A Story of Now (33 page)

“What did they say?”

“They kind of laughed, actually. Apparently, people don’t usually admit that.”

“At least they laughed. I just got bored stares.” Pete shakes his head. “God, I’m so not getting into our postgrad program. So I just have to pray for Sydney or Queensland. I don’t want to go to Western Australia.”

“Why not?” Nina asks.

“If I have to move, I can stand to move to Sydney or Brisbane. Perth is too far away. And small and boring.”

Mia sips her beer and shrugs. “It won’t even matter, though, I guess, once we start. We’ll have no life anyway. And maybe we’ll both be in Sydney or Perth together. That will make it better.”

Claire raises her head and looks at them both, eyes wide. She had no idea that Mia might study somewhere else next year.

“Oh, you’ll get in here,” Pete tells her.

“Are you kidding?” Mia shakes her head. “It’s so competitive. I think maybe twenty people from our undergrad course got in last year.”

“You’ll get in,” he repeats, firm. “I’d bet money on it.”

Robbie pokes her in the side with his foot. “You better get in. You are not leaving me.”

“It’s not really my choice, is it?” Mia says quietly, staring out across the water. “Anyway, can we talk about something else?”

“Yes, let’s talk about something really important instead,” Eli says sleepily. “Like what we’re going to have for dinner.”

* * *

They lie out on the platform for hours and soak up the sun and swim, reluctant to leave their little paradise while the sun has chosen to shine so beaming and hot on them. Taking pity, Pete even rescues Cam’s old dinghy from under the veranda and brings Blue out on it. As Pete rows, Blue stands at the front, both paws on the bow, staring ahead like a comic ship’s captain sighting the shore, which makes everyone laugh. Once with them, he trots excitedly from side to side, his gaze vigilantly fixed on everyone in the water, the most dedicated of lifeguards.

He looks as though at any minute he will leap in after one of them. He stays on the platform, though, until Mia dives into the water. Then he can no longer contain himself and skitters off the edge of the platform and paddles furiously after her. Mia doesn’t even notice as she glides away. Laughing, the boys haul Blue back onto the platform, where he jumps and barks excitedly at Mia. As she turns and breaststrokes languidly back, he finally starts to relax. Dripping wet, he vigorously shakes the lake from his fur.

“Oh, don’t be such a cliché, dog,” Claire grumbles as she pulls her towel over her eyes to shield them from the drops that fly from his sodden coat.

Claire, terrified her sunscreen is wearing off, lies under a towel when she’s not in the water. She learned the hard way how quickly her pale skin burns if left exposed to the sun.

She lies with her head at the edge of the float and giggles as Pete and Robbie attempt to create some sort of bizarre synchronised swimming routine. She’s not sure how they even got started on it, but it largely involves flapping their hands around in unison, while they spin in circles and try to kick their legs up out of the water. They inevitably sink only to rise gracelessly up again to flail and gasp for air. Eli floats peacefully on his back several feet away, completely oblivious.

Claire smirks. “Truly beautiful, guys. You are poetry in motion.”

Pete ignores her and turns to Robbie in earnest. “I think maybe we just need to hone our pirouettes.”

Robbie nods and swipes his hair off his face. “Okay, from the top!”

They start their little routine all over again, and Claire smiles and rests her head sleepily on her arms as Mia hauls herself onto the platform, dripping water over the dry wood.

“Jesus, Mia.” Nina’s tone is all accusatory.

“What?”

“Now you’re just being selfish. Who needs all that leg?”

Nina prods Mia in her long, tanned thigh. They are kind of ridiculously long and lean. Embarrassed to be staring at Mia’s legs, Claire looks away.

Mia laughs at Nina but says nothing.

Claire looks back at them.

“I mean, it’s selfish. You couldn’t have left some for the rest of us?” Nina straightens her own short legs out next to Mia’s, comparing. Her feet only reach halfway down Mia’s shins. “That is so unfair.” She shakes her head.

“Nina, it’s not exactly Mia’s fault that you’re height challenged,” Claire mumbles.

“No.” Mia lowers herself down onto her back and throws an arm over her eyes. “Blame my giant parents. They started it.”

Nina turns on Claire. “Yeah, well, how would you know how it feels to be a midget? You’re tall too.”

