The Boys of Summer (6 page)

Scott pursed his lips together and screwed
his face up in an over-the-top action that made him look ugly.

“I have a confesshion to make, Tesh.”

“That you’re an asshole?” I said.

He dramatically waved my sentence away and
stumbled into me so he could whisper into my ear, which came out as
more of a drool.

“I love you. I alwaysh have, alwaysh will.
Hic
!”

Oh, vomit!

Maybe that saying was wrong; maybe a drunk
person just spoke bullshit. That’s what I counted on, but then I
saw the raw look in his eyes.

Oh God, was he welling up?

“Why did you break up with me? Do you think I
want to be mean to you? You jusht give me no choish.”

Before I could retort, I saw his lips pout
and they came in for the kill.

Oh no no no …

I tried to maneuver away, but he had me
literally backed into a wall, and past Scott’s face that loomed
towards mine, out of the corner of my eye I saw that we had caught
a group of people’s attention. We had caught Toby’s attention.

I wanted to die a small death.

Oh, urgh, Scott Miller’s tongue was in my
mouth. How did this happen? I pushed into his chest with all the
force I could muster.

“Get off me, you creep!”

“Aw, come on, Tesh.”

He reached for me again but stopped short. He
spun around as an almighty crack sounded from behind him, followed
by screams and chaos. The music stopped, panic set in as everyone
looked around and wondered what had happened.

That’s when I heard it, the sound that made
my blood run cold, a sound so loud it could be heard above all
others. Adam’s agonised scream.

“
Pool tables are not meant to be danced
on”

My dad’s disapproving frown pierced us in his
rearview mirror, where Ellie and I sat slumped in the back seat.
They had been woken in the middle of the night with a reluctant
phone call to pick us up from the hospital. After the initial
panic, relief soon followed in the knowledge that we were
unscathed. Well, mostly unscathed.

“Poor Adam,” said Mum, more to herself than
anyone else. “He looked as white as a sheet.”

I fought not to burst out in hysterical
laughter as I thought to myself,
yeah, whiter than his filthy
Toga sheet
. Thankfully, I managed to control myself.

I was exhausted. We dropped Ellie off at
home, and I nodded off by the time we made it to our house. I was
jolted awake by the slamming of a car door, and managed to stumble
my way inside and crash into bed.

The only thing that had me escaping my
parents’ fury was that I hadn’t actually done anything wrong. I had
scared them half to death by calling them from the hospital, sure,
but I needed them to look at the bigger picture: I wasn’t drinking
or smoking or acting irresponsibly (aside from Scott’s tongue in my
mouth but that was
not
my fault).

I must have looked troubled at breakfast the
next morning, because Mum gripped my shoulders and gave them a
reassuring squeeze.

“Adam’s going to be fine, honey.”

Oh yeah, Adam.

Guilt seeped into me at the thought that Adam
had not exactly been in the forefront of my mind. Poor Adam! He had
been joyously rocking out when the pool table broke in half. He had
done so well to balance and not fall over his Toga, which he’d
ended up tucking into his shorts, offering partygoers a sight that
could never be unseen. But no, it was not the Toga that had been
responsible for breaking his arm in two places.

“I spoke to his mum this morning,” Mum said
as she topped up my juice glass.

I straightened in my seat for the update.
“What did she say?”

“Adam was pretty drunk last night.” Dad
looked up from his newspaper, his eyes bored into me as if I was
being interrogated.

“I hadn’t seen Adam all night,” I defended.
“I was with Ellie.”

A fact that would not comfort my parents.
Over the past year, they had slowly started catching on that
Ellie’s taste wasn’t for alcohol, her taste was for boys. Ellie
wouldn’t be the sweet, little, church-going, accountant’s daughter
forever. Even parents talked, and, all of a sudden, I felt
uneasy.

Before the conversation could turn in a
direction I didn’t want it to, I excused myself from my parents’
knowing gazes. “Speaking of Ellie, I might just give her a call,” I
said. “You know, to see if she’s okay,” and I scurried from the
room.

One positive for Adam taking all the
attention was that Ellie seemed unperturbed by the fact that John
Medding was a giant douche bag.

