The Boys of Summer (20 page)

Sean and Toby walked in the open door heading
straight for the main bar. I paused outside and Adam hovered,
waiting for me as I dialed my mobile.

Ellie’s phone went straight to voice message,
and I sighed in irritation as I waited for the beep.

“If you received this message I can only
assume you haven’t been murdered and buried in a shallow grave
somewhere. It’s 11.40 and I’m heading home.”

“How you getting home?” Adam asked.

“It’s a nice night.” I shrugged. “I’ll
walk.”

“And you’re worried about
Ellie
being
murdered.”

“I’ll be fine, I’ve done it a million times
from yours and Ellie’s houses before.”

“That wasn’t quite so far.”

“Stop being an old woman.”

“I can’t help it, I’ve been hanging with one
for too long.”

“Well, you are who you hang with.”

“Well, in that case don’t go turning into an
Onslow Boy, you’re too pretty for that.”

“I don’t need to turn into one, I’m dating
one, apparently.”

Adam grimaced. “Yeah, well, that’s going to
be around like wild fire by tomorrow. Hope no one congratulates
your parents for gaining a new twenty-two-year-old son-in-law.”

My smile dropped from my face. “Oh God. I
didn’t think of that.”

Adam nodded. “Oh, I did.”

I bit my lip. “Man, if Mum and Dad hear that,
I’ll have my arm in a plaster cast like yours with ‘grounded for
all eternity’ marked on it.”

“And Sean will be fish food.”

“Or pie filling.” I cringed.

“I’ll walk you home.”

“No, no, no … You’re on a good behaviour
bond, remember. Just stay here, I’ll be fine. Most of the moon is
up. It’s light and a nice night. I’ll be okay.”

“I’ll get Chris to run you home.”

“Will you stop? Chris is busy. I. Will. Be.
Fine.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Goodnight.”

“What, no tongue?” He smiled wickedly.

“Shut up! Or I’ll get my big
twenty-two-year-old footy-playing boyfriend to beat the crap out of
you.”

Adam imitated Scott to a T, fidgeting and
gulping in a convulsive way that had me laughing until it hurt.

“Night, Bozo.” I backed away, knowing that if
I didn’t he would talk me into letting him walk me home. He looked
at me with an uncertain frown on his face.

“Text me a progress report on the way home, I
want landmarks and updates until your foot is in your front door,
you hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Once again, I made my way down Coronary Hill,
leaving the distant weekend noises of the hotel behind me. I
managed one look back when I reached the bottom; Adam was a speck
on the verandah silhouetted by golden light. I knew he would stay
there until I was out of sight. As soon as I made my way around the
bend and hit Main Street, I texted him.

To: Adam

Turned a corner happy now?

He texted back.

To: Tess

Yes! Now go on, git!

I strolled leisurely along Main Street.
Onslow was relatively well lit in this part of town, but the moon
hung like a beacon lighting the way in darker spots, and I never
once felt afraid. I knew this town like the back of my hand, it was
as much a part of me as was the smaller territory of Perry which
housed nothing more than a milk bar, a post office, and Mum and
Dad’s cafe on the edge.

I texted Adam again as promised.

To: Adam

Brimstone Street. Still alive.

There were still a couple of cars around,
mostly young joy riders, but they paid me little attention, their
music up full, probably headed for McLean’s Beach or up to the
Point to go parking.

It took me no time to make it to the fluro
lights of the 24-hour Caltex. I texted Adam the breakthrough.

To: Adam

Pit stop at the Caltex. Yay!!

I perused the shelves, but didn’t find
anything of interest. I went to the ladies’ room where the fluro
lights continued, highlighting the dark circles under my eyes from
smudged eyeliner and my hair all curled with the humidity of the
night. I saw very little point in making any touch-ups aside from
my lip smacker. As I went to dry my hands with the towel dispenser
I glanced to my right and froze midstep. There, mounted on the
wall, was the condom vending machine. It brought back a memory of
when Ellie and I had come in here one afternoon after being at the
lake all day. We were in Year Seven and we saw this very same
machine. We dared each other to put in some coinage and get one out
each. We giggled while we did the unthinkable. We held the silver
foiled wrappers in our hands like it was this wondrous, mysterious
thing, which it was. Then Ellie said we should have a competition,
see who would be the first one with a chance to use it. She was all
wide eyed in excitement.

