After Summer Read online

  “I’m heading out for a run.”

  “It’s going to rain again.”

  I shrug. “I won’t melt.”

  Dad sighs. I can feel him watching me. He says, “Can we just talk for a minute, Brooks?”

  “I’m not coming home,” I say.

  “I’m not here for that.”

  There’s a first. “Then why are you here?”

  “It’s nice to see you too,” Dad says.

  “Sorry.” I have to keep reminding myself that Dad’s not the problem.

  “Haven’t you gotten any of your mum’s messages? She’s called at least a dozen times.”

  “I haven’t really been here much,” I lie. Dad crosses his arms and I say, “I’ve been taking extra shifts at the Hut to help out. I’ve been busy.”

  “Well, look. Your mother wants to see you so—”

  “She sent you here?”

  “No, she didn’t. She doesn’t know I’m here. She thinks I got called into a meeting at the bowls club.” When I don’t say anything he says, “I’m trying to be the peacemaker, Brooks. You know I hate it when you two fight.”

  “She shouldn’t start them then.” I put my earbuds into my ears and walk away. “I have to go.”

  “Brooks, wait.” Dad grabs my arm. “Are you going to the community meeting tomorrow night?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Your mother and I will be there.”

  Of course she will. The development’s as much her baby as it is Scott Fisher’s. “And?”

  Dad scratches his head. “Can you not make a scene?”

  I rip my earbuds out of my ears. “Are you kidding me?” Mum’s the one who gets hysterical, not me. It’d be easier if I avoid her completely but it seems like Dad just wants us to play happy families. I don’t want to say something I regret to Dad, because he’s not the bad guy, so I just shake my head and turn to leave.

  “Brooks, please. Just, at least acknowledge her tomorrow night, will you? It’d be embarrassing for her if you don’t even say hello to your own mother in front of everyone. You know what this town’s like.”

  And there it is. “See, that’s the problem, isn’t it? It’s always about her. Never about anyone else.”

  “Brooks—”

  “No, Dad. Just…” I sigh. “Look, if you and Mum come up tomorrow night, I’m not going to ignore you. And I will try my best to not argue with her. But I’m not going to pretend everything’s fine because it’s not.”

  Dad nods. “Fair enough.”

  “And for the record, she was the one who told me to go. I didn’t just leave, so…”

  “I know.” He pats me awkwardly on the shoulder, which never used to be weird because up until the trouble between Mum and I over the development, we used to be a family of huggers. As I turn to head off, Dad says, “Enjoy your run.”

  “You better get to the bowls club, just in case she sends someone to check up on you,” I call back, and break into a jog.

  Three

  Riley

  When I get out of bed the next morning, the sun is shining through the window above the sink, and it’s starting to feel muggy already. I kick off the sheet, sit up and stretch. When I check the time and discover that it’s after nine, I realise that I’ve probably missed seeing Dad this morning. I remember he said something in the car last night about some big job he’s got on but I didn’t pay too much attention. I’m not betting on getting to see him much at all while I’m here, since him being busy with his business is the reason I stopped coming to visit him in the first place.

  My stomach grumbles, and I decide to head up to the house to get some breakfast. As I open the door to the guest house, I touch the top of Mum’s ashes box and think about what she said before she died. “Promise you’ll try with your dad,” she’d said, and I promised because you have to when someone asks you to when they’re dying. Although I have no idea if I can actually keep my promise, I decide that since it’s only really for a year until I finish high school, I’ll try to get along with him.

  The main house is quiet and as I close the glass sliding door behind me, I feel like I’m intruding. The room I’ve come into is massive. It’s all big white tiles and white walls. There’s a black lounge and wooden dining table to my left and a blue-topped pool table on my right. The kitchen is directly in front of me, a long bright white breakfast bar separating it from the rest of the room. It feels like those designer show houses Mum and I used to look at on weekends - all shiny and new and no hint that someone actually lives in them. As I make my way across to the kitchen, hoping someone has left me a note to tell me where to find things so I don’t have to feel like I’m robbing the place, Julie appears from out of a side room.

