by Jo Watson
“Nope,” I said. This was such a familiar conversation, really; I’d had it almost every time I changed schools, every time I went to a dentist, a doctor, picked up a letter from the post office, tried to take out a credit card at my bank, or a cell-phone contract. I knew this script so well. In fact, next he would probably say, Wow, that’s an inter—
“That’s an interesting name,” he said.
Aha! Told you. I sighed again, waiting for the questions about how I came to be Pebecca. Only, they didn’t come.
“Can I see your ID too, please?”
“Why, does it sound made up?” I asked, half-joking.
“Can I just see your ID book, please?” He passed my driver’s license back and I gave him my ID book. He flipped it open and scanned it. Once he had found the word he was clearly looking for, he stared at it for a few seconds and then started nodding.
“It was a mistake,” I quickly added. “My mom was crying—there was some water, she was using that ink that feathers, you know? It was, that is to say, the line kind of disappeared and . . .” I stopped talking. I always had such a need to explain this. “It’s a mission to change it. I tried once, but you know those queues at Home Affairs. And then this other time they lost the paperwork, so, you know . . . stuck with it!”
He nodded. “My uncle’s name was Barnabus,” he said with a small smile. “If anyone could have done with a name change, it was him.”
I smiled back at him. This was also a usual response. People always tried to make me feel better by telling me about their friend or family member or someone they met that had a worse name. It always made me feel like shit. As if there was something wrong with me.
“Miss Pebecca Thorne, would you mind opening the trunk of the car for me, please?”
“What?” I asked.
“Please can you open the trunk of your vehicle, ma’am?” he repeated as he walked to the back of my car.
“This is ridiculous,” I gushed. “I mean, I don’t have bolt cutters or explosives in there. I’m not the bloody Unabomber, for heaven’s sake.”
“Unabomber? Why would you mention him?” He looked up at me again. God, I kept saying the wrong thing and I wished I could just shut the hell up!
“Fine. Fine.” I shuffled over to the back and popped the trunk. A solitary suitcase filled the space and we both looked down at it. It was a rather expensive suitcase that I’d bought on a whim before traveling business class. I’d thought that, if I rocked up with crappy luggage, they might not allow me on the flight. It was a stupid purchase, really, and now all the big, blingy, gold LVs on the bag just made it look like I was heading off to star in a hip-hop video with Cardi B or Ice-T or D O double G.
“Please open your suitcase,” he commanded.
“Is this really necessary?” I asked nervously.
“Please.” His tone was very firm now and I did what he asked. I removed my hands from between my legs and unzipped the bag, and then watched in horror as he started riffling through it, pushing bras and panties out the way to get to the bottom. I could see he was trying not to touch them, pushing them aside with quick flicks of his wrist. But, because of this, one of them went flying out of the trunk and landed on his foot with a loud thud. The thud was completely silent, actually, since the panties in question were nothing more than some pink lace and elastic, but I swear I could hear it as loudly as a drum. We both looked down at the pink lace now capping his big, black boot.
“Uh . . .” He bent down quickly and hesitated before picking them up. “Sorry,” he said awkwardly. I could see he didn’t know how to handle them, as he picked them up with his pinkie and swung them towards me. I grabbed them from him and shoved them into my pocket. His eyes drifted down to my pocket, and that’s when I realized that my hands were no longer between my legs, hiding my other panties. This was a disaster. Within a few moments of meeting me, this man was already an expert in my underwear. I quickly put my hands back between my legs and he looked away. He riffled through the bag again and, after a thorough search, he finally zipped it back up and closed the trunk.
“I told you you wouldn’t find anything,” I said, when he was done. “I’m just an author.”
“Would I have read anything that you’ve written?”
“You might have,” I said. “The Heart is Just a Muscle.”
“Wait!” Suddenly, his entire demeanor changed. His body language relaxed and his once-stiff shoulders slumped slightly. “Becca Thorne? The Becca Thorne?” he asked.