“Okay,” I agreed, feeling like a daredevil,
even though we both knew Ellie would win. I hadn’t even kissed a
boy, whereas Ellie definitely had. We giggled as we got one for
Adam as a joke. We put them in our Hang Ten wallets, bought ice
creams and went on our merry way. That night at dinner I couldn’t
take my mind off the ‘thing’ in my wallet. It felt like it was
burning through my pocket. The very sin of it. I was so sure Mum
and Dad knew what I was up to. I didn’t eat much, for the fear of
looking them in the eye. After tea, I went straight to my room and
took the foil square out of my wallet and hid it in the shoebox
with all of my other keepsakes that I hid in the back of my
wardrobe. I breathed a sigh of relief, but jumped out of my skin
when Mum knocked on the door.

“Tess hon,
Monkey Magic
is on.” If I
didn’t go and watch my favourite show like I did every other night,
they would definitely know something was up.

For weeks, every night before I went to bed,
I peeped into my shoebox, secretly smiling at the thrill of
rebellion I felt by possessing something so forbidden. I didn’t
know how Ellie felt, although I knew for a fact she carried it with
her because she was bragging to the girls in the school toilets and
showing them.

Adam, on the other hand, thought it hilarious
and broke straight into it as we sat on the banks of Lake Onslow in
our secret place we used to go swimming and fishing. He thought it
brilliant to put over his head and blow it up so it expanded into a
big white dome.

“You really are a dickhead, Adam,” Ellie had
laughed, which caused him to laugh and the condom went flying off
his head. I picked it up with a stick, Ellie and I both looking at
it with wide, horrified eyes at the sheer size of it. I gulped and
we both tilted our heads in wonder.

“Surely it’s stretched.” Ellie looked on in
distaste.

Adam was lying on his back, squinting at the
wrapper.

“It says extra extra large,” he sighed. “Gee,
I hope it fits.”

He threw a cheeky smile our way.

“It does not say that,” I snatched it off
him.

He just shrugged, put his hands behind his
head and closed his eyes, lying in the sun. It was then that my
breath hitched as I read the packet.

“What does it say?” Ellie whispered, moving
closer, balancing the parachute on her stick. I swallowed hard and
looked at Ellie in dismay.

“It says regular,” I whispered, and we both
turned to look at the limp white rubber thing on the end of the
stick.

“Jesus!”

I smiled at the memory of how excited we had
been over such a thing. Ellie now popped coins in it like it was a
gumball machine. I even noticed Adam’s flash of the infamous square
foil in his wallet when he paid for things.

I knew Adam had done it when he went out with
Nicky Briggs last year for eight months. They were all over each
other, and he was forever catching the bus to her house after
school. I was secretly jealous of Nicky taking up so much of Adam’s
time and when I overheard Nicky and Adam had done it, I
unexpectedly felt a deep misery. I felt like I was the last
standing virgin alive. Which was actually most likely true.

I put a coin in the slot and pulled the
lever, then grabbed the foil packet that fell out. A different kind
of thrill surged through me as I held it now. When I was in Year
Seven, I often wondered who my first would be, but never really
into the scary technicalities like I did now. Ellie often told me
details of her being with boys, and although it embarrassed me, I
was also fascinated at the same time.

“Does it hurt?”

“At first,” she had said, “but then it’s
better and better.” She smiled dreamily. “Honestly, Tess, you don’t
know what you’re missing out on.”

I placed the condom in the inner pocket of my
handbag where I kept my compact. I didn’t exactly want anyone to
recognise that unmistakable flash of silver that I had seen in
boys’ wallets all over Onslow. And then I thought, what difference
did it make? According to the population, as of tomorrow, I had
been sleeping with Sean Murphy. My stomach did a little flip at the
thought of being so intimate with the likes of Sean. I shook my
head; hanging around condom vending machines was sending me crazy.
That or the fluro lighting.

