Joni
‘I know what you’re thinking.’
The women were perhaps ten feet from each other, but the angle of the slope and the slippery jaggedness of the banks made it feel like eighty.
Joni petted Des with heavy fingers as she continued.
‘But don’t do it. Don’t try to come get the rope, Frankie. It’s too dangerous. The slope. Two of us have slipped now. And there’s a croc down here. If you slip, we’re both well and truly shagged. You need to go and get some help.’
Even from where she was lying, Joni could see Frankie slowly shaking her head and looking at her as if she were mad.
‘Are you mad?’
Frankie’s eyes shone like those of a nocturnal creature in the semi-dark.
‘If I go, there is no way you can stop that –’
Joni’s eyes flicked over to where she thought she had seen the crocodile. It would know she was trapped. It knew Joni was his.
‘– thing from getting you.’
Joni opened her mouth to protest. Someone from the crew would see them on one of the hidden cameras soon. Frankie would have the best view of the creature from her position up on the ledge and if she stayed put, she could keep an eye on him. And she might be able to distract and confuse him, so he wouldn’t come and eat her.
‘Okay, but don’t come down here.’
‘Oh, I’m coming down,’ Frankie argued. ‘I’m coming right now.’
‘No,’ Joni insisted more firmly. ‘Lex will come, I know he will.’
She could not have Frankie risking her life on the slippery incline, with that thing stalking them. She would rather anything else.
‘Joni.’ Frankie sounded like she was dealing with a recalcitrant child. ‘Lex has no idea how to step up. He’s the locket tosser, remember? He just doesn’t have it in him.’
Joni bit back a wave of agreement and tried to scan the swamp from her not-very-effective vantage point. ‘If you come, I’ll bloody well drag myself over to where I saw the thing. It can have me.’
‘You wouldn’t.’ Frankie was already moving.
‘Remember the Bentley.’ Joni’s voice was quiet and calm, but the words stopped Frankie in her tracks.
‘The Bentley,’ Frankie repeated. ‘You wouldn’t.’
‘You know I would. I have form. Remember, Frankie. I warned Dad, just like I’m warning you.’
Frankie stopped.
‘I told him that if he returned Thoreau, I’d drive his car into the river. And he did it anyway. Even though he knew how they treated him.’
‘Oh, Joni.’ Frankie sighed exasperatedly. ‘He’s not such a monster, you know. He was just sick of the animals everywhere, all the time.’
‘It’s not the point now,’ Joni insisted. ‘I said I would do it and I did it. And I did it even though I knew what it would cost me.’
‘God, Joni. How long did it take you to pay him for the damage?’
‘Four years. But it was worth it.’
Joni saw Frankie closing her eyes and probably deciding that she, Joni, was just about crazy enough to throw herself to the crocodile to make a point.
Whatever the hell that point was.
‘Okay, right.’ Now resigned, Frankie was all business.
Joni closed her eyes, wiping at the purple paint streaming into them.
Frankie cleared her throat. ‘So, you said you threw rocks to get it to turn away from that traitorous little prick Kazuki, yeah?’
Joni nodded enthusiastically.
‘Okay, here goes.’
Frankie shouldered what looked to Joni, in her anxious state, like some kind of boulder and heaved it down the slope in the vague direction of the oversized lizard. It landed way off target.
Joni shut her eyes. ‘Not even close,’ she groaned.
When Frankie spoke again, it was as though she were trying her hardest to barely move her lips. ‘Joni, I don’t think you should talk any more.’
Joni’s insides immediately turned to liquid. She was suddenly glad she was lying in shallow water so Frankie wouldn’t notice when she lost control of her bladder.
‘Why?’
‘I think he can hear you.’
Frankie set to work immediately, volleying a suddenly accurate barrage of rocks into the area below and away from Joni. When that seemed to have no effect, she shouldered one mean-looking paintball gun and started trying to shoot the predator with it. But even with all those lessons from their father, the distance was too great to enable a solid hit. Joni crossed herself and thought, God, I hope Dad’s not watching. She’ll never hear the end of it.
The creature was not to be deterred and lumbered inexorably closer. Joni tried not to think about how he had looked. Old and battle hardened. And very scary.
