by Celia Hayes
I don’t really know where I find the courage to face that long walk. All I know is that when I pass Terry’s desk I feel the need to stop for a moment and catch my breath. “I’m going. Speak to you tonight?”
“Sure,” she nods, looking at me sadly. “I’ll miss you, do you know that?”
“Yes, but don’t worry – I’ll find a way to carry on being a pain in the ass,” I reassure her, and walk away, hoping that the bottom of the box will hold out at least until I get to the parking lot. But my footsteps come to a sudden stop when I hear Dave’s voice from behind me. It cuts through all the other noises around us – the printers, the voices – and seems not to care about attracting the curious looks of the whole office.
“I don’t care about you, Sam.”
I spin round in astonishment. What the hell’s the matter with him? Why did he need to say that in front of everybody? Wasn’t humiliating me in private good enough for him?
“Okay,” I murmur, trying to end the discussion for once and for all. “I’m going.” I turn round again and set off towards the door.
“Stop.” I turn round yet again, one eyebrow raised and on the verge of tears. I’m never going to see him again and this will be the last memory I’ll have of him?
“I don’t care about you,” he repeats, as if he was thinking aloud. He takes a few steps towards me, tapping a pen on his palm. He looks me straight in the eyes. He seems to have forgotten everything else, even the fact that we’re standing in the middle of the office.
“I think everyone has realised that,” I whisper, covering my flushed face with one hand. “Now, please, I…”
“Because I love you,” he interrupts me. And I suddenly go weak. Everything starts to spin. The tables, the walls, the lamps, everything. I try to concentrate on him, but he’s not that steady either and I have difficulty focusing.
“I love you,” he says, very quietly. He looks sad, infinitely sad. “And I want you to do all those things with me.”
“Things? Wh… what things?” I ask, trying fruitlessly to understand what he means. “Look, I don’t think this is really the place for—”
“Don’t you remember?” he asks in astonishment. “I’ve been thinking about it for days.” He takes a couple more steps forward until he’s standing right in front of me. “I want to walk through the park with you, hand in hand. Eat hot dogs dripping with ketchup at the—”
“Taylor Swift show?”
“Okay, maybe not the Taylor Swift show,” he says. Obviously there are some things he just can’t give in on. “And then I want to watch you while you cry your eyes out in front of the TV when there’s one of those tearjerkers that I hate on, and spoil the finale for you because I want to watch the game. And I swear I really would do it, Sam, I’d do it, amazingly, because I really hate love films, I’ve always hated them.” He takes my hand. “I don’t think we’ll ever argue because I’ve forgotten your birthday, though. I never forget a date. But I promise you I’ll give you a thousand other reasons to detest me and slam the door in my face. And I promise you that I will wait there every time for you to re-open it and maybe I won’t apologise, but I won’t let you send me away until you’ve forgiven me.” He takes my other hand too. “And I promise you, Sam, that’s only a tiny part of the things we are going to do together – because I want to do everything with you.”
I’m speechless. Incredulous. Unable to accept the idea that this is actually happening. Even the others are silent. They are all there waiting for an answer. The box drops from my hands to the floor. I hope I didn’t break anything.
“Will you tell me what has changed since yesterday?” I ask him, as I feel my eyes filling up with tears.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing has changed because I felt exactly the same way yesterday, and the day before that, and a week ago… And I think I started thinking it just after I realised that if I didn’t do something, you would find someone else to do them with,” he admits.
“And so why didn’t you tell me?” I ask angrily, shoving him. It’s been weeks since I’ve been able to sleep properly. That I’ve spent all my time crying in secret in the bathroom, in the shower, for fear that someone will notice. “Would you mind telling me why you didn’t say anything?” I rebuke him again, wiping my face with the back of my hand.
“Because for once…” he stops, looking embarrassed, but decides to continue. “Because for once in my life I was afraid that the only person I really cared about would reject me.” It’s an admission that clearly costs him a lot, because he doesn’t know where to look.
“Dave…” I want to say something, but I can’t hold back the tears and I can’t speak. I try holding my breath, squeezing my eyes and biting my lip, but there’s no way to stop them.
“Sam, please don’t cry.” He takes me in his arms. “Punch me, call me names, ask me whatever you want, but please don’t cry. I’d do anything to make you stay,” he murmurs, putting his hands in my hair to force me to look him in the face.
If I were smart, I’d leave now. I’d turn round and I’d walk right out that door, because it can’t always be him who decides. First he dumps me, then he takes me back, them he dumps me again, and each time, every damn time that I decide to forget about him and get on with my life, he does something that brings me right back to square one. I try so hard to convince myself that this isn’t the right thing to do, because… because I know how it will end. And I’ll feel terrible again, and he…
“Sam, don’t leave me,” he begs, clutching my face in his hands. “Sam… Sam, please.” And I’m done for.
“I want you to stop acting like a caveman every time you get angry just because I don’t let you get your way,” I murmur between sobs.
“Okay,” he agrees quickly, incredulously. “Okay, we can work on that.”
