“You think she was upset because she really, really wanted to see me?”

“Oh, Tom,” she sighs. “Am I going to be playing lawn bowls with your father and still be giving you advice about this girl?”

He doesn’t know what makes him happier. The idea of him knowing Tara forever or his parents playing lawn bowls together when they’re old.

Anabel approaches with a satisfied look on her face.

“The center just called the wing attack a . . . very rude word. Perfect television.”

She senses the tension.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

Anabel looks at him closely.

“Is this about a girl?”

“No,” he lies. “Yes.”

“Is it the psycho Tara Finke?”

“That’s a very rude thing to call her,” Tom reprimands. “Did you hear what she called Tara?” he asks his mother, outraged.

“It’s what you used to call her,” Anabel argues. “I used to think psycho was some Japanese name, like Seiko-Tara.”

His mother is laughing. “Look at that deadpan expression.”

“I like her,” Anabel says, making herself comfortable next to Tom. “Always have.”

“Who?” he asks, surprised. “The psycho Tara Finke?”

“See?” she says, pointing with exasperation. “He called her that!”

“Last night,” their mother explains to Anabel patiently, “Tom received a call from Tara saying she was flying into Sydney an hour before he’s flying out to Hanoi. So they are going to miss seeing each other because Tara will be gone by the time Tom returns. And they really want to see each other.”

He was very impressed by his mother’s ability to articulate it. In his head it had been a mess of What? Why? What did I do? Shit. Fuck. What the hell?

Anabel shrugs. “Then take an earlier flight today so you get to see her at the airport, stupid.”

He shakes his head. “How bloody disrespectful is generation zed?”

It’s not as if he hadn’t thought of taking an earlier flight. But he wants to be with his mother and Anabel too. He shakes his head. “I came to see both of you. To spend time with my womenfolk because I miss you like hell.”

They’re both smiling and he knows he has said and done the right thing and that’s enough for him. Anabel reaches over and hugs him. “You’re the best brother in the world, Tom.”

He’s amazed at how sentimental she’s become. As much as she loves him, she would never have said anything that cheesy in the old days. When she pulls away from the hug, she slaps him on the cheek.

“Are you over it now?” she snaps. “Let’s go!” she says, grabbing their mother’s keys out of her hands. “I’m sick and tired of you people living interstate and overseas from people you want to be with. You’re ruining my life! All of you!”

They drive back home to grab his backpack and as he bends and kisses his grandma Agnes, she scrunches a one-hundred-dollar bill in his hand. “Buy yourself some chocolates, Tom.”

It’s what she’d say to him as a kid with a twenty-cent coin.

“I’d prefer you spend it on getting your hair set, Nan,” he says. “You look like a babe when you get it done.”

“Don’t you worry, Tom. I’ve always got money put away to get my hair set.”

At the airport, the three of them hold on to each other the whole time it takes for everyone to board the plane.

“Have I ever begged you for anything?” he asks his mum quietly.

She won’t look at him.

“I’m begging you,” he says. “Please don’t let Dad and me get off that plane in Sydney with you not there.”

Anabel walks him all the way up to where he’s the last to board.

“I’m counting on you, 99. If she tries to send you down to Sydney alone, chuck a tanty.”

“Agnes of God says tantrums are my forte,” she says proudly before throwing herself at him for a hug. Then she’s crying and he can’t handle this much crying and he’s forced to do what he vowed he never would.

“Luca Spinelli said to say hi.”

She recovers in an instant, fixing her hair as if Luca Spinelli has materialized miraculously.

“What were his exact words?”

“Say hi to your sister. . . . No, no, no . . . say hi to Anabel.”

And the memory of the expression on her face has him grinning all the way back to Sydney.

His plan was never to run through the airport like one of those scenes in the movies. Too much anticipation, leaving things open for too much disappointment. He could already imagine what would happen. Tara would look at him and say, “Oh, hi, Tom,” as if they just met up in the school corridor at lunchtime. But she’s at one terminal and he’s at another and then he has to get to the International one, so he starts running like a stress head, almost knocking people out of the way. He figures she’s coming from Darwin and finds the right gate lounge, then looks around to see where Justine and Francesca and Tara’s parents are. But they’re nowhere to be seen and when he turns around, Tara’s standing there in front of him, with a backpack on.

“Oh, hi, Tara,” he said nice and matter-of-fact, like they had just bumped into each other at Coles in Norton Plaza.

She stares at him with her airplane hair that looks slightly greasy and her eyes bloodshot from the cabin pressure. She’s darker and he wants to say, “Nice tan,” but remembers that she hasn’t been on holidays. He gives her a quick hug, patting her on the back, and for the whole time she looks at him, her face is on the brink of . . . something he can’t put a finger on. Say something. One of us, say something. Just because you can talk to a girl all night about everything doesn’t mean she’s going to feel the same. It’s like she’s lost her voice.

“Want me to stick around here while the others turn up?” He points to the ground when he says here. He does a whole lot of pointing and can’t understand why. He keeps his face neutral and she’s just staring at him with that look of . . . is it disappointment?

He’s miserable. There’s no coming back from this moment and they’re just staring at each other, not starry-eyed or with tears welling up in their eyes. She has that “What is your problem?” look of hurt on her face. He hasn’t a clue how to fix this. How many great love stories in history go down the gurgler because the right thing wasn’t said at the right time?

He stops pointing and holds up his hand as a good-bye. See you later. Have a good life. Not that they’ll never see each other again, because they will. Always. But she’ll belong to someone else and so will he, and the girl he’ll end up with won’t like his friends, for some reason. And one day he’ll think that balancing them both is too much work and they’ll all start seeing each other every couple of weeks, instead of every day, and it makes him feel like shit to think that. Like his insides are in revolt. Tara looks like she’s about to cry, shaking her head as if to say, “Thomas, what am I going to do with you?” But that’s all he needs. The hope that she wants him to do something. So he talks.

“This is the deal, Finke,” he says firmly. “I’m getting on a plane with my pop Bill and my father and I can tell you this, Apocalypse Now has nothing on what will take place in Vietnam in the next couple of days, so you look after yourself and have fun with the girls, but don’t let anyone introduce you to engineers or peacekeepers, and whatever you do, don’t hang out with Ned on your own. Don’t let anyone take care of you. Can you maybe leave that for me to do? I mean, take care of you? Feel free to take care of me in return . . . because I think I’ll need you to do that.”

Why can’t he just kiss her and stop this talking crap?

“I’ve been an inexplicable fool,” he jokes. And then from behind him, he hears screams and Francesca and Justine are all over her.

“Oh, my God, look at you,” Francesca says.

Tara looks at the girls.