“Well, I am sincerely apologetic for my luck in the genetic draw.” Claire looks at them both lying stretched out, completely exposed to the sun. “But at least you aren’t the whitest person alive. You don’t have to hide from the sun like a freaking vampire.”

“Hmm,” is all Nina says.

Conversation over, Claire closes her eyes again, lulled by the warm toward sleep. She listens to the boys as they work on their routine and to Nina as she tells Mia a story about a river where she and her family used to swim.

Claire still can’t believe she never realised Mia might go to university somewhere else. She always assumed she’d be around. Maybe she’d be at a different uni but not a different city. Of all the things they’ve talked about in these last couple of months, this has never come up. How will she feel if Mia goes to study in another city? Will she feel bereft at not having her around? The thought makes her pull in a breath.

* * *

Claire stands at the edge of the float, wrapped in her towel, and watches them argue.

Robbie jabs Eli in his dark, skinny arms. “I may not be a jock, but I can so take you.”

“Neither am I, but no you can’t.” Eli crosses his arms over his chest, facing him off.

“I can.” Robbie nods. “Easily.”

“Loser has to do all the dishes tonight.”

“Fine.” Robbie shrugs. “Because it will be you. First one to swim to that rock there.” He points to a wide brown rock back on the shore right in front of the path to the house.

“Sure.” Eli grins and stamps his legs a little.

“I’m going to win.” Robbie rotates his arms over his shoulder like an Olympian preparing for a race.

It makes Claire want to laugh, though, because his scrawny little shoulders are probably half as narrow as any professional swimmer’s. She smirks at their chest beating. She had no idea Robbie could be so competitive.

“Shut up, you two,” she says. “And just race.”

“Hush you,” Robbie tells her. “I don’t see you challenging.”

She shrugs.

Eli points at him. “
All
the dishes.”

Robbie nods, serious now.

“Do you realise this is kind of a win for us,” Mia mutters. “Either way, none of us has to do the dishes.”

Claire smiles. She hadn’t thought of that.

“I hope they draw,” Nina says.

“Somebody say ‘Ready, set, go’ for us,” Robbie demands as he steps to the edge of the platform.

Eli stands next to him, his toes gripped over the edge of the wood like a diver, crouched and ready to pitch himself into the water.

Nina scrambles to her feet. “Are you ready?”

They both nod and look at each other, dead serious.

“Set!” Nina calls. “Go!”

Claire steps forward to watch them take off. They dive into the water in a duet of messy-legged, flop-bellied dives that tell her everything she needs to know. She drops her towel and waits a beat after them so they don’t know she’s coming. Then she dives in, legs neatly pressed together, and gathers distance underwater. She kicks out to the surface and begins a speedy crawl, rotating her arms by her ears as she pushes breath out through her nose. She swims a slight arc around them so they won’t notice her coming, too focused on beating each other. She catches up easily, breathing to her left side so she can see them both churn up the water not far from her.

Don’t forget your legs
. She hears her father’s eternal advice in her head. She kicks hard.
People always forget their legs when they race and exhaust themselves early.

Within moments, she easily overtakes them. As she makes a beeline for the shore, she hits a steady rhythm with her breath and feels that familiar push in her lungs and the dull ache in her shoulders. Her body instantly recognises the sensations from all the times she has made this brief watery journey. It feels so good to swim again.

A minute later, she slaps the rock victoriously with her hand and then grabs a hold of it and pulls herself up a little. She turns around, panting for breath, just in time to see them take their last few strokes. Their hands hit the rock at virtually the same time.

The other three cheer and clap from the landing, and Blue barks excitedly. She grins. That was too easy.

Robbie lifts his head out of the water and shakes it, flinging the hair out of his face. “What?” He gasps, dumbfounded, when he takes in her triumphant face in front of him.

Eli swipes the water from his eyes and stares. “Where the hell did you come from?”

She swims slowly away from them. “It was a draw for second, by the way. Looks like you two are doing the dishes together.”

CHAPTER 42

“I win!” Claire throws her hands up in the air and giggles.

“Claire, you can’t win with a pair of twos.” Pete pushes Claire’s cards back at her and gives her an amused but weary look.

She throws the rest of her hand down on the table. “So what?”

“So why bet so much? It’s a waste.”

