Either way, I don’t think she’s right to say:
‘It’s not a big deal.’
‘It isn’t?’
‘Absolutely not. Unless you are sleeping with him, in which case it’s such a big deal it’s kind of blowing my mind.’
‘I’m not sleeping with Mr Henderson,’ I say, as I take the recliner next to hers. It’s cold and vaguely damp from the misty morning air, but I barely register it. I’m all in with this conversation now, and nothing else matters.
Not even a moist backside.
‘In fact, I’m kind of offended that you could think so.’
‘Well, you’re leaving me very few guessing options. You suddenly want to come out here, you’re being all mysterious, you’re barely even trying to hide your tears behind that strain-face you do … none of that is like you.’
I glance away at the ocean, searching for something that isn’t there.
Myself, maybe.
‘Then what is me?’
‘Movie Friday nights and failed relationships.’
‘That sounds terrible.’
‘It’s not so bad. The former is fun and you’re usually much more excited about the latter.’
‘Excited?’ I ask, and though I try to stop my voice squeaking with incredulity, I definitely fail. I sound like Mickey Mouse on helium.
‘Sure. You hate being in relationships. You can’t wait to escape and once you have you feign sadness for five minutes before rolling right back into your safe little life.’
‘That’s … that’s quite an assessment.’
‘A cruel assessment?’
‘Maybe a little,’ I say, but what I really mean is a lot. I can’t tell her that, however. If I do I’ll have to explain how close it is to the bone. I’ll have to talk about Janos and running away, when just thinking about it is making me hyperventilate.
Do I really have such an obvious pattern? I try to think back, but all I can make out as far as the eye can see is an endless stream of assholes and idiots, most of whom deserved relief after being discarded. There was Mick who stole from me and Derek with his penchant for prostitutes and Paul with constant passive-aggressive gaslighting. I remember him saying, once: ‘No, I didn’t say you were fat, babe. I said, wouldn’t it be great if you could fit into a size eight?’
I can’t be blamed for running away from these men.
But it’s possible I can be blamed for running away from Janos. He didn’t steal, or make me feel bad about my body shape. I’m not even sure if I can describe what he did do.
So, instead, more deflection.
‘And anyway, you’ve got room to talk. What exactly are you doing here, in the middle of some Mediterranean nowhere? You know, I thought you’d gotten involved with some underworld criminal,’ I say, and I swear I do it in all seriousness. For a while those were my real and honest thoughts, but in response to them she just cackles.
‘Criminal underworld?’ she asks, then again on an increasing scale of incredulity. ‘I just wanted to relax in the sun, Lissa. Nothing bad happened.’
‘Well, I can probably see that now,’ I say, but my tone is too sullen and too whiny. I have to haul it all the way back before I can deliver my trump card: ‘But come on – I find out you’re going to these secret rendezvous, and the next thing I know you’re gone. What was I supposed to think?’
She gives me a look I recognise only too well – her sly I’ve got you now look. Her little pink mouth purses and her eyes gleam in a way that reminds me too much of Janos, before she sing-songs her point.
‘So you unearthed my diary.’
I flush red and fumble around for a second.
‘It’s not like I had to unearth it,’ I say, and her smile broadens.
‘No, I guess that’s fair enough. I didn’t exactly hide it.’
‘You wanted me to find it, didn’t you?’
‘I might have done.’
‘And now you’re torturing me.’
‘A tiny bit.’
‘It wasn’t Mr Henderson, you know.’
‘That’s starting to occur to me.’
‘It was someone I met … someone I met …’ I start, but I can’t finish the job. There’s this big chunk of oxygen caught in the back of my throat, and the more she leans forward – partly disbelieving, partly enthralled by something stupid old me is about to say – the harder it gets to say it.
So it’s lucky, really, that she says it for me.
‘Oh, my God. It’s someone you met through an assignation.’
‘It’s … possible that’s the case.’
This time she doesn’t just slap the arm of her chair. She yells aloud the words ‘Shut’ and ‘up’, and almost gets to her feet. I have the overwhelming impression that she’s going to applaud – or wants to. I don’t know why, but she definitely wants to.
‘You mean you actually went on one, and shagged some guy, and then things got serious? Is that honestly what you’re saying to me right now?’
‘I want it to be, but I’m kind of frightened by your shock.’
She throws back her head and laughs, but it doesn’t sting as much as it should. Mainly because she mitigates it with the sweetest gesture ever – a kind of squeezing of my upper arm, and a little shake, and these soft words that almost make me tear up.
‘You have no idea how cool you can be, my good friend,’ she says, and suddenly there’s all this pricking going on behind my eyes. I guess I just didn’t realise how much I’d missed her. And I especially didn’t realise that she might have missed me. That I am important to her, or interesting to her, or cool – even though I’m always sure I can’t possibly be.
‘It wasn’t really all that amazing.’
‘No?’
‘I hid the first time I went,’ I say, and she laughs again. God, she’s so sunny when she laughs. It’s like the dawn breaking over my dark little melodrama.