Joni felt slick fear squeeze the breath from her. She saw herself being torn apart in front of her sister.
No more chance for a different ending for them.
‘Joni, I’m coming.’
‘No.’ She sniffed back tears. ‘You’re insane.’
Frankie laughed. ‘No, Joni; this is the sanest thing I’ve done in seven years.’
She started to push down the slope towards her sister, shooting as she went, but the footing was unstable, and she slipped within the first few feet. Joni’s stomach lurched and her heart was dancing like a B-boy on acid.
‘Don’t come, don’t come,’ Joni sobbed. ‘I’ll do it, I’ll really do it if you come any further.’
‘Joni,’ Frankie said in a harsh whimper. ‘You’re. My. Sister. My … my little sister. You’re Joni. With those stupid green curls. And all those stupid shagging animals. And that bloody Bentley. If you make me watch you die, I’ll …’ her voice softened, ‘… I really will be the most fucked-up person I know.’
Frankie clambered over rocks and said, ‘Joni, listen to me, you crazy girl. I’ve got to tell you something. You must listen to me. You must.’
Frankie paused, and Joni was sure her sister probably expected an argument, was steeling herself for a dose of Joni-logic. But Joni had nothing to give her.
‘Go on then.’ Joni’s voice was almost a whisper. ‘What do you want to tell me?’
Frankie said calmly, ‘I want to tell you that I don’t care.’ She shook her head, as if to underline her words. ‘I don’t care about what happened seven years ago. None of it matters. I just love you. I want things to be like they were. I want you back. I just don’t want you to die.’
Something seemed to snap in Joni. ‘You want me back because I’m going to die? You’ve realised you can’t have me and now you want me? Great bloody timing.’
‘No!’ Frankie yelled down the incline at Joni. ‘No, it’s not just now. I mean … I know I’m saying it only now. But … I’ve known it for a while. I’d forgotten so much.’
‘Maybe some things are best forgotten,’ Joni replied, sounding choked.
But Frankie would not be distracted. ‘Stop it, you silly cow, before I reach down there and throttle you myself.’
She paused, as if waiting for an eruption. Joni sniffed but said nothing. When Frankie started speaking again she had the edge to her voice that Joni knew well from many years of being the only one who would watch The Karen Carpenter Story with her. The edge that said she was seconds away from a full-blown snot cry.
‘I need to tell you something.’
Joni started to feel panic rising in her throat. ‘Get the fuck on with it then, hey?’
Frankie spoke quickly. ‘I just wanted to tell you that I get it. I really do. I know Edward’s been my crutch. Like Dad, I guess. I don’t … I don’t blame you for … anything.’
She was openly sobbing now, the words coming out between stiff little hiccups as she scrambled painfully slowly down the slope.
Joni replied, ‘Jesus Christ, Frankie, stop. You had me at “Why is it always the bloody shagging girl who does her ankle?”. You of all people know I’ve never played hard to get. Just get down here. The bloody thing’s getting closer.’
Frankie’s bottom hit the dirt as she slid the final few feet to her sister and popped off more rounds of red paint.
‘I’ll wrestle that fucker hand-to-hand if I have to.’
Suddenly, the low steady hum of the jungle was replaced by a whirring growl. It took them a moment to register it was the sound of an approaching helicopter. Within seconds, the sound filled the ravine in which they were standing. The crocodile, crouching menacingly at the end of Joni’s little pool, did a passable impression of a frightened rabbit, backing off the lip and slipping silently back to wherever he had come from.
Frankie laughed out loud.
‘It’s the cavalry, JoJo.’
The extraction crew was on hand for just such emergencies as these, so Joni hadn’t expected to see Lex. But the sight of him was like that of Gatorade for an Olympic sprinter.
Within a few minutes of hearing the chopper, he was beside Joni, lying in the cool shallow water, patting her hair, wiping ineffectually at her purple face with a clean handkerchief, and shushing her and telling her everything was okay now. G would love that. She had always said you could trust a man who carried a hanky.
