The gutter doesn’t feel like the most appropriate place for mourning a broken relationship, so with a little persuasion I manage to convince Elliot that we should move to the park.
For the next two hours we sit under a tree together. There aren’t a whole lot of people around – a few couples walk hand in hand, the occasional dog walker strolls past and fitness freaks take a morning jog. A few children climb on the play equipment (a slide, a few plastic tunnels and a couple of swings) but they don’t stay long. I text Sophie to let her and Teddy know I’m with Elliot and that he just needs some time to process what’s happened. There’s not much for me to say to him; he sheds a few more tears and I’m here to comfort him.
‘We should go and find Teddy and Soph,’ he says eventually, blinking away the remaining tears.
‘You sure?’ I don’t want him to feel pressured to face the others or to feel as if he’s being a burden or anything. I just want him to be okay, no matter how long that takes.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘We did just leave them stranded.’
I call Sophie to find out where they are. Her answer is ‘on the beach’, so after I remind her that the beach is a big place, we make plans to meet outside a particular coffee shop by one of the beach car parks on the main street.
Elliot and I walk together in silence, his arm around my shoulder. It takes us only five minutes to reach the coffee shop, where Teddy and Sophie, both dressed in bathers, wait with an ice-cream in each hand.
‘You okay, champ?’ says a shirtless Teddy, handing Elliot one of the ice-creams. Sophie hands one to me – a scoop each of honeycomb and boysenberry in a wafer cone.
Elliot nods. ‘I’m only going to say this once so listen up. She broke up with me. No, I’m not happy about it. No, I didn’t see it coming. No, I don’t want to talk about it.’
Teddy thumps him on the back and Sophie gives him a quick hug.
‘Keen for the beach?’ I ask, my mouth full.
‘Yeah, but … Never mind, I don’t want to be a pain.’
‘What is it, you doorknob?’ asks Teddy.
‘I don’t really want to stay here, so close to her. I won’t be able to relax. I’ll be too paranoid about running into her. Do you reckon we could go somewhere else?’
Of course we all say that’s fine.
‘So where are we going?’ Teddy says.
The rest of us look at each other.
‘I don’t mind,’ I say.
‘Me neither,’ Elliot says. ‘Just … not here.’
‘We should go back to the car,’ I say. ‘It’s really warm out here.’
‘It’s in that car park,’ Sophie says, pointing. ‘I moved it when you guys left before.’
I hadn’t even thought about that. I’m glad Sophie did, though, otherwise we’d have had to go back to Nessie’s house.
‘What about Brisbane?’ says Teddy as we cross the asphalt.
‘Yeah, that’s fine by me,’ Elliot says.
Sophie nods.
‘Brisbane it is,’ I say.
I climb into the driver’s seat and turn the air conditioning on full blast. I reckon my thongs would have melted if I’d stood in the car park for too long.
Elliot slides into shotgun and the others get in the back. I put Vincent in gear and back out of the parking space.
I’m not really sure what Brisbane is like. I’m imagining it to be similar to Melbourne, with dense buildings and people everywhere. I run the image through my mind a few times as I weave Vincent through the streets towards the freeway. To be honest, I don’t really want to go to Brisbane. I really want to lie on the beach and do nothing. Everyone talks about Queensland beaches.
‘Dude,’ says Teddy. ‘Do you want to move your chair forward? I have zero leg room back here.’ He’s sitting behind Elliot.
Elliot leans back in his seat and rests his bare feet on the dashboard, just above the glove box. ‘I’m pretty good, actually.’
‘Come on, don’t be a moron.’
Elliot fiddles with the lever and pushes off the dashboard, sliding his chair back into Teddy’s legs.
‘I will actually murder you,’ says Teddy.
‘You know what we should do,’ I say as Elliot shifts his seat back to its usual spot. ‘We should go to the Gold Coast.’
‘I get it,’ says Teddy. ‘Between the two of you, you want to crush my legs and my dreams.’
Sophie snorts. ‘I think you’ll find it’s all three of us who want to do that.’
‘Dreams?’ Elliot says. ‘Since when is going to Brisbane your dream?’
‘Ever since I was about nine,’ Teddy says, his voice dropping, ‘I’ve wanted nothing more than to go to Brisbane. My cousins went once and they kept showing me photos and talking about how it was the best place in the world. I begged and pleaded with my parents to take me. When they got divorced, I asked Mum to move to Brisbane, just so I could go with her.’
We all go silent. I feel awful – why did I even open my mouth? And there’s no way we’re not going to Brisbane now.
Sophie breaks the silence with her laughter. ‘You’re full of it.’
‘’Course I am,’ says Teddy. ‘I couldn’t give a toss where we go.’
‘I feel like I should have seen that coming,’ I mumble.
