Page 13

Chapter Thirteen

Kangaroo Paw

( Anigozanthos x hybrid )

Native to Western Australia, they grow from underground plant shoots that produce long strappy dark green leaves. The flowers are tall stems that end in a furry claw-shaped flower which is where the plant gets its name as it resembles a kangaroo’s paw. Each “finger” is a tubular flower that is filled with nectar.There are two types of Kangaroo Paw: tall and short. The taller varieties are more adaptable to their surrounds and will tolerate a broader range of soil and climate types. They are the easiest to grow. The smaller varieties are better seen as short-lived perennials and are more suited to pots. They usually flower all year round, however they are not as tough and will require more care than their taller friends.

“W e won!” Jules yelled from the counter as I wandered in. I didn’t know why I was there. I could have been at home with Tough, cuddling his wiry-haired body, but instead I’d closed the nursery and gone next door.

“Yippee,” I said morosely.

Jules pulled her head into her neck and raised an eyebrow. “Um…you okay?”

Pip suddenly appeared in my line of sight. “Come with me,” she said, authoritatively.

I balked, halfway between the cafe and the crystals. “I don’t want a reading or?—”

“Come with me. I just want to talk, and don’t diss the Tarot, by the way.”

Pip was a force when it came to digging into the human psyche and interrogating people, so I followed her over to the Tarot table.

“Sit. Spill.” Pip folded her arms over themselves and leaned forward. I sat like a recalcitrant teenager until Pip’s glare had me sitting up. For a twenty-nine-year-old woman, she had my forty-year-old self worked out.

“Steph isn’t Steph,” I started vaguely.

“Okay?”

“She’s Stephanie Walker and was doing some sketchy undercover thing that carries on the beliefs of her mother who was all about communities being rescued before big business rolled in and squashed everybody.” I took a deep breath.

“She said that?”

“No. Not those exact words.” I poked at a tiny loose crystal on the round table top. “She reckoned that she wasn’t going to give the okay to the board until a…study, I guess, had been done on how the warehouse would affect us all.”

“Sounds quite sensible and thorough,” Pip said, nodding.

“Pip! She lied to us!”

I couldn’t see how Pip didn’t understand, particularly because she was all in favour of revealing people's truths.

“Uh huh,” said Pip

“What? What’s ‘uh huh’ mean?” I answered belligerently.

“I’m not surprised, that’s all. She had a lot hidden when I did her reading.” Pip quickly pointed a finger at me. “Don’t say a word, Angel Whitlock.” Then she withdrew her finger and continued. “Do you remember your cards and the thoughts behind those cards from your reading?”

“Not really.”

“You didn’t reflect on your last journal entry.” Pip pursed her lips. “Fine.”

I aimlessly played with the crystal again, then, because there was silence, I looked and fell into one of Pip’s searching looks.

“Steph is important to you,” she said gently. "I think this is why it’s hurting you so much. You have an aura about you, like Steph is your…spark? No.” She shook her head. “More like she’s the candle to hold your light. Don’t lose your light just because you’ve thrown away your candle."

“I haven’t thrown away my candle, Pip.” I shook my head.

“Haven’t you?” She studied my face.

“Gah! No! I just…I’m hurt and embarrassed, that’s all.” I restarted my little crystal football game.

“Because Steph wanted more information?”

I looked up. “Because she deceived me and everyone else. It’s not right.”

Pip hummed. “It’s a little morally grey but if you put that aside, you fell in love with Steph before you knew who she was. So you’ve fallen in love with a person rather than a company’s representative.”

I jerked. “I haven’t fallen in love.”

“Haven’t you?” Pip repeated.

“I don’t like these Tarot sessions,” I said, as I scooped up the little crystal and handed it to her. “Way too much like therapy”

Pip beamed. “Thank you!”