“Because, Pete,” she sits back against her chair, “it’s pretty hard to take it seriously when all I’m going to lose is a handful of Skittles. Take them, they’re yours. I hate the yellow ones, anyway.” She pushes the small pile of candy at him. He shakes his head at her like a disappointed father. And she smirks right back like a petulant teenager.

Pete’s taking this game very seriously. He’s even wearing a hat. Because, according to Pete, that’s the rules. “You have to wear a hat when you’re playing cards,” he informed them as he sat at the table in a fishing cap he found hanging in the front hall at the start of the game. “It’s lucky.”

“Uh, okay,” Claire told him as Nina dealt out the first round.

Pete cups his hands over Claire’s losing pile of candy, and drags it over to meet his pile. “I’d hate to see you playing for actual money.”

“Yeah, no offence, but you are really kind of terrible at this game.” Eli grabs up the cards and shuffles them.

“And I do not care.” She kicks her socked feet up onto the wooden table, knowing her mother would kill her if she saw it. She loves this huge old table. Now it’s covered in cards and candy and empty beer bottles.

They’ve been forced indoors for the night after a wind picked up and the air became too chilly. So now they’re playing poker, lamps lit against the darkness, radio on in the background. The wind pushes at the old windows of the house.

Well, the boys and Nina are playing poker, and Claire is just playing along. They explained how the game works a bunch of times, but she can’t be bothered. So she just invents her own version. She bets big, trying to bluff them into thinking she’s got something good, when truthfully she has no idea what she’s got in her hand.

Eli leans forward, ready to deal. “Claire, are you playing this round?”

“Nah, I’ve only got red ones left, and I like the red ones.” She pops two Skittles in her mouth and chews them quickly, relishing the zing of the sweet and sour candy.

Nina giggles and pokes her arm. “That’s not how it works either. You’re not supposed to eat your winnings.”

Claire shrugs and pops another couple in her mouth. She doesn’t care. The only reason she’s still in the game at all is because she takes extra Skittles out of the packet and adds them to her pile after each loss. And no one really cares because they’ll win them off her eventually anyway. Claire is like their default banker.

Robbie pats her hand. “Ah, Claire, you do march to the beat of your own drum, don’t you?”

“Oh shut up.” Claire grins and slaps his hand away. As she sits back and watches them consider their cards with their serious faces on, she hears clattering and banging coming from the kitchen. It echoes through the house even over the stereo.

Eli raises an eyebrow at the sound. “What is Mia doing?”

“Cleaning up?” Pete suggests.

“But we already did the dishes,” Robbie grumbles as he gives Claire a look. “Thanks to Ms. Olympic swimmer over here.”

She laughs. That race was fun. More fun than stupid cards, anyway.

“Never mind, let’s play,” Nina says, incredibly serious. She’s really into this game, and she’s surprisingly good at it. She’s got the most candy in front of her, amassed into a generous pile over many, many winning hands, mostly taken from Claire.

“Where’d you become such a card shark?” Eli asks as he continues to shuffle. “Vegas?”

“My dad.” Nina quickly picks up each card as it’s dealt out to her and organises her hand. “He taught me to play when I was, like, eight.”

Robbie raises an eyebrow. “When you were eight? What were the stakes then, M&Ms? Soft toys? Sand for the sandpit?”

“Nope. Pocket money.”

“What? Really?” Claire laughs, eyes wide. She had to unload the dishwasher and clean the upstairs bathroom for her pocket money. Even when they had a cleaner, her mother still made her do it just to exercise her money-doesn’t-grow-on-trees point.

Nina nods. “Yup. He’d hand out our pocket money, and then he’d play cards against us and win it all back.” She shakes her head. “I was sucked into it for so long. I kept thinking I could beat him one day.”

“Did you ever?” Pete asks.

Nina just shakes her head, rueful.

Claire picks up her beer. “Sucker. Your dad is a genius, though.” She leaves them and goes to the open front door. The wind has really picked up, tossing the branches of the trees lining the lake. And even from here, with the sound of the stereo behind her, she can hear the usually serene water lapping at the rocks. It’s kind of nice to feel cosy inside.

She shuts the door against the brisk air and ambles through the living area, humming. She stops to pat Blue, who is asleep on the rug, and continues to wander. She feels good, kind of loose and expansive after this day of sun and swimming and being lazy. And maybe a little drunk. She drinks down the last of her beer and turns up the music. It was such a good idea to come here. It’s summer, she’s with her people, and it’s fun.