Elliot puts a random Gold Coast address into the GPS as I enter the freeway.
Twenty minutes into our drive, Sophie runs a Google search to find a hotel for us to stay in. It’s probably about time we do some actual organising; ad-libbing hasn’t really worked for us so far.
We arrive on the Gold Coast midafternoon and stop at a few hotels. The first four we stop at are fully booked out and we begin to worry. Or perhaps panic is a better word. We hadn’t really considered how many people come to the Gold Coast, especially in January.
The fifth hotel we go to is called The Toeval. We park in a two-hour spot out the front, giving my parallel-parking skills a real test. The Toeval is not particularly wide – perhaps only two or three rooms across – but it seems to stretch infinitely upward. With our hopes battered, bruised and torn, we enter through the front door, which is no larger than my bedroom door.
A few people lounge around in the foyer, having drinks, chatting or watching a cricket match on plasma screens. Sculptures of people striking various modelling poses and paintings that would rival Aaron’s line the walls. Behind the reception desk, a glass wall offers a clear view of a fenced-off pool and the beach.
‘Hello and welcome to The Toeval. How can I help you?’ asks the receptionist. He has shaggy blond hair and a natural Queensland tan.
‘Hi,’ I say, leaning my arms on the reception desk, which is so high it comes up to my armpits. ‘We don’t have a booking or anything – we’re not really organised, so I don’t have high expectations – but I was wondering if there were any vacancies at all?’
The receptionist, who is almost certainly a surfer, laughs, showing his pristine teeth. ‘Random holidays are the best. Let me see what I can do. How many of you are there?’
‘Just us,’ I say, gesturing Sophie on my left and the boys on my right. Except they aren’t on my right. ‘Um … and those two over there,’ I correct, as I spot Elliot and Teddy across the foyer, glued to the cricket.
‘So four,’ he confirms and makes a few clicks on his computer. Blue eyes skimming back and forth, he bites his lower lip and clicks a few more times. ‘I can give you one room with two single beds for tonight but that’s the only vacancy I have at the moment. I’m sorry.’
I puff my cheeks as I exhale, and Sophie makes a low murmur of contemplation. ‘I guess we could cuddle up for the night …’ she suggests.
‘Look,’ says the receptionist, lowering his voice, ‘there’s a booking with two double bedrooms but the guests haven’t shown up yet. They were supposed to check-in by eleven. Technically I’m not even meant to mention it to you, but if you’re still here in an hour their booking expires and I can put you in.’
‘That would be amazing,’ I say.
‘Well, in that case, you can hang around the foyer for a while. Just don’t tell my manager you’re waiting for a cancellation.’
Sophie and I watch the cricket with the boys on a leather couch while we wait. I still don’t really get the appeal of the game but at least this version is over within a day.
By the time the receptionist comes back over, I’m actually beginning to not hate watching the Australians hit the ball over the boundary rope. It’s kind of exciting to watch the ball fly through the air and not know if it’s going to land on the ground, in the hands of a fielder or in the crowd.
‘That other group didn’t show,’ says the receptionist. ‘You still want in?’
Of course we do, so the four of us return to the desk. He charges us three hundred and thirty dollars per night for a three-night stay, which seems a tad less expensive than it should be in a hotel this close to the beach.
Again, I put all the charges on my bank card.
‘Here’s your receipt and four room key cards,’ he says handing us a card each. ‘There is a fifty-dollar surcharge for lost key cards, so keep them safe. On behalf of all of us here at The Toeval, I sincerely hope you enjoy your stay.’ Cue the smile.
All of us go out to move Vincent into the underground car park and to collect our bags, before heading up to the twelfth floor.
I expect to slide my key card into a slot to open the door, but instead there’s this fancy-looking reader next to the doorframe. We just have to hold one of our cards against it to unlock the door.
The apartment is small but luxurious. There are four rooms: two bedrooms, a bathroom and a room for everything else. A couch faces a flat-screen television, which is next to a stocked bookshelf. Near the kitchen (a stove, oven and refrigerator against the wall) is a four-person dining table. A glass sliding door leads to a deck that, from twelve floors up, has a spectacular view of the ocean. It finally feels like a holiday.
‘Who’s sleeping where?’ asks Elliot.
‘Boys in one room and girls in the other?’ suggests Sophie. ‘But I don’t really mind.’
‘What are we, gay?’ says Teddy indignantly. I open my mouth to snap at him but he cuts me off. ‘Relax, Jen, I’m kidding. But seriously, I’m not sharing a bed with Elliot.’ I consider giving him a lecture despite his ‘apology’ but decide against it.
‘Fine by me,’ says Elliot.
‘You and me, Jen?’ says Teddy, putting his arm around me.
