by Josie Silver
I’m not going to tell her. I made myself a promise to forever hold my peace about my feelings for Jack O’Mara, and there’s never been a time when that promise mattered more.
JANUARY 28
Jack
Sarah’s sleeping, Laurie’s working late at the hotel, and I’m sat at their kitchen table drinking neat vodka at half past two in the morning. I’ve never been a big drinker, but suddenly I can see its merits. It’s been weeks now since I kissed Laurie. Weeks, and I’m making a right royal fuck-up of pretending it didn’t happen. Literally every time I look at Sarah I wonder if today’s the day I should come clean. Every. Bloody. Day. I’ve been over it and over it in my head, trying to pinpoint the exact moment I was unfaithful. Was it when I asked Laurie to come for a beer? When I held her when she cried? Or was it way back, the very first time Sarah introduced us and we both made the decision not to mention the fact that we’d actually met before? Not that we had, exactly, but we weren’t strangers. I know that much for sure now. It was easier when I could tell myself that Laurie didn’t recall those few moments at the bus stop, but now I know that’s not the truth. I know for a fact that she remembered me, and because she remembered me twelve whole months later, I know that means something else too. Maybe just that she’s like me, blessed and cursed with an excellent memory; but I’m not sure. I’ve been unpicking all of the times we’ve spent together, examining fragments of remembered conversations, trying to see if I’ve missed an undercurrent. It’s not that I think she’s harboring a crush on me or anything. For fuck’s sake. I’m not being conceited; I just feel like I’ve missed something here.
I mean, it was just a kiss. It’s not like I screwed anyone, is it? But I kissed Laurie, and somehow that’s worse than screwing my way through the whole fucking Playboy mansion, because they’d be forget-me-tomorrow strangers. Laurie isn’t a stranger, and I didn’t kiss her out of anything as basic and easily explained away as stupid, vacuous lust. But I didn’t kiss her to restore her dignity either or because she was fragile and she needed me to make her feel better. I’m not that noble. I kissed her because she looked fucking ethereal under the streetlamp with snowflakes clinging to her hair. I kissed her because I’d lied about not seeing her on that bus and I felt like a dick, and I kissed her because the need to know how her soft, vulnerable mouth would feel against mine floored me like a goddamn express train. And now I do know, and I wish I didn’t, because you can’t un-remember something as spectacular as that.
“Let’s be kind to each other about this,” I said to her afterward. “It shouldn’t have happened and it doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Of all of the things I’ve ever said, that ranks up there among the most crass. But what else was I supposed to say? That I felt as if she’d just kissed fucking stardust into my mouth; that of course I saw her on that bus after all?
I knock back the contents of my glass and refill it. It’s no good. I need to speak to Laurie.
Laurie
I knew I couldn’t avoid Jack forever. God knows I’d like to, but this is my complicated, messed-up life, and I’ve just come in from a late shift to find him sitting at my kitchen table in the dark.
“Where’s Sarah?” I say, dispensing with any form of greeting because I’m tired and I’ve lost the art of talking to him about inconsequential things.
“In bed.” He’s nursing a tumbler—water or vodka, I’m not sure.
“Shouldn’t you be too?” I glance up at the kitchen clock. Three in the morning isn’t a healthy time to be drinking alone.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
I don’t quite believe him. This is only the third time I’ve seen him since that afternoon we…I don’t even like to repeat in my own head what we did—and it’s the first time I’ve been alone with him since then, by both of our choices, I think. He scrubs his hand over the stubble on his jawline, backward and forward again, a nervous tic. If I had stubble, I’d probably do the same.
I pour myself a glass of water. “I’m going to call it a night.”
He reaches for my wrist as I pass him. “Please, Laurie. I need to talk to you.”
I want to tell him that it won’t help, but the bleak look in his eyes softens my resolve, so I sit down wearily at the table, taking in his tired face and his rumpled T-shirt.
“Is that what you were doing? Waiting up for me?”