  “Oh.” Her hand flutters to her chest in surprise but she smiles. “I thought I heard the door, but I just assumed it was Jason.” She breezes over to me, her light dressing gown flowing out around her, and wraps me in a hug. Instead of being awkward, it actually feels good, so I hug her back. She pulls back and holds me at arms length. “You’ve gotten so big!” I must cringe because she drops her hands from my shoulders, screws up her nose and says, “Sorry. You’re probably going to get that a lot over the next few weeks when you run into people around here. Do you want something to eat? You must be starving.”

  She turns and heads back around the bench and starts rattling off my breakfast choices as she packs the dishwasher. “There’s cereal in the cupboard. There’s muesli if you’re into healthy stuff. Jason eats all the stuff that’s full of sugar, bloody boys, and your dad just normally has toast and coffee.” She looks up suddenly. “Do you drink coffee?”

  I nod in reply and Julie must approve of this (unlike Mum, just saying) because she smiles broadly. “Great. I thought we could have a girls’ day today since your father will be busy getting ready for the community meeting tonight and with everything else he has on his plate this week, I doubt we’ll see him much at all today, although he did say he’d try to meet us for lunch.” She stops and takes a breath. “Did he tell you about that?”

  I’m unsure whether she’s talking about lunch or the community meeting, but he never mentioned either of them so I shake my head in reply. I’d forgotten how much and how fast Julie talks. I always thought it would annoy me, but today, when I don’t feel like talking anyway, I’m kind of glad she won’t let me get a word in. “Men,” Julie says, swatting her hand in the air at nothing in particular. “Never tell you the important stuff. Anyway, we can talk about that over coffee at the cafe when we do some shopping after breakfast.” She stops and smiles at me and I can’t help but smile back. “Breakfast,” she says, like the idea has just occurred to her. “What did you say you wanted?”

  “Toast is fine,” I reply.

  “Great,” Julie says. “Bread is in the pantry,” (she points to the room where she emerged from before), “as are the Vegemite, honey and peanut butter. Butter and jams are in the fridge. We’ve got orange juice and breakfast juice as well.”

  She pulls out a drawer on her side of the breakfast bar. “Cutlery is here.” She opens a cupboard under the bench. “Plates and cups in here. Just trawl through the cupboards until you find what you need.”

  “Thanks,” I finally manage to say.

  “Oh, and toaster and kettle are in the stowaway cupboard beside the stove.” She lifts the little roller door on the opposite bench and then turns back to me and smiles. “Once you have some breakfast, I’ll give you a tour of the house, so you know your way around and then we can both get ready to go out. Okay?”

  I nod. “Okay.”

  “Good,” Julie smiles. “I’ll leave you to it and go have a shower.” As she walks off toward the hallway she calls back, “Make yourself at home.”

  “Thanks,” I call back. I wait until she’s out of sight and then I duck around to the other side of the bench and head to the pantry. It’s the size of my study at my old house and I feel a little overwhelmed at the amount of food in there.
I reach for a loaf of bread but my eye is drawn to the box of Fruitloops sitting beside the Coco Pops and Weetbix. Fruitloops were my favourite when I was a kid, and I haven’t had them for ages. Not since Mum got cancer and made us both stop eating so much processed food. I used to feel bad for lying to her about the fast food I’d get on my way home from school but I think I would’ve died if all I’d eaten over the last two years was lentil soup and chickpea burgers with home-made hummus. I put the bread back, grab the box of cereal and head back to the bench to find a bowl.

  The sugar hit on my first bite is amazing. It reminds me of when Brooks and I used to have big bowls of cereal for dinner when we were little. Only Brooks would add a big spoonful of Quik to hers for extra flavour. No wonder we used to have so much energy when we were kids. I close my eyes and savour the taste of fake flavouring. It’s so bad it’s good and I almost groan out loud.

