Authors: Bec Johnson
‘Tyler, enough!’ Jenny smacked him with the tea towel. ‘You've finished your breakfast now why don't you go make yourself useful and set up the tables so they're ready for lunch when the shop re-opens.’
‘Yes ma'am.’ He snapped to attention and turned to go and do as he was told, poking his tongue out at Lori as he left the room.
Lori chuckled, enjoying breakfast with Tyler as Jenny had busied herself around them was what she'd always imagined it would be like to have a brother. And Jenny herself, was everything she missed in her own mother and more. Her mind swung back and forth, was this place really just a perfect way for an old retired couple to see out their remaining years or could she actually make it her life?
‘You ok?’ Jenny's voice brought her round to the present.
‘I think so.’ Lori shrugged her shoulders defying her words.
‘Good, now stop worrying, when the time comes, you'll know exactly what to do.’ She patted her on the hand and grinned.
‘I hope so. Talking of 'when the time comes' do you think I should put out tea and cake for everyone?’ She was actually a little surprised Jenny hadn't already made plans for the catering of the meeting. It wasn't like her not to have this under control, and so Lori just presumed it was due to the drama of the last twenty-four hours.
Jenny turned her back and busied herself at the sink. ‘Oh yes, whatever you think is best will be perfect I'm sure.’
‘O... k... thanks.’ Lori didn't quite know what to make of her withdrawal, but decided it best not to push matters. Regardless of how Jenny had assured her she didn't care about the shop Lori knew this wasn't strictly true. It had obviously been a big part of her life for a long time and the uncertainty of what someone new could do to the place, and how it was quite possible they wouldn't need nor want her help, was bound to make her emotions run high.
‘Hello hello?’ Jonah's voice called from the back room.
Lori froze. Jonah had always, and quite rightly, vehemently protected his brother whenever she had made even the slightest off-hand remarks about him, and for certain Zeb would have shared everything that had happened yesterday. She fully expected him to give it to her with both barrels. Taking a deep breath she spun slowly round and looked at him.
‘Hey Jonah,’ Lori spoke softly. He looked terrible. His face was pale, and suggesting that he'd not slept in days his eyes were ringed black and heavy.
‘Hi, Jenny.’ He waved into the kitchen first then looked straight at Lori. ‘Can we talk?’
Shit. Although she'd anticipated it, it was still a conversation she didn't really relish having to have. However, Lori supposed, with her new found determination to get things over and done with, it was better now than later. Or even never, as she had been known to quite often opt for.
‘Of course, shall we go outside?’
‘Sure.’ Jonah nodded and led the way out towards the garden. Passing Tyler on his way back in to the kitchen the two of them smiled knowingly at each other. Lori felt a little wave of excitement for them, at least someone was happy around here.
‘Jonah, I know what you're going to say and I just want to get in first and tell you that I know, and I'm sorry.’ Lori hung her head low and swiped her hands at the vegetation beside where they stood at the bottom of the garden.
‘You know what I'm going to say do you?’ Jonah frowned.
‘I do, I'm an idiot. There, see.’
The corners of his eyes crinkled and a small laugh rumbled up from deep within his chest. ‘You are an idiot as you put it, yes, but maybe not for the reasons you believe.’
‘What's that supposed to mean?’
‘Look, Lori, do you remember the first day I met you?’ He chuckled at the memory.
‘Of course I do, I made an idiot of myself then too.’ She laughed with him.
‘Well, you made an assumption that day, and perhaps you haven't learnt from it yet.’ Jonah lifted his hands to her shoulders and fiddled unconsciously with her dress straps making her skin goose bump under his touch.
Argh! What was it with these boys?
‘Stop talking in riddles Jonah.’ Lori lifted his hands off her shoulders and held on to them so that she could concentrate. ‘What assumption have I made now?’
Glancing briefly to the deck Jonah paused and then backtracked, ‘You're right Lori, I'm talking nonsense, it'll be the lack of sleep.’
Lori followed his gaze but couldn't see anything that would have caught his attention. Facing him again she narrowed her eyes. ‘Yes, well you do look like crap.’
Jonah laughed. ‘Thanks for that. It's what happens when you've been awake for forty hours straight. Not something I'd recommend, but then you're probably sharing the exact same pain.’
She tried to smile but the guilt of knowing he'd most likely been up with Zeb made her chest ache. ‘Again, I'm sorry.’
‘It's not me you need to apologise to Lori, you know that.’ He bent his head and looked her deep in the eyes.
‘I know.’ Lori nodded.
‘My only advice to you, and I implore you to take it,’ he brushed her hair away from her face, ‘is that before you do anything, you make absolutely sure it's what you really truly want. I get that your father caused you immense sadness, and being here must bring all that to the surface, just don't, whatever you do, let the heartbreak of your past stop you finding true happiness for your future.’