He doesn’t do me the disservice of lying.
“I feel like the world’s biggest shit, Lu. I don’t know how to get past it.”
I cup my hands around my glass. I don’t know how to help him. What am I supposed to say, that it gets easier? So trite, and not even especially true. Why is he doing this, anyway? Because he thinks I’m the more practiced liar and wants some tips? I’ve turned our conversation from that day over and over in my head. Jack doesn’t remember me from the bus stop. He has no recollection of me before Sarah introduced us to each other. It’s crushing, because I’ve spent months and years being defined by that moment, and yet it’s freeing too, because it’s as if he’s rubber-stamped the fact that I need to let it go now. And that’s what I’m trying my hardest to do.
“It was a really awful mistake, Jack,” I whisper, staring at my hands. “More my fault than yours, if it helps.”
“Fuck that,” he says, sharp, loud enough for me to cast a warning look toward the doorway. “Don’t you dare do that to yourself. I’m the one who’s been unfaithful here.”
“Sarah’s my best friend,” I say pointedly. “She’s like a sister to me. However unfaithful you feel, trust me, I’m up there with you on the feeling lousy scale.” I swallow a mouthful of water. “There isn’t a pecking order for guilt here. We were both wrong.”
He falls quiet and takes a sip of his drink. From the smell wafting my way, I’m guessing it isn’t water.
“Do you know what I hate most of all about what happened, Laurie?”
I don’t want him to tell me, because if it’s the same thing that I hate about it, then we’re both only going to feel worse for acknowledging it.
“I hate that I can’t forget it,” he says. “It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Was it?” I’m glad he doesn’t raise his eyes from his drink as he speaks, hollow, too emotional. “Did it…did it mean anything to you?”
His quiet, explosive question hangs there, and I swallow hard. For a while I can’t look at him, because he’ll see the truth all over my face. I know what I have to do. I’ve lied to Sarah for two years straight now. Lying to Jack shouldn’t be as difficult. It shouldn’t be, but it is. Excruciatingly so.
“Look,” I say, finally meeting his troubled, beautiful eyes full on. “I was upset and horribly low, and you were kind and lovely, because that’s who you are. We’re friends, aren’t we?” I break off to swallow the painful tears in my throat, and he nods, his hand pressed against his mouth as I speak. “We’re really, really good friends, we had too much to drink, and it was Christmas, and we stupidly blurred the lines between friendship and something else. But we stopped and we both knew it was awful, and it’s done now and it can’t be undone. What good can come of letting it rip Sarah apart too? You’re sorry, God knows I’m more sorry than I’ve ever been about anything in my life, and it’ll never, ever happen again. I don’t think of you in that way and I’m damn sure you don’t harbor secret fantasies about me, either. If we tell Sarah, it’ll only be to salve our guilt. And do you think that’s a good enough reason?”
He’s been shaking his head slowly all the time I’ve been talking, his hand still over his mouth as if he feels nauseous.
“Nowhere near good enough.”
I nod. “Just go to bed, Jack. Go to bed, go to sleep, and when we get up in the morning, we’re both going to get on with the rest of our lives without ever mentioning this again. Not to Sarah and not to each other.” I take a breath. “
Not even to a goldfish.”
He looks away from me, pushing his hand through his already messed-up hair. I’ve been flailing around so much in my own guilt that I haven’t really stopped to wonder how Jack was handling it. Not all that well, so it seems, and I almost resent him for needing me to teach him how to carry the burden of his guilt.
I sit at the table for a long time after he’s gone. I make a coffee and let it go cold as I look out of the dark kitchen window over the rooftops of Delancey Street. I think of Sarah and Jack asleep down the hall, and of my parents back at home, and my brother and Anna, his new wife, tucked up in the smart new house they bought after their wedding in the springtime.
Two, and two, and two, and me. Maybe I’ll buy myself a goldfish.
MAY 3
Laurie
“It’s gone by too fast.”
