It was ridiculous—I couldn’t risk my entire career, just because I was in love with him.
I went round and round as we drove through block after block and didn’t make any progress. What if it was just me? What if he saw me as just a friend?
“I’m sorry, Karen. I don’t feel that way about you. I mean, you’re not really my type, you know?”
I imagined crying in front of him. Or passing out. Or running from the room. I was pretty sure that however badly it went, he’d be able to work with me afterwards, but could I work with him?
And what if—by some slim chance—it went well? What if he did feel the same way, and we ended up…what, exactly? Going out? Boyfriend and girlfriend? I tried to imagine Connor with a steady girlfriend, and couldn’t. Imagining him with me just seemed ridiculous.
And if he did feel the same way about me…why hadn’t he said anything? Why hadn’t he asked me out?
For months, I’d held back the tide, denying how I felt about him…and now that I’d finally admitted it, I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
I stared out of the window without seeing until finally I saw something that made me jerk back, surprised. A street sign I recognized, despite having never been there in person before. Jasmine’s street.
“Wait. Turn in here, please,” I told the cabbie.
If I couldn’t solve my own problems, maybe I could help my friends.
***
I’d never been to Jasmine’s apartment—she’d always preferred to meet at mine, or at Flicker. As I got out of the cab, I could see why.
The neighborhood itself was bad—worse than Connor’s, by my estimate. And the building Jasmine rented in was by far the worst on the block, with enough graffiti, chips and cracks for the rest of the street put together. I was sure the rusting fire escape wasn’t up to code and two windows were boarded up.
Jasmine had said she wouldn’t accept any more money for rent, but I knew she was still tight. I also knew she was safely in Flicker with the others, where she couldn’t stop me helping her.
It was a total spur-of-the-moment thing. I figured if I talked to her landlord and offered to quietly pay him something towards the rent, I could give Jasmine some breathing room—and she wouldn’t be able to reject it because, by the time she found out about it, it would all be done.
I didn’t have much money on me, but the allowance my father sent each month would arrive soon. If I budgeted super-tightly, I could probably spare a hundred bucks or so—and that was better than nothing, right? I could arrange it with the landlord now and then PayPal him or something.
I checked the bell pushes. There was one with Jasmine’s surname, so I was in the right place. Jasmine had said that her landlord had taken the whole of the first floor, so I pushed that one.
The man who opened the door was balding, with greasy hair slicked back from his temples. The belly that pushed out his Nicks t-shirt suggested that his sweatpants were for comfort, not exercise. “Yeah?” he asked doubtfully.
“It’s about Jasmine—she rents from you?” I said, trying to make my voice as bright and bouncy as hers.
He frowned. “Mm-hmm?”
I shifted my weight from foot to foot. It was freezing, out on the doorstep. “She said that she’d been having some problems paying. I’m her friend.”
His expression changed. “You have her rent? She still owes me.”
“No, I don’t actually have any money….”
He gave me a you’re wasting my time look.
“But Jasmine said she was talking to you about working out an arrangement.”
He looked shocked. “She told you about that?”
“Yes. Maybe I could help with that? Like, each month?”
He blinked a couple of times and looked at me a little closer. Then he opened the door wide. “Come in,” he said.
Inside, it was warmer. But if anything the interior was even less well maintained, with water stains and cracked paintwork. A couple of the lights looked like they hadn’t worked in years.
“Let’s go into Jasmine’s apartment,” the landlord said, and led the way up the stairs.
As he unlocked the door, I started to get a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. He was the landlord and Jasmine was behind on her rent—he probably had a perfect right to be there. But it still felt wrong, wandering into her place when she wasn’t there. Or was it something else that was bothering me?
It was a small apartment—bigger than Connor’s, but still only three rooms: a lounge and kitchen combined, a bedroom beyond that and a door to what I assumed was the bathroom.
Something crunched underfoot. I had a pretty good idea what it was, and I didn’t want to lift my shoe to find out if I was right.
The landlord smiled at me…and then walked straight through to the bedroom. “You coming?” he asked. And pulled off his t-shirt.
I stood there gaping.
“What?” he asked, sounding genuinely puzzled. Then a sly smile crept across his face. “Oh. Is she coming too? Were you meaning, like, you and her at the same time?”
“Sorry!” I said, and bolted. I was so shocked that I didn’t have time to be scared, or to really process things, until I was two streets away and sitting panting in the back of a cab.
And then I called Jasmine, who was still sitting in Flicker, and told her we had to talk.
Chapter 17
“I can’t believe you went there without telling me,” said Jasmine. It was the next morning and, despite the cold, we were sitting on the swings in a kid’s playground down the street from Fenbrook. It was early enough that we were the only ones there, surrounded by yesterday’s snowmen.
“I thought I could help. I didn’t know that you—”
“I haven’t done it yet. We’d just talked about it. I was going to do it last month, but then you saved my ass with the $300.”
We sat in silence for a second, swinging slowly back and forth. “Whose idea was it?” I asked.
