The Auction a Romance by Anna Erishkigal Page 37

  My shoulders sagged, exhausted and limp, as I schlepped the groceries into the kitchen even though it wasn't even lunchtime. It felt as though Eva Jackson had stuck one of those alien face-sucking things onto my skull and sucked my brains right out of my head, and any minute now, an alien would come busting out of my chest. The phone rang the moment I got the last grocery inside the door.

  "Oh, God, not again," I muttered.

  "Hello?"

  The line went dead.

  "Bitch!" I screamed. But Eva had already hung up. I crawled underneath the table and unplugged the telephone from the wall, muttering "you want to play games, you bloody bitch? Well you're going to have to get through me!"

  I snuck into Adam's bedroom and unscrewed the cover of the land line extension. Every time Sienna and I had skipped school to go on a trail ride, I'd pull out the wire that went to the ringer so my mother wouldn't get the robo-call which informed parents their kids were absent. So? Eva wanted to remind Adam she could reach out and mess up his world? Well, my bitch of a mother had perfected psychological warfare to an art form. Rule #1: don't let the enemy intrude into your head.

  "Take that, bitch," I muttered as I screwed the phone back together, minus the ringer. Adam could call out, but Eva couldn't call back in.

  I spent the rest of the weekend hanging in the background and did everything I could to support the bond between Adam and Pippa. Hour by hour, my poor, sad little charge began to perk up, but Adam looked like he'd been at the losing end of a fist-fight with an entire battalion of Royal Australian Regiment marines.

  Come Monday morning, Adam had no choice but to go back out to the Surat Basin to tend his gas wells. I plugged the phone back in so I'd get his calls, but I was all done playing games with Eva Jackson. It was time to teach Pippa how to take care of herself.

  As Pippa and I ate breakfast, I pulled out a piece of scrap paper and donned my most thoughtful expression.

  "What are you writing, Rosie?"

  I suppressed an inward gotcha.

  "It's called The Plan," I said. "If you write down your goals and look at them every single day, after a while, you begin to spot opportunities."

  "A plan?"

  "Yes, a plan," I said. "Things don't happen overnight, but if you have a plan, you can make your own luck."

  I handed Pippa the piece of paper. She read it aloud.

  .

  Pippa's Plan

  Home

  Friends

  Roots

  School

  Horse

  .

  Her small, porcelain features assumed a look which was strangely mature.

  "I like this plan."

  "Good. Then finish eating and go get dressed. We have to be at the library this morning so you can volunteer with Sarah Colbert. And then, we're going to stop by the Mitre-10 to buy some paint."

  "Paint?"

  "Yes, paint. I think it's time we repainted your bedroom."

  Pippa slid The Plan into her pocket. With subdued determination, we fell back into our normal routine.

  *

  Not one to be ignored, Eva Jackson upped the ante by sending a constable out into the Surat Basin to serve Adam with a summons, right in front of his men, to appear in court on New Year's Eve day. Meanwhile, every time I turned on the telly, the newsman broadcast a feature about Adam's so-called 'illicit affair with his daughter's teacher.' I tried to avoid the gazes of nosey people, but honestly, the townies? More than one pulled me aside and said they were glad Adam had 'picked somebody local.' Thankfully I was able to keep Pippa blissfully ignorant of the firestorm. By the time her father's headlights bounced down the driveway late Wednesday night, Pippa had recovered some semblance of her former self.

  Thunderlane ran to the front door and wagged his tail.

  "Daddy's home!"

  Pippa took her father's bags as soon as he stepped out of the car. He hugged and held her for a very long time, and in the dim yellow light of the spotlight, not even the sharp line of his designer suit was able to hide the way his shoulders stooped as he shuffled, exhausted, towards the house. I held open the screen door and waited for him to notice the smell of paint.

  "G'day, Miss Rosamond."

  His eyes were weary, wary, and something else. There was a stiffness between us which hadn't existed since the day I'd called him bloody boring.

  "Welcome home, Adam," I said.

  I might as well have said 'welcome' to a brick wall.