We’re slouched next to each other on the sofa, Sarah and me, feet up on the scratched coffee table and wineglasses in our hands. We’re all packed up and ready to go, almost prepared to hand our Delancey Street bolthole over to its next lucky inhabitants.
“Five years,” I sigh. “You’re right. I don’t know where it’s gone.”
Sarah takes a massive gulp of wine and frowns. “I don’t want to leave this place. I wish we could stay forever.”
We sit in silence and gaze around the living room, the scene of our student parties, our drunken nights, our traded secrets, our late-night laughter. We both know that we can’t stay; this phase of our lives is at an end. Sarah has bagged a new, glitzier job at a start-up cable TV station over on the opposite side of the city and commuting from here to there just isn’t possible. I’ve taken this as my cue for a shake-up too. I can’t afford to keep this place on my own, and I’m going nowhere fast career-wise. The hotel is transient, the publishing trade resistant. I’m heading home to see my family for a few weeks, and then onward to Thailand for a while. I’m daunted by the idea of going alone, but spurred on by my dad’s renewed zeal for getting out there and grabbing life by the balls. My mother was deeply unimpressed when he used that very phrase; they gifted me and Daryl some money at Christmas. It’s not something they’d usually do, but they said Dad’s heart attack has given them a fresh perspective. They cried, so we did, and we both agreed to do something a bit special with the gift. Daryl and Anna are going to buy their marital bed for the new house, and I’m going to spend mine grabbing life by the balls in Thailand. I wish I could pack Sarah in my suitcase; I don’t have a clue how to do life without her next to me. At least I’ll have some respite from the malingering guilt.
“You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” I say.
“Fuck off,” she mutters, starting to cry. “I told you not to say that.”
“And I told you not to bloody cry,” I say, dragging the end of my sleeve across my eyes. “Now look what you’ve done.”
We hold hands, really tightly.
“We’ll always be friends, right?” Her voice is small and shot through with vulnerability. “Even when you go to Thailand and join a hippy commune, or whatever it is you’re going to do over there?”
“Even then,” I say, squeezing her fingers. “How about when you become a big-shot TV presenter? Will you ditch me for your celebrity friends?”
She laughs, pretending she needs a second to think it over. She went to see the new station about a behind-the-scenes role and wound up being asked how she’d feel about taking on maternity cover for their roaming reporter. They obviously took one look at her and saw what we all see: star quality.
“Well…I reckon Amanda Holden can hold her drink.”
I thump her on the arm and she sighs, faking disappointment.
“Fine. I won’t ditch you, even for Amanda Holden.” She pauses for a second. “We’ve had a laugh though, haven’t we?” she says, leaning against me.
I close my damp eyelashes and lean my head on hers. “We have.”
“You know what my favorite memory of you is?”
I don’t answer her, because there are tears rolling down my cheeks and my throat is aching.
“It’s a recurring memory, actually,” she says. “I like how you look after me when I’m hungover. No one will ever hold my hair back like you do when I throw up.”
I laugh despite my tears. “You’ve got a lot of bloody hair, too. It’s not easy.”
“And how you make my morning coffee just right,” she says. “Everyone else gets it wrong. Even my mother.”
“You have four grains of coffee, Sar. You can’t even classify it as coffee.”
“I know that. But you do. You ask me if I want coffee, and then you make it how I like it. Four grains.”
I sigh. “You’ve probably made me more cups of coffee than I’ve made you. And you’ve definitely made the most sandwiches.”
“You always forget about the mayo. You know how crucial it is.” She sags. “How are you going to survive out there in the big wide world without me, Lu?”
“It’s not as if we’re never going to see each other,” I say, wiping my face. “I’ll be able to see you on the TV if nowhere else. I’ll be waiting for the day they make you slide down a fireman’s pole.”
“But I won’t be able to see you when you’re on the other side of the world.”
I put my arm around her shoulders. “I’m not going forever.”
