The Blurring

by Angela Peach

  All three were the best friends to have around, and with Nick being the perfect boyfriend, and having my dream job, I knew I should have been happy. But it wasn’t until meeting Spencer last night that I’d realised I hadn’t been.

  She’d highlighted a large, empty part of my life, and only she could fit in it.

  I knocked on Spencer’s door with nervous butterflies in my stomach. All of a sudden, I wondered if we’d have anything left to talk about after our epic conversation this morning. But when she opened the door and beamed happily at me, all my fears disappeared and I was just left with nerves.

  “Hey! I’m so glad you’re here! I’ve got three different outfits and I just have no idea what to wear, so I wanted to see what you were wearing before I got dressed” she said excitedly, leaning forward to give me a hug. I hugged her back thinking she could wear a bin bag and still look stunning!

  “Well, I’m just going to wear this black skirt and change my top” I said, following her inside and feeling embarrassed that I hadn’t made more effort. In all honesty, I hadn’t had much time to think it over this morning-after my shower and breakfast, I’d realised I was running late for Nick to drop me off at the bus stop. He worked at an IT firm the opposite end of town, and I’d had to leave earlier than I normally did.

  “Come up to my room and tell me your opinion though? This is a special occasion, I don’t want to rock up in any old thing” she said, heading up the stairs and expecting me to follow. My breath caught in my throat-was I a special occasion? I went up the stairs and found her in her room gazing at three equally beautiful outfits. “So? Which one do you think?” she asked, but my attention was distracted momentarily by her room.

  It stood out from the rest of the house, which begged poverty. Here were deep greens and blues and browns which had an instant calming effect. The scent of her perfume hung in the air, and I found myself drawing in a lungful of it through my nose. There were also some amazing drawings on the wall, and I wondered if they were her own. For a second, I could imagine her in here, listening to music and sketching…looking out of the window for inspiration…lying on her bed, hair splayed on the pillow…

  “Tristen?”

  “Oh, sorry, I was just admiring your room. It’s very comfortable and relaxing.”

  “Thank you! I did it all myself! I spend more time in here than the rest of the house, and I wanted it to be as homely as possible!” she said, beaming with pride from the compliment.

  “Are the sketches your own?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just stroking my ego having them up, but I like them and I don’t ever have people in my room anyway. In fact, you’re the first person I’ve had up here in nearly a year!” she said, sounding surprised at the confession. Not knowing what to say, I turned my attention back to her clothes.

  “I like the red top with the black trousers” I pointed at them, suddenly feeling shy about being in her private area, but extremely privileged at the same time. She nodded.

  “That’s exactly what I thought too” she pulled off her t shirt and reached for the red top to put on. Embarrassed, I turned away, but not before I’d seen her rounded breasts barely contained within a skimpy bra.

  “Do you want me to wait downstairs?” I asked.

  “God no, we’re both women aren’t we? It’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”

  I caught her reflection in a mirror and watched it out of the corner of my eye. She’d taken off her jeans and was about to put her foot into the black trousers. Her legs were tanned and toned and in great shape leading up to sensuously curved hips. I closed my eyes feeling like a slimy voyeur.

  “Ok, I’ll just do my hair, then I’m ready to go” she said spraying herself with that perfume that I found so intoxicating.

  “There’s no rush.”

  “Really? I’m absolutely starving!” she laughed, just as the scent reached me-I felt certain my pupils actually dilated in delight!

  “Would you draw me one day?” I asked, completely out of the blue. She froze and dropped her eyes.

  “Um, yeah, ok.”

  “You don’t have to. It’s just that you’re so good. You’ve really captured the essence of the people you were sketching and brought them to life” I desperately wanted to see how she saw me, what my essence looked like in her eyes, but her reluctance made my heart fall through my stomach.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just…we can arrange something another day.”

  I got the feeling that maybe she was shy about sketching people, so I dropped the subject, and fifteen minutes later, we left to go to dinner.

  I was so relaxed in Spencer’s company and found the conversation flowed so easily, that before I was aware I was doing it, I’d opened up about the Hudson/Henson mystery. However, instead of laughing or ridiculing me, she merely frowned.

  “Has this sort of thing ever happened to you before?” she asked.

  “No, never. I mean, I’m one hundred percent certain of who she was yesterday. But why am I the only one who remembers? It’s not like I only just met her and could get her name so mixed up. Maybe it’s me?”

  Spencer was silent for a while as she spooned Tom Yum soup into her mouth.

  “Tris, do you think this has anything to do with us?” she finally asked, staring intently at me. I was thrown-this had occurred to me too, but I hadn’t expected her to think the same thing.

  “It crossed my mind. But, I don’t know how it can be connected? Why should our meeting change something in the universal order of things? It doesn’t make any sense!”

  “I know it doesn’t make any sense. But it…it feels like it’s connected somehow. I just feel it in my gut.”

  “You feel that too?” I asked, sitting forward. She put her spoon down to give me her full attention.

