by Gemma Weekes
‘I work for Sony Records,’ says Adrian, wetly into my ear, without any prompting or curiosity on my part. ‘Are you a singer?’
‘No. I’m tone deaf.’
‘Well you look like one,’ he says, in a version of Mockney. ‘You’re fuckin’ gorgeous. Love your ’air.’
‘Yeah thanks,’ I say, and my speech is wobbly. ‘I’ve got to. Um. Gotta say hello to someone.’
I push him off me – realising a few large, uncontrollable steps later that I’ve also pushed my way onto the dance floor. I can barely feel my legs and the dimness swirls around me. The music is hip-hop. The bass-line goes right through the soles of my All Stars.
I want to be lost between beats, lost in the melodies with my eyes closed. Not here anymore. The ground tips and I feel like a kid in a playground, spinning round and round until she loses her balance.
Max comes up close with her dolly lips and tiny outfit, starts dancing like a stripper. Off-beat. What is it with blondes and the stripper dance? I laugh soggily. I can feel Max’s breath on my face, she’s trying to rap along with the track but getting it wrong. I do the stripper dance too.
She cracks up, falling about. I catch it like a bug and it shakes me from the ground up. We both scream with it. Max’s hair is coming free of the pins, she’s sweaty and her cheeks are aflame. She still looks bloody perfect.
I trip over my laces and the view is the pure white ceiling.
‘Eden!’
Zed’s face is so big all of a sudden! No, it’s just close. I can’t stop laughing. I shake all the way through. My abdominals hurt, my head pounds, I can’t breathe but I can’t stop laughing. And I know I can’t get up.
I touch my crazy hair and laugh. I think about my trainers and ache with laughter. I think about this man, close enough to kiss. I think about how lonely I am. That’s it: lonely! I think the word, lonely, and laugh so hard I almost wet my knickers.
‘Zed!’ I yell back at him, unable to stand. He puts a hand in my left armpit and helps me up. I slump against him and his Cool Water-smelling body. See? He’s always there when I need him. He cares about me. Even with his bad arm he’s prepared to pick me up.
The DJ announces one more set from an acoustic act, Cody Chesnutt. Everyone is shouting and clapping. I try to clap but miss.
And the problem with alcohol is that after the initial buzz is gone everything starts to get really serious.
Even while your knees still won’t support you and you’re flopping about like an empty plastic bag in a supermarket car park. Even while your head weighs ten times what your body does and you’re still drinking to keep it at bay, it comes down like a Monday morning—
The truth. You’re making an ass of yourself in public. You’re alone. The truth is your face in the mirror, eyes and lips melted and smearing, your skin with all the blemishes reappearing beneath your make-up.
The truth is that you are not having fun.
I started the day with such high expectations, but soon I’ve made a wobbly dash for the toilets and found myself bowed over some under-disinfected latrine throwing up. Plop-plop-plop-plop. My body won’t tolerate all the crap I’ve poured into it and has decided to stage a revolt.
Max has turned up like she always does when she’s not wanted. She’s hovering, trying to smooth my hair back. How dumb is that? I have an Afro!
For the whole night he’s been touching her all the time. Why does he do it when he’s got to know how I feel about—
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes!’ I tell her. ‘Fiiine . . . fine! Go away!’
Then my stomach says a violent ‘no’ all over again. And again. And again . . .
And fade to black.
funny.
I KNOCKED AGAIN. Two weeks ago, a week after Zed’s indictment of my dress sense and general level of attractiveness, I stood outside Zed’s flat for an unusually long minute with all these bombs going off in my chest. Tick tick, boom. Tick tick, boom. Tick tick . . . No answer. It was four twenty-five in the afternoon. I’d been outside for three-quarters of an hour.
‘Eden?’ My friend Dwayne stuck his head out of his car window, his gaze sticky on my back.
‘Yeah.’ I looked over at him and then away.
‘What do you wanna do? Doesn’t look like he’s gonna show up.’
‘Of course he is. It’s only been twenty minutes!’
‘It’s been almost an hour! We could go to the cinema . . .’
‘No, Dwayne. I told you. He’ll be here any second.’
‘Are you sure he remembers that you guys were supposed to meet today?’