“You better bloody not,” she sniffs. “Don’t go shacking up with some yogic monk and knocking out a dozen Thai babies or anything, will you? I want you back in London by Christmas.”
“I don’t think monks are allowed to have babies.” I laugh shakily. “I’ll only be gone a few months. I’ll be back in time to spend New Year together.”
“Promise me?” She links her pinky finger with mine like a little girl, and those damn tears threaten again because she reminds me of another little girl from a long time ago.
“I promise I’ll come back, Sarah. I promise.”
SEPTEMBER 20
Laurie
“You’re sure you’ve got everything? Insect repellant? Disinfectant spray?”
I nod, squeezing Mum as she and Dad prepare to leave me at the airport. Her perfume and the jangle of the bracelet she always wears are so dear and familiar to me; I’m choked up at the thought of being so far from home.
“Flashlight?” Dad says, ever practical.
“Got it,” I say, and he puts his arms around us both.
“Come on, you daft things. Let’s make this a happy send-off. It’s an adventure.”
I untangle myself from them and wipe my eyes, half laughing and half crying as Dad lifts my backpack onto my shoulders. “I know it is!”
“Go on, then,” he says, kissing me on the cheek. “Be off with you.”
I lean in and kiss Mum too, then step back and take a deep breath. “I’m going now,” I say, my lip wobbling.
They stand together, Dad’s arm around Mum’s shoulders, and they nod. I’m sure it would feel less of a wrench if I wasn’t going alone; I feel about fourteen as I turn around at the gate to give them one final wave before I lose sight of them. Mum blows me a kiss and Dad lifts his hand, and then I turn away and walk determinedly toward the gate. Thailand awaits.
OCTOBER 12
Laurie
“Sawatdee kha.”
I raise my hand in greeting to Nakul, and he grins and throws me a thumbs-up as I take a rickety seat at an equally rickety table at his cafe on Sunrise Beach. It sounds bizarre to say that my time here has been a hectic blur of Buddhist temples, but that’s how it feels—a weird juxtaposition of absolute serenity amid happy, noisy chaos. No one could ever call Thailand boring; my head is in a spin and I’ve got muscles where I never had them before. I traveled north after I arrived in Bangkok, intent on getting my shot of culture in early; I feare
d that if I headed straight to the south I’d spend my entire trip in a hammock on the beach.
But now I’ve seen enough to allow myself the luxury of resting, and I’ve hit the eye-wateringly perfect castaway beaches of southern Thailand. I’ve set up temporary home in a cheap-as-chips beach shack; it’s one room, but it’s my room, and there is a veranda to sit and read on overlooking the beach. I don’t think I’d realized how much I needed this break from reality. When I first got to Thailand I cried for almost a week straight as I trekked through jungle terrain with a small group of other travelers. I didn’t cry because the trek was so strenuous, although it certainly was. I cried with sheer relief, hot, salty tears, releasing my heavy burdens into the earth as I walked. A few weeks before I came out here my mum and I caught Eat Pray Love at the local cinema, and though I haven’t got anywhere near to finding love, I am having some kind of mini epiphany. I’m like an in-patient in recovery, learning how to forgive myself for the mistakes I’ve made and acknowledging that I’m still me, still a good person and still a true friend to Sarah, despite what happened with Jack. Perhaps one day I might even deserve to be happy.
“Coffee, Lau-Lau?”
I smile, pleased by Nakul’s adulteration of my name as he picks his way across the warm, powder-soft sand to my table. I’ve been here on each of the four mornings since I arrived on Koh Lipe, and the island is working it’s laid-back magic into my skin and bones. It is as if I’m finally standing still for the first time in years.
“Khop khun kha,” I say when Nakul places a small white cup down in front of me, still hesitant over my Thai manners. He grins nonetheless, hopefully because my clumsy attempt at his language is better than not at all.
“Your plan for today, Lau-Lau?”
He’s asked me the same question each morning, and every time my answer has been the same: “I don’t have a plan at all for today.”