Where the Stars Fall

by Ana Simons

  Tightening my grip, I hiss through clenched teeth, “What’s the problem, darling? Grandpa can’t get it up anymore? That’s too bad. But there’s nothing I can do about it. This ship has sailed, and you won’t get on it ever again.”

  There’s shock plastered across her face.

  “Now get the fuck out of my way.” I stand and push my way past her.

  It’s time for me to get the hell out of here. Jake is on his own, I’m calling it a night.

  Desperate to get home, hit the pillow, and forget the mess I’ve been in for a few hours, I grab my jacket and rush outside.

  Under the neon lights of the club, I suck in a long breath of fresh air.

  It does little to ease the turmoil roiling inside me.

  Zipping up my jacket, I walk by the people queuing up to get inside and head down the street. Just as I’m approaching the car park and digging in my pocket for the key, my phone buzzes with a text.

  Rogers | Friday, September 4 | 22:25

  Stay the fuck away from her.

  I stand rooted to the spot, reading the text over again, not sure what to think of it. The irony almost makes me laugh. Almost. I’m seething inside, my head throbbing at his audacity.

  A feeling of coldness creeps up my spine and my eyes dart around the dark street, checking if I’m being followed. I see no one. There’s nothing but silence. Only the feeling of blood roaring in my ears, as if the rhythm of the pounding music came chasing after me.

  On an impulse I hit the green call button and press the phone to my ear, turning around furiously, hoping to see him emerge from wherever he’s hiding.

  Two beeps and his rough, smoky voice comes on. “What? Wasn’t I clear enough?”

  “Very.” A dry, rasping chuckle fills the line.

  “What the hell is so funny, boy?”

  “‘Whatever happens, don’t lose your cool’ – that’s what you always told me, remember?” I ask, not bothering to suppress another cynical laugh. “So, yes, it’s actually quite funny. When people fail to practise what they preach. But, where are you? Why don’t you come talk to me, face to face, like a man?”

  “Let go of her. Accept it’s over and move on with your life. There’s no need to make this harder than it is, for any one of us.” A brief pause and he adds, “Consider this a friendly warning, son.”

  I feel my jaw clench, my hand forming into a fist. “I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about. But go ahead, continue. This might just get interesting.” I make no attempt to hide the sarcasm.

  “Just stay away from what’s mine, you got that?”

  “I don’t know what kind of trouble there is in paradise, but you seem a bit desperate, mate. What’s up? Life’s coming back to bite you in the arse?”

  Revenge is a dish best served cold, he taught me that too, and soon I’ll make him swallow his own words of wisdom. But hitting on his girlfriend would be pretty insignificant compared to what’s expecting him. I’ll strike where it most hurts. His reputation. His public image.

  “Don’t mess with me, boy. You know well patience is not one of my best attributes, so you’d better not step over the line or–”

  “Or else what?” A contemptuous, hate-filled laugh escapes me. “Did you know I could be fucking your classy girlfriend in some seedy bathroom stall this very moment? Sure you do, you’re spying on her – how pathetic is that?”

  He doesn’t react to my provocation.

  “Thing is, old man, I could be fucking her, but I’m not. Want to know why? Because I don’t want to. The only thing I want from that woman is distance. So, you’d better tell your people to do a better job because it’s not with me you need to worry about. You got that?”

  I hang up before he can say anything else and get into the car, every muscle in my body throbbing with fury. Wrestling to regain control, I grip the steering wheel, so hard it hurts.

  Son of a bitch!

  It’s one thing to chase some piece of ass, it’s another very different thing to betray the man who made who you are today. My father. He should have shown some respect and consideration, but no, good old Rogers had to play hardball like that, the greedy bastard!

  But he picked the wrong guy to mess with. I can play hardball, too.

  I inhale a calming breath. A few moments later, I’m ready to push the key into the ignition and hit the road. I turn on the radio and a somehow familiar breathy, rough voice touches me somewhere deep.

  Only love can hurt like this?

