The Boys of Summer (9 page)

But until then, forced to endure everyone
else enjoying their holidays, the afternoon dragged on. I couldn’t
stop myself from turning each time the front door opened, my heart
skipping a beat in hope, but the Onslow Boys never appeared. I
guessed that they had better things to do on a Sunday afternoon. I
could only hope they’d venture out when the sun went down.

At shift’s end, we bolted down the hill in a
highly unlady-like fashion, bags bouncing on our shoulders, arms
flailing, breaths laboured. Our minds focused solely on reaching
McLean’s Beach at the hottest part of the day. It would be crowded
and overrun, no doubt, but not so much by tourists. The beauty of
Maclean’s Beach was that it was always crowded by locals rather
than tourists, just the way we liked it. Although I would often
complain about tourists, I did get it. How could I not? My parents
constantly reminded me.

“No tourists, no livelihood, Tess.”

Mum and Dad’s cafe on the main strip of Perry
– a direct line into Onslow – proved to be the perfect busy
stopover. Mum was an excellent cook, taught from Gran and no doubt
her Gran before her. She specialised in traditional family
home-cooked recipes and Mum’s homemade pies were a big hit. It had
made my heart clench when the Onslow Boys gave them the tick of
approval as the ‘best pies in town’. I wondered if Mum would
remember them coming in. I’d have to ask in a way that wouldn’t
make her suspicious or have me sound like a stalker.

As time ticked on towards the dinner shift,
Ellie and I packed up our towels we had stretched out on for an
afternoon sunbaking session and headed for the hotel. We walked
past the mechanics, where I knew Toby worked. Naturally, it was
closed on Sunday, but I did have the slightest hope that Toby might
have been in there, anyway. He could be doing a bit of weekend
catch-up. Being a sweltering summer afternoon and all, if he was in
there, he’d most likely be shirtless. Hey, it was my fantasy.

My gaze skimmed the exterior of the closed
building. Faded block lettering read ‘Matthew & Son’ on the
tangerine and blue workshop. Toby’s dad, Matthew Morrison, had been
the local mechanic for as long as I could remember. It was where
everyone went. Since he was the only mechanic in town he could have
named his price, but he was a real decent bloke and always charged
reasonably. Or so my dad said. I squinted at the sign; it should
have really read ‘Matthew & Sons’ seeing as Toby and his older
brother, Michael, both worked there. That in itself was a real
testament to their dad. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love my
parents, but I could
never
work for them. And believe me,
they had tried. One of the upsides of working at the Onslow was my
parents stopped pestering me. They seemed pleased enough that I had
stepped out of my comfort zone and was trying, at least. One look
at my lacklustre waitressing skills, and they would probably thank
their lucky stars I’d never agreed to work for them.

“Well, look at you.”

Ellie gave me a side-on look.

“What?”

“Checking out Toby Morrison’s workshop. It’s
Sunday, Tess, he’ll be long gone.”

I should never have told her about liking
Toby. She was like a dog with a bone. Even more frightening was the
scheming matchmaking side to Ellie that I knew she’d lose control
of sooner or later. Probably sooner. Ugh, why had I told her?

She frowned at me. “What’s stopping you? Tell
me one good reason why you won’t go there, Tess.”

We crossed the main street, leaving Matthew
& Son behind.

I half laughed at her. “One? Ha! I’ll give
you five!”

“Go on, then!”

I held up my thumb to begin the count.

“One! Before two days ago, I am pretty sure
he didn’t even know that I existed.”

Although he did know my last name.

“Two! And this is a pretty big one: he’s
what? Twenty-two? And I’m seventeen. You do the maths.”

Ellie shrugged. “Maths isn’t my strong
point.”

It was five years too many.

“Three! He is
Toby Morrison
. Popular,
gorgeous, charming … and I am TIC TAC TESS.”

Ellie sighed. “You’re struggling.”

“Four! He works, I’m still at school. I doubt
he would be interested in coming to Deb practice.”

Ellie rolled her eyes stubbornly. “I must
say, I’m still unconvinced.”

“And number five,” I breathed out. I had a
horrible suspicion. Although I hoped it might not have been true, I
seriously doubted it. “Number five,” I said again, “Toby has a
girlfriend.”

