Linger

by Claire Merchant

  James started to stir and then slowly opened his eyes. He smiled when he saw that I was awake.

  “Morning,” he said.

  “Hi,” I whispered.

  “How long have you been up?”

  “Not long,” I answered. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  He chuckled. “It’s okay. I should probably get up.”

  “That’s why I didn’t want to wake you.”

  He rolled over to kiss me and I wound myself closer to him.

  “I wish we could stay here all day,” he murmured.

  “Why can’t we?”

  “This is my last day in South Coast. I need to make sure the loose ends are tied.”

  I frowned. Was I one of those loose ends?

  James traced my downturned lips with his finger.

  “We knew this day was coming,” he said. “I’m glad we finally got our act together.”

  “Don’t,” I sighed. “Don’t say goodbye, James. Not yet.”

  “Have I ever said goodbye to you, Alice?”

  He had a point.

  “No, you haven’t,” I answered. “Never.”

  James smiled. “We should get up.”

  “Just one more minute.”

  He kissed my forehead then got out of bed. “I need to get moving if I’m going to make the gathering tonight. But you stay here for as long as you like. There’s no hurry.”

  I sat up. “You mean, stay here on my own?”

  “Well, Scott and Maria will be here.”

  I nodded and he started to dress. He found jeans and then a shirt that already had the sleeves rolled up. He buttoned it and smiled at me.

  “I’ll see you tonight,” he said, then slipped out the door.

  I sank back against the pillows. I wasn’t sure what had just happened. I didn’t know what it meant. Hadn’t he said that he’d done everything, and all that was left was for him to get on the plane? What loose ends were left for him to tie?

  I got up and dressed in my jeans from the day before. Since I’d managed to get cheese sauce on my top, I borrowed one of James’ singlets to wear home. I didn’t plan on hanging around with the lovebirds because it felt a little too desperate. Besides, I was rather keen for a shower.

  Maria and Scott were eating a late breakfast together when I surfaced. The way they looked at me made me feel like a fool – as if I was a one-night stand on some awkward walk of shame.

  “Morning,” I said.

  “Morning, Alice,” Scott answered.

  “Bongiorno,” Maria sang. “Come stai, Alice?”

  I forced a smile. “I’m… okay, I’m good. How are you guys?”

  “Molto bene. Would you like some breakfast?”

  The smell of the food finally hit me and my stomach turned.

  “No, gross, what is that?”

  Maria frowned. “Spinach omelette, your favourite.”

  “It smells off,” I answered, and then felt a lurch. I managed to make it to the bathroom before throwing up everything in my stomach.

  “Mamma mia,” Maria gushed. “You’re still sick, Alice?”

  I groaned. “I thought I was over it but clearly not.”

  “Could it be food poisoning?”

  “No. It’s been like this all week,” I sighed. “I haven’t eaten the same thing all week.”

  Maria held my hair up and rubbed my back for the fifteen minutes while I threw up. I didn’t think there was anything left in me, but I continued to surprise myself.

  When I was sure it was over, I washed my face and headed back out.

  Scott looked concerned. “Are you okay, Alice?”

  “For now. I’d better get home before it happens again. I’m so sorry about that,” I answered.

  “Don’t apologise, as long as you’re all right,” he said. “Do you need a lift home?”

  “I think so. I think James took my car.”

  “Actually he took mine. Maria, can you follow us in your car?”

  She nodded. “Si, bello.”

  I exhaled. “Thanks, guys.”

  **

  I had a shower as soon as I got home and dressed for a lazy day. My stomach had settled some, but I didn’t want to take any chances. So, I poured myself a large glass of water, found some dry crackers to nibble on, and then curled up on the couch. I’d only eaten one cracker when I found myself falling back to sleep. I couldn’t understand how I could be so tired, but when my eyes open again, the sun was dipping below the blinds of my living room in the late afternoon.

