Wayde arrived at twelve sharp. Hair tied in a squirt of pony at the back of his head (I’d messaged him about the hair after I found two long ones on the side of the counter next to the coffee machine. Di would fire him for that before he even started), clean grey RVCA T-shirt, dark shorts, black Vans. Still with the Pina Colada Coconut Vanilla smell but with a layer of something masculine from a bottle I didn’t know. A black rubber watch and beaded leathery wrap things on his wrist completed his look. I guessed this was him dressed to impress. I was impressed. Di too. He shook her hand, smiled those smiles, hung on her every word about how she liked the coffee area to be. He produced every coffee she asked for and she didn’t ask him to redo a single one (unlike me – she gave up on me with my twelfth bad cappuccino). He didn’t flinch when she told him that he needed to help with everything when he wasn’t doing coffee – from helping me unpack boxes, to washing cups, dusting shelves, basically anything that Di or Beauty or I needed help with. I didn’t know he had a car, but that was clearly a bonus. No reason ever to be late, and he could collect the Trecastelli cakes if we needed him to since he lived in Blouberg Ridge. I was rather proud. Given our age gap, you could’ve said I was proud as if he were my son, but I wasn’t proud like that. It was more like when you introduce someone you like to your friends, and your friends like him too. I was that kind of proud.
Di sent him and Beauty to Checkers to buy milk for the coffee, and for cream that we serve on the side with the cakes.
‘Okay, it seems like it can work,’ Di admitted as I stood there holding my breath like a contestant on The Voice. ‘He’s presentable, comes across as keen, can clearly make a cup of coffee, seems flexible enough to fit in with the shifts we want. The customers like him. Let’s do a standard contract with a month’s notice?’
‘Yeehaaaaa, Diannnahh!’ I did a little happy dance on the spot. ‘Give me some more credit. I knew Wayde was gonna be good. He is nice, isn’t he?’ I felt like my face would crack from all the smiling.
‘If by “nice”, you mean a nice personality, then it seems like that, yes. But if you mean anything different … Keep it together, Shelley. I see you seeing him.’ She raised her eyebrows at me. ‘That Wayde is a looker and charmer. Fine for when you are a twenty-year-old girl, not when you are a forty-four-year-old mom,’ she paused for effect, ‘and his employer.’
‘I don’t know what you mean. He looks good, sure …’ The smile dropped from my face and my heart thudded under my thirty-millilitre saline implants. I knew exactly what she meant. ‘And he flirts a bit. But it’s just for show – I did it all the time when I was a waitress. It will be good for business, that’s all.’
Business, I repeated in my head. That’s all he would be good for.
Surf’s up Shell’s out
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
8
Saturday, 17 February
‘Kids loved it – you should come in next time. Show them Mom is more than a pretty seashell on the sand,’ he said with a little wink, coming up to stand to the side of me as I sat in my low plastic beach chair. He was two metres of lean muscle and cheeky grin in a black-and-grey wetsuit. Have I already said cheeky? ‘Surprised no-one’s tried to pick you up.’ At the punchline, he dropped his tongue out like a Rolling Stone, smiling, eyes on me. I had to laugh along, a bad joke if ever there was one, but, looking at him, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d had more than his fair share of success with the worst jokes. It was hot on the beach, make no mistake. And it was only partly due to the heatwave sun that was too strong for my skin, burning my shoulders and roasting the V of décolletage above my swimsuit top. Without the umbrella, my legs were also long ago turned into boiled sausages. I did my best to stay cool under my hat.
‘Well, they could try, but I’m a bit of a handful, you know,’ I cheeked him back with my own smile, peering over the top of my Pradas at him. ‘They’d need to have big,’ I paused, ‘muscles.’ What fun! I felt like I was twenty. I’d been master of this kind of rubbish talk; it was how I’d got those massive tips when I was a waitress. I was pleased to see I still had some of it left in me; I couldn’t remember when last I’d traded this kind of chat with a man. Fine, Wayde was a boy, but it was still a rush. Jerry used to love the crazy talk, but we knew all each other’s lines so there was no point with him. Wayde laughed more, a half-chuckle at my comeback.
‘I’m sure you are,’ he said, showing no embarrassment as I watched the seawater stream in tiny rivers down his neoprened body onto his bare feet. I stopped short of letting my eyes follow the water into the region of his groin, though from my low beach chair it was straight in my line of vision, lying there slightly to the left in the rubber. I choked down a laugh at myself and twisted towards the shivery body of Stacey. Pull yourself together, old lady. It’s not as if groinage is something any woman is ever desperate to see – it’s why we laugh at it. But I’m not that weird. Everyone likes to look at what we’re not supposed to, especially if it’s there and we don’t have anything better to occupy ourselves with. I picked a hooded towel out of my beach bag for Stacey, glad to have something to pretend to fuss over. I could feel small drops of cold water land on my bare legs as Wayde peeled and snapped the wetsuit sleeves off his arms. I ignored it, but it was as welcome as rain in the oven of the twelve-thirty sun.
‘Yes, Mommy, you must come,’ the traitorous Stacey chimed in in her baby voice that I loved from under the towel I was drying her hair with. ‘You can jump the scissor waves with us.’ I pretended I was thinking while I tucked the towel around her body, over her wetsuit. I was going to leave the kids in their wetsuits and stuff them straight into the Range Rover for the short drive home. Jerry would moan about the sand and puddles of water, but he was the only one who could get them out of the rubber straitjackets.
‘That would be so nice, but,’ I let out a big sigh, as if it were the greatest sacrifice ever, ‘it wouldn’t be fair. Wayde is here especially to help you with your bodyboards and maybe you’ll even learn to surf. And you know, Stacey, my girl, I want him to have all his attention on you and Harley. I don’t want to distract him and spoil it for you.’ I gave her body a little squeeze. Ignored the frown on her face. ‘Harleyyy,’ I called out to the other little body that belonged to me. He was crouched down, head bowed, hands digging in the wet sand a little way in front of us. I’d shouted too loudly, judging from the way that the mom three umbrellas down looked at me. Harley didn’t flinch, didn’t look up. You’d think he was deaf. ‘Come,’ I waved, ‘we’re going home now.’
‘Nooo!’ Stacey shouted right in my bloody ear, her grump come to life. ‘Wayde said we could build a castle. You want to go to the shop with Aunty Di again.’
Harley’s hearing returned miraculously and he turned his head towards me to nod, tears filling his eyes.
‘It’s cool, you don’t have to rush – I did say that. I only let them in the water for an hour because I wanted them to enjoy it and not get miserable tired. The full lesson is usually an hour and a half, but they are too little, so I do owe you some time,’ Wayde said from my side.
‘Oh, okay, thanks … I do need to get home, though. I’ve still got to get them lunch and then I’ve got to get to the shop.’ I shrugged, feeling the skin on my shoulders tight with the sunburn. ‘But if you can do a ten-minute sandcastle that will give me time to get all my stuff back in the car.’ I turned to look up at him. Hell’s bells. Even zoomed in, that profile pic hadn’t done Wayde justice. With the top half of the wetsuit off, he only needed to be eating ice cream for the whole