* * *

I engaged in some sad, weepy internet searching where I just looked at images of my Steph then realised that she wasn’t my Steph at all. The articles and captions were the most difficult to endure. I found out that Steph was the majority shareholder of Walker’s. The big boss. Which was information I didn’t know what to do with in my brain, so I shoved it in a box in the corner of my mind and threw myself into work for the week.

Steph had been right. We were short-staffed.

Pip came in on the Tuesday when the oldies bus turned up. She was a godsend with that many people to deal with. She even took them all off my hands when they were done by shuttling them next door for coffee, cake, and a three-colour crystal reading if they were so inclined.

Denise, Kahlia’s mum, came for a half day on Wednesday. She tried valiantly but didn’t know one end of a native cacti from the other, so I left her at the counter the whole time because the prices were on the plants and the register wasn’t hard to manage. I was so grateful that I must have looked slightly manic when I grabbed her shoulders and beamed into her face.

“You are so wonderful to do this. I can’t thank you enough!”

“Oh!” Denise gave a sudden, startled smile. “It’s nice to feel needed. Kahlia and Derek are so competent with the baby and I sometimes feel a little like an unnecessary piece of Lego when I’m there. It’s nice to feel useful, isn’t it?”

“Denise? Are you a hugger?” I always checked.

“Yes?”

I pulled her to me.

* * *

Mrs G looked up and waved as I strolled through the curtain of multicoloured plastic strips at the doorway to her shop on Wednesday afternoon.

“Hi. Sorry I haven’t been in to see you yet. Flat out at the moment.” I said, and felt my small smile of greeting drop. “I’m a staff member down,”

“Ah, my Angel. I heard.” Mrs G wiped her hands on a tea towel then came around the counter to sit at one of two squeaky metal chairs that were offered to customers. “Sit. Sit.”

I dropped into the other chair which gave an alarming lurch, but with a quick bum shift, I righted it so it stood proudly on four legs.

“I know we are the winners but maybe we are the losers as well?” Mrs G said, and I wanted to bury my face in her shoulder and cry.

Mrs G must have seen this idea cross my face because she shuffled around, dragging the chair which squeaked on the lino, and put her arm around my shoulders

“Maybe we have lost a person from our community. I know about this plan of Steph’s, yes?” I rolled my head to look at her eyes, then snuggled back into the scents of salt, vinegar, and baklava.

“She’s obviously been along and told everyone,” I mumbled.

“I think she is very brave, our Steph. She did not lie.”

I jerked but she held me tight. I was nearly in a headlock.

“Mrs G. You’re kind of squashing me,” I said into the neck strap of her blue and white checked apron.

“Oh. Sorry.” She patted my cheek as I moved back. “Angel, love. It is normal to tell little white lies when courting. We exaggerate, no? Make sound better. Mr G, when he was courting, I asked him what he did. He said he owned a shop. No.He worked in a shop. No difference to me. I was his love focus.”

“His love focus?” I could feels tears looming again. Mrs G put her hands on each of my cheeks, and squeezed gently.

“Your Steph. She is your love focus,” she said, staring into my eyes, then she released my head and puffed out her chest ready to expound on her next piece of advice. “So what that she is director of company? You saw real Steph. I know this in here.” She slapped her ample bosom and nodded affirmatively. “I know this.”

* * *

“You, too?” I sat heavily on the small stool that Ted called ‘Angel’s Stool’ probably because I sat there the most and depleted his stock of loose leaf tea.

“She did tell me quite a good deal of the ins and outs,” Ted said, patting my knee, then turned to switch on the other overhead light. With Ted’s little flat above, two larger buildings butted up against each side, and the whole store at the front, it made for a dark tea room.

I took the proffered cup. “Thanks. Ins and outs is a funny way of saying she confessed.”

“Well, to confess means that she’d have to be guilty.”

We stared at each other. Finally, I spluttered. “But she is!”

“Of what?” Ted cocked his head to one side.

“Of…of being someone she wasn’t.”

“But she was being herself in person, just not in name.”