“Yup, that’s me,” I said nervously. My cover was completely blown. Had I wanted to be incognito, that was all over now.
“Oh my God, that book was everywhere. It was huge. It was all anyone spoke about. I even bought it for a friend for Christmas. She loved it!” And now he smiled at me. He smiled at me and my insides seemed to scramble about, like eggs in a frying pan. His smile grew. So did mine. And then he leaned forward and looked me straight in the eyes. My body tensed. “Although, I must say, you look nothing like your author picture.”
I felt my cheeks blush from the embarrassing memory of that awkward photo shoot. “Uh . . . yes. There was a lot of make-up and they scraped my hair back, and Photoshop, you know.”
“You’re not wearing your glasses, either,” he noted.
I shook my head. “I don’t wear glasses. My agent thought it would look better if I did wear glasses, though. Make me more intellectual, less . . . uh . . . well, I guess, less me.”
“I thought you were a brunette,” he said, eyeing my hair.
“Black and white photos. They thought it would make me look more serious, or arty, or . . . I don’t know what they were trying to do.”
He looked at me for a while before speaking again. “So, what brings a famous author to our small town?” His voice had taken on a whole new quality. Gone were those stern police-y replies and steely looks. Maybe this was my lucky day; maybe he would forget that I’d tried to climb a fence.
“You know . . . writing. I wanted to get away from it all, the hustle and bustle of Jo’burg. Find some quiet little spot to write. A change of scenery for some inspiration.” I was spurting out all those romanticized writer clichés. What people thought we writers did. Go off to country retreats and stay in log cabins and write by burning wood fires. The reality is that most of us are slumped over a dirty, messy desk that has a pot of yesterday’s half-finished yoghurt growing fungus on it. Empty coffee cups, floss (because you eat at your desk, now, too) and more highlighters and pens than common sense.
“Do you have a new book coming out soon?” he asked. His eyes seemed to have lit up a little now. Green, like malachite—that was the color of his eyes.
“I do. Indeed,” I said reticently. Just thinking about the book made me break out in a cold sweat.
“That’s exciting,” he said, looking even more relaxed.
“My deadline is in three weeks,” I blurted out, just because I needed to get that off my chest. “Right around the corner, really. No time to lose,” I said, a little more frantically this time.
“Wow! That’s soon.” He took his cap off and ran his hands through his hair. My knees seemed to quiver in response to this.
Okay—confession time: I’ve always had a thing for a man in a uniform. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s some totally anti-feminist biological predisposition we women have to being rescued. The knight, the fireman, the policeman—men in uniform, rushing in to save us. I know, I know. That’s about as unfeminist as giving a woman a Hoover for Christmas. But I wasn’t concerned with feminism as he looked at me with those eyes. That scruffy, ash-blonde hair, made messy by the cap, that perfect face, broad shoulders . . . My eyes drifted down to his feet . . . Such large shoes.
“How’s it coming?” he asked, and my throat went dry.
“Sorry . . . who’s coming?”
“The book. How’s it coming?” he asked, with a small smile.
I cleared my throat. “Good. Just doing my research,” I lied. The book wasn’t
coming at all. In fact, it was probably coming as little as I was at the moment. Which was not at all, since I hadn’t been with a man in many, many, many moons. Why was I thinking about this now? Our eyes met for a split second before we both looked away quickly. Wow. I wasn’t sure if he’d felt that, but I had: a loud buzz in my ears accompanied by a sudden dizzying sensation and an instant dry mouth, as if someone had just poured that stuff you find in that little sachet in the bottom of pill jars into my mouth. I tried to run my tongue over my teeth to wet them; it felt like it stuck.
“Well—” he looked past me and at the fence—“I guess there was no harm done, here. But, please, don’t climb fences again. Even if it is just for research.” He started moving towards his car and I panicked. I didn’t want him to leave.
