Finding Francesca

"No love. I'm good. You go..." I wave my hands like, 'I don't know' and she pecks me on the cheek.

"I will. Look um, hey... After dinner most nights I like to watch-"

"Haha, cop shows or netflix. I know alright. Hey, you're set up in Delie's room. There's an ensuite in there. Do you need anything?"

"Nope. Just couch company in a little while. Remember that time we fell asleep watching what was that even?" She asks as she wanders off down the hall.

"Resident Evil." I say quietly to myself and yes, I do remember. I woke up some time near two o'clock in the morning with a handful of tit and a face full of lovely girly smelling hair. She made the same noises Delia used to make when she was little as I gently woke her and guided her down the hall.

I've queued Resident Evil three on Netflix, a different one. I should go wash this man stink off me too, I think. The pool is not a bath. Nessy told me that so many times. "Paul, a swim is not a bath. Go get the chlorine out of your hair."

"Yes dear." I tell my wife wherever she is, and my knees click when I stand. I've dated you know since then. I felt like I owed it to her. She told me one day while she was lying there pallid and wan and sallow and all those things and great. Now I'm crying. She told me, "You're too young to stay lonely and grumpy forever. Please promise me you'll open your heart up one day for someone else."

At least I can pretend I got shampoo in my eyes.

She's sitting all curled up in the corner of the 'L' shaped lounge. She smiles as I return brushing my salt and pepper hair. It's an unruly mess and usually needs me to drag a brush through a dozen times to get the knots from my Saturday ride out.

"Hey Paul. Sit. Let me help. Seriously, guys have no idea." She wrinkles her nose and smiles, gesturing to the floor in front of her feet. "Resident Evil? Is this a brunette thing or a leather thing?"

"Bit of both darlin." I chuckle and sit where shown.

Now Nessy was a beautiful woman, a devoted wife and a wonderful mother. She lit my nights in the bedroom with fireworks and all sorts of things I think the church outlawed years ago. But my darling wife as saintly and now gone as she was, never brushed my hair. Because I never had long hair. Mostly the depression and grief surrounding her death let me forget my own appearance and then when someone pointed out, a counsellor, I think, a couple of years later, that I looked like a hobo...

I had long hair. I had a beard. I had a daughter who needed me, and I needed to fucking well man up.

I think she felt my deep breath. Maybe my shoulders shake. But in any case, she stopped brushing to gently lean forward and pull me to her chest. To pillow me in those precious breasts and tell me. "Shh Paul. It's okay to let someone do something for you now and then. Shh."

It took every ounce of staunch I could gather right then not to cry like a little boy with skinned knees. I just sat and watched a silly show and let her run that brush through my hair over and over until I didn't think a single thing. My arms got heavy. I'm sure I yawned. My shoulders pressed back on her open knees. She welcomed me between those beautiful legs I watched her pull bikini's up over. It felt like the most intimate thing anyone had done for me for a very long time.

Then while we watched zombies and a brunette woman in tight leather, she put the brush down and tapped the couch beside her.

"Bring what's left of that wine, please Paul? And my handbag off the bench please."

The plastic bucket that earlier held beer, now serves wine bucket duty and I sit back down beside her. She leaves the movie paused while she takes a hair band from her bag and puts my hair back for me. I top up glasses and as I sit beside her she says thoughtfully, "So, what did you think of my body?"

"Uh..." I'm a fairly intelligent and educated man but that's all I can get out.

"Sorry, that sort of come out of nowhere." She smiles. "Too much pressure?"

"Fuck no, I think I already told you, I think you're beautiful naked."

"So why were you all kind of rabbit in a spotlight when you were in the pool?"

"Are you kidding? First, it just kind of happened and I had no idea what to do. Second, you were getting naked. Third. I just... You are without a doubt the most beautiful woman I have ever seen naked."

She looks sideways at me with a serious kind of thoughtful stare, then nods with a bit of a grim smile and turns the movie back on. We sit side by side and sip our wine and watch the silly screen.

"Can I pause a moment Paul? Need the loo."

I nod and she smiles and disappears. In the moments while she's gone, I wonder on Delia and her shift this evening. Her mum would be so damn proud. I resist the urge to message or call and wonder if I have another bottle of wine somewhere. This one seems empty and I'm really enjoying having company.

