Who’s That Girl?

by Celia Hayes

  “So are you going to tell me why the hell I should come back with you?”

  “Because you’re drunk and you’re making a fool of yourself.”

  “I’m not making a fool of myself, I’m just enjoying myself.”

  “There is a clear line between enjoying yourself and behaving obscenely in a public place.”

  “Behaving obscenely?” I snap. “Behaving obscenely?”

  “Exactly. And there’s no point shouting, because that doesn’t make you right.”

  “I was just drinking a tequila.”

  “Nice try. Partially true, legally acceptable though questionable, but totally inadequate to get you off the hook. Because you were actually drinking a tequila, but it was your third, and as if that wasn’t enough, you were playing the fool with two strangers who were only interested in dragging you into a hotel room to do god knows what.”

  “Ah! Now it’s all clear,” I conclude. “That’s the problem – that and only that. Me daring to rebel against the stupid labels that you and all the others like you have stuck on me. I can’t, I mustn’t, I don’t have the right to. All I’m supposed to do is listen to other people’s problems, sort out other people’s problems, step in for other people at work. Because other people can have a life, but not me. I’m only supposed to help you with your life!”

  “I’m sure we can talk about this in the room. Now quit yelling and come inside.”

  “No!” I shout, staying exactly where I am.

  “I wasn’t asking you,” growls Dave, suddenly standing very close to me.

  “Good, because I have no intention of doing as you say.”

  “Sam, come inside.”

  “No.”

  “Sam, I said come inside.”

  “And I said no.” I fold my arms across my chest.

  “You promised you’d be understanding. We made a deal. You’d behave yourself for a few days without annoying me, without provoking me…”

  “Dave, I’m not provoking you. If anyone is provoking anyone, it’s you who’s provoking me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If you don’t like it, why don’t you go back to the room. I promise not to annoy you any more,” I continue, my hand on my heart. “Scout’s honour! Anyway, as far as you’re concerned, I’m harmless, right? But you’re not the only person in the world, you know? Out there, there are people who don’t think like you. People like Ian. Did you see how he looked at me? And the singer? And the barman? How about the barman, huh?”

  “Sam, this isn’t funny,” he says.

  “Do you think that it’s funny for me?” I say, heading off back to the pool. “Don’t wait up for me,” I murmur as I go. “I don’t know what time I’ll be back. I heard they were organising a dip in the pool after midnight and I don’t want to miss it. Bye, Dave!” I walk away, leaving him standing there, without caring what he wants and especially what he expects from me. I don’t know if it’s the tequila that’s loosened my tongue and given me the strength to speak up. Maybe it’s just tiredness. Or maybe it was Al. He gave me something I thought I’d never had: myself. And the best part is that I was right there. How the hell had I managed not to see myself?

  I slip off one shoe and then the other and enjoy the feeling of the gravel, damp with the dew of the evening, under my feet.

  “Sam, don’t force me to come after you.” But I can hardly hear him, even though he’s not far away. Because in reality he isn’t standing there by the entrance, he’s actually far, far away. Maybe on another planet. And I’m here, alone. Surrounded by all these stars.

  “Have you seen how beautiful the sky is?” I close my eyes and fill my lungs with the night air. I’m wearing one of those things you wear in the evening – I have no idea what they’re called: trousers and a bustier that was so tight I was ashamed when I looked into the mirror. In the end I decided to put on a cardigan to hide my addiction to carbohydrates, and I’ve been trying not to think about it all night. Is all I need really a jumper, a cardigan or a fleece to stop everyone from discovering that I’m not actually a size twelve? I don’t know. Because if that were the case, I wouldn’t have spent all my life in perpetual conflict with myself. No, in reality, all that stuff I wrap myself up in is just an excuse – another way to say ‘Yes, I know I’m terrible – see?’ so they can’t say anything to me that I haven’t already said to myself. And so no, I rebel, I refuse, I take off my cardigan. No more baggy clothes. If they want to tell me that I’m not okay then they’re going to have to tell it to my face, because I’m increasingly less convinced that what really matters is just how well I can fit into an S. That’s too simple – all you have to do is stop eating and then we can all become magically special. Well to hell that, I’ve had enough of it!

