This Is Now

by Maggie Gilbert

  ‘I don’t trust this rich prick I never met, even if he has got the dosh to rent some luxury car. What the fuck can he want with a girl like you? Never thought you were stupid, but no good comes of forgetting who you are, and where you come from.’

  ‘As if,’ I muttered sullenly, my chest hurting. I felt small and stupid and worthless when he spoke to me like that. It made me feel no better at all to know that was my problem, not his, that he didn’t mean it that way.

  ‘Jess, you think you’re meant for better, but that kind of idea is only going to break your heart. I don’t want to see that.’

  ‘What, you want to see me working as a hairdresser, I suppose, married to your mate Jay?’

  ‘I can’t see anything wrong with that. I guess you do.’

  I stared at my brother. We shared a house and parents and that was it. Apart from the roof over our heads, the colour of our eyes and hair and the shape of our ears we had nothing in common. How could I ever explain to him that I didn’t think I was better? I just wanted more. The thought of spending the rest of my life picking hair out of my clothes and waiting for Jay to get arrested or worse made me want to just turn around and go running straight back out that gate. I could never explain that to Troy without him thinking I was just an uppity bitch, he’d never understand the difference. I guess I could try, though. Blood counted for that much, maybe.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it, Troy. It just isn’t right for me.’

  Troy looked at me, blonde hair shining in the morning sun that spilled across the porch. We had the same hair, ears, and funnily enough, the same wrists. If you lined us all up, it was obvious me and Troy were siblings, and Brian had the same fair hair. Sharon was literally the dark horse, a curvy brunette who was apparently the spitting image of her father.

  ‘Jay was round here looking for you this morning.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘That you were out.’

  ‘Don’t look at me like that. We aren’t together.’

  ‘Does Jay know that? He didn’t seem real happy you weren’t here.’

  ‘He knows,’ I said. I eyed the cigarette pack sitting on the step beside Troy, a sudden craving knifing through my gut. I switched my shoes, Michelle’s shoes, actually, to my other hand and pushed my hair out of my eyes. ‘I have to get some sleep, Troy. I’m working this afternoon.’

  ‘I’m not stopping you.’

  I minced up the stairs, bricks hot against my sore bare feet. Who’d have thought shoes could cause so much pain when you were sitting at a table most of the night? Imagine if we had gone dancing like we were going to do until we worked out we were too drunk, and too desperate to get naked together. Next time, if there was a next time, I’d wear flats.

  As I put my foot on the step beside Troy he reached out and circled my ankle in one big hand. He squeezed gently, thumb tapping the little Chinese character tattooed there in the slight hollow between my ankle bone and my heel. Another stupidity I now regretted and couldn’t undo.

  ‘Jay would look after you,’ Troy said, without looking up. ‘He would get you fancy cars if you wanted.’

  ‘I don’t care about fancy cars.’

  ‘Yeah you do. But this isn’t the movies, Jess. And you’re no Julia Roberts to drive off into the fuckin’ sunset. Just, don’t expect that, OK? Never gonna happen.’ He gave my foot a friendly pat and let go.

  I swallowed against the aching, angry tears clogging my throat. I didn’t want him to know how much it hurt, what he’d said, and how much I hated him for saying it.

  As I turned away and went in through the front door, I hated, most of all, the small voice deep inside me that knew he was right.

  Chapter 23

  After we locked up the café just on 5.30 that night, I said goodbye to the others and started tiredly down the alley. We didn’t do a dinner shift on Sunday nights, there just wasn’t the numbers and with everyone on double time there was always pressure to get the place cleaned up and get out. I wasn’t rostered on for closing, but after a lengthy shower that morning I’d fallen into bed without setting my alarm, and I’d been an hour late for work. Nobody I worked with really minded too much, we’d all done it at one time or another and we covered for each other, but I’d felt I had to stay till stumps as pay back.