And her name was Angela Vickers.

You would have had to live on another planet
to not know Angela Vickers. 5’10”, blonde, hard to miss. She was
School Captain when I was in Year Ten, and, oh, how all the boys
mooned over her, with her perky blonde hair and perfect perky
breasts. None of which would have mattered, only that even the
likes of Toby Morrison was obviously not immune to her or her
assets. It bewildered me that Toby was like all the other
predictable males when he seemed so different from them. I had been
in love with Toby ever since the first time I saw him.

At the end of Grade Six, all students from
Perry Primary were taken for a one-day orientation at Onslow High
School. We all gathered around like sheep staring in wonder at the
‘big league’ we were about to enter after our summer holidays. I
was drawn to the burst of laugher that had me turning to see a boy,
a boy with the most brilliant smile I had ever seen. I decided I
simply had to know his name, and then, like a gift, one of the boys
he was laughing with said it.

Toby Morrison.

I found out that his dad owned the mechanic
shop in town, so any chance I had, I would deliberately walk past
it hoping for just a glimpse or to cross paths with him. My heart
was all aflutter with the sight of him, and merely the thought of
him was what had me anxious to start high school, to the point I
started marking down the days on my calendar.

Of course, I learned the hard way that he was
in Year Twelve and had graduated by the time I started high school.
So that was that. My crush on Toby faded away and life went on,
even if I did always think of that smile every time I walked past
his dad’s shop.

For the next few years, I saw him only every
now and then at the Sunday markets or more fleetingly down lakeside
with his mates. It was by pure chance one time, when I was
fourteen, that I walked past Matthew & Son and saw him out the
front in grease-stained overalls, talking to a customer about their
car. He looked older, his hair longer, hands covered in greasy
remnants of a hard day’s work.

He was working for his dad!
And I
nearly ran into a pole.

My heart had pounded just as it had that
first time at orientation. My secret crush was just that, an utter
secret. I told no one; I didn’t even confide in Ellie or Adam.
Especially not Ellie. I was always terrified about confiding in her
over my secret crushes as I’d learned from experience that it
usually resulted in her marching up to the boy I liked and
blatantly grilling them with the most obvious question of all: “So
what do you think of Tess McGee?”

So Toby had become a non-negotiable secret,
for the years that followed I would obsess about him only to
myself. Until one infamous day in Year Ten woodwork when the latest
rumour had circulated to my table. The big news that Angela Vickers
was going out with the mechanic’s hot son. My heart withered at the
thought, and, just for the record, bad news during woodwork is not
ideal; I nearly lost a finger that day. I had to accept it: the
Angela Vickers of this world would always get the boy, and I would
always be Tic Tac Tess.

But then, at the Onslow Hotel I wasn’t Tic
Tac Tess anymore, I was just Tess or McGee. I was like anyone else.
The horrors of high school would soon become nothing more than a
distant memory, even if that was little comfort to me now.

“Toby has a girlfriend?” Ellie asked. “No, he
doesn’t. Who?”

I sighed. “Yeah, perfect Angela.”

“Oh yeah, we hate her,” Ellie said.

For the smallest of moments, I had forgotten.
Like when he stepped out of the darkness at the party, or the way
he looked at me when I brought the meals into the bar, or the feel
of his hand touching mine. No doubt I had over-analysed his every
movement, his every facial expression, but I’m allowed to. That’s
what girls do. For those fleeting moments, however, I had managed
to forget all about Angela Vickers.

“So they’re still together?” Ellie asked.

“I see her car parked at his place all the
time,” I said.

Ellie gasped. “What are you doing outside his
house? You total stalker!”

“Shut up!” I said, blushing. I could feel the
familiar burn in my legs as we started our climb up towards the
Onslow. “It’s not like that. His place just happens to be on the
main road to Perry. It’s kind of hard to miss.”