  “Would you mind telling me what you are doing?” Dave asks me as I undress. He walks over to me slowly and looks at me as if he doesn’t recognise me.

  “This,” I answer, without looking at him, and I take my cardigan off and throw it away. It’s something I should have done a long time ago.

  “Sam, have you seen yourself?” he says, going white and raising his eyes to the heavens. “I swear, I’m gonna kill her. I’m gonna kill her,” he repeats angrily, slapping his forehead.

  “Yes, and isn’t it wonderful?” I ask, turning around with my arms held out. “You know, Dave, I’ve thought about it,” I say, lifting a finger. “And I think I’m going to take that dip in the pool.”

  “Oh, no you’re not!” he says, interrupting my fantasies. And, after making sure there’s nobody around, he grabs me by the waist and throws me over his shoulder.

  “Dave, what are you doing?”

  “Have it your way.”

  Chapter 25

  With the Lights Off

  Hmm… So, no sign of life for eight minutes and thirty-two, thirty-three, thirty-four seconds. No, thirty-five. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Okay, okay, I’ll stop. But really, what the hell?

  First he drags me into the room and then? He stands there with his forehead leaning against the window and his hands in his pockets with an absorbed expression on his face staring at the street outside. Standing beside him, my back to the wall, I wait, hoping that sooner or later he will do something. Anything. Even come out with one of those revelations like they do on a Brazilian soap opera. The truth is, Sam… I am your father! But no, nothing. As soon as we came inside he put me back down, closed the door and completely lost himself in contemplation of the endless flow of time. Or something.

  I’d gone over to him, hoping that would suffice to remind him of my presence. Little things – a cough, an unconvinced ‘ahem’. He pretended not to notice and left me there wondering if I should push him out of the window and put an end to my suffering once and for all or give him a last chance?

  “You said you wanted to talk,” I say, deciding on the second. He sighs. Him. A deep, prolonged sigh. The only sign of someone finally deciding to face reality and ignore much more pressing problems, like counting the number of streetlights below.

  “Okay, great…” I murmur, staring at the ceiling and nearly missing the helpless puppy face he turns to me without breaking contact with the glass.

  “Are you angry?”

  “No,” I reassure him, massaging my forehead. I close my eyes for a moment, but I open them again as soon as I feel his hand resting on mine, forcing me to lower it.

  He’s right here, right in front of me. I hadn’t even realised. So close that I can feel his breath on my face. “Have you got a migraine?” he asks, brushing a lock of hair gently from my face. I lift my chin and look into his eyes to find them staring at me lazily, half-closed.

  “No…”

  “You should wear your hair loose.” He keeps talking in that low, almost hypnotic voice, gently undoing my chignon to let my hair fall softly over my shoulders. “It’s beautiful.” He looks at it, playing with it between his fingers. I don’t respond. I never know how to react to compliments. I never hav
e. I look away and pretend not to hear, or to be too distracted to notice. “Sam…” he murmurs. He takes my face in one hand and gently raises it, caressing a cheek with his thumb.

  “What?”

  His breathing is loud. Looking into my eyes, his lips tight, he says, “Can we… sleep? Together?”

  “You want to sleep with me?”

  “Yes.”

  Typical. When do they remember that there’s more to life than sex? When they’re with me, of course! The eternal friend, the eternal shoulder to cry on. The ‘you’re different’. And I’ve always asked how am I different, because at least anatomically it’s always seemed to me that everything was in the right place.

  I say nothing, barely managing to hold back a laugh.

  Dave squints at me, trying to figure out what’s going on in my mind. “I didn’t say I just wanted to sleep,” he explains, realising where my thinking might have led me. “So do you still agree or should I lock myself in the bathroom with the minibar vodka to try and scrape my ego up from the floor?” he jokes, trying to make me smile.

  “No, I don’t agree, actually!” I said, angrily.