Unable to speak, Lori opted just to fall forwards into his arms and hold him tight.
‘Fucking hell Lorikeet, if we weren't both already taken you'd be almost enough to turn me.’ Jonah's hands wrapped around her back and he breathed in her hair.
‘It's the coconuts,’ she giggled into his shirt.
Citing the peculiar need to go and change her shoes Jenny left Lori and went back to number twenty-one. Jonah had made himself scarce as soon as their discussion in the garden had come to a close, and as he'd taken Tyler with him, she now had the place to herself once again. Silent but for the clicking of the fridges working hard against the building heat of the day Lori sat on top of the counter beside the till, her feet dangling down the back as she faced the wall and the phone that hung on it. Bob had joined her and was curled up in the corner.
Leaning forwards she picked up the receiver and punched out the numbers on the little scrap of paper in her hand. The other end picked up almost straight away.
‘Mrs Peters? It's Lorikeet James here, from Murfey's Beach.’
‘Lorikeet darling you must have a sixth sense I was just about to call you, I know the meeting is any day now and...’
‘Mrs Peters, I can't sell,’ Lori blurted it out and burst into tears as she did so.
The other end of the line went silent.
‘I'm so sorry,’ Lori sniffled into the handset. ‘Mrs Peters?’
Barely audible she could just make out the sound of crying. At first she thought it was the echo of her own wretched tears until she realised that it wasn't her at all.
‘You don't know how relieved I am to hear that Lorikeet,’ she stammered between breaths.
‘Pardon?’ Now she really was hearing things.
‘Oh darling, it's John, he's not well, we've been in the hospital for the last couple of days awaiting the results, and well, what we thought was just old age was apparently not,’ she paused as she wept a little more and then forced herself to carry on, ‘he's been given a year, eighteen months at the most.’
Rocked back in her seat Lori gasped, ‘Oh my god!’
The conversation with Mrs Peters hadn't really gone any further than apologies back and forth to one another and when she'd rung off Lori sat on the counter in shock for a few minutes. She couldn't even begin to imagine what awful heartbreak they were going to have to live with for the next however many months, knowing that soon their time together would come to the most horrible end. One half of a whole would be left behind.
Lori glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty precisely.
Outside in the cool shade of the verandah she made herself comfortable in one of the two armchairs and watched as the hot breeze shook the leaves on the trees. It was just typical that everyone would be late when she was now ready to gather them all together to give them what she'd hoped they would see as good news. It was all turning out to be a bit of an anti-climax.
In fact, the more she thought about it the stranger it became. Surely it didn't take this long to change one pair of shoes? Jenny at least should have been back by now. And Mrs Westerly need only walk across the road. In fact every one of the investors lived no more than a ten minute walk from the shop.
Where the hell was everybody?
By quarter to eleven Lori had had enough of waiting and hopped down off the verandah. Crossing the drive and stepping out into the street she shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun and looked along the road towards where Victor should have been coming from. There was no sign of him.
About to march off down the footpath of number twenty-one in search of Jenny Lori heard the creaky door of Mrs Westerly's old weatherboard house open.
‘About time!’ Lori called out to the haughty old women as she appeared through the door. She wouldn't have been at all surprised if she'd staged the whole delay just to make sure Lori knew exactly who held the seven upper hands.
‘What are you talking about you silly child.’ She dropped a bag of rubbish, double wrapped of course, in her wheelie bin beside the garden path.
As sternly as she could manage on the hot asphalt Lori marched over to the other side of the road and stood at the front fence. Mrs Westerly walked towards her, giving Lori's attempt at conventional dress a derisive once over.
‘You're more than fifteen minutes late for our meeting, that's most unlike you.’ Lori arched her eyebrow. The best form of defence against a woman like Tyler's grandmother was attack.
‘I'm not late for anything, ever, I'll have you know.’
Unnerved by the confidence in her voice, Lori faltered, ‘But I called a meeting.’
‘You certainly did Miss James, and what happened?’
‘What on earth do you mean what happened? You never turned up, that's what bloody well happened. No one turned up! And as you've made what you think of me perfectly clear before now, I wouldn't put it past you to have been trying to sabotage the sale of the shop.’ Lori could feel her pulse thump in her veins she was so furious.
‘Don't you raise your voice to me young lady.’ She pointed her bony finger like a frighteningly ruthless school teacher but then withdrew it quickly, her face softening in question, ‘Wait, are you saying that you've sold the shop?’
‘If you'd come to the meeting you would have heard the answer to that question. But as I can see I'm going to have to do this the hard way then no, I'm advising you that I have not, and I am not selling the shop. I changed my mind if you must know,’ Lori exhaled. If she had to go around to all six other investors' houses to advise them, presuming they're even there, then it would take her all day.