Authors: Bec Johnson
Kristy's words instantly put Lori's mind at ease. She had worried her way through her manicure and pedicure, on the constant look out for any physical signs she may be about to pounce on the pretty little Japanese girl like a sex starved nut job. Kristy's affirmation that it was normal to be aroused by the experience meant Lori could relax and enjoy the rest of their morning.
‘Ok, well, yes. More than interesting I guess,’ they both tittered.
Sat beside one another during their facials Lori explained to her new friend how she already knew Jonah, and revealed the details of her run-ins with his brother, the Police Sergeant.
‘He sounds tantalising,’ Kristy's voice was muffled from the hot wrap covering her face.
‘He's a complete nightmare. I don't understand how anyone can continue to hold such a grudge when I admitted immediately that I was an idiot for presuming he was a petty thief.’ Lori wriggled in her reclined chair, still embarrassed by her prejudiced assumption.
‘I can't believe I haven't once met him in the year and a half that I've been in Green Bay.’ Kristy lifted the corner of her wrap to look at Lori who did the same.
‘Clearly you've been able to keep yourself on the right side of the law.’
‘By the sounds of him, I'm not sure I want to be on his right side. The alternative seems much more exciting,’ they both giggled again.
What was left of their morning was filled with more laughter. Lori felt at ease around Kristy and told her how grateful she was to have gained a good friend. It made the thought of the next few weeks, and at worst, few months seem like they could at least be bearable. Kristy in turn thanked Lori for her laid-back companionship. She explained how friendships in the city had been all about show. It only mattered who you knew, not whether you actually liked them.
Kristy dropped Lori off at the turning to Murfey's Beach, she had an appointment with a Bed and Breakfast in Fisherman's Bay and Lori insisted she needed the walk. After waving goodbye Lori set off in the direction of the shop but stopped in her tracks a few minutes later when she saw Bob heading off up a side street.
‘Bob!’
He ignored her and carried on trekking up the hill away from where she stood.
Bloody stubborn dog. Lori decided to follow him. The last thing she needed was anyone complaining to her that he was using their street, or worse still, their garden as a bathroom.
At the very top of the steep road Bob disappeared up a near vertical driveway, pausing momentarily to catch her breath Lori went after him.
‘Bob? Bob!’ She called breathlessly.
An elevated home rose up above a garage where the driveway ended. The pretty looking weatherboard house was surrounded by an even more spectacular tropical garden. Luscious, vibrantly coloured plants filled every available space and little stone pathways shot this way and that. The sound of running water came from somewhere towards the back of the block, where Lori wasn't brave enough to venture.
‘Bob! You stupid beast!’ Her breath slowly returning, Lori found her voice.
Woof!
Spinning around Lori was greeted by Bob, sat happily with his tongue hanging out, at the top of a flight of stairs. Beside him, Zeb stood in his board shorts, his arms folded across his bare chest. He looked like he'd just woken up.
‘Oh crap.’
Zeb raised an eyebrow.
‘I'm sorry Zeb, I didn't know this was your place, and I also didn't know Bob was coming to bother you. Bob! come on, let's leave the man in peace.’ Lori clicked her fingers and flapped her hand in an attempt at making Bob come to her.
He sat perfectly still but for the panting, his head cocked to one side as if mocking her.
‘Come.’ Zeb turned and walked off along the verandah, Bob followed at his heel.
What was she supposed to do? The dog clearly didn't want to go with her. She'd just have to leave him be and hope he came back later. Lori turned to head back down the driveway.
‘I said come Lorikeet!’ Zeb's voice barked from somewhere above.
At the top of the steps Lori removed her sandals and stepped quietly along the beautiful polished wooden boards. Well-worn and intricately patterned rugs lay this way and that across the breadth of the floor and oversized pots filled with more tropical greenery were dotted around the banisters making the outside and inside space blend seamlessly together.
In the middle of the space, facing directly out across the tops of the neighbours houses and to the sea beyond was a running machine. Lori ran her hand through the grassy leaves of a plant and took in the panorama.
‘In here,’ Zeb's voice called from inside the house.
‘This place, it's utterly breath-taking.’ Lori couldn't think of anything else to say. Besides, it was true.
She'd never seen a home like it, other than on the pages of a glossy magazine. The large L shaped lounge benefitted from a long set of folding glass doors affording it the same views as the deck. At the back of the lounge a solid slice of tree doubled as a bench top separating the kitchen from the sitting area. A set of wooden stools circled it and Lori took a seat, dropping her bag gently to the floor.
‘Thanks. It was our family home.’ Zeb kept his back to Lori. He was busy doing something with the fruit bowl and a large knife.
‘Was?’ Lori softly questioned.
‘Yes. Was.’
