“I don’t mean to get personal,” I say, even though that’s exactly what I want, “but why?”
I can barely see through the dark but I can feel it. She’s giving me a look that says, None of your damn business. But it doesn’t scare me off. I stare right back at her.
“What happened?” I press on.
She exhales slowly. The waves continue to crash. There’s a sound in the bushes, rustling, but then it stops.
“It’s not a big deal,” she says in a warning tone. “I hurt it a long time ago. In an accident. It was crushed and I had a bunch of operations on it but it’s fine now. It just shakes once in a while. I was left-handed, but now I have to write with my right. It’s steadier, though it’s not the same.”
I have so many questions but I’m not sure how far I’ll get. “But your hand is okay for the most part. Obviously you can lift weights, throw a punch, drive a stick.”
“And give a hand job,” she says. “Yes, it’s fine.”
“So you can handle big things,” I tell her, grinning to myself.
“Yes, if you want to think about it that way. But when it comes to the smaller things, stuff that takes precision, I can’t.” Her voice falters at the end.
“What was the accident?”
I sense her freezing up. I should apologize, tell her I don’t need to know. But I don’t. I want to know.
“You know, you’re very nosy,” she says.
“I’m just interested,” I tell her. “Remember what you said in the caves. I could get to know you. This is me getting to know you. But I want the real you, the one you hide deep down. Not the you that everyone else sees. Not the you that Nick sees.”
“Don’t bring him into this,” she says.
“But he is in this. You know it.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then tell me. Tell me something. Tell me about your accident.”
“Persistent bastard,” she mumbles to herself as she shakes her head.
“That’s true,” I admit. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
A few beats roll by, thick as the night, then she says, “Fine. If you must know, when my dad died, I was with him. I was fifteen and coming back from an art exhibit in Hastings. Our family winery is about half an hour away and my dad had a small showing that night. My mom had gone earlier but left because of a headache, and I stayed behind with my dad for company and other stuff.”
I can already tell this is going to be bad, and I’m sorry for being such a nosy son-of-a-bitch.
“My dad only had two glasses of wine that night and he had a pretty high tolerance since he operated a vineyard when he wasn’t painting. So he was fine to drive. They later said it wasn’t his fault. We were about fifteen minutes outside of town when a truck came around the corner too fast and in our lane. It hit us head-on. Most of the impact was on my father’s side of the car, but then we spun out and went crashing into a tree. My arm was pinned beneath the steel. My dad was alive for a few moments. He called my name and I told him I was scared and I loved him, and then he stopped breathing. When the ambulance came, it was too late. We both had to be removed with the jaws of life.”
I am shocked. Horrified. I can’t even breathe. I can’t even tell her how sorry I am. My heart feels like it’s drowning at the bottom of the sea.
She goes on, her voice harder now. “So, they pulled me out and my hand and arm were broken in a bunch of places, and so was my ankle. My ankle and arm healed up the easiest though, but my hand was a real problem. I had a lot of operations on it.”
Suddenly she picks up my hand with her right one and guides my fingers over her open palm. It’s warm and soft and there are a few raised lines inside that I hadn’t paid attention to before. I feel like I’m reading her past, the real her.
“I was in physiotherapy for a long time. I’ll never be as good as I used to be. But I’m okay.”
“Gemma,” I whisper softly. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m raising her palm to my lips and kissing along her scar. She smells so good, feels even better.
She lets me do it for a moment then she awkwardly clears her throat.
Don’t make me let go, I think. Please don’t make me let go.
The rustle in the bushes is back again. Gemma jerks her hand away, as if we’re about to be caught by Nick the Peeping Tom, as if we’re doing something wrong.
Are we doing something wrong?
Suddenly the air around us fills with squeals, and the rustling increases. The nearest bush to us at the base of the yard, near the fence, starts to move back and forth.
I stand up out of my chair to get a better look and see what looks to be little creatures waddling out of the bushes and heading for the side of the house. Once they hit a patch of light coming from the house, I can see what they are.
Little blue penguins.
“What the fuck?” I say softly, feeling like my mind has just imploded. “What the hell are those?”
“Little blue penguins,” she says proudly.
I turn to her in disbelief. “Are you serious?” I thought I was making that up. In my head.
She nods. “Yup. Little blue penguins.”
And she’s right. They’re about a foot high, miniature versions of the ones I’ve seen on TV, and they’re entirely blue in color. I thought it was just the darkness playing tricks on me but no, once they hit the light, you can see the color on their oily feathers.