‘Yes!’ I replied. ‘Look, you can go now if you like. I’ll just wait outside, no biggie.’
I was an embarrassment to myself, a wasted effort in my flimsy new tank top. On the front it said,
– He who hesitates is last –
Mae West
which I’d written on with fabric paint and a lip brush. On the bottom I sported my least mashed-up jeans cut into shorts and my cleanest pair of Chucks – the green ones. I had on new underwear. I’d shaved all essential areas, scented myself with vanilla and jasmine, blow-dried my hair as straight as I could and pulled it back. While I was putting myself together I kept asking myself what I was getting ready for, but then wouldn’t listen to the answer. I’d had my friend Dwayne drive me down to Zed’s house, miles out of his way, and then made him wait with me because I was early. Stupid move.
‘No, it’s cool! I’ll wait with you, innit? In case he doesn’t come.’
‘He is gonna come.’
‘Well, you might as well get back in the car and sit down. Give those lovely legs of yours a break!’
I cringed but did what he suggested, sped along by an unfriendly look from the woman going into the house next door. Too little space and air inside the car. Too much chat. Dwayne’s aftershave and the car freshener fought for dominance. I fought not to gag. I dispensed the odd, canned laugh but his jokes were incomprehensible and all I could hear was the blood behind my eyes, and the name of my beloved buzzing round and around inside my head and then just when all the noise was on the cusp of deafening—
There he was, roaring into sight on a shiny black motorcycle. I knew him even with the helmet on. He parked and jumped off the bike. ‘Zed,’ I exclaimed quietly, squinting through the buttery summer glare. He pulled off his helmet and started for the flat. I remembered just in time not to open the passenger door blindly into traffic. ‘Thanks for the lift, Dwayne . . .’
But before I had a chance to ask what he was doing, Dwayne sprang out of the car and into Zed’s path.
‘Hey! What’s happening!’ he exclaimed.
‘Uh . . .’ Zed was visibly startled. ‘Uh. Cool. What’s up?’
‘I’m alright, ya know!’ said Dwayne.
Zed gave him a look of pure bafflement and then he finally saw me sitting there. ‘Eden?’ I swung my legs out of the car, thighs and palms moist in the heat. ‘Damn! We said four, didn’t we? Sorry.’ I watched his mouth. I was stuck on how he says my name. Eden. It sounds different when he says it.
‘’Salright,’ I mumbled, cleared my throat. ‘It’s fine . . .’
‘Whoa! Those are some serious wheels you got there!’ screamed Dwayne. I dropped my mobile phone and it went into pieces on the concrete. ‘What is that? A sports bike?’
I retrieved the battery about an inch from the toe of Zed’s perfect grey trainer. They were a couple of weeks old now and completely without a smudge.
‘Yeah it’s a Honda CBR one thousand.’
‘Kind of flash innit?’
I got back up just in time to see Zed shrug a whatever at Dwayne, who remained undeterred.
‘I’m not really into bikes to be honest, but if I was I’d definitely be more interested in a road bike. Big old Harley or something. Do you race?’
‘Naw . . .’ Zed looked about to bust out laughing any minute. Dwayne is one of those slightly chubby brers who looks like he goes down to
his local Topman and gets everything he sees in the window. He drops slang like it was a class he took in college. He has big, shiny rims on his tiny hand-me-down car. He’s one of those brers who are average height but look short the minute they open their mouth. And next to Zed, he was shrinking by the millisecond. I had to get him out of there.
‘I saw you spittin’ at Cargo a couple weeks back, actually. I met you after the show,’ he said. The time inched toward five. ‘I came down with Eden. I’m Dwayne . . .?’
‘Right, right, OK. Cool . . .’ Zed nodded his head in obviously faked recognition. ‘Dwayne. Thanks for the support.’
‘Nah, no problem, mate. I don’t get out that much these days, you know what I mean? I’m studying my masters degree at the mo, but I used to dabble a bit here and there back in the day, ya get me? Bit of Djing! I made good money, ya know. But yeah, you should definitely keep it up, blud.’ Dwayne was nodding heavily, like he was a hip-hop expert rather than some halfwit who probably thought KRS-one was an industrial cleaning product.