Lori bit her lip. She knew now not to push him further. What was it Jonah had said earlier? That she should go easy on him. And so she sat watching him work in silence. His muscles twitched and rippled as he chopped Mangoes, Oranges, Kiwis, Watermelon and Star Fruit, or Carambola as they called it here. It gave her the opportunity to study the tattoo across his back.
She could now make out that dark inky pattern was a huge roll of waves, running from one shoulder across to the other. There were some words hidden amongst the sea spray but she wasn't close enough to be able to read them.
Finally, Zeb turned to face her, in one hand a huge bowl of fruit salad, the other - two forks.
‘Your face!’ Lori gasped. She hadn't seen it from the driveway before, but could now see his cheek was cut and stitched, and the bridge of his nose and right eye socket were black and blue.
‘It's fine. Just another run in with a drunk driver.’ The patrol car looks worse than I do. Hence Jonah and I have been off duty for a few days.
She knew it was rude, but she couldn't help but stare. Zeb pulled up a stool beside her and it took all her strength not to lean in and touch the damage.
‘Jonah didn't get hurt though?’ She meant it more as a statement, but not feeling now was the best time to bring up her encounter with his brother this morning Lori quickly turned the end of her remark into a question.
‘No, Jonah wasn't in the car at the time. Thankfully. Here, eat.’ Zeb handed her a fork and pushed the bowl between them.
‘So, no surfing with the stitches I guess?’ Lori held her hand over her mouth as she bit into a juicy chunk of Watermelon.
‘Nope. The running machine's been taking the brunt of my cooped up frustration instead.’ He nodded over his shoulder to the deck behind him.
‘Feel free to send Bob home if he turns up here anytime won't you?’ Lori changed the subject, feeling she'd had enough talk of pent up frustrations for one day.
‘No,’ Zeb speared a piece of Kiwifruit with his fork, ‘I won't do that. He's been bunking up here since your dad died. I bought him back down in the patrol car the night you arrived in the village but he keeps coming back up, I guess he's not ready to move on just yet.’
In the corner of the room Bob let out a sigh as though he knew he was being talked about. Lori just nodded.
Something above the fridge kept drawing Zeb's attention and Lori followed his stare to a earthenware pot sat between cookery books.
Aware she may be about to unlock the door to his moody side Lori asked anyway, ‘What's with the jar?’
‘Huh?’ Zeb looked at Lori before turning back to where she was looking. He sighed like Bob had done. ‘Oh, umm, listen. Since you didn't hang round long at the Solicitors you missed out on one other bit of information.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Somewhere inside her, Lori knew what he was about to say, yet it still came like a slap in the face.
‘That pot, is your father.’ Zeb looked Lori deep in the eyes, as though pleading with her not to explode. ‘I was left in charge of sprinkling his ashes but I couldn't do it. Not until you came and I was able to offer you the chance to say a proper goodbye.’
The room seemed to squeeze against her, tightening her chest and draining the blood from her face.
‘Lori?’ Zeb put his hand on her shoulder and steadied her as she swayed in her seat. ‘Lorikeet? I am so, so sorry.’
Something was really very wrong.
Underneath the cushions where she woke, Lori could feel the cool hardness of polished wood. She was surrounded by darkness but for the faint glow of a few soft lamps lighting the corners of the room where she lay. A loud whirring and thumping was coming from somewhere nearby. Unable to get her bearings she decided to sit up.
‘Woah, take it easy little lady.’ The noise stopped abruptly and Jonah's voice came towards her. ‘You’ve been out for quite a few hours, it’s nearly eleven o’clock.’
Pins and needles in her fingers made them feel like half inflated balloons, and when she tried rubbing her eyes she winced in pain, they were sore and stung to the touch. Her cheeks felt clammy and her hair, sticking to her face, was damp. ‘Where the hell am I?’
‘At our house,’ Jonah spoke softly and knelt down beside her, he was dripping in sweat.
‘Ok Junior, the doc said he'd be over again in the morning to check on her... Oh! You're awake.’ Zeb rounded the corner of the deck and stopped just at the edge of the living room.
Confusion and embarrassment flooded Lori's mind before suddenly recalling her last memory prior to waking up on the boys' floor.
‘Fucking hell! You have my father in a jar on top of your fridge!’ The realisation hit her.
‘For all the right reasons Lori.’ Jonah tried to place a placating hand on her knee.
‘Don't you dare touch me,’ Lori spat. Recoiling her legs and wrapping her arms protectively around them.
Zeb snorted, ‘That's fucking rich considering.’
‘Shut up Zeb.’ Jonah shot his older brother a glare. Clearly he’d shared with him what had happened earlier in the day. Just how much he’d divulged though, Lori couldn’t be sure.
