He was happy to get home and stretch out on the couch, and was checking his emails when his phone exploded with a barrage of texts and an incoming call.
‘Are you watching?’
The urgency in Addison’s voice was enough to make him sit up straight.
‘Watching what?’
‘The promo, of course. Bryce just saw it a moment ago. Turn on the telly—they’ll probably show it again in the next ad break.’
He fossicked in the deep cushions for the remote.
‘How bad? No sugar-coating it.’
Addison laughed. ‘Since when was sugar-coating part of my vocab? You look sweet, optimistic even. Much more genuine than the guy with the waxed chest and manicured moustache. Where do they even find these fellas?’
He knew exactly which farmer his sister was referring to. Of the five contestants, Spencer was the oldest and had the most tenuous link to agriculture. If there’d been a quiz about tractor brands, fertiliser or the correct technique for using fencing pliers, the other four farmers would have beaten him by a mile.
But he had felt like the most down to earth of them all.
‘I think you’re awesome for giving it a shot, even if you didn’t come home with the silverware. Are you sad you and Emily didn’t work out?’
‘Nope.’
‘You sure you’re not planning a stop in Loxton in the last week of the school holidays? You’d practically have to drive past her property to get to Ian’s hives at the nectarine orchard, right?’
‘Watching the TV promos will be enough of a reminder that we weren’t a perfect match.’
Addison signed off and despite his resolve not to worry about things he couldn’t change, Spencer’s hands were shaky as he watched the footage. It wasn’t terrible, but it didn’t feel good either, seeing himself smile at Emily, hold the door open for her, accept a hug as a drone filmed them in all their 360-degree glory.
He thought of Clem again, and what she’d think when she saw the advertisements. It’d probably be easier for everyone if she took one look at the adverts and ran in the other direction, but the more he thought about that option, the less he liked it.
The paddock outside the cafe window had a glorious tinge of green, and as Clem brought in the washing later that week, she marvelled at the quick burst of growth from the sunflower seedlings.
The warm, rainy start to October had been great for the sunflowers, but not so much for the customers, or the endless loads of laundry at the tail end of the school holidays. Her clothes racks inside were groaning under the weight of previous loads.
She unpegged the linen dress she’d worn for the last play rehearsal, smiling as she remembered Spencer’s comment about the yellow chequered fabric bringing out the caramel in her brown hair. That tiny compliment, which probably vanished from his memory the moment it left his lips, had been a guiding factor in last night’s online spending spree as she stocked up on expensive hiking gear to wear on the school camp.
I needed a new puffer jacket, and gold is perfect for visibility. Nothing’s going to happen anyway,she reminded herself.He’ll be working and I’ll be in peak parent supervisor mode. It’s far from a romantic getaway.
And yet … there was something that made Clem’s body tingle as she thought about the upcoming school camp. She and Spencer had been texting over the past few days, and there turned out to be an upside to the cafe being quiet: fewer people to witness his increasingly frequent visits.
‘Muuu-umm, is Isobel here yet?’ Harriet dashed around the corner and bounded over the washing basket like an Olympic hurdler, before jumping onto the bench and grabbing the Hills Hoist. Indi followed in her big sister’s footsteps.
‘That’s not a swing, or a flying fox, you terrors!’ Clem tried to sound stern, but she remembered doing the same thing at that age, on the very same clothesline, in fact, when she’d visited her grandparents. ‘And Isobel will be here any minute. She’s picked up an extra babysitting job these school holidays, you’re not the only kids she minds.’
‘But she says we’re the most fun,’ said Indi, squealing as Harriet tickled Indi’s underarms until both girls flopped onto the lawn in a heap of giggles.
‘And we feed her the yummiest food,’ Harriet added. ‘Maybe that’s why Selina’s so grouchy, because she doesn’t get to play games and eat morning tea like Isobel.’
‘Maybe,’ Clem said with a frown. So it wasn’t just her imagination. If even her girls had noticed that Selina still had her nose out of joint, several months into the job, then maybe she should check in, see if there was a way to make the workplace more appealing.
Isobel pulled into the driveway minutes later. The young woman rushed out, almost tripping over her backpack straps.
‘Sorry I’m late, Clem. The other mum was stuck behind a mob of cows after her shift, she felt terrible about putting your schedule out of whack.’
‘That’s fine,’ Clem said. ‘You’re only a little late.’ Isobel’s concern was in stark contrast to Selina’s, who had shown uptwenty minutes late yesterday with no apology, and called in sick at the last minute the day before that.
‘I’m going to practise my pirate piece for you today, Isobel,’ Harriet said, dancing around the teenager. ‘I’m playing a young pirate in training, and Louisa says my character gets into all the scrapes and provides the laughs for most of the scenes. We’re performing the first scene from the real script next week. Do you think you’ll watch me at the play?’