  I was regretting that now, jelly-legged with fatigue, remnants of a headache still tapping at the base of my skull. I was not looking forward to the cold dark wait for the bus, and I wished that daylight savings lasted longer. I hated going home at this time of night, when it wasn’t really dark enough for all the street lights to come on, but there were enough shadows to make me wonder what lurked there.

  Maybe now I’d pretty much quit the fags I should start thinking about cutting back on booze. Then I might cope a bit better with, oh, everything in my life. I walked out of the alley and a cold wind smacked me fair in the face; shivering, I grabbed at the flapping edges of my coat, groping to line up the zipper.

  ‘Want a ride?’ came a male voice, and I almost gave myself whiplash spinning around, ready to defend myself from whatever perv had tried to approach me. The guy stepped forward out of the shadows, hands in pockets, and my heart gave another bump, this one of recognition.

  ‘Jay? What are you doing here?’ I couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognised his voice.

  ‘Waiting for you.’

  Well, yeah. Ask a stupid question.

  ‘No, I mean, why?’

  Even in the gloomy dusk I could see the strained expression on his face. There are stupid questions and then there are stupid tactless questions.

  ‘I wanted to make sure you were OK.’

  ‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?’ I pulled the edges of my jacket together and worked at the zip. I had started to shiver.

  ‘Anna’s on the warpath.’

  I snorted, and turned my body sideways to the wind while I tried to get the zip threaded together. ‘She’s a weird one, alright, came waltzing into Sebastien’s room this morning —’ I broke off, my heart leaping up in horror. Oh, crap. They say foot in mouth, but it wasn’t like that for me, more like my heart leaping up into the back of my throat. I shot a glance in Jay’s direction, wondering what the hell I could say or do, but I knew it was too late.

  ‘Anna told me.’

  ‘Told you what?’ I asked cautiously.

  ‘About you and her brother. Sebastien. About you being in his, in, about you being with him.’

  ‘Oh, shit, Jay. I should have told you.’

  Jay shrugged. ‘None of my business. We weren’t together anymore.’

  ‘Oh.’ I said. Intellectual giant, sure, that was me. What had I expected? That he was here to beg me to come back? Was that heavy feeling in my gut disappointment for God’s sakes? A gust of wind blew my ponytail across my face and I shook my head, lifted my hand to wipe strands from my mouth.

  ‘I’m not here about that.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said again.

  ‘I broke up with Anna.’ Jay took his hands out of his pockets, folded them, unfolded them, put them away again. I’d never seen him fidget like that and I wondered if he was on something. If I didn’t know him better I’d think he was nervous, but he never got nervous. Not even when the cops hauled him in for something.

  ‘None of my business, either,’ I said.

  ‘Not why I’m here.’ Jay looked at me, gave a little shrug. ‘I’m not asking you to come back. We’re over, I get that. It’s OK.’

  We stared at each other in silence for several heart thudding, painful moments. I looked at the gorgeously constructed angles that made up his face and realised, with a shock, that he really wasn’t here to beg me for another chance. I understood that I wasn’t going to wake up next to him again or find him waiting in my room, or have him follow me into a bathroom to kiss me in the dark. This was it. We really were done.

  I only realised I was crying when tears spilled down over my lashes, and I had to lift my hand and wipe them away. So stupi
d.

  ‘Jess, don’t. Come on.’

  Warm hands cupped my face, stroked my wind-blown hair out of my eyes, wiped the tears off my face. I blinked, and cleared my throat, and put my hands up over his, just for a brief moment.

  ‘OK?’ he said, peering at me, and I nodded, and our hands fell away. It almost had me bawling again, and I heard Jay clear his throat, too, as though he had something stuck there. But it wouldn’t be tears. The men in our part of the world didn’t cry.

  ‘I didn’t come by to hassle you Jess, or tell you off. I hope you know that.’

  I nodded, and busied myself with that stubborn zip. I was cold, but mostly I needed something to do with my hands, because I would kill for a cigarette right then. I wondered if that urge was ever going to go away for good. I was tired of it sneaking out to ambush me just when I thought I was done with it.

  ‘I just wanted to make sure you were OK.’