  “Earlier, I was thinking about how we’d ‘bumped’ into each other. There were far too many factors involved for it to have been an accident. Let me explain;

  If I hadn’t lost my job last week on that specific day, I wouldn’t have had to go to the job centre yesterday. Then, on the way home, I missed my turn which is something I’d never done before, and I had to go the long way round to get back to the road I needed to be on. However, my car broke down before I got to the main road, meaning I had to get out and walk. I’d left my phone at home; again this is something I’ve never done before, so I couldn’t call San. I’d just found a five pound note in my pocket, which I hadn’t even known was there because I’d just been to the petrol station and thought I’d used all my cash putting fuel in my car, and a bus pulled up alongside me going the way I needed to go!

  When I got home, I wanted to just go to my room and cry about how unfair everything was, but San wanted me to go shopping with him. That is when you found me!” She paused to sip some wine but kept eye contact with me. “Now, all of those events couldn’t have been planned with any more accuracy than the way they happened naturally. Even ten seconds difference and we wouldn’t have met. All of that on it’s own is pretty amazing. But, factor in your side of the equation and you start to get the feeling we were supposed to bump into each other exactly where and when we did.”

  “Like we were destined or something?” I muttered, and she nodded enthusiastically.

  “Exactly! Think about it-since we met, both of us have had different dreams for the first time in two years and something strange has happened to you at your work-it’s just too much of a coincidence, right?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences. I think everything happens for a reason” I said, my mind whirling.

  “Me too. So, now we just need to work out what that reason is?”

  We carried on eating in silence for a while, thinking hard. Our dishes got taken away and I ordered Spencer another glass of wine.

  “Tristen?”

  “Mm?”

  “Do you remember last night when you said that meeting me felt like lifting the lid off Pandora’s Box? What if, in a w
ay, we have?”

  “I guess we’ll just have to see what happens next” I answered, a chill running down my spine despite the warm summer night air.

  Our meals turned up then and we both enthused over each other’s food, finding it a welcome interruption, and our conversation returned to more light hearted matters.

  It was with genuine dismay when I looked at my watch and saw how late it was. I paid the bill (ignoring Spencer’s sharp intake of breath and raised eyebrows when she saw the total) and we got into my car to drive her home.

  Outside her house, we sat awkwardly for a moment, neither of us ready to say goodbye yet.

  “Do you want to come in for a drink?” she finally asked.

  “Yeah, I’d love to” I replied quickly, relieved. I didn’t understand what our connection was, but it was powerful and I couldn’t seem to drag myself away from her.

  While the kettle boiled, she stared at me, her expression inscrutable. Then she shook her head, almost to herself, and turned back to making us both a cup of tea. She busied herself quietly and when she passed me my mug, I could see she was struggling with something.

  “You know earlier? When you asked me to draw you one day? I um, sort of already have” she said in a quiet voice, avoiding my gaze.

  “Oh!” I couldn’t think what else to say. Why hadn’t she told me this before? I waited patiently for her to carry on, getting nervous as she fidgeted uncomfortably.

  “I didn’t tell you, because…because they’re awful!” she looked utterly distraught at having to admit this, so I put a hand on her arm.

  “Hey, it’s ok! Don’t get upset! I don’t mind!”

  “No, you don’t understand. They just…I couldn’t…oh, fuck it! I’m going to have to show you.”

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

  “That’s just it! I do want to. I’m just scared to” I saw she was on the verge of tears, and I wondered what it was that she’d got so wrong when sketching me. She must have done it just after the accident, so maybe they were of me all banged up? She took my hand and my heart fluttered stupidly in my chest. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  She led me back up to her bedroom, holding my hand the entire way. It felt completely comfortable and the most natural thing in the world (although I’d never held Alice’s hand in the same way.)

  When she released my hand, it fell to my side as if it had no further purpose. I sat on her bed and waited while she rummaged in a drawer, finally pulling out a large artists sketch pad. She hugged it to her chest protectively, and I saw a vulnerability in her that made me just want to hold her in my arms. I stood up and went over to her.

  “If you’re not ready…”

  “I am ready” she said decisively, and she held the pad out to me. I hesitated before taking it, but the second it was in my hands, she went over to the bed and flopped backwards on it as if in resignation, with an arm flung over her face. I sat next to her and opened the pad to the first page. I couldn’t stop a small gasp of astonishment escaping me.

  “Spencer, this is…it’s amazing!”

  It was a charcoal picture of me and the detail was painstakingly accurate. The lines and shading were exceptional and I felt in awe of her incredible artistic ability. But…frowning, I held the pad away from me slightly to get a better view.

  “There’s more. Turn the page.”

  I did as she said. I was on the next page too, from a different angle. A chill went through me as I continued flicking through the pad. There must have been twenty, thirty sketches of me at least, and technically, each was more precise than the one before, as if she was getting to know my features more clearly.

  “You see it, don’t you” she said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes” I whispered.

  The very thing that made all the drawings on her walls stand out was life. They all looked alive! Her pictures of me, while accurate in every way, made me look dead and corpselike. I felt her sit up next to me.

  “Go to the last page” she instructed. I did as she said, and gasped aloud again.

