A is for Apple

by Kate Johnson

  I stayed away. “I’m not good with heights.”

  “But you’re so tall!”

  “I know. Stupid, huh?”

  Neither of us felt like sleeping. Xander had dozed a bit during the day while I read the books I’d brought from Fuerteventura, and I’d been asleep until midday anyway. We watched a couple more films and re-runs, and then Xander looked at me pleadingly and said, “We ran out of margarita…”

  “So go and get some more.”

  “But he won’t give me any. He likes you…”

  I didn’t really want to go down and get some more, but on the other hand, it was good margarita…

  I heaved myself off the bed and grabbed my purse. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Duh.”

  I got out of the lift on the ground floor and made my way across the glossy marble to the bar. But out of the corner of my eye I could see a familiar-looking figure in a shiny suit…

  I walked a little faster. There were footsteps behind me and I knew I’d been spotted. If I went into the bar, he’d follow me.

  I’d go outside, pop into a shop or something, take a walk around the block…

  Damn, it was past midnight, there’d be no shops open. But by the time I realised this, it was already too late. I was outside, and I had only a few seconds to decide which way to go.

  I was wearing trainers, my blisters covered over with plasters, but they still hurt as I started to run. I went north, turned onto 33rd Street, then past Broadway, down Sixth—I think—my lungs bursting. I’m not a good runner.

  Left, right, left, left again—I kept going until I was so lost I couldn’t even find myself. Panting, leaning against a shop window, I watched a few people go by, none of them paying the tiniest bit of attention to me.

  Okay. Time to figure out where I was and limp back home.

  I found my way to Broadway and headed north, fairly sure I was going the right way. Yes, street numbers were going up. Only a few more blocks to go. I guess that’s the good thing about Manhattan—easy to navigate. How had I run all this way? Wow, I must have burned off loads of calories.

  Goody, more junk food.

  I was waiting for the Walk sign to change when I realised it. There was a black car—an anonymous American Ford with darkened windows—purring down the street towards me. I watched the passenger window open, and a familiar face atop a shiny suit looked out at me. And then I saw the gun he was holding, and I threw myself down behind a bank of mailboxes as two shots rang out past me.

  Jesus.

  The car passed on, I heard it speeding away, so I got to my feet and forced them to move faster, running back to the hotel. I had to warn Xander and get out of here.

  It happened when I was crossing 31st Street. I’d glanced at the Walk sign and seen it in my favour, so without stopping I pelted over the street. Then I heard a roar and a screech and an awful crunch, and realised the car had hit me. Then I skidded onto the road, my head hit the tarmac, and everything went black.

  A is for Apple

  Chapter Five

  Someone with a strong Noo Yoik accent was speaking very close to me, touching my face, telling me to wake up. There was an ambulance on the way. I was to stay still.

  I opened my eyes and looked up at a concerned round face, dark skin in a dark uniform. A cop.

  “Hey, lady, you okay?”

  I feebly wriggled my arms and legs and, having decided my back wasn’t broken, lifted my head.

  “Did that car just hit me?” I said in indignation.

  “Yeah. It sped off before anyone could get the licence plate.”

  Not that I needed it. I had a feeling I knew who’d been in that car, and I had a feeling it wasn’t theirs.

  I started to pull myself to my feet, but the cop protested.

  “You should stay still, you could be hurt—”

  “I’m fine,” I said, a blatant lie. My leg throbbed where the car had hit and my shoulder ached where I’d skidded along on it. But I pushed him away and stood up, swaying a little. “I’m good.”

  “You should wait for the ambulance—”

  “I don’t have insurance,” I said, remembering this vital fact of the American health system. You’ve got to have money to be ill. Well, no—you’ve got to have money to get treated. So much for equality. “I really have to go. I have a flight in a couple of hours.”

  “You do?”

  Not yet, but wait until I get on the phone.

  “Thanks.” I pulled my wallet out of my pocket and pressed a note into his hand without looking what it was. “You’ve been very helpful, uh, tell the ambulance I’m feeling better, erm, I’ve got to go…”

  And I took off, stumbling, feeling like I'd just been put through a food processor.

