A Life Without You

by Shari Low

  Anyway, I’d also responded to Dee’s business emails, telling some that I knew she had a personal relationship with that she’d died, and just letting the others know that I’d be the new point of contact, but not giving an explanation as to why.

  News of her death had been in our local newspaper but it hadn’t made the nationals and we were grateful for that. Val absolutely didn’t want it to turn into a media circus. She’d banned us from mentioning it on Facebook or any other social networking sites and we were only too happy to agree. It had been one of Dee’s big bugbears. She hated it when someone died and suddenly their Facebook and Twitter pages were full of woeful comments of loss and regret from people they’d met once at a bus stop. Her words.

  ‘When I cop it, don’t you dare let that happen to me. No eulogy. No false, patronizing crap,’ she’d proclaimed. ‘And if Danny Jones from school posts a single message of sadness, write back that I still think he was a complete twonk for two-timing me in first year.’

  I’d dissolved into giggles. ‘What makes you think I’ll still be here? You’re bound to outlive me,’ I’d countered.

  ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘Dee, you run three times a week so you’ve got the cardiovascular system of a racehorse. I do no exercise whatsoever, so I have the cardiovascular system of a geriatric donkey on twenty fags a day.’

  ‘True,’ she’d accepted. ‘OK. So I’ll sort you out then. Who do you want postmortem messages of revenge delivered to?’

  I thought about it. ‘You can tell my dad he was crap, but that’s hardly a newsflash. Other than that…’ I pondered some more. ‘Nope, I’ve got nothing.’

  She’d sat back, stretched, then twisted her hair up and stuck a pencil in it to hold it in place. I’d seen her do that a thousand times before and it still made me smile ‘Jen, you really need to get a bit more excitement in your life. By your age there should be a few more grudges. Get out there. Live dangerously. Take a few risks. Do some stuff you’re absolutely not supposed to do. Piss people off,’ she’d went on, enjoying the theme.

  ‘You’re right,’ I’d said, knowing absolutely for sure that she wasn’t. All those things were Dee’s domain. I’d settle for stability, contentment and predictability. That was my comfort zone. A psychologist would have a field day with that. Losing my mum at an early age. A father who had zero responsibility and cared for nothing except himself and where his next pint was coming from. I didn’t ever want to play the victim card because I was lucky – the fact that he was so useless had compelled Val and Don to swoop in and take care of me and make me their own, which was a much better deal than living with my dad, even on the rare occasions that he was home and sober and he remembered he had a child. However, I’d be naïve to think my childhood didn’t shape my need for security, just as Dee’s unwavering surety that her mum and dad would support everything she ever did, and always be there to catch her if she fell, gave her the confidence to take crazy risks and occasionally live on the edge.

  My mind went a full circle now. Was that what she’d been doing here? Taking a risk and living on the edge?

  No. She wouldn’t play fast and loose with Luke’s heart and their marriage like that.

  ‘So tell me, Jen…’ Another conversation came back to me, this time on our couches in my living room on a Sunday afternoon. ‘Hypothetically… If you could have a wild night with someone, say… Matt Damon… and you absolutely knew there was no way you’d ever get caught, would you do it?’

  I’d laughed. ‘Yeah, because Matt Damon is lying in bed in the Hollywood Hills right now thinking, “I need to fire up the jet and get to Scotland because I’m dying to shag that Jen chick who works in Sun, Sea, Ski.”’

  ‘You have no powers of imagination at all, do you?’ she’d retorted, feigning disgust.

  ‘None at all,’ I’d agreed. ‘But no. Not even Matt Damon. I’d be too self-conscious about my cellulite. What about you?’ I carried on the hypothesis because it was making us laugh in between chocolate Hob Nobs. ‘You can’t have Matt Damon in case I change my mind; it would be weird for us to sleep with the same guy…’

  ‘Yes, that’s what would be weird about this scenario,’ she’d said, giggling.

