Selling the Drama (15 page)

Looking around, Porter leaned his face in
closer. "Your girlfriend needs to watch her mouth. I might be
leaving this school, but I'm not leaving this town." He
straightened up and took a step away from the car, but he need not
have feared Toby at this point. Toby had what he wanted from him
and it would serve no purpose to have his voice on the recording
retaliating in any manner, even if he was having a hard time
suppressing the urge to launch out of the car and slam the fucker's
head through the windscreen.

Jake chose that moment to show up, opening
the car door to throw his bag into the back alongside Toby's.
"Coach. What's up? Practice cancelled?"

Porter looked over at Jake. "Yeah, mate.
Looks like your team is going to have to find a new coach. I've
been transferred out, very short notice but sometimes these things
happen. Best of luck, I was just saying goodbye to Toby but I'm
glad I caught up with you too."

Jake's surprise was evident. "Oh, really?
Geez, okay then. Well, see you later. Good luck with wherever
you're going."

"Sure thing. Thanks. Cheers, hey?" Porter
turned on his heel and walked away at a brisk pace. Jake got into
the car, slamming the door shut and turning to Toby with a
bewildered expression.

"What the hell? Who gets transferred out
overnight? He never said a damned thing yesterday at training."
Jake shook his head, visibly ticked off at this turn of events.

Toby reached under the seat and slid the
tape recorder back into his hand. He paused for a moment,
considering. Casting Jake a sideways glance, he made his mind up in
an instant. Jake was good for it. He had proven himself in
countless ways to Toby. Pulling the tape recorder out into view,
Toby rewound the tape back a bit and turned to Jake.

"Wind up your window and shut up for a
minute. If you say anything to anyone about what I'm about to play
for you, that'll be it for you for the rest of the season."

Jake's eyes widened. "What? You know I'm
good for anything you tell me. When have I ever bailed on you?"

"Never. Which is why I'm trusting you now."
Toby pressed play, silence playing back for about thirty seconds
and then Porter's voice, coming through loud and clear. At the
conclusion of the recording, Jake looked at the tape recorder, then
up at Toby, and once again back down, before uttering the expected
string of swear words.

"Has Charlotte been-"

Toby cut him off. "Don't you ask that
question! Don't you fucking dare!"

Jake sat back and put his hands up in a
defensive gesture. "Shit, man, relax. I wasn't going to ask that!
Charlotte's a different person now to what she was a couple of
years ago. No, I was going to ask if she'd been hurt by him."

Toby exhaled. "No. He was all about the talk
and yesterday he put his hands on her, basically laid it out there
that he wanted to have sex with her. Had a scenario all worked out.
Long story short, he's been sacked."

Jake was quiet for a few moments, his gaze
fixed down on the tape recorder. "What are you going to do with
that?"

Toby shrugged. "I don't know yet. It depends
on what he does."

"Mate, who the fuck has a tape recorder on
hand to catch people out when they say shit they shouldn't?" Jake
was shaking his head at Toby, his face creased with a combination
of admiration and amusement.

Toby grinned at him. "A person who is always
well prepared."

Jake laughed. "You're a fucking head case."
His laughter died away then as he looked at Toby, tape recorder
still in hand. "Seriously, what would you do if he came after
Charlotte? Say, you were there and he came after her, what would
you do to him?"

"He wouldn't get anywhere near her if I was
there."

Jake nodded. "True enough. What if you
weren't? And she was on her own. What then?"

"I can't think about that. You've seen what
I do to someone who just insults her. I can't even think that way,
Jake. I don't want my first appearance in a court room to be as the
defendant."

Jake sat quietly for a few moments. "If it
were Ellie, and he hurt her, beat her up or raped her, I'd kill
him. I'd fucking kill him."

Toby turned to Jake with a shake of his
head. "You watch too many Scorsese films. What would you do? How
would you get rid of him? Hack him up into pieces in your kitchen?
As if."