  I pushed myself up to sit and looked at the clock on the wall then cursed under my breath. Five-forty-four? What time did Maria and Scott say to arrive for James’ farewell? Six o’clock? Well, that was unlikely.

  I stood up and stumbled, but since I hadn’t eaten much today, I attributed the dizziness to low blood-sugar. I grabbed a banana on the way to my room to get changed and then sat on my bed to eat it as I contemplated the contents of my cupboard. Time wasn’t in my favour, so I didn’t overthink it. I decided to wear a deep blue off-the-shoulder dress with a belt and beige ankle boots, and then braided my hair on my way out the door.

  When I arrived back at James and Scott’s house, there were a few cars already there. I didn’t know who drove which vehicle, but I could probably hazard a guess. Like dogs, cars seemed to somewhat resemble their owners.

  I knocked on the door and Nina answered a moment later. Her face lit up when she saw me.

  “Alice!” she squealed, then flung her arms around me. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Hey, Nina,” I answered. “Good to see you too.”

  “You look beautiful.”

  “Um, thanks.” I nodded. “You too, and congratulations on your… news.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled and rested a hand on her flat abdomen. “Come in. James is right inside. Maria too.”

  “Thanks.”

  I stepped in and was surprised to find that there were more people inside than the cars implied. I looked around and recognised a few of the faces.

  Nina, Logan, Maria, Scott, Greg, Kylie, Victoria… Brendan?

  There was another guy standing beside James that I didn’t recognise. He was tall, but not taller than Scott, with dark brown hair in tight, thick curls, and eyes that matched the colour of his hair. His clothing looked expensive, so didn’t surprise me that James had befriended him. James seemed to gravitate towards wealth, and that was just one of the reasons why our friendship never made sense to me. I had nothing to offer him in that sense.

  “Alice, you made it,” James said from across the room.

  I nodded. “I told you I would be here.”

  “This is Ben Morrison. Ben, this is Alice, she’s an old friend of mine.”

  An old friend, so that’s what I was now.

  “Hi, Ben, it’s nice to meet you,” I said.

  Ben extended a hand towards me to shake. He had a firm grip.

  “A pleasure,” he replied.

  I glanced at James, but his eyes were elsewhere.

  “So, what do you do, Ben?” I asked.

  “I’m a medical intern at South Coast Memorial Hospital,” he answered. He didn’t have an accent, but the way he enunciated his words almost sounded like he did. It was weird.

  “Really? A doctor?” I said. “Wow. What field?”

  “I’m thinking plastics.”

  Typical. Typical for South Coast elite.

  I nodded. “Cool.”

  He chuckled. “What about you, Alice?”

  I looked at James as his eyes dropped to his feet, then returned my attention to Ben.

  “I work at The Red Chandelier,” I replied.

  “Oh.” Ben nodded. “Nice. Do you enjoy it?”

  “Yeah, it’s a job.”

  James looked over into the kitchen.

  “Excuse me,” he said and left.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  “So, how do you know James, Ben?” I asked.

  Ben s
cratched his faintly stubbled jaw.

  “Oh, our parents are old friends,” he replied. “We lost touch for a while because we moved interstate, but when I moved back a couple of years ago we ran into each other at SCU. Small world really.”

  “Small South Coast more like it.”

  “So you and James are old friends?” he asked. “How old?”

  “We went to high school together,” I said.

  “Awesome.”

  Maria caught my eye and waved, then hurried over to me.

  “Ciao, bella,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Much better now, thanks,” I answered.

  “Are you unwell?” Ben asked.

  “Alice has been unwell all week,” Maria replied.

  Ben’s expression turned serious. Diagnosis-mode serious.

  “It’s just an upset stomach, no big deal.” I shrugged. The last thing I wanted was to be diagnosed in James’ living room by his oldest friend who I’d never heard about before now.

  “That seems to be going around,” Ben said. “Can I get you a drink?”

