As Kyle strums the final chords of "Sweet Child of Mine", the audience breaks into a round of applause, with their smiling, bemused and surprised faces turned towards him and this strange girl with flaming hair. God knows where she came from- the streets by the look of her- but it's just as well she had. The customers didn't seem interested in him before she had interrupted his 'pity party', as she had called it, and besides, he wasn't a very confident singer. This girl, on the other hand, was bold as brass, though he was sure it was nerves that had caused her initial discordant crooning, which had improved with each song. They had played three, the penultimate ("Don't Stop Me Now") being an instant hit. Like a few of the onlookers, he had protested at first, but now he had to admit, he was impressed.
"Bravo, bravo!" congratulates Jett from the front row and whistles, though unlike how the Riverboys had before.
She bows extravagantly before the cheering crowd, as Heath approaches the side of the low stage.
"Make a habit of embarrassing yourself, do ya?" Heath interjects, addressing the girl.
"Only on special occasions," she replies dryly, as she passes him on her return to the bar.
"'Special' would be right..."
"Heath," Brax scowls.
"Relax, Brax. Beatrixknows I'm only messing, don't ya? But seriously, what sort of name is Beatrix?"
Trix considers asking them both the same question, but decides to let it go. "So you're the infamous Heath," she states, instead. "Irene warned me about you. Her exact words were "not the sharpest tool in the shed, he often puts his foot in it as soon as he opens his mouth." Don't disappoint- DO YA?"
"Heath? Never!" Brax jokes feebly, in an attempt to diffuse the tension.
"As much fun as this is, WE'VE got a welcoming party to get to – YOUR welcoming party, which you're an hour and a half late for," Heath informs her. Kyle, who had been listening intently, is confused. He wanders over to the bar. What does his brother have to do with 'Beatrix'?
"But we were just getting started! You were really good!" Kyle protests. Trix is not the only one who looks taken aback. "I mean, the customers were really into it, once you'd stopped... shrieking – I'll, erm (clears throat) get back to it..."
"Emo, wait." Trix blocks his path.
"My name's Kyle."
"Mine's Trix."
"Isn't that like the sort of name you would give to a dog or something?" Heath laughs. His brothers glance at him with the same withering look. Trix chooses to ignore him.
"Same time next week, Kyle?"
"-If you're still here-" remarks Heath. Only Kyle notices her flinch ever so slightly and her face hardens.
"Brax?" enquires Kyle, seeking his approval.
"Karaoke night?" Brax replies. "Yeah, why not? Seems to be a hit, I think we can give it a fair go."
"You won't regret it," Kyle assures him. Heath rolls his eyes.
"Hold the phone, what about your open mic night? I stole your limelight, remember?" asks Trix, a little bewildered. Have I actually found an ally in this guy? She thinks to herself. Or, more likely, he just wants to capitalise on my potential- but what potential? All I've done is have a good time, which is quite an achievement, considering-
"Don't change your plans on my account. This was just a spontaneous thing, you only live once and all that."
"But you just asked-" begins Kyle, even more confused.
"It's Saturday night, people want to be entertained- like you said," Brax points out to her. "And I think you succeeded there," he adds, indicating the still-buzzing crowd. A middle-aged man seems to be considering if he should follow Trix's lead, but stumbles over when stepping up onto the stage. He laughs drunkenly, as someone helps him to his feet. "C'mon, don't chicken out now." Brax unveils one of his dazzling smiles, just for her. It reminds Trix of a line in a book she had read, not long ago; "he had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it."
"Well, it's karaoke so anyone could do it, not just me, right?" Trix asks, just to make sure. She couldn't always be the centre of attention, after all. "Oh what the hell, you're on." She high-fives both of them.
"Sweet... and we can always hold open mic another night- Friday, maybe?" Kyle wonders aloud.
"As much as I'd love to stand around yakking all day like old women," Heath interjects, once again. "I've got better things I could be doing with my time so, if you don't mind, I'd like my pizza today, guys." His younger brother obediently retreats to the kitchen.
Brax sighs. "It's coming, I told you-"
"-Yeah, so is Christmas-"
"Well, feel free to piss off and leave us alone until then, Heathcliff- or whatever your name is. You can have your pizza and your beer in front of the footy, don't let us stop you. You're only doing this because you need to keep wifey happy, who needs to keep Auntie Irene happy and who says I even want a meet and greet, anyway?" Trix exclaims, raising her voice enough to attract attention. "Do you expect me to be grateful?"
"We're still going," Heath mutters, grabbing her firmly by the wrist. Brax opens his mouth to object.