“Yes, her name. Instead of being Steph Thatcher, potential girlfriend, she was, she is Steph Walker, not-at-all potential girlfriend.”

“Angel, love.” I stilled my hands, the tea sloshing in the cup as Ted gazed at me intently. “I think Steph told you who she was very early on.”

I peered morosely into the slowly spinning liquid. “I’m not sure I’ll get over her.”

“Yes, you will.” Ted stood up and plucked the mug from my hands. “Particularly if you start to think of her as innocent in all this.” He tipped out my cup and refilled it with more hot tea. “Your brew got cold.”

“What?”

“Your cup of tea needed a refill.”

“No. What did you say just before that?”

“Think of her as innocent then work backwards. Something about getting a court to decide,” he muttered, gathering his jacket.

“What are you up to?” I stood as well.

“Nothing. I’ve not seen hide nor hair of little Tough today so I thought I’d invite myself down to yours for dinner. Lock up after you, please, lass.”

* * *

On Friday morning, I had hit rock bottom. I hugged myself in the office, spinning slightly on the business chair.

“Mail!” shouted Derek, who had been kind enough to give me a couple of hours even with a fussy newborn at home.

I shouted in return. “I don’t want it. It’ll be awful news, and?—”

A hand holding an envelope appeared around the doorframe and wiggled at me. The rest of Derek’s body followed, his face wearing a cheeky grin. “It’s in a pink envelope with love hearts on it. I doubt that Melbourne Electric is dabbling in empathy.”

I laughed and took the rectangle, sliding open the flap.

Then I chuckled. “This is so very Ted, and Jules, and it’s amazing.”

“What?”

“It’s an invitation to a community party for tonight at the cafe. Knowing Pip, there’ll be sparkles and glitter and crystals everywhere and all light sources will scatter beams that will give us epileptic attacks. It sounds wonderful.”

We grinned at each other. “What else does it say?”

“Didn’t you get one?”

“Yeah, but it got snaffled away by a woman who was breastfeeding and watching Wheel of Fortune. I wasn’t interrupting either of those things, no matter how much I love her.” He nodded slowly with eyebrows raised high.

“Okay. RSVP is ASAP. That’s nice and balanced. I’ll do that now. It says dogs are allowed—of course—but not to bring kangaroos because there’s enough already.” I stared at Derek. “What the hell?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. It’s Ted and Jules. Who knows?”

* * *

I was right about the glittery stuff everywhere. The ceiling looked like someone had shot stick-on stars at it from a canon. But it was delightful. Everyone had dressed up. Ted was in his ‘good suit’ as he called it.

“It’s my only suit but don’t tell anyone,” he whispered to me.

Jules was in blue and pink dungarees, hair all teased up.

I’d gone for black denim and a soft blue collared shirt. It was a celebration after all. Even still, I couldn’t quite pull myself out of my hole. I was completely heartbroken, because I was starting to think that Steph could have been my one. I truly felt that we were good together. Cute, and fun together. Sexy as anything together. Just all round better together.

I walked across and hugged Derek, bent to hug Kahlia, and kissed Leroy on his little fuzzy head.

Lucas got a bro hug, and Kaydee, who Lucas had invited, got a wave and a smile. I was in silly yet silent raptures of delight to see the two of them together. Normally, Kaydee was very selective in who she hugged or touched, but the touching she was clearly thrilled to do tonight was Lucas’ hand and she didn’t seem inclined to let that go. The way she looked up at him was gorgeous. Heart eye emojis all over the place.

I imagined that was how Steph and I looked. Well, how I had looked at her at least. Or she had looked at me while she lied.

“Stop it,” I hissed to myself.

I got kissed on both cheeks by Mrs G, and Mr G gave me a demure hug, but with the largest smile in the world.

The sound of the door opening cut all conversation.

Steph stood there; one foot in, one foot holding the door as if she wasn’t sure whether to continue her inwards journey.

