Grease Monkey Jive (44 page)

“You don’t look like you’re enjoying it, Alex,” said Trevor.

Now it was Alex who covered her eyes, running her hand across them and pressing down. She could feel tears starting to irritate under her lids. She didn’t want to talk about dancing with Dan. She didn’t want to think about Dan or say his name or hear it said. And trying not to pretend Scott’s hands and arms were Dan’s was making her feel heavy and stiff. She could dance the steps, but she couldn’t give them the expression they needed.

She squeezed her eyes tight closed. “I’m sorry. I’ll try harder.”

“Have you spoken to him?” Trevor asked and Alex decided pretending ignorance would be childish.

“No and I’ve no intention of contacting him.”

“He was here today.”

“What did he want?” Scott got the words out while they were still forming in Alex’s head. The idea of Dan coming here again was a prick of fear in her belly, a sharp, nasty thrill to her heart.

“He brought things you’d left at his place. They’re in a green bag in the office. Had his dog with him.”

“Jeff,” she whispered.

“Nice dog. Never bitten anyone.”

“Who cares about the damn dog?” fumed Scott. “What did he want?”

“Alex knows what I mean about the dog and he didn’t want anything. In fact it was like being here gave him a rash; he could hardly keep still. He didn’t look good. I want you to tell me again what went wrong with you two and why you won’t talk to him.”

Scott gave Trevor a look that said, ‘warning, warning’, but he kept his mouth shut.

“It’s not important, Trevor.”

“It’s the only thing that’s important right now, Alley cat.”

“Not to me.”

“Ok then, to me, to Scott, to the routine. You can’t dance with Scott because you haven’t gotten Dan out of your system and there’s a reason for that.”

“It’s got nothing to do with Dan. I’m just tired.”

“How many boyfriends has your partnership with Scott survived?”

Scott grinned. “Good question. I know. And I can tell you which ones were just dalliances and which ones were serious.”

“Dalliances,” Alex breathed, amazed at Scott’s word choice, embarrassed at the turn of the conversation. “It hardly matters because I didn’t dance with any of them, so they couldn’t come between us.”

“Exactly,” said Trevor.

“You’re ganging up on me,” Alex said and knew she sounded like a pitiful schoolgirl facing the alpha bitch pack. There’d be no mercy until she cooperated.

“Alley cat, you keep saying you’re glad he dumped you, that you should’ve expected it. You keep saying it was a good thing, but neither of us understands why you think that and you’re clearly not over him. You’re dragging yourself around like a dead thing, all the life sucked out of you,” said Scott.

Alex sat back down on the floor, cross-legged, schoolgirl-like. Scott came and sat behind her, put his legs to the outside of hers and pulled her back against his chest. She fought him for a beat or two, trying to remain stiff-backed, but the weight of his arms and the strength of his comfort defeated her and she melted back into him. The tears rolled down her cheeks and her shoulders shook as she tried to suppress the sobs that followed them.

Winter seas. The water was clearer, cleaner, cold, and shocking, and it did good things to his head, froze out the need to get so trashed. Dan ate better, slept better, and worked his body with surfing, sand sprints, and marathon runs along the highway from one sleepy, half-shuttered seaside town to another. He got a winter tan. He got a few books read. He avoided his phone, but answered emails using dodgy Wi-Fi in cosy cafés with good coffee. He made decisions.

Four weeks later, the night Jeff curled up on the Kombi bed with him, he knew he’d turned a corner. If he’d worried the boys, he’d scared Jeff into reticence and cowardice. Not enough to leave him, even Jeff was dumb like that, but enough to put a space between them. Now Jeff trusted him again, so it was time to go home.

As soon as he opened the front door of the flat, he knew the ghost was still there, but she didn’t seem to overwhelm him anymore. Now it was kind of soothing to feel her presence, to know he hadn’t dreamed her up in his fogged-out state. They might be able to co-exist until eventually he wouldn’t need to feel her any more. He had no idea when that would be.