"Get off me!" she snarls, abruptly wrenching it from his grasp. "And you can stick your party hat where the sun doesn't shine!" People are beginning to stare. Brax wonders if there's anything he can do to contain the situation, without earning either a rude retort, loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear, or a slap in the face. Or punch. She seems like a punching kind of girl. As though reading his mind, Heath again takes hold -albeit gently this time- of her arm.
"Play nice, sweet cheeks, no need for-" Heath is cut off, as she promptly throws the contents of her bottle in his face. It then hits the floor with a satisfying splash. In the background, a few people gasp. Jett hoots with laughter. All eyes are now on them.
"Now, what did you waste $3.50 on him for?" Brax smirks. The customers relax a little and some resume their chatter.
"Worth every cent," Trix tells him, still staring down a stunned Heath. "You can tell the missus and Irene that I'll make my own way back, thanks, without a chaperone." She pauses. "Go on, run along. Oh, and actually, I'll take one, just in case you eat them both out of sheer spite on the way." She adds, as Kyle emerges from the kitchen, two flat cardboard boxes in hand. He stops in his tracks when he clocks what has occurred during his brief absence. He fails to conceal a smile.
"Er... one margherita and one BBQ chicken, was it?" Kyle asks Heath, who is blinking gormlessly at Trix. Liquid is trickling down his face, dripping from his chin and nose into his gaping mouth, and he appears not to have heard him. Brax nods for Heath and takes the boxes from Kyle, before presenting them with a flourish; Service With a Smile. Standards have to be maintained, no matter what his latest customer has just done to his brother. Frankly, it is because of what she has just done to his brother that he feels like patting her on the back.
"Ah, my favourite," Trix replies, grabbing the BBQ chicken pizza before Heath can reach it and flashes a grin at him. "What are you waiting for, Heathcliff? Pay the man."
"That was mine," he grumbles under his breath, wiping his face with his trademark tank top.
"They're on the house," Brax says, before adding, "Despite the fact that someone's going to have to mop that spill up now; Health and Safety precaution."
"Don't look at me, I've got my party to get to and anyway, he deserved it," Trix mumbles, through a mouthful of pizza. "And I think I'll take my business elsewhere to replace my lemonade with something cheaper. Oh and give my compliments to the chef, would you, Darryl?"
"Bye then," Kyle waves, but she has already started towards the doorway, the pizza box under one arm, munching on the slice of pizza in her other hand.
She has already left by the time Brax realises. He doesn't remember either telling her his legal name, nor the boys addressing him as such. He is still pondering this later in the evening while cleaning tables. As he reaches to wipe off some salt that has been spilled – or poured – he notices that letters have been traced in the salt to form a word. Not just a word, but a name: "Taylor".
The welcoming party passed much too slowly, it was an awkward and drawn-out affair for everyone involved. Most of all for Heath, who had agreed to pretend that this was their first meeting. He had arrived shortly after her, despite the fact that she had taken her time choosing her order at the juice bar. He obviously was wishing he could avoid this as much as she was. He reminded her that the pizza was getting cold. Forget about the damn pizza for a minute, she wanted to say, but instead, told him to say nothing of what had happened in the restaurant. Unless he was going to apologise in front of everyone for how rude he had been to her. He thought about it for a moment, before consenting to the plan, but reluctantly apologised, anyway. She had been hovering on the doorstep, wondering what angle she should attack this from. Should she pretend to be indifferent, hide her feelings, say hello and go straight to her room (wherever that was)? Should she sit in the corner, looking sad and moody in the hope that no-one would bother her? Or should she put on a brave face, again hiding her feelings, and make small talk? She had just decided upon the latter, when Heath had rocked up, in new clothes – Semi-formal clothes, in fact; jeans and a plaid shirt this time. He told her that he had to make it look like he'd decided to dress up for her arrival after all, and not because he'd had an accident,as he put it.
"First impressions 'n' all, eh?" he had joked, wryly. Back at you, she could have said, but didn't.
Irene had interrupted them then, saying that she thought she heard voices and ushered them inside. Heath covered for her, saying that they had just met on the doorstep, so she was helping him carry in the food, which would have looked suspicious if he hadn't also brought along some bags of Doritos and popcorn. He pretended that he was so hungry that he had eaten the two missing slices of BBQ chicken pizza already, which earned him a playful slap on the wrist from Bianca. They had been expecting her, she informed Trix, in imitation of a Bond villain. As if I don't already know, she thought but apologised for her lateness. The three girls had formed a rather military-looking line in the kitchen to greet her; Bianca first, then April, then Darcy.
