beds and a band rotunda. Today, it offers a variety of top sports facilities, rugby and cricket fields, bowls and croquet grounds, and children’s playground equipment surrounded by mature trees. When Adam was a kid, Mum used to bring him to the playground; this afternoon he’s here to use the all-weather track to tick off another of Reece’s training boxes.
As a warm-up, Adam does a loop of the rugby grounds before starting on some drills on the track: grapevine first, some skipping and then stride-outs. When he’s warm, he takes off his thermal and stretches, holding each stretch for several seconds. His muscles are sore. Hardly surprising. Today’s workout calls for ten circuits of four hundred metres each. At 80% of all-out effort. But after yesterday’s thrashing, Adam’s legs are sore. He plans to do just eight and tick the box anyway. Who’s going to know?
He blitzes the first lap, pushing out hard, pumping his arms. Feeling fresh. Coming through two hundred metres, Adam sees a girl crossing the track up ahead of him, her small frame swamped by the bulk of her school bag. Adam recognises her from his English class. Skyla? She usually sits at the back. Skinny. Dark hair. Adam digs it in for the final sixty metres. A few strides past the finish line, Adam leans over, hands on his knees, puffing noisily. He checks out the girl in his peripheral vision. She’s had a long walk home from school with that heavy bag. He’s surprised when she peels off from her original course, climbs the concrete steps to the covered stands and settles herself four rows back. Adam starts his second effort. This circuit is usually Adam’s sharpest; he’s warmed up, but still fresh. This time when he passes the two hundred metre mark, he glances up into the stands. The girl has taken a book out of her backpack and, with her feet resting on the back of the seat in front, she’s flicking through the pages, her face a picture of concentration. She’s not looking at him but, just in case, Adam gives it everything down the home straight. Third time, he thinks she might have chanced a peek over the pages of her book. Fourth lap, he’s still not convinced, so he takes another gawk as he rounds the top curve. But running as close as he can to the inside lane, Adam forgets the steeplechase water feature. His ankle clips the side of the hollow. He goes down like Felicity Graham’s knickers. A moment of stillness follows, with Adam on his back staring up at the sky feeling like a total arse. He tucks his chin to his chest and takes a brief look up in the stands.
Bummer.
The girl is waving. She’s putting her book in her backpack and is coming down to meet him.
Shit.
He can hardly ignore her now.
Adam grits his teeth and stands up before he’s ready. His eyes water. Looking down to inspect his knee, he discovers a gash bisecting a wider graze. He must have caught his knee on the edge of the concrete. Adam sticks his hand over the wound, hoping to staunch the blood, but instead gets it smeared all over the place.
‘Hi, Adam.’
‘Hi... Skyla.’
‘Skye.’ Bugger.
‘Oh yeah, sorry. Skye.’
‘You okay? I saw you fall from up in the stands. Give us a squiz at your leg.’
‘It’s nothing much. A scratch.’ But a rivulet of blood snakes down his leg and dribbles inside his running sock.
‘Euw. Wanna come back to my place? I can put something on that, if you like.’
‘Nah, really. It’s okay. I’m good.’
‘It’s no worries. I live just over there.’ She points in the direction of the old rose gardens. ‘One block over.’ Adam considers his options. There’s no one at home, and lately Dad has been working late at the yard trying to catch up on lost sales. But the thought of a well-intentioned mum or sister fawning over the poor motherless baby he is...
‘It’ll just be us,’ Skye continues, as if reading his mind. ‘My mum works at Farmers Trading in town. She doesn’t get home until after six, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘It’s not...’
‘And I’m not one of those girls obsessed by vampires, so this blood you’re dripping everywhere isn’t turning me on either.’
‘Why?’ Adam retorts. ‘Not your blood type?’
She throws her eyes to the sky. ‘That was so fail.’
‘Sorry. Lack of blood to the brain.’ That was just as bad. He throws her his hang-dog look. She ignores it.
‘So you’ll come?’ Suddenly, the thought of going home doesn’t appeal. It occurs to Adam that he needs to step out of his life, out of reality, just for half an hour. And Skye is offering him an opportunity.
‘Yeah, okay.’
He hobbles to the Mazda and lifts the hatch so Skye can put her backpack in the boot. Before sliding behind the wheel, Adam lays his school sweatshirt on the seat. If he gets blood in this car, his old man’ll kill him. Luckily, Skye’s flat has a designated parking space and it’s empty, so Adam doesn’t have much farther to walk.
Skye leads him through to the bathroom. From the hall, Adam can tell the apartment is small, only two bedrooms, but comfortable. Ahead of him Skye is talking and pointing through the doors.
‘This is Mum’s room, and mine is this one over here. Don’t look. It’s messy.’ Adam looks anyway. Skye’s bed, a double, takes up most of the room. A duck blue duvet is pulled back revealing crumpled sheets as if Skye had just slipped out of bed. A couple of books are scattered on the floor, and there’s a pile of folded clothes, a pair of white panties on top, at the foot of the bed. Adam looks away uneasily, but then he feels stupid. It’s not as if Skye was wearing them. ‘I warned you not to look. I got up late. Had a mad dash to get to school. Bathroom’s this way.’