  I continued, unperturbed by the sarcasm, ‘If you could sleep with… Ben Affleck without getting caught, would you do it?’

  ‘In a heartbeat,’ she’d replied. ‘Did you see him in Batman? Would need some amount of talc to get that suit off though.’

  I pushed up on to one elbow so I could face her. ‘You’d honestly sleep with another guy?’

  ‘It’s not any normal guy. Batman has superpowers,’ she’d said.

  I had an urge to probe deeper. ‘And if it wasn’t Batman? If it was just some gorgeous bloke that you met and you knew you’d never get caught. Would you?’

  She was going to say no. Of course she was. Absolutely. I’d put my life savings on it.

  ‘I don’t know. Situation has never arisen.’

  Just as well I didn’t actually have any life savings.

  She’d answered my question, but not with a definitive ‘no’, and now, as I traipsed through the streets of the East Village, I couldn’t help wondering two things. One, why hadn’t I got a bloody cab – this place was much further than I thought. And two, was that what was going on here? Had she found herself in a scenario that she felt she could get away with having a fling and gone for it?

  I had an involuntary shudder and not just because of the cold.

  Nope, I wasn’t buying it. She wouldn’t. For all the reasons I’d mentally listed earlier, the biggest being her love for her husband, she absolutely wouldn’t.

  ‘Evening ma’am.’

  Thank God. A large guy with a bald head, shoulders the width of a sun lounger and a southern accent greeted me at the door to the club. He showed me inside, where a beautiful black woman, hair parted in the middle and flowing down her back, flashed her perfect, gleaming smile. The one I returned was somewhat substandard. I made a mental note to look into teeth whitening when I got home.

  ‘Hi, I think I have a reservation under the name Dee Harper?’

  The maître d’ checked her iPad. ‘You do indeed. Let me take your coat and then if you’d like to follow me.’

  She checked my coat in at a small desk, then led me into the club. It was dark, and not yet busy, still early for the Friday night jazz scene to have got into the swing of things. The club was like the old speakeasies I’d seen in the movies. Dim lighting, just little lamps on small round tables, maybe thirty of them in the room. Deep red walls and a black carpet beneath my feet. On the stage at the front, bordered by red velvet curtains, was a lone guy with a saxophone, fingers moving like they were dancing across the notes.

  I was shown to a front table at the far right of the stage, where a waitress appeared almost instantly. ‘Hi, my name is Candy and I’ll be serving you tonight. What can I get you to drink?’

  ‘A vodka tonic please.’ I rarely drank, but tonight it seemed like it was the right thing to do.

  ‘Of course.’ Candy headed off to the little bar I’d noticed at the back of the room, while I scanned the other tables, curiosity getting the better of me. Two tables had older couples sitting at them. I could make out the faces of the lady and gent closest to me, probably in their late seventies, both swaying almost hypnotically to the music. I noticed they were holding hands and immediately tears sprung to my eyes. What the hell was going on with me? I rarely cried, but lately I felt like I was a wailing mess every two minutes. I didn’t even know why I was bloody crying. Actually, I realised, I did. I thought that would be Pete and I one day. Sitting in a café or a bar, in our seventies, still holding hands. Now that wasn’t ever going to happen and I didn’t even have my best pal here to make it better. And then I was bloody crying again. Dee would love this place. Had she been here already or was this her first time? I’d never heard her mention it, and as far as I knew she’d never blogged about it, but she’d
been to New York so many times over the last decade that I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been and just forgotten to mention it.

  Focus. Don’t wallow. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

  I cast my gaze around the room again. It was the kind of place where I felt I should be smoking an exotic cigarette, even though the one time I’d tried it I’d vomited into Val’s cabbage patch and forced her to scrap that year’s crop. Two tables had single guys at them. Nope, make that three. I caught the eye of a tall, suited guy who was being led to a table near mine by the beautiful maitre d’.