"Am I sensing a trend here?" Trix enquired. "Darcy, Heath... any Rochesters I should know about?" The adults had laughed, except for Heath who, like his daughter, obviously didn't understand the reference.
"Oh, they're characters – from books," Bianca explained to them both, before turning back to Trix. "Something he isn't very well acquainted with," she paused to give a cordial chortle of laughter, "but I love him no less." They smiled at each other, the love evident in their expressions and in their eyes. Please, don't make me sick, Trix had thought, in more of a mental plea than an insult.
"Oh, a muggle, is he?" she had replied with instead and smiled down at Darcy. Hopefully she would understand this time. Trix knew how it felt to be out of the loop in grown-up conversations.
"I think it's pretty obvious," Darcy giggled.
"Hey, Darc! Don't judge a book by its cover, remember?" April chided, playfully. Compared to her and her sister's bronzed beauty, Trix felt like a white rat – a ginger, freckled white rat.
It had gone downhill from there. The pool of polite chit-chat, although pleasant, had dried up soon enough. It was as though they remembered why they had gathered and felt guilty and unsure about being cheerful around her, but didn't relish the prospect of the alternative. Instead, they settled for a mood somewhere in-between and ate mostly in silence, avoiding addressing the reality of the situation. Irene had switched on the TV to create some background noise. No-one could really concentrate on it. There was the occasional brief trickle of information someone had recalled, as they filtered through their mind for something – anything – to share, while mostly avoiding the subject of family, Trix noticed. Although, Bianca had explained that she was not Darcy's mother but how Irene was like a mother to April and herself. The topics covered had been from Bianca and Heath's impending nuptials to April's university degree to even Darcy's favourite food in the diner, which at that moment were pancakes with ice-cream, although it changed every day, Heath had pointed out. Trix promised her that she would try them for herself someday.
As the atmosphere changed, Heath only felt comfortable talking to his daughter and kept telling her bad jokes, which she apparently found hilarious. Nobody else did. They smiled feebly back at him and he knew there was something that everyone was thinking but avoiding saying, but he didn't know what. He didn't even know why this strange poor-looking girl had suddenly shown up in Summer Bay, other than Irene was fostering her and that it was at short-notice. This fourteen-year-old girl, Beatrix, desperately needed a place to stay and had been assigned to Irene, who wanted them to organise some sort of party to welcome her, and he had to be there at four o'clock, was all Bianca had told him, on her way back from the diner that morning. She was a surfer, he knew, as Irene had asked him to lift her surfboard off the roof of the car. Irene had told him – told them all – when she had returned from the city, that the girl needed some fresh air and had disappeared, likely to the beach. They had waited as long as they could before ordering the pizza, and when that had taken its sweet time, they had sent Heath out to retrieve it, in the hope that he might bump into an untidy-looking redhead on the way. You could say that they had bumped into one another, or rather; the lemonade bottle had bumped into him.
Eventually, April cracked and offered Trix her most sincere condolences, on behalf of everyone. She thanked her but said she didn't want to talk about it. Bianca admitted that she had been the same when their son had died last year, whereas Heath had been the opposite. Trix paled. She exchanged glances with Heath, who bore the same expression she did, as each recognised the other's pain. Now, Heath felt ashamed of his earlier behaviour, he had been such a jerk to her, and all because – Trix was right – he would rather be at home watching the game than stuck here; outnumbered by chicks, even if two of them were the two people he loved more than anyone in the world. Trix almost felt guilty for her earlier actions towards him. He seemed like a good dad, at least. Darcy revealed that her mother was dead, too. In an odd detached voice, Trix told them all that she was sorry for their loss, before making the excuse that she needed to use the bathroom. Irene pointed the way.
"And feel free to use the shower while you're in there," Irene called after her, not unkindly.
She had emerged from the bathroom half an hour later, wrapped in the largest towel she could find. Everyone had dispersed but Irene, who told her that April had left some of her old clothes in her room that was now Trix's and that she could change into them. They weren't her style at all but, to her relief, she found some baggy sweatpants and a loose-fitting black T-shirt among the skirts, shorts, dresses and low cut girly tops. To her surprise, Irene had bought her new underwear, thankfully. Even fully clothed, having been stripped of all her belongings, she still felt a sense of nakedness. Apart from her surfboard and her wetsuit, that she had begged Irene to take her back to the care home's garage for, she had nothing other than the clothes that had been on her back – and her mobile phone in one pocket, she realised, as it began to ring. Her DOCS case worker had given her same money to compensate, or rather, she had given it to Irene for safe-keeping, who had allowed Trix to have $10 of it as pocket money. Everything else had been lost in the fire.