“Mine,” said Jasmine. “I thought…you know, I thought—” She took a deep breath, and I waited while she got her voice under control. “I thought that if I took the lead and set the terms, then I could control things. Better than having him pressuring me when all my stuff was already out on the street.”
I closed my eyes. “There must be another way.” I frowned. “Doesn’t your brother live in New York?” I vaguely remembered her mentioning it, one night in Flicker. Then my stomach lurched as the rest of the memory swept in—she’d been talking about avoiding him.
Jasmine shook her head. “No. That’s a whole world I don’t want any part of. He’s trouble. He’s done time, for God’s sake.”
“People change,” I said, thinking of Connor.
But Jasmine shook her head firmly. We sat there for a moment, legs kicking occasionally to swing us, trying to keep moving so that our feet didn’t freeze. Then Jasmine took a deep breath and said, “Now that you know about…the arrangement…I need your help with something else. But you need to promise me something.”
“Anything. What?”
She turned and stared at me. “You need to promise me you’ll still be my friend after I tell you.”
Cold fear clutched at my chest. “Jasmine, of course! What is it?”
She looked towards the horizon. “I’ve decided to start escorting.”
I sat there in dumb shock for a moment. “Jasmine, no!”
“You said—”
“I’m not judging! I’m just saying—isn’t there another way?”
She shook her head. “I have to pay my rent, but between Fenbrook and auditions I don’t have time to work any more hours. Escorting is the only thing that’ll cover it, and it’ll cover it well.” She kept staring straight ahead. “I’ve really thought about it. I can work in the evenings, which is perfect because it leaves the daytime free for auditions and classes. I figure I’d be good at it—I mean, it’s just acting, right? Acting and sex, and I’m good at both.”
I bit my lip.
“I need to find an agency and go for an interview.” She finally looked over at me. “I really don’t want to do it on my own. Could you…come along with me? Moral support?”
I thought of her in a hotel room, crushed beneath some married, forty-something businessman and closed my eyes. No. No way. I couldn’t let her do it.
But…I couldn’t stop her, either. I could feel the fear rising up inside me. The fear of losing her as a friend, if I stopped her doing what she wanted to do. The fear of being wrong—what if she got thrown out on the street, and had to drop out of Fenbrook, and it was all my fault? Worst of all, the fear that I’d do the wrong thing, make the wrong call, because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I was a twenty-one year old virgin, for God’s sake. I’d barely lived—what chance did I have of talking someone through this huge decision?
So I did the only thing I could do. I folded.
“Of course,” I told her.
“And you won’t tell Nat, or Clarissa?”
I nodded.
She jumped up and hugged me. “You’re the best friend ever!” she told me.
Which was weird, because I felt like the worst.
***
I’d arranged to meet Connor that afternoon at my place, for no better reason than it had a desk we could work at side by side, and I knew he wouldn’t want to do it at Fenbrook with everyone watching his struggles. I made sure I was home a half hour early and spent thirty pointless minutes cleaning things that were already clean and tidying things that were already tidy. If I could cook, I would have baked cookies.
A buzz on the entry phone. The exact same noise it made when anyone arrived…so how come it felt different, knowing it was Connor? It was something about inviting him into the same place I spent so much time thinking about him…Connor the reality colliding with Connor the fantasy. Just down the hall was the shower where I’d been unable to get him out of my mind. A little further on, the bedroom where I’d used the dildo on myself, with his face filling my mind. The bed where I’d had that dream. How was I going to keep myself together, with all that around me?
I hit the button and, a few moments later, heard his low double knock at the door. As I reached for the handle, my heart was hammering.
What’s the matter with me? I’ve been lusting after him for a month. I’d thought that was bad—sitting in rehearsal after rehearsal thinking about his hands or lips on me. But now I was actually thinking about him. Connor was wired deep into my soul, but I had to pretend there was nothing there at all.
I opened the door in what I hoped was a I’m just your friend way. “Hi!” Too loud.
He was gazing up and down the hallway. “I can’t believe this is where you live.” Then he took a step inside and saw the size of the place. “Jesus!”
“It’s not that big.” I closed the door behind him, feeling incredibly guilty. “I’m tidy. That makes it look bigger than it is.”
“Are you kidding? Watch this.” He paced out a length. “There. That’s the size of my apartment.”
He wasn’t even all the way across my lounge. I flushed. “My father chose it. He pays the rent. I would have chosen somewhere smaller.” Liar, I thought.
He cocked his head to one side. “No TV?”
Most people didn’t spot that. It takes a certain sort of mind to notice what isn’t there. “Yeah. My father sort of…doesn’t like television. We never had one when I was a kid, and when he furnished this place—”
“He furnished it?”
I hesitated. “Is my life sounding really weird now?”
“A little. Although some things are starting to make sense.” He leaned against the wall and regarded me with those blue-gray eyes that saw everything. “If he doesn’t like TV, he’s either an academic, a hippy or an arty-type. You don’t strike me as having been raised by a hippy, so my money’s on arty-type.”
“Pianist.”
“A pianist who makes enough money he can send his daughter to Fenbrook and put her up in this.” I watched him put it together. “Karen Montfort. Hugo Montfort?”
