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‘Let’s take them out near the pool,’ she said, picking up one of the remaining glasses to take with her. The ceiling fans were circulating air around the rooms, but the air-conditioning didn’t appear to be back on yet. Besides, it felt too intimate to be alone in here with Mitch, and the king-sized bed was too clearly in view.
It was only a few steps out to the rectangular lap pool, which was edged on three sides with plantings of broad-leaved tropical greenery. Two smart, comfortable wooden sun loungers with blue-striped mattresses sat side by side in the shade of a frangipani tree. A myriad of pink flowers had been shaken off the tree by the quake onto the loungers and into the water. The petals floated on the turquoise surface of the pool in picture-perfect contrast.
In different circumstances Zoe would have taken a photo of how pretty they looked. Instead she placed the beer bottle and the glass on the small wooden table between the two loungers. She flicked off the flowers that had settled on one lounger before she sat down, her back supported, her legs stretched out in front of her. Thank heaven for all that waxing, moisturising and toenail-painting that had gone on in the spa yesterday.
She felt very conscious of Mitch settling into the lounger on her right. His legs were lean, with tightly defined muscles, his classic six-pack belly hard and flat. Even she knew soccer players trained for strength, speed and agility rather than for bulky muscle. Come to think of it, she might know that from hearing him being interviewed on the subject at some stage...
These villas were often booked by honeymooners, she knew. The loungers were set as close as they could be, with only that narrow little table separating them. Loved-up couples could easily touch in complete privacy.
She had never touched Mitch, she realised. Not a hug. Not even a handshake. Certainly not a kiss. Not even a chaste, platonic kiss on the cheek. It just hadn’t been appropriate back then. Now she had to resist the urge to reach out and put her hand on his arm. Not in a sexual way, or even a friendly way. Just to reassure herself that he was real, he was here, that they were both alive.
She and Mitch Bailey.
He swigged his beer straight from the bottle. The way he tilted back his head, the arch of his neck, made the simple act of drinking a beer look as if he was doing it for one of those advertisements he starred in.
He was graceful. That was what it was. Graceful in a strong, sleek, utterly masculine way. She didn’t remember that from the last time she’d seen him. Off the football field he’d been more gauche than graceful. At seventeen he hadn’t quite grown into his long limbs and big feet. Since then he’d trained with the best sports trainers in the world.
Yes, he inhabited not just a different space but a different planet from her. But for this time—maybe an hour, maybe a few hours—their planets had found themselves in the same orbit.
Mitch put down his beer. ‘So, where did you go when you left our school?’ he asked. ‘You just seemed to disappear.’
Zoe felt a stab of pain that he didn’t seem to remember their last meeting. But if he wasn’t going to mention it she certainly wasn’t. Even now dragging it out of the recesses where her hurts were hidden was painful.
She poured beer into her glass. Took a tentative sip. Cold. Refreshing. Maybe it would give her the Dutch courage she so sorely needed to mine her uncomfortable memories of the past. She considered herself to be a private person. She didn’t spill her soul easily.
‘I won a scholarship to a private girls’ boarding school in the eastern suburbs. I started there for the next term.’
‘You always were a brainiac,’ he said, with what seemed to be genuine admiration.
Zoe didn’t deny it. She’d excelled academically and had been proud of her top grades—not only in maths and science but also in languages and music. But if there’d been such a thing as a social report card for her short time at Northside she would have scored a big, fat fail. She’d had good friends at her old inner city school, an hour’s train ride away, but her grandmother had thwarted her efforts to see them. The only person who had come anywhere near to being a friend at Northside had been Mitch.
‘I had to get away from my grandmother. Getting the scholarship was the only way I could do it.’
‘How did she react?’
‘Furious I’d gone behind her back. But glad to get rid of me.’
Mitch frowned. ‘You talk as though she hated you?’
‘She did.’ It was a truth she didn’t like to drag out into the sunlight too often.
‘Surely not? She was your grandma.’
Mitch came from a big, loving family. No wonder he found it difficult to comprehend the aridity of her relationship with her grandmother.
‘She blamed me for the death of my father.’
Mitch was obviously too shocked to speak for a long moment. ‘But you weren’t driving the car. Or the truck that smashed into it.’
He remembered.
She was stunned that Mitch recalled her telling him about the accident that had killed her parents and injured her leg so badly she still walked with a slight limp when she was very tired or stressed. They’d been heading north to a music festival in Queensland; just her and the mother and father she’d adored. A truck-driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and veered onto their side of a notoriously bad stretch of the Pacific Highway.
‘No. I was in the back seat. I...I’m surprised you remember.’
He slowly shook his head. ‘How could I forget? It seemed the most terrible thing to have happened to a kid. I loved my family. I couldn’t have managed without them.’
Zoe shifted in her seat. She hated people pitying her. ‘You felt sorry for me?’
‘Yes. And sad for you too.’
There was genuine compassion on his handsome famous face, and she acknowledged the kindness of his words with a slight silent nod. As a teenager she’d sensed a core of decency behind his popular boy image. It was why she’d been so shocked at the way he’d treated her at the end.
