Page 38 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Josie barely notices the drive home because she’s half-daydreaming about Brett. Which she really shouldn’t do when she’s driving, but it’s hard not to. He’s been meeting her after work every day, even though she now knows he finishes work two hours earlier than she does.

‘Don’t you want to go home?’ she asked him yesterday.

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Then I wouldn’t see you.’ He’d hugged her to his side as they walked toward her car, because that’s what they usually do: walk to her car, then she goes home. Which means he spends all that time just waiting to see her for a few minutes.

‘What do you do for two hours?’

‘I surf!’

He didn’t surf today, though: there were no waves.

She would absolutely have understood if he hadn’t waited for her when he had nothing else to do, but he did.

As she emerged from the Seaside Salon he took her hand and kissed her on the lips – not for too long, because they were in front of the salon – and they walked around the corner where he kissed her some more.

It made her feel better, seeing him. He knows she’s been worrying about her parents finding out about them – even though he wants that to happen, has told her that he wants to meet them because he’s serious about her.

It’s the most wonderful thing she’s ever heard and also the most stress-inducing because she can’t imagine having that conversation with them.

The preferable thing to do is daydream about him and him alone, not what it would be like for her parents to meet him.

She’s still daydreaming as she opens the front door of the house.

‘Josie.’

Her mother appears in front of her and she jumps.

‘Mum, you scared me,’ she says, putting her keys on the table just inside the door.

Her mother’s nostrils flare. ‘Where have you been?’

‘At work.’ Josie frowns. ‘Why?’

‘You’re later than usual.’

Her father joins them, his hands folded in front of him.

‘I had a colour. She arrived late.’ This was the truth, but she feels queasy as she says it, as if she’s about to be exposed for lying even though she hasn’t. Her time with Brett did not make her late – she was already late.

‘If I call Trudy will she confirm this?’ Her mother’s voice sounds strangled.

‘Yes.’ Now Josie feels upset – why is her mother questioning her like this? Why would she care …

Oh. No. Her mother knows something.

‘You’re lying,’ her mother says.

‘I’m not.’

‘Miriam saw you !’ her mother screams.

Josie hadn’t forgotten about Miriam but it’s been almost a fortnight and she had started to believe that Miriam had forgotten about her.

It feels like a betrayal even though she knew it was coming.

Has always known, for years it seems, that this day would come when the life she wants for herself is on a path that her parents have barricaded and keep barricading because they don’t want her going anywhere.

Out of fear, not love. She is the only child they were able to have and her mother, in particular, never wants to let her go.

What they didn’t count on was Brett. He knows how to clear that path for her.

He’s doing it already. Because of Brett she feels stronger than she ever has in her life.

Not just Brett – the salon too. The work she does there.

The person she is there. She is more capable than she realised.

She’s good at things . Clients tell her so. Trudy, Sam and Evie tell her so.

So she may have been stupid little Josie at school but she’s not any more – and she never wants to go back to being her again, no matter how much her mother wants that.

There’s no point pretending she doesn’t know what Miriam saw. Which means she needs to draw on that new strength of hers and kick down those barricades.

‘I saw her too,’ she says as calmly as she can.

‘ Who were you with? ’

‘Brett.’

‘ Brett? ’ Erin’s eyes are wild and she turns to Josie’s father. ‘Paolo – say something!’

Her father’s mouth opens and closes, then he stops looking Josie in the eye.

Was he always this weak? Was her mother the one calling the shots all this time? Suddenly Josie pities him.

‘How do you know him?’ Erin’s voice is lower but her anger is still clear.

There are different ways Josie could answer this but most of them would take her back to the start of her relationship with Brett: I met him at the beach. He works in Terrigal. I see him around. That’s not what she wants to say. That’s not what they are to each other any more.

‘He’s my boyfriend,’ she says, and she feels power in that moment. Finally she knows there is someone who is just for her, who will stand with her. Because she knows he would. He has kept showing her he would. Kept showing up for her.

‘Boyfriend,’ her mother almost whispers. ‘Boyfriend.’

Josie nods. ‘Mm-hm.’ Keep it light. Don’t make things worse by giving any more information than her mother has asked for.

‘You don’t need a boyfriend.’

‘I’m old enough to decide what I need.’

‘You’re a pretty girl – he’s only after one thing!’

Is that what her mother thinks is valuable about her – the way she looks?

Josie wants to protest – to tell Erin that she and Brett have conversations, that they’ve talked about how they both want to travel, that they both want kids someday, that they want to live on the Coast because they love it so much.

There is no point saying all of that, though.

Her parents won’t understand. So she says the first line that comes to her, feeling a tumult inside her, so many emotions moving and rolling: anger, fear, disdain, pity, despair – and love.

But the love isn’t strong enough to fight them in this moment, so she has to get out of here, at least for now.

‘Well – he’ll get it!’ she shrieks and doesn’t wait for a response. Just picks up her keys and her bag and rushes out of the house, to the car.

It’s only then that her father does something. As she looks up from the driver’s seat she sees him standing in front of the car, his eyes pleading with her – but for what she doesn’t know. And her pity for him is threatening to turn into dislike, so she has to get away from it.

As she pulls away from the kerb he raises a hand. In farewell? Trying to call her back?

It’s no use. She puts her foot down and heads away, away, away as fast as she can go.

She wants to go back to that beach Brett took her to. Killcare. She loved it there, with him. Unsure exactly how to get there, she heads for the road that will take her to the beaches and she’ll find it from there. So she takes the Woy Woy Road that winds down, toward the water.

Her breathing is rapid. Panicky. She didn’t notice it being like that at the house.

There was a woman in the salon the other day who was breathing like this.

‘All right, pet?’ Trudy said, even though the woman clearly wasn’t. But it’s how Trudy defuses situations. Josie has noticed this. If Trudy were here now she’d probably say, ‘All right, pet?’ then tell Josie to slow down.

She doesn’t want to slow down, though. She wants to get to Killcare. She can’t go to Brett because she doesn’t know where he lives. Isn’t that strange? They’re so close but they don’t know where each other lives. Maybe that’s romantic.

Why is she breathing like this? Panic attack. That’s what Trudy said in the salon to the woman. That she was having a panic attack. Then Trudy got her a paper bag and insisted the woman blow into it and that helped.

There’s no paper bag in this car, though. Just her and her breathing.

Killcare. She has to make it. Can’t stop until she makes it.

Except there are dark spots in front of her eyes now and she’s really having trouble seeing, and this road has so many turns. There’s nowhere to stop. She needs to stop.

Instead she sees a car coming around the bend and those spots are in front of her eyes, and she clips the car.

After that, she has no memory.