Our telephone conversation was dominated by
Adam and what had happened last night (minus my Toby encounter),
but then it moved on to far less desirable topics.

“So what was with you and Scott? Seriously,
Tess, what the fuck?” Ellie’s angry voice pierced through the
receiver.

“Ugh, I know!”

I threw myself back on my bed wanting to
erase the entire memory of last night. Well, perhaps not the
entire
memory. I thought back to Toby appearing out of the
dark – the blue, yellow and red flashing disco lights shining on
his beautiful smile. Me stumbling rather inelegantly off the
bonnet. I cringed.
So classy!
At least I hadn’t burst into
tears, that was something.

“Hey, did you notice some older people at the
party?”

Ellie replied in a manner that had me
imagining her shrug. “Older, younger, it wasn’t just a Year Eleven
break up, I think anyone was invited.”

“But why would you want to go to a Year
Eleven break up?”

“Tess, it’s Onslow. People go to the opening
of an envelope; seriously, what else is there to do in this
town?”

“I suppose.” I wrapped the cord around my
fingers as I lay on the bed.

The thought had never even occurred to me
that Adam wouldn’t be okay to work the next night, which I guess it
probably should have since he had a broken arm and everything. I
called him after I spoke to Ellie; we chatted about how much
trouble he was in and if he was in any pain. It all seemed so
normal, so natural. So when “see you tomorrow night” was met with
awkward silence from Adam, a newfound dread swept over me.

“You are going to work tomorrow night,
right?”

More silence.

“Adam?”

“I’m sorry, Tess, I won’t be able to.”

I sat up straight on my bed, alarm settling
in.

“Sunday?”

“Tess, how can I wash dishes with a plaster
cast?”

“I don’t know! Rubber gloves? Surely there
must be something else you can do?”

Adam sighed. “It’s not just that. Mum and Dad
are pretty pissed at me. They think I broke my arm because I was
drinking. They went on and on about it. Not to mention Mum’s ruined
sheets.”

“Pfft, I told you,” I groaned.

“Anyway, they don’t have a great deal of
trust in me; they say I have to earn it back. And they don’t
exactly want me surrounded by alcohol at the hotel.”

My silence echoed down the phone. “So? When
will you come back to work?”

“I’m not going to, Tess. I’m not allowed.” I
could hear the regret in his voice.

But that did little to appease me. “What?!
What do you mean you’re not working?”

“Mum and Dad are sending me to my nan’s house
in the city. They said that it will do me good to get out of
Onslow, but I know that they just want me to be a slave to my
nan.”

“How long for?”

“Until my cast comes off – six weeks.”

“Six weeks! Adam, that’s the whole summer
holidays!”

“I know, I know,” he said, “believe me, I
know.”

I should have felt sorry for him, a whole hot
summer imprisoned at his nan’s house. Unable to go swimming in the
lake, hanging out with friends, working at the Onslow Hotel that he
had looked forward to all semester. All his summer plans gone, just
like that. I
should
have felt sorry for him. But I didn’t. I
didn’t feel any ounce of pity except for myself.

This was not what had been sold to me as a
summer we would ‘never forget’. “You, me and McGee,” he had said.
Now I was stuck in a job every weekend for the whole summer.
Without Adam, it wouldn’t be the same. Adam was like the buffer,
always there to cling to when Ellie would wander off with some new
boy. Adam was always there to make me laugh, or vandalise a locker
for me in the name of revenge. He was my anchor, how could I do it
without him?

Who would give me sympathetic looks every
time I came into the kitchen with a complaint? Who would punch me
in the arm after our shift and promise it would be better tomorrow,
even if it was a total lie? I felt lost. My hands clenched the
phone with a white-knuckled intensity. My heart sank with the
thought of walking into the Onslow Hotel tomorrow without him.

And then the anger set in.

“Well, I am so glad I did you a favour. I
really fancy whittling my summer weekends away in a pub infused
with cigarette smoke and rude tourists.”

“Tess, I’m sorry. This blows, I know. Believe
me – I would give anything to be there. The thought of taking my
nan grocery shopping while she counts out her change at the cash
register in five-cent pieces does nothing for me.”