“I want you to talk to me, Dave. I don’t want to have to guess what’s going through your head when you get angry over nothing, or when you lock yourself up in your office without speaking to me. I want to know what it’s like to hear it from you, in person!”
“Okay, I promise I will,” he says, nodding. He looks into my eyes and his lips are a hairsbreadth away from mine, and both of us are dying to kiss each other. I stay like that in his arms and slowly start breathing again. The tears stop and my heart stops pounding.
“And Mr Onky goes,” I say. “I don’t know what it is and why you have it, but I don’t want to see it ever again.” Don’t hate me, but I’ve always felt an instinctive dislike for that horrible statuette.
“Do you know what I’ll do? I’ll destroy it, I’ll smash it into a thousand pieces, I’ll burn it and throw away the ashes. So what are you going to do – are you going to stay?” he asks impatiently, hugging me. “Are you going to stay, Sam?”
“Yes,” I say, and as soon as I open my mouth, I find myself suddenly two feet off the ground in his arms, his lips on mine.
“Dave… Dave, everybody’s looking,” I say. There’s a quiet murmuring which promises months of secret gossip meetings in the photocopier room.
“Okay, okay,” he says, trying to control himself and regain a little aplomb. “Okay, back to work, everyone, there’s nothing to see here,” he says despotically to pre-empt any possible comments from the rest of the office, but his eyes are glowing. “Ms Preston,” he says to me in a formal tone.
“Yes, Mr Callaghan,” I answer, putting both hands behind my back.
He struggles not to smile but he can’t manage it, and a corner of his mouth curves up very, very sexily. “I would like you to follow me into my office so I can show you your new contract.” He invites me to follow him, pointing me the way.
“Am I hired again?”
“Exactly.”
“Can I have a raise?”
“No.”
“Why not?” I protest. “Didn’t you say that I was a good journalist?”
“Exactly.”
“So don’t I deserve a little advance?” I say, trying to take unf
air advantage of the situation.
“No, otherwise I won’t have anyone to give my backlog of work to. Now get into my office before I change my mind and move you to obits with Nicholas.”
“But…”
“Step to it.”
“But…”
“I said now!”
“You dictator,” and the rest of the conversation takes place behind the door of his office, which coincidentally remains locked for a couple of hours without anyone daring to knock until I go back to my desk with my box in my hands, my hair messy and on my face a silly, euphoric smile which just won’t go away. Exactly like the one that appears on Dave’s lips when he is sure no one can see us.
Epilogue
It’s hopeless, I’ll never be thin. I’ve sort of gotten used to the idea by now, even though there are still days when I can feel the old anxiety creeping up on me and so I give in to self-harm, locking myself in my bedroom and devouring chocolate and pecan cookies like I’m possessed. And if the only person who used to make it impossible for me to have a bit of self-restraint was my mother, now there’s also Dave, who seems to take delight in reminding me which of us is the good looking one in the couple. And he’s so smug about it that it drives me nuts – I usually end up shutting him up by reminding him that it wasn’t him who won second place in the Beautiful Curvy contest. And no prizes for guessing what happens after that, because it’s all too obvious: Al’s name comes up, we start arguing, he yells at me, says that he’s leaving, he tells me that this is the last time he’s coming chasing after me. Messages full of emotional blackmail fly back and forth, I cry, he gives in and from that moment on I can say good-bye to my underwear.
This relationship is costing me a fortune, which I can barely afford – there are no perks to being the boss’s girlfriend. No gratification, no reduction in working hours, nothing. In fact, quite the opposite: it’s as if they’ve all agreed to make me pay in blood for the one damn week I actually was away.
“Did you get the photocopies of Tom’s notes?” asks Margaret.
“Yes, here they are,” I say, holding out a stack of files.
“And the draft of the article on the Pricasso exhibition?”
“The one who paints with his…?” I whisper, afraid someone will overhear.
“Why are you whispering? We’re talking about art.”
“Margaret, shouldn’t we talk to Dave about it first?”
“No, we shouldn’t,” she says. “This is still my section of the newspaper and I decide what to print in it.”
“Yeah, sorry. You’re right.”
“And take these too,” she murmurs, adding a pair of blue cards to the top of the pile. “Now shoo, I’ve got work to do.”
“I’m going.”
“But come back later – we have to look at the notes about this morning’s conference.”
“Sure.”
“And—”
“Sorry, they’re calling me from the other room!” I say, creeping off before she can dump half the office’s work on me. A few seconds later I’m at the other side of the office, uncertain as to whether to go back to my desk or take a break in Terry’s cubicle.
“Sam, Dave’s looking for you,” says Jane as she passes, completely oblivious to my dilemma.
“Sam, the first draft of the front page is ready. Can you work up the second?” comes a voice from one of the cubicles.
“I’m busy right now, George,” I answer as I walk away.
“Sam, have you called the mayor’s office?” asks Tiffany, leaning out from her cubicle.
“I’ll do it later, I’m busy right now.”
“Sam—” comes a voice from somewhere in the room.
“I said, I’m busy!” I shout, taking refuge in Dave’s room before it’s too late. “They’ve all lost their minds,” I mutter to myself. “They’re all crazy.”