As the automatic doors opened, and I stepped
out of the Caltex, I froze stock still. A familiar navy Ford ute
was parked in front of the shop. It was unmistakable, as its owner
was leaning casually against the car door, his arms folded with
almost an air or amusement, as if to say, “Fancy meeting you
here.”

“Adam said you were walking home, nice night
for a murder.”

I rolled my eyes. Traitor.

“What is with you guys and murder?”

“I watch
Crime Stoppers
.”

“Yeah, well, so do I and apparently
Mafia-affiliated men driving navy pickup utes are to be avoided at
all costs.”

“Is that so?” he smirked. He was back.

“Afraid so.” I tried not to give up my smile
so easily, but it was difficult when his was so damn
contagious.

He raised his brows, sighed and straightened
from his casual lean to shoving his hands in his pockets, glancing
back at his ute.

“Well, this is awkward.”

He walked to the passenger door and opened
it, waving his hand in the direction of the interior.

“Deal’s a deal!”

I looked down at my feet. “Um …”

“If you’re wondering about my drinking, I was
drinking Coke for the last four hours. I’m good to go.”

Had he really? I frowned, trying to remember
the pool game at Stan’s, but other things must have distracted me.
Every time I looked at Toby, it wasn’t to check out what he was
drinking.

“You didn’t not drink because of me, did
you?”

That caught him off guard. He glanced at the
Caltex roof, his shoes, then back at me.

“Well, a deal’s a deal.”

My shoulders slumped, mortified. He had
sacrificed a night out with his mates to play chauffeur to me
because of our stupid bet. I bit my lip; the look of dismay must
have been all over my face.

“Hey, Tess, I don’t mind, it’s no big
deal.”

“I didn’t want to ruin your night.”

“You didn’t,” he said earnestly.

“I feel awful, I don’t mean for you to think
that –”

“Tess!”

He cut off my rambling and pointed.

“Get in the bloody car.”

I was in Toby’s car. Again!

We drove around the streets of Onslow with
the windows wound down, the summer breeze blowing my hair.

José Feliciano was on the radio crooning out
his version of ‘California Dreaming’ and I thought I would die from
happiness. I looked at Toby’s profile as we pulled up to the only
set of lights in the whole town, and he tapped his fingers on the
steering wheel.

He caught me watching him. “What?” he
smirked.

The breeze had been cool on my skin but now
we had stopped, the warmth in the air came back to me.

I looked at him, really looked at him. The
glow of the streetlights behind him … I didn’t know what to say. My
gaze flicked to the bow of his lips, and I quickly glanced
away.

I looked at my hands that fidgeted in my lap.
“So you’re not mad at me anymore?”

Before he could respond a sounding horn
blasted from behind us. The lights had changed, rocking Toby into
motion. As we moved our way forward and back into the present, my
phone rang and Adam flashed up on the screen.

“Hello?”

“Are you a ghost speaking from the
afterlife?”

Toby threw me a questioning look. I mouthed
‘Adam’, then realised maybe he was still trying to decipher what I
had just said to him. Something I regretted as soon as the words
left my mouth, that’s what. I was after affirmation, the kind only
insecure teenage girls would ask for, and that was the last thing I
wanted to come across as.

I rolled my eyes. “That’s right! And I am
going to haunt you for the rest of your days.”

“You hadn’t checked in so I thought I would …
what’s that noise?”

“I’m hitchhiking.”

There was a moment’s silence on the phone,
and then he twigged.

“Toby found you!”

“Yes, you dibber dobber.”

“Hey, don’t blame me, when I said you had
walked home he basically accosted me and then high-tailed it after
you. I said if I knew you, you would stop at the Caltex for junk
food.”

“Oh, you think you know me, huh? Well, it so
happens I didn’t buy a thing.”

Condom! Condom! Condom!

“Nothing from a certain vending machine?” His
voice was teasing. I nearly dropped my mobile switching to the
other ear away from Toby. Damn him! We had been friends for too
long.

“No!” I said a little too high-pitched.

Adam chuckled on the end of the phone. “You
so did! And you can’t even blame it on Ellie this time.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Oh, hang on a minute.” There were muffled
voices followed by scratching and static.