An Endless Summer(110)

I threw my arms in the air. “I give up.”

A look of astonishment lit all of their faces.

“Well, what does it say?”

Tess cleared her throat. “He has such tiny handwriting.” She squinted.

“I said I would let you know what I wanted. – Sean.”

I glowered at the box.

“Whatever the hell that means, this is huge!” said Ellie.

“Yeah, such a poet,” I said sarcastically.

Ellie laughed. “No, Amy, you don’t get it. In Sean terms, this is massive.”

I looked blankly at their expectant faces.

Tess rolled her eyes. “Sean Murphy doesn’t chase girls and he sure as hell doesn’t send gifts in pretty little boxes with silky bows.”

Ellie nodded. “What’s going on between you two, anyway?”

“Trust me, it’s a long, uninteresting story.”

“Well, let’s see how uninteresting,” said Jenny, looking pointedly at the box on the counter.

“Yesss! Let’s open it.” Ellie clapped excitedly.

Tess started unravelling the folds of the bow. “Okay, place your bets, ladies; I call chocolate.”

“Earrings,” Ellie threw in.

“Perfume,” said Jenny.

I leaned forward, allowing myself to get carried away with their excitement.

“And the winner is …” announced Tess. She flipped the box open and her smile slowly fell away. “Oh.”

The others almost crushed Tess as they peered into the box, the same looks spreading across their faces as their eyes looked sheepishly up towards me, causing butterflies in the pit of my stomach.

“What? What is it?”

Tess smiled sadly. “It’s, umm …”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Tess!” I snatched the box out of her hands and peered inside.

My audience nervously watched on, on standby to console me as soon as it registered what was in the box.

So when a goofy grin spread across my face and I started to laugh hysterically, they gave one another puzzled, sidelong looks. They must have thought I had lost the plot.

“Amy, are you all right?” Tess asked cautiously.

I shook my head. Reaching into the box, I held up … a Rubik’s Cube. All twisted in a multitude of colours.

“It’s not much of a gift, is it, honey?” Jenny said gently.

“Yeah,” Ellie added. “The boy clearly doesn’t know how to buy for a woman.”

I sighed. “It’s perfect.”

“Really?” frowned Ellie.

It really was, all twisted and messed up.



Just like us.





Chapter Fifty-Three



My parents wanted to keep things normal – as normal as anything could be under the circumstances.

So when Dad announced we were going to have a disco the weekend before the auction, well, I kind of thought he might have been taking the piss.

He wasn’t.

I realised as much when I looked at Mum across the dining table and was met with an earnest smile.

“Really?” I frowned.

“Well, weren’t you going to plan something for the weekend, anyway?” Dad asked, cutting into his steak.

“Yeah, but that was before.” I tried not to cringe.

“How about we give ourselves permission, for one night, to just try to forget all the bad stuff,” Dad said.

I traced the line of peas on my plate, recalling the last time I had attempted to make myself forget. I had ended up in Sean Murphy’s bed. And though it had been a beautiful beginning … it hadn’t ended so well.

I would have thought a disco so close to the auction wasn’t a great idea, but my parents were adamant: it was what they wanted. I didn’t know if it was a way of masking it as some kind of goodbye party, or they were trying to cheer me up. If that was the case, it kind of had the opposite effect. Come Saturday, the whole place was chaos, getting the beer garden ready for what would be our last Henderson gathering at the Onslow before it was bought by some blow-in from the city and turned into a B & fracking B. It was my deepest hope that the McGees would put in a bid. According to Chris they had gone to their bank manager and crunched some numbers so that was a promising sign.

I forced myself not to think about it, but every time I descended the hotel stairs or perched myself on a bar stool I couldn’t help but feel I was counting down to a time when I would never be able to do this again.



***



Before I was even awake, my mobile beeped twice, alerting me to a message. Thinking it most likely Tammy, I rolled over in my bed to grab it from my bedside to check, when my heart just about stopped.

Sean.

Amidst the insanity of the weeks that had followed from that night, I hadn’t seen Sean much. I hadn’t seen him much at all. He had landed a massive building project in Maitland that had him working away until the weekends. I managed to convince myself that it was just bad timing. I had so much going on at the Onslow and he was working away, so the fact that nothing had progressed from that night was just because of the circumstances.