My mother loves to ask questions at the worst possible time, so it shouldn’t surprise me when she says loudly and primly at the table, “Gemma, how is it going with you and Nick?”
“Is this the Aussie rugby player?” Uncle Jeremy asks, and I raise my brows, startled that even he knows about Nick.
I give my mother a steady look while the internal debate rages on. To tell the truth or not tell the truth, that is the question. I glance at Josh, and though his face is impassive, I know what he wants to hear.
I sigh and say, “Well if you must know, Nick and I aren’t seeing each other anymore.”
“Good,” Uncle Jeremy says as he shoves pie into his face. “Aussies are no bloody good.”
The Aussie and Kiwi rivalry is about as heated and constant as the Canadian and American one, but this has nothing to do with it. I eye my uncle. “It didn’t end because he’s Australian.”
He shrugs as if to say it should have.
“What happened, dear?” my mother asks, and I can’t read her tone. It’s flat, like she could go either way. So I tell the truth.
“I’m not really sure what happened. It’s a bit of a long story, but the gist of it is, he was an ass and became more of an ass on the trip. Possessive, paranoid, and just—”
“He was a shithead,” Amber speaks up, her eyes wide and earnest. “Like, totally. Gemma kicked him to the curb.”
That wasn’t exactly true but I’m adding another round of Christmas presents for this girl.
“An ass?” my mom repeats, and there’s a bit of a smile on her face. She smoothes her blond bob back behind her ears and hides her mouth with her hand. She’s smiling.
“What’s so funny?” I ask her.
Her eyes, light and playful, dart over to Auntie Jolinda before coming back to me. She composes herself and folds her hands daintily in front of her. “Oh, Gemma. I can’t say I’m all that surprised. He struck me as an ass when I first met him.”
That was the only time she met him, too. She was in Auckland visiting and came by the gym. Nick was a little brusque with her but he was that way with most people. Most people I brought into his life, anyway. Anyone who benefited him personally was always a different story.
Once again I berate myself for being so hung up on this loser that I had to fly all the way to North America to try to get over him and just ended up back where I started.
“Well,” I say, clearing my throat and diverting my attention to the half-eaten pie. For a moment I want to focus on all the calories I’ve consumed and all the work I’ll have to do to burn them off, but I’m not sure anymore if that’s me talking. “The problem is that he said he’ll trash my name all over town and I’ll never get a job at another gym.”
There’s complete silence at the table. Not even a clattering of silverware. Finally, Keri says, “I don’t think anyone will listen to someone who says that about you.” She says it with such ease that I almost believe her, then I remember she’s young and she doesn’t realize yet how crap people can be.
“Awh, Gem,” Uncle Jeremy says, “you’ll be all right, aye? People will still want you at their gym because you’re you. And if not, you’ll find something else. You’re only twenty-two, right? Plenty of time to figure things out.”
Is that right? Because I’ve always felt that in your twenties you need to have everything figured out. Your job, your career, your body, your love life. Hell, the only thing I seem to have going for me at the moment is Josh, and he’s fleeting.
At that thought, the ache in my chest rears its ugly head. I push it down with a large gulp of wine and finish the rest of my dinner while the conversation turns to other things.
When it’s all over, I volunteer to help my mother and aunt clean up. As usual they wash the pots and pans and I dry so I don’t have to deal with soggy old food stuck to dishes, something that always make me want to chunder.
After my aunt tutters on about this and that, my mother hands me the pie tin but holds on to it for a moment, looking me in the eye. “You’re better off,” she says, and her candor makes me jerk my head back.
“Really?”
She lets go of the pan and goes back to washing. “He didn’t care about you. I could tell.” Her eyes dart over to the living room where Josh is laughing with Uncle Jeremy about something. “But that boy, Josh, he cares.”
I’m not sure how to approach this doozy so I go with the truth. “Josh is just a friend, Mum.”
“Good,” she says briskly, scrubbing the crap out of a pan. “You need friends. Sometimes I worry that . . .” She trails off and Auntie Jolinda leaves the room. My mother eyes me, ever so elegantly. “It’s good to have fun, Gemma.”