Sisterchicks Down Under (25 page)

Authors: Robin Jones Gunn

BOOK: Sisterchicks Down Under

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“You did?”

“Yes.”

Jill looked calm, but I felt rattled. Mad Dog was the last person I thought she would ever want to see. Especially in her own home.

Mad Dog came up the steps and walked toward us on the deck. At first his head was down, but as he came closer, he cautiously glanced up at Jill. She met his gaze, and the two of
them looked at each other. Not the way they had awkwardly glanced back and forth at the Embassy Theatre. This time they met each other eye to eye.

Jill took two steps toward Mad Dog. “The last time you stood here at my door, I told you I had nothing to say to you. I do have something to say to you now.”

She lifted her chin and held out her open palms, as if offering the invisible treasure Mad Dog had once come seeking. Her voice was a whisper. “It’s okay, Marcus. Really. I don’t hold anything against you. Not anymore. I want you to have your life back. All of it.”

Apparently while Jill and I had been renovating her home, God had been doing some renovating inside the home of her heart. Tonight was open house.

Mad Dog just nodded, but I saw a light in his eyes that I hadn’t realized had gone out until it came back on.

With few words, the four of sat down to our bowls of Cheerios. I looked out at the sea and watched as the Southern Cross began to traverse the evening sky. God was filling His treasure chest with extravagant mercies; somewhere, on the other side of this planet, it was a new day.

T
ony didn’t get the position
at Jackamond Studios, so we didn’t stay for another three months. He actually finished his project ten days ahead of schedule. It was his gift to me, he said, so we could see more of Australia and New Zealand together before we had to fly back to California.

At first I took it hard that he didn’t get the job extension. I had come to love New Zealand so much that I didn’t want to leave. I told Tony that, and he asked me, “What do you love about New Zealand?”

I only had to think for a moment before I gave him the answer. “It’s the people, it’s the people, it’s the people.”

Dorothea cried when I kissed her good-bye. Her great big, blobby tears and all those deep-throated guttural sounds didn’t scare me one bit when she tried to communicate. I told her I was going home so I could attend school to learn how to become a speech therapist for stroke victims. That’s when Mr. Barry got blinky-eyed, too.

Tracey filled every empty corner of my packed luggage with bags of chocolate fish. “For all the times you need to reward yourself for doing a little sumthin’ good,” she said.

Mad Dog is back here in Los Angeles. He and Tony have worked together on two projects since their New Zealand days. Their most recent project won an Oscar. It wasn’t the first Oscar won by a film Mad Dog worked on. But it was the first one he had worked on since he had become an unshakable God-follower.

In a concise manner, Tony said Mad Dog trusted Christ the night we stood on Jill’s front deck. My husband had gotten into a complicated discussion with Mad Dog earlier that week at the studio about why God’s Son had to come in after us because of our fall into sin. Mad Dog and Tony held opposite views until that moment when Jill stepped forward and gave Mad Dog the treasure she held in her hand. Then Mad Dog understood about extravagant sacrifices and the love attached to them.

Jill and I decided a week before Tony and I left that we didn’t believe in saying good-bye to each other. She suggested we say
au revoir
instead. That’s because she was listening to a French language program and ordering French movies to watch. We both knew that Paris would become a reality for her.

“And depending on which way around the globe this little free bird flies,” Jill said, “I would estimate that a certain house next to two old orange trees is exactly halfway between here and Paris.”

That was three years ago. Jill has been to Tustin to see me five times already. She’s been to Paris three times and has two more grandbabies.

Her most recent visit was last month, and I think that’s
what prompted me to write down our story. That and the fact that to celebrate Jill’s visit, Tony strung a big hammock for us between the orange trees. “Ray’s orange trees” we now call them.

Jill and I tottered out to the hammock the night she arrived, armed with a mound of comforters. We got ourselves balanced—a very important aspect of any form of art, including verbal scrapbooking. There, beneath a canopy of orange blossoms, we cut and pasted our favorite shared memories such as sipping mocha lattes at the Chocolate Fish, painting Jill’s walls and Dorothea’s red fingernails, the fallen lawn hobbit, the above-water ballet troupe, feeding the kangaroos, the lights on Sydney Harbor, and Evan the singing punter.

Then, because I’d waited a long time to do this, I sat up straight and said, “Jill, don’t move! There’s a lizard—”

I didn’t have a chance to finish my joke before Jill turned the prank on me. In one motion the two of us were tumbled down under once more. This time it was only down under the emptied hammock, where we landed together on soft California orange grove soil.

We laughed until the neighbor’s dog started to bark. Then, with all the comforters tucked around us, we settled into the best years of our friendship like two sassy mama birds swaying back and forth in a big, fluffy nest. We were at home with each other. No matter what side of the globe we were on. We both knew it would be that way the rest of our lives. And forever.

Discussion Questions

1. When she arrives in New Zealand, Kathleen finds herself without a close circle of friends for the first time in her life. Have you ever found yourself in a season of life without a single close girlfriend to share the journey with you? Did you go looking for one, or did one find you?

2. Why do you think Kathleen never took on the nickname “Kathy” before? Do you think she went back to “Kathleen” when she returned to California? Have you ever had a nickname that marked a significant change in your life?

3. Do you think Kathy would have agreed to drive a vintage truck in California, or did she jump at the chance just because she was in New Zealand? Have you ever found it easier to try a new experience when you’re in a brand-new place?

4. Did Kathy seem like the kind of woman who was given to extreme mood swings the way Tony observed after she knocked over the hobbit? Or were the emotional dips and highs all part of the adjustments she had to make in order to find her place in Wellington?

5. Have you ever felt like you were eighteen again? What experience prompted that feeling?

6. Why was it hard for Jill to talk about Ray with Kathy? Do you think Kathy did the right thing to simply listen, or should she have asked more questions about Ray earlier?

7. What did you observe about the ways Jill processed her grief? Have you experienced grief in your life? If so, how did you process it?

8. How do you feel when you are around people like Dorothea? Have you ever known someone like Mr. Barry?

9. Why do you think it was important for Jill and Kathy to get away and have a little adventure in Christchurch? How did that experience bond their friendship? How have adventures bonded some of your friendships?

10. Have you ever been amazed by an animal the way Kathy was enraptured by the kangaroo? What was it, and how did it affect you?

11. How would you have answered the question Jill asked Kathy: “Do you think God is fair?”

12. What did Jill mean when she told Mad Dog she wanted him to have all of his life back?

13. How did Jill and Kathy both receive and express “extravagant love”? How do you see that kind of extravagant love showing up in your life?

14. When they see the painting of the Victorian woman on the shore, Jill tells Kathy that she holds a treasure in her hand, although she doesn’t yet know what it is. It later turns out to be forgiveness for Mad Dog. What unrecognized treasure do you hold in your hand?

THE GLENBROOKE SERIES
by Robin Jones Gunn

Come to Glenbrooke … a quiet place where souls are refreshed.

SECRETS
Glenbrooke Series #1

Beginning her new life in a small Oregon town, high school English teacher Jessica Morgan tries desperately to hide the details of her past.

1-59052-240-0

WHISPERS
Glenbrooke Series #2

Teri went to Maui hoping to start a relationship with one special man. But romance becomes much more complicated when she finds herself pursued by three.

1-59052-192-7