  I nodded. “Um, sure. As long as it’s non-alcoholic.”

  “Coming right up.”

  Maria winked at me and then bounced over to Scott. The two embraced and I looked away. My gaze crossed with Victoria’s and she raised an eyebrow at me, then glanced pointedly at her brother who was talking to Greg and Logan in the kitchen. She lifted her hands at me as if to wordlessly demand an explanation, but I had none so I just shrugged.

  Ben returned with my drink of lemon, lime, and bitters. I hated lemon, lime, and bitters as much as cola, but I drank it anyway. Sometimes you made those small sacrifices to avoid hurting other people’s feelings.

  That was something that James apparently knew nothing about.

  **

  I left just before eleven o’clock after being ignored by James the entire night. I wasn’t sure what he was playing at, but I should have expected it by now. It was as if he was two different people – aloof, clueless James, and sweet, thoughtful James. There were no two guesses as to who was in attendance tonight.

  When I woke in the morning, I had a small bowl of yoghurt with some berries and sent him a text. Despite the fact that I was annoyed at his evasive behaviour, I knew that he was leaving today, and I was still going miss him. He didn’t reply but that didn’t surprise me since at the best of times he took a generous half an hour to respond. So, I decided just go over to see him instead.

  The house was unnervingly quiet when I knocked, and I wondered whether they were all still asleep. I wished that I had made James tell me when his flight was today, but he always changed the subject whenever it came up.

  I knocked four times before deciding that either they were out, or comatose. I dialled Maria’s number to see if she knew where anyone was. Maybe she and Scott had gone out and left James to sleep in before his long flight.

  “Pronto,” she answered on the second ring.

  “Maria, hey it’s me,” I replied. “Where are you?”

  “Almost back at the house. Where are you?”

  My forehead creased. “Which house? James and Scott’s? I’m here now.”

  “Ah, si, si, we’re just driving up.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you in a bit.”

  I hung up the phone and walked to the end of the driveway as Scott pulled his car up alongside mine. They both smiled as they saw me.

  “Hey, Alice. Sorry, have you been waiting long?” Scott asked.

  “No, not really.” I shrugged. “I knocked, but no-one answered. I guess James is still asleep. Where have you two been?”

  Scott and Maria frowned at each other.

  “We were at the airport,” Scott said slowly. “James just left.”

  My heart literally stopped beating, and there was a long silence as I tried to make sense of what Scott was saying. None of it made any sense.

  Had James left without saying anything to me?

  “Alice?” Maria murmured. She took a cautious step towards me as if I held a gun to my head.

  “James said that he spoke to you, Alice,” Scott said tightly. “He said that you didn’t want to see him off because you hated goodbyes.”

  I hated goodbyes? Me? It was James who never said goodbye.

  I sucked in a breath as my lungs remembered how to inflate, and then my breaths came out in short bursts of hysteria.

  Gone, James was gone. There was no hope, no love, there was just nothing.

  No James.

  “Alice, are you all right?” Maria asked.

  Her voice sounded far away, and when I looked at her, I didn’t see her. I felt light-headed and my vision was getting a little cloudy. A second later, my knees gave way and my world went black as I collapsed on the pavement.

  **

  I opened my eyes and found myself on the white couch inside the house now – James and Scott’s house, or just Scott’s house now. Maria was kneeling beside me, and Scott stood over me. There was another noise from the kitchen, and as my heart squeezed in hope, I remembered that James had left. Memories came flooding back and hit me like a sledgehammer. I wished that I’d just stayed unconscious.

  There was something cold and wet on my forehead that Maria adjusted. She smiled at me then brushed my cheek.

  “Are you okay, Alice?” she asked.

  Was I okay? No. No, I was not.

  “You hit your head,” Scott added. “Are you hurt?”

  Was I hurt? Yes. Yes, I was hurt.