  The picture almost leapt out of the pad at me. It had life and it had soul, the very things the others had been lacking in.

  “I drew that this morning while we were talking on the phone.”

  She drew this while we were talking??

  “I’m willing to bet that every time I draw you from now on, they’ll all be like this one” she said, and when I turned to look at her, I found her sat closer than I expected.

  “You drew this from memory? While we were talking?” I asked incredulously. She nodded. Her eyes were intense and on mine, giving me a strange sensation in my stomach.

  “Mm-hm. I think I could draw you with my eyes closed, Tristen. I know every curve, every shadow, every hair on your head” she said, so quietly it was as if she was talking to herself. She raised her hand and ever so softly traced her fingers over my cheek. My heart literally stopped beating and I found I was holding my breath as I leaned into her touch. I felt like I was falling, falling into her eyes, and that was dangerous because I didn’t know where I would land. Her thumb was resting near my lips and I fought the urge to turn slightly and kiss it.

  Freaked out by my own feelings, I jumped up from the bed and ran out of her bedroom, taking the stairs so fast I almost slid over a couple. Once at the bottom, I opened the front door and went out to the street where I stood gulping in the night air as if for dear life, trying to stop my head spinning.

  “Tristen? Are you ok?” I heard Spencer’s soft voice behind me. I didn’t trust myself to look at her just yet.

  “I’ll be ok in a second. I just felt really dizzy in there and couldn’t breathe. Could you…could you get my keys from the kitchen side please?”

  She hesitated.

  “Sure.”

  I used the time she was gone to regain my composure, and when she came back with my keys, I’d managed to get my heart rate back to something resembling normal. She held them out from a distance, seemingly reluctant to come too close to me.

  “Thanks for a lovely meal” she said awkwardly.

  “No problem. I’ll call you” I was already backing away towards my car, not wanting any more physical contact with her tonight.

  “Cool. Have a safe drive home” she called out, then with a quick wave she went back inside. I got to my car and fumbled about with the lock for a while, before I realised I was trying to insert the new front door key given to us by the locksmith last night. Cursing silently I found the correct key and put it in.

  I didn’t stop shaking until I got home.

  CHAPTER 6

  I didn’t know what was making me more nervous-the fact that I was going to be hideously late for work, or that my car had been stolen. I walked up and down the street, a cold sweat settling over my skin. I definitely remembered parking it outside our neighbour’s house, but I felt the need to check the whole street just in case.

  It didn’t make it magically appear.

  “Shit!” I shouted, not caring at the dirty looks I received for it. I ran back inside and called Marie, who was a little sympathetic, but irritated at the same time. I then phoned the police to report it and get a crime reference number. I mentioned that my bag had been stolen the other night with the original keys in, and they suggested that perhaps the muggers had somehow found out where I lived and taken the car overnight.

  In tears, I called Nick next. He seemed shocked and insisted the car had been outside when he’d left for work not forty five minutes earlier. Puzzled, I hung up. Something didn’t feel right.

  I went back outside, looking up and down the street slowly. Nothing had changed since I’d gone inside to call the police. I stood staring at the red car now occupying the space I’d left mine, thinking furiously.

  “Lost your keys?”

  “Pardon?” I looked round. My neighbour was walking towards me pushing her twins in a buggy.

  “You’ve been walking up and down the road for ages
, I just wondered if you’d lost your keys or something?” she asked. My heartbeat quickened.

  “Yes. I have. But I was just wondering if I’ve left them in my car” I said, hoping she’d take the hint. She did.

  “Nope. Can’t see them in there” she bent down and peered into the red car. It was one I had never seen before.

  “Ok, well have a nice day!” I called out to her as she walked away. I waited until she’d disappeared from sight then I took slow steps toward it. I had my key in my hand, but I didn’t try it straight away. I was too scared to.

  “Get a grip, come on. Just do it” I ordered, psyching myself up. Next time I looked down, I saw that I’d inserted the key into the lock. “It won’t turn” I told myself.

  It turned, and all the locks popped.

  I ran blindly back inside, leaving the keys dangling from the lock, and went straight to the drawer in which we kept the insurance documents. I pulled them all out, searching for the one with my name on it-it confirmed that the car outside was indeed mine. Sobbing, I had the phone in my hands before I realised I didn’t know who to call. What would I say? Who would believe me?

  Spencer?

  Hands shaking, I dialled her mobile number. It rang, but went to voicemail.

  “Hi, it’s Tristen. Um…” there was a long pause as I debated how to word it. “I think I’m either really fucking confused, or going clinically insane cos something very fucked up is happening to me right now. Please…please call me back?” I pleaded, sweat running down my face. I could hear the desperation in my own voice, and after I’d hung up, I sank to the floor clutching the receiver in my hand.

  She called me back about five minutes later.

  “Tris? Is everything ok?” she said, sounding worried.

  “No, not really! Would you be able to get a taxi to my house? I’ll pay for it, I just…I really need you” I begged into the phone, trying to wipe away the tears.

  “Of course I’ll come over! What’s your address?”