“Thanks. Bye, Billy!”
“Bye, Mum!”
“Good to know he’s devastated about me leaving him,” she joked as they stepped off the porch and across the lawn. “So, where are we off to?”
“It’s a surprise.” He opened the passenger door of the Porsche, stepping aside so she could get in. “You look lovely, by the way.”
“Thank you.” She slid into the seat, smiling up at him as he closed the door.
“So far, I’m down fifty cents out of the allocated budget,” he said as he got in beside her. “The lollypop,” he answered with a smile when he saw her inquiring look.
“How’re you doing for the rest of it?”
“Pretty good.” He backed the car out of the driveway, swinging out onto Main Street and heading out of town.
“Hmm, not somewhere in town then.”
He just smiled in response.
CHAPTER 7
William
William drove for a little while, following the road that met up with the highway. “Do you think I’m money hungry?”
He felt her looking at him with surprise. “No, not really.”
He pondered for a moment. “Then why the budget?”
She was silent for so long he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Because I think you have a way of relating to your money that’s covering up part of you that I want to know more about.”
He frowned in confusion.What the hell did she mean by that?
“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.”
He drew a deep breath. “I’m not offended. I’m just not sure I understand you.”
“I don’t know how to say it without sounding rude.”
“Just say it then.”
Another long pause followed. “Everyone’s got issues, right?”
He nodded. “I guess.”
“Well, my issue is that my family is quite wealthy and quite flashy with it. Money and image are very important to them. I’ve never really fit that image. I’ve always been too much of something or not enough of something else. Having Billy on my own was the last straw for them. I haven’t spoken to my parents or my sister at all since I left Melbourne.” She stopped talking for a moment, staring through the windscreen. He could see her throat working as she tried to hold back tears. “It hurt me a lot. I spent many years trying to fit in, but I can’t change who I am. You remind me a lot of the people in that circle. To be perfectly honest with you, if that day on the beach was the first time I’d met you, I wouldn’t have looked twice at you. But it wasn’t the first time, so I see you differently. I remember what you were like the night I had Billy and I want to know more about that person. Because I like that person. A lot.”
He had absolutely no idea how to respond to any of that, so he didn’t say anything. He’d just stick with the last bit. She liked him.
They were both quiet as he continued up the road, neither speaking as he turned the car into a gravel side road and eased carefully down it until they reached a long, low mud brick building with the words “Maison des Papillons”inscribed in big, swirling letters on a sign above the door. He just smiled at Juniper as she looked at him inquiringly and got out of the car.
“Oooh!” She exclaimed when he opened the door for her to pass through, into the ticket office. “Butterflies!” She looked around, wide eyed, then she turned to him with a huge smile on her face and he knew he’d nailed it.
“Bonjour!” A woman came in from an office out the back, short and round with wild curly brown hair pulled back with a multi-colored scarf. “You want to see the butterflies,yes?”
“We sure do.”
“Ten dollars each, please.” He handed over the cash and received a brochure in return, with tickets and instructions on where to go.
