Page 92 of The Reality of Us
Dougie bumped his shoulder against Alice’s. “It does matter. C’mon, Alley Cat. Shower. Walk. A meal that isn’t ninety percent Cheezels. Then we’ll figure all of this out.”
Right there in front of her was something Alice could control. “Can you please not call me that? I hate it. I always have.”
Dougie leant away and frowned. “I thought you loved it! You’ve never said anything before.”
“Nobody ever asked me.” Alice pushed up off her island. The throw blanket dragged along the wooden floorboards as she trudged to the bathroom, her brother’s and Rico’s footsteps following her.
“I’m sorry,” Dougie said as Alice flipped the light on, cringing at her scungy reflection. “I guess we just assumed.”
Drops of water splattered over her hands and forearms as Alice turned the shower on. “You don’t need to apologise. I should’ve said something.” She hoped the water drowned out the tremor in her voice.
There were a million things she should’ve done differently.
“How about we take Murphy out while you’re showering? Try the walk tomorrow instead.” Dougie closed the door quietly when she nodded.
Alice pressed her face against the shower door, the glass brushing her cheeks and breathed in the steam filling the small room. She’d started again so many times. She could do it again.
After she undressed, Alice sat down in the corner of the shower and cried because she was going to miss Owen every day for the rest of her life.
33
“Oh, Owen, you’re here! Good. We’ve got lots to discuss.” Mrs Mandrill smiled kindly at him. The rest of the Old Girls nodded or waved.
He’d been avoiding his mother’s calls, but there’d been no getting out of today’s committee meeting. Not when she’d turned up outside Nate’s little log cabin and refused to leave without him.
“Yep. I’m here,” he said without enthusiasm.
Seriously though, why was he there? They didn’t need him to form a quorum, and he didn’t hold any of the executive positions. But Lulu had insisted, probably because she wanted to get him out of the house. She was still campaigning for him to stay with her after his surgery next week.
He looked down at the table, clasped his hands in front of him and wished he’d brought some notes so he could pretend to read them. Or begged off and said he had to go to the office. Check out the damage after some idiot threw a brick through the front window overnight. But Frankie had insisted she could handle it.
“Right,” Lulu said. “Shall we get started?”
Chairs scraped across the floor as everyone sat down. Hang on. Was the full committee here? But why?
Owen tuned out as Mrs Mandrill ran through the meeting formalities and the voting on the previous minutes. A burst of blue on the wooden windowsill captured his wandering gaze. A fairy wren hopped from one side to the other before flying away. Its feathers matched Alice’s eyes, and he shifted in his seat, focused on the water glass in front of him. It’d been a week since the race, and he’d been—as Teddy so helpfully put it—‘a sad fucker ever since’.
A swift elbow to his side pushed him out of his thoughts.
“Owen,” Lulu said. “Do you know the final count from the race?”
He sure did. One hundred and ninety-two thousand dollars, a battered heart and one destroyed knee. Or maybe it was the other way around. A battered knee and a destroyed heart.
He cleared his throat, told the committee what they wanted to know and avoided everyone’s eyes. Allowed their quiet congratulations to wash over him.
At least it hadn’t all been for nothing. The shearers’ shed was well on its way to being remodelled, and more people who needed help would get it.
“Now, what are we going to do about Alice?” Mrs Mandrill asked.
He didn’t have to look up to know the rest of the committee were watching him. They were lovely, kind-hearted women, but they were predictable.
“I guess that’s up to Owen,” Lulu said.
His head snapped up, his throat all scratchy. Nothing about this had been up to him. Alice had made her plan and left him in the dust. He knew he’d fucked up accidentally outing their relationship to the media by calling her ‘honey’, but in his defence, he’d been pumped up to the eyeballs with painkillers, panicked he was going to lose the best thing that had ever happened to him. “The lease Alice signed is month to month. If you give her thirty days’ notice, she has to vacate the property.”
Then she’d really be gone. All traces of her time in Wattle Junction erased. Owen rubbed his chest.
Lulu’s disappointed sigh echoed around the table.