He went back to work. He told McMurty about owning the business, nearly knocking the bloke past retirement into his final decline. They agreed to hire a new lead mechanic and Dan would come and go as he pleased rather than holding down a regular shift. McMurty kept looking at him and shaking his head in disbelief, but Dan liked it that he never apologised for riding him about jobs or favours. When he was at the garage he devoted himself to rebuilding Fluke’s Charger, not sparing any expense on finding parts, re-doing the interiors, and ordering customised spray painting. When he wasn’t at the garage, he surfed, moving beach to beach, chasing the best waves, spending hours out there, coming in only to get warm, eat, and go back out.

He called the boys and all was forgiven. They didn’t talk about it, just accepted he was ok, back from whatever self destructive head space he’d been in. But he knew he had work to do with them. He’d been strange and weird and freaked them out, and they didn’t share Jeff’s conviction things were back to normal. Neither did he. He was still a wreck, a work in progress, and he wasn’t yet road worthy.

The day Fluke’s car was ready to test drive he called Mitch and they went for a burn.

Mitch stroked his hand covetously over the white leather interior. “Flukey’s going to freak out. So am I, right now, if you don’t let me drive her. Pull the hell over. Why won’t you take any more than the bet money from Ant and me?”

“I don’t need it. Fluke’s bet money goes into rego and insurance and despite how Jimmy trashed my finances I’ve got money in the bank.”

“How much?”

“Rude bugger.”

Mitch grunted his instruction to pull over. When they’d changed seats and Mitch was behind the wheel and back in the traffic, Dan said, “I thought we might go into business.”

Mitch’s head did a quarter-turn until he was staring at Dan.

“If you smash this girl on the first ride, I’ll have you.”

Mitch looked back at the road ahead. “This car’s no girl; she’s all woman. Now what the fuck are you talking about?”

“You and me and McMurty’s.”

“Listening and driving. Enjoying the wheels more.”

“It’s prime real estate. It should be units or town houses, maybe with a shop or a restaurant where the garage is now.”

“What about the garage?”

“Move it somewhere off the main drag – it doesn’t need to be so central and it could do with more space. I want to start classes there for kids to learn basic mechanics like I did.”

“Whoa, whoa. Slow down.” Mitch stop-signed a hand at him. “I’m still coming to terms with you as a property baron and now you’re going to be a friggin’ teacher? I know the money you made mining was stupid good, but I thought you just had the block of flats.”

“I did at first. But I got lucky, bought in when prices were low. I took a big risk on the garage and I’m still running a bunch of loans, but we could make some serious fuck-off money if we get this property development idea up.”

Mitch’s jumping eyebrows registered ‘fuck-off money’ and ‘we’. “Us?”

“Yeah, that’s what this is about. I want you and me to do this. You build it.”

“You’ve got to be joking. I do renovations, the occasional house from the ground up. You need proper development experience.”

“I want to do this with you. We’ll learn what we need. We’ll hire the expertise. We don’t have to do anything quickly. McMurty wants two more years of income from the garage before he retires, and what I get out of that helps with the loans. We’ve got two years to work out what we need and get ready.”

“You’re serious?”

Dan shook his head, amused at the way Mitch’s voice kicked up an octave. “Maybe not. I didn’t think you were this dense.”

“Not dense. Rocked, you know. A month ago Ant and Fluke were convinced you were going to top yourself.”

“You weren’t?”

Mitch’s face broke into a wreath of smile. “Nah. You’re the toughest bastard I know. And now you’re a property developer.”

“I’m not anything yet. I need to go learn a heap of stuff before I know what I can do, and I need to keep paying the loans off. But I’d rather do this and fail with you than anything else I can think of.”

“Holy fuck, you are serious.” Mitch started laughing, banging his hand on the steering wheel, some joke only he got. He glanced across at Dan and laughed again. “You know what’s funny? Hmm, no you don’t. Ah, fuck it. Alex thinks you’re a blue collar loser with no ambition.”

Dan turned his head to watch out the passenger window and an awkward silence filled the cabin of the Charger, making the throaty purr of the engine all the more pronounced. If she thought that, she’d moved way past blaming herself. That was a good thing, but it stung like a bluebottle to hear it, an electric buzz that bit into his still raw emotions.

“Have you seen her?”

“Nope. Mate, I’d tell you if I had. Got it from Bel.”

“I guess she’s over me then.” He kept his face turned to the window. He’d wanted the wheel back a moment ago, but now all he wanted was something he couldn’t have.