Desperate to escape, Lori lifted herself unsteadily up to standing. Her head spun and she grabbed the wall for support. Both boys launched forward to grab her as if she was going to fall. ‘I'm FINE!’ she snapped viciously.
‘Actually the doc says you're not fine. You need to take it easy. Your blood sugar is low and you're under a huge amount of stress. You’re lucky Zeb was here to quite literally catch you when you fell.’ Jonah held out his hand but Lori swiped it away.
‘Let it go Junior.’ Zeb patted his brother on the back as he walked past and into the kitchen. Reaching up above the fridge he took down the jar and returned to where Lori stood. ‘Here.’
‘I don't want that bloody thing.’ Lori pointed at it like it was an unexploded bomb, she didn't want to be anywhere near it, or the boys for that matter. ‘He's already bequeathed me a noose around my neck. You can do what you were supposed to do in the first place, deal with it.’
Feeling steadier on her feet now, Lori picked up her bag and took off out of the living room, round the deck and scooped up her sandals as she ran past them and down the steps. The clicking of Bob's claws soon caught up with her as she made her way down the driveway and out onto the road. One of the neighbours, wheeling their bins out through the shadows onto the verge at the front of their house watched intently as Lori, shoes and bag in one hand and hair whipping around behind her, ran past, Bob in tow.
The pair didn’t drop pace, the entire way home.
‘Lorikeet darling? You need to wake up and eat something. Doctors' orders,’ Jenny appealed from the side of the bed, sometime the next day.
‘Go away!’
‘I will do no such thing. Everyone’s worried about you.’
‘Why would they be worried?’ Lori sat up and looked blearily at the alarm clock beside the bed just as it ticked over to three in the afternoon. ‘What’s it to them if I want to sleep in all day long?’
‘Well, Ok, worried may not have been the best choice of words I admit. It’s just that gossip has it you were witnessed running half naked from the Turners’ house in the middle of the night last night.’
‘That,’ Lori scoffed, ‘is a gross overstatement of what actually occurred.’
Kicking her legs free from the grip of the tangled bed clothes she swung herself around to sit beside Jenny and placed her feet flat on the floor. Ugh. Somewhere deep inside her head, someone was hammering.
‘I know that’s not what happened silly, I called the boys first thing this morning, as soon as I heard the rumours. I’m just not so sure the rest of Murfey’s Beach has worked it out. Goodness only knows what the Twitchers Club have declared you’ve been up to by now.’
‘Well I don’t give a damn,’ Lori huffed. ‘They can think we’re having a dirty threesome for all I care.’
The look on Jenny’s face told her that that was exactly what the residents were already thinking.
‘Argh!’ Lori threw herself back onto the mattress and pulled the clump of blankets over her head, groaning. Half a step forward and three steps back. She’d made absolutely zero inroads into charming the village, and most importantly the investors, thus giving her no chance whatsoever of persuading any of them that she could be trusted to sell the shop to the right kind of investor. If, in fact, the right kind even existed.
It seemed Jenny had read her mind. ‘Listen, let's go make ourselves a cup of tea and a bite to eat, and we’ll put our heads together to discuss some tactics. Right?’
From under the pile of linen Lori nodded. ‘Mmright.’
A short while later, showered and groomed, Lori sat in the grass at the bottom of the garden. The afternoon sun warmed her skin, and with tea and toast in hand, she read and re-read Jenny’s Statutory Declaration.
‘So, you’re sure this is identical to the other six?’ Lori brushed the crumbs from the skirt of her pastel blue sun dress.
‘It is, yes,’ Jenny affirmed.
There wasn’t really much to it. The basic facts were covered; the amount invested and the assurance gained in return. All investors had to, upon being repaid by the owner, give up their stake. They were free to sell on their shares in whole, but only to long-term residents of the village, and by that it stipulated twenty years minimum. And finally, it stated that should the owner wish to sell the property, thirty days notice was required before a meeting could be held where any prospective purchaser needed to be approved by a minimum majority of four votes to three.
‘So, today being the eighth of December, I could call a meeting for the seventh of January and spend the next thirty days working my arse off looking for a potentially acceptable buyer?’ Lori swigged the last of her tea.
‘You could,’ Jenny drew out her words.
‘What? You don't believe it's possible?’
‘I didn’t say that Lori, I just think finding someone to buy the place over Christmas, someone who isn’t a fly in fly out developer wanting to rip the place down and replace it with a three storey concrete monstrosity, could be a little, umm, tricky perhaps?’
‘Well, you haven’t seen me at my finest then.’ Lori patted Jenny on her hand and stood up, brushing the grass off of the backs of her legs and bottom.
Jenny half laughed, catching the jokey self-depreciation in Lori's voice. ‘No, dear. No I have not.’
