by Anna Premoli
Amalia sighed, her grandmother had once again managed to worm the truth out of her.
“Nothing worth talking about. It’s utterly pointless wasting time discussing impossible things or situations that you just can’t change, isn’t it?”
Mrs Berger had been around for eighty-two years already, and she’d seen it all. She hadn’t lost any sleep over a young man for a long time now, but she could still sense when the problem was a man. Her finely tuned nose was useful in this kind of case, and anyway, although her granddaughter was striving to appear rational and relaxed, she was quite obviously in fact the exact opposite: her thoughts were slowly simmering away – but not in a good way like a tasty stew: these could end burning her fingers.
“When I was younger, my friends used to say that I had the best shoulder to cry on, and I don’t see why you shouldn’t take advantage of it. You know, seeing things from a different perspective is usually helpful, and, if you don’t mind me saying so, Amalia, no ordinary man is worth belly ache.”
That was the point: Amalia wasn’t at all sure that Ryan was just an ordinary man.
“You’re totally right, Grandma – as usual,” she agreed, deciding not to go into the topic in depth.
But after her second glass of red wine, she changed her mind.
“Can I ask you something, Grandma? In your opinion, why do we women always have this inexplicable need to do the wrong thing, even when we’re fully aware that it’ll end up causing us pain? I mean, in my case there’s been a huge flashing neon sign saying ‘disaster’ over the whole thing right since it started. And what did I do? I went on with it anyway… Why? Why couldn’t I steer clear of it, like any normal, rational person would have done? What am I, a masochist or just plain stupid?”
Jackie stopped eating for a moment, trying to think of an appropriate response.
“You don’t just sound angry today – you sound very hurt,” she said in surprise.
“Well, it happens to everybody, sooner or later.”
“Are you in love with someone?” Jackie asked abruptly.
Amalia fidgeted with the glass she was holding. “Don’t be silly. It’s just a disappointment. Maybe a bit worse than previous ones. But it’ll pass…”
“You never get over real disappointments, my dear. Time teaches you to live with them. And you’ve already learned to live with two irresponsible, selfish parents. But I doubt that helped you to completely heal your wounds.”
“I’ve grown up almost normal, haven’t I. I mean, my neuroses are pretty much within the bounds of normal, I guess, and I consider that a personal success,” she replied seriously.
“If I can offer you an honest suggestion, Amelia: this time, why don’t you try and play in attack instead of in defense? Are you really sure there’s no way you can sort things out with this person? I don’t know who he is and I don’t want to be nosy, but anyone who’s managed to touch you so deeply deserves more than just to be labeled as a ‘problem to be gotten rid of’. I’ve been watching you date guys who’ve left you completely cold for years – men you just didn’t care about and from whom you found it all too easy to run away.”
Her granddaughter sighed in distress.
Jackie wasn’t just good at giving advice, she also knew when it was time to change the subject.
“Anyway, listen – how would you like to help me decide on the new color for my dining room walls?”
“Don’t you already have about five interior designers at your beck and call?”
Jackie laughed at her naivety.
“And you really think that I would actually let any of those idiots choose anything? God, I’m getting goosebumps just at the idea!”
Not for the first time that day, Amalia thought about her kitchen table.
“And once again, you’re perfectly right. Interior designers never choose the right thing for you. If my kitchen table had been a bit less substantial, it would have saved me one hell of a lot of trouble!”
17
The following morning Amalia arrived in the office quite early. She had to start preparing for Liz’s trial, which was supposed to start in exactly one week. She hadn’t slept well, but she really didn’t want to waste time pondering over the reasons for her insomnia, so she decided to blame the full moon for it.
Her attempts at trying to appear focused and committed were neutralized by the demanding sound of her mobile, which decided to interrupt her concentration at around nine. She was about to throw it at the wall when she saw Ryan’s name on the screen. He was even calling her now! She ignored the call, and let the diabolical thing ring in vain.
About half an hour later, the stubborn Assistant D.A. decided that it would be a good idea to phone her again. Well, it wasn’t a good idea at all. She was even more annoyed and this time couldn’t resist touching the ignore button. She knew that by doing so she was actually communicating the fact that she had seen his call and wasn’t really ignoring it. But she just had to do something to let off some steam. So she didn’t just press ignore, she pressed ignore with absolute joy. To hell with him and his phone calls.
By ten, the office phone was ringing too.
“The Assistant D.A. is calling for you, you can take it on line one,” her secretary informed her, blithely unaware of the situation.
At that point, Amalia saw red. Bright red.
“Please tell him that I’m in a meeting which is going to last for the rest of the day – thanks.”
At the sound of Amalia’s glacial tone, Michelle was wise enough not to insist.
“Of course, whatever you say,” she replied, then hung up immediately.
What a pain in the ass he was! At that point, all of Amalia’s attempts at staying calm had gone completely to hell. Her blood pressure had rocketed and she was starting to feel like taking her anger out on someone. He was forcing her to waste her precious time – even more precious than usual, since she was already behind schedule – to regain the clarity of mind she needed to get back to work.