Our eyes locked and all I could see was how sad she was and also how beautiful she looked in her pink party dress with her white sneakers and the glittery ceiling reflecting onto her skin and how much I missed her and had it only been a week because I think I’d been heartbroken for much longer, hadn’t I?

“Ah! Good! Ted announced. “Right on time.”

I spun around. “Right on time for what?”

Ted didn’t answer, but pulled out a chair and patted the space next to him for Kahlia to roll up into. He opened his arms to encompass all of us.

“For our kangaroo court council celebration party,” he announced proudly.

“What?” I asked, but my question was lost in in the cheering. Then Mr and Mrs G whipped out a pair of ear protectors for little Leroy and Kaydee and set off party poppers around the room so that paper streamers rained down on us.

Then I noticed that Steph had stepped right inside the cafe, walked straight over to Ted, and hugged him.

In fact, everyone received a brief hug or a wave, but her smile was tentative.

Then Steph turned to me and it was as if the lights chose that moment just to shine on us.

“You…” I started. I wanted to say ‘I miss you’, ‘I want you,’ ‘I love you’ but maybe not in front of eleven people and a dog.

“You look amazing,” Steph said, her eyes only for me.

“So do you.” Then I pointed at Ted, but spoke to Steph. “Why are you here?”

“Ted invited me to explain myself.” Steph grimaced, and her eyebrows wrinkled. “Again.” Then she cast a wobbly smile at everyone. “Can I crash your party for a bit? I like that I’ve been given the chance to explain everything while you’re all here. I know I’ve seen each of you this week but…well, it’s important.”

Jules pulled a chair out from the nearest table and gave it a little shove so it skidded across the tiles to the middle of the floor area, so if Steph did sit there, then we’d be arranged in a sort of ‘U’ shape.

“Aaaaaand…go!” Jules declared.

While Steph tentatively took her seat, I heard Mr G ask Lucas what a kangaroo court was.

Mrs G piped up, halting all conversational murmurings. “I know this. It is when we do the talking about the decision but this decision is already made so right here we have young and sweet Steph Thatcher, or Steph Walker, whichever Steph she is, she is Steph, yes?

She looked pointedly at me.

“Oh, come on. I don’t…I can’t do—” Talk about deer in a pair of headlights.

“I didn’t lie,” Steph said, softly.

“She didn’t lie,” Pip agreed.

“Oh my god,” I sighed. My face must have looked like an emotional Picasso, but I was beginning to see after all the chats this week that maybe I hadn’t seen the grey. All I’d been looking at was too much black and too much white. And right then, all I was looking at was Steph sitting there in the spotlight and I wanted to pick her up and kiss her.

I had to find out one thing, though. “There was never any need to lodge a ninety-day complaint, was there?” I asked.

Steph frowned. "Of course there was. It was necessary to keep Walker’s on their toes.”

I scoffed. “You talk about the company like it’s a whole seperate thing from you.”

“It is!” Steph stood and crossed her arms, staring me down. We stood like two opposing chess pieces. “How many times can I say this, Angel? I’m Steph Walker. Yes, I will admit that. But in my heart, I’m Steph Thatcher because I carry on what my mother instilled in me, which is that community is paramount to creating good society. And you all are good people. I am more my mother than Walker’s Industries.” Steph waved her hands about. “You’re a community and I would never have known that unless I became part of it. Although I think I knew from the very first day you welcomed me and took me for coffee next door. Your community welcomed me in whether I was a Walker or a Thatcher. You welcomed me and I couldn’t ever let that be lost because I fell in love with all of you.” Steph inhaled. “I uphold my mother’s ideals despite it frustrating Benjamin. I walk a fine line between creating profit for the company and not alienating the shareholders by vetoing what I think are poor decisions.” She inhaled again. “I’m not about to shit all over my parents’ gift by being a ‘yes man’. Natalie Thatcher raised both of us to be more than that. To see the big picture as well as the tiny details. Benjamin has lost sight occasionally of some of the details in a few of the proposals, which is why I go and find out the bigger picture.”

