Bob wouldn’t have the problem in the first place. Bob would have a schedule all laid out with dates written in on it, and he’d have got the client to sign off. Note to self.
‘That is probably a fair call,’ Jake said, after three seconds that took forever. He tipped his sander to her, and in his next breath he turned the device on.
While she had the broom in her hands Ella figured she might as well sweep the front path to keep herself busy and to get away from the noise. The late summer heat had caused Irma’s rose bushes to drop orange and yellow petals. Ella patiently swept those up along with a smattering of dead gum leaves and twigs the parrots had pecked and broken, concentrating with all of her soul as she wished for the sound of a vehicle.
Everything was quiet.
Too quiet. Even for Chalk Hill.
Had he finished sanding already? Ella glanced back at the house.
CHAPTER
7
Nanna would have torn strips off him had she been there, Jake knew. Nothing beat good manners in Nanna Irma’s book, and he hadn’t displayed any.
Here he was playing around with the sale of a house he had no intention of selling, and Ella was the one with the skin in the game.
His problem was with Abe, not Ella, and he’d behaved like a lout.
Jake switched off the electric sander. He watched Ella as he coiled the extension cord around his arm, but she didn’t notice him. Ella wouldn’t have noticed him if he’d started sanding the roses down to the gnarly old stumps, and it made Jake realise how much he didn’t like not being noticed by her.
It wasn’t the same as being ignored. Some of the women he’d known over the years went to great pains to deliberately ignore a bloke, treat him mean, keep him keen.
This was different. Not being noticed by Ella was way different to being ignored by her.
Jake laid the sander and cord next to the new doormat and stood straight. Ella’s brown hair was trapped by some kind of claw—one of those things a woman could twist and shove in her hair, and not a strand fell out of place. Her shirt was sleeveless and for the first time he let himself fully appreciate the glide of her arms, lithe and toned, as she swept the path, a sway in her hips as she moved, skirt tight against each thigh, as if she was singing songs in her head in a private back and forth dance.
She looked neat, tucked up and all put away, and it made him want to shake her out of her box and make her play all over again.
Jake opened the front door and stepped into the house. It was so quiet he felt like an intruder, which was crazy. He’d had his first sleepover in this house. The first time he’d stormed away from home, having told his mum he was running away, he’d come here; and the one and only day he’d wagged school at the age of twelve, he’d come to Nanna Irma’s and promised her he’d never wag school again if she wouldn’t tell his mum.
They cooked and ate pikelets and hung out washing wrung out from the old wringer in the washhouse that had been in the backyard way back then, and Nanna Irma never told. Jake kept his promise too.
Sunlight streamed through the kitchen window, striking wineglasses that were impeccably clean. At least, until he picked one up to check for streaks and his dusty fingers wrecked the impeccability.
Jake thrust his hands under the kitchen tap and scrubbed in the cool water. Then he washed the glass and dried it with one of the paper napkins Ella had put out on the countertop.
He opened the fridge and took out a bottle of Chardonnay. Poured two glasses, took a plate and slid a wheel of soft cheese and some paper-thin crackers on it and then balanced all that in his hands as he walked back out Nanna’s hall.
He paused again where the verandah met the top step.
Ella’s head was tilted to the side, like her very soul depended on her hearing some secret the trees might whisper, broom motionless in her hands.
Jake sat.
He chewed his first cracker and cheese while he waited for her to notice him, and he’d picked up the wine to take a sip when Ella glanced over her shoulder and her eyes searched out his.
Jake tipped the glass to her. ‘You look like you could do with one of these.’
There was a moment where he thought she would stay right where she was, thank you very much, because she hesitated long enough to check the street one last time. Then she smiled at him, a sweet curve of her lips, and came towards him on the path.
‘I don’t understand it. I thought someone would make an appearance just for the wine, if nothing else,’ Ella said, shrugging her shoulders like it was her fault no one had shown up.
‘I’m surprised Harvey didn’t tell you Friday afternoon was a bad idea for a Home Open,’ Jake said, bunting his arse across the verandah boards so Ella had room to sit beside him.
She inspected the verandah boards, for dust he presumed, and made a couple of strokes with the broom. Sawdust flew. He stood to get out of her way before she swept him too, taking the two wineglasses and the cheese.
Ella laid the broom against the wall near Irma’s front door. ‘Bob suggested I hold it Friday. Why is it a bad idea?’
Jake resumed his seat and Ella sat beside him, or not quite beside him; she left a healthy gap, back half-turned against the nearest verandah post. Jake put the cheese platter in the middle. Like Switzerland.
‘Cheers,’ Ella said. ‘To selling your nanna’s house.
