A Shot at Freedom (19 page)

Chapter Thirty Five

David

David clutched his hip, as though in pain. Doubled over he headed for the open door.

Brooke moved towards him, “Are you all right?”

He waved her away
. “Yeah. I just need some air.”

He saw her look down at her dirty uniform.

“It’s not you,” he said, closing the door. As he leapt down the stairs, he answered the phone. “Stop calling me.” He strode up the path, climbing up the rocks, hiding among fern fronds.

“But I know you wouldn’t answer if you didn’t want to.”

“Is there a point to this call?”

“Did you kiss her?”

“What do you think?”

“I knew it. You want to spend the rest of your life unhappy, don’t you?”

***

Brooke

It took Brooke a moment to think about what she wanted to do. She stepped out into the bright afternoon light, and stretched in a ludicrous attempt to appear casual as she tried to catch sight of him. She thought she could see David pace among the shrubbery with his mobile to his ear. He squatted. Spiky palm fronds cast shadows over his face.

Brooke stepped back inside. It was
her only place to hide. She stood, patting her numb cheeks.
He was talking to her again.

When she heard someone coming,
she skidded across the lino floor to a chair and opened her book at the page she had marked, looking up only when David stepped back into the room.

“Are you al
l right?” she dared to ask, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth and heart thumping.

David peeled his shirt off
. “I’m sweating like a pig. I’m going for a shower.” He dumped his cap and shirt on the bed, stepping out of his shorts kicking them towards the corner. He grabbed the towel draped over the bed head. “What?” he demanded, striding across the room in his boxers.

“I asked if you were
okay.”

“Why would you ask that?” he s
napped, closing the door to the ensuite. The shower was on in seconds.

“Nothing a cold shower can’t fix, huh?” Brooke murmured, as she stalked across to check out his clothes. The phone was tucked inside his cap.
She scrolled through the call history. Her thumb ached as she fumbled with the buttons, finally daring to press the recall button.

A girl
’s voice answered. “David?”

“Who’s this?” Brooke asked.

“Gloria…who’s this?”

Brooke knelt on the floor. She felt her face harden, and
her temples pulse.

“I
’m sorry,” Gloria whispered.

The line dropped out,
and beeped at her, their connection cut.

Brooke dropped the phone to the bed, beside his
cap. She leant back, drawing her knees up, content only to wait for the shower to finish. He took his time.

When he finally stepped out, his dry briefs clinging to damp skin, he was too busy drying his hair to notice her.

She waited, noticing the way his belly creased as he bent down to pick up his shirt. When his movements slowed to a stop, and his shirt dropped to his side in a clenched fist, she raised her eyes to him, realising he was aware his phone was exposed on the bed.

“It’s
just a phone David. You shouldn’t
have to
hide it from me.”

David stepped into his shorts
.

“So
someone by the name of Gloria called?”

“Did she?” he said reaching for the phone. “
I told her–”

“
Please don’t call her. I said I’d be right with it. But I’m not.”

“Brooke, we’re not...
anything–”

Something inside Brooke’s mind shifted.
A day may come where she could still be with him but lose him at the same time. “Sorry, I’m being stupid. You can speak to whoever you want,” she said, acutely aware that she had to turn away from him. It was horrible the way her nostrils flared when she got angry. She rubbed at a stain on her uniform, and tried to swallow the fibrous lump in her throat. “It’s just that it used to be just you and me. You used to talk to me about everything.”

He sat down beside her.

“It’s still you and me,” he said.

“No
, it’s me and this shit kicking job and you all banged up worse than ever with a chickie all ready for you on the side.”

“You’ve got it wrong.”

“Go have a drink,” Brooke snapped, grabbing her apron. “I’ve got another shift to do. I want that bathroom cleaned before I get back.”

As she barged out the door, she crashed into Dana. “Whoa baby.”

Brooke nudged past her “Were you at the door listening?”

“Why? Did I
miss something juicy?”

Brooke shook her head and walked off. “I don’t need this shit,” she mumbled.

“Hang on. What’s wrong?”

Brooke heard David say, “Let her go,” and she stopped. Her body tensed up, as though it was wound up as tight as a rubber band ready to fling, she spun around and shoved Dana out the way, striding back in to David. She towered over him, as he sat on the bed. “You get what makes me maddest don’t you?”

“I get it Brooke. I understand.”

“You are not anything like your father, so stop acting like him.”

“Okay, guys that’s enough,” Dana said, spinning Brooke around and pushing her onto the bed beside David. She paced the floor in front of them.

“Dana, I’ve got a job that I need to keep,” Brooke said.

Dana lifted a finger to her, a gesture commanding silence
. “I’m thinking.”

Brooke
turned to David, “I’m just saying our story doesn’t have to be like theirs.” She wanted to grab David by the shoulders and shake him back to the way he used to be, but Dana stepped in.

“Move together you two,” she said, pushing them together on the bed. “That’s it, like you know each other.” She lifted her hands into the shape of a frame as though she were measuring them up for a photo.

“Dana,” David prompted.

