Adriana's Corner

Chapter Seven

My impulses at the moment are telling me to run.

Don't knock on the door, just turn around and run back to the safety of the house, to the safety of the room and the safety of the bed. I'm too tired, I'm too grumpy and I want to sleep. I don't know why...it wasn't all that bad a day.

There was good news and bad news and good news.

The good news was that the Lawyer wasn't in today to remind me how absent I was in my sister's life. The bad news is that he will be in tomorrow and has been given a message to call me first thing. The other good news is that meant I could spend the rest of the day watering the front garden, checking the mail, sleeping and talking to Adriana as though I was here on holiday as originally planned.

It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be...talking to an empty house. Maybe because I don't know her well enough so I don't know what we would have talked about. Instead, I just complemented her on her house and her knick-knacks, some of which I have already mentally set aside for myself. I still don't know if that's wrong or not.

***

My arm stays raised up, ready to knock on the door but it hasn't moved yet. I'm starting to wonder if it is my impulses that are telling me to run or if it's just my selfishness. I should knock; Alyssa is nice and I really do want to thank her for being my receptionist yesterday and her father for mowing the lawns; I wonder if he knows anything about celery?

This weirdly is the curiosity that makes me knock on the door as I balance the half eaten carrot cake in the other hand. I've eaten nothing but it and some nice ladies' scones today, so I'm actually quite hungry. The door opens and cheery, happy, Alyssa grins at me. I smile back, already glad I came.

"Come in!" she chirps, taking the cake out of my hand.

The house is white...I hate white houses and even though I've hardly spoken two words to Joe, a white house isn't what I pictured him in, but this one is different. The floors are polished wood and throughout the house, there is beautifully carved furniture and art in bright greens and reds and oranges. This somehow makes the white look less clinical.

"Nice place," I say, looking around. "Who does the carving? Your dad?"

"Yep. He's awesome aye? Trying to get him to sell some but he won't. He's too modest and doesn't want the attention."

"It's amazing stuff. Definitely attention arousing." I run my hand over a golden coloured hall table and move my fingers through the patterns of flowers and vines. "It's so beautiful. People would pay mega bucks for this kind of workmanship."

"I know. We could be rich."

I smile, unable to stop looking at them and following the patterns with my fingers.

"What kind of wood is it?" I ask. She screws up her face in thought.

"DAD!" she calls out. I hear a chair scrape back in another room and Joe comes around the corner warily. Still in a checked shirt and still with a cap on. Whether it's the same items as yesterday, I dare not ask.

"Hi." I smile. He gives a man nod back, folding his arms. "Sorry, what kind of wood is this?"

"Huon Pine." he replies already cringing at the attention.

"It's amazing," I say to him as genuinely as possible. His head remains down.

"It's nice wood." is his reply. I raise an eyebrow at him.

"This attention is going to get nothing out of you is it?"

"Nope!" Alyssa chirps in his behalf. I laugh.