He lifted his eyebrows. His desk chair gave a squeak as he leaned back and interlaced his hands behind his head, watching.
She’d clearly researched the material. Even so, she came across as genuine and humble, never condescending. She spoke to the large group in a way that guaranteed that every woman in every seat would not only like her but also feel as if they knew her.
She told stories that illustrated her points. She strode from one end of the stage to the other. Down the stairs to the first row of pews. Up again.
She used her hands to emphasize her speech. Sometimes she raised her voice. Sometimes she lifted both palms. Sometimes she whispered.
His respect for her climbed.
When he was growing up, his mom and stepdad had taken him to church twice a year, on Christmas Eve and Easter. The two of them were good-hearted, moral people who’d put a lot of effort and love into their family but very little effort into organized religion.
He’d followed their lead. He’d tried to be good and moral and loving toward his family. But that hadn’t stopped him from testing every pleasure the world offered. Starting at sixteen, he’d tried heavy drinking. Partying. Drugs. Girlfriends. Sex. Money. Travel.
A year after he’d graduated from uni, he’d been working as a sous chef and partying hard on his days off.
His roommate, Benji, had taken a contract job for a couple of months in Europe. Benji had asked Sam if he could sublet his room while he was gone to the daughter of his parents’ closest friends. Sam had told him he could.
Memories started to tow Sam beneath the surface, deeper and deeper, until he was no longer sitting in his office but entering his old Melbourne apartment one hot summer day to find a woman standing in the living room. Moving boxes, two suitcases, and a surfboard surrounded her. She wore tight shorts and a bikini beneath her tank top. Her hair was sandy blond and wavy. Her body, tan and athletic.
She leveled her pale blue cat’s eyes on him. “G’day.”
“G’day.”
“I’m Kayden Westcott.”
“Sam Turner.”
“I was a year behind you and Benji at school.”
“You just graduated, then?”
“Yeah. And now I’m wondering if I made a mistake when I told Benji I’d sublet his room. It’s gross in there.”
Benji had never said that his parents’ friends’ daughter looked like a poster of the classic Aussie beach girl. He wanted to kill Benji for not giving him a heads-up. He wanted to kiss Benji. He wanted to make sure Kayden never regretted her decision to stay in this apartment.
“Do you think I should fumigate it before I move my stuff in?” Kayden asked, grinning.
A half second passed before he laughed in response to her question. But that half second had lasted long enough for him to fall in love with her. “I’ll help you clean it. Once we finish, we can decide if fumigation is necessary.”
He spent that whole summer with Kayden. Surfing, going to concerts, working out, sharing a bottle of wine over dinner, making love. Long before Benji returned from Europe, Kaydenhad become a permanent resident of Sam’s room. A month after Benji moved back in, Sam and Kayden had gotten their own one-bedroom flat.
When a buddy at work offered to sell Sam weed and a Baggie of twelve Percocet pills, Sam had taken him up on it because the combination of weed and Percocet had sounded to him like a good weekend waiting to happen. He’d known, too, that Kayden would like the weed. She’d been no angel before they started dating. Like him, she’d sampled several different substances, and weed was her favorite.
The Percocet had simply come with the weed. Like when a grocery store gives you a free box of crackers for buying a certain brand of granola bars. Percocet hadn’t been the main draw. Sam had taken painkillers before and hadn’t been all that keen. He’d expected Kayden to feel the same.
However, when he’d introduced her to Percocet, she’d surprised him. She’d loved the way the pills made her feel.
And he’d loved her. Intently. Wholly.
Their first year together had been perfect. She talked about Freud and oceanography and feminism. She could go to a library or to a club and have fun either place for hours. She listened to The Doors albums on her record player. She rolled her eyes back into her head with joy every time she tasted a dish he made for her. She easily befriended all her co-workers at her graphic design firm. She laughed hard and sometimes cried hard. She went barefoot everywhere.
Sam was the son of two countries. He’d grown up spending time in both but never feeling like he fit in either. His mother had married the love of her life, a man who was not his father. His sister and brother were full-blood siblings of each other but only half-siblings to him. Since birth, he’d looked for belonging in friend groups, sports teams, activities, entertainments. All without success. Until Kayden.
With her, in their flat in Melbourne, he belonged. At long last, he’d come home. He was appreciated and needed. He was integral to their circle of two. He was the happiest he’d ever been.
Kayden took Percocet more and more frequently, but still recreationally. It hadn’t interfered with her ability to function.
Until, gradually ... it had.
