Page 117 of Just One Look
Two and a half hours later, crossing the Harbour Bridge, his pulse starting to hammer in his ears so loudly that he could nearly hear it. Almost there. Piper was staying in the flat over the holiday, working extra hours in the flash restaurant of the posh hotel that had taken her on a year ago, being charming and beautiful for tips from wealthy tourists who didn’t know they didn’t need to tip in New Zealand. Making as much money as she could, because he wasn’t paid for his work on the farm, and provincial rugby paid starvation wages. Piper didn’t earn much more than he did, which meant their life was boring for her, but that was going to change. He was going to have all the money they needed now.
Up through the CBD, and he hesitated, then stopped short of his destination, found a carpark and paid the eye-watering price for it, and walked up Lorne Street amidst the tourists and the overseas students and the buskers, the chords of their music mingling in the warm air. Up to the funky little jewelry shop where the silver rings featuring skulls and snakes jostled for space in the display window with old-fashioned items bought from the estates of old ladies. He needed to do things right, and this was the best he could do. He’d do it better later, but he had to try. She was his family now, and he needed to let her know that. He wasn’t alone anymore, and he’d never have to be alone again.
He walked out of the store with twelve hundred dollars charged on his credit card. He didn’t have twelve hundred dollars, but he would. The optimism was filling him, buoying him. He was windblown and sweaty and dirty, and he was triumphant.
Key in the lock to the door of the block of student flats. Up five sets of stairs, not even bothering with the stuffy little lift, because he didn’t need it and never would. He had the puff and the legs for twenty sets of stairs. Down the passage with its thin, stained carpet, and through another door.
No music. No voices. She’d be here, though, getting ready for her shift. Standing at the sink in the single bathroom, fixing her hair and putting on her makeup, turning her face from beautiful to spectacular like a magic trick.
She was going to cry, and maybe she was going to be late to work, but that was all right, too. That was perfect.
She wasn’t in the bathroom, so he opened the door to their bedroom. It was dim in there, because the shades were drawn, and for some reason, she was in bed. She turned her face to him, looking startled, and he was jumping onto the bed, laughing, pulling the sheet back.
Andy Halloran, the Blues winger, all the way under that sheet, turned his head from his task and said, “What the hell? Bugger off.” Then got to his knees and said, “Luka,” even as Piper erupted from the bed, then seemed to realize she was naked and wrapped her arms around herself. As if she could hide that. As if Luka could unsee that.
He had fast reactions. He always had. He had a hand in Andy’s dreadlocks and was yanking him out of the bed, and then he was hitting him, and Andy was hitting back with all the force of a powerhouse winger. He weighed more than Luka, and he had the benefit of two years of serious professional training, but it didn’t matter, because Luka had the rage. Luka was driving him backward, feeling Andy’s nose break under his fist, and then feeling his own do the same thing. A sharp burst of pain, and the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. And Piper trying to get between them, throwing her arms around him, screaming. Hysterical. As if she had a right.
Amber, one of the flatmates, was in the room now, shouting herself. And Piper was dragging Luka off Andy, sobbing like her heart was broken.
“You mad bastard,” Andy gasped, grabbing for a pair of rugby shorts and pulling them on as Piper and Amber held Luka back, or he held himself, because he couldn’t actually kill the arsehole.
He tried to think of what to say. He couldn’t. Andy was holding his T-shirt to his nose now, the red stain spreading, and then he was grabbing his jandals and shoving his way out the door. Luka could hear his footfalls down the passage, the slam that was the front door of the flat, as he raised a hand to wipe the blood from his chin. Piper was crying helplessly, and Amber, a dark, sardonic girl, said, “Yeh, this was always going to end well,” and went out herself. And Luka stood there with Piper still naked, still clinging to him, still crying, and finally said something.
“You didn’t wait,” he told her. “Why couldn’t you wait for me?”
* * *
“But why?”Elizabeth asked. She didn’t want to hear this, and she did. It was raw. It was hurting Luka even to say. Was he still in love with Piper, then? Was that possible? Was that why he was still single?
Luka looked drained, as you’d imagine a man would who’d had surgery hours before and had been sitting up for far too long. Or, maybe, who’d just had to relive something terrible. He said, “She told me it had barely started. Who knows if it was true. She met him at a party. A party we were both at, so he knew she was with me. He’d been playing for the Blues for a couple of years by then, and doing well at it. He had a future, and I didn’t. She was scared, and I knew that. Scared that she’d never have security. Scared even to tell me she wanted out. Scared that she’d be out there alone in the storm with nothing to hang on to and nobody to protect her.”
“You would have protected her,” Elizabeth said. Her heart hurt for the man he’d been. Barely more than a boy, with a ring in his pocket and all his dreams coming true.
“She didn’t believe it,” he said. “I wasn’t enough. Maybe I was lucky at that, because would there ever be any protecting Piper so she’d believe it? It was the best day of my life, though, and then the worst. Whiplash, eh. I reported to the Blues that first day, a month or so later, and there Andy was, dreadlocks and all. I was compartmentalizing like mad, because I wasn’t going to let them take this from me, too. And then the first game, when she was in the stands, but she wasn’t watching me the way I’d always imagined it. She was watching him instead. That first year was bad. I had my dream, and I didn’t.”
“What did you do?” she asked.
“Put my head down and worked. Nothing else I could do. And moved to the Chiefs as soon as I was off contract.”
“What happened to him? To them?”
He looked at her, and she couldn’t read that look. “She married him.”
“He’s Madeleine’s father?”
“He must be.”
“But … why aren’t they together anymore?”
“Dunno. Because he got cut from the squad, a few years back? Because he cheated? Who knows which happened first, and which mattered more? Or maybe that’s not fair. Nobody’s the same person they were at twenty.”
“Do you know that for sure? About the cheating?”
He sighed. “Yeh. You know who does and who doesn’t. You play each other enough and drink with each other enough to know that.”
She sat still a minute, then asked, “Was he as good as you? As a player?”
“No.”
She wanted to ask this, and she didn’t. Finally, though, she couldn’t help it. “Are you sorry?”
“For her?” he said. “Yeh. Can’t help it. For me? No. We were twenty. It’s over. She made her choices, and she took her chances. And so did I.”