  Oblivious to his surroundings, he headed down to his room to drop his bags and tossed his suit jacket onto his bed. On the way back, he stopped, backed up, and stared into Pippa's lit-up room. Pippa reached over and took my hand. We both waited, holding our breath, like two sisters who awaited their father's ire.

  "You painted it purple?" Adam said.

  Pippa edged closer so I stood slightly in front of her.

  "I let Pippa pick out the color herself."

  Adam stepped into the bedroom, which still reeked heavily of paint. We scooted to the doorway like a dark twin and a blonde twin, our hands locked together to create a united front as we waited to see how Adam would react.

  "You painted the furniture as well?"

  "The wood was too dark and filled with scratches. White is a better color for a girl."

  "Where'd the carpet go?"

  "It was ugly," I said. "And it didn't match. So we ripped it up and hauled it to the landfill. The red-gum flooring is so much nicer."

  Adam stared down at the floorboards which, other than a few deep gouges, was in perfectly serviceable condition. I suspected the floor had been milled from the stand of red-gum trees that lined the river in front of the house.

  His voice warbled.

  "My mother was after my father for years to put in wall-to-wall."

  "It was all worn out," I said, "and hopelessly out of fashion." I gave Pippa's hand a squeeze. "Sometimes, you just have to clear out everything that doesn't work anymore so you have room to bring the new things into your life."

  Adam's gaze met mine, but he did not appear to be angry, merely perplexed, as if to say, 'now why did you go and do that?'

  Pippa let go of my hand and stepped closer to her father, tall, poised, and ready to defend her color scheme and paint.

  "I really love it, Daddy. Rosie put me on a budget of $100 and let me pick out anything I wanted. Almost anything. I didn't have enough money to buy new curtains, but Linda Hastings said she'd teach me how to use a sewing machine."

  Adam stared at the room like a lost little lamb, his broad shoulders sloped forward, no longer hidden by the suit jacket he'd just cast off. We'd just wiped out the last trace that his twin brother had ever existed. But Jeffrey was dead, and Pippa was not, and if she was going to set down roots here, she needed a place to call her own. Where framed photographs of his brother once lined the walls, now Pippa's colorful artwork and a pin-board with cutouts of horses declared this space was hers.

  "Okay," he said softly.

  He looked so crestfallen I wished I could hug him, but Adam was not a free man, and until he was, the paddock fence had to stay up firmly between the horse whisperer and the wild brumby stallion.

  "We waited to eat supper until you got home," I said. "Just grilled cheese, but I picked up a container of organic tomato soup."

  It was one of Adam's favorite comfort foods, made with leftover artisan bread, with a blend of earthy goat cheese, creamy cheddar and sweet, salty ham, hot and buttery and grilled to a perfect golden brown. Pippa chattered about how much fun it had been to renovate her room, how much money the paint cost, a spilled paint mishap which had been the real reason for ripping up the rug, and ways I'd taught her to stretch a dollar. He shot me a raised eyebrow when Pippa revealed that Julie Peterson had brought Emily over to help us paint.

  "Julie is the master of creating something from nothing," I said. "She took Pippa to the landfill to find some of her decorations and taught her how to repurpose them using craft paint and glue. It'
s a useful skill for your daughter to learn."

  I gave him a firm eyebrow. Yes, Adam. I took the Jackson Oil Princess dumpster diving and decorated her bedroom with other people's garbage.

  "Julie always was creative," Adam said.

  He ate in silence, his expression troubled. We cleaned up the dishes and settled in for a board game.

  'Unspeakable Words?' Adam read aloud the name of the card game I'd dug out of my stash in the barn.

  "It's like Scrabble," I said. "Only it's Lovecraftian in nature. If you lose all of your little Cthulhu game pieces, you go insane and can only spell gibberish words."

  "Don't mess with the elder gods!" Pippa laughed. She shook a tiny black Cthulhu game piece in her father's face. Her room renovation had shaken her out of her Eva-induced depression.