Adam sits on the edge of the bath while Skye dabs the cut with a cotton ball soaked in yellow antiseptic. It stings. Adam tries not to wince.
‘It’s deeper in this corner, but it’s a fairly clean cut. It should close okay without a stitch. We’ve got some of those butterfly stitches somewhere.’ She rifles around in the cupboard under the sink, still talking. ‘When I was a kid, I had delusions of becoming a skateboard champion. Seriously. Only for a couple of days, though, until Aroha, that’s my mum, made me give it up. I kept falling down and opening up my knees. She couldn’t handle it. Doesn’t like the sight of blood. She made me give the skateboard away.’
Skye emerges from the cupboard with a tattered box.
‘Ta dah!’ Anaesthetising Adam with a view of the soft curve of her neck, she closes the deepest part of the cut with a strip of plaster. She covers the wound with gauze and strapping, her fingers brushing his skin as she secures the tape under his knee. ‘There,’ she says, satisfied. Adam smiles weakly. The end result looks like the knee pads old people wear for gardening. He can hardly bend his knee. He looks ridiculous.
‘Thanks.’
Skye looks embarrassed. ‘No worries.’
She balls the protective strips from the plasters in her hand, and they make their way back down the hall to the tiny kitchen. There’s no dining table, so Adam sits on a stool at the breakfast bar, his stiff leg stuck out to the side, while Skye puts a dirty cereal bowl in the sink and runs the tap over it. The fridge is covered in assorted magnets and a Yummy apple fundraising grid that’s three-quarters filled in. Skye sees him looking at it.
‘It’s for Mrs Cowens in the apartment next door. Her grandson’s collecting them to get new sports gear for his school.’
‘You eat a lot of apples.’ You eat a lot of apples! Very articulate. What a loser!
‘I guess. You want a drink?’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ He hadn’t had a drink at the track, and his fingers are feeling fat and swollen, a sign he’s dehydrated. ‘What’ve you got?’
‘Tea, coffee, Milo or...’ she opens the fridge and looks in ‘... coke, juice, milk, vodka, and beer.’
‘Really?’
She laughs. ‘No, just coke, juice and milk. What do you want?’
‘Juice is good, thanks.’
She pours them both juice, then cuts up a couple of apples and some cheese, which she serves on a bread and butter plate.
‘Come out on the balcony.’
As well as a small table and a couple of plastic chairs, the narrow balcony is edged with terracotta pots growing a variety of cacti. There is a view over the city’s rose gardens and across the inner harbour to the Mount.
Sitting down with one inflexible knee is problematic. Adam puts one hand out to support himself, making the table rock. He barely catches his drink before it spills.
‘Whoa!’
‘Hang on.’
Skye goes inside and comes back out with a bit of newspaper, which she folds in half a couple of times and then slides under the table leg.
‘Try it now.’ There’s still a wobble. She takes the paper out, and folds it in half again. Better.
‘Hey, great view. You live here long?’ Adam can hardly bear to listen to himself.
Skye doesn’t seem to notice. ‘About five years. It’s just a rental.’
‘Bit of a walk to school.’
‘Yeah, but it’s close to Aroha’s work and, unlike some, not everyone has a car.’ Her face colours. ‘I didn’t mean...’
‘It’s okay. It’s my mum’s car. Well, it’s a demo model. My dad runs a car yard. Creighton’s, on Cameron Road. I’m just using the car because... well, since...’
‘Yeah, I heard about your mum.’ She gives him a goofy sympathetic look.
‘Hard not to.’
‘Yes.’ There’s that tightening in Adam’s chest again. He places the glass on the table, frightened he’ll drop it, his palms are so sweaty. ‘Look, I gotta go,’ he says, getting up and almost upsetting the table.
‘Sure.’ Skye’s face crumples. She looks hurt.
‘Thanks for sorting my leg and everything.’
She shrugs. ‘It’s nothing.’
There’s a pause. Adam adds, ‘Maybe I’ll see you?’
‘Well, I’ll be in English.’ Her mouth curves upwards. Nice mouth.
‘Course. English. Yeah. Well. See you.’ English? It’s debatable whether Adam even speaks English. He turns to go, but before she’s closed the door behind him, he turns back. ‘Hey, Skye? Do you walk home every day?’
‘Every day with a y in it.’ She smiles.
‘I’ll be coming to the track after school most days. I could meet you at the school gate and drop you over at the Domain if you like. Save you the walk. You know, just while I’ve got the car and everything.’
‘Um...’
‘I’ve got my full licence, not restricted, so it’s not illegal or anything.’
‘The thing is...’
‘Look, it’s not a problem if you prefer the walk. I just thought, you know, it might save you some time since I’m coming this way...’
‘I was going to say, I’ll have to check with Aroha first, but I’m sure she’ll be cool about it. What say I meet you at Gate Two. After the bell?’
‘Great.’
For the first time in weeks, Adam feels happy. It was almost worth falling over and making a complete dick of himself.