Page 9 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER EIGHT

Evie pulls up at the Forresters Beach putt-putt golf and switches off the engine.

The place is packed, by the looks. She turns toward the back seat, where Billy is playing with a length of wool Trudy gave him the other day, making the shape of the Sydney Harbour Bridge between his fingers.

He can entertain himself for hours with simple things, which is good – and especially helpful when she has lots of housework or she’s cooking dinner.

‘We’re going to have a wait to get in, Billy,’ she says.

He glances up from underneath the long eyelashes he gets from Stevo – definitely not from her, she needs about five coats of mascara – and gives her a sweet smile. ‘’S’okay,’ he says and goes back to his Harbour Bridge.

A rap on her window makes her jump and she turns to see her friend Fran grinning, holding up a thumb, her daughter Tilly at her side.

Evie grins. ‘C’mon, Billybub,’ she says, then opens her door, greeting Fran with a kiss on the cheek as Tilly runs around the car to say hello to Billy.

‘Good we could do this,’ Fran says, still grinning.

Fran’s a generally positive person and Evie finds it rubs off on her, which she needs sometimes. She can get mopey about the fact that she doesn’t have a boyfriend, as much as she tries not to.

‘You can’t help the yearn, doll,’ Fran said to her once in that idiosyncratic way she has, ‘but you don’t have to let it rule your life.’

Fran’s been with her own Steve – clearly a popular name when he and Stevo were born – since they were all at high school together, and if she’s ever had her own yearn for someone other than him, she’s never let on.

‘It is,’ Evie says and she spies their other friends, Priss – short for Priscilla – and Juzzy, née Justine, hopping out of Priss’s hatchback.

Priss lived in Sydney for a few years then fell in love with a Coast boy, so she’s back now.

Juzzy has never left. The four of them have been solid since Year 7 and Evie has been grateful they’ve never judged her for not trying to make it work with Stevo, despite the fact they’re all married and doing life by the book.

Some people judged – people Evie didn’t expect, like the aunt she was always close to – but you find out who your friends are when things get difficult.

‘Hope you don’t mind, but Steve’s here,’ Fran says just before the other two reach them.

‘Oh?’ Evie kind-of minds, because she thought this was a girls catch-up, but she isn’t going to say that. Fran can obviously take her husband anywhere she likes.

Fran makes a face. ‘Turns out he’d already organised to meet some mates here. They all want to be golfers – or so they say. Putt-putt seems to be the way in.’

‘Hi, hi, hi,’ Priss says as she walks up, kissing their cheeks, patting the kids on the head. Juzzy follows suit.

‘No babysitting?’ Priss says to Fran.

‘Ah, Priss, a little NB for you – Steve looking after Tilly is not babysitting. She’s his daughter .’

Priss rolls her eyes. ‘All right. But Damien calls it babysitting.’

Fran nods. ‘So he does. And Steve’s here, actually. With mates. And Stevo …’ She looks at Evie.

‘He’s on the Gold Coast for the weekend,’ Evie says. ‘But it’s worked out because now Billy and Tilly can play with each other.’

Juzzy laughs. ‘How you two ended up giving your kids matching names, I’ll never know.’

‘We’re geniuses,’ Fran says. ‘Shall we go and line up?’

The children skip ahead while the women pay the entry fees and get in the queue that has formed to the entrance of the mini course.

The Forresters putt-putt has been popular since it opened, and it’s an easy place for them all to meet, given that they’re scattered around the Coast, so at least once a month they’re here, usually without children.

Next to it is a giant water slide Billy is desperate to get onto but Evie won’t let him, and she’s asked Stevo not to take him either – she’s not keen on all that stagnating water in the pool at the bottom of the slide, no matter how much chlorine is in it.

As they’re waiting their turn, Steve appears with three men standing behind him, and Evie immediately recognises one of them.

‘Oliver!’ she says with surprise. Although she shouldn’t be so surprised – he’s a friend of Steve’s, and she met him when Billy was two, at a barbecue.

He asked her out to dinner, which was a surprise because she thought no one would want to date her with a kid in tow.

The only problem was that she didn’t feel a spark for him.

And she wanted that spark. The spark is what she’s been searching for all these years.

So she thanked him and said she appreciated him asking but she wasn’t looking for a relationship because she needed to focus on Billy.

He was gracious about it, and asked if they could be friends.

Which they have been, sort of, in that she’ll bump into him every now and then – the Coast not being all that big a community – and they’ll chat as if no time has passed.

She’s never seen him with a girlfriend, but Steve mentioned a couple of years ago that Oliver was seeing someone.

Evie had felt a pang of something – regret, maybe – at the time, but she didn’t analyse it and didn’t hold on to it.