The ringtone was "We Can't Stop" by Miley Cyrus - Toby had set it, as a joke, knowing how much she disliked the song. She shuddered. It was someone from the care home checking up on her, but she had let it go to voicemail. She would listen to it later, for they likely would leave one, but she didn't have the strength to talk to anyone from her old life; anyone who knew Toby. It felt strange to think of it already as her 'old life' and this as her new. Twenty four hours ago, she was still back there and everything was normal – as if her life could be described as 'normal'. The care worker would keep trying every hour until she picked up though, she was sure of that. With a sigh, she switched it off and tried to sleep for a few hours, her weariness finally catching up with her. She had lain awake the remainder of the night before, in that rigid hospital bed and tossed and turned in turmoil. Not from any physical pain, not really. She had let both the hospital breakfast and lunch turn cold. Even the sight of the stodgy porridge that early in the morning, had not only made her feel like she was either in prison or that orphanage from "Oliver", but had turned her stomach so much that she threw up over the nurse, who was later trying to coax her into having some soup (which she would have gladly thrown over her too) when her DOCS case worker had introduced her to Irene. That had seemed to be the theme of the day; throwing various liquids over practical strangers.
After an eventual three hours of broken sleep plagued by nightmares – even worse than usual – Trix crept out of the house (the keys weren't hard to find) to look for her surfing gear in the garage. It was still dark, but dawn was close. It wasn't the first time that she had sat on the beach waiting for the sun to come up, before a very early morning surf. Although, it is the first time that she has on this particular beach. It is a new beginning.
She sits thinking over all the things that have occurred since she arrived in Summer Bay. She would've appreciated the effort of Irene, et cetera, if it hadn't been for their misguided intentions. She doesn't deserve their pity. She thinks of Darcy, who is all sweetness and light. She can't remember the last time she had felt like that. Actually, no, she could. It was the day her parents had died – before they had died, obviously. They had been away on a family day out, to the small coastal town where her adoptive father had grown up, not unlike this one. They had spent almost the whole fun-filled day on the beach. She supposed that was why she always felt drawn towards the nearest one, which had previously been in Sydney, because it was the last place they had all been truly happy and carefree – and together.
On the drive home, her seven-year-old self and her adoptive brother, eight-year-old Toby, had been greedy enough to eat all her sweets between them, but he had decided to save his and refused to share. She tried to grab his paper bag from him and a fight had ensued. Their mother (Toby's mother, she wasn't hers – biologically) had taken off her seatbelt to reach into the back seat and take the sweets from him, but he kicked out at her, making her arm jerk back to hit his father's. The car swerved into the on-coming traffic.
They are the only deaths she can bear thinking about right now. It is a dull, familiar pain – more like an ache, really - that she had learned to deal with, to live with, unlike the fresh, raw, stabbing despair of Toby's death that she isn't allowing herself to feel just yet. Not fully, but it would come. She expects it, knows what it will feel like and knows it is only a matter of time. She had caught occasional flickers of the night before, but forced the memories down, only for them to resurface in her nightmares. For the past twelve hours or more she had tried to only reminisce on his life and the memories they shared. That was what she must focus on, to prevent herself from breaking down completely. That is what she still must focus on, for as long as she has strength to. Even through her longest and darkest nights, she had never felt as alone as she did now. At least he had still been there then, a few doors down the hallway; her only comfort. Now I have Irene, with her pertinacious snoring, Trix reminds herself, almost forgetting where she is, but there is still hope. Immediately, she feels guilty. Why should you have hope? He doesn't, not anymore. Why should you get a second chance? Inhaling deeply, she draws the lighter she had taken from Jaden from her pocket and relights the candle – more like a tea light, really – that she had brought with her from Irene's. The flame had flickered out on the way down the path, despite her attempts to shield it from the slight sea breeze. She exhales slowly and steadily as she approaches the shoreline, the water lapping over her toes. The cold shock sends a shiver down her spine. It makes a somewhat welcome change from the raging heat of the fire that lingered on her skin. Before she realises, she has waded in waist deep and stops to put the candle inside an empty jam jar – also stolen from Irene; old habits die hard. She screws the lid closed and sets it upright on her surfboard, her chin keeping it in place, and paddles out as far as she dares to release it on the water, kissing the glass before letting it go. As the golden edge of the sun peers over the skyline, she whispers, I'm sorry, and watches the speck of light drift away.
