Yesterday`s flower by Michelle Tarynne (uplifting book club books .txt) 📕

‘Max!’ she said, turning to look at him.

Erika realised her heart was pounding. It had been easier to keep Max out of the top of her mind having not seen him for a while, but now that he was standing right in front of her, she recognised she hadn’t forgo en anything about him. As he looked back at her, his hooded hazel eyes were impenetrable. He smelt vaguely of the Le Domaine tasting room and the memories came flooding back.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked finally, as their eyes locked.

‘Fact checking for the book. My proofreader asked a few questions about spelling discrepancies.’

‘Ah,’ Erika said, ‘the book.’

‘Our book,’ Max said, reminding her gently.

Erika looked away.

‘How’ve you been keeping?’ Max asked. ‘I heard from Jared that your gallery’s doing amazingly. Is that so, or is that just a Jared-ism?’

Erika noted a trace of bi erness. ‘I’ve been lucky,’ she said.

‘Glad to hear it. Sometimes you just don’t know ... Jared doesn’t always portray things accurately, especially when it comes to ...’ Max’s sentence drifted away.

When it comes to you? When it comes to women? When it comes to how things actually are? ‘Has he been in touch?’ Erika said with a brightness she didn’t feel.

‘Once in a while. Usually when he needs something. You know Jared – the best delegator ever. Hopefully my workload will be considerably reduced when he gets back.’

Erika smiled, realising that Max was right. Jared had already emailed her several times with instructions: buy two birthday gifts (one for somebody she hadn’t even met); follow up on missing post; pay an outstanding mobile phone account before he was cut off.

Max glanced at the wedding album, then Erika’s open sketchbook.

‘Those are great. Really great,’ he said, stepping as if to move away.

‘How’s Prudence?’ Erika asked quickly to draw him back.

Max stopped. ‘She’s clucking over me like a mother hen, waiting for her other chick to come home to roost. She’s keeping busy making Jared’s favourite dishes and freezing them.’

‘Lucky Jared,’ Erika said, trying to keep the irony out her voice.

‘Oh, don’t let her get to you. She does her best to chase every woman away. Prudie doesn’t like to share her boys.’

‘So I gathered.’ Erika sighed. ‘I bet she couldn’t wait to see the back of me.’

With that Max pulled out the chair next to Erika, and sat down quickly. ‘That may be true, but I’ve missed you, Erika Shaw,’ Max said with an intensity that made Erika reel. ‘I thought it would get easier if I avoided you, but I don’t think it has.’ He leant forward, and his proximity made Erika feel immediately warmer, safer. ‘I know you’re with Jared, but maybe we can still meet up once in a while.’

‘As friends?’ Erika said cautiously.

‘Why not? Keep each other company till Jared gets back.’

And Erika smiled, holding out her hand. ‘It’s a deal, Max. I can’t think of anything I’d

like more.’

♥

Except that with each time they met up, there was something lurking below the surface. Uncomfortable pre-kiss silences that would have led to something had they let them. More than casual glances. Hellos and goodbyes tinged with longing, and which Erika realised were not one-sided.

But they didn’t cross any lines. They drank coffee at Calypso’s, went riding, cycled to neighbouring villages and ate lunch in Stellenbosch, watching clusters of newly arrived students accompanied by bulging suitcases and nervous-looking parents.

When Max fetched Erika from her painting spot at Le Cadeau, Pieter and Magda remained tactfully silent, offering them a lunch of frikkadels with mashed potato and tomato-and-onion sauce, or tuna sandwiches with Roquefort salad. And on some afternoons they all sat on the porch, idling the afternoon away with talk of the ‘Swallows’ in from Europe who, occupying their summer homes, set to out-party each other with drunken debauchery fuelled by generous quantities of local wine.

‘Have you been to one of their parties?’ Erika asked, thinking they sounded a lot like those hosted by Jared’s crowd.

‘Once or twice,’ Max answered. ‘Not really my scene.’

And Pieter, who’d missed the question, pa ed his ears. ‘I just thank the good Lord for my deafness. I used to hear music right across the valley, but now I’m lucky if I can hear the conversation at the dinner table.’

His comment made them all laugh, and Pieter beamed appreciatively.

Erika always arrived on her own at Le Cadeau, but after Max arrived on three consecutive days, she started to anticipate him. He never stayed much longer than an hour or two, and often brought gifts for the older couple to add to the lunch table. Onion marmalade. A milk tart made by Prudie. Potato salad with thick mayonnaise, chunks of egg and chopped parsley. He kissed Erika lightly on the cheek as he left, embracing Magda in the same way.

And she watched him go, trying to keep her emotions in check, trying to remain impassive to the void he left. Jared had been away too long, she decided. Soon he’d be back, filling up her life in a way Max couldn’t. Besides, she and Max always met on neutral territory: he’d never even been inside the gallery, and she couldn’t go back to Le Domaine – certainly not with Prudence keeping guard. So how could she even compare her feelings for these brothers?

♥

Later, when she returned home after her evening exercise, she didn’t expect to see Max. But there he was si ing on her front step, next to a window with a spotlight on her most recent work of a labourer sleeping under a Le Cadeau camphor tree. Erika pushed her bicycle closer, pulling off her helmet.

‘Hello there,’ Erika said.

‘Long ride?’

‘Long enough. My legs and bu are so sore, I might just have ruined any chances of any exercise tomorrow.’

‘You probably just need a hot bath, soothe those muscles,’ said Max.