  Our connection lasted a split second and then he turned his attention to the waitress who’d appeared beside him and didn’t give me another glance. Two other single blokes, one in his fifties, the other maybe a similar age to me, were eyes front to the stage, engrossed in the music. Further along the front row, a woman, wearing a silk jacket that was a kaleidoscope of colour, tapped her red-painted fingernails on the table in time to the music.

  The waitress brought my drink and I sipped at it while mentally collecting snippets for the blog that I’d write up when I got back to the hotel. The décor, the vibe, the people, the music. This was a quintessential New York night. That was the headline. Dee would have come up with something better, but I wasn’t as good at the creative stuff as she was. Maybe Luke could help until I got into the rhythm of it.

  I could see Luke and Dee here. I thought again how this was her kind of place. To be honest, I wasn’t much for jazz, but she’d love the music, the ambience, and the hint of decadence about it all.

  My drink seemed to have evaporated so I ordered another one. The room was starting to fill up now and the sax player had been joined on stage by a double bass and a trumpet. All three were playing a bluesy tune that seemed brand new and recognizable all at the same time.

  The second drink appeared on the table, then a third, and I realised halfway through that third drink that either my body or the room was starting to sway. I kind of liked it, but I knew what that meant – I was about one more drink away from a cabbage patch situation and a hangover that would render me useless all day tomorrow. Time to head for my New York home. I had enough to write about and the club was getting pretty busy so they could probably do with my table back.

  Outside, I got lucky and jumped into a cab vacated by a man who had just alighted. He held the door open for me and did an exaggerated bow. ‘After you.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ I said. It might have been slightly slurred but hopefully he didn’t notice. No wonder Dee always said I was such a lightweight in the alcohol stakes. I’d had what? Three vodkas? Maybe four? Yep, four. Although I couldn’t remember having ordered one of them – the waitress had just brought it over unbidden. Or did I order it? I must have. Actually I had no idea.

  Back in my room, I dropped my clothes on the floor, an act of recklessness for me, drank a glass of water, and slid under the sheets. What a weird day. I was in New York. Alone. I was doing Dee’s job. I was lying in bed, more than a little drunk. There were flowers in the window that came with an odd note. A strange letter in the same handwriting addressed to my departed friend. And I had absolutely no idea what was going on.

  I wish she was here…

  That was my last thought as I drifted off to sleep and the next thing I knew there was a drilling sound in my head and I was prising my eyes open. Oh dear God, the noise. It was deafening. That’s what happened when I drank too much. I pushed myself up to a seating position, swayed a little, then realised that the noise was all too real. Groaning, I padded over to the window, looked out, and yep, there was a guy with a jackhammer at the building site across the road. I hadn’t noticed that when I arrived yesterday. I checked my watch. 8 a.m. Crap, I’d overslept. Even though the next thing in the diary wasn’t until noon I should be out by now, checking out cool places to go.

  OK, time to get my act together. In a minute. Not quite yet. I sat back on the bed and lifted what was left of the night before’s water. That had been a first. New York. Solo. A jazz bar. A little drunk. Dee would be proud, though.

  Dee. I thought back to the weird stuff yesterday and decided that without a shadow of a doubt, it must be an overfamiliar, overenthused PR that had left the notes.

  I chided myself. Nothing was going on. Of course it wasn’t. I was a bit ashamed of myself for even contemplating that there could have been anything else to it.

  I raised my eyes skyward. ‘Sorry Dee,’ I whispered. I could almost sense her pursed lips and see the arms folded across her chest in disapproval. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I added for good measure.

  Time for a shower. I got up, wobbled a little, thanks to a head rush, and crossed the room, and only then did I spot the envelope that had been slid under the door.

  The words were in the same handwriting as yesterday’s note. Of course they were.

  My heart thudded a little faster and I just hoped it was a bill or a notification that some bloke would have a bloody jackhammer outside my window at 8 a.m.

  Dee… Where were you? xx

  I cast my eyes heavenward again. ‘Care to explain this?’ I asked.

