Just You

by Jane Lark

Portia stood up and walked over to the printer to collect the letters she’d printed off. Her head was down scanning them for errors as she walked back. Her blonde ponytail had caught on her shoulder and rested over her white blouse. She had her work poker-face on. You’d never guess the out-of-office girl I knew was there.

  I sent her an email. ‘In-office.’

  She sat down, and glanced over once she’d seen it. She smiled.

  My fingers typed. ‘Are we meeting for lunch?’

  ‘Yeah, if you want.’

  ‘I want, baby.’

  ‘:-)’

  She hated me calling her babe or baby, but somehow, it softened her a little more.

  ‘See you at twelve in the deli.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She stood up then, smiling at me, with the letters she’d printed gripped in her hand, and turned to take them into Mr. Rees.

  A bit more than an hour later I stood outside the deli waiting for her, my hands in my pockets. This was one of the things I wanted to change. I didn’t see why we couldn’t just walk out of work together. Why did it matter? But it mattered to her, because whenever I suggested the idea she backtracked a mile, and came up with a dozen excuses not to.

  I saw her, further along the sidewalk, walking toward me. She had on a black pencil skirt, a short cream coat and black patent heels. I knew beneath her skirt her sheer black stockings were stay ups. A spasm of lust, to touch her soft skin above her stockings, gripped in my groin. I ignored it. I couldn’t even see her until Wednesday night.

  If she’d been in out-of-office mode when she reached me, I’d have got a kiss–in-office Portia gave me a nod.

  My hand slipped about her waist as we turned to the door, and I whispered to her ear. “In-office, baby.”

  She glanced back and gave me a big fat pleased to see you out-of-office smile.

  It played guitar strings in my heart. I had it bad for this girl. I wanted it up a gear–and I was gonna persuade her today.

  “You, okay?” I asked when we sat down.

  “Yeah, you? Are you busy?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got a ton to do.”

  “What?” She drizzled a bit of olive oil on her salad.

  “I’m doing a feature on The Giants, Keith wants me to change the color tones, and the backgrounds, and ensure we’re showing them in their best light–”

  “Why does stuff like that matter?”

  “’Cause everyone and everything has to look perfect these days, and it’s all gotta be wrapped up in a parcel with a perfect bow.”

  She looked up and met my gaze. “And then someone comes along and breaks the glass, then you realize nothing is perfect, perfect isn’t out there…”

  She was thinking of her Dad.

  I reached out and gripped her hand. “But then sometimes you discover things are better than you ever thought they could be…”

  “Portia! Justin!”

  She moved in an instant, pulling her hand from mine and standing up, as I turned in my chair to face Becky from the office.

  “Becky!” Portia gave her a hug and an air kiss. Becky looked at me, her eyebrows lifting. I smiled. It seemed my talk with Portia was off. The cat was out the bag.

  “What are you two doing?” The question wasn’t only in her words, it was in her voice as she stared at me, asking questions with her eyes too, guessing.

  “Oh,” Portia’s hand waved in the air as she glanced at me only for a second. She didn’t look me in the eyes. “He was in here when I came in, do you want to sit with us.”

  Bullshit. I wanted to grab her arm and make her tell the truth as she moved to pull up a third chair, encouraging Becky to sit. I felt like she’d punched me.

  What the fuck, Portia?

  She spent the next ten minutes gossiping with Becky like I wasn’t even here, full on in-office, and then she actually had the fucking neck to throw me a smile and ask. “Why are you being so quiet? You’re not normally quiet.” If she’d been a guy I’d have hit her. The bitch. But I played along, and nodded at them, watching her in a dream.

  Clearly what I thought had happened over the last six weeks, hadn’t happened.

  After another ten minutes, I’d finished my lunch and I’d had enough. Fuck this. I stood up, dropping my napkin on the table. “Well, nice to run into you. I’ll see you back at the office.”

  She looked up at me, her eyes full of shock. She knew I was angry. Hell, Becky probably knew I was angry, but I didn’t give at shit. Let Portia carry on her little games, but she’d be playing them by herself.