  I frowned, actually understanding the words this time.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ My heart started beating harder and I shivered again, but not with cold. Jay’d said he’d seen Anna and she’d told him I was with Sebastien. But what else might she have said? What did she know that I didn’t?

  I hadn’t talked to Sebastien since I left his house that morning. I’d assumed he was still sleeping, and he knew I had to work. But now the little niggling voice that had whispered to me in every slack moment during my shift that surely he should have called by now, well now that voice was screaming in my face. He got what he wanted and you are as stupid as your brothers think you are. What made you think all that wanting to wait and make it perfect was anything more than an act to suck you in?

  I put my face in my hands, wanting to hide from the world. I could imagine Anna and Sebastien laughing themselves sick at the great joke they’d played on me. It made me sick to think about it. Could it be true? I started to shiver so violently my teeth began chattering, and I took my hands away from my face so I could wrap my arms around myself. Once again I fumbled for the zipper on my jacket, but Jay pushed my hands gently away.

  ‘Your hands are frozen, Jess. Just put them in your pockets.’

  I slipped my hands into my pockets, the lining warm from my body heat, and Jay got to work on the zipper. He tugged me forward underneath a streetlight and bent down to get a closer look. I hadn’t even noticed the lights had come on. It must be after six, and still nothing from Sebastien.

  ‘Jess? Is everything alright.’

  Jay and I both turned, and I stared at Sebastien, walking towards me with a jingle of car keys. Sebastien looked from me, to Jay, back to me. ‘I thought I must have missed you, I can’t find my phone and I had to bring Anna’s car.’

  I knew I should say something, but I had no idea what to say. I’d just been thinking he was some sick bastard who’d been stringing me on for his own reasons and here he was after all, confusingly. And so damn beautiful he made poor Jay look ordinary. Lost his phone? Anna’s car? Why did this sound like a bunch of lame excuses?

  Sebastien looked at Jay uncertainly.

  ‘Hey,’ Jay said. ‘Sebastien.’

  ‘Jay.’

  So, these two were not going to be friends. No handshake. No surprises, either, I suppose. Sebastien had to know by now that Jay had been banging his sister. My stomach dropped queasily as it occurred to me he probably knew Jay had been doing me, too. Anna would have told him. I wondered uneasily which of those two things might bother him most. I had a horrible feeling Anna might have exaggerated things, and I couldn’t shake it no matter how much I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid and ridiculous.

  How had this all turned into an episode of some cheap soapie? I’d thought for a moment that I might get my fairy-tale, but it was starting to seem like I hadn’t even got one magic night, after all. Doubts had really taken the shine off all those sweet memories.

  ‘Do you want a lift home or are you set?’ Sebastien asked. I looked at him, and Jay finally got the zipper connected, bringing the teeth together with a metallic zzzzt that sounded incredibly loud in the almost empty street. Just on dark, Sunday night, and the eateries strip where the café was located was like a ghost town. Despite the protection from the bitter wind offered by my now zipped up jacket, I shivered.

  ‘I can take you,’ Jay said. ‘I’m going that way.’ I shot him a look and he shrugged ultra-casually. I took my hands out of my pockets and gave the bottom of my jacket a yank.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Guess I’ll be going then,’ Sebastien said abruptly, and turned to go.

  ‘What? No, I didn’t mean that, I meant — damn it.’ I’d said thanks to Jay for zipping up my jacket, I hadn’t meant it as accepting a ride home, but even I, the queen of conversational detours, realised that trying to explain all that was just digging a deeper hole.

  ‘Sebastien, wait.’ I started after him, but he stopped and spun around, looking so angry I stopped dead.

  ‘No, Jess. You’ve made your choice here and I’m not going to get in your way. Anna tried to warn me, but I didn’t want to hear it.’

  My heart thudded hard and I swallowed, almost ill.

  ‘What did she tell you?’

  ‘She told me you’d been with him.’ I didn’t have to ask who Sebastien meant. I was painfully conscious of Jay standing there. He hated confrontation so much, I was surprised he was still there, and I hoped he’d have the sense to stay a silent spectator.

