Chapter Twenty-five
Talking the Talk
I’d
flung myself on my cousin-the-singer’s bed that night, exasperated. Apart from her
amazing singing, the whole evening had been a disaster of epic proportions.
Truly… Confessions of a Post-teenage Hermit
The next day at work,
I felt so drained; I’d barely had any sleep. I was determined to put Ben
Wentworth’s name out of my head – forever. I was busy typing out my newest blog post in between wiping tables
and serving customers when he actually had the hide to walk into my café looking
like a freaking movie star.
Ben sat at the counter, alone. I was so
surprised after the previous night I nearly fainted. He looked hung over.
This was it. I was ready for him and not
ready to take any more. He could just stop rubbing his success and his happiness
in my face; it was getting a little old.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“I’d like a coffee, Jane.”
“Sobering up are we, after last night’s
little excesses? I saw you with a drink in one hand and Serena Collins in the
other. I hope the Air Force tests you every time you fly.”
Ben looked at me and sighed, “First drink
in weeks, Jane.”
“I guess you had good reason to celebrate.”
“What?”
“Serena?
The woman you were with. You must have known I wasn’t expecting to see her
again.”
“It was a surprise.”
“Oh,” was all I said.
“Not a welcome one,” he added.
I barely heard him. I started to make
coffee. “I guess you’ll be wanting extra milk. I’ve heard it’s good for hangovers.”
“Sure,”
he said smoothly.
I poured the lukewarm milk over his head
and dumped the sugar in his lap.
“I… can’t believe you just did that!”
“And I can’t believe you came back here
just to witness my humiliation and throw Serena Collins in my face!”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said,
wiping his jeans and face with the napkins, “I came back here for... I had no
idea she was back in town. She wanted to surprise me on my birthday. But I
wanted to see… my favorite Elliot girl again…”
He’d nearly let it slip. It was so obvious
he liked Lia. I couldn’t blame him but did he have to throw that in my face too? “Oh, it’s not just that it’s everything! Me here… alone, my
family, you with the last laugh, you were practically implicit in throwing me
out of my summer house…”
“The place was up for rent! Someone would
have rented it, if not my sister.”
“Yes and I’d prefer it if that someone
were anyone but your family…. That house
has been with my family… “
“Oh, you mean your spoilt sisters and a
father who let me know that in no uncertain terms years ago what he thought of
me and my family! I thought I was
doing you a favor!”
“A favor? It was the kind of favor I could
do without!”
By this point every customer in the shop had
stopped eating and was looking at me like I was not a very nice person. And who
knows, in the years I’d missed him, unspoken to anyone but Eleanor and only in
these past few days, maybe I had become a different person. Certainly a girl –
a woman – who dared to speak her mind, not just to her family but also to the
man she loved.
“Oh, please, women don’t give up on someone
even after all hope is gone! It’s men who are quick to forget, who can’t even
be bothered putting up a fight…”
I
couldn’t believe what I’d just said. I mean… to make matters even worse, I
added, “look at you, you’ve flaunted a different cousin in front of me every
day for two weeks. They have no idea what you meant to me. I don’t know what
you expect…”
“From you? Very little, but I have as much
right to be here as you do. Remember, this town is named after my relatives. I know that kind of thing
is important to you and your family!”
“Don’t talk to me any more about my
family.”
“They were… integral, weren’t they? To our
happiness?” he said bitterly.
“You mean our unhappiness,” I said under
my breath.
“You’re so different, Jane. So outspoken,
so forthright... Perhaps you know your own mind at last.”
At this point Lia and Harley flung open
the door in their sweat pants. It was obvious they’d been jogging along the
beach front. Ben must have walked over first up to speak to me, alone.
Lia grabbed Ben’s arm and dragged him with
her, “quick, you have to come and see, someone’s made a sand sculpture of a
castle outside…”
I looked away.
“Hi Jane,” Lia said, oblivious to our
argument. “Are we still all meeting to go shopping after work today?”
“Yes,” I smiled, lowering my voice.
Lia had not only interrupted my first argument
with Ben but she had also diffused it, as she dragged Ben breathlessly into the
morning air. He didn’t look back. He would be eternally grateful to be rid of
me once he’d left for flight training in Texas. Harley had told me he was going
next week. We’d never have to see each other again after that and he’d be able
to ignore my ‘confrontational mood’ for the rest of his life.
Ten minutes after they’d gone, the shop was
empty. The customers had left. There was quiet for the first time all morning.
That’s when I heard a piercing scream and was reminded of Jenny’s voice and
that terrible moment in Wentworth Canyon, six years ago.