  I walked out of the deli, letting the door bang shut. The good thing I’d had going was over.

  I stuffed my hands into my coat pockets and curled them into fists as I walked along the street, dodging people and grumbling to myself. I looked up at the skyline of scrapers–exasperated. Fucking hell, Portia!

  Shit. I was pissed when I got back to the office. I opened up my system.

  Portia came back fifteen minutes later with Becky. I knew she was there. I didn’t look up. I also knew she was looking at me. Well, she could keep looking, it wasn’t gonna get her anywhere. I was done.

  ‘You okay?’ Her message came up with a little envelope.

  ‘Nope. It’s over.’

  ‘Over?’

  ‘I’m done with you, Portia. The end.’

  ‘Why.’

  ‘The fact you even need to ask that says it all. Don’t bother trying to talk to me.’

  ‘Justin?’

  I didn’t reply. I really was done.

  But when I went to the toilet later she followed. She was there when I came out. Standing in the hall, agitated, like she’d been after New Year’s when she hadn’t remembered what had happened. Maybe I should have recalled that and known her heart was never in it.

  “What?” I said to her.

  “Justin, what’s wrong.” Her fingers touched my arm. I shrugged them off.

  “Nothing’s fucking wrong. Nothing at all.” I moved to walk past her but she moved in front of me, and this time both her hands gripped my arms.

  “What… You changed like in a minute, Justin.”

  She was painting it as me in the wrong. I wasn’t in the wrong. I gripped her upper arms and shook her a little, to shake some sense into her. “I’m not gonna be your dirty secret. We’re together and everyone knows it, or we’re not. Why the fuck did you lie to Becky like that?”

  “I…” She didn’t have an answer; ‘cause there was no answer. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s okay, Portia, ‘cause I’m done, thanks for breaking the glass.”

  I let her go and walked past her.

  She didn’t come back to her desk for about fifteen minutes. I didn’t look at her when she did.

  She was nothing to do with me anymore.

  Chapter Eight

  My bed felt cold. I looked up at the skylight. There was a full moon shining a square of silver light on my pillow. I remembered watching Justin making love to me, shrouded in it.

  I couldn’t believe he’d ended it.

  It had been a week and I still hadn’t got over the way he’d just cut the cord binding us together. He wasn’t speaking to me.

  He never even looked at me at work, though he was more playful with Becky and Crystal, like he was trying to annoy me. Or maybe he’d always been that nice and it was only now I really knew him, I saw what I’d been missing.

  He never answered my texts either.

  I’d tried calling his cell, he just cut me off. I’d left about three dozen messages before I gave up trying.

  He wouldn’t let me apologize.

  I’d tried twice at work too, catching him on his own. But he still ignored me. I’d given up entirely then.

  But it hurt.

  And I knew I’d hurt him, but I hadn’t meant to. I hadn’t realized how much he wanted people to know. I mean, he’d talked about it, but I didn’t know he was pissed off over it… Obviously he had been.

  I rolled onto my
side, pulled the comforter up to my chin, curling up and hugging my knees. I ached for him. I’d never ached for Daniel. And it was a literal ache, it was in my palms and fingers; the soles of my feet and my toes. My belly and chest felt bruised–and my heart… My heart felt as though it had been kicked.

  Tears rolled onto my pillow like they’d done every night since the glass had broken between us–fairytale shattered into reality.

  I was bored and lonely again–and empty. I missed him so much. But I wasn’t going to beg him to forgive me.

  I don’t know when I fell asleep but I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up, it was daylight. I looked at my clock. It flashed seven a.m. I stretched and sadness hit me like a brick smashing into my head. Why wouldn’t he speak to me? If he’d speak to me, maybe he’d forgive me. I’d just made a mistake, it wasn’t so bad.

  I got up, washed and dressed–dead inside, my heart heavy.

  My cell rang, Counting Stars.

  I longed to see Justin’s name when I picked it up, but it was Dad’s.