  It’s that song from the other night, when I took Olivia to my flat. I smile to myself, not exactly amused by the coincidence. It’s more a self-commiserating smile, ignited by the words of some idiot who thinks himself a poet: when you’re falling for someone, suddenly all love songs begin to make perfect sense.

  Poetry or not, this one kind of does…

  Though it only adds more pain to the hurt, I don’t change the station. I turn it louder and louder, to an almost deafening level, until I feel so numb I can’t think of anything else anymore.

  Because the awareness I’m no longer able to contain what I’m feeling is just too overwhelming.

  I’m scared. I’m scared of losing her, of keeping her, of never seeing her again.

  What are you going to do about it?

  What needs to be done.

  What if it crashes and burns like it did before?

  Frankly? I don’t care.

  17 WILD GUESSES

  SATURDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER. 5 pm or something like that.

  Handshakes, check.

  Anthems, check.

  Kick-off, check.

  What exactly happened next?

  No bloody idea.

  We all came here today, to my sister’s place, to have a family dinner and watch the ball game. Our national team is playing against San Marino. Mark and Josh, all dressed up with England’s shirts and waving scarves and flags, are already celebrating effusively. On the opposite end of the sofa, my father is all steamed up, grumbling about the crazy amount of money players are getting these days for kicking a ball like a girl.

  0-2, I check on the TV screen.

  Apparently, Wayne Rooney has just scored and equalled Sir Bobby Charlton’s all-time goal record and is now a national hero. It seems England is about to qualify for the next European Championship.

  Finally, some good news.

  End result: 0-6

  Six? We scored six times?

  I could swear I only saw one goal, the one some poor bloke from the other team threw into the wrong net, scoring for us. He’s probably in the doghouse right now and feels like shit, as if he had shot himself in the foot.

  That’s basically how I’m feeling too.

  Bloody hell, my mind has been miles away the whole time, reeling as I try to figure out how I’m going to deal with it. With the fact that I want to see her so badly but don’t quite know where to start.

  If I should even start in the first place.

  It could all go so wrong.

  Yeah, but it could be sort of great too.

  What if it doesn’t work out?

  But what if it does?

  “Sue! Bring us some more beer, will you, babe?” Mark shouts towards the balcony.

  My sister, who’s outside chatting with our mother, turns to look at him with narrowed eyes. “What?”

  She heard him right. She’s just giving him the chance to think it over before she asks why he isn’t moving his own arse instead.

  “Never mind, I’ll do it.” I get up and head to the kitchen. I’m in no condition for post-match comments anyway.

  After pulling three beers from the fridge, I begin to rummage through the cabinets and drawers for the bottle opener. “Mark, where’s the–?”

  “Here!” My sister hands it over to me. “I’ve got something else for you. Wait a sec, don’t go.”

  “What then?”

  Sue disappears into the hallway, returning a minute later, carrying Emma on her hip. She puts her todd
ler down, next to the play kitchen set, and shoves a piece of paper in my hand. “Here. Now don’t be a wuss.” She completes her strange action with a knowing smile and a wink.

  Without further words, she leaves, missing the confused frown on my face.

  When I’m about to look at the yellow post-it note, a small hand begins to tug at my jeans. “What the fuck, Uncle Brian!”

  What?!

  “What the fuck!” she screams louder this time, her tiny hand pulling quite energetically.

  I shove the note into my pocket and bend down. “Emma, sweetheart, that’s not a nice thing to say.”

  She sucks in a long breath and puts on a huge pout, her face turning red, a sob threatening to break out of her chest any second. And it eventually does. Dreadful. She begins to cry and scream the same line repeatedly, louder and louder, her feet in a sort of frantic tap-dancing.

  Sue storms back into the kitchen with her face screwed into a huge frown and grabs some tiny pink thingy from the counter. “Here you go, sweetie,” she says, calming her down and sending her back to her little kitchen.

  I look at my sister, confused.

  “She wanted the fork, duh!” She sighs dramatically, shaking her head.