I have more beer, but she seems to prefer wine and personally I don't mind a red now and- In the garage! I have a carton of wine that Nessy bought us a long time ago. We were holidaying in cairns and I remember the heavy humid night much like this one when we sat at a little café and discovered that some reds do go with seafood.

Grenache, the label tells me as I take two bottles and put one in the fridge. Aussie room temp is not Euro room temp and even though the garage storage is cooler than the rest of the house, I prefer my red cool. I don't even know why I was saving it. Perhaps a last link to Nessy? I'm sure she'd like to join me on the couch and watch this silly movie and drink this thing she ordered online because she loved it so much.

I'm smiling thinking about it as I bring a bottle back and drop it on the ice for a while. I look up as she wanders back down the hallway and she smiles warmly, giving me a wrinkled nose grin and a wave.

"I have a problem with my plan, and I was thinking about it while I was on the throne." She smiles at me and nudges my shoulder with hers as she sits.

"Problem? I'm good with problems. Duh, da dah!" I make a superman pose that gets a giggle from her. "Spill kiddo."

"Ngrr... Not kiddo. Kiddo is Delie. I'm... um."

"Lovely when you're cranky looking, what? What's the problem Francesca?"

"Fran. Franny. Or I'll start calling you Mr Brandon again." She looks serious.

"Haha. Ok, darlin... Problem..."

"Darling is acceptable. Nomenclature protocol accepted. Continue human speech within parameters of intended disclosure." Her Alexa voice cracks me up and she giggles at my silly chuckles.

"So... I have the aforementioned curse of womanly nature. It suspends... No, it redefines... It..." If she thinks she's thinking hard, then she hasn't noticed me trying to keep up. "Shit, Paul. I have my periods and it changes my thing. I wanted to work out why and just shut up okay? Stop talking until I work this out in my head."

The suggestion seems entirely reasonable despite the fact I hadn't actually been talking as I had been accused of. "Alright Chessie." I nod.

She looks at me strangely for long moments then leans closer to peck me on the cheek. "My uncle Franco in Spain calls me Chessie."

I nod and wonder if we're going to turn the movie back on. That Beckinsale chick looks alright in that leather and-

"So. I have my periods now and the try and get comfortable naked around you plan has a complication. Can we talk about this or is it a bit icky for you?" she eyes me seriously.

"Pfff... Ahhm..." I breathe deeply, consult my wine with a large gulp and a smarter part of me that I never really knew I had says, "Listen Chessie, I don't really quite understand your motivations or your need to take that little problematic moment further but I love you like a daughter and will do whatever I can to help you through it. I just want you happy. Okay love?"

"Mmm, hahah. Perfect Paul. Look at this." She hands me her phone.

[Woah bitch! Imma fuck LOVIN this night!!! Shit is goin off in ER. Shit's real. Tell Daddio I'm coollio and I love his dumb guts out. Don't fart in my bed.]

I chuckle as I read it, it's perfect Delia.

"I wish I had the same relationship with my parents that Delia has with you and... um had, with her mum. She speaks so much about her I feel like I know her even though I only met her a few times."

I stumble headlong into memories and it must show on my face.

"Paul?"

"Ha pff... Sorry. Thinking is all."

"Must be hard." She sniffs in a breath. "I have no idea. Never lost anyone close. Do you want me to shut up and we can just watch this dumb show and cuddle?"

Cuddle's sound wonderful but I can hear Nessy frowning and saying, "You keep everything bottled up you wanker. Talk!" The number of times I heard that...

"Hey Fran? How about we turn this silly stuff off? I'd really like to talk, and I think you have stuff you want to speak about. Let's go brave the mossies around the pool and finish this bottle of Nessy's favourite wine. What do you reckon love?"

She answers me by climbing onto my lap and hugging me so closely that I'm afraid I'll get her pregnant.

A little tiny nod of her head and a smile with her big brown eyes locked directly on mine tell me she approves of the new mission. I like this Bushman insect repellent. You only need the tiniest bit of it for it to work properly. Though the squadrons of thousands swarm the soft LED lighting and bug zapper, they leave us mostly alone as we busy ourselves with our glasses of wine and thoughts as we watch the distant light show of storms over the Flinders ranges.

"How did you meet?" She breaks the silence. "Delia said backpacking or something. Vanessa laughed when Delia and I were talking about it and said something about, 'going all the way round the world to find what was practically next door all along.'"