  I tapped the accept button. “Dad…”

  “Portia. We’re in town, honey, we thought we’d come to New York for a weekend shopping, we can meet up.” Of course they hadn’t come to see me. No. They’d come to shop, and I was simply conveniently here. Like any other associate.

  My stomach tied in a knot. Seeing my parents was hell.

  “Yeah, okay, when?” There was no enthusiasm in my voice.

  “Tomorrow, Friday evening, at six.”

  Panic hit my chest with a punch. “Okay.”

  “I’ll text you the address of our hotel.”

  “Okay.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  They couldn’t even be bothered to see me today–tomorrow. They couldn’t even be bothered to come out to me–our hotel. They’d been to my place once, and turned around and walked straight back out in five minutes.

  Nothing changed.

  Except–since New Year’s–I’d had Justin and I’d been happy for a while.

  Well that was over and this was reality. I’d got sucked into the Disney myth again, that was all, things weren’t different–and happy endings were fiction.

  I washed and dressed for work, scraped my hair back into a ponytail, then gave myself a condescending look in the mirror. “Queen of mess-up.”

  Anxiety was rocking inside me like the ocean swelling as I caught the subway to work. I hated going in now, ‘cause I hated Justin ignoring me–and now I had dinner with my parents to look forward to. Awesome.

  I climbed the stairs to the floor our offices were on, delaying facing him by avoiding the lift. But it was inevitable. When I walked in, he was leaning on Becky’s desk talking to her.

  People started saying, “Hi,” to me. He glanced up, but when he saw it was me he looked back at Becky, grinning and saying something, before he walked away and sat down.

  Becky looked over as I got close. “Hey. Do you want a coffee? I was just gonna make one?”

  “Hi. Yes. Thanks. That would be cool.”

  I slipped my coat off and went to hang it up, trying to ignore Justin who was ignoring me.

  It felt like I was back at boarding school. Sharing rooms with girls always meant you’d fallen out with someone.

  Maybe that was why I had grown up so tough. I’d had to be tough. If you let things like this–like Justin–beneath your skin, then you were lost and miserable.

  I took my seat, and made a decision to have one more try…

  ‘I said I’m sorry, Justin.’ I sent the email.

  There was no response.

  He was pretty tough-skinned too and obviously not miserable. But then he had his family, he didn’t need me.

  I needed him.

  Sighing, I got up to collect Mr. Rees’s mail. When I sorted it, there was a solicitor’s letter in there from a firm in Oregon, about a paternity case. That rocketed up my anger. Was that the reason he’d been black and blue and buying his wife presents a few weeks back…?

  It wasn’t what I wanted to think about when Dad was in town and I had to see him tomorrow.

  Most of the day, I felt trapped in Justin’s sentence of silence. Becky and Crystal talked but I didn’t really listen, anxiety knitting up inside me. I could hear the needles clicking, and my heart pumped away, like it was pounding out the rhythm on a base drum.

  My hands shook when I got up to go out for lunch and I had a feeling that I was going to break into a full on panic attack soon.

  I hadn’t seen my parents for seven months. I didn’t want to see them.

  When I came back into the office, I looked at Justin, his head was down a little, and he had headphones in, listening to music as he worked, no doubt to drown me out if I spoke.

  I’d got used to him being there when I’d needed someone. Being nice. He’d listened. God no one had ever listened to me before.

  He understood too, ‘cause of his Dad. I’d trashed that.

  Awesome.

  I sat down, there was no point messaging him again, he wasn’t going to answer.

  I sighed and got back on with my work. God, I wished he would be there tomorrow night.

  The idea exploded in my head like a whole pan of popping corn breaking from the kernels all at once.

  He’d wanted me to tell people we were together. The two things could collide tomorrow; if I asked him to come. There was no bigger statement. It would make us front page news if I introduced him to my parents.

  I looked over at him. He wasn’t looking at me.

  But how could I ask him when he wasn’t even talking to me… and did he even like me now?

