THE DREAM CHILD (26 page)

“Dean’s back?” Emma exclaimed, flopping down on the top step, She took off her canvas backpack, dropping it on the wooden veranda behind her.

“Thought you would have seen him on your way home,” Joan muttered peevishly.

Emma shook her head. She hadn’t seen him for almost twelve months. Dean rarely came home during term time. From what she could gather this pleased the family no end. As far as they were concerned he was a lost cause. Carla was convinced the only reason Dean managed to pass his University exams was because he cheated. Lydia had given up years ago in trying to get Dean to have a haircut, or wear ‘normal’ clothes.

For a fashionable woman who ran a designer boutique, having a punk for a son must be a fate worse than death, but Emma was convinced Dean was merely rebelling because his parents were trying so hard to make him respectable. Jake Price was a businessman who’d come to Australia to help set up a sub-branch for his company. Something to do with computers was all Carla could tell her.

Emma found it impossible to believe that a man with such beautiful, velvet-brown eyes could be as bad as they claimed. She didn’t believe all the rumours about his numerous girlfriends, either. Once Dean met the right girl, Emma was certain he’d love her until the day he died.

In her dreams Emma was that girl. She knew it was silly to even think about it. There was no way he’d ever show an interest in a gangly adolescent like her. Even though her grandmother persisted in calling him a boy, in Emma’s eyes he’d long since stopped being that. He was twenty-two after all, a fully grown man with the best body in town, and a face that put her favourite pop stars to shame.

“Have you got much homework to do?” Joan’s voice broke into her romantic musings.

Emma glanced up at her grandmother. Even though she knew she had heart problems, she’d always looked fighting fit. Joan was too solidly built to be classed as frail, but now her round face was flushed, unhealthily so. “This is year twelve. Of course I have homework to do.”

“Well, you’d better hop to it then,” Joan said, mopping hair back from her damp brow with a podgy hand.

Emma sighed and got to her feet. Scooping up her backpack she yanked open the screen door.

The inside of the house was cool and dark. In fact everything about it was dark; the solid old oak furniture, the threadbare floral print carpets. Even the wallpaper had darkened so that its original colour was barely distinguishable. Very few things in it dated after the nineteen fourties, the decade Joan and her husband had moved in.

As Emma walked past the telephone table, an idea struck her. Carla had promised to help her with some economics problems, and if she agreed to let Emma visit tonight, she might even get to see Dean.

Picking up the receiver, she dialled her friend’s number. She almost dropped it when she heard a man answer. It had to be Dean. She knew Mr Price’s voice and it sounded nothing like this; brusque and business-like, not seductive and sexy. The Price family had migrated from the United States about six years ago, and although Carla had lost most of her American accent, Dean still had that distinctive Californian drawl.

“If this is an obscene caller, I’ll be happy to talk to you, but let me warn you I’m an expert at talking dirty,” he said, and Emma realized she hadn’t identified herself.

“No, no. Can I talk to Carla, please?” she squeaked, feeling like a goose.

“Ah, it’s a sweet damsel. Are you as pretty as you sound?” he went on in the same sultry tone. Emma felt her face flush, and was suddenly glad he couldn’t see her.

“Jeez you’re a creep Dean,” Emma heard her friend yelling in the background. “I bet it’s for me, so hand it over before the poor girl hangs up in disgust.”

“Are you going to hang up on me?” Dean asked in that same sexy tone.

“N- no,” Emma stammered.

“She’s not going to hang up on me,” he said.

“Just hand over the phone, will you?”

“Ask nicely,” he retorted.

“I’ll ask nicely when you stop acting like a jerk. Now give it to me.”

Emma heard clicking and rustling and Carla finally spoke into the phone.

“Sorry Em,” she apologized. “It is you, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“As you may have gathered, my pain-in-the-neck brother has come home for a few days.” And then in a more subdued tone said, “He never comes home during term time unless something’s wrong. I just overhead Mum cancelling tonight’s dinner engagement, so it must be pretty serious.”