"Yes! And then I'd chuck all the pieces into
some of those heavy duty garbage bags, clean up and put all the
rags in with him, tie them up, throw them into the boot and drive
out to the gorge, toss him down into the depths where no one will
ever think to look for him. The crocs would have him digested long
before he was reported missing."

Toby stared at Jake. He had no idea whether
to feel disturbed or impressed at the ease with which he had just
answered that question. "I'm going to be defending you in court one
day, aren't I?"

Jake laughed. "At least I'll get off that
way."

Toby turned serious again. "He'd have our
address, from the school records. He knows she does gymnastics and
where she does it. He knows my after school schedule." He exhaled,
rubbing his hands over his face before hitting the steering wheel
in anger. "Fucking hell! All I wanted was to protect her. He had no
right to do that to her, abuse his position in such a way. But what
if I've made it worse now, by making her come forward? What if I've
put her in more danger than she was before?" He pounded the
steering wheel again, furious at this development.

Jake put his hand onto Toby's shoulder. "I
don't know mate, maybe you need to worry, and maybe you don't.
Maybe he's all talk and that's it, just trying to rattle your
chain. Most likely, that's probably all it is. And you've got your
tape there, you could go to the cops if you're worried enough. But
anyway, just to be on the safe side, I'm going to buy some of those
garbage bags. Keep your fuel tank full." Jake sat back and gave
Toby a nod with a wink.

"You're fucking insane, you know that,
right?"

"Maybe, but when the shit gets real…" Jake
gave Toby a knowing look. "Anyway, I'm starving. Swing by Wendy's
on the way home, I could do with a hotdog. Actually, I'll get you
to drop me at Ellie's after since we don't have training. I'll get
her a honeycomb thick shake. That always puts me in her good books.
You, I expect, don't need to do anything more than point to your
dick, but some of us have to work at it mate."

Toby laughed. "Yeah, hard life. I don't even
need to point anymore."

"Shut the fuck up. You make me sick."

Dear Charlotte,

Life is good! I am in love. It can get you in the
most unexpected places and even when you aren't even looking for
it. Who knew, when I took this job at the gift shop, that I would
meet my soul mate in the form of Andy? He makes me coffee with
hearts on top and writes me poems. I never knew I could be so happy
again. Charlotte, he makes everything so wonderful! He's moving in
with me over the weekend as he's been having some trouble with his
roommates not paying their share of the rent and stealing some of
his stuff! I know, people are creeps! Anyway, I told him that he
needed to get out of there and leave those losers behind. He was so
relieved, I don't think he felt as though he could ask me for help,
but if you can't help the people you love, then who can you
help?

Although, if you don't mind, I might get you to hold
off on telling Iris for a bit. You know what she's like, and she
gets all high and mighty with me every time we speak lately, always
reminding me about the fact that she and I are joint owners of Ma
and Pa's place and that I shouldn't be getting any ideas about it
being my own. You'd think it was the Taj Mahal, the way she goes
on, not a cottage in Gympie. Seriously. But anyway, maybe, say, if
you don't mention it for a week after getting this letter, then
Andy will be all moved in and it will be a done deal that she can't
do anything about. Ta! You're the best. I would be lost without
you.

Love and big sloppy kisses,

Jenna xoxox.

Charlotte dropped her head down onto her
desk, groaning out loud. She had been on this merry go round too
many times with Jenna already to be convinced that this was
anything more than just another potential heartbreak in the
making.

Their raised voices could be heard from
outside. It gave Toby reason to pause in the hall. This was not a
household of raised voices. This would be in fact, the very first
time he had heard an argument within this house at all. Iris and
Royce were so casual they bordered on disinterested. The most
animated he had ever seen them was over the whole Porter situation,
and even that had been kept pretty low key. This, coming from the
kitchen, was something entirely different. Iris was yelling,
actually shouting, with a depth of emotion to her voice that Toby
had up until now, not really believed her capable of
possessing.

"That man has stolen my mother's jewellery!
Art work from my parent's house!"

"That's not my fault!" Charlotte's voice was
marginally more controlled, but still quite heated nonetheless.

