‘Fuck! is how it’s feeling, excuse my French.’ She puts a little more weight on it. ‘I need to run it off. Come on, follow me.’
They move quickly, navigate the dent in the roller door and step out onto the sidewalk. The sky is slate grey with a purple hue, much darker than it was before Lola took cover in the building. Fat tendrils of purple-grey smoke hang above the bitumen like serpents in the still afternoon air. The road is littered with the burning shells of vehicles, including the charred remains of the semitrailer that exploded and caused Lola to be trapped in the first place.
‘This way.’ She points them left and they jog down a quiet side street that has not seen much action. Even with a painful leg, Lola is quick. Corey follows, a little confused. ‘So we’re going to the school?’
‘Yes. It won’t take long. I want you to tell me everything, but I need to make a call first.’
‘Sure. Okay.’ Corey gets the hint and drops behind her a polite distance, Spike in tow.
She dials the phone and puts it to her ear. The call is answered.
‘Hello?’
‘Scott?’
‘This is he.’
She can barely hear his voice over a high-pitched flapping noise. It’s a familiar sound, but she can’t quite place it. ‘Hey, it’s Lola.’
‘How are you, sweetness? I was just about to call.’
‘Are you close?’
‘Well, we haven’t made a lot of headway —’
‘Are the roads gridlocked?’
‘Yeah, it’s pretty bad, the gridlock.’
The flapping returns and momentarily drowns out his voice. What is that sound?
‘I can’t hear you. Where are you? Are you okay?’
‘We’re — yeah — we’re fine.’
‘I got out.’
‘That’s great to hear.’
The flapping returns, and just like that she knows what the sound is. ‘Are you on a boat!’
‘Actually it’s a yacht.’ The noise is a sail flapping in the breeze. ‘I was told it’s the safest place to be at the moment. No engines. Just wind power.’
There is a long silence.
Lola breaks it. ‘So, let me recap. I was trapped under a beam in a building and you said you’d come and help me, but instead you went sailing. Is that right?’
‘Oh, don’t be that way, sweetness. It was just a management call.’
‘You manage yourself.’
‘I didn’t say it was an easy call, but I knew you’d be okay. You’re resourceful. That’s what I like about you.’
She keeps jogging and takes a breath. Her first impulse is to launch the full Bitchkrieg, verbally destroy him, ridicule his acting as a pants-down humiliation, tell him the town regards him as the Derek Zoolander of action movies and wonders if he’ll ever perfect a second facial expression, explain that no one except him thinks Avatar would have been better if the humans had defeated ‘those blue hippies’, clarify that he only has a career because God hates Mel Gibson and remind him that with every moment he grows older and less worthy of the public’s attention.
But what, exactly, would be the point of that? Sure, she’d feel like a hero for fifteen seconds, but she works in a business where criminals and bullies roam free and the careers of good women die like dogs in the street, or at least fade into anonymity, if they don’t work every angle to keep their head above water. As Scott is currently the biggest gorilla in every room of this town, she should hold on to this golden chit and cash it in the future, not blow it on some meaningless tirade now. So she decides to cool her jets and play the long game. She feigns bad reception: ‘I — an’t hear yo— Sco —’ and ends the call.
She looks up, takes in a gigantic billboard of Scott Ford as The Blue Cyclone, which looms above the roadway. It must be ten metres long and three metres tall and highlights his ripped and buffed physique under blue tights.
It’s on fire.
She watches the billboard burn and has an epiphany. She’s an idiot. That guy was never right for her. How could she have not seen it? Well, she knows how: she was swayed by all the wrong things. The guy is good-looking, he’s an action star, he’s successful and has plenty of industry cache. She had wilfully disregarded the fact he was vain and shallow and didn’t have her best interests at heart. She knows there’s only one thing she can do about that. From now on she must date men instead of boys. The problem is she’s not very good at working out which is which because age has nothing to do with identifying them.
There was one guy she knew who was a man, the guy she’d worked with for the last decade. She turns to Corey behind her. ‘Sorry about that. Can you tell me what happened to Matty? Please?’
‘Of course.’ The Australian catches up to her, Spike right beside him, and lays it out in broad brushstrokes. She appreciates that he doesn’t weigh her down with the awful specifics, but she needs enough detail to get it straight in her mind, so she interjects from time to time and asks for clarification.
When he finishes she doesn’t say anything for a good while. They run on in silence, both breathing hard now, the distant bang and pop of explosions filling the space between them. She wipes at her wet cheeks, realises it’s going to take a long time to come to terms with what happened. She takes a breath and pushes the pain way down, so she doesn’t have to think about it now. She needs to concentrate on getting through this day in one piece, and helping the man who just helped her. She turns to Corey. ‘Thank you. You’re being — great.’
‘No wuckers.’
‘After last night I didn’t think you’d talk to me again.’
‘Well, you said you wanted to be mates, so, you know, this is mates.’
‘Guess it is.’ And it is mates. She can see the spark has left his blue eyes, the one that was there every time they’d met in the past. She now realises how much she misses it. It’s gone and has been replaced with a polite, reserved distance.
Corey scans the destruction on the roadway. ‘Gotta say I’m looking forward to getting out of this town.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘We’re going to head down to the Florida Keys.’
‘For a holiday?’
‘No. I’m thinking about moving down there. Maybe start a business.’
‘Right. Well, great. It is beautiful.’ This news actually throws Lola more than what just happened with Scott, which had been disappointing, but predictable. This is — well, an unhappy surprise. But then what did she expect? Last night she’d dropped the Aussie like a hot potato and now he’s moving on.
Corey feels surprisingly good. He’s happy he was able to help Lola out of her predicament but the fact is she chose another guy over him, who, he is almost certain, she was just on the phone to. Judd was right. He has to let it go and move on and that’s exactly what he is doing.
They turn a corner and stop dead. Before them a gigantic sound stage — it must be forty metres high — burns fiercely and pumps black smoke into the sky. Again, there are no fire engines or fire fighters in sight.
Corey takes it in. ‘What is this place?’
Lola looks around, stunned. ‘What’s left of Twentieth Century Fox.’
Corey sees the company’s logo and immediately recognises it from a bunch of his favourite movies — Star Wars, Aliens, Independence Day. He remembers hearing something about the guy who owned the joint. He can’t remember his name but he used to be an Aussie but decided to become a Yank. He must have had a really good reason because Corey couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to do that.