You had to crane your neck and look really
hard, of course, but I would leave that little fact out. I knew
Toby had his own place, though I didn’t know how I knew. It was
like knowing Sean’s name or Stan’s name. You don’t know how you
know, you just know. It’s what’s part and parcel of living in a
town with a population of less than 3000; you knew all kinds of
irrelevant stuff about each and every one of them. Toby’s place was
a mission brown shack, set back off the main road with a long
sweeping driveway hidden amongst immense bushland. Even though it
was set back and private, you could always tell if he was home. His
navy Ford ute parked in the drive or, worst case scenario, Angela’s
red Lancer parked behind it. He had lived there since he was in
Year Twelve, and I thought it was so grown up that he moved out of
home, unlike most eighteen-year-olds in town.

I tried to imagine what the inside of his
house was like, or if he could cook and use the washing machine. I
would imagine that he would be pretty good with his hands, seeing
as he fixed cars for a living. All of the little quirks I had been
obsessing about since I was thirteen were now back in the forefront
of my mind. And admittedly, I had never felt so unhappy about
it.

I walked towards the Onslow Hotel kitchen,
ready to assume my station at the sink.

I thought I would save Chris the trouble of
banishing me to the kitchen, and instead I used some initiative and
went on my merry way. If you could call it that. But I was merry; I
had taken off the remnants of last night’s battered French nail
polish, I was working my Guinness shirt with a non-offensive skirt
instead of leggings, and I had even managed a bit of colour from
the afternoon spent at McLean’s Beach with Ellie. There was nothing
like a healthy dose of vitamin D and the beginnings of a tan to
boost your spirits. As I pushed through the swinging kitchen door,
ready to greet cranky Melba and crazy Rosanna, I was met instead
with a set of glaring blue eyes.

Eyes that were attached to Amy, Uncle Eric’s
fifteen-year-old only daughter. She was elbow deep in dishwater and
stared me down with dagger eyes.

“Oh, hey,” I said, “Amy, isn’t it?” I smiled
politely and wondered why she was there until Chris stuck his head
into the kitchen.

“Tess, you’re on the floor tonight.”

Bewildered, I looked from Chris to Amy and
back again, my surprise evident.

“Really?”

“Really,” he said. “Unless you think you
might suffer from separation anxiety from Melba and Rosanna?”

“NO!” I shouted, probably a bit too
readily.

Chris smiled. “I didn’t think so. Come on,
Amy’s gonna take your place.”

I looked back at Amy, ready to offer her a
smile, but her glare deepened and I side-stepped away. Wow. I was
on the floor again. Guess I didn’t do as badly last night as I
thought. And this time I was determined not to stuff it up.

***

“What is this?” A long, immaculately
manicured fingernail pointed to their plate.

I tilted my head and leaned down a little to
have a closer inspection.

“Uh … a piece of capsicum?”

“And what was it that I specifically asked
not
to be served?” She gave me a hard stare, as I fumbled
through the backlog of dockets in my booklet.

“Oh, uh …” There it was, clear as day,
scrawled in block letters.

NO CAPSICUM! I fought not to cringe.

“I’m sorry, did you want me to change it for
you?”

The lady rolled her eyes at her friends.

“No, I think you have done quite enough.” Her
voice dripped with sarcasm. I skulked away. Wow, it was amazing how
a rather upbeat day can be torn down within a blink of an eye.

Ellie met me at the cutlery drawer.

“Don’t worry, Tess, I have something that
will make you forget all about Cruella de Vil over there.”

“Capsicum spray?” I asked in hope.

Ellie frowned, confused momentarily, but she
shook out of it and plastered on a big grin as she handed me a
docket.

“Take care of this, would ya, babe?”

She sauntered off to wait on the next table.
In my hand sat a crinkled piece of paper. A dinner order for the
Onslow Boys decorated with love hearts. It was then I realised the
distant pulse of the jukebox through the wall; it was nothing
compared to the beat of my heart.

There was a lull in dinner service, which had
me anxiously awaiting the sound of the bell to tell me the order
was up. I paced within earshot; twenty minutes went by before I
heard that magical ding. I slid sideways as I overshot the kitchen
door in my haste. Elegance and grace, as always.

I was there before Rosanna spiked the order
as done. She wiped the perspiration from her brow and curved the
other at me.

“I see the Onslow Boys have made quite an
impression on you girls.”

I tried not to smile; even Rosanna was
calling them the Onslow Boys. I plastered on my best poker face,
attempting to appear cool and casual even though I had never been
so eager to deliver two Chicken Parmagianas in my life.