Steph placed her hands on her hips and glared. “So, yes, I inserted myself and I’m sorry. But you all made the council rethink its plans. You fought for your place, your shops, and you won. But Walker’s is not the dragon. It can exist and will continue to. But not there.” She pointed to the highway. “Anyway, I’m glad the council agreed to your terms, I’m glad you won, and I’m glad that you invited me to say what I had to say.” Steph seemed to run out of puff.

“I’m mad at you,” I said, emotions running rampant in my voice. “I’m mad at you because I feel hurt and betrayed. But mostly I’m mad at you because I’ve fallen for a person who I thought could be my someone. And now I find out that you’re a company representative, and not that person.”

Steph hung her head and I desperately wanted to take one more step closer so I could lift her chin with my finger and tell her I loved her but I couldn’t.

“You were so unexpected,” Steph said, quietly. “I?—”

We stood. Frozen.

“Steph,” I said. “You walked into the shop, right through the plants all beautifully arranged and knocked on the door to my heart. And I let you in.”

“I let you in, too.” Then Steph took that step forward so we were within the boundaries of hand-holding. Slowly I reached for her hand, brushing her fingertips with mine, so eventually when our palms held each other, it was a relief. “That moment when I kissed you, when I held you, when I touched you…I knew. I knew love and now I’ve painted it with rust. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for anything to happen with us. It just did and I’m so sorry for hurting you even—what are you doing?”

I’d kissed her.

Then I did it again with more feeling and depth and I would have continued but a polite cough alerted me to that fact that we had an audience.

“Right,” Ted declared. “I think you two need a moment alone.”

There was a gasp from Mrs G. “No moment. Look. They are in the love. What is this moment business? Pah. They kiss, everyone is happy, we eat.”

I hung my head as everyone fell about laughing. It was like a dam had burst. Then I felt Steph’s other hand sandwich mine.

“Can we? Can we talk, please?”

I looked at her and nodded, leading her to the chairs near the discounted crystals in their glass cabinets.

We sat with our knees almost touching.

Steph smoothed my cheek, and I nestled into her palm. Gosh, she was so pretty.

“I missed you this week,” I said softly.

“I missed you terribly. I’d lost you and I couldn’t bear it. I wante—what are you doing?” she repeated from before.

I’d begun making soft beeping noises just like the metal detector did when nothing was underfoot but it was tracking.

“Angel?”

I leaned forward into Steph’s space, close enough to lean in for a kiss.

“I’m finding you, Steph. You’re my precious metal and it took me ages to work that out. I want to be your lover but now I’m in mid air with nowhere to land. What do I do with this information? Can’t you see how hurt I am? Well, I was hurt. Not so much now. But I was. I felt betrayed, because it felt like I fell in love with Steph Thatcher and suddenly you were Steph Walker.”

Steph’s eyes sparkled with tears. “You love me?”

“Yes!”

“But I’m the same person.”

“You’re Steph Thatcher-Walker,” I said.

“I’m your Steph. I just wear a fancy business suit on some days.”

I couldn’t help it. I leered. “Really?”

Steph threw her head back and laughed and it was the most delicious sound in the world.

I brought my head closer to hers, feeling her breath. Then I felt it. A tiny kiss on my skin, just above the spot where my dimple started near my cheek.

“Hey, Angel?” Steph murmured.

“Yeah?”

“I love you, too.”

My heart exploded with confetti and dancing cats in top hats and canes. I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“I want to grow a tree with you.”

Steph tilted her head. “Like…an actual tree?”

I was so bad at this. “Well, okay, if you want to but I was speaking metaphorically. I want us. I want this.” I brushed her sternum and then mine and I was positive that I’d spoken softly but apparently we had a captive audience with listening devices.

“Put the soil in and grow the tree, Angel!”

Ted sounded like he was yelling for his favourite football team.

I blushed, then yelled back. “I own a nursery. I know how to grow a fucking tree!”