“Wait, what’s your name?” I called out, taken aback by the urgency in my voice.
He smiled at me again. “I’m Mike,” he said, still backing away to his car. “Mike Wooldridge.”
“Cool. Captain Policeman Mike Wooldridge,” I said. “I’m Becca Thorne.”
He stopped walking and then let out a small chuckle. “I know.” And then he was opening his car door. He stopped and looked back at me. “By the way, I expect you to drive off when I do.” He looked over at my car and then back at me. “Your last book must have done really well. Congratulations.” Clearly he was referring to the stupidly overpriced vehicle that I’d only really bought to show up a certain someone I despised. It was all rather juvenile, really. But it had always been his dream car, so, after what he’d done, I thought it would be a nice kick in the balls if I bought one.
“You are going to drive away, aren’t you?” he asked again, when I didn’t respond.
“Of course.” I jumped, and then remembered the hole in my jeans. I shuffled sideways to my car, hands still stuck over my crotch as if I was scared something might fall out of me. “Okay. Bye.” I started opening the door and looked at him.
“Bye,” he said, but didn’t move. And neither did I. I felt glued to the spot. I couldn’t move—didn’t want to move.
“I should really get going,” he said again, still not moving.
“Me too.” I nodded at him, holding the eye contact he was making.
“I hope your book goes well,” he said.
“I hope your policing goes well,” I replied.
And then he shot me a smile. So big, so wide, so . . . wow! The smile lit up his entire face, it lit up the entire world, and I’m pretty sure it made global temperatures rise by at least a degree or two. Could this smile be responsible for global warming?
“No more fences, though!” He waggled a finger at me.
I shook my head stupidly. I was slightly entranced by this man. “Uh-uh,” I managed to mumble, and then we still both stood there looking at each other.
“Well . . .” he muttered, and then stopped talking.
I leaned forward, waiting for the words after the “well” to come, but nothing did.
“Well?” I asked.
“Nothing. Just . . . nothing,” he said, a little strangely now. “I’ve really got to go,” he said, after more eye contact that seemed to linger way too long.
“Sure. Me too.” Wait, hadn’t we already said that? This felt like one of those moments when neither of you wants to hang up the phone. But then he hung up. It felt so abrupt.
He gave me a small wave. I waved back quickly. He climbed into his car and I did the same, and then, next thing I knew, we were both driving away. Driving off in different directions and why the hell did I feel so perturbed by that?
CHAPTER 12
I drove around aimlessly in my car for a while, weaving up and down the four streets that constituted this little town on the hill. It really was beautiful here, though. It was quaint and looked completely untouched by the modern world. This was confirmed when I saw a small video store that also masqueraded as a photocopying shop that also provided internet services. The shop was squeezed between a small art gallery and a pottery studio with a coffee shop. Colorful tables spilled out on to the pavement and were filled with people sipping coffee and eating home-made cakes. I made a mental note to stop there and grab one. I drove up to the highest part of the tortoise’s back, where the old church on the hill was perched. I parked my car and climbed out. I tied my jersey around my waist—to cover the giant hole in my crotch area—and walked up to the church, straight to the brass plaque by the door.
In memory of Father James McMillan. Hero and man of God.
Resting below the plaque were the remains of an old burnt cross, clearly put here to remember the fire and the original church that had once stood on this spot. I turned around and looked out over the sea and the river, just like Edith had done, so many years ago. The river was calm and so was the sea; it hadn’t been calm the day she’d stood here and decided to run away. Something caught my eye and I started moving towards it. I opened the little rusty gate to the small cemetery and walked in. The cemetery looked old, some of the headstones were completely covered in a tangle of weeds, their brown stone turned green from the moss growing on them. I crouched and looked at the small, broken headstone in front of me; the name was worn off, but there was a date there: 1874.