“I suppose tonight isn’t a good night to go over those economics formulas then,” Emma said in resignation.

“Fraid not. Let’s make it tomorrow after dinner. All right?”

“Okay.” So she couldn’t see Dean tonight, but there was every chance he would still be there tomorrow. She couldn’t help wondering why Dean had come home early. Had he been kicked out of University? Committed a crime? Oh please don’t let it be anything as serious as that, she pleaded silently. Nothing bad must happen to my dream man.

They both hung up, and Emma headed for her room, the only one in the house which didn’t look like a morgue. It was bathed in sunshine most of the day, and Emma had covered the yellowed wallpaper with colourful posters to make it more homely.

The furniture consisted of a solid oak wardrobe, a small bookcase overflowing with Dolly magazines and study notes, a rickety chair, her bed and desk, a relic from a bush classroom. She knew this because her grandfather had curved his name, Matthew Taylor, and the date, nineteen twenty-nine, under the flip-top lid. It even had pencil grooves and a hole carved out for an ink well.

The only contribution she’d made to the room was a small bedside table. She’d rescued it from a clean up campaign three years ago. This was where she kept her clock radio and a photo of her parents, two people she had no memories of whatsoever.

When younger she’d tried to remember them. She would sit cross-legged on the bed with the picture in her lap, concentrating on their faces, trying to visualize an event, the sound of their voices, anything. It never worked, and eventually she gave up. They were destined to remain strangers; a tall blonde man called Adam, and a petite redhead named Sarah.

Emma threw herself onto the bed, which gave its usual squeak as she made herself comfortable. It wouldn’t do any harm to postpone her diary full of revision while she indulged in her favourite Dean Price fantasy.

Even though it had been almost a year since she’d actually laid eyes on him, she had no difficulty in visualizing his handsome face; the strong square chin, straight short nose and wide, full mouth. Having pinched a photo of him out of one of the Price’s family albums also helped. Slipping it inside an exercise book, she had left the house feeling like a criminal. It was now safe and sound in a silver edged frame of its own in a place her grandmother would never think to look.

Emma wrapped her arms around her body, imagining they were Dean’s. What she wouldn’t give to be held by him, to feel his lips against her own. They’d be warm and soft. He’d know how to kiss a girl. There would be no fumbling, no awkwardness. It would be just like in the books; a seductive play on the senses.

The few kisses she’d experienced had been a disappointment to say the least. There had been none of the passion she’d read about in the romance novels she kept hidden under her bed. Emma hadn’t even been on a proper date because Joan wouldn’t let a boy take her out in a car, and these days nobody went anywhere without wheels. According to Joan, cars were the most likely place for a girl to lose her virginity and self respect.

Well, I’m eighteen now. She can’t stop me from going out in cars any more, although the back of Dean’s motorbike was good enough for her. She’d wrap her arms around his waist. Then she’d rest her cheek against his back and feel his long, straight hair against her skin.

If only dreams came true, she thought longingly.

The Price family lived in a two-story brick mansion on the beach-front of Austinmer, the next suburb to the north of Thirroul. It usually took Emma ten minutes to ride her pushbike there, or half an hour by foot. On this particular evening she walked, wanting to savour the warm spring air. One of Carla’s parents’ usually drove her home again in their shiny new air-conditioned car.

Emma had put on the tightest jeans Joan would let her get away with, and a floral blouse that tied up at the front. If she moved a certain way, a small amount of midriff showed. Emma planned on moving that way a lot if Dean was still around. She wanted him to notice her. Other boys had told her she was pretty, but it was only Dean’s opinion that mattered.

The sun had set by the time she reached the end of Carla’s street. As she walked, Emma watched a kaleidoscope of crimsons, yellows and orange slip from the western sky.

The front light winked on automatically as she started up the Prices’ front path. She couldn’t help comparing this house to her own. White columns supported a wide wrought-iron balcony. The double front doors opened to a tiled foyer. Several doorways extended off this, as well as a wide, wooden staircase that led to the second story. The large rooms were filled with plush modern furniture and soft, spongy carpet.