  Adam gave his daughter a wistful smile. Whatever troubled him, he still went through the motions of playing the game. By some unspoken agreement, we waited to turn on the telly until after the news finished smearing our names, and then changed the channel to the one which broadcast the New Year fireworks going off over Sydney Harbor. When I'd still lived in Brisbane, the people would take to the streets at midnight, singing and celebrating the New Year. Outside the open living room window, the echo of backyard firecrackers announced less formal New Year celebrations of stationers gathered around campfires and barbies.

  "It's time for bed, Miss Muffet," Adam announced.

  "Awww!" Pippa stretched and stifled a yawn.

  He herded Pippa into her room for her nightly story, but he shot me a querying eyebrow, as if to ask, 'will you still be awake when I'm done?'

  I nodded. Yes. I wanted to know how things had gone in court.

  He came out a few minutes later and headed into the fridge to pull out two bottles of beer. He placed one down upon the coffee table which divided us like a wall, and then sat down into the isolation of his orange king chair with a weary sigh.

  I looked up from my book and snapped it shut.

  "How was court?"

  Adam grimaced.

  "My solicitor filed an emergency motion to cut off visitation until Eva gets some counseling."

  "I'm sure that went over like a fart in church."

  Adam stared at his hands.

  "The judge took it under advisement. There will be a full hearing on the merits next week, but the judge said Pippa doesn't have to see her mother until he can make a ruling."

  A small victory, but not a permanent one…

  "Only one week?"

  Adam's eyes grew intense, and just for a moment I felt like I stared into the eyes of the grim specter who still watched over this station.

  "You never told me you stabbed a man with a pitchfork."

  The room spun very far away as a lump of clay settled into my stomach. I never told anyone that, not even Gregory…

  "Those are juvenile records," my voice warbled. "The court ordered them sealed. It has no bearing upon who I am today."

  "Eva filed a motion to get the court to unseal them."

  "She can't!" My voice rose sharply. "The juvenile judge dismissed the charges!"

  Adam leaned forward. "What happened, Rosie? I can't defend against it if I don't know."

  Tears welled in my eyes. I couldn't talk about it. I couldn't even think about it! Not with Adam. Not with anybody. Ever! The last memory I had of seeing Harvey… No! For the last six years, I hadn't even been able to dream about Harvey without waking up, screaming. It wasn't until I'd come here and that I'd been able to dream about my beloved horse at all.

  I rose up from the couch and tried to flee.

  Adam intercepted me and pulled me into his arms.

  "Rosie, Rosie, it's okay!" Adam pulled me into a bear hug. "Whatever you did, I'm sure it was justified. I just need to know what happened so Eva doesn't blindside my solicitors."

  "He deserved it!" I shrieked. "I only regret I didn't stab the bastard in the heart!"

  I pushed, and Adam held me, and finally he pulled me down onto the couch to sit beside him until my sobs subsided. I hyperventilated, desperate to run away and hide.

  "What happened, Rosie?"

  I stared out the window, unable to meet his gaze. The clock ticked the minutes. Tick, tick, tick. It ticked until I realized Adam wouldn't let me go until I gave him an explanation, only he didn't understand I couldn't.

  "Some wounds are so painful," my voice was hoarse, "that the only way to move beyond them is to run away."

  "So it's true?"

  "Yes." My voice came out a painful whisper. I stared out the inky picture window as though it contained a sea of souls.

  "My solicitor filed a motion to quash," Adam said. "But Eva's father has set the dogs on digging up your past. If it's out there, she'll find it, and whatever she has, she'll use it against us any way she can."

  "Did she ask the judge to order you to fire me?"

  "Yes."

  I swallowed.

  "When will you know if she's succeeded?"

  "Next Wednesday," Adam said. "Next Wednesday the judge wants a hearing on the merits."

  I stared at our reflection in the picture window glass, a beautiful titan of industry who the newspapers called the magic oil man, and a plain old nobody with black splotches on her past. My pathetic upbringing had just become a liability, just like when Gregory had landed his dream-job.

  .

  'The bank turned down our mortgage application for the condo.'

  'What do you mean, they turned us down? We earn enough money to meet the payment.'

  '-I- earn enough money.' Gregory's face filled with contempt. '-You- earn minimum wage.'