Joni sagged into his lean strength and thought there seemed nothing languid or decadent about him now. She lay there, listening to him supervise the tying on of the ropes and harnesses. He sounded both imperious and at ease, like he rescued damsels in distress every day.
Frankie was in the water next to them, squeezing Joni so hard she made a demented little squeak. They both laughed at the look on Lex’s face.
‘Looks like some things have been resolved?’
His voice was posh and kind and sexy, and his face was warm and mobile, and she decided that for this, she could forgive him. For being her hero, for rescuing her from prehistoric jaws, she could forgive him the locket.
Joni suppressed an urge to kiss his lovely mouth. From now on, no random kissing.
If her sister could move beyond the habits of a lifetime, and give up anger and bitterness and open her heart to their sisterhood, then Joni could bloody well stop making such scatty decisions in love.
And life.
And everything.
Starting now.
‘Frankie …’ Joni tried to order the thoughts in her head. She didn’t care that Lex was there, she had to explain. In fact, his nearby strength gave her the confidence she would need to explain it all to Frankie. She had never spoken of that night to anyone before the treasure hunt, and the words felt thick and clumsy in her brain.
‘No, Joni.’ Frankie was looking directly at her, and her eyes were warm and relieved. ‘We don’t even need to discuss it. It’s gone. Dead. I really, really don’t care.’
It felt so good to see her sister looking at her that way, to bask in her affection, that Joni only just managed to stop herself from saying, But I care. It was important to her that her sister know the truth.
She swallowed her words. Frankie was right. It didn’t matter. Not right now, at least.
Joni watched the lightweight stretcher being lowered on the next set of ropes, along with a stocky, reliable-looking guy who had ‘paramedic’ written into every cell of his body. For the first time, she became aware of the heat and pain in her foot, and shook her head with wonder that this was how the episode was going to end.
She reached up a hand to grasp Lex’s chin.
‘How did you know to come? And how did you get here so fast?’
Lex coughed. ‘You’d be surprised how close you were; I was, when I checked the homing signal. We were already in the chopper when Kazuki came back and told us to hustle. I’m not sure what went on out here, Joni, but the lad was crying like a baby.’
‘I’ll make the little fucker cry.’ Frankie’s face was twisted with fury. Joni put a hand on her arm.
‘It doesn’t matter, Frankie. Really. This is the best ending I could ever imagine.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Lex agreed, like he belonged in this saga with them.
And, somehow, he did.
A few hours later, Joni found herself standing alone under a shaggy tree that fringed the beach. Her head throbbed from the direct hit it had taken earlier but the breeze coming from the sea was gentle for once and the sea itself swished with a sultry growl, just as it did when the Love Boat would hit Acapulco. And a zillion stars, with no regard for personal space, pressed down from the swirling sky.
Lex appeared like a fairy-tale prince through the trees, and Joni hiccupped like a fairy-tale princess never did.
‘Hello, Lex,’ she said, feeling like a proper, grown-up woman.
Talking to a man.
The thought made her belly twitch. And somewhere lower twitch too.
This was the Lex she had come to know so well. The Lex who knew her, and still liked her. Who seemed impressed by her, when the rest of the world just saw green hair and a pet ferret. The Lex who made her feel safe, but who she also sometimes caught looking at her like maybe he could gobble her up.
‘Joni.’
The word was like a sentence, a sigh and an explanation all rolled into one. Joni touched the side of Lex’s face, to feel the merest hint of stubble and the soft – strong play of skin over jaw muscle. She considered the clean, elegant lines of his face and stomped harder on the renegade urge to kiss him.
But even as she fought it, she knew the urge was different this time.
‘How could I ever have thought you were a waster?’
Lex laughed and put an arm around Joni’s waist. Gently, but proprietarily.
She was dizzily aware of the feel of his hand through her skirt. She felt like one of his flowers, opening up to his touch.
‘Yes, well – waster is a little generous, really.’
Joni could hear there was more behind his words than self-deprecation. She touched his arm where it met her hip. ‘Want to talk about it?’
‘No.’ He looked soberly into her eyes. ‘I mean, yes. I think. Long version, or short one?’
‘Oh, definitely short, I think,’ Joni nodded quickly, wondering how long she was going to be able to feel his hand on her skirt without pulling it underneath.