Suddenly one of the garage doors swung open, and Emma stopped. She heard the unmistakable revving of Dean’s motorbike, and a moment later he drove it out into the drive. He would have kept going if his mother hadn’t appeared on the upstairs balcony to yell at him to shut the door.

“Oh hello Emma. Get Dean to unlock the front door for you, and go straight up. Carla’s in her room.”

“Thanks Mrs Price,” Emma called back, and waited for the tall, dark man to get off his bike. His jeans, T-Shirt, and leather jacket were all black, a perfect compliment to his long black hair lifting in the breeze. The way it was swept back from his high forehead emphasized the widow’s peak. She noticed that a travel bag was tied to the carry rack of his bike. He was leaving already, she realized in disappointment.

Dean slammed the garage door shut, and started towards her. He was scowling, and Emma was suddenly more in awe of him than ever. He really did look like the villain Carla always made him out to be. She heard a door slam, and glanced up to see that Lydia had gone back inside.

When she looked back down Dean had stopped directly in front of her. Suddenly his surly expression lifted, and he smiled at her, his dark eyes twinkling. His warm lop-sided grin made her heart skip a beat.

“An angel in blue denim,” he drawled, looking her up and down. “And what’s your name?”

“Emma. Emma Taylor.”

“Shy little Emma Taylor with the pigtails and braces?”

She couldn’t believe he remembered those awful things about her, and a flash of anger speared through her. “Yes, little Emma with the pigtails and braces.” And to emphasize every point she stretched up to her full height of fife-feet-seven-inches, bared her now straight teeth at him, and swung her long mane of blonde hair back over her shoulders.

Dean actually had the audacity to laugh at her, and Emma didn’t care that her all her dreams were crashing to the ground around her. Her anger rose to boiling point, and before she knew it the worst insults she could think of spilled forth.

“You think you’re so perfect, do you? Well, you’re not. Your legs are as long as spaghetti, and so’s your hair. You’ve rude and obnoxious. No wonder Carla thinks you’re a worthless worm, a scum-bucket, a -”

“As if I care what my fat little sister thinks of me. If she didn’t hoard so many chocolate bars, she might actually lose some weight.” He took hold of her hand. It sent a shiver all the way up her arm. “I was merely going to say how much the little girl has grown up, how beautiful she’s become.”

“Oh,” Emma murmured, suddenly embarrassed for her impetuous outburst.

Still gripping her hand in his larger one, he stepped forward, walking her back behind the bushes, and the automatic light went out. Suddenly she couldn’t see him, but she felt him, as he slid his other arm around her waist, pulling her close.

She gasped when their bodies met, trapping her other hand between them against the wall of his chest. He felt so lean and hard, so strong and masculine. A tremor of physical awareness swept through her at the contact, filling her with a heady warmth. No boy had made her feel like this before, which only confirmed in her already infatuated mind how special Dean was.

“I’ve been banished, Emma, not to return until I can present the family with my degree. Help me make the next six weeks bearable,” he urged, his face close to hers. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark, and she saw the glitter in his.

“H- how c- can I do that?” she stammered.

He moved his hands slowly up her spine and his fingers slid into her long, wavy hair. She shivered with delight. “A kiss will do. Will you kiss your friend’s wicked brother?”

“You’re not wicked,” she murmured, barely believing he was going to make her dreams come true after all.

“Wicked to the core,” he grinned. “Ask anyone.”

Suddenly the house light came back on, and Emma heard someone moving on the balcony again. She glanced up and saw Carla leaning over it, peering down into the garden. “Emma, where are you? I thought I heard Mum telling you to come up.”

“Sprung,” Dean muttered. “Either that or saved by my sister. What do you think?” He glanced back down at Emma. When she didn’t answer he released her. “Better get going. I’ll see you in a few weeks, because contrary to what they believe.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the house. “I will be graduating at the end of the year.”