Meeting Ione and a North Beach Barbecue (Part 3)

Knocking on Ace’s Door

Reaching Ace’s house I parked the car up his driveway and then knocked on his door with Binh to let him know. Heading out looking like shit and carrying a couple of new-grown pimples we sat out the front chatting away about Byblos and how we were headed to North Beach at Wollongong. Ace couldn’t come with us himself because he had to work but he held a rather good character about it.

Taking out my camera I decided to set it up on the hood of Ace’s car and lining it up I placed it on auto-timer. Before Ace even knew it the alarm went off while he was still trying to figure when the camera would go off. We took another photo of Binh’s car but after that we jumped in and were on our way for Wollongong.

A Fiver From Keith

There was to be one pick up before we headed to the pacific waters of Wollongong, it was to pick up a girl called Ione. On the way to her house in Bargo we chatted about the picnic and I shared a view of mine about Keith and how he is selfish and probably won’t reimburse me for paying last night at the nightclub. I found it a shocking surprise when Keith pulled out his wallet when we were both alone at North Beach and just handed me $5. It wasn’t the whole sum but it was a step in the right unselfish direction.

However, Keith seemed to pass it over in a downhearted gesture, as if to say he was so upset with his life that he might as well give away a further five dollars to oblivion. There was also chat about Ralf’s system as we both mentioned it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be in Ralf’s eyes and how the bass wasn’t getting through to the front for some reason. Binh turned his one twelve inch up and it automatically kicked the ass out of any sound-off with Ralf’s car which gave off more decibels from the shaking car than the actual bass.

Something About Ione

The person that we were picking up was called Ione, she was another worker from Binh’s shop. Asking what she looked like just before we made our way to her house he told me she wasn’t anything special, not really good looking at all. However, as I asked that question I felt a weird perception somehow attracting me to this girl, not because of her looks but because of her character. When she jumped in the car I introduced myself to her and made her feel comfortable.

Now usually around women I would be quiet and let others speak to her but from the word go I was comfortable being myself around her and she was with me. At first I wasn’t attracted to Ione and through the day it didn’t get much better but I kept thinking peculiar thoughts about our being together. Just a quick lowdown, she’s blonde, she has a decent but ordinary body, she has a fair amount of freckles, ordinary face and ordinary everything else.

However, I was more compelled by her attitude and character which drew me closer to her attention. She was quiet and sincere but at the same time she would make the effort to chat with me and sound so down to earth. There was nothing fancy about her but I kept thinking how she would be perfect to take out to a Shakespearean play or to the movies without any strings, just a female friend.

Nevertheless, I also brought into play the carnal side as I drew forks in the road of my decisions. I couldn’t rule out the option of one day getting onto her but it would be a slower and lasting friendship before something like that happened. You’re not who you are, you’re only what other people think of you and in this case people would have thought I was crazy to go out with her.

She wouldn’t have been good enough for me in some eyes and in others I shouldn’t take advantage of her. The bottom line is that I didn’t treat her like no one in my thoughts and memories but as a down to earth girl that I enacted a life with, as if we were good friends. We cooked food together, chatted together, walked around together and got along with each other but at the end of the day, we were as alone as preceding.

Who Showed Up

Heading back from Bargo onto the main highway to Wollongong it took us half an hour to get down there but we finally arrived just after midday. At first arrival it looked a barren sight of people as there was only Tyler, his girlfriend Rochelle, Shawn, Keith and Tatton. However, through the day Ralf showed up with Jett and Anders, two girls that Binh knew came down and there was also Quillon (I think that’s his name, the guy from Tyler’s birthday party who came with Vedat) and his girlfriend.

The day started off awkwardly as we didn’t really know what to do with ourselves but after kicking some balls and catching some Gridiron passes we made our way to the barbecue to cook our food. Tyler was getting prepped up by his girlfriend with massages and hugs, she was hanging off him. She looked pretty good and giving her my grading with words, if I had my chance with her I would definitely be looking for that opening.

For the whole day she stayed around Tyler and when he kicked the ball around she would chat with Ione. Wearing my black Hound Dog shirt attracted some attention also as Quillon asked me if I worked out and I thought I could see Rochelle glancing on occasion.

Barbecue Gossip

At the barbecue I tried my hand at actually cooking, turning over the bits of bacon, the sausages and then giving the meat a go. Cracks were coming around about my eating boiled chicken and Tyler also put Coca Cola on his hot grill because he had no oil. I’m not sure what Rochelle was thinking each time someone made a joke about him but I’m pretty sure she has that puppy dog thing going on for him.

From what I hear she lives around Ione somewhere and Tyler can’t be bothered heading out there everyday to see her. From what else I heard, she was a horny little girl as she wanted to fully get onto Tyler at her house while her dad was in the next room. Country girls, they are horny, just look at Caitlin, Clover and Phoenix. Binh or Keith don’t see Tyler sticking with her for long but I think they’re only trying to fuel their hopes of cracking onto her after he’s finished, Binh chance…

All in all, there were sixteen people at the barbecue and I was glad that Phoenix couldn’t make her way down as planned because she just would have ruined everything with her unbalancing bitchiness. With so many people it felt like the good old days and as we had ourselves something to eat I remembered that the camera was in Binh’s car and with Jett went out to retrieve it.

Photos and Glances

Heading back I took a picture of Jett in front of everyone at the barbecue area, I took a picture of Keith looking all sad sitting by himself on a bench thinking of Tamsen and I took a bundle of other pictures. I also handed the camera to Ione so she could take a couple of shots but I’m sure from where she was taking photos they wouldn’t have come out very good or close up. Rochelle and Tyler also had a turn of my camera and they had the same blues, shooting pictures out of Tyler’s car, where most they spent half their time.

Sporadically I would glance over at Rochelle and capture a forbidden trance in her eyes but we both would look away after a few seconds. I know she could probably see that I had a little something for her and to tell you the truth, I dressed a bit better for the day because I knew she would be there. Rochelle had a little something for me too but I feel that we both would have hidden it very well because everyone was acting normal and not playing up for the women who were single and not.