“Sam, would you mind telling me where the hell you got to?” snaps Dave as soon as he sees me.
“Well, good morning to you too, Dave,” I answer, pretending not to have noticed his tone. “And yes, thank you, I did sleep well. Oh, flowers? For little old me?” I say, in fake amazement as I dump the mountain of files on his desk and put my hands to my heart, “you shouldn’t have!” Then I walk across the room and collapse wearily into a chair. Dave watches me as I rant, an amused smile on his face, but when he sits down in front of me, on the edge of the desk, he’s the same as always: grumpiness incarnate.
“The usual drama queen,” he mutters without raising his eyes from the documents I’ve brought him. “Look at this. Who wrote this? Anthropophacus? What the hell does that mean?” He crosses out the mistake with a pencil. “These all need correcting.”
“Yes, I know, they’ve already told me,” I snort. “You didn’t answer me, Dave – what did you want? Why am I here?”
“Please, don’t start getting paranoid.”
“Well, in that case I’ll be on my way, then.” I stand up, ready to sneak away, but he stops me.
“I haven’t finished,” he grins, grabbing me by one of my belt hooks and pulling me to him.
“Dave, what is it that you want?” I ask him, thinking how ridiculous it is that I have to stand there looking at him while he pretends to check Margaret’s article on Dr Malpas’s talk on the indigenous peoples of Patagonia.
“Did she give you anything else?” he says, turning the sheet of paper over to look at the back.
“A couple of articles on the opening night of Carmen.”
“And?”
“A… a little thing about a painter,” I say, vaguely.
“Which one?”
“I can’t remember right now.”
“Think harder,” he says, rifling through the stack of papers.
“I think he was called Pricasso or something?”
“You mean Picasso,” he says, giving me a funny look, as though he’s wondering if I’ve started drinking in the mornings.
“No, I’m about 99 per cent sure that he’s called Pricasso,” I answer, fearing the worst.
“No, Sam, he’s called Picasso.”
“The famous twentieth century cubist painter from Malaga? Yeah, I know. And then there’s Pricasso.”
“And who the hell is that?”
“A contemporary artist.”
“And what does he do?”
“He paints.”
“And what the hell does he paint?”
“You should probably ask what he paints with,” I say, feeling uncomfortable.
“Sam, I thought we’d reached an understanding that you were going to start communicating in plain English, just so we avoid anybody getting fired?”
“I don’t want to go into it,” I say, holding up my hands.
“Ah, right.” He massages his face. “Ok, right, ok. I don’t want to know anything about it. Just get a move on with this stuff,” he says, dumping it all back into my arms, including the article on Dr Malpas. “Because at six we have to go out.”
“Where to?”
“I booked an appointment with the interior designer. I have to show him the house.”
“Okay, I’ll do my best.” I head off towards the door, and then I stop. You know when you sense something in the air? The feeling of an imminent, inexplicable emotional catastrophe? I know, I’m probably being silly, but just to be sure, before I go I turn round. At first glance, everything seems normal. But…
“Wait a minute, why do you have to show him your house?” I ask suspiciously.
“Because I want to have it redecorated?” he answers, as though it were obvious.
“And why do you want to have it redecorated?”
“Because I’ve got no idea where to put all your books, Sam. I’ve got no intention of filling my bookcase with Forbidden Pleasures or whatever trash you’re reading when you say you’re too busy to see me.”
“But… why would you have my books?”
“Would you really be willing to move in with me without bringing them
? Because if you would, I’d be fine with that, really I would,” he says, momentarily putting his tablet down on the desk. “Anyway, are you going to get a move on? It’s already three, how are you going to be ready for six?”
He’s right, but I stand there, clinging to the handle and looking out into the corridor, wondering which side of the threshold I’d be best staying on to face the rest of the discussion.
“Dave…”
“What?” he answers, and without warning he comes over and slams the door shut.
“Let me see if I understand: in some absolutely bizarre way, are you trying to ask me to come and live with you?”
Dave smiles delightedly. I’m starting to suspect that he does everything he can to be in the wrong just to prove that he can then manage to win me over even in the most desperate situations. “I’m not asking you, Sam,” he murmurs.
I raise an eyebrow.
“I talked to your mother,” he continues. “She said that if I don’t take you, you’re going to be out in the street, because she’s sick of washing your clothes for you. Get used to it – you don’t have a roof over your head any more.”
“So it’s just out of human kindness.”
“If you want to look at it like that, yeah,” he says.
“And I’m supposed to be over the moon about the idea, I suppose?”
“Well, that would be good, yes,” he says threateningly.
“Dave…” I say, glaring at him. “Dave…”
“Ssh!” He kisses me.
“Dave, look…”
“Ssh!” he says, kissing me again.
“But do you realise…”
“You don’t have to thank me,” kiss, “I’m glad to do it,” and another kiss. “But now hurry up,” kiss, “it’s at six o’clock,” kiss, “don’t forget.”
I leave his office in a state of shock. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to put up with him for the rest of my life,” I mutter to myself. “I might kill him.”