"Hahaha. That's Nessy. We met in Paris. After high school, I spent two years backpacking around Europe. Mum and Dad paid for my tickets and I picked up work here and there and they helped a bit too. Ah... Yup. Nessy was working in a little bar that was a favourite for backpackers. During happy hour they put out finger food. Sometimes it was all I ate that day. Priorities, right?"

She watched me with interested big brown eyes that sparkle with the distant lightning, so I continue; I like the story too and tell it to myself sometimes when I miss her.

"She came over to where I sat at the bar and said, 'Bonjour' with the thickest Aussie accent I'd heard in months. I almost fell off my stool in shock. I hadn't heard an Australian voice since Dublin. I ordered a beer and she laughed and asked, 'The fuck are you from?'"

"By closing time we'd learned she lived in Gatton too. Just two streets away from me. We'd swapped life stories by the time the bar was closing that night."

"So, the whole love at first sight thing?" She smiles sharing my joy at the tale.

"Oh, not so much. There was definitely a spark there, but she was travelling with her boyfriend. I can't remember his name now. He came in just on closing and she introduced us. It was clear they were having some sort of difficulties. He was sullen and she was short with him. Not my business though. She was not so talkative after he got there."

"I went to that bar every night I was in Paris. I had four weeks work at a vineyard just outside of the city and every night her face would light up when she saw me and shut down when John, that's his name now, showed up."

"Sounds like you had it bad for her." Francesca says.

"It was funny. I'm no bird dog. I don't like to get in couples' business, but we really enjoyed having an Aussie friend. If she was telling this story, she'd skip straight to the girls."

"What girls?"

"The ones she set me up with every chance she could. She could speak very good French and I could hardly ask for directions or order coffee. She'd have a different little French girl or some foreign tourist around our age all worded up most nights. She'd translate for us and prompt conversation. I don't think I spent a single lonely night while I was in Paris."

"My god, you man whore." Fran laughs loudly, "It is called the city of love, I guess. Did you and her ever?"

"God, I wanted to. She told me much later she wished she had. Her and John broke up two weeks after I left Paris and she came home. Her visa was running out anyway. I remember the last night I spent there, she knew it was my last and I was pleased she hadn't lined up some pretty thing for me. We swapped home address and phone details and promised to catch up back home. She kissed me."

"She kissed you?" Fran holds a hand on her heart.

"Right on the lips. Told me she wished every one of those girls had been her. Then she cried on my shoulder. That was when John walked in and started an argument about whether she was cheating with me. I told him to fuck off, I should be so fucking lucky and he should thank his lucky stars for a girlfriend as loyal as his. Then I kissed her right on the lips in front of him and told her I'd catch up back home."

"Did you?"

"Not for another year and a bit. I got good work in Estonia on a farm that let me work when they needed and travel when they didn't. I'd mostly forgotten about Nessy by the time I decided to go home and get real about life. I was unpacking bags at Mum and Dad's place when her contact details fell out of some memoirs I'd kept. I rang the number and it was dead. I visited the house and it was up for sale and vacant."

"So how did you meet again?"

"I was studying in the city, trying to get my Accounting licence at the time. It was late November and bloody stifling hot. In the fucking forties. The air-conditioning in my block at Griffith uni had shit itself so I was studying at the nearest KFC store. I had boring shit spread all over the table and was eating my last ten dollars' worth of take away. Some chick was cleaning tables and I was watching her bum wiggle as she rubbed from side to side."

"It was her?"

"No. Haha, Nessie came up behind me and I recognised her voice the moment she said, 'That's Tracy, she's too young for you and I'm not setting you up with chicks anymore. If I can't have you no-one can.' She was the assistant manager I found out. She spent the rest of the evening shift sitting with me at that table. We filled each other in on life between then and now and I was still there when she closed the store up, walked me to her car and took me home to her unit."

Francesca's mouth hangs open and she's got little tears on her cheeks, "That's so romantic." She gushes and blushes then sips her wine.

"I like to think we made Delia that night. Could have been one of any of the nights that followed. The rest is history."

The night falls silent except for distant grumbled thunder and the zapping of the bug light. I cruise on the waters of Vanessa's life with me and my companion smiles at her own thoughts. There is a sweet curl to the edges of her lips that makes them so damn kissable. If she was just a few years older...

She's tapping at her phone screen and looking a little glum when I top her wine up.

"Paul, how long would it take to get from here to... oh... maybe..."