‘I’m sure you’re right ...’

Max pulled himself up from the step, moving aside so she could unlock the gallery. She checked the bicycles’ tyres for mud, then pushed the bike into the storeroom under the stairs, leaning it against an old heater that had been left in the upstairs apartment. Erika pulled off her muddy shoes, leaving them on a floor mat. Then having hung her helmet on a nail she’d hammered into the wall for that purpose, she turned to Max.

‘Do you want to come in?’ she asked. ‘You could take a look around while I bath.’ Max nodded, following her inside. ‘I guess you’re wondering why I’m here,’ he said. ‘Not really,’ Erika said, then blushed. ‘Well, maybe just a li le.’ ‘I thought you might like to come swimming.’

‘Now? At night?’ Erika asked, a bemused look crossing her face.

‘It’s full moon. And I know I told you I’m not really a water baby, but a night swim in Africa – well, that’s something special.’

‘Well, I –’

Max put up his arms, as though admi ing defeat. ‘Just a thought,’ he said. ‘No pressure.’

‘Oh, but you misunderstand me,’ Erika said. ‘I’d love to come. It’s just that I’m ravenous. I’ll have to make dinner first, or I won’t be able to think of anything else.’

Half an hour later, when Erika came barefooted from her bedroom in a pair of jeans and a cerise halterneck, Max had poured her a glass of wine. He was si ing in her lounge with the television on mute, but switched it off abruptly.

‘Feeling be er?’ he asked, and Erika nodded, taking the glass. ‘The furniture looks great here. Nice to see it being used properly.’

‘Oh, that was mostly Jared,’ Erika said. ‘He has an eye for décor that amazed me.’ ‘Did he now?’ An unreadable expression crossed Max’s face. ‘Well, that’s our Jared,

surprising us at every turn. Did he tell you where that sideboard comes from?’ ‘No, he didn’t.’

‘My maternal great-grandmother brought it into the family as part of her trousseau. It was made for her by her younger brother. Feel here, under the edge of this door.’ Max took Erika’s fingers in his, tracing the initials and date that were carved there. ‘My mother used to let us trace that with pencils and paper, although Jared never really showed an interest. I have an old exercise book of the pa erns and initials I traced as a child. I can’t actually remember any longer where they all came from.’

Erika sipped her wine. ‘But doesn’t it bother you that this stuff is here, then? I thought I was borrowing cast-offs, not family history,’ she said.

‘Of course not,’ Max said. ‘Why should it? At least you’re enjoying it. That sideboard’s been under an old sheet in one of the barns for at least twenty years.’

‘Oh,’ said Erika. ‘Jared said he took it out of the co age.’

‘Did he? I guess I must be mistaken then, although...’ Max retrieved his glass. ‘What about some music while you’re cooking?’ he asked, changing the subject. ‘That is, if you still want to cook.’

‘My iPod dock’s over there.’ Erika indicated some speakers on a shelf.

‘Anything in particular?’

‘You choose,’ said Erika. ‘Linguine carbonara okay?’ ‘Delicious.’

Max chose Louis Armstrong, whose voice crooned like gravel across the small

apartment, alternating with the imaginative twists and turns of his trumpet.

‘Good choice,’ Erika said.

‘Satchmo always said, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.”’ ‘You like jazz?’ Erika asked as she cracked the eggs.

‘I like Big Band. One day I should take you to a concert at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. It’s the most breath-taking se ing, almost like si ing in an arena, but you’re on the grass with your picnic, overlooking Cape Town.’

‘Sounds wonderful.’

Max pulled up a kitchen stool, seating himself on the other side of the counter where Erika was cooking. She’d pulled out some le uce, tomatoes and green peppers, and without any discussion, he began to cut up some of the salad stuff, turning the chopping board at an angle to slide it in. As What a Wonderful World filled the room, Erika found that they were both singing along, and where Albert might have sounded like he was barking, Max’s voice was pure velvet. She looked across at him and smiled, pouring more wine into his empty glass.

By the time their dinner was over, they were on their second bo le, with Erika having knocked back a great deal more than Max. She was happy; they’d danced around the room, laughing as they bumped and turned in the tiny space. And later Max would be taking her to the swimming pool of a friend whose house he was si ing in town. Erika opened a bar of chocolate, snapping off a few blocks, which she slipped into Max’s mouth before popping some into her own. She hadn’t meant to be provocative, but the expression on Max’s face changed. It was a kind of hunger that she recognised. And as his feelings burnt into her, she felt an internal jolt in response.

‘So, how about that swim?’ she said carefully, stepping back.

Taking her cue, Max nodded.

♥

They’d thrown their stuff into the boot of the Land Cruiser, but as Max was reversing he suddenly stopped.

‘Actually, are you okay to walk? Not too stiff? It’s only a few roads down, but parking can be tight. And I shouldn’t really be driving.’

‘Sure,’ Erika said. ‘Why not?’

Erika steadied herself against Max as they strolled. Dogs growled on their approach, their yelps only fading again as they moved on. There were no street lights, so the roads were dark, the only illumination coming from the moon and the houses, where lamps gli ered beyond half-closed curtains. Some of the homes had televisions blaring, in others they could hear the sounds of raised, angry voices, a baby crying. Beyond a hedge two cats hissed and spat. The darkened streets smelt of just-cooked dinners – curries, roast chicken, and fried fish that reminded her of the corner shop near her home in Dulwich. To Erika, the atmosphere was