Hunter
On my birthday, I get a present in the mail from Annie. The card has a prawn with a face on the front. It reads ‘Hope your day is shrimply the best.’ Inside she’s written, ‘Don’t forget the lolly cake.’
She’s managed to make it personal and keep it casual at the same time. It’s friendly, funny—except for the x following her name at the bottom.
I open the box, and inside is an Akubra. My eyes are drawn to the band as I pick it up to look at it. The corners of my mouth lift. The band’s made from Annie’s signature braided leather and held together with a silver clasp engraved with my initials. I put the hat on and tug my phone from my pocket.
Me: You trying to make all the other farmers around here jealous?
Annie: Can’t have you blending in.
Me: It’s perfect. Thanks.
Annie: Happy birthday x
There’s that x again.
A few months go by. A few months of silence. I wonder if I should send Annie something for Christmas, then decide against it. She doesn’t even celebrate it, and I don’t want to set any patterns that tie her to me. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve seen her, or even heard her voice, and all I can think is that Dad has four more to serve.
Sammy’s offered to take care of things here so I can escape for a few days. He thinks I should go to Brisbane, visit Pete and the family, see Annie. It’s tempting. So tempting to show up and disrupt the life she’s spent the last year building, only to disappear once more. Then what? Does it become an annual thing? I go up every Christmas, we fall hard all over again, then spend the rest of the year counting down the days until the next one?
That’s not the life I want for her.
Christmas comes and goes in mutual silence.
New Year’s Eve rolls around. The century is coming to a close, and no one knows if all the technology we’ve spent the previous one hundred years inventing will still work tomorrow.
Sammy convinces me to go to some eighties night at a pub in Turram. He’s been giving me shit about only leaving the farm for supplies or to visit Dad. I agree to go because that’s what people my age do. It’s normal, and maybe I need a bit of normal. So I put on the shirt and mullet wig Sammy hands me that evening and drive us to the pub.
Thankfully, everyone has gotten into the spirit of the theme, so we’re not left looking like idiots. Sammy orders me a pot of light at the bar, and we spend the next few hours running into people we know from high school. Funny how everyone acts like we were best mates back then, even though I fought with most of them at some point during those years.
Tamsin shows up with one of her city friends and spots me by the bar. She walks over with her arms outstretched.
‘Hey, you,’ she says.
I hug her. ‘It’s been a while.’ I can tell they had a few prior to coming.
‘Have you spoken to Annie recently?’
Just her name said aloud changes the direction my blood is pumping in. ‘Not since my birthday.’ And I’m trying very hard to be okay with that.
Tamsin’s friend returns from the bar and hands her a drink.
She nods. ‘Thank you. Have you met Hunter?’
The girl extends a hand to me. ‘Charlotte.’
When I take hold of her hand, she maintains eye contact.
‘I was in Brisbane a few weeks back, and we had breakfast,’ Tamsin says, drawing my full attention back to her.
‘How’d she seem?’
‘Really good. She’s made some great friends through TAFE. They all hike and do this fitness boot camp thing together twice a week. She looks fantastic.’
I’m soaking in every word, every image.
‘She’s considering dyeing her hair,’ Tamsin says, sipping at her wine, then making a face.