Too Close to Midnight
A soft tap-tap-tap on the cottage’s wooden door made Ava sit upright in the wicker rocker. With the night unseasonably cool, she’d earlier dragged the comfortable chair from the porch and had propped her feet on the edge of the bed. The single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling was too dim to read by so she’d twisted the arm of the reading lamp attached to the headboard. At first she’d thought the noise was coming from one of the horses that roamed the property freely, because one night she’d woken to find two horses outside her window. One was nibbling noisily at what she assumed was an itch on its belly while its mate rubbed back and forth against the porch upright.
The tap-tap-tap sounded again, and it definitely wasn’t a horse.
Ava’s first thought when she opened the door to John was that she’d done something wrong. She’d cooked the dinner and tidied up, but had she forgotten something? In her haste to get away, having been delayed by Colin dripping red wine on one of Marjorie’s good tablecloths, had she left the oven on, or something out of the fridge, or worse.
‘Don’t look so panicked,’ John said. ‘I told you I don’t welsh on a bet.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I had to go away with Dad, but I’m back now and I come bearing dessert. Debt paid in full. First you’ll need to let me inside.’
‘Now?’ Ava squinted at her watch, but it was too dark.
‘It’s late, I know. These things took longer than I thought to set and I couldn’t start until you’d left the kitchen for the night. First time ever I’ve wanted you to hurry up and get the hell out of the house.’ He laughed, a little awkwardly, maybe because she was making him stand on her doorstep with these things, whatever they were. ‘I saw the light on so I figured you were still up.’
‘Okay, you’d better come in.’ She stepped back to usher him inside, while her spare hand gathered tight both sides of the tracksuit jacket she wore over pyjama trousers and a T-shirt.
The fluorescent tube in the kitchen flickered on, highlighting the untidy one-room cabin, but Ava hadn’t been expecting a late-night visitor. She’d come back from dinner with a stack of old magazines Marjorie had planned to throw away and had been cutting out recipes when the knock had sounded on her door. Assorted clothes occupied one of the two chrome and red vinyl dining chairs, and assorted magazines crowded the speckled laminate table. Ava shifted it all to the only other piece of furniture in the room – the bed – and felt immediately self-conscious that she was in such close proximity to the disarmingly attentive John Tate.
‘You can’t look until it’s done,’ he said, transferring a tea-towel-covered tray from the bench seat on the porch to the table inside. ‘You’re on tea duty while I finish my presentation over here.’
Ava complied, filling the kettle and calling over the running water, ‘I give bonus points for presentation.’
‘My mother will tell you I don’t have a creative bone in my body, unless I’m in the kitchen. There’s something about me and food like there’s this… I’m not sure of the word to explain.’
‘A connection? A need? An all-consuming obsession?’ Ava set two mugs and teaspoons on the kitchen counter while she waited for the water to boil.
‘Yes, yes, obsession is a good word. Oh, bugger!’
‘Something wrong?’ As instructed, she’d been doing her best to avoid looking, but curiosity was inching her closer to the table. ‘Are you sure I can’t help?’
John thrust a hand in her direction. ‘Stay where you are. The next one will be better, I hope – or not. Damn and double bugger!’ He stepped aside, defeated. ‘Okay, definitely not top points for presentation, but I promise it’ll taste better than it looks.’
Ava sidled up to him and saw two plates, barely capable of holding the molten creamy mass pooling around fresh strawberries and drowned mint leaves. Gently she asked, ‘What is it?’
‘You mean, besides a disaster?’ John pulled an exaggerated pout. ‘Maybe I should try again another day.’
‘No, you don’t.’ Ava stopped him lifting the tray. ‘I’m sure they taste amazing. We need spoons.’
‘We need straws or, better still, a shotgun to put the bloody thing out of its misery.’
Ava returned to the table wielding the cutlery. ‘I say we eat them. I’ll go first.’ She helped herself to a spoonful and lifted it to her nose. ‘Oh, so it’s panna cotta?’