  I’m so glad I don’t though because as I take my next big spoonful, the sliding door opens and in walks Jason. I mean, I’m assuming it’s Jason. I haven’t seen him since the last time I was here because he didn’t come to the funeral, and back then he was just a scrawny kid with too-long brown hair. He hasn’t changed too much from the way I remember him. He’s taller but he’s filled out more, and his hair’s still long, scruffier though and hanging down in wet ringlets around his shoulders. He’s wearing a black wet suit, the top of it pulled down and hanging off his waist. He wears the surfer look pretty well. I can’t believe he’s almost the same age as me. “Hey,” he says, like it’s not strange me sitting in his kitchen. “Mum here?”

  “Shower,” I say around a mouthful of cereal.

  He nods in reply. “Can you tell her I’m heading into town with Damo, and I’ll be back after lunch?”

  I nod.

  “Thanks. Catchya,” he says and slips back out the door. As I watch him disappear around the corner of the house, it occurs to me how everyone is acting so normal about me being here, almost like I’ve always been here. I’m not entirely sure why that bothers me, but it does.

  When Julie said she was taking me to the new shopping centre, I imagined it being a lot bigger than it actually is. A cafe, a surf shop, a chemist, a small grocery shop and an Indian takeaway would not be classified as a shopping centre where I come from. Julie and I skirt around the cafe seating on the footpath, avoiding a waitress who’s trying to clear a table, and spot the surf shop on the corner. Julie stops to check out the messy specials table out the front. It’s mostly singlets and board shorts, so I wander further inside to scout out the togs, which are closer to the back of the shop. As I head past a rack of flouro coloured clothes, I hear a familiar laugh that I wasn’t expecting. I scoot around the back of the rack and peer around it to see where the laugh came from. There, serving at the counter, is Brooks Doherty.

  I duck back behind the clothes rack and try to decide what to do next. She would have finished school this year because she’s a year older than I am, and I thought for sure she’d be long gone by now. My mouth has gone dry at the thought of talking to her. I mean, she probably doesn’t even know who I am now anyway. It’s been five years and a lot has changed.

  I look back over the rack and watch as Brooks rings up a sale. She’s taller than I remember, obviously, but she’s still sporty and broad-shouldered. I wonder if she still has her home-made weights? And oh my God, she got her eyebrow pierced, just like she said she would. I wonder what her mum said when she came home with it? She tucks a stray hair underneath her cap and laughs at something the girl says. Wait a minute, is she flirting with her?

  Oh my God. Get it together, Riley. It’s just Brooks. I take a deep breath and stand up.

  “Riley?” Julie appears from behind me. “Everything okay?”

  “Oh, sure. Yeah, I was just…” I turn back to the rack I’m standing beside and pretend I’m interested in the clothes. “I was just checking these out.”

  “The boys’ shorts?”

  “Yeah. For Jason.” Good recovery.

  Julie smiles, takes a pair of shorts off the rack and says, “These would look good on him, don’t you think?” She holds them up and turns them around. “And he does need some new ones. I don’t know what he does in his clothes, but nothing of his ever lasts long at all.”

  “Hi,” comes a voice from beside me. I turn to see a guy dressed in fluro yellow board shorts and a singlet, a straw fedora on his head. “Can I help you?”

  “Oh. Yeah. I actually need some new togs.”

  “No problem,” he says. “They’re right over here.” I leave Julie at the rack and as I follow the sales guy, I risk a look back toward the counter, but Brooks is gone.

  “What are you looking for?” the guy asks.

  “Huh?”

  “Togs,” he says. “What sort of togs are you looking for?”

  “Oh, I’m not sure.” I follow him over to the wall of togs and listen as he explains the virtues of each brand, and I’m glad for the distraction from my thoughts about Brooks.

  Four

  Brooks

  I can’t believe that Roly Fisher is standing in my surf shop. Well, not mine exactly, but the one I work at. For years all I could think about was Roly and that day in the storm when she was huddled against me, scared out of her mind. I mean, yeah we were only kids, and I had no idea about the feelings I was having back then, but I can remember how good it felt to have her around. Summers were so much more fun when she was in town.