  I tried to think of something I could say, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could say to try to explain, or defend myself. Even at the time I’d known in my gut I was doing the wrong thing.

  ‘You can’t deny it, can you?’

  I clenched my fists, helpless, horrified that I was so obviously losing him. I had to try. ‘It’s not what you think.’

  ‘You’ve no idea what I think. And God knows I have no idea what goes through your mind, I never could get a straight answer from you on anything. Now I know why you never let me in. It was probably pretty hard to keep track with all the lies you did say.’

  I shook my head, but I had no more words, even if I could have forced them out through the tightness in my throat. I had shut him out. I had basically lied to him, every day, even if it was just by not telling him things. By pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

  I put my hands back in my pockets, and hunched my shoulders defensively. I was shivering again, my throat squeezed shut, whole body aching. If only I was just coming down with a cold, and not standing there with my heart breaking.

  Sebastien shook his head.

  ‘God, I wish I’d never met you.’ And with that he turned his back, and walked away.

  I stood in the street with unshed tears a suffocating lump in my throat and watched him go, and the cold and the falling darkness around me was nothing compared to what I felt inside.

  I kept expecting him to stop and come back, but he didn’t.

  Obviously Troy had been right. A flashy car didn’t mean anyone was about to take you away from all this, and Sebastien had turned out not to be my Richard Gere, after all.

  Chapter 24

  It was lucky I didn’t have classes on Monday, because I spent the morning lying in bed with the doona over my head, wondering how the hell everything had gone to shit. Crying. Coming up with desperate strategies to convince Sebastien to give me another chance. But I could imagine too well how he felt, finding out I’d been hiding all kinds of shit from him. Like how I was still sleeping with my ex-boyfriend. I couldn’t imagine him ever forgiving me for that, let along anything even worse Anna might have invented to tell him. Crying some more.

  I’d probably have stayed there all day, except at noon my phone beeped, a text from Seth, the manager at the café, asking if I could work the rest of the afternoon as well as my rostered shift that night, as Simone had gone home with a migraine. I quickly texted back that I’d be there as quick as I could, and dragged myself into the shower. I needed my job, and I didn’t want to let anyon
e down just because I was wallowing in self-inflicted tragedy.

  It was a good thing I’d made the effort; Mondays, especially the nights, could be slow, so there were only two rostered on out front but there must be a show on or something because by 6 p.m. the place was packed. And it was good for me too. It got me out of my own head, which was a pretty miserable place to be right then.

  I delivered dessert and collected a couple of plates from table eleven and started heading back to the kitchen, noting a couple of tables that still needed clearing. There wasn’t the urgency there’d been earlier; everyone who’d ordered was busy eating, people who’d finished had paid and left. I just needed to get those tables cleared and ready for the next people who came in wanting dinner, and we’d be on top of things. I tapped a wooden table with my elbow as I passed it, touch wood, not wanting to risk offending the gods of café and tempt them to zap us with chaos, like a dishwasher breaking down or something.

  The door opened and I looked up automatically, my heart thudding in recognition as my feet stopped all forward movement. What was he doing here? Man, this was so not the night for that prick detective to come nosing around after the dirt on my brothers. Just bad timing, I told myself, and shook my legs into action, heading quickly for the kitchen so I could dump my plates and get out of sight. If he had just wandered in looking for dinner or coffee or something, I’d rather someone else served him.

  ‘Jessica Carter, stop right there!’ Thumping footsteps, completely out of place in the café, and the startled pause in conversation should have warned me, but I was still completely taken by surprise when Detective Simmons grabbed my arm and yanked it behind my back. One hand wasn’t enough to keep my grip on the plates and glasses I was carrying, and they slipped free of my fingers, landing on the tiles with an ear-offending smash, tiny bits of glass and china exploding out from the impact point like shrapnel from a bomb.

  I still had no idea what was going on. Not until he grabbed my other arm and I felt cold metal circling my wrists. No. No way.