She’d smiled. “Sounds good.”
The rain obliged by holding off as they walked side by side across the bridge over the Yarra and into the heart of the city. Falk suggested a restaurant he’d heard good things about, and they left the main street cross sections and wandered instead down the side lanes until they reached a small place with a sign outside. A serious young guy with an apron and complicated facial hair checked a handwritten ledger near the door, then without a word led them through the tight knot of chairs and place settings to a tiny table squeezed into a corner. The room was toasty after the damp night air, and they shrugged off their coats, seated elbow to elbow with an infatuated couple at the table next to them. Falk and Gemma grinned at each other over their menus, and when he shifted in his chair, his knees brushed hers.
“What’s it like running the festival?” Falk asked after they’d ordered.
“Interesting.” She sat back, apologizing as she elbowed her neighbor, who had reached out to clasp his lover’s hand. He barely noticed. “It’s fun and the community’s behind it, so that helps. A lot of us out there grew up with it, so there’s this huge nostalgia factor. But then the festival’s got bigger over the years, which means different considerations have to come into play, and Marralee’s still essentially a small town, so—” She shrugged.
“A lot of diplomacy required?”
“Yes. So much. Great, thank you—” she said as he poured the wine they were sharing. She took a sip. “Mmm, nice. Have you ever been?”
“To the Marralee Valley? No.” Falk tried the wine himself. She was right, it was nice. “But I grew up in a small town. Where Greg Raco works now, actually.”
“Okay, yes, so you know what it’s like.” Gemma smiled over her glass. “Balancing all the politics. Although, really, it’s only because people care. There’s a definite sense of local ownership. And it’s an exciting feeling, seeing it come together every year.”
Her enthusiasm was refreshing. Most people Falk knew vaguely loathed the way in which they made a living.
“Have you always—？” Falk stopped as their waiter edged his way over to them, balancing plates in both hands. Noticing that the small candle in the center of their table was unlit, he tutted, put the plates down, and whipped a box of matches from his pocket.
“No, it’s fi—” started Falk, who was not keen on open flames in any context.
“No trouble.” The waiter misinterpreted his hesitation as politeness—or possibly, it occurred to Falk, romantic nerves—and with a reassuring smile and a flourish that seemed a little unnecessary, he struck a match and lit the wick.
“There.” He positioned the candle carefully between them. “Much better.”
It wasn’t. But it would be okay, Falk told himself. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. He could cope with this.
Gemma was watching him across the tiny flame as the waiter squeezed away. Falk wasn’t sure if she’d noticed the burn scars on his left hand or, knowing Raco, put two and two together, but as soon as the waiter was out of reach, she pointed to the offending candle, flickering innocently.
“Sorry, would you mind if I blew this out?” She circled her finger to indicate the room. “It’s just this place has a kind of snug, flammable vibe, and I’m flying back to Adelaide first thing so, you know…” She smiled. “I’d really rather not get stuck because I’ve knocked it over and caused an incident.”
Falk looked at her. Stay. He just nodded.
“Great. Thanks.” She leaned in with pursed lips and, job done, picked up her silverware.
“You’re heading off tomorrow?” he said as they began to eat. He tried to keep his tone casual. “Just here for tonight?”
“Yeah. Got to get back. I’ve got a seventeen-year-old at home, even though I’m sure he’s in no particular rush to see me.” Gemma focused on her food, but she was gauging his reaction to that information, Falk could tell.
“What’s his name?”
“Joel. He’s my stepson, technically, but—” She paused to save a twirl of pasta threatening to fall off her fork. “He’s a smart kid, and no trouble, really. Can be trusted on his own for a night, at any rate.”
“That’s good.” Falk was curious what the current relationship status was between Gemma and her stepson’s father, but she didn’t offer an explanation and so he didn’t ask. “Have you always lived there?” he said, instead.
“In Marralee?” Gemma swallowed and shook her head. “I grew up there, but I was at uni in Sydney, and then after I graduated I worked in the States for a few years. In California.”
“Oh yeah? You don’t have the accent at all.”
“No, I’m not sure I ever did. And it was a while ago now.”
“You were in the events industry there?”
“Not even close, actually.” Gemma laughed. “I should make you guess; people are always surprised. I was in programming back then. The whole silicon start-up scene. I worked for one of the tech companies.”
“Really?” Falk was impressed. “Which one?”
She nodded subtly toward a businessman a few tables away who had his laptop open to a website and was scrolling and typing one-handed as he ate. “The big one.”
“Seriously? What was that like?”
“God, full on. It wasn’t quite as big back then; the competitive landscape’s changed, obviously. But yeah, I got an internship from uni, managed to turn that into a job. Working mainly on all the back-end functionality that goes into the consumer product.” She took a sip of wine, remembering. “Looking back now, it was a crazy few years, but I learned a lot.”
“I can imagine.” Out of the corner of his eye, Falk saw the waiter lighting a candle at a neighboring table with a familiar flourish before zeroing in on their own unlit tealight with concern written all over his face. He took half a step toward them, but was fortuitously derailed by a request for more water. Falk turned his attention back to Gemma. “Do you still do it at all?”
“The programming?” She shook her head, but not unhappily. “I can still remember some of the stuff I used to work on—muscle memory, I guess?—but I think you become obsolete in about five minutes these days, let alone this many years.”
“So what brought you back here?”
“From the States to small-town SA? A few things, really.” Falk waited for her to elaborate, but instead she looked at him over her glass. “Would you ever go back to live in your hometown?”
Falk blinked. “God, no.”
“Okay.” She laughed. “That was pretty definitive.”
He had to laugh, too. “I suppose it was.”
Falk’s feelings about Kiewarra ran deep, but in fact had softened considerably in the last few years. Still, just because he could look back on his memories of the place with a new fondness didn’t mean he was in a rush to make a whole lot of fresh ones. But that was a story for another day, so instead he said, “I like it better here.”