  Letting out a loud laugh, I hold my hands up in surrender. Ah-ah, the fork! Obviously! What else could it be?

  When I’m holding the three open bottles and getting ready to return to the living room, our eyes meet and Emma giggles, her huge blue eyes now so bright, her smile the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

  “Want to play with me, Uncle Brian?” She gets up and extends her hand to invite me to join her. Somehow the hem of her dress is now up, and her tiny bottom is exposed to the open air.

  “Where’s your underwear?”

  She shrugs, her hands held out in a pretty, innocent, open gesture. “I ran to the bathroom as fast as I could, but it was faster than me.”

  “Sweetie, go talk to mummy.” Seriously, I can’t handle any more details.

  She shakes her head. “Uh-uh. I like it this way. It feels soo much fresher.”

  Oh God, the chill zone.

  “Uncle Brian?”

  “Yes?”

  “Mum doesn’t have a weeny.” She’s seemingly distracted pouring tea into a mini cup.

  “I know.” I stifle a snort.

  “But she has big titties. I can’t wait until I have my own!”

  Another loud laugh echoes through the house.

  *

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” I ask Sue when she joins me in the back garden.

  I’ve been sitting here for a while now, alone, drinking my feelings away and flipping the yellow note with Olivia’s address between my fingers.

  “What do you think?” Her gaze penetrates mine. “Look at you, you’re a wreck since she left. For the love of God, do something about it.”

  “I’m not so sure she wants to see me again. She didn’t even let me take her to the airport.”

  “You didn’t insist.”

  “You’ve got to be joking, she totally blew me off! Johnny should take her, everyone heard that.”

  Sue’s eyes snap open and she takes a sharp inhale. “Listen, what women say isn’t always what they mean, you should know that by now. For Christ’s sake, you have to learn how to read between the lines.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  She blows out a quick exhale. “Hear me out: when women say ‘maybe’ what do you think they mean?”

  “Are you tipsy or what? Maybe means maybe – what other hidden meaning could I possibly be missing here?”

  “No, it means no. Obviously. What if a woman says ‘we’ll see’?

  “Maybe?”

  “Wrong again. That’s another resounding no. What if she says ‘yes’?”

  I just shrug now, I don’t even dare to take any more wild guesses.

  “It means yes, of course!” She pauses for an instant. “Though sometimes it’s a maybe... sometimes even a no. It depends on the context. Yeah, it’s kind of complex.”

  “You bet it is. You should write a bloody manual to help us sort out what you’re really saying. It’d be a best-seller.”

  “Yeah, like you’ve ever seen a man reading the instructions, right?” She lets out a hearty laugh. “Thing is, sometimes a ‘no’ is not a no. Sometimes it’s an ask again because I want you to work harder for this.”

  I shake my head, frowning. That’s just the craziest theory I’ve ever heard.

  Silence sets in.

  After a short while, Sue carries on, trying to lighten the mood, “Here’s another one: what does ‘do whatever you want’ mean?”

  “Easy. We’re basically screwed if we go ahead and don’t do exactly what you want. Voilà!”

  “How about ‘I’m almost ready’?”

  “That could be five minutes, thirty minutes or an hour. Only God knows when, so we’d better grab ourselves a beer.”

  “‘You don’t need to buy me anything’?”

  “We should come up with something that blows your mind. Otherwise, no one’s getting laid in the next two weeks.”

  “Mate, I underestimated you!” She gives me an amused pat on the hand. “How about ‘not now, we’ll talk about this later’?”

  “You’re so pissed off you can’t think straight anymore. You need time to gear up and figure out how you’re going to bust Mark’s balls. And now, the game is over. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  “But–”

  “I know you mean well, but you should stop hooking me up with every single friend you have. It was fun at the beginning, but it’s becoming kind of annoying now. And as for Olivia, I’d prefer if you just stayed out of it. It’s not as easy as you think and besides... well, it’s none of your business!”

  She crosses her arms and looks into the void. “Fine.”