  “Here, drink this,” a third voice said. Logan stepped into sight holding a glass of fizzy, clear liquid towards me. Maria took it from him and lowered it to my lips. It was lemonade.

  “How long was I out?” I asked.

  “A few minutes,” Scott replied. “You had us all worried.”

  “Sorry.”

  “If you’re still unwell, maybe you should see a doctor,” Maria said.

  “I’m okay, it comes and goes,” I sighed, then pulled myself up to sit.

  Scott frowned. “You should still see a doctor, Alice. Maybe it’s not the flu.”

  Logan folded his arms. “What do you mean when you say it comes and goes?”

  I shrugged. “Just that. I’ll be fine one minute, then lightheaded and nauseous the next.”

  “For how long?”

  “A couple of hours.”

  He nodded. “When did it start?”

  “A week or two ago,” I said with a smirk. “Why? What’s your diagnosis, Doctor Hamilton?”

  Logan didn’t smile. “Well, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say it sounded more like morning sickness than the flu. That’s how Nina started.”

  I laughed. “Morning sickness? But that would mean…”

  My smile faded. Morning sickness… sensitivity to smells, sore body parts, dizziness, fatigue…

  “Alice,” Maria said. She had paled, and I wondered if I had too.

  I blinked. “No.”

  Logan’s eyebrows lifted. “No?”

  “No,” I breathed. “It… that… oh, no.”

  Scott tipped his head. “Alice, I don’t mean to pry, but is there a possibility that you could be pregnant?”

  My eyes were wide.

  “I don’t… it can’t be though,” I said. “If anything, it’s only been a couple of weeks, and we were safe, I think. I don’t know. Crap, were we? Maybe we weren’t.”

  “A couple of weeks is enough,” Logan replied. “Trust me.”

  Maria frowned. “Are you late?”

  I rubbed my head to stop it spinning. “I don’t know, maybe. I’ve just been really stressed so sometimes, you know, it’s a little late…”

  “You should see a doctor,” Logan said.

  “I’m not seeing a doctor because I can’t be pregnant.”

  “It sounds like you could be, Alice.”

  “No, I can’t be, because he doesn’t love me,” I replied tearfully. “James doesn’t love me. He doesn’t even care enough to say g
oodbye to me. He just left.”

  Maria sat back on her heels while the Hamilton brothers exchanged a sympathetic look. I hated that look, I deserved it, but I hated it. I blinked back the tears and buried my face, then felt Maria’s hand on my shoulder. It should have comforted me, but it wasn’t the hand I wanted. That hand was on its way to Europe.

  **

  Maria came to stay at my house for the next few days because she was worried about me. I was worried about me too, but I couldn’t snap myself out of it. I started to focus less on living and focused more on surviving instead. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked, for a while anyway.

  A month passed with no word from James, and the increasing likelihood that I might be pregnant was not only possible but probable. I eventually worked up the nerve to see my doctor and he confirmed that James and I were going to be parents. When I got the news, I did the only thing I could do and took the rest of the week off work to cry. It was lucky that my manager was so understanding because once that week passed, logic kicked in and I realised that I needed the job to support myself. Regardless of how blue collar it was, it was the only source of income I had, and I would need it to raise our baby alone.

  Six weeks went by and I tried calling James, but his number had been disconnected. It was then that I accepted that I would never see him again, as I had once before, twice before… too many times to count before. It was also then that countdown from the last time I saw James became the countdown to when Maria and Scott were leaving to join him abroad. The two of them were all set to leave in two weeks, and I was frightened of losing them both, even if I never said anything to either of them about it.

  Nina and I started to hang out more, both being pregnant, and it was nice to have someone to go through the experience with because it made me feel less alone. Nina was sweet, very family orientated, and strongly Catholic, and although her parents weren’t thrilled about her premarital extracurricular activities, Logan was completely committed to her. On Tuesday of week seven, he proposed and she said yes. So, regardless of my new friendship with Nina, I felt lonelier than ever.