  'That's just my job at The Three Monkeys. As soon as I find a teaching position, I'll earn enough to pay my share.'

  'Your teacher job doesn't PAY anything!' Gregory snapped. 'You're an unpaid intern who couldn't even finish her secondary major!'

  'But I dropped my dual major to pay the rent for US!'

  'It's not about paying the bills, Rosie. It's about debt-to-income ratio. You took out a loan to finance that shit box of a Falcon, and now you're graduating into a field that pays a pittance. On paper, the bank sees you as a risk.'

  'Then we'll scale down our wedding and rent an apartment until I can find a job in Sydney.'

  'I don't -want- an apartment, Rosie. I want to buy a condo overlooking Sydney Harbor.'

  'It's just for a little while. As soon as I find a teaching position, I'll pay off my car loan, and then we can apply for another mortgage.'

  'No, we won't,' Gregory said. 'Your father skipped the country without paying his debts and your mother went bankrupt the minute you moved out. The bank views you as too much of a credit risk to ever give you a loan, which in the finance profession means you're a liability to -my- career. I worked too hard to get where I am to throw it away because of YOU.'

  .

  Tears welled in my eyes. If Gregory hadn't thrown me out like trash, this upcoming Saturday would have been our wedding day.

  "Do you want me to leave?"

  "No." Adam's cheek muscle twitched. "But Eva blames you for the demise of our marriage."

  "You were already separated when I met you."

  Adam gripped my chin and forced me to look at him, forced me to look into his eyes.

  "Rosie," Adam said. "Before you came into our lives, I just wanted Eva to cut off ties with her father and get some help. At least that's what I told myself, even after I filed for divorce." He tightened his arm around my shoulder. "But then I met you and began to see what a real family might look like. It made me realize…"

  I met his gaze, so filled with yearning, and was reminded that Adam was an incredibly beautiful man. It was funny how I'd almost forgotten he was way the hell out of my league, even more than Gregory had been. Maybe that's what had me on edge? The fact my wedding day would have been this coming Saturday?

  The air grew heavy, so thick so it hurt to breathe. Every nerve ending in my body tingled the way it does just b
efore lightning strikes close to the house. Adam slid his hand down to rest his fingers upon the aboriginal bracelet. His face grew vulnerable.

  "The entire world thinks you and I are having an affair. Would it be so wrong to declare it is true?"

  I wanted it so badly my entire body thrummed with a soul-deep yearning to merge with him and never let him go. The wild brumby stallion wanted me to climb up onto the saddle and erase Eva's memory from his soul…

  …and all I could think of was poor little Pippa, lying at the bottom of the gully, crying that the Fairy Queen didn't love her anymore.

  You're a liability, Rosie. And as soon as he realizes it, he'll buck you off and leave you broken, just like Gregory Schluter did…

  "You don’t … want … me!" I cried out. "You want somebody who loves your little girl as much as you do so when you go off to work, you know she'll be okay!"

  Adam froze as though he'd just seen a ghost. He lurched unsteadily to his feet and stared at me, his expression haunted, as if he'd just prevented himself from committing a heinous crime.

  "I'm sorry, Rosie," he said. "I just thought … I'm sorry."

  He disappeared into his bedroom and shut the door.

  Chapter 39

  The girl on the white pony led me to a small, abandoned cabin which sat forlornly, overlooking the river with its vacant windows. Her small, pale features appeared wistful as she dismounted her white mare and stepped inside. I slid off Harvey and followed her into the unpainted doorway. She pointed upwards, to the roof, and then to the floorboards, which buckled beneath my feet due to water damage.

  "I'll ask Adam to get it fixed," I said. "But I don't know if he'll believe me."

  The girl got back on her white pony and galloped back towards the river, the white pony's hooves barely touching the ground. Harvey and I raced to keep up with the elusive ghost. I pulled back on the reins when I realized she'd led me to where Adam sat at the spot we'd picnicked the day he had almost kissed me, his arms wrapped around himself as he stared forlornly out across the water. I rode Harvey down the riverbank. Adam scrambled to his feet, his expression startled.