"You enable her deceit! Every time she asks
you not to tell me something stupid about what she's doing, you
make it worse! I could have stepped in before this happened but now
it's too late!" This was accompanied by the sound of something
breaking. "Bloody hell! Now look what's happened!"

"You treat her like a child! You're so mean
to her all the time. It's no wonder she never wants you to know
anything. Nobody could have seen this coming. It's just bad
luck."

Iris screamed then, a particularly
undignified screech that echoed throughout the house and could no
doubt be heard by the neighbours' in the surrounding block.
"Nothing with Jenna is bad luck! It is all bad choices and I
wouldn't have to treat her like a child if she didn't act so much
like one! I can't get those things back! They're gone now.
Heirlooms from my parents. It's just lucky she doesn't have access
to the deeds for the bloody house. Thank goodness for small
mercies."

"Well, yelling at me isn't going to get
those things back for you either! This is not my fault!" Charlotte
sounded particularly upset now, close to tears.

Toby waited in the hall, not wanting to
enter the kitchen unless he absolutely felt it necessary. If she
cried, he would go in. He was unsure though, about what he would
actually do once he was in there. Come to think of it, the shit
would hit the fan big time if Charlotte discovered him out here
while she had been in there bearing the full brunt of this Iris
storm. He should really just duck back out and come back in fifteen
minutes or so.

"I never said it was your fault!" Iris
snapped. "But your constant keeping of her counsel is proving
troublesome. Jenna has never been wise in the ways of the world and
she insists on rejecting the advice of people who know far more
than her. I would think she might have learned something from the
entire debacle with the Irish man, but it would seem that she is as
usual, living in a bubble where everyone in the world is her friend
and I am just a stupid person she is forced to endure. Anybody
else, working in a hippy cafe in Gympie, would have seen the
writing on the wall with that bloke, but not her. No, he's her true
love. Because everyone has multiple true loves and they pop up in
bars and hippy cafes all the time!"

"I really wish that the both of you would
just leave me the hell out it!"

"Then stop enabling her!!" Iris was
screaming once again, her voice giving a banshee a run for its
money it was so high pitched.

Toby stepped back as Charlotte flounced out
of the kitchen, red faced and flustered, coming to a stop as she
noticed him standing in the hall. "What are you doing lurking out
here like a creeper?" She stomped past him on her way into her
room, shooting him a very dark glare.

"Ducking for cover." Toby followed closely
after her, closing the door as he entered. "What happened?"

Charlotte shook her head as she threw
herself down onto her bed in a rage. "It turns out Jenna's new
boyfriend is a thief and a liar and apparently that's all my
fault."

Toby exhaled and crossed the room to flop
down onto the bed beside her. "So she found herself another jerk to
replace the last one she was with? Didn't see that coming." Sarcasm
didn't add any value, but it was difficult to suppress.

Charlotte delivered a punch to his arm at
close range.

He flinched, rubbing it lightly. She was
surprisingly strong. "You know, I've said to you a few times now
that I don't think you should keep all of what Jenna asks you to
keep secret an actual secret. She doesn't strike me as the
brightest spark around when it comes to judging people and making
wise choices." Toby glanced at Charlotte and rolled away as he saw
her fist coming for him again. "Alright!" He put his hands up in
front of his body to ward her off. "I'll shut up about it. It's
none of my business. I actually don't want it to be any of my
business."

"I thought you liked Jenna!" Charlotte
flopped back against her pillows, fuming at him.

"I do!" Toby sat up and faced Charlotte. "I
just don't think she's very smart."

Charlotte stared at him for a few moments.
"That's very rude."

Toby shrugged. "I mean that she's naive." He
didn't apologise though. Jenna was a flake and Toby was of the
opinion that it was a damned shame she was actually related to
Charlotte because that made it all the more harder to drop her.

"So, you agree with Mum?"

Toby winced at that, seeing the trap just
seconds too late. "No. I agree with you. All the time, about
everything. I have no opinion at all other than the one that
mirrors yours." He watched as she struggled not to smile at him. "I
bow down to your opinion on all matters. I have nothing in my head
except for your thoughts."