  I got on the next flight out. It was at five a.m., and I spent my time at the airport trying to clean myself up with the limited medical supplies I had in my bag. I’d bolted back to the hotel and found my room empty. God only knew where Xander might be. I was hoping desperately he’d avoided Shapiro’s men (if indeed that’s who they were), that maybe he’d gone out for a cigarette or something, and I’d missed him, but at the back of my mind lurked the awful fear that he was really just dead.

  Throwing things into my case, I made a desperate and rather garbled call to the airport and cashed in my return ticket. I called Luke and left a message on his machine that I was coming home ASAP. I hailed a taxi—a new experience and one I should have been proud of, but I was too frazzled to think about it.

  My eyebrow tweezers were in my suitcase. I knew my security restrictions, and although I really couldn’t see what damage you could to with tweezers (viciously over-pluck a stewardess’s eyebrows, maybe?), I stuck to them. Consequently there was nothing to help me get the bits of grit and dirt out of the graze on my shoulder, but hey, at least the pain there and from the throbbing lump on my head and the big dent in my leg made me forget about the raw patches on my feet.

  I slept through most of the flight, tempted as I was by the movies on offer, ate nothing and stumbled through passport control (the joys of having a native passport!), only to find that it took twenty minutes to allocate us a conveyor belt and a further hour for them to put our luggage on it. The only explanation we got was a garbled PA announcement saying our bags were delayed because of beer bear jam. Or something. I was half dead and really just wanted to go home and sleep forever.

  Finally I got my bag (I mean really, Ace Airlines pay peanuts for monkey work, but they can still get the right bags on the right belt) and tripped off to the car park, nearly getting run over twice on the way, but what kind of news was that? I gave Ted a big hug and collapsed in him, seriously doubting I'd get home without falling asleep or passing out from pain (supermarket painkillers not being much help to me), but I managed, and pulled up outside my lovely flat, almost weeping with joy.

  The geranium in my little courtyard was pretty much dead, but I didn’t care. I unlocked the millions of unbreakable locks that Luke helped me install (his own place is like Fort Knox) and fell inside, so happy to be home I was actually crying. Tammy sauntered up, trying to look malnourished, and pulled a face at me when I scooped her up for a tearful cuddle.

  I threw all my dusty, bloody, smelly clothes on the floor (the couple in the plane seats next to me had not looked impressed—we were in Economy but I looked like I should be in the hold) and got into the shower. The hot water stung the raw patches on my skin, and there were tears streaming down my face when I got out and probed around for bits of dirt and poured half a bottle of Dettol on, but I felt slightly better for being clean.

  I pulled on an old long white nightie and crawled into bed, my lovely soft warm welcoming bed, my adorable bed, my beloved bed, and sank into unconsciousness.

  I woke to hear my name being called by Luke’s voice, and figured I was dreaming. I let myself sink back down into blissful sleep again, but he called me once more, and then I heard my bedroom door open and Tammy, who’d curled u
p by my feet, squeaked in welcome and ran away, as is her wont.

  “Sophie? Didn’t you get my message?”

  I feigned sleep, hoping he’d go away.

  “I know you’re faking it.”

  There was nothing for it but to open my eyes and squint rather unattractively up at him. He was wearing jeans and an FCUK T-shirt and he looked edible.

  “What message?” I yawned.

  “The one I left on your phone. Where is it?”

  I tried to remember. “Bag?”

  “Where’s that?” Luke asked patiently.

  “Sofa?”

  He disappeared, and I tried to go back to sleep but he was back too soon, pressing buttons on my phone and frowning at me. “You didn’t switch it on when you landed.”

  “Erm, no…”

  He shook his head and held the phone to my ear. His own voice rang out: “Hey, it’s me. Listen, if you’re not too jetlagged and Karen doesn’t have you filling out a million reports, I thought we might go to a gig tonight. At Funky Joe’s. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  I looked up, and Luke was holding my alarm clock in his other hand. 7:58.

  “So I’m a little early,” he said, “but I did think you might be slightly more ready to come out.”