  “Argh….” He snorts. “Then let’s hope there’s some whiskey as well.”

  “Okay, I’m going to sleep,” I say, walking away before I can start slapping him.

  “No, wait, stop,” he says, holding me back by my waist.

  “You can’t…”

  “Can’t what?”

  “You can’t come here and tell me you want to… to…” I splutter, waving my hands about. He smiles, and I get an even stronger desire to strangle him, because he obviously finds the sight of me struggling hilarious, and he does nothing to hide it. “And then, as though… as though it was nothing. Like, ‘Hey, you wanna get a pizza?’”

  “Hmmm…” he says, thinking aloud. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Of course I am! It… It doesn’t work like that.”

  “No atmosphere.”

  “Exactly!” I say. “First you drag me off like an orangutan in heat, and then you stand there staring out of the window, and now you come out with… with this thing about sleeping, and…”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I screwed up,” he admits, holding me to him.

  “Yes, you did,” I say in a whisper, slightly uncomfortable at suddenly being so close.

  “I’m a total disaster,” continues Dave, shaking his head as though totally convinced.

  “Come on, don’t take it so badly. It happens,” I say, trying to cheer him up. I know I should keep to the point, but I can’t help it – it’s my inner Florence Nightingale. It tends to emerge when it would be much better if it found itself something else to do.

  “I should have thrown you against the window at least,” says Dave in the meantime. And as he says it, just to show me what he means, he pushes me hard against the glass. “And… I don’t know,” he says, pretending to think about it, “grab hold of that wonderful hair of yours and let you know that your dress has been driving me out of my mind ever since I saw you come out of the bathroom,” he says without embarrassment, staring at my mouth as if though he wants to eat it.

  “This is entirely theoretical, right?” I ask, to avoid any misunderstandings.

  “Absolutely,” he confesses with an angelic expression, and as he speaks, he slowly winds my hair around his fingers and pulls it, forcing my head back to kiss me. “It was just an idea,” he murmurs, holding me tightly in his arms. The next moment I feel his breath on my face and his mouth pressing against mine. With his eyes closed, his hands grabbing at my clothes and clutching at my hair, Dave’s tongue tries to make its way into my mouth, slowly at first but then with increasing insistence, but when he realises that I’m standing there immobile, he suddenly bites my lip.

  “Ouch…” Reflexively I open my mouth to complain and… and at that point it’s all over. Dave opens his eyes for a moment, smiles victoriously and returns between my lips, this time with nothing to hold him back. Free to explore, to caress, to gently lick and suck me. He holds me tight as though he were in no hurry and only moves his mouth away from mine, releasing my hair reluctantly, when he is certain that he has overcome my defences.

  “Was that better?” he asks, caressing my cheek.

  I open one eye and look at him. “Do I really need to answer?”

  He laughs. “So, Sam…”

  “What do you want?” I mutter, annoyed by how quickly he’s won me over.

  “Can I sleep with you?”

  As if I had any choice… I nod, breathing hard. I can’t even look at him. Dave tilts his head a little and tries to catch my eye, and when I finally give in and look at him, he smiles. God, why is he so gorgeous when he smiles? I can’t think straight when he smiles. And in fact I don’t notice when his hand reaches out and pulls me to him and his arms enfold me to hold me once more. “Wait…” He stops. He walks with me, one step after another, until we reach the bedroom door. He opens it slowly, without making any noise then pushes me inside and closes the world out, gradually adjusting to the twilight. He doesn’t put the light on – he seems to like all that darkness. I like it too, and not for the reason that you might imagine. Actually I like it because it makes it feel like there is nothing else in the world except us two and those few golden glimmers from outside are enough to trace the contours of everything I need. His hands, which climb my hips again, his eyes, that close now as I move my mouth to his in search of a kiss. And so it happens that in the silence, among the muffled sounds that reach us from the outside world and his heavy breathing, I finally relax and I no longer want or have time to ask what I should be like or how I want him to see me. I’m just myself. Sam.

