An Endless Summer(72)

“Oh, you know, I dabble …”

I smiled in good humour – dabble probably meant she worked part-time at the local video shop, or waitressed of a weekend.

“Yeah,” she continued, “I’m a personal trainer and studying for my double degree in biomedicine.”

My smile faltered. Holy shit, she was a fucking rocket scientist! I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. Even though it was just Tammy Maskala, the sweetest girl I had ever known, and I knew my twisted stomach hearing of her success was pretty rotten, the shock of seeing her was something that would take some time to sink in.

Oh, please don’t ask me what I’m up to. Please don’t ask.

“So what have you been up to? I can’t believe it’s been so long.”

Oh, you know, bar room brawling, scrubbing urinals, playing mind games with an older man, and that’s just the summer. I am actually a deferred university student-slash-couch potato leeching off my parents still.

“I’m on a break from uni and just came back to manage and oversee the renovations at the hotel.” It was kind of the truth. She didn’t need to know the details.

Tammy’s blue eyes softened. “I heard about your dad.”

Just what I wanted. Pity.

“And I saw the flyer around town for the working bee. It’s actually funny I ran into you here because I was going to come and volunteer.”

“No!” I blurted out a bit too vehemently, causing Tammy to blink in surprise.

“Um, it’s just that we’re simply inundated with volunteers. It’s actually getting a bit ridiculous. Everyone’s enthusiasm has been overwhelming so we’ve had to put a cap on things.”

Oh my God, what is wrong with me?

“Oh, okay, well, if you need anything let me know. I cook a mean barbecue.”

I was flooded with guilt seeing her sweet, coy smile, the same one I remembered. She had ‘changed’ but she was still the same.

“Thanks, Tam.”

We said our goodbyes, which included an open-ended “we must catch up,” like people say when they know they’re not going to follow through with it; it’s just what you do.

As I left the store, I was gripped by an overwhelming sadness. Sometimes, and of late it was most of the time, I really didn’t like the person I had become. At least when I was a teenager I could be excused for being immature, but now I had no excuse. Words played through my mind.

“Unlike you, when I walked up those stairs I wasn’t playing any game. But I guess that’s the big difference between you and me.”

The memory of Sean’s words cut me to the quick. I slammed the car door behind me. He was such a hypocrite! He was the biggest game player of them all.

“He assured me you’re not his type.”

That bothered me more than anything, and the fact that it did bother me bothered me a whole lot more. Christ! I banged my head on the steering wheel, once, twice, three times. I sat up to see Tammy had just come out of the shop and seen my little display of self-loathing.

Shit! She smiled weakly and gave a small wave as she put her headphones back on and started to jog across the road, in a long-legged, graceful way. I watched her in my rear-view mirror, still hardly believing how much my old best friend had changed. I turned the ignition and Roxette’s ‘She’s Got The Look’ blasting from the speakers, taunting me. I slammed my finger on the eject button.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, she’s got the look,” I muttered.

Whatever!

As I drove back to the Onslow, the wind in my hair, my spirits lifted as I thought about the mission I had just accomplished in fixing up Sean’s account, I smiled a small, knowing smile. It was the only secret I had been keeping of late that I could truly be happy about. By the time I sped up Coronary Hill and made a wide, sweeping turn into the drive, I had started grinning like a fool. That was, until I nearly drove straight into a truck. I slammed on the brakes, my heart leaping in fright at the unexpected thing in the drive.

“What the—”

The massive tray to the semi was tilted, pouring white pebbles onto the ground. A cloud of dust carried on the air as the load dropped onto the drive.

I shut off the engine and got out, my brows creased in confusion until I saw an unmistakable speck in the distance, leaning casually on a rake. In his bone-coloured work pants and white singlet top, he actually looked like a catalogue model for work gear, but I quickly wiped that from my mind. I slammed the car door and crunched my way across the new stones towards Sean, who was now pushing the massive pile with his rake. He hadn’t even seen me; he was too busy signalling to the driver to move forward before whistling and telling him to pull up.