“You two are absolutely crazy. I have never seen anything like it in my life. Since you have been here, neither of you
has made any effort to include anyone else in anything you do. You sleep in the same bed night after night…” she moved over to her bed, smoothing down the quilt. “See this bed? Never been slept in. Sheets
never
been changed. It’s weird. It’s strange. Brooke swears every time I see her you have never stepped past a friendship into a relationship.
Ever.
”

Brooke could feel David’s leg pressing against hers. She wished a cyclone would
spin over the sea and wipe them all out. Anything, not to have to think about what Dana was saying. If he wanted her he would have tried something by now. She couldn’t talk, she didn’t think she could survive hearing him tell Dana, they didn’t think of each other like that. He had someone else.

“I suggest you two turn to each other and wipe out all you know about the other person, start all over again, with a tiny non-brotherly-non-sisterly kiss. Nothing big.”

The air in the room seemed harder to breathe. The three of them sat there thinking about what Dana had said.

When Brooke couldn’t take it a second longer, she pushed herself away from David
, and brushed Dana off. “I gave someone a sexual favour.”

Dana and David stared at her. Everything, including the clock, seemed to stop.

David was the first to break the silence. “Who? Tyler?”

“So you remember his name.”

“What’s a sexual favour exactly?” Dana asked.

“
Do you want to know David?” Brooke challenged.

“Yes…”

“He took me by the hand. His zip was down. When he guided me to his penis, I wrapped my…”

“No…” David shouted.

“God I was just getting into that,” Dana said.

Brooke collected her things.
“I’m going to work. Go have a drink, David.”

“Yeah,” Dana said. “I think you might need it.”

***

David

David lay flat on the bed the only position that gave him relief from stabbing back pain. It was hard to fight the urges to drink. They were coming in waves, gaining in strength. She told him to drink. He didn’t even know she knew. She thought he had a girlfriend. When she looked at him, she saw how his Dad was. She gave a guy a hand job. He couldn’t think about it any longer.

Rolling off the bed, every
shuffle hurt. He dug around in the bottom drawer of the bed side table for his pencil case and paper, settling down at the table. Brooke kept a candle handy in case of black outs. They rarely happened here. He lit it. Sitting slumped over a sketchbook wasn’t good for him. The longer he drew the more the pain intensified, but he deserved it. He’d let her down.

***

Brooke

The dishwasher gushed
and churned beside Brooke, hushing the chaotic buzz around her. Piles of plates had stacked up and she couldn’t seem to shift them. Two loads of coffee cups were ready and waiting. Brooke was at the other end unloading a rack. Her mind wasn’t there. On auto-pilot, all she wanted was to be with David. The
David
she knew and trusted.

Julie
slunk up behind her, and began untying Brooke’s plastic apron. “Wipe that grotty stuff off your legs. Neaten your hair. Your uniform will have to do.”

“What?”

“You’ve been promoted.”

“But I’m fine here.” She liked being left alone. Aside from the odd command for a roasting pan or cake tin from the kitchen staff, and the waitresses ducking in to dump their dirty dishes in random piles, she pretty much was
her own boss. She didn’t have to face the public and put on a smile.

“You’re wasting your life here
at this sink. Look happy. You’re facing a room full of honeymooners and holidaymakers.”

“Don’t make me, please,” Brooke pleaded but
another waitress was stepping in whining about how high the plate stacks were.

Julie flashed her manager
’s badge at Brooke, as though she were a member of a police task force, pressing a notepad and pencil into her hand and led her through the kitchen doors, “Table 16.”

“I don’t know what to do
.”

“Table 16. Go ask them what they want.”

Brooke’s stomach lurched and her legs grew weak. As couples and families bustled around her fighting for a position at the buffet, all she could think about were those stacks of plates that would have taken only a few loads to get back into a safety zone.

Faces blurred. The numbers stood out from each table, black ink held tall on metal spikes. When she
spotted Table 16, her eyes latched onto the card flashing the table number like a beacon. She weaved in and out until she stood at the table, awkward and tongue tied.
What does a waitress say?

“Hi, um. What can I get for you?”

A hand circled her wrist, and another helpful arm pulled out a chair. She sat down, coming face to face with her parents. Her father was pouring her a cup of tea and was asking about milk and sugar while her mother held her wrist firm under the table.

“I don’t believe this,” Brooke muttered under her breath. She spun around searching for Julie and when she found her she grimaced, letting her know she’d never be forgiven.

“Believe it. We’re not going anywhere,” her father said.

“If you wouldn’t come to us, we had to come to you,” her mother added.

“All we want to do is talk,” her father said.

“Not all. We want you to listen.”

“And we’ll listen. We’re here to listen too.”

Her head swung from one to the other
. “What’s this, a tag team intervention?” Brooke nodded at the empty seat. “Who else is going to drop in and have their say?”

“It’s just us,” her father said. “We know you’ve been through
a lot.”

Her mother released
Brooke’s wrist and guided her chin gently so their eyes met. “Are you ready for all this to be over?”

“I’m doing okay. You didn’t need to come. I’m settled here. I have a job.
I’m supporting myself. It’s easy here.”

Her mother lifted one of Brooke
’s dish pan hands onto the table. “We can all see how easy it is.”

Her father jabbed at the table with his finger. “Your grandfather made me wash dishes at the pub for years when I was a kid starting out. He wanted to teach me what it was like to feel like I’d worked for my money. I learnt that lesson.
I know what it’s like to be bottom of the pile.”

“I don’t feel bottom of any pile.”
It disturbed Brooke the way her mother kept trying to peer into her face.