Summerland: A Novel by Elin Hilderbrand

Author:Elin Hilderbrand
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction / Contemporary Women, Fiction, Family Life, Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9780316202473
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Published: 2012-06-26T06:00:00+00:00

JAKE

In his shed, even with the door closed and a feather pillow over his head, he could still hear them: “You’re never around… . Always at the newspaper. God, how I despise that newspaper!”

“I’m sorry! Is that what you want?… You let me fall away!”

Jake sat up in bed. There was a momentary quiet; he could hear the gurgle of the fountain. He felt a little dizzy, which was probably due to the fact that he’d drunk three beers at the barbecue, grabbed from the eskie by his cousin Xavier, who had been nicer and cooler than the bratty kid Jake remembered. Somewhere in the middle of the third beer, sitting at the foot of an enormous Norfolk pine, overlooking the Swan River and the Perth city skyline across the river, Jake had confided to Xavier that he hated Australia.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he worried that Xavier would be offended. Xavier had lived in Western Australia his whole life. All of the Price family had.

“It’s not the place, exactly,” Jake said. “It’s my parents. They fight all the time. And I miss home.”

Xavier bobbed his head. “Man,” he said. “You should just head back to the States, then. You should just bolt.”

He should just bolt. Jake had seventy Australian dollars, three hundred American dollars, and a Visa card that his father had given him in case of emergencies, but if he used the Visa card, it would take Jordan and Ava only about five minutes to figure out where he was. They would find him and come get him. He was still a minor.

Or at least those had been Jake’s thoughts earlier, at Heathcote Park. Now, having just heard his parents fighting again, he climbed out of bed and got dressed. He wasn’t going to stay here. He packed a duffel bag with clothes, his running shoes, the Hemingway novel, his camera, and one picture of Penny. He stuffed all of his money and his credit card into his jeans pocket. He jammed his earphones into his ears and walked out the door of the shed and through the garden, quietly, quietly, until he was out the side gate and on the street. It was 11:00 p.m.

He had nowhere to go. Most of Fremantle was closed up by this time of night, except the pubs, which he was too young to enter. He walked toward South Beach because that was the direction his feet seemed to want to take him. A crescent moon hung out over the Indian Ocean. Jake was chilly; he hunted through his duffel bag for his navy blue Nantucket Whalers sweatshirt.

His parents had been fighting about Ernie. If Ernie were alive, he would be four and a half years old now, a little kid who could ride a tricycle and ask Jake for piggyback rides.

Jake stuck to sidewalks and then moved over to the bike path that meandered through the park leading to the beach. He wondered if he should be worried about getting mugged.

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