As she’d watched his meteoric rise she’d wondered if fame and the kind of adulation he got these days had changed him. Who was the real Mitch?
Here, now, in the aftermath of an earthquake, maybe she had been given the chance to find out.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_71dee605-7a34-568a-8743-262524cf6de8)
WERE THERE ELEPHANTS in Bali? There were lots of monkeys; Mitch knew that from his visit to the Ubud area in the highlands.
He’d heard there were elephants indigenous to the neighbouring Indonesian island of Sumatra that had been trained to play soccer. But he would rather see elephants in their natural habitat, dignified and not trained to do party tricks.
Whether or not there were elephants on Bali, there was an elephant in the room with him and Zoe. Or rather, an elephant in the pool. A large metaphorical elephant, wallowing in the turquoise depths, spraying water through its trunk in an effort to get their attention.
Metaphorical.
Zoe had taught him how to use that term.
The elephant was that last day they’d seen each other, ten years ago. He’d behaved badly. Lashed out at her. Humiliated her. Hadn’t defended her against Lara’s cattiness. He’d felt rotten about it once he’d cooled down. But he had never got the chance to apologise. He owed her that. He also owed her thanks for the events that had followed.
Zoe hadn’t said anything, but he’d bet she remembered the incident. He could still see her face as it had crumpled with shock and hurt. He mightn’t have been great with words when it came to essays, but his words to her had wounded; the way he’d allowed her to be mocked by Lara had been like an assault.
Now Zoe sat back on the lounger next to him, her slim, toned legs stretched out in front of her. He didn’t remember her being a sporty girl at school. But she must exercise regularly to keep in such great shape. It seemed she hadn’t just changed in appearance. Zoe was self-possessed, composed—in spite of the fact they’d just experienced an earthquake. Though he suspected a fear of further tremors lay just below her self-contained surface.
‘I want to clear the air,’ he said.
‘What...what do you mean?’ she said.
But the expression in her dark brown eyes told him she knew exactly what he meant. Knew and hadn’t forgotten a moment of it.
‘About what a stupid young idiot I was that last day. Honest. I didn’t know that would be the last time I’d see you.’
Mitch was the youngest of four sons in a family of high achievers. His brothers had excelled academically; he’d excelled at sport. That had been his slot in the family. His parents hadn’t worried about his mediocre grades at school. The other boys were to be a lawyer, an accountant and a doctor respectively. Mitch had been the sportsman. They could boast about him—they hadn’t expected more from him.
But Mitch had expected more of himself. He’d been extremely competitive. Driven to excel. If his anointed role was to be the sportsman, he’d be the best sportsman.
The trouble was, the school had expected him to do more than concentrate on soccer in winter and basketball in summer. With minimal effort he’d done okay in maths, science and geography—not top grades, but not the lowest either. It had been English he couldn’t get his head around. And English had been a compulsory subject for the final Higher School Certificate.
His teenage brain hadn’t seen the point of studying long-dead authors and playwrights. Of not just reading contemporary novels but having to analyse the heck out of them. And then there was poetry. He hadn’t been able to get it. He hadn’t wanted to get it. It had been bad enough having to study it. He sure as hell hadn’t been going to write the poem required as part of his term assessment. He couldn’t write a poem.
Zoe Summers hadn’t been in his English class. No way. The new girl nerd was in the top classes for everything. But during a study period in the library she’d been sitting near him when he’d flung his poetry book down on the floor, accompanied by a string of curses that had drawn down the wrath of the supervising librarian.
The other kids had egged him on and laughed. He’d laughed too. But it hadn’t been a joke. If he didn’t keep up a decent grade average for English he wasn’t going to be allowed to go to a week-long soccer training camp that cut into the school term by a couple of days. He’d been determined to get to that camp.
The teenage Zoe had caught his eye when he had leaned down to pick up his book from the floor. She’d smiled a shy smile and murmured, ‘Can I help? I’m such a nerd I actually like poetry.’
Help? No one had actually offered to help him before. And he’d had too much testosterone-charged teenage pride to ask for it.
‘I’ll be right here in the library after school,’ she’d said. ‘Meet me here if you want me to help.’
He’d hesitated. He couldn’t meet her in public. Not the jock and the nerd. A meeting between them would mean unwanted attention. Mockery. Insults. Possible spiteful retaliation from Lara. He could handle all that, but he had doubted Zoe could.
His hesitation must have told her that.
‘Or you could meet me at my house after school,’ she’d said, in such a low tone only he could have heard it.
She’d scribbled something on a piece of paper and passed it unobtrusively to him. He’d taken it. Nodded. Then turned back to his mates. Continued to crack jokes and be generally disruptive until he’d been kicked out of the library.
But he had still needed to pass that poetry assignment. He had decided to take Zoe up on her offer of help. No matter the consequences.
Her house had been just two streets away from his, in the leafy, upmarket northern suburb of Wahroonga. Their houses had looked similar from the outside, set in large, well-tended gardens. Inside, they couldn’t have been more different.