‘I hear you,’ replied Zed, running a hand over the deep black gloss of his new vehicle. ‘Thanks.’
‘Yeah, man,’ Dwayne added for good measure. ‘Definitely keep it up, ya get me?’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘Heavy.’ Then Dwayne decided to try and go in for one of those one-armed man-hugs. Zed dodged it and gave him a rather sardonic handshake instead. At least bloody TRY to act like a threat! I wanted to shout at Dwayne but instead I just stood there, spare, embarrassed and scowling at my fingernails. Switching my phone back on.
‘So Eden . . .’ said Zed eventually.
‘Yeah, um, let’s go in. Look, Dwayne . . . Thanks for the lift, OK? I’ll see you at work,’ I said, and gave the Clueless One a chaste peck on the cheek. He went with crab-like reluctance back to his Fiesta.
I didn’t look at Zed until the car was moving and when I did I caught him throwing Dwayne deuces, a backwards peace sign. Well, in America it means ‘peace’.
I tried to stifle a nervous eruption of laughter, but instead some spit went down the wrong way and I choked.
‘Eden! You alright?’
‘Yeah,’ I said when I regained the capacity for speech, wiping my eyes and mouth. ‘I’m fine.’
I hesitated near his new motorcycle. It was gorgeous.
‘It’s OK,’ he said, a diamond stud sparkling in his ear. ‘You can touch it.’
The bike was smooth as water. I grabbed my camera and took several pictures in quick succession. For the record. My fingers travelled its long curves, nestled in its indentations, hesitated on the seat and the handlebars. Did this mean he was going to stay? For a while at least? The implications of that scrambled me. I saw my wide-open face reflected in the slick black paint. Zed smiled at me indulgently, like I was a child or an eccentric or both, and turned to walk up the front steps. ‘Sorry I kept you waiting,’ he said.
‘You have no idea.’
‘Hmmm . . .?’ he glanced at me, struggling with his helmet, the gloves and his bags, trying to open the door. ‘What was that?’
‘It was no big deal; I wasn’t waiting that long. You want some help?’
He told me the keys were in his jeans, voice so close I felt the bass of it right in the seat of my knickers. I journeyed nervous fingers into his pocket, in amongst the warm coins, a biro and the slight damp and the dark.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Got them.’ And then, just to keep talking, I told him he should be careful about carrying pens in his pocket in case of leakages. And he said, ‘Riight . . .’and then I couldn’t really say anything more because we were touching all the way down the sides of our bodies and it was making me prickle with water. I unlocked the outer door and we were alone in the short, speckless hallway.
‘You need the gold one for the front door to the apartment,’ he said, brushing my fingers to indicate which one. ‘The Yale.’
‘Cool.’
‘So what’s the deal? You got yourself a little personal driver these days, Miss Daisy?’
‘What – Dwayne? He’s just a guy from that market research job I do sometimes! He’s not . . .’ Zed chuckled, his face amused and unperturbed. ‘Fuck you,’ I said quietly. Unlocked the door and pushed it open.
The flat stretched and purred before me, ready. Beige walls, dark wooden carvings haunting corners of the living room, cool leather and glass. It belonged to Lewis, a friend of Zed’s, and must have cost a fortune to rent. I threw my lightweight jacket on the banister and stood lost and nervous by the stairs, trying to suck some air in. I admitted to myself that I had an agenda. Zed tapped me lightly on the shoulder so I’d move out of his way and I shivered, thinking it was about time he did the same for me.
‘You want me to take those?’ I asked as he went with his carrier bags to the kitchen.
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Sure?’
‘Please just go sit your ass down, girl!’
I folded onto the couch, disoriented by his inexplicable purchase. He’s staying? I kept asking myself, singing the question in rounds. No answers. What does it mean? I was drumming relentlessly in the chest and feeling strange in the abdomen. I felt tender and I felt hard. You see, I’ve had a pattern since I lost him and it’s always gone the same way. I’ve liked people. It’s even felt like love sometimes, that particular species of gut-crunching longing. But the minute there’s an exchange of fluids . . . poof! It goes. Like a blown fuse and all the lights gone black. Every time, poof! And there are no more tingles, no more fantasies, no more desire. It’s OK, you can touch it.
