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I reached for the door jamb and missed. Amanda caught me as I found my feet. I was in a vanilla cloud. I’d never thought much about vanilla before - ice-cream, cake or whatever - but right now it was all I could think about. I stared at her neck, where her pulse beat rapidly. I wondered if she tasted like vanilla too.
She righted me and I politely thanked her, leaning into the door jamb, feeling like a clumsy idiot.
“Yes, I’m Australian, and so is she. She moved to Nashville for her career.” Amanda paused. “Sings country and western. I’ll play it for you, if you like.”
She pressed play on her phone and handed me on of her headphones but a bloke was singing.
“Oh, that’s Frankie Ballard!” Amanda blushed with a giggle as she paused the song. “He moved to Nashville from Chicago for his career too, not that Lily has met him yet or anything, even though I keep asking her to. She saw him perform a month ago, and I just love his lyrics and his voice.”
She was gushing about this bloke, her cheeks rosy.
I grunted. “Aye, sounds dreamy.”
“You’d like him. He sings about sunshine and whisky.”
“He what?” I swayed towards her and she reached out to steady me. God, vanilla again. “They spell it wrong in the U.S.”
She let me go. “You can’t tell how it’s spelt when they sing,” she laughed.
“Ye have a lovely voice,” I repeated. “I’ve said that already.”
Amanda laughed again and I decided it was my favourite sound in the world. Her sister and every other singer sounded like cats in heat, because Amanda’s laugh was … sunshine.
“I won a prize, you know, in a talent contest.” Her eyes widened in horror at her admission.
I outright grinned. “What did ye sing?”
“Oh, an Aussie song.” She waved a hand dismissively. “Waltzing Matilda.”
“I’ve heard of that song. But whatsa walshing matilda anyway?” I asked, lurching to the side as I struggled to take off my coat.
Amanda stepped into my room, grabbing me by the shoulders.
“Steady on. How much did you drink tonight? You’re going to face plant the floor and that won’t help anyone.”
She slipped her phone into the pocket on her robe and helped me take off my coat, tossing it to a chair.
“What’s a waltzing matilda?”Woohoo, no slurring this time!
“It’s a song about a swagman, he’s like a travelling farm worker, or maybe he’s a vagrant? Was never quite sure. Anyway, he steals a jumbuck, the troopers come to get him, he dives into a billabong to get away, and then dies.”
I blinked, mystified by most of what she’d said.
“What the actual fuck is a billabong?”
Amanda laughed again and I smiled, staring at her, drinking her in.
“It’s a waterhole, or what you’d call a pond here. Not like a loch or a lake. Usually on a creek too.”
“And a jumbuck?”
“A sheep.”
“Why didn’t the songwriter just say sheep, then?”
“Because it’s Australian slang, written over a hundred years ago! It’s actually a poem or bush ballad. The music came later. It was written by Banjo Paterson.”
“Banjo!”