God, this place was old. I walked up to the huge oak tree that was growing straight out of the middle of the cemetery and seemed to be the highest point here. Its leaves were beginning to fall; a golden, orange carpet has started to form on the graves closest to it. I stood under its dappled light and looked around. The small town spread out below me: little houses, colorful gardens and beach cottages. It was strange being here, looking down at the town that I knew held such a secret story. An untold story.
I sat down on the ground with my back pressed into the tree and closed my eyes to listen to the soft sounds of the wind and birds. I let out a long, slow breath and my shoulders started to relax. While most people were afraid of cemeteries, I had found them to be a kind of sanctuary—well, one in particular. The graveyard where my dad was buried was one of the only constants in my life, growing up. And, when I was feeling lost, as I did a lot, I used to go there and sit by his grave and tell him stories about my life. They were all completely made up, of course, but I used to love doing it. In winter, I would take a flask of hot chocolate and a blanket and sit there telling him all about my exotic ski trips and about all my amazing friends at school and my latest award for sport or schoolwork. With him, I could be anyone I wanted. I could imagine my life to be better than it was. Imagine that I was a better person, too. The person I wanted to be.
I’ve never really missed my dad or mourned him. How can you miss something that you never knew and was never yours to begin with? But I have always felt an angry injustice at having him taken away from me like that. I think I might have quite liked having a dad. Oh well, what can one do . . . ?
I opened my eyes again and looked around. I felt at home, here, at peace. I pulled a letter out of my bag at random and started to read it.
15 February, 1948
I loved spending time with you yesterday, on Valentine’s Day, and I’m missing you more that I can put into words. I can’t wait to see you again. The truth is, I’m still so overwhelmed by this, by us. I can’t believe this is truly happening—that we are happening. You are, by far, the best thing that has ever happened to me. You. You. You. I don’t know how I can express enough how much I love you and how much you mean to me. I have never felt this way before, I have never been a part of something so big, so good and this full of beautiful possibilities. You have filled my heart and soul with love and I am forever changed and forever yours. I will love and care for you as if I have been tasked with caring for the most rare and precious thing in the universe. Words aren’t really doing this justice. I just wish I could express how important you are to me. You are everything and more. I can’t believe you even exist. You are a dream come true and I’ve found everything that I’ve been looking for. I cannot wait to spend more time with you. I’m loving
every second of getting to know you, Edith, and I cannot wait for what lies ahead.
You, me, forever.
Wow! I lowered the letter and stared straight ahead of me at the graves. Was Edith here? Could I have just walked past her? Or was she still alive? A noise made me look up, and, as soon as I saw what made it, I scrambled to my feet and worked my way around to the other side of the tree.
“Shit!” I hissed under my breath as I heard the car park and the door slam. I peered around the tree, careful not to let him see me—again. I watched as he stood there for a while with a confused look on his face. He looked at my car and then looked around the parking lot. He walked over to my car and my heart started beating a little faster when he took a small notebook out of his pocket and scribbled my license plate down. Then he walked up to the church and tried the door. It was locked. He turned again and I saw his eyes widen in acknowledgment. What was he looking at? I followed his gaze . . . I’d left the gate open! I really wasn’t good at this criminal stuff, was I?
He started walking towards the cemetery and I knew he was going to find me here, and what would I tell him I was doing? Just chilling here because I like cemeteries. Well, that just made me sound odd. And I was sure he already thought I was odd. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I reached down and picked up a flower from the nearest grave—God, I was going straight to hell for this—and I casually walked towards one of the gravestones.
“Becca.”
I heard my name and I swung around in pretend-surprise. I gasped for authenticity.
“Mike. Detecti . . . uh . . . Officer . . . uh . . . Captain . . . ?”
He smiled. “Mike is fine,” he said, as he walked towards me. He stopped when he was a few meters away and then folded his arms and looked me straight in the eyes.
A thump in my chest.
A punch in my gut.
A palpitation.
Strange queasiness.
A fuzzy buzz washing over me.
A flutter.
What was happening . . . ? AGAIN!