‘You want something to drink?’ he said. ‘Eden?’
‘What? What’s up?’
‘I said, do you want something to drink?’
‘Oh yeah. What you got?’
‘Coke . . . Ribbenha . . . or water.’
‘Ri-what?’
‘Ribbenha.’
‘I’ll have a Coke,’ I said.
He went back to the kitchen, then came out and placed my drink on the coffee table, sat next to me on the couch. I told him it was pronounced Ribeena. He shrugged. I asked him about the bike.
‘I got it pretty cheap on the net,’ he said, opening a small, black tin and reaching over to get a notebook from the coffee table. ‘Barely used.’ He put the notebook on his knees and tipped out some Mary Jane, picking out seeds; knees pushed delicately together, fingers long and precise. He looked so unexpectedly vulnerable that I couldn’t hear anything for a minute except the muscles working easy in his dark forearms and wrists, under the smooth skin; his pink tongue as it slid over the rolling paper. He even made dependency look good.
‘Cool. I didn’t even know you rode,’ I said eventually.
‘Yeah, I love it. I love the freedom of it, you know what I mean? You get to a certain speed and it feels like you’re flying. It’s like you’re inside of a vacuum, nothing but you and the air rushing past. Makes me feel close to God, whoever He is.’
‘Or She! What kind of speeds are we talking?’ I say, breathless. Worried. All I can see is that stick in the road. That car pulling out of an alley right when Zed is at his most religious, racing toward his moment of flight.
He smiles. ‘Fast,’ he says.
‘What, like a hundred miles an hour?’
‘At the top of the ride, yeah.’
‘You’re completely mad!’ I exclaim, angry, head crowded with questions and foreboding. Why did he buy the bike? What did it mean for us? And could anybody survive a specimen like the Honda? It had a glint in its fairings. It was too pretty not to hurt him. I could see it.
‘You want some?’ he asked, offering me the spliff.
‘No, I don’t smoke. You know that.’
‘You never used to say that before,’ said Zed absently, taking a deep pull, speaking through his nose. I heated. He grinned. ‘Remember, I’m the one who taught you.’ Memories of us flooded my mind. I sat, pinned by them.
‘Please don’t tell me you ride t
hat thing when you’re buzzing?’
‘What you think?’ Zed grinned. ‘You a rock chick, right? When you gonna get on the back and let me take you for a spin?’
I imagined my arms around his waist, my face in his back. Salt and musk. ‘When George W. Bush converts to Islam, mate. Sorry.’
‘Wow! It’s like that?’ He re-lit his spliff. ‘I really think you could use some of this, ma. You’re kind of uptight right now. Lewis has got some connections, man. This haze will make you feel no stress.’
‘Where is Lewis?’ I said, hoping he wouldn’t be back soon. Lewis was sarcastic, posh and quietly observant enough to make me feel self-conscious. The kind of guy who would notice your earrings or handbag. He had famous parents, I think. He got photographed for magazines.
‘Lewis is travelling for a few weeks doing some events,’ smiled Zed, picking up on my not-so-subtle dislike. ‘It’s just me right now.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Right.’
He carefully adjusted his long, solid body and ended up slightly closer than he was before. I really could touch him and no one would walk in on us. I could lay my face in his neck, run my hands over his chest and his smooth head. I could unzip and unbutton him. We could kiss. Oh God. We could kiss. And what do you do when you’ve wanted something for so long and finally here it is, and maybe all you have to do now is not mess up and it can be yours?
‘Go on then,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Pass the dutchie, Rasta.’
He spluttered, coughing and laughing at the same time. ‘I was only kidding, E. You can’t handle that Hendrix, girl . . .’
‘Come on!’
‘Alright,’ he said, with a shrug, smiling again on one side of his mouth. ‘But I ain’t takin’ your ass to no emergency room.’
The first pull made me cough almost hard enough to gag. I looked through my watery eyes at Zed, who was shaking his head and giggling. Actually giggling.
‘Wamore!’
‘You OK?’ he asked, very insincerely, and took back the spliff. ‘Drink some Coke, woman. I told you you couldn’t handle it.’