I nodded.
“My music teacher in Belfast used to play his CDs. Shit! Hugo Montfort….”
I pointed to the table. “We should get on with it.”
He eyed the table as if it was a pit of snakes, but nodded and sat down. I could see him looking at the towering pile of lecture notes I’d assembled.
“Don’t panic,” I told him. “We don’t need all of it. This is everything, right back to when I started, plus some stuff from Dan to cover the first semester.”
Connor frowned. “Yeah, you started late. Where were you, that first semester?”
I looked at him. “You remember that? You didn’t even know me back then.”
He got that look again, just for a second, as if he was battling with himself. “This new girl started and got straight A’s,” he told me. “Everyone remembers that.”
“Apart from my presentations. I was in Boston, first semester. I don’t want to talk about it.”
He nodded, and I immediately felt guilty. He’d opened up and shared so much of himself with me, and I still couldn’t tell him about that day they found me on the roof.
I took a deep breath and told him my plan for helping him with his essay. I couldn’t catch him up on every lecture, and I wasn’t going to try. For one thing, I was pretty sure that he’d absorbed a good amount of the material from the lectures he’d attended. For another, he only needed a small subset of them to get the knowledge he needed for the essay. We’d go through the question together, then he’d tell me what he understood by it and what he thought he’d need to cover in the answer. I’d catch him up on any lectures he’d missed, using my notes. And then he’d dictate the essay to me, and I’d type it out. It wasn’t cheating, really—I was just acting as interpreter between the written notes he needed and his brain, and back again.
We worked side by side for hours, because we found that across the table from each other felt too weird, like I was lecturing him. Side by side had its own drawbacks, though. When he leaned in to look at some music, his head brushed my hair and all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. When I pointed to something on the essay question, I brushed his hand and we both looked at the offending contact for a second, not saying anything. Every silence felt huge, every look we exchanged loaded with meaning. But still, I couldn’t tell him how I felt. What if it was all just me? What if I said something and he just looked at me in amazement? What if he laughed?
“I’m making coffee,” I said abruptly and fled to the kitchen. While the machine did its thing, I rested my forehead against the cold refrigerator door and took a long breath. I couldn’t tell him. If it went wrong, then what? If we couldn’t rehearse together—if he even didn’t manage to get his grades up—I was doomed.
I opened my eyes and straightened up. Unless I got some sort of clear signal from him, I had to keep it to friends.
“You okay?”
I span around. He was standing in the doorway, watching me.
“Fine.” I passed him his coffee. “Let’s work.”
The essay didn’t have to be in until the end of the week, so there was no reason we had to get it done that night. But once we’d started, it felt like we couldn’t stop—not only were we worried about losing momentum, but I got the sense that Connor was actually enjoying himself. With the barrier of his dyslexia lifted, he was able to put everything he’d learned at Fenbrook to use—and as I’d suspected, he’d picked up a lot more than people had given him credit for. When you can’t easily write stuff down, you get very good at listening.
We worked for another two hours straight and broke for coffee. Another two hours put us past the halfway point and we both agreed that stopping would be wrong, so we ordered pizza. A final three hours put grease stains on my lecture notes and a finished essay on my laptop.
And we realized it was one in the morning.
“I’ll call a cab,” he said.
I knew he couldn’t afford it. And I didn’t want him walking from the subway station—not in his neighborhood. “You can stay here,” I said as casually as I could.
He already had his phone in his hand. “Are you sure?”
I nodded at the couch. “Jasmine’s slept on it before. I’ll get you a blanket.”
I went to my bedroom to search for a blanket. Friends let friends stay over all the time, right? Even male friends of females. It didn’t mean anything.
I found him a blanket and a still-wrapped toothbrush and took them through to the lounge, then stood there looking up at him, the bundle clutched to my chest. “So. Um. Anything else you need?”
He looked at the bundle—the bundle…or my chest? Of course the bundle. “No. That’ll do me fine. Thanks, Karen.”
I nodded and stood there like an idiot. Tell him! Tell him! He’s standing right here in your apartment and he’s about to spend the night! There’s never been a better time!
“Goodnight,” I said quickly and almost threw the bundle at him, then went to my bedroom without daring to look back.
I thought that once I was safely in my room, that would be it. It wasn’t—I had to figure out when to undress. Normally, I’d have stripped off and thrown on an old t-shirt to sleep in before brushing my teeth. But did I want to pad around the place bare-legged and with my panties on show? What if I ran into him? On the other hand, if I stayed dressed right up until I dived under the covers, would that seem weirder?
Possibly I’m overthinking this, I thought.
I started to undress. When I was down to my panties—as naked as I was going to get—I stopped for a second and looked in the mirror. I tried to see myself as a man would see me—as Connor would see me. I knew my breasts were too small, my shoulders too wide. Was it even possible that he could find me attractive, next to all the busty actresses and lithe dancers at Fenbrook?
I imagined his eyes on me. I was sure I’d felt them in the practice room a few times, but what did that mean? Men will look at any woman. Had he kept looking? Did he want to see me? Did he want me?
In Harmony Page 16