  Every year, a week or so after Christmas, Roly would arrive in town to see her dad. I used to go wait on the corner of the esplanade on my bike and when I’d see Scott Fisher’s panel van cruise around the corner, I’d race them back to the house, me riding on the bike path, weaving in and out of tourists and Riley hanging out the window of the car, egging me on. Sometimes Roly’s mum would come up with her and they’d stay at Uncle Pete’s caravan park.

  As soon as they were unpacked, Roly and I would head straight down to the Burger Hut, get chocolate milkshakes and a serve of hot chips with chicken salt and sit on the beach and catch up. Over the next couple of weeks, Roly would help me clean the cabins and the camp grounds at the caravan park, and I’d take her swimming and fishing and pumping for yabbies. We’d spend most nights playing cards in the rumpus room at the back of Uncle Pete’s house and sometimes we’d help clear the tables at the Burger Hut for Gloria when she was run off her feet. Afterwards, we’d lie on our backs on the picnic table out the back of the Hut and look at the stars and stuff ourselves full of whatever was left in the hotbox.

  And then one year, it all changed. The summer after the last big storm, Roly didn’t turn up. When I asked Mum if she’d heard anything, she said something vague about Riley’s parents fighting, which as far as I was concerned, wasn’t a reason for Roly to not come back. So I snuck into the caravan park office when Uncle Pete was busy to get Roly’s address from an old booking ledger and wrote to her, asking what had happened. She didn’t write back. I wrote to her every month for two years with no response. I got to the stage where I wondered if I’d made her up; if she was just a figment of my overactive twelve-year-old imagination. And now here she is, standing at a rack in the back of the shop looking at board shorts.

  I mean, Dad told me about her mum dying. Heck, the whole of Roper’s Beach knows about it. And it totally makes sense that she’d come back to live with her dad. I just wasn’t prepared to see her so soon.

  I don’t think she’s seen me yet so I take the chance to watch her some more. I know that sounds stalkerish but I haven’t seen her in so long, I just want to make sure it’s her and not some mirage I’m seeing from the heat. She’s hardly changed at all, apart from not being so squishy with puppy fat. Now she looks long and lean, her denim shorts just reaching the bottom of her butt. Not that I’m checking her out or anything. I guess I should stop calling her Roly though. Her hair’s still the same strawberry blonde it was back then, but instead of the pigtails she wore all the time, she’s got it pulled ba
ck in a messy sort of pony tail that’s just long enough to tickle her neck.

  She pulls a couple of hangers off a rack, holds them up in front of her and then puts them back. I’m trying to decide whether to just walk over to her and see if she wants a hand with anything, which I should probably do because it is my job, but I wouldn’t know the first thing to say to her. I mean, what do you say to someone who’s mum died? Besides, I don’t even know whether she remembers who I am. Before I can make up my mind, Reece jabs me in the ribs.

  “Stop ogling the customers,” he says, clearly ogling Roly himself.

  “I’m not,” I reply, but I know he knows I’m lying.

  Reece leans in closer. “The chicks are the only reason I work here you know?”

  As if I didn’t. Reece has this stupid thing about scoring the girls who come in to the shop. If they’re under a five, he won’t serve them. What he fails to realise though is that anyone over a three is way out of his league.

  “If you don’t want her, I’ll take her,” he says. “She’s got to be at least a seven.”

  I want to hit him for devaluing Roly like that but I bite my tongue.

  “You can go sort out the specials table,” he says when I don’t answer him. I’d usually argue with him, on account of me being fifty bucks behind him on sales this month, but I just don’t think I’m ready to talk to Roly just yet.

  “Whatever,” I shrug, and head out to the front of the shop to refold the clothes on the table that the Kennedy’s messed up earlier.

  Five

  Riley

  “I’m sorry Scott was too busy to have lunch with us.” Julie stabs at her salad with a fork a few times before she finally gets a couple of leaves and a tomato on it. She crunches into it, and when she’s finished she says, “He’s been so busy getting everything right for the final reveal for tonight.”