  ~

  A knock hit the door. I looked up at Mom, and saw Robin do the same. We were sitting ‘round the table eating dinner. It was eight already, too late for it to be someone selling stuff, and no one visited. Mom didn’t have friends, she was too busy working, and she didn’t let any of us encourage friends to call either. She wanted us all where she could see us, not on the streets were too many kids walked around with knives and guns. Or if she was working–where I could see them.

  Jake glanced at me nervously as I stood up, like he was looking to his older brother for help. It was unusual for him. I gripped his shoulder for a moment as I lifted my other hand to tell Mom to sit back down as she stood too. “I’ll go.”

  If it was trouble, it was better I was the one meeting it at the door. The conversation started up again behind me as Dillon said something that made Robin laugh. Dillon was still blind to the truth of life around here.

  I shut the door behind me when I went into the hall. It was quiet and dark. I flicked the switch and the light blinked a couple of times before coming on.

  I half expected it to be a sales man, or Miriam from next door begging a cup of sugar, or something. I looked through the spyglass.

  Frick. Portia.

  I pulled the door open. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She stood there, dressed in her silly woolen hat with its trailing plaits hanging over her ears. It was an out-of-office look. Her eyes glowed a strange gray in the yellow electric light seeping from the flat. She breathed out, the steam of her breath misting in the cold air. The outdoor landing was open on the far side, and between the concrete pillars I could see the night sky. It was cloudy, the black stained orange by the city lights.

  As my gaze came back to her, I rested my shoulder against the doorjamb and crossed my arms. “It’s pointless, Portia.” But what the fuck was she doing here, on her own, at night? She stood out like one of the Kardashians walking around in the middle of a Call of Duty game.

  Shit. I’d have to take her home.

  “I don’t know what else to say to you–” she started.

  “Then say nothing.” I wasn’t interested in hearing her excuses. I turned to get my coat. “I’ll take you back.”

  “Justin…” She gripped my arm. “I want you to come to dinner with
my parents. They’re in New York. Would that redeem me? I’m sorry I wasn’t ready to go public in the office but… I want you back. I miss you.”

  “Justin!” Mom’s voice reverberated through the closed door behind us. “Justin!” Portia let go of me at the same moment the door into the hall opened.

  Mom stopped dead, surprise knocking her off balance like a ten-pin, as if pretty, white, Portia, was a bowling ball.

  I could hear the others talking and laughing at the table, but I couldn’t see them.

  I looked back. Portia’s hand lifted to take off her hat, she looked nervous.

  “Justin?” Mom called my attention back to her.

  “Mom, this is Portia, the girl I’ve been seeing?” I hadn’t told her it was over.

  Portia gripped her woolen hat in front of her. “Hello, Mrs. Preston, I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  “Did this boy ask you over here and not tell me?” Mom looked embarrassed.

  Portia’s perfect, slightly British accent set her apart. It was clear she hadn’t grown up anywhere near here.

  “No, Mom–” I interjected… but she cut me off.

  “Well, the boy shouldn’t have asked you to come out here–not alone. It’s not safe. You’d better come in and have something to eat, sweetheart?”

  Frick.

  “No, I–”

  Portia looked at me, but before I could say yes or no, Mom said, “Have you eaten, child?”

  Portia shook her head. I raised my eyebrows.

  “The girl hasn’t eaten, Justin, let her eat … ”

  Mom thought I just wanted to go out, not that I was trying to avoid the torture of letting Portia in–that was all I’d wanted to do all week–I just didn’t feel like being kicked again.

  I sighed. I wasn’t gonna win this. Mom didn’t like the word no.

  Moving past me, Mom’s fingers closed over Portia’s and her hat too as Portia gripped it tight. “We were just sitting down.”

  Cool.

  “Well now. My boy Justin’s shocked me, I’m not gonna lie, and so you’re gonna have to forgive my rudeness, sweetheart. I had no idea you were white, child. Your hand is freezing. Justin, how could you leave the girl on the step?” She kept talking as she led Portia along the hall.

  “Hey.” I heard chairs scraping as Robin and Jake must have seen her and stood up. They’d be shocked too.