Again, I had no pity. I would happily trade
places, but my days of doing Adam Henderson any favours were over.
Never again!

“Yeah, well, you have fun with that! I’ll
think of you with your sweet nan sipping cups of tea, while I get
abused and have to dodge a frying pan from crazy Rosanna.”

“Te…”

I slammed down the phone, cutting him off.
“Not interested.” I glared at the receiver.

***

“Poor Adam,” Ellie puffed as we made our way
slowly up Coronary Hill.

“Mmm,” I replied.

“Come on, Tess, he didn’t break his arm on
purpose.”

“Didn’t he?” I gave her a pointed look. I
knew I was sulking and being unreasonable, but Adam’s words echoed
in my memory: “The worst is over, it’s all downhill from here”.

How ironic, I thought, as I physically made
my way
up
the hill to my impending doom.

My heart clenched as I looked over Lake
Onslow. It was dotted with locals and tourists lapping up the
remainder of the dimming sun. They would stay out for as long as
the mozzie repellant lasted. It was a beautiful balmy evening,
perfect for enjoying the breeze that flowed off the lake on a
summer’s night. Instead, I was about to enter the Onslow Hotel,
which was like a giant tomb to me.

Ellie and I decided to mix it up. Instead of
entering the restaurant via the beer garden out back we walked
through the front bar entrance. It was five o’clock, so the place
was deserted save for the odd widowed drunk that had been propped
up at the bar surrounded by empty chip packets and pot glasses for
what looked like a rather productive day. Chris gave us a curt nod
as we made our way through the front bar to the restaurant.

“How’s Adam?” Ellie asked.

“He’ll live.” Chris took the empty beer glass
from his patron as a sign of being done – that, and the old fella
had nodded off at the bar.

“Time for a taxi, Ned, before the riff raff
get here,” Chris yelled, jolting Ned from his slumber.

“Taxi!” the old guy shouted.

Ellie and I exchanged glances and couldn’t
help but giggle as we walked through to the restaurant.

Melba was wiping down tables. “You’re
late!”

I looked at the clock on the wall; it was two
minutes past five.

“We were just …”

“Loitering in the bar, I know what you young
’uns are like, but I have news for you – there’ll be no jumping on
the bar or table top dancing or breaking bones on my watch, ya
hear?”

Oh goody! Another reason to hate us even
more.

Melba gave us directions to prep the dining
room before meals started at six. We busied ourselves to further
avoid her wrath and gave each other the odd smirk as we settled
into our work. It was then that Chris walked through the partition,
weaving his way through tables and chairs towards us.

“Melba, is it possible that you are looking
younger every time I see you?”

Melba scoffed, “Oh, you, quit it.” She waved
him away and quickly gathered up the extra tablecloths to carry
back to the kitchen, a ruby red blush creeping up her neck and
cheeks. My incredulous stare turned from Melba’s retreating figure
to Chris, who looked at me.

And there it was, that Henderson charm.

“What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

His face melted back to stone. “We have a
promotion going on this weekend, for the Irish Festival.”

“Ooh, to be sure, to be sure,” crooned Ellie
as she sidled up next to Chris, who all of a sudden looked uneasy.
He took a subtle step back.

“You’re to wear these as the uniform
tonight.”

“A uniform?” pouted Ellie.

“It’s only for the weekend.” Chris chucked us
both unnervingly small black tops, which I held up against my torso
with a gulp. Before I could question the size, Chris was gone.

“Come on, let’s get changed before Mad Melba
returns.”

I had thought I looked summery with my
leggings, ballerina flats and a long, flowy, dusty pink top.

That was before. I stood in front of the
full-length mirror in the ladies’ toilets, my mouth gaping open in
horror. I had literally poured myself into what there was of the
tight, black top with the Guinness logo on my chest.

“I can’t go out there like this,” I said. My
voice shook.

Ellie stepped out from the cubicle tucking
her top into her non-offensive skirt.

“What’s the problem?” She froze when she
caught sight of me.

“Wow!” Ellie’s eyes widened.

I grimaced. “I look like I’m in a cat suit.”
Turning to the mirror, I tried to pull down the stretchy top but it
infuriatingly drifted upwards.