  Chapter 17

  Luke

  Catch 22 situation. I pull on a pair of jeans and they fall off my arse. That’s what all this running did to you. Then I decide to go shopping for better-fitting replacements. The thought of spending a day in a shopping centre looking for new clothes makes me want to hit my head off the wall. So I go for another run. And lose more weight. And my jeans fall off my arse again.

  I had no idea how women did it. Dee would shop for new clothes at least once a month. Me? Same jeans for years, new T-shirts and jumpers at birthdays and Christmas, anything else, Dee picked up for me. I’m not proud but it’s the way it was.

  Only since she was gone did I realise how much she did. She paid the bills, she ordered the groceries that got delivered every week, she planned the trips, she bought the clothes. She didn’t clean the house, because Josie popped by and took care of that once a week, but everything else was pretty much on her.

  Sure, I did the DIY, a bit of decorating and kept our cars up to scratch, and yeah, I’d sometimes plan stuff for the weekends, but that was it. How crap was it that I only appreciated how much she did now that she was gone?

  The other current issue on the crap scale? It was Saturday and I was headed into work for a couple of hours. We had a Monday deadline for a presentation to a new client and I just wanted to make sure everything was on point. I jumped in the car, and headed for town. The traffic wasn’t as bad as weekdays, so I’d probably make it in under half an hour, then maybe I’d head to the gym. Or not. It was costing me way too much in jeans.

  I pressed a couple of buttons on the hands-free set and connected to Sun, Sea, Ski.

  Mark answered on the first ring.

  ‘Hey mate, fancy heading to the gym when you’re done for the day?’

  ‘Let me consult my hectic social schedule,’ Mark replied. I’d only met Dee’s brother once before he came back for the funeral, when we went out to Australia on our honeymoon. He’d seemed like a pretty good guy, chilled out, laid-back, but I hadn’t made an effort to keep in touch. It didn’t matter though. Turns out first impressions were spot on and we’d slipped into a routine of going to the gym, heading to a sports bar, just kicking back and passing time. It suited him because he didn’t know anyone here, and it suited me because I was a recently widowed sad bastard whose life had been obliterated by some screwed-up karma.

  ‘Yep, turns out I’m free,’ Mark said.

  ‘Great, I’ll swing by and get you at six.’

  My shoulders relaxed a bit. OK, so I had plans for a Saturday night. It might only be the gym and a bar for a couple of pints, but at least it wasn’t sitting in the house staring at all the reasons the past was so much better than now. Or hitting clubs, like some thirty-year-old saddo.

  Which reminded me… I called another number on the hands-free, fully expecti
ng it to go straight to voicemail, but to my surprise he picked up.

  ‘All right mate?’

  ‘Well, well, well, the invisible bloody man,’ I countered.

  A hesitant laugh. At least he had the self-awareness to sound embarrassed. There was no doubt Pete and I had initially become mates through the girls, but we’d rubbed along pretty well. After the funeral, my brothers stayed for a couple of weeks and Pete had hung out with us a few times but I’d barely seen him after that, and not at all in the last couple of months. I couldn’t give a toss that he’d been a shit mate, but he’d really done a number on Jen, and if I was being honest, that’s why I was calling. I’d known the guy for a long time and some insight into why he was acting like a prize dick would be useful.

  ‘How you been?’ I asked, trying to sound as normal as possible.

  ‘Yeah, OK. Luke, I’m sorry that…’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I cut him off. I didn’t need his apology. No use to me now.

  ‘It’s just been… Obviously you know Jen and I split.’

  ‘Didn’t see that one coming,’ I told him honestly.

  ‘Yeah, well…’ That was it. Clearly I wasn’t getting anything else, at least not on the phone. ‘Look, why don’t we grab a beer and a game of pool one night this week?’

  ‘Yeah, sounds good. I’ve got a lot going on at work but let me give you a call when I know what night is good.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  I pressed the button on the steering wheel that disconnected the call. I’d bet my last tenner I wasn’t going to hear from him.