How I met my darling...

Valentines Day; 1996

Sarah and I woke up earlier than usual, it was the second night I’d stayed at hers in Howick.  It was nearing the end of the summer holidays and we were beginning to drift a little with the lack of purpose.  I had recently returned from a two month holiday in Kiribati visiting my mum, my Howick family home was now tenanted as Dad had moved to Papua New Guinea with my step mum and two younger sisters whilst my older sister and I were in Kiribati.  So before starting a course in Rotorua, I had five weeks of staying officially at my sister’s-boyfriend’s-folks’ house; but mostly here, there and anywhere.  My sister’s boyfriend’s was in a rural area so I was finding myself nomadically staying in town where the action was, with whoever would have me.  I had stayed at Troy’s, at Kelly’s; and at this point, I was at Sarah’s.

Sarah lived close to Meadowlands Mall, it was (and still is!?) a bit of a pathetic mall, small with dull boutique shops that didn’t interest us; the supermarket was the pulse of it and I’m sure kept it from closure.  So, as we often had done through school, we wandered down to Meadowlands Mall, the mid-February heat bearing down on us.  The mall was a refuge with it’s air conditioning, and with a bit of pocket money we could buy a snack and have an excuse to sit in the food court and people-watch the time away.  Not that there were many people to watch!

Straight to the Woolworths bulk food section, we bought what we always did – corn chips.  Handwriting the code (7557!) in auto pilot, we exchanged the latest news, Sarah was still annoyed that I’d never replied to the several letters she had mailed to me in Kiribati.  “Get over it”, I groaned with a laugh, as we came out of the checkouts and sat down at a small table.

We continued chatting as we ate our bag of corn chips.  I had a lot to catch up on, I hadn’t been in New Zealand for New Year’s in the Bay of Islands.  There were various scandals to fill me in on, etc.

It wasn’t long before something else grabbed our attention, arrested our attention in fact.

A man, who looked around 24-26 years, sauntered towards us.  He was the most grand thing we had ever seen in our just under-18 years of life. 

Six-foot-four, sun-bronzed, of perfect and imposing muscle tone and magnificent proportions, with a mop of shaggy blonde hair, a section of it hanging next to one eye, this majestic creature advanced towards us ...He wore a singlet and stubbies (short shorts), and sneakers.  Athletic, healthy, rugged, just the perfect specimen of male I had ever had the privilege to lay eyes on (am I making my point, lol)  He stared straight ahead as he strode towards us, then he passed, almost brushing against us.

Our jaws agape, Sarah and I turned to each other.

“Who.  The.  Heck.  Was.  That”, I uttered in a low voice like a ventriloquist, staring at Sarah with wide eyes.  We came to this every other day, we saw the same few faces every time… we had never, ever, seen this man.  We had never seen anything this beautiful, not in all our born days.  He vaguely reminded me of a man at the gym I had a little crush on, with his colouring – only this dude was… perfection.

I reached for a corn chip, feeling depressed.  “I’m sick of boys”, I said announced, rather gloomily.  “I want a man”..  “I want THAT man”.

“Shh!” Sarah warned quietly, and indicated with her eyes – he had sat down not too far from us.  I turned to look then sharply turned back, oh how embarrassing!  Had he heard me?  Oh well… he was too old to care about two little school leavers ogling over him.  He would get this all the time, surely.

One more time I glanced at ‘the hunky man’; he was eating a banana in a hurry and I thought ‘gee what a pig…’  I shrugged and carried on chatting. 

That night I slept restlessly on Sarah’s bedroom floor.  I was still adjusting to being back in New Zealand, where the silence in an insulated brick home was like a heavy weight.  No sound of a breeze blowing through the pandanus screens, or rustling nearby coconut palms.  No tide coming in and out, waves crashing; sometimes distant, sometimes near.  No roosters crowing from 4.30am (I didn’t miss that). I felt unsettled and agitated.  I would be moving to Rotorua in less than two weeks, another change…

‘The hunk at the mall’ came in and out of my dreams.  I was with him, we were in a hallway of a house party… (the usual location, haha), I kissed him, I loved him so powerfully.  I woke with a start.  Pitch black silence, ‘where am I, where am I”… I had to think.  Oh, at Sarah’s.  And the man from the mall, he was just here… ohh… it was a dream.  Dammit!!!  It was SO real!  Disappointment was heavy on me as I fell into fitful sleep again. 