‘That’s so you.’
‘I thought I was searching for you – and I kind of was. But then later I realised …’
‘You actually wanted to see what happened,’ she finishes for me, nodding in this knowing way. ‘That’s so you, too.’
‘It is?’
‘Oh, sure. You pretend to yourself that you don’t really want something all the time. In fact, I think you once said to me that it’s better not to hope for stuff, because then you can’t be crushingly disappointed when it doesn’t happen.’
I blanch, but I can’t deny it.
‘That does sound like me.’
‘Is that what you did here? Blew something off before you could start hoping?’
I think her words turn me to stone. There’s really no other explanation for the way I freeze in position, mouth pinched and eyes just ever so slightly wide. I’d say it was some sort of reaction to the truth, but it can’t be, it isn’t, that’s not why I did this.
Even if it probably is why I did this.
‘It wasn’t … really like that.’
‘So what was it like?’
‘I don’t know. I thought it would just be some exciting sex. And it was, but then …’
For once, it’s her on the edge of her seat and me telling the gripping tale. She’s really leaning forward now, but of course the problem is – I just want her to lean back. There’s a reason why it’s usually the other way around, and it’s mostly because I don’t know how to do this. I’m not good at the details, like her. I’m not good at framing the whole thing and getting right to the heart of it.
Though I suspect part of this is that I don’t want to get to the heart of it. I’m not even sure how to describe the exciting sex part, if I’m honest. She gets this look on her face when I say those words – half-intrigued, half-disbelieving – and it’s rather intimidating.
Maybe it won’t sound real, I think.
Because it doesn’t sound real to me.
‘We started … meeting regularly, I guess.’
‘You met one of the assignations regularly?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Like, more than once.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘And you know how rare that is, right?’
‘I’ve been told.’
‘But it happened anyway,’ she says, and now I’m sweating.
‘I swear I’m not making this up,’ I fumble out, but she doesn’t narrow her eyes or anything. She just pats my hand, and says more soothing things.
‘Hon, I know you’re not. It’s obvious you’re not. This is just me, marvelling. I went to three of those things, and each time it was a different guy, and uniformly they were all as cold as ice. If I’d suggested meeting for a second time I’m pretty sure they would have asked why I was speaking in another language. It’s just not that kind of deal.’
‘So … what made you go?’
She laughs.
‘For the same reasons they did. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to be involved in something sexy and exciting – so did you! Everyone wants that, sometimes.’
‘Then what made you stop?’
‘I wanted a different kind of sexy and exciting. Which I guess is true of you too.’ She leans back in her chair and gives me this long, considering look before continuing. ‘Now you’re in this deep, huh?’
‘I guess you could say that.’
‘What’s up? He push for too much?’
I know it’s possible that she means the right kind of pushing – the one I actually felt from him. But instinct tells me she means another kind of pushing altogether. She’s still thinking in terms of the assignations, and all the kinky things he could have possibly asked me to do. In her head she’s got him dressed up a gimp suit, and me running around naked at some sex party.
I can tell.
Her expression is all curls and half-horror.
‘Janos isn’t like that. He didn’t –’ I start, but she cuts in.
She really, really cuts in. She even holds her hands up, as though she’s a lollipop lady and I’m at some junction I’m not supposed to be crossing.
‘Wait. Wait. Did you say Janos?’
I come close to just answering in the affirmative, and probably would have done if I hadn’t heard that note in her voice. It’s low and deadly, and it says, Beware, Alissa. Tread lightly.
‘Erm … no. I said –’
‘Don’t even try to turn Janos into John.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘You so were. Oh, my God, oh, my God, you’re talking about Janos Kovacs. This whole cryptic conversation is about Janos Kovacs. Please tell me it isn’t about Janos Kovacs.’
I wring my hands and little and sweat a whole lot, but ultimately answer.
‘I don’t know how to do that, now.’
‘He doesn’t even touch the women he hooks up with. Did you know that? Does he touch you?’ she asks, but she’s too breathless for me to formulate a response. Suddenly I’m seeing the whole thing through new eyes, and it’s making my heart beat too fast. It’s making her heart beat too fast. ‘No, wait, don’t tell me. If he doesn’t, I just want to live vicariously through you for a second and pretend he does.’
‘Well, I –’
‘Stop. Stop. I’m still pretending.’
She really is. She’s got her eyes closed, and seems to be fondling the air with her fingers. And whenever I try to interrupt her she shushes me, until I’m fairly sure I’m just sitting here watching someone having imaginary sex with my boyfriend.
Despite the fact that he isn’t my boyfriend. I don’t know why I just thought of him that way, because he definitely isn’t. And even if he was, he absolutely can’t be now. He probably hates me. Or whatever he does that passes for hatred – mild condescension, perhaps?
‘Do you think you could maybe describe his naked body a bit so I can imagine this better?’
‘What? No. No! Stop … doing whatever this is,’ I say, and then I flap my hands a bit in a manner that could be mistaken for jealousy. If I was a crazy person who is totally in love with him. Which I am not.