Buoyed by her definitive decision making Lori skipped back into the shop eager to get things underway. First things first, she put a call in to the solicitor requesting seven Notice of Stakeholder Meeting letters be drawn up immediately. She would pick them up before they closed at five o’clock and personally hand-deliver them all later this evening. Next, she set about organising herself a proper office to work from.
The unused space at the far end of the kitchen worked perfectly once Lori cleared away the boxes of excess stock that were blocking a view straight down the garden. Another table similar to those she had found stacked under the deck was unveiled once two hundred, individually wrapped toilet rolls were given a new home in the corner of the large empty room behind the shop. The table was rectangular and pushed neatly under the window, a stool from beside the kitchen counter made do as a chair for now and Lori practically jogged up and back down the stairs with her laptop, setting it up in the middle of the makeshift desk.
As a Personal Assistant Lori had been used to always being busy. She was accustomed to feeling useful, indispensable even. Crazy as it was, she missed her sticky notes and paperclips, they were who she was. An organiser. This last week away from work had felt like an era, she realised now just how much self-pity and bitterness she’d wallowed in.
Something Jonah had said last night reverberated in her mind, about how she was lucky Zeb was there for her. Hah! She didn’t need Zeb, or anyone else for that matter. Lori had been looking after herself for years. Even during the times she’d had a boyfriend, it was she who had been the dependable one, the one that paid the bills, hosted the parties and coordinated the weekends away. This project, although admittedly much bigger, needed to be approached no differently.
FoxyNonna’s signal was still going strong and so Lori fired up her emails and the internet. She needed to speak to Sara and she had a mammoth to do list to write.
Quickly running her initial ideas past Sara via video chat, Lori was left with the confidence that she had all the skills necessary to make it work. Promising to send Sara daily updates as she progressed she logged back off her laptop and went next door in search of Jenny. She needed to ask a favour.
‘Of course you can borrow the car!’ Jenny was delighted to see Lori looking so bright eyed and focussed. She gave her an enormous batch of cookies baked fresh at lunch time, and made her promise not to skip meals anymore.
Lori didn’t believe she had been, but according to the doctor’s report to Zeb, and his subsequent report to Jenny this morning, Lori’s low blood sugar levels indicated she’d not been eating enough.
Exercising more than she ever had done in the past decade, added to missing out on the perks of long boozy lunches with Max and his clients, meant her calorific intake had reduced dramatically. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t have been such a bad thing. But mixed with the emotional stress Lori had yielded to, it was really no surprise she’d passed out on the discovery that her dead father was still ‘hanging around’ in the kitchen of the first person she’d ever met with the power to switch her on and off like a light bulb.
No time to think about that now, Lori told herself as she climbed into the driver’s side of Jenny’s car. With any luck, and if he valued his life, Zeb would soon see to his task of sprinkling the ashes and Lori could move on, putting the whole ghastly event behind her.
Making it to the solicitors with nearly half an hour to spare, Lori collected the seven envelopes and then decided on a whim to take a very long detour down to Fisherman’s Bay.
The road south was quiet and she made it there in good time.
Expectations rarely lived up to memories, but on this occasion, they surpassed it. The town had sprawled outwards and was now much bigger than it had been during her childhood. Lori noted with comforting pleasure though that key areas of nostalgic importance to her, had only increased in beauty with age.
The old iron bridge, joining the north and south side of the town looked to have been recently painted.
December 31st 1990, one of Lori’s first memories, and her first New Year’s Eve spent awake, Jack and Robin had taken her to the town street party, held on the bridge. Live bands played through the night and Lori recalled vividly watching with delight the bigger kids, the teenagers, jumping off the guardrails into the water below.
The very middle of the town centre, on the south side, had now been pedestrianised, filled with flower beds and played host to smartly dressed tourists, slowly window shopping past little boutique stores selling everything from home wares to boat shoes.
There was evidently more money in Fisherman's Bay now than there had been when Lori was younger.
Spotting a twenty-four hour superstore and a late night office supplies warehouse on the edge of town, Lori jumped at the opportunity to stock up on underwear and things for her desk.
With the boot of the car filled to bursting with bags of colourful clothes and accessories as well as enough stationery to sink a ship, Lori slid a brand new swivel chair and printer on to the backseat.
Unable to resist, she also picked up some little boxes and pretty ribbons. It could very well be overkill but on seeing them, Lori had a spur of the moment idea to give the seven investors their notices tied to a box of Jenny's delicious homemade biscuits. A good first impression was essential, this was Max’s mantra before every negotiation meeting he and Lori attended. He also always added that it was the key to parting fools with their cash, but she chose to ignore this part. Hopefully the investors would see for themselves that she was in fact a sweet girl with only the best interests of the village in mind. Not a crazed nymphomaniac running around at night serving up corporal delights to the boys in blue.