"What darlin? Where do you want to go?"

"Gold Coast. Maps says two hours but doesn't account for traffic."

"Yeah, probably two and a bit if you go the back way."

"Paul?"

"Hmm."

She takes a deep breath and fixes her dark eyes on mine, "Will you... could... Can we take your bike tomorrow please? I've never ridden on a bike and just..."

"Sure." I shrug. A Sunday ride to the coast sounds brilliant. Company sounds brilliant. A very pretty passenger holding onto me... Oh. I'm a bad man. "If we leave here at eight, we can have breaky in Beaudesert and we'd be there by eleven at the latest. Have to leave by five to be home before dark." I've done the trip before.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I don't know if I've got much gear for you. Should have a helmet. Just you're a little taller and larger than Nessy and Del's."

Her face reflects her mind working in overtime, "I've got jeans and a denim jacket, so long as you have a helmet-"

"I've got a spare leather jacket, denim is..."

"Good then, eight?" Her excitement is beautiful. Her whole body lights up.

"Yeah, round about... It's Sunday so, coffee, awake, bike... sounds like an adventure."

"Oh, it will be!" She smiles so enthusiastically and assaults me with an arm filled cuddle that makes me feel like maybe I should take a shower, put on a condom, or call her parents.

Strangely, I'm a little wrung out of a sudden. She's quiet in her own thoughts. "Hey, Chessie?"

"Uh?"

"You had things you wanted to talk about Darlin?"

"Oh. Not really. I think I've worked them out. I just want to try one thing and then maybe another but I think I've got a-" she shows me a clenched fist, "'handle' on it now."

Her flashing teeth and crinkle eyed smile are interrupted by a sudden flash of light and closer clap of thunder. Her smile falls from her pretty face and she picks up the bucket and our empty glasses.

"I think... Um. Probably should get some sleep if we're going to be up early." Her eyes beg me for something.

"It's way over Harrisville way I think." I tell her pointing to the southwest. "Should go right around us. Are you okay?"

"Big sook, Paul. Never liked storms. Gonna brush my teeth, use the loo and get to bed. Hope I get to sleep before it frightens me anymore."

"Ha. Come here kiddo- Chessie," I correct myself, "Nothing to worry about. Just the clouds bumping uglies." I pull her close and she worms closer still into me until she has snuggled all of the pretty parts of her lovely young body hard against mine as I hold her in my arms. I kiss her hair and grunt. "All good darlin? Hey?"

"What Pauly?" she flutters thick long lashes at me.

"Thanks, darlin. I never talk about Nessie. Delie and I sometimes remember things, but try not to bring it up too much... Thanks, thanks for... Listening."

"Thanks for trusting me Paul." I release her as she squirms a bit. "Loo... You'll squeeze a wee out of me."

I laugh as she rushes inside and down the hall.

The sweat of the day, the night, the memories, the uncried tears, the stains of all of the thoughts that painted themselves on my mind; all take quite a while to wash off in the shower. Hot water stings well enough, soap smells soapy enough, but I still feel like I haven't quite scrubbed all the emotion filled night off me as I pull on a set of cotton shorts and towel off my hair. Two showers in one night, but it was worth sitting in the sweaty heat after dinner to speak with a beautiful young woman who wanted to listen to me.

Climbing into bed I hear the storm twist course. Thunder sounds off the closer back hills and I listen to it. I have always loved storms. They're like mother nature grumbling and kicking her house about like Mum used to. "Who left the rubbish in the kitchen." Shkrishbomm. "Whose shoes are these in the hallway?" Kricshskkkkinnwham.

Click. It's so soft against the noises of the whining wind and the thunderstorm outside.

"Paul?" It's so nervous and embarrassed but clearly Chessie.

"Darlin?"

Then a bundle of long tall legs and arms dives into my bed, under the covers and wraps itself around me. 'Mmmkay?' I think.

She breathes deeply into my chest and holds me so tightly that it takes a while. It's the slightly clingy, moist feeling of naked skin on my chest that tells me she has no shirt on. It's the swollen pressing mounds of breasts that tell me she was so scared she didn't think to put a shirt on. It's me just pulling the sweet young woman closer and holding her through her shivers and sniffs until she breathes evenly and warmly on my chest.

Ha, the bitch. It's clearly Nessy saying in my head, "One last time, I'm setting you up dickhead," as I grin and fall off to sleep.