‘Ohhhh, I bet that means it’s really great, right? He’s all burly underneath, isn’t he? He has to be. And hairy, I bet he’s hairy.’
‘It’s … possible that he’s hairy.’
‘And God, he’s so handsome. Is he that handsome close up?’
I have to swallow thickly around a lump that isn’t there, but I get some words out.
‘He’s very handsome.’
‘Plus … he’s got to be charming.’
‘I’d say so, yeah.’
‘And dashing.’
‘Oh, well. You could probably call him that.’
‘And you love him.’
I’m looking at my hands when she slips those words in there, but I can’t keep doing it once they’re out. I have to hurl a sharp stare in her direction, to show my complete and utter disavowal of what she’s saying. And I have words planned, too. Harsh words that imply she knows nothing.
It’s just a shame they don’t make it out of me. And the stare? It’s not half as sharp as I’d like it to be. Actually, it’s soft in the middle, and if I was really going to put a label on it I’d say it makes me think of two hands reaching out.
Thank God she takes them.
‘It’s going to be OK, you know.’
‘You really think so?’ I ask, but I do it in far too cheery a way.
It makes her crashing practicality that much more disheartening.
‘Mostly? No. You’re in love with Janos Kovacs – things could not be more terrifying. But the main thing is: I’m going to do my level best to help you through this trying time.’
‘That’s good of you. It really is. But I don’t think there’s anything you could do to make this feeling go away, to be honest.’
‘That bad, huh?’
‘It’s like someone shot me, and I just don’t know it yet,’ I say, intending something light-hearted. I’m perpetually intending light-heartedness here. It’s just that my words aren’t coming out that way. They’re coming out so red in tooth and claw, and, once they’re in front of us all bloody and raw, her eyes do this awful thing.
I think a shadow actually passes across them.
‘He’s not worth it, Liss. A man like that … he’s never going to be more than what he is. He’s never going to fall in love and sweep you off your feet. That’s a fairytale.’
She’s right, of course. I’ve heard the same story a thousand times before, in a thousand different ways. The rich prince somehow magically becomes a great guy with a big heart, despite how ludicrous that is when you boil it down. Nobody gets to be where Janos is by being good, and kind, and decent. Reality doesn’t work that way.
Reality is the thing you have to face once you’ve finished convincing yourself that romance exists. I know it is. She knows it is.
And yet …
‘So what happens if he really did fall in love and swept me off my feet?’
She falls silent then, for a long, long time.
Too long a time, if I’m being honest. I have to fill it with something, quickly.
‘But I didn’t feel like I fitted into his world, so I ran away without saying anything.’
I think I expect her expression to change here. Only no change comes. She just keeps on looking at me with that liquid darkness in her eyes, completely devoid of any disapproval.
It makes it easier to keep talking.
And maybe harder, at the same time. Partway through she puts her hand over mine, and the next thing I know I’m leaking. I’m leaking slow, sad tears like some pathetic cartoon puppy, while spewing words at a thousand miles an hour.
‘I fucked it all up, Luce. He did all of this stuff for me – all of this Pretty Woman sort of stuff that every girl in the world probably likes, apart from me. I hated it. I hated it. I hated dressing up in the clothes he bought for me and going to the salon appointments he made for me. It made me think he wanted this glitzy and glamorous woman to fit into his precious perfect world and I … I just cou
ldn’t. I started to feel like a different person, and the next thing I know I’m on a plane. I’m on a plane, flying away from Janos Kovacs.’
Christ, it sounds so bad when I put it like that in black and white: I flew away from the man she just shit a brick over. I flew away from him, and no amount of her telling me hey hey hey it’s OK, it’s OK is going to change what I’ve done.
I’m a bad, stupid person, and need to express as much.
‘But that’s a terrible reason to just run away from someone, right?’ I ask, then rush on before she can interrupt with the verdict. It’s one I already know, anyway. ‘Wait … wait. You don’t have to say. I know it is. I can feel that it is.’
‘Calm down, babe. Calm down – stop clutching at yourself,’ she says, before I even realise I’m doing it. She says the words and I glance down, and there’s my hand making twisting shapes in the airplane clothes I’m still wearing. ‘It’s not that terrible a reason, OK? Or at least it doesn’t seem like too terrible a reason based on what I can discern from all that frantic babbling. Most women like the idea of Pretty Woman, but don’t actually want to live it, for God’s sake. Who wants to be controlled by an eccentric billionaire? I’ll tell you who: no one. No one in the known universe.’
‘Some people might.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as … people … who … like billions of dollars.’
‘Well, there is that contingency.’
‘And … women who fancy … Richard Gere.’
‘I’m sure he has fans,’ she says, in a way that suggests she doesn’t think so at all. She likes hot young studs more than anything else, of the sort I saw milling around on our way up here. She’s never been a fan of older rich men, and to be honest neither have I.
That word – rich – keeps tripping me up, no matter how hard I try to avoid it.
‘You don’t really think he is, though, do you?’
Run To You Page 21