‘I’m not sure I’d be able to help myself,’ I say. ‘Sleeping in the same bed as you, Theodore? I’d be touching myself the entire time.’
Sophie’s eyes widen, Elliot raises his eyebrows and Teddy looks like he’s going to faint.
‘I … You … What?’
‘You heard me,’ I say deadpan. ‘I wouldn’t be able to stop touching myself. Specifically, rubbing my temples, because you’d give me such a goddamn headache.’
He shoves me in the arm and the other two laugh. ‘You had me there, for a second.’
‘Theodore, I say this with all the respect in the world: there is more chance of me becoming the president of the United States than of me doing anything sexual either with or because of you.’
‘There’s more chance of you becoming the president than you ever coming in contact with male genitalia, the rate you’re going.’
We all groan.
‘Seriously, dude,’ says Elliot. ‘Enough. It’s getting old.’
‘Teddy, you can bunk with me,’ Sophie says. ‘I’ll take one for the team.’
‘Don’t pretend you don’t love it,’ says Teddy, and they head into one of the bedrooms.
‘Guess it’s you and me, then,’ says Elliot.
I’m perfectly okay with this.
We head down to the beach for a few hours. After a while Elliot and Teddy head off to find fish and chips, which we all eat together on the beach. Then we head back to the hotel reasonably early because although the temperature has been in the high thirties for most of the day, it’s dropped extremely quickly now that night’s coming and it’s unpleasantly cold and windy on the beach.
When we get back to the hotel, I take a shower and brush my teeth for at least ten minutes. I haven’t done it for the entire trip and my mouth feels really gross.
After my shower, I slip into the complimentary bathrobe, which is the softest thing I’ve ever felt, and join the others watching re-runs of Friends. Room service brings us two bottles of wine so we’re set for the night.
By one am we’re all tipsy and sleepy enough to climb into bed. I’m not sure if Sophie and Teddy fall asleep almost immediately or if the walls are soundproof, because I can’t hear them talking or anything, despite them being a mere metre away.
Elliot and I both lie on our backs for a while, until Elliot rolls on to his side to face me. I copy him and hold his gaze. ‘I’m really sorry, Jen.’
He seems to mean it but I’m not entirely sure why he’s apologising, so I ask.
‘For the way I spoke to you earlier.’
‘Oh,’ I say. I’d honestly forgotten. ‘It’s fine, don’t even worry about it.’
‘It’s not okay. You were trying to help me and you didn’t deserve that. This trip was a great idea.’
‘Seriously,’ I say, reaching over and placing my palm on his cheek, ‘it’s totally fine. None of us was really expecting it and you needed someone to let your emotions out on. I just happened to be there.’
‘It still wasn’t fair.’
‘Elliot, listen to me. If it helps you get things off your chest, you can yell at me as much as you want. I’m just really sorry things turned out the way they did.’
There’s a pause. ‘I lied before. I kind of did see it coming.’
‘Really?’ I didn’t see that coming. He had seemed so excited to see Nessie and not at all hesitant. I usually think I’m pretty good at reading him.
‘Yeah. I mean, I thought I was just being paranoid and doubting everything, but it makes sense now. She’s a lot more introverted than I am. She really likes her space but I like to, you know, be with somebody when I’m with them. I was worried about being smothering but I came to surprise her anyway. I guess it was just the last straw for her.’
‘You’ll find someone,’ I say. ‘Maybe tomorrow, maybe in six years, maybe in twenty. But you’ll find her.’
He smiles at me and rolls onto his back. I wriggle over and rest my head on his shoulder.
It’s easy to see how somebody could mistake us for a couple but I’ve never understood why people think that body contact should be reserved for romantic relationships. There’s nothing sexual about my head on Elliot’s shoulder. We are emotionally close and I find it natural to mirror that physically.
Sometimes there are people in your life who it’s impossible to imagine living without. Not in the ‘oh I’d be really sad if you weren’t around’ kind of way, but in the way that you don’t know what you’d do with your time or who you would talk to without them. Whether they’re a friend, a lover or something completely different, it is just achingly clear to you that you belong together.
Maybe it just so happens that you meet these people you connect with by chance, or maybe there’s a complex scientific reason for it. Maybe you were two halves of the same soul in a previous life and a subconscious nostalgia drives you together. Or maybe your atoms were close during the Big Bang and are drawing themselves back together. Whatever the reason, Elliot Carter and I have one of those relationships. I can’t imagine how my life would be if I’d never known Elliot, if I’d never become friends with him.
Maybe my religious faith isn’t as strong as my mother would like. Maybe I tend to pass things off as coincidence rather than a sign. I don’t know exactly what I believe in but having people like Elliot in my life makes me believe in something.