His house had been home to four boys: he still at school, the others at universities in Sydney. There’d been a blackboard in the well-used family room, where all family members had chalked up their whereabouts. The house had rung with lots of shouting and boisterous ribbing by the brothers and their various friends.
Zoe’s house had been immaculate to the point of sterility. Straight away he’d been able to tell she was nervous when she’d greeted him at the front door. He’d soon seen why. An older woman she’d introduced as her grandmother had hovered behind her, mouth pinched, eyes cold. He’d never felt more unwelcome.
The grandma had told Zoe to entertain her visitor in the dining room, with the door open at all times. Mitch had felt unnerved—ready to bolt back the way he’d come. But then Zoe had rolled her eyes behind her grandmother’s back and pulled a comical face.
They’d established a connection. And in the days that had followed he’d got to like and respect Zoe as she had helped him tackle his dreaded poetry assignment.
‘I want to explain what happened back then,’ he said now.
Zoe shrugged. ‘Does it matter after all this time?’ she said, her voice tight, not meeting his eyes.
It did to him. She had helped him. He had let her down.
‘Do you remember how hard you worked to help me get my head around poetry?’ he asked.
‘You were the one doing all the work. I just guided you in the right direction.’
He slammed down his hand on the edge of the lounger in remembered anger. ‘That’s exactly right. You made me use my own words—not yours. It was unfair.’
‘What...what exactly happened in the classroom that day?’
‘The teacher had had the assignment for a week. So I was on edge, waiting to see if I’d passed or not. By then it had become something more than just wanting to go to the soccer camp. She handed out the marked essays, desk by desk. She saved mine for last.’
‘You should have easily passed. By that time we’d spent so much time on it—you really understood it.’
‘I thought I’d understood it, too. She got to my desk. Held up the paper for everyone to see the great big “Fail” scrawled across it. Told the class I was a cheat. Read out my grade and added her comments for maximum humiliation.’
The look on that teacher’s face was still seared into his memory.
Before he’d studied with Zoe he would have made a joke of it. Clowned around. Annoyed the teacher until she’d kicked him out of the classroom. But not that time. He’d deserved better.
‘What happened?’
‘I snatched the paper from the teacher’s hand and stormed out.’
‘To find me lurking outside in the corridor. Pretending I was waiting for a class to start in the next room. Ready to congratulate you on a brilliant pass. Instead I got in your way.’
He noticed how tightly she was gripping on to her glass. No wonder. He’d vented all his outraged adolescent anger and humiliation on her. It couldn’t be a pleasant memory.
‘Instead I behaved like a total jerk.’
‘Yeah. You did. You...you thrust the paper in my face. I can still see that word written so big in red ink: “Plagiarism”.’
‘She thought I was too stupid to write such a good essay. And I took it out on you.’
He’d yelled at her that it was her fault. Told her to get out of his way. Never talk to him again. Had he actually shoved her? He didn’t think so. His words had been as effective as any physical blow.
He’d seen her face crumple in disbelief, then pain, then schooled indifference as she’d walked away. She’d muttered that she was sorry—she’d only been trying to help. And he’d let her go.
Worse, a half-hour later he’d encountered Zoe again. This time he’d been hanging near the canteen, with his crowd of close friends and his girlfriend, Lara. Zoe had obviously been startled to see them. Startled and, he’d realised afterwards, alarmed. She’d immediately started to turn away, eyes cast down, shoulders hunched. But that hadn’t been enough for Lara, who hadn’t liked him studying with another girl one little bit.
‘Buzz off, geek-girl,’ Lara had sneered. ‘Mitch doesn’t need your kind of help. Not when he’s got me.’
Then Lara had pulled his face to hers and given him a provocatively deep kiss. Her girlfriends had started to laugh and his mates had joined in, their laughter echoing through the corridors of the school.
He’d just kept on kissing Lara. When he’d finally pulled away Zoe had gone. It was only later that he’d realised how he’d betrayed her by his silence and inaction.
That had been ten years ago. Now she smiled that wry smile that was already becoming familiar. ‘Teenage angst. Who’d go back there?’
‘Teenage angst or not, I behaved badly. And after ten years I want to take this opportunity to say sorry. To see if there is any way I could make it up to you.’
* * *
Digging deep into feelings she’d rather were kept buried made Zoe feel uncomfortable. She found it impossible to meet Mitch’s gaze. To gain herself a moment before she had to reply, she put her glass down onto the table and tugged her dress down over her thighs.
‘We were just kids,’ she said.
Though Lara’s spite had been only too grown up. And the pain she’d felt when Mitch had ignored her hadn’t been the pain of a child.
Truth was, the episode was a reminder of a particularly unhappy time in her life. She’d rather not be reminded of how she’d felt back then. That was why she had tried to avoid Mitch earlier on, when she’d first recognised him.
‘I was old enough to know better,’ he said.
Now she turned to face him. ‘Seriously, if you hadn’t always been popping up in the media I would have forgotten all about what happened. I’m cool with it.’