“Sounds like it.” Mitch played the brake, pressing down, backing off, pressing down, backing off, sending the driver behind them into advanced road rage.

“Don’t tell anyone about this McMurty’s thing. It’s just you and me til we know what we’re doing.”

Mitch grinned though he knew Dan was in a funk now. The idea of building something seriously big with Dan was out-of-this-world huge. “Got it. Don’t want to jinx it,” then he added, “still think you might be using,” and when Dan responded with, “Fuck off,” he knew he’d done the right thing telling him about Alex.

Alex knew they’d danced beautifully. She also knew they’d faced a wave of disappointment from the female fans that Dan wasn’t in the arena. She had to keep reminding herself it wasn’t a popularity contest. Ferdy and Gina had danced superbly. They’d appeared flawless, but cold and unlikable in their perfection. Brad and Anna were simply darling: bright, engaging, fun, and so obviously wrapped up with each other. They were behind Ferdy and Gina on points, but the new favourites.

“Brad and Anna are getting better every time we see them. They deserve to win this,” said Scott, taking the words out of her mouth.

“It’s like watching magic.”

Gran reached for her hand. “You and Scott were terrific too.”

“But not like them. You can see how much they enjoy being together.”

“Like you and Dan.”

“Gran,” said Alex. It was a caution, the repeat of a much issued ‘don’t go there’ instruction.

“I’m not about to forget how terrific you both were together, even if you are. And I know you miss him.”

“I don’t miss him anymore.”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?”

“A hopeless romantic.”

“Not hopeless. Never hopeless. Tell me what was wrong with him again?”

Alex sighed and ticked off the list. “He’s a player. He uses women. He used me. He never finished school. He has no career and no ambition. His father is a drunk and killed two people in a smash, orphaned two kids. He’s in gaol now for all I know. His family are users, drinkers, brawlers, and womanisers. Let me know when you want me to stop.”

Gran hmmed between closed lips. “I never thought you’d penalise someone for their family or look down on them for their lack of education. You must think I’m terrible. I never finished school. I never had a career. My husband was a drug addict, alcoholic, wife beater. I suffered terrible depression and couldn’t even look after myself. And my daughter is an unmarried mother.”

Alex inhaled sharply, and on her other side, Scott said, “Smack!”

“He dumped me remember,” she said defensively, but her voice cracked and she felt her cheeks flush the purple of deep embarrassment.

“I love you, Alex, but I think you’re being very silly.”

As Alex hastily excused herself, her hand over her mouth, Gwen looked at Scott. “Too much?”

Scott shook his head. “Just right.”

Gwen turned in her seat to see if she could find Alex. “She’s so stubborn.”

“I wonder where she gets that from,” said Scott, getting to his feet to go find her.

Alex was sitting in the empty back row of the stadium. Huddled into herself, she should’ve brought a cardigan. She was icy at the thought of the judgements she’d been making. She’d penalised Dan for his family and his lack of schooling and that was unfair, grossly unfair, but what did it matter? He’d called it off. It’s not like she’d had a choice or had seen it coming. All was fair in love and war, wasn’t it?

So what if she was unfair to him?

But he was making a liar out of her, and that wasn’t something she was proud of. Because she did miss him, more than she missed sleeping through the night without waking, or food she could keep down, or enough air to breathe.

Missed the sight of him, that unruly hair, those deep blue eyes, the feel of his hands, calloused from his work but so gentle, and the sound of his hot coffee voice, laughing, whispering, teasing. She missed him asking questions and really listening to the answers, remembering what she’d said. She missed his attention and his humour and his kindness. She missed the way he made her feel, like she was the centre of his universe.

The feeling had sharpened as their time apart grew. It felt like hunger, a gut awful emptiness, a slight nausea, and a metallic taste stamped on her tongue.

When she looked up from her misery, Scott was coming up the stairs two at a time. He threw himself into the plastic chair beside her.

“If I had a grandma like Gwen, I’d probably be straight and married with three kids by now.”

That made Alex smile. “She’s right. I’m being too hard on Dan.”

“He did the dumping, Alley cat.”

“Don’t you go soft on me. You told me to go fight for him.”

Scott propped his feet on the back of the seat in front. “I took him for a Neanderthal, then I changed my mind, but he hurt you and I don’t like that, so I’m just as confused as you are.”