‘Evie!’ he says now, hugging her. ‘It’s so good to see you.’

Billy presses into her leg.

‘Hi, Billy,’ Oliver says, holding out his hand for her son to shake. The last time Oliver saw Billy was at the Florida Hotel in Terrigal when he was four or five.

Her son smiles shyly.

The line moves forward incrementally and Evie goes with it.

‘How are you?’ Oliver asks. ‘How’s the salon?’

‘Great,’ Evie says. ‘Busy. Busier than usual. We lost a hairdresser.’

Something passes over Oliver’s face. ‘Oh. That’s interesting.’

‘Why, are you wanting a haircut?’ she teases.

The last time she saw him Oliver’s thick, dark hair was long, like a hippy’s.

The seventies had stopped a few years before but he was clinging on, it seemed, given that his favourite band is Fleetwood Mac.

But now it’s short and he looks better. Younger.

He laughs. ‘I could join the army with this, huh?’

‘You could.’

‘Not long now,’ Priss calls in her direction, nodding at the entrance gates ahead, and Evie nods her acknowledgement in return.

Oliver rubs the back of his head. ‘Do you like it?’ His hand drops. ‘My brother did it.’

‘Oh?’ Evie searches her memory for a mention of a brother and comes up short.

‘Sam,’ Oliver says. ‘He’s been overseas for a few years.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Italy. We’re Italian. He wanted to follow his roots. Or that’s what he said.’

‘You’re Italian?’

‘On Mum’s side. Dad’s English.’ He grins; it’s a knowing, sweet sort of thing. That grin was endearing when they met and she finds it endearing still, almost like Oliver knows a joke and he’s deciding whether or not to tell it.

‘Do you speak Italian?’ She’s always meant to learn a foreign language and she bought some cassettes from a bookshop once – for Italian, actually – but that’s as far as it went.

‘A little.’ Oliver shrugs. ‘Not as much as Mum would like. But she didn’t want to speak it to us when we were growing up so it was hard to practise.’

‘Why not?’

‘She didn’t want us to be different.’

Evie nods slowly. ‘My mum’s dad is Chinese. So, um …’ She smiles ruefully. ‘I know what you mean.’

‘Really?’ Oliver frowns, and she knows why – her eyes are blue and her hair is light brown, so she doesn’t look as if she’d have Asian ancestry.

Her mother thought it was a blessing when Evie was at school, with kids being cruel the way they are, whereas Evie loved her grandfather and wished they looked more alike.

Often she dreamt about living with her grandparents instead of her parents, but it’s the lot of a child to rarely get what they want.

The line shuffles forward again and now they’re at the front of it.

‘Um, I …’ Oliver starts then looks mildly pained. ‘I hope you don’t mind … I have a favour to ask.’

‘Right,’ Evie says, wondering what it could be, considering he didn’t know she’d be here. Or did he?

‘My brother’s actually a hairdresser. He was doing that in Italy. Doing really well.’ Oliver smiles quickly. ‘But he wanted to come home. Mum wanted him to come home. And, ah … he needs a job. So I was wondering if, ah … if, um …’

His brow knits and Evie wants to save him the worry and fill in the rest for him, but at the same time she thinks he should say it. If you’re asking a person for a favour it’s a good idea to actually ask .

‘If you’re a hairdresser short, would there be a spot for Sam?’ he finally gets out.

She’s mildly irritated that he’s using this chance encounter to ask her for something, but she knows she’d do the same thing if it were her brother. Or maybe not, because her brothers don’t like asking for help. For Billy. She’d do it for Billy. And for Stevo, because he’s family too.

‘Maybe,’ she says to Oliver. ‘I’ll have to ask Trudy. It’s her place.’

‘All right, great, thanks, yeah, that’s good, fine.’ He sounds so relieved.

‘We’re on, Evie,’ Juzzy says, taking her elbow as if she’s saving her from the conversation.

‘Good to see you,’ Evie says to Oliver as the gate opens. ‘I’ll ask Trudy then call you, yeah?’ He’ll be in the phone book; everyone is.

‘Thank you.’ He smiles. ‘I really appreciate it.’

‘What are friends for?’

His eyes cloud momentarily. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m using you,’ he says softly.

‘You’re not.’ She pats his arm. ‘You’re helping your brother.’

Before she has a chance to say goodbye she’s swept up in the tide of her friends, putting irons in hands, and when she turns back to wave to Oliver she sees him walking away with Steve and a couple of other men.

It’s a shame, in some ways, that she didn’t feel the spark for him, but you can’t force it. As Priss once said, it’s there or it isn’t. Evie just wishes she knew what there felt like, because she’s never had it.

But that’s a conundrum for another time.