  “Come here,” whispers Dave, putting a hand behind my back. He finds the zip and slowly pulls it down, kissing my shoulder. “Oh no,” he moans, as soon as his lips make contact with my skin. “You did it again.”

  “What?”

  “The bath foam.” He wrinkles his nose.

  “Oh…”

  “First thing in the morning, I’m throwing that stuff away,” he threatens, while his mouth moves to my neck and behind my ear. He smells me. “Sam, I swear, I’m going to throw it away!” he mutters. “I won’t get a wink of sleep, and you’re going to be punished for it. I promise you.” And he kisses me again. His hands don’t want to wait any longer, and they return impatiently to my dress and pull it down, letting it slip to the floor. “I’ve been thinking about it all day…”

  “About what?”

  “About what was under here,” he answers, unhooking my bra and throwing it away. “Stop, don’t.” He prevents me from covering myself up when he sees my shyness getting the upper hand.

  “Dave, I…”

  “Have you any idea how much I want to see you naked?” he confesses, his face growing dark immediately. “Yes,” he murmurs, answering his own question. “Yes, you do.” And he puts his fingers under the silk straps of my panties. “You knew it when you put on that dress, you knew that you’d spend the evening torturing me.” And he tears them off.

  “W… wait…” I murmur.

  “You knew it when you were driving me crazy with jealousy with those two idiots at the bar.” And he grabs me by the hips and throws me onto the bed. “Don’t move,” he says, holding me still beneath him, and putting a hand between my legs to open them. “God dammit, Sam, I can’t stop looking at you,” he admits, before taking off his shirt. He undoes his belt. The two buttons of his fly. I lie there, unable to tell him to stop.

  “Six…” He climbs onto the bed and lays himself on top of me. I feel his body on mine, skin touching skin.

  “You’re so soft,” he whispers as he squeezes my breasts. He bends down to kiss them and I close my eyes and sigh slowly. I feel his caresses moving further down and making room for themselves and then slowly pulling away, only to return and then leave again, wet this time, until he hears me murmur his name, with my eyes closed and my heart feeling like it’s about to burst. Only
then does he come back to my face. His hands in my hair and his eyes lost on my lips. Unable to stay away from me, to wait, he enters me again, this time with impatience, stopping for a moment in my arms to watch me breathing. “Sam, you’re beautiful,” he murmurs before kissing me, and after that he doesn’t stop again. He moves, holding me tightly to him as though he’s afraid I’m going to run away. He slows down, more slowly, then gets faster, continuing until I can no longer hold back.

  “Dave, please…” I moan.

  “Let yourself go, Sam.” Dave holds me steady, pushing himself into me without any hesitation until he hears my voice grow weak and my body trembling under his, and only then does he abandon himself, holding my name in his lips.

  We stay like that for a while. If it were up to me, we would stay like this forever.

  Dave plays with my hair and then falls asleep on me, imprisoning me in his arms as though he never wants me to leave.

  I thought I’d never sleep next to him. I thought I would never touch him. I thought he would never look at me. I’ve always thought, imagined possibilities, planned opportunities, stored up my dreams. And in the meantime I’ve never lived. And now that everything is changing and transforming around me, I can’t think of anything at all. And I don’t care what happens tomorrow as long as I’m still Sam – Sam ‘I’ve spent my life waiting for you’ Preston. And he’s still Dave ‘I’d never noticed you’ Callaghan. Because tonight – at least tonight – we are just us. And that’s all that matters.

  “It’s 10.01 PM, 89.9 FM, and this is Love Attitude, the station that walks between thoughts and chases after memories. The soul of San Francisco, the city by the bay. And as the fog wraps around the Bay Bridge and the last cable car ends its run to Market Street, the notes of Stay with Me fill the studios here at North Point. Another day is over, another night falls on the shores of the Marin Headlands. The curtain comes down, silence descends. It’s your moment. Open the drawer and release your dreams. Close your eyes for a moment and let them guide you to the stars. Don’t go away, no. Hold my hand and stay on Love Attitude 89.9 FM, the station that goes straight to the heart.”