‘Jolly good,’ Lex agreed, nodding and making her laugh. ‘Now, let’s see. It’s rather … well, let’s just say if it showed up in a script, it’d be too boring to direct.’
Joni silently communicated she wanted to hear it anyway.
‘My wife, you see. Ex-wife, of course.’
‘Arhhhh.’ Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Joni had a sick feeling she didn’t want to hear this.
Only she did. She nodded for him to go on.
‘Quite boring, really. Wife. Best friend. Now wife of best friend. The only truly spectacular thing about it all was how I took it. Rather silly, really. Now that I look at it all. Now that I look at … you.’
Joni held her breath and thought: That was nice. Say you don’t still love her.
‘I don’t still love her, of course.’
Joni’s insides gave each other high-fives.
‘Not sure I ever did, really. Although of course I thought I did, for a long, long time. And it was all just so … tawdry. And hideous. And everyone knew. It was unbearable. I pretended not to care about it all. And after a while, I didn’t. Care about anything, that is. And that’s where you found me.’
Joni turned and held out her arms to the tall brown man standing beside her and he stepped into her embrace. She fished with her right hand in a particular pocket, drawing out the beautiful hipflask she knew was there and then held it up to him.
‘How bad did it get?’
Lex took the flask and laughed. ‘Oh, this? Truly, Joni, I don’t even do addiction very well. A bit of an affectation, really. My true rebellion was just … giving up.’
Joni nodded. She got it. ‘But you’ve decided not to? Give up, I mean.’
Lex nodded as he looked deeply into her eyes. ‘I’m not saying this because I want you, Joni.’ He paused. ‘Although I do want you – very, very much.’
Joni’s insides stopped high-fiving and started turning giddy cartwheels, while some kind of daft inferno was raging in the zone between her knees and her waist. And, somehow, in the midst of the firestorm, his words made up for all the bad things this place had spawned.
Including the loss of the locket.
The game wasn’t real life. Lex saving her, Lex wanting her. That was real life.
And no-one else had ever made her feel so safe.
He went on. ‘Somehow, it just didn’t seem right to give up. Not here, with all this demon-facing going on. Made my own stuff seem kind of silly. Know what I mean?’
Joni nodded and, for the first time in a long time, could think of nothing to say. Except for, that is, Just bloody fucking get on with it and kiss me, which didn’t seem appropriate.
Lex went on. ‘But mostly it was you. Brave Joni.’ He looked at her uncertainly, as if afraid he might ruin the moment. ‘I have something for you.’
He pulled away for a moment, holding her gaze as he slowly, carefully, withdrew Des and kneeled down. Once he had carefully placed the sleeping rodent in a little indentation in the sand, he stood up again, reached around Joni’s waist and removed her mike pack, before digging a little hole next to Des and burying it. Then he dug in his pocket and pulled something out. Joni squinted as moonlight glinted on its surface. She recognised the swinging object and gasped.
‘But how?’
Lex looked sheepish. ‘I pulled a bit of a swifty, I’m afraid. I just couldn’t let Sal destroy something that obviously meant so much to both of you. Debbie from Make-up had a similar locket and a potent dislike of Sally. I switched it when we were all groping around in the dirt. I’ll keep it safe for you, until the end. But I needed you to know that I had it. That it was safe. That I would never let you be hurt like that.’
His face had the long, arrogant lines of a king. A very beautiful, clever, kind and exceptionally dear king. Joni wanted to ask him whether he had any royal blood. But she couldn’t right now.
Because right now he was going to kiss her.
He was going to kiss her.
As he leaned close she smelled the sun and sea and how clean he was. She even noticed the first grey at his hairline.
‘Lovely Joni,’ he breathed. ‘Why did it take us so long to get here?’
And then his mouth was on hers, and her hands were in his hair, and her whole body was pressed against his.
‘Joni, you are so perfect.’
And Joni thought so too. In fact, she thought everything was perfect.
Well, almost everything.
As Joni lay on the sand, kissing Lex like her life depended on it, she knew there was still something she needed to confront. Forgiveness from Frankie wasn’t going to be enough. She needed her sister to understand.