  I nudge her with my elbow. “And ‘fine’ doesn’t mean fine. In Chickanese it means just the opposite, it means you feel like smacking me on the head right now.”

  “I just think it’s time for you to stop being mad at life. You should put it all behind you and move on. Because some dirty slapper turned your life upside down, it doesn’t mean it will happen again. And the fact Rogers was an ungrateful son of a bitch? You have to let it all go, you can’t let it affect you forever.” She waves her hands in the air to emphasise her words. “And besides, Olivia cares for you, always has – even if you decided to stop talking to each other a long time ago. All these years and she’s never stopped asking about you. Besides, she’s also going through a rough patch. I’m certain she’d appreciate hearing back from a friend.”

  I process her words for a little while. “Okay, maybe I’ll call her tomorrow.”

  She shakes her head and breathes out a loaded with confidence ‘no’.

  I frown, taken aback. “I don’t get women, seriously. But you just told me to–”

  “You’re not calling her tomorrow. You’re moving your lazy arse and going to see her.”

  I chuckle at the insane idea. “You’re completely off your head. That’d be stupid, not to mention I can’t leave right now. I’m swamped with work.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. That nasty boss of yours may fire you if you can’t make it on Monday. Damn that man!” She mocks, with a silly grin plastered on her face. “You’d better get yourself the flu or something contagious and call in sick. I’ll bring you chicken soup.”

  “She’s probably at work.”

  “We talked this afternoon.” Sue elbows me playfully. “She’s getting the next couple of days off.”

  “That’s your epic brilliant plan? I just show up, unannounced?”

  “Yes!” She raises her eyebrows as if the answer was too obvious.

  “But that makes me a bit of a stalker, doesn’t it?”

  “No. But that question sure makes you a bit of a barmpot. You’re not a stranger, why would she think that?”

  I run my fingers through my hair and c
lasp my hands behind my head, feeling confused and overwhelmed. I was thinking of a subtler approach; this just feels too crazy, too risky.

  Sue rests her hand on my leg and looks me in the eyes. “Look, sometimes women love when men do whacky things for them. So be bold, surprise her.” With that, she stands and leaves me alone with my thoughts.

  I check the time.

  8:30. It’s not too late.

  I could call now.

  I could, but I won’t.

  I’m calling her tomorrow.

  When I’m on her doorstep.

  18 THE TRUTH

  SO, MUCH TO MY OWN surprise, here I am. Back in Spain.

  I’ve never been the guy who sits back and waits anyway, so screw it if life kicks me in the balls. I do believe sometimes you just need to make the moment happen before something great is lost for good, and that’s it. There won’t be any strategic exits out of this.

  I’m on the Airport Express bus, on my way to the city centre, and the truth is it feels like I’m a glorious train wreck, going 190 miles an hour heading down the wrong path. Or that I’m about to enter a stage-five epic mess, already knowing I’ll be crushed.

  Leaning my head against the headrest, I close my eyes and take a deep breath to calm myself down.

  Finally, I arrive at the crowded Catalonia Square and head down to Las Ramblas, the long pedestrian walkway that runs through the heart of the city centre and stretches up until the marina, offering you a fabulous view over the Mediterranean.

  The image I retain in my memory from ten years ago has remained pretty much unchanged. This is definitely the place where you’ll get the pulse of Barcelona. It’s so full of life and rhythm, permeated with a special energy that’s incredibly vibrant and dazzling at the same time.

  I mingle with the huge mass of locals and visitors that promenade up and down the boulevard, and immerse myself in it, my eyes on the multitude of tapas cafés, flower stalls, bird sellers, ice-cream stands, street artists and living statues, which almost distract me from the outstanding architectural details of the buildings above.

  But why did I come here anyway?

  The excuse I’ve given myself is that this is the only place I know where I can get her flowers. The truth, however, is that I still need some time to hit pause and think it over again, before it’s too late, before I find myself standing in front of her like a fool, unable to say anything coherent.