Page 60 of The Man Who Didn't Call
I lay in Jenni’s spare bed, listening to Javier loading his truck outside. On his radio a man spoke in rapid Spanish about the wildfire roaring across the dry hills of California.El fuego avanca rápidamente hacia nosotros, he said.The fire is coming at us fast.When he said the word ‘fire’ his voice slowed right down, caressing each syllable like a new flame licking through paper.Fu-e-go.
Jenni was playing Diana Ross in the shower, although she wasn’t singing along. The boiler was groaning. Next door’s cat was making childlike wails, which meant Frappuccino was out in the yard.
I rolled over onto my back and rubbed my belly.
There was a man out there, somewhere, a nameless man I’d been thinking about for nineteen years. I didn’t know his face or his voice, had nothing to go on beyond his surname, but I’d always known I’d recognize him when he found me. I would look him in the eye and I’d just know.
Which was why Eddie David couldn’t be that man, I told myself. Despite the fact that his surname was wrong, I’d have sensed who he was the moment I met him. I’d have known.
The fire is coming at us fast.
Without warning I got up and ran to the toilet and threw up.
‘A school-night hangover!’ Kaia held a smile in those pleasant eyes of hers, so I’d know she wasn’t judging me. ‘You’re making me feel old, Sarah.’
I crouched in front of our little fridge, crammed with salads and wraps, and closed my eyes. I couldn’t eat my lunch. I couldn’t face even finding it. ‘You shouldn’t be impressed,’ I said. ‘You should judge me. I deserve it.’ I pulled myself up.
‘We’ve all been there,’ Kaia said. She was huddled over something by the kettle, as if to shield it from my view. I peered miserably over her shoulder and saw, as expected, a perky salad.
I wish she weren’t so good at handling me, I thought.Or so bloody thoughtful.She was only hiding that salad so I wouldn’t feel bad about myself. Above all I wished she weren’t here in our office. Yesterday her excuse for coming had been that she had some insight to share from a recent fundraisers’ meeting at the Children’s Hospital, but today there had been no explanation. She’d just wandered in at ten and sat at a computer. Even Jenni was annoyed.
I went back to my desk with a glass of water in one hand and a tremor in the other. Reuben and Kaia went out onto our little roof terrace for lunch.
I tried to read my emails, but once again the words were shapeless and floppy. I tried to drink the water, but my stomach wasn’t having it.Ice!it told me.The water has to be iced!I dragged myself back to the kitchen, only to find the ice tray in the freezer empty. I sat back down at my desk and watched my husband and his girlfriend canoodling outside. Kaia was sitting in the crook of Reuben’s arm.
‘I can’t do this,’ someone said.
Me, I realized, after a pause. I had said it.
I almost laughed. Here I was, shaking, nauseous, dizzy,now talking to myself at my desk. What next? Animal sounds? A nude streak?
Then: ‘I can’t,’ I heard myself say. My voice was coming from a part of me I couldn’t control. ‘I can’t do it. Any of it.’
I escorted myself quickly into our meeting room.
Stop this, I told myself, closing the door behind me.Stop this immediately.I wandered around the table, pretending to text someone; looked at them again. Kaia kissed Reuben’s forehead. A stray cat watched them from the roof of a neighbouring Botox clinic. Behind them rose the straggle of high-rise buildings over in Downtown.
‘I can’t do this.’
Stop it!
Anyone would feel unsettled watching her ex-husband fall in love again, I reasoned. It was OK to feel upset.
Only it wasn’t about Reuben and Kaia.
The fire is coming at us fast.
I tried to stop the words worming their way to my mouth but hadn’t the strength. ‘I want to go home,’ I said.
The meeting room hummed quietly.
‘Stop it,’ I whispered. Hot tears prickled. ‘Stop it. This is your home.’
No, it’s not. This was never more than a hiding place.
But I love this city! I love it!
That doesn’t make it home.
