“What time is it there?” I mumble as I make my way to the chairs overlooking the beach. I’m squinting so much I’m almost legally blind.
“It’s one in the morning. We’re twelve hours apart, remember? I thought you’d be up by now.”
“Well, as you can hear, I’m awake,” I tell her. “Are you with Mateo?”
“Of course! Want to talk to him?”
Before I can tell her that I can’t process his accent right now, I hear a muffled sound and then his voice on the other end.
“Happy New Year, Josh,” Mateo says. His accent is always a lot milder than I remember. “How is New Zealand?”
“Great. I’m hungover.”
“Well, I am sure Vera and I will be tomorrow. You are enjoying yourself, yes?”
“I think a little too much, actually.”
“Then you’re really living life now.”
I can almost hear his grin. I nod and wince at the pain my head causes me. I’m living life for once, and it’s a bit terrifying. “That I am,” I tell him.
“Then keep it up, it’s worth it. Believe me.” There’s a pause and I hear Vera in the background. “Okay, I shall let you go,” he says and we say goodbye. Vera comes back on the line.
“How are you and Gemma?” she asks.
I would much rather talk about her and Mateo. “We’re good.”
“Anything happen since Christmas?”
“Been doing a lot of traveling,” I tell her, which is true.
“Does she make you happy?”
I laugh. “She’s driving me crazy.”
“The good kind of crazy?”
I sigh and look at the sand where we made love last night. Where I told her that I love her. Where she didn’t say it back.
“I’m not sure,” I say. “All I know is I’m not ready to leave her.”
A weighty pause rests in the air and then she says, quietly, “So don’t.”
“It’s not so simple.”
“Sure it is.”
“Vera,” I warn her. “This isn’t like you and Mateo. You knew how you felt and you knew how he felt. That was easy.”
“It wasn’t easy—” she begins, but I cut her off.
“I know how I feel,” I tell her. “And I’ve told her how I feel. But she doesn’t seem to want it. She wants me but she doesn’t want me to love her. Does that make sense?”
Another pause. “You love her?”
I groan. “Ugh, it’s too hot to talk about this.”
“If you love her, then you have two choices,” she says. “You can either love her from afar, at home in Vancouver, or you can love her from there. Either way, the love part isn’t going away. You just have to choose what scenario makes you the happiest.”
I tug absently at my lip ring. “If she doesn’t love me back, both scenarios will make me miserable.”
She sighs. “When did you turn into such a pessimist?”
“I have art school to think about, Vera.”
“I had school to think about but it worked out. You can work it out, too. They have art schools in New Zealand, right? You could apply to one, get a student visa. Problem solved.”
“And the whole part about her not loving me back?”
“Love takes longer for some people than others,” she says. “But if she gets there in the end, isn’t that what’ll make it worth it? The answer to that is yes, Josh. It does. I say go for it. That’s what you once said to me.”
“All right,” I tell her. “I’ll see how it goes. We still have another week here together.”
“I bet it’s nice and warm and beautiful. Enjoy it.”
“I am.”
I’m about to hang up when she stops me. “Oh, by the way, Mom actually called me the other day.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it was late in Vancouver and she sounded drunk. In fact, I know she was drunk. She started telling me that she missed me and you and wondered where she went wrong, why two of her children would want to go overseas, thousands of miles away from her. She thinks we hate her.”
“I don’t hate her,” I say.
“Neither do I,” she says. “But I don’t think she really knows how she can be, you know? Anyway, she might call you soon. Talk to her. It was nice to hear her talk like that.”
“All caring and shit?”
She laughs. “Exactly.”
After we hang up, I lean back in the chair and stay that way until Gemma comes out and sits down beside me.
I slowly turn my head to look at her. “How are you, Peggy Sue?”
She raises a brow. “I feel like death.”
“Well, you don’t look like death,” I tell her. “It’s actually pretty annoying.”
“I know what will cure you,” she says, grabbing my hand and pulling me unsteadily to my feet. “It’s about time you try marmite. In fact, a marmite chippie sammie.”
“So many words I don’t understand.”
We go back into the house and straight to the kitchen. Her grandfather is watching TV, something Gemma says he does a lot of since he injured his knee a few years ago. The man moves slowly and painfully but refuses to take medication for it, so that’s why her uncle and aunt live with him, to help out. He’s a tough man, but a good man, and I like him. Once again, I find myself wishing I had the same family ties as she does.