But apparently, the day had other surprises in store for her. In fact, a couple of hours later, a rather embarrassed Michelle knocked at her door.
“Excuse me, Amalia, there’s a delivery for you,” she told her, indicating a delivery boy waiting just outside.
“What is it?”
“Flowers,” the secretary answered.
“Flowers?” asked Amalia again, sounding as shocked as if Michelle had just said ‘bombs’. And to be honest, as far as she was concerned it wouldn’t have been out of the question.
“Er, yes – quite a lot of flowers, actually,” Michelle added.
How many could ‘quite a lot’ be? Amalia lifted herself up from the chair to take a look.
“Oh my God!” she sighed when she saw the mountain of white roses that the delivery boy had piled up outside the door. “That’s not ‘a lot’ of flowers… that’s a whole goddam botanical garden!” she exclaimed in exasperation.
By then, the whole of the office was observing the scene with undisguised curiosity. Amalia was not the kind of woman who usually received presents like that – and even if she had been, it would never have happened in such an over-the-top way. Nobody would have dared. Nobody except…
“Where’s the note?” she asked the boy menacingly.
He gave it to her, looking somewhat scared. The people he usually delivered floral compositions to didn’t react like that – or at least most of them didn’t. Amalia snatched the note out of his hands and tore open the envelope. She wasn’t really expecting anything particularly illuminating, as she knew very well that men who feel guilty are occasionally prone to react with grand gestures, but she would have preferred something a bit more straightforward than what she found.
“I need to talk to you.” Was that all? What on earth was so important that he needed to send her a bunch of flowers as big as a hotdog stand?!
If things had been normal, she would have been extremely curious to know what the Assistant D.A. need
ed to tell her so urgently. But today it was more than likely that just hearing his voice would give her stomach cramps, so she decided she could wait. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like an effective tactic.
*
When Alex arrived at the office at about eleven after having spent a few hours delivering paperwork to various people around the courthouse, he found Ryan a lot more tense than usual. Even taking into account that it was a Monday morning, his mood seemed unusually bleak. His tie was twisted and loose and even the colors he was wearing didn’t exactly go together: the collar of his white shirt was wrinkled and his canary-yellow sweater clashed weirdly with the light grey suit he was wearing. And that wasn’t normal for Ryan O’Moore, who they had all learned was a real perfectionist.
“Is everything alright?” he asked, approaching his desk.
Ryan raised his eyes, revealing a threatening and exasperated expression. “Absolutely,” he muttered.
“Better and better,” thought Alex, moving away.
The Assistant D.A. then grabbed his mobile phone and called a number in an attempt to contact someone who didn’t answer. Half a minute later Ryan threw the phone down on the desk in annoyance.
*
During the course of the day, Alex saw Ryan try to call whoever it was dozens of times, but he never managed to get through; this of course sent his boss’s mood from bad to worse. By halfway through the afternoon, everybody in the office, including Alex, was trying to steer clear of Ryan, although they were still eyeing him with concern and curiosity.
When he eventually left at about six – which was unusually early for him – everybody felt hugely relieved. And hoped that whatever the hell was wrong with the Assistant D.A. would be magically resolved by the following day, for the sake of everyone.
At six fifteen sharp, Ryan was outside Amalia’s office. Michelle was tidying up a pile of documents on her desk and was about to knock off for the day. She pretended not to be surprised to see the Assistant D.A. suddenly appear, although he was evidently out of breath and in a very bad mood. Possibly even worse than the one Amalia was in.
“I need to see Ms Berger very urgently,” he announced.
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ve missed her. She left the office half an hour ago and told me she had an appointment,” Amalia’s secretary replied stoically.
Ryan’s face went instantly blue.
“What kind of appointment?” he asked, although he realized it would have been better not to.
Michelle thought that the question was a weird one, but decided that she’d probably better not object too much.
“I really wouldn’t know. It wasn’t in her diary and Miss Berger didn’t really give me any details about it,” she said, turning the knife in the wound just a little. “Would you like me to make you an appointment?” she suggested formally, picking up a pen.
Ryan ran his fingers through his hair agitatedly.
“No,” he answered immediately. “I need to talk to her today. I’ve been trying to reach her since this morning, but she just wouldn’t answer the phone.”
Michelle smiled condescendingly. “I really don’t know how to help you, I’m sorry.”
“Where does she usually go on Monday evenings?” he asked, determined and stubborn.
“I don’t really think I’m allowed to disclose information like that?” Michelle replied with a smile.
Ryan sighed, exhausted. “Listen, I’ve had a horrible day so far. I’m not a serial killer, I’m pretty sure you can tell that just by looking at me, right? I just need to talk to Amalia. Come on, all I’m asking for is a little help – the kind any good Samaritan would give…”
Michelle immediately noticed the familiarity with which Ryan had used Amalia’s name, and had to force herself not to break out in an amused smile. Amalia certainly wasn’t the easiest woman in the world to deal with, she would concede that.
“Let me just remind you that Miss Berger is Jewish and that I’m pretty much an atheist, so you might want to re-think your strategy.”