‘You mean you couldn’t tell?’ John’s voice sounded as flat as the food.
‘You didn’t set it in serving glasses?’
‘I read somewhere the best chefs use a mould and turn them out. Guess I’m not quite there yet.’
She smiled and swallowed the spoonful. ‘Well, there’s a beautiful, delicate vanilla taste and no sign of graininess. Some of the best chefs never master that texture.’
‘You’re being nice.’
‘Not at all. Try it.’ She had another mouthful to prove her point and soon they were going scoop for scoop and over-doing the feigned ecstasy until there was none left. As their laughter died away Ava was reminded of the possibly inappropriate nature of the situation.
They were sitting on her bed. When did that happen?
Ava leaped to her feet and hugged the tracksuit top to herself. Time to bring this late-night taste test to a close. ‘Nothing beats a midnight snack and that was delightful. Thank you, John. I’m glad I won.’ She was at the door. ‘And it was very sweet of you to make a panna cotta.’
‘I didn’t expect it to be like your dad’s.’ He shrugged.
‘I can’t tell you it was as good as his because that would mean I’d have to stop ordering it whenever I see it on a menu.’ She had opened the door, but John wasn’t budging.
‘I’m not following you,’ he said.
‘I order panna cotta whenever it’s available,’ she explained. ‘Always trying to find the one that will be as good as, or better than, Marco Marchette’s.’ She talked more about her father, how he had worked as a delivery driver for a large food company in Brisbane. Sometimes he’d called at their home with the truck to let Ava poke around in the boxes of ingredients. Sometimes he’d come in with a small carton of goodies just for her. Not that she ever told her mum. ‘Dad made the best panna cotta and I plan on travelling the world until I find one that’s as good.’
‘What then?’
‘Well…’ With the night air too cool, she closed the door and folded her arms across her chest. ‘I’ve told myself it will be a sign from my dad.’
‘A sign of what?’
‘That I’ve found my place, that I can stop moving, that I’ve done the things he wanted me to do – the things he could only dream of doing.’ As usual, remembering her father calmed Ava. ‘My panna cotta search has kept me going since I left home ten years ago.’
‘You must’ve been young.’
‘I was seventeen.’ She relaxed against the door and her hands slid into the pockets of her jacket. ‘I survived, although it wasn’t always easy. The panna cotta challenge became my motivation to keep moving.’
‘Surely your dad would have preferred you to settle down, marry, have kids, that sort of thing. Not chase the ultimate panna cotta.’
Ava could have explained her parents’ relationship and how it had stopped her wanting to tie herself to one place or one person, but she didn’t. ‘Maybe, John, but my happy-ever-after is my responsibility. I have to feel good about myself before I can be any good to another person. I can tell you this, though.’ She needed to bring back some levity. ‘I’ve developed a panna cotta tradition when I find one that’s pretty darn close to perfect.’ She picked up a plate from the tray on the table and licked it clean.
When she lowered it, John had moved close to her. His hands cupped her cheeks, drawing her to him. She closed her eyes, then felt something soft and warm on the tip of her nose.
‘You left a bit,’ he said, grinning.
She stepped back to take a playful swipe at him, but he grabbed her hand and leaned in again, pressing her back against the door and planting his mouth on hers. It was only when his hands brushed her breasts under the thin T-shirt that she found the sense that had evaded her since she’d let him step inside her cottage too close to midnight.
‘Stop!’ She must have screamed it because he startled. ‘Please, John.’
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
‘This, John. What I’m doing is wrong.’ Ava walked as far away as the small space allowed, needing to distance herself from him. ‘You and me, here like this. It couldn’t be more wrong. You have to go.’
‘But, Ava—’
‘I said go, please.’ From the kitchen, she pointed to the door. ‘Good night.’
A blast of chilly air blew into the room when John left.
Ava had one more reason not to go to the yards tomorrow.