Another few days passed and I thought I’d best move on to another accommodation option.  I rang Kelly to see what they were up to.  “Come over”, she suggested.  “We’re going out to Justin’s birthday tonight, they’ve hired a bar in Royal Oak”

“Oh yeah, sounds good, I’ll have to find a way to get to you”, I chewed on one of the pens next to the phone, planning. “I’ll see if Emma can bring me over”.

A few hours later Emma kindly taxied me to Kelly’s in Pakuranga.  “I’m not picking you up any time soon” she called before driving off.   Neither of us could afford for her to keep coming back and forth.

There was a busy atmosphere when I entered Kelly’s house, a few other young people were there.  Her brother was only a year younger so their social groups mixed and someone was usually around.

One of the guys took a few of us in his car out to this party.  Where the heck is Royal Oak, I wondered.  Everyone else seemed to have better bearings than me; anyway - we made it there, 25 minutes away.

It was a bit exciting to go down the back of a carpark, high industrial buildings either side, up some stairs and into a bar, after all the legal drinking age was 20, and I wasn’t quite 18 yet.  I was useless at using my sister’s ID, I wasn’t good at lying and the bouncers would look at me like I was a twelve-year old.  (I FELT twelve in those situations!!)

It was a rather mellow party with separate groups here and there.  A pretty good DJ though, and the girls and I danced, trying to muster up some enthusiasm.  A group of ‘brown-boys’ - as we would say - stood against the bar to my right, and amongst them was a tall blonde guy; I wouldn’t have noticed him except that he was waving, rather excitedly.  After a moment I noticed it again, ‘who’s he waving at I wonder…?’… I turned to look behind me.  Wait, is he waving at… me?  Weird.  I have NO idea who you are, I thought as I awkwardly waved back, knowing he was mistaking me for someone else.  I wondered what was wrong with him, I mean who waves like that?, and at a bar, I thought, I mean we’re trying to be cool here, man.

I turned away but within a moment he was right before me.  I was a little startled, now what did he want! He shouted above the music “Do you wanna dance?!”  Oh gosh, I wanted to face palm myself, why had I waved back, I rued the moment I had encouraged him!  I wanted to hide.  “Ok…” I accepted passively. 

‘How do I always end up dancing with someone out of pity’, I groaned inwardly.  “It’s ok”, I reassured myself, “just this song, then there’ll be a good moment to exit, just this song”.  I sucked it up to see out the track.  He was sooo confident, I couldn’t bear it.  His arms were flying about everywhere, he reminded me of a European guy I knew through school, tall, intense, and absolutely full of himself.  “I can’t wait to get away from you”, I thought as I studied him with narrow eyes and a barely-polite smile.

“Were you at Meadowlands the other day?”, he shouted, with that huge over-confident grin.

Weirder and weirder!  “ah, yeah…?”, I shouted back, confused.  We were in Royal Oak, an arrogant stranger who waved at me, was now dancing with me and knew I was at Meadowlands, 20 km in another direction..?

“I walked past you and your friend”, he went on; “you were eating cornchips, and you were wearing denim cut off shorts, a white t shirt and brown boots”, he continued, staring at me with that gaudy grin.

I would’ve remembered if this arrogant guy had walked past me I thought, as I considered him, trying not to make it obvious that I was looking him up and down…

“And you had your hair in two plaits”, he added, his eyes fixed on mine. 

Oh.  Wait.  Oh, dear Lord. I surveyed him, his height, his colouring.  He had long pants on and long sleeves, but… oh God, could it be?  I already knew.

“Were you wearing a singlet and short shorts”, I asked weakly, feigning more nonchalance than I felt.  This wasn’t happening, but oh God, it was.

“Yes”, he smiled, staring at me.  He knew I had registered.  And, curiously, his smile suddenly didn’t seem so annoying anymore.   

I looked up at him with a deep breath, and smiled, this time not out of politeness. 

“I’m Vicki”.

(Part I/II)