Ryan raised his eyes up to the ceiling. Working with Amalia had obviously forced her secretary develop the same ability with words, he thought.
“God, please give me the strength…” he moaned to himself under his breath.
But fortunately Michelle was much more magnanimous than her boss.
“Look, every Monday evening at nine, Miss Berger goes to her yoga class.” She took a piece of paper and wrote an address on it. “There’s obviously no need for me to tell you that I will vigorously deny any accusation of having provided you with this information.”
Ryan took the piece of paper gratefully. “As far as I’m concerned, the secret will be buried with me.”
Michelle smiled as she watched him walking away. She didn’t think of herself as a curious woman, but she would have given away her right arm to see what happened when those two characters met later that evening.
*
Kayla glanced nervously at Amalia once again. Her friend was surrounded by such an aura of tension it was making the whole class feel uncomfortable.
“If I’d known it was going to end like this, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to plan your meeting with him last Saturday night. I thought having multiple orgasms might relax you a bit, but it’s looking depressingly like even that wasn’t enough to make you let yourself go a bit,” she teased her.
Amalia gave her a nasty look while she tried to follow the instructions to raise herself to the tips of her toes.
“I mean, if you can’t even relax by having sex, I’m afraid there really isn’t anything I can do to help you,” Kayla insisted, hoping to get some reaction out of her friend.
“For your information, I do feel more relaxed after sex, actually. It was what came after it that put me in this awful mood,” she informed her friend.
“Couldn’t you really avoid the aftermath? I mean, you could just have had sex, pure and simple, avoiding all the useless discussions that people always have afterwards.”
“Oh, look who’s talking! Hearing something like that from you is really hilarious,” Amalia snapped.
Kayla didn’t seem to be at all offended by her friend’s accusation. “How so? Anyway, I’m just trying to help you…”
“How are you helping me? By trying to set me up with Ryan again?”
“When I left, you two were sitting in a bar. What happened after that is nothing to do with me, my dear. It’s your own fault, so please stop throwing all your anger at me.”
“I’m not angry at all,” snapped Amalia.
“Of course you’re not angry! I wonder how on earth I thought you could be…”
At that point, the yoga school’s receptionist – who wouldn’t usually leave her desk for any reason, provoking many a snigger about her ass actually being superglued to her chair – poked her curly-haired head around the door of the exercise room.
“Amalia Berger,” she said in a low voice, trying not to interrupt the lesson, “there’s a very assertive man here, and he is demanding to see you. He threatened to come in here himself if I didn’t call you out. Can you please come and see what he wants?” she begged.
“Well I wonder who that can be…” Kayla teased her. “Do you think it might be Mr Multiple Orgasm?”
A dozen heads, all clearly very interested in the subject in question, turned in their direction.
“Kayla, will you shut the hell up about it? I swear, if you told him I was here…”
But her friend cut her off. “Don’t waste your threats, Amalia – keep them all for Ryan. I didn’t tell him anything, scout’s honor,” she reassured her friend with a chuckle.
Amalia looked at her in resignation. “Not that you were ever a scout…”
“You’re right, but that’s my mother’s fault: I wanted to be a scout when I was a kid, and they would have taught me to always keep my promises, but my mother didn’t want me sleeping in tents, especially with boys…”
Amalia took her towel from the floor and started mentally preparing herself to leave the gym. “Sooner or later you will find someone who can silence that forked tongue of yours. And when it finally happens, you better believe that I am not going to miss the show for anything.”
Kayla doubted anything like that would ever happen, but she was wise enough not to provoke an already exasperated woman. Anyway, she couldn’t pretend that other people’s love affairs weren’t a pretty interesting show. Unless, of course, you were involved in them.
Ryan was sitting on a sofa in the reception area waiting for her, and he looked like a man who had been condemned to death: instead of angry, he just looked enormously depressed. And anyway he didn’t have anything to be angry about, thought Amalia as she walked over to him. She had changed after the interruption and was now wearing the same clothes she had worn in the office. He jumped to his feet as soon as she appeared, but didn’t speak, lost for words now that she was finally standing in front of him. Luckily Amalia was quite happy to speak for both of them.
“You goddamn idiot…” she spat at him as soon as she was close enough.
Ryan walked quickly over to her and put his hand over her mouth.
“I know, I’m well aware that I totally deserve to be insulted in a way that isn’t really appropriate in public. How about we go for a walk?” he asked, while looking around at the considerable number of people who had stopped to stare at them, seemingly quite taken with the show. Amalia glanced at him, but then nodded unwillingly in agreement.
A few minutes later they were walking towards her apartment together. “I’m trying very hard not to tell you to go to hell, Ryan, so just spit it out – what is this extremely important thing that you need to tell me so urgently that you’ve been chasing after me all day?”
“So you did notice then…” he said ironically, trying to break the tension.
“Oh no, apart from the hundred missed calls on my phone…” she snapped in irritation.
“And there were all the ones I made to the office,” he added, for no real reason.
“Ryan, you’re only making things worse. What the hell is it that you want?” she repeated, putting a lot of emphasis on the word ‘hell’.