I SPENT BOXING DAY with Sol, and discovered that Harriet was right — he was annoying. The third time he flicked sugar into my cup, I said, ‘Do that again and our romance stops here. And I’m not impressed by that kicked-puppy look either.’
The rest of the afternoon wasn’t much better. We went to the pool where he ducked me twice and dripped on me when I got out to lie in the sun. When we left, he walked behind me and trod on the backs of my sandals. Back in the car, he screeched like a siren all the way to his house. I said, ‘Sorry, Sol, but the boyfriend/girlfriend thing is a dead duck. I’ll end up doing you serious damage if I have to spend another second with you.’
He didn’t seem surprised. ‘You’ve broken the record anyway. A day and a half. That’s my longest romance so far.’
‘Your only one then?’
‘Nope. Kara lasted for an afternoon. Jody from five o’clock till eight. Harriet for twenty-three minutes.’
‘You’re a nut. Quite a nice one, in very small doses.’
‘Not if Harriet will come too.’
He slammed the door but it didn’t seem to be an angry slam, because he stuck his face against the window and made a blowfish mouth. I pushed the windscreen washer, hoping it would drench him. Ha, Sol Drummond, got you.
And so the holidays passed. As expected, Mum didn’t talk to me for the entire week between Christmas and New Year. She placed her credit card on the table in front of me at breakfast the day after Boxing Day. I thanked her, rang Harriet and asked her if she’d come shopping with me. No way was I going to take Sol. I wafted into a daydream where I was cruising round the shops in Nick’s company until sanity kicked in.
‘Your mum just handed over her credit card?’ said Harriet. ‘No limits? You’re so lucky! I wish my mother would do that.’
‘Hard to set a limit when she’s not talking to me.’
‘Jeez! Man, that’s mega weird.’
We had a good day and I was glad she was with me. I left the dockets on the table for Mum to find when she got home. She hadn’t, I noted, left me a message about where she was or when she expected to be back.
MOST DAYS I PLAYED tennis, or ended up at the pool with Sol and Harriet, who introduced me to a bunch of others I’d be at school with. Hadleigh wrote more often now, and always bland emails for public consumption. I Facebooked my friends regularly, too, making sure I was cheerful and chatty. They liked the story of my short romance with Sol.
The men went back to work amped and ready to rock after the holidays. There wasn’t a lot for me to do. I went in every morning to deal with emails and snail mail, stayed for a cuppa, then left them to it.
In the final week of January, Dad started coming with me in the mornings. The men were pleased he was back, he was pleased to be back — but I discovered I was sorry to lose my project.
Iris, as she always did, picked up that something was bothering me. I so wasn’t used to having a mother-figure who did that. ‘I miss the factory,’ I told her. ‘It was the challenge, I think. Dad had just given up and it didn’t seem right.’
‘You’d better go for a career that challenges you in that case,’ she said.
‘Yeah, but what?’ Right now I’d settle for being Nick’s wife.
Iris gave me a particularly witchy look. ‘You’ll need work that’ll satisfy you. Even if you marry, you still need a life of your own.’
‘Especially if I don’t,’ I muttered.
But she heard me, and tugged my hair quite hard. ‘Look forward, not back.’
‘I’m trying! Okay!’
‘How many times have you looked at him on Facebook?’
‘Only once. Twice.’
‘Twice too often.’ She eyeballed me, and said with emphasis and deliberation, ‘He’s not the one for you right now. Accept it and stop wishing things were different.’
‘I’m trying. You haven’t a clue how hard it is.’
‘And don’t flounce.’
‘I was bloody not—’ But I caught her eye and had to laugh. ‘All right! I hear you.’
That got me a hug and a cup of something prob ably designed to mend a broken heart — which it didn’t.
At the end of January, on a cloudy, humid morning, and in the face of Mum’s disapproval, I dressed myself in my new shorts, shirt and sandals, and took myself off to school.
It turned out I should have enrolled earlier, but the dean simply frowned, sighed and said, ‘Welcome, Bess.’ I had a moment’s panic that she’d ask me why I’d left St Annie’s, but all she did was ask me my subjects. Perhaps it was lucky I hadn’t enrolled when she had plenty of time after all.
I rattled them off. ‘History, chem, physics, calculus and Maori.’
‘An interesting mix,’ she said. ‘Fortunately for you, they all fit.’ She printed off a timetable and sent me on my way.
The day was strange, so different from St Annie’s, and yet so much the same. The teachers didn’t treat me as if I was a crazy drunk, and the kids I’d met over the summer were friendly. Being back at school, though, did make me think differently about Nick. I was a school kid. It was dumb to be thinking I’d lost the love of my life. It didn’t stop me from grieving over losing him, but in some peculiar way it eased the distress of it. He was out of my league.