Greener Pastures - Alyssa Brugman [39]
Shelby tuned out. She finished her tea and set the mug on the top step. Aunty Jenny's house was on the crown of the hill, facing east, and so from the front of the house they could see the bay spread out below them. The water twinkled in the sunlight, and Shelby could smell salt on the air.
'Are you hungry? Why don't you run down to the shop and buy us some lunch?' her dad suggested.
Shelby took the twenty-dollar note he held out and headed down the hill. The cement footpath was cracked in places, but most of the nature strips were mowed and edged with precision. She saw several old people in their gardens, or sitting on their verandas.
At the bottom of the hill there was a strip of shops. Shelby went inside to order some chips and a barbecue chicken and then she crossed the road and sat on the picnic table overlooking the beach.
'Shelby?'
She turned around and there was Chad. She got a shock seeing him there, a feeling like when you first plunge into cold water. Then she remembered Molly had said something about him heading up this way.
'We keep meeting here!' he said.
'What are you doing here?' she asked.
'Oh, just a family thing at my brother's,' he explained. 'What about you?'
Shelby told him about Dandelion Flat. She said that she'd decided not to sell Blue after all. And now she had to find a new place to keep him.
'It's bad enough that he would have to stay there when I'm living here, but what about when we go away? He would be there on his own, and I don't reckon they know what they're doing.'
But even as she was speaking she realised that it was all about her. She should ask him something about himself. How was your day? sounded too distant. It had to be something friendly and funny as well, but not something he could misread as mean.
They sat silently for a moment.
'I'm here every few weeks. I could check on him for you, if it would make you feel better,' he offered. 'I don't know that much about horses, but at least Blue knows me.'
Shelby took off her shoe and tipped out the sand. She should talk about the date. She could just explain what happened from her side. But it was so embarrassing! Shelby hardly ever talked about her feelings to anyone. And she still wasn't absolutely positive that there wasn't some other girl. She sighed.
'I know you don't want to move,' Chad said. 'And Dandelion Flat sounds like a really crap place, but I think you're looking at it the wrong way around. The Edels don't need you at the stables. It could be anyone doing that job. But you could go to this new place and show them how it's done.'
Shelby stared out at the sea.
Chad picked at flakes of paint on the picnic table. 'And you're so busy thinking about what's bad about moving that you're not seeing what's good. Because I'm here some of the time. We can still hang out almost as much as we used to. That's good, isn't it?'
Here was the chance she had been looking for, but she didn't know what to say. She had to say something, because she didn't want him to think she wasn't interested.
'Yeah, that will be good.' She blushed furiously.
That wasn't what she meant. She wanted to say that she had never met a boy like him before. She wanted to tell him that she sought out his opinion on things because he seemed to have a way of making sense, and making her feel better. She meant that she loved spending time with him, because he made her laugh, and afterwards she would find herself humming or smiling for no reason except that she felt good. He gave her a fluttery feeling in her stomach that she'd never experienced before. She wanted to say that she was really sorry that his feelings were hurt about the whole date business, but the only reason it happened was because he was such a great guy and so good-looking that she assumed he could never be interested in someone as normal as her.
She said, 'What I mean is that it will be really good.'
He grinned at her. His hand sneaked over the table a little bit and she looked