  I was frowning at him in confusion. Er, wasn’t he supposed to be enquiring as to my health? My reason for fleeing the country? My total lack of investigation into Xander’s disappearance, Shapiro’s apparent death, and the goons who’d tried to kill me? My total cowardice in just running away from it all? Any of it?

  Then I remembered I’d only told him I was coming home with not a single reason as to why, and realised he probably thought Karen had ordered it.

  “What gig?”

  “The band. Remember your brother? Well, he plays an instrument called a bass guitar, and he’s in a band with three other guys called—”

  “I know what they’re called,” I said. “How did you know about the gig? I didn’t even know about it.”

  Luke declined to comment on the things I did and didn’t know, as he usually did, but instead said, “Tom came by to drop off your Kaiser Chiefs CD. Which I have now borrowed, by the way. He said they’d be playing at Joe’s and he’d tell Chalker we’re coming…”

  I felt slightly sick. “My brother knows we’re coming?”

  “Yep.”

  Which meant my parents would know. “We’re” coming. And they hadn’t met Luke. Didn’t even know I had a boyfriend. I’d been single for so long before him that they’d never believe me anyway.

  “Oh God.”

  “Come on,” he took my hands and pulled me upright, “get dressed. Do that eyeliner thing you do. We don’t have to stay long. I just thought,” he shrugged, “it might be nice to meet your friends.”

  “You’ve met—wait, my friends are going?”

  “Tom said Ella and Evie are going, and I don’t know them but you’re always talking about them…”

  Jesus.

  I stumbled out of bed and pulled my leather jeans and a strappy black top from the wardrobe. Tired though I was, I knew I couldn’t let Chalker down by appearing as anything less than a full rock chick. I did the eyeliner thing and scrunched up my damp hair with gel to give it some body. It fell back down, flat. Oh well. I wrapped up my feet and put on some thick socks and gingerly zipped up my four-inch heeled black boots.

  “Okay?” I said to Luke, who’d been timing me.

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “That’s a new record.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Got your bag? Keys, makeup, phone—switched on this time—wallet?”

  “You really do sound like my mother.”

  “I’ll find out soon enough.”

  I made Luke park at Waitrose so no one would see his Vectra—it’s an okay car, I suppose (you can stop twisting my arm now), but not exactly what you might call cool—and stumbled up to Funky Joe’s with him. It was a pleasant evening and the band and various groupies were standing around outside Joe’s, waving pints of beer and bottles of alcopops and laughing at something Tom had said. Tom is the scrawny singer in the band. He was in my Drama class at school; the drummer took History with me, and I used to have English with the guitarist. These gigs are like full school reunions.

  Tom spied me and waved. He’s the only one who’s met Luke, at a gig in April, when we had to catch a guy who tried to kill me…

  Chalker, my very big big brother, noticed Tom waving, looked over and saw me. And then he saw Luke and his eyebrows went up.

  And then he came over.

  “Oh, shit,” I said, clutching Luke’s arm. “Oh shit oh shit…”

  “What?”

  “Chalker.”

  “Sophie, he’s your brother, not the Grand High Inquisitor.” Luke laughed, and when Chalker approached, he smiled and said, “Hi, you must be Sophie’s brother.”

  “If you say we look alike I’ll drop his bass amp on you,” I muttered.

  “You must be Sophie’s boyfriend,” Chalker said.

  “So she tells me. I’m Luke.”

  “Charlie. Everyone calls me Chalker.”

  I waited for Luke to ask why, even though he knew the story about Chalker always writing lines on the blackboard, à la Bart Simpson, but he didn’t.

  “What happened to you?” Chalker broke the silence by gesturing to my arm.

  “Oh.” I glanced down at the fierce graze and wondered why Luke hadn’t mentioned it. “I fell over.”

  “Is this like when you tripped over the soap packet in Menorca and sprained your wrist?”

  I glared at him. Luke laughed.

  “Sort of,” I mumbled. “Can we go in?”

  Luke shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

  First time for everything.

  “Oh yeah,” Chalker called after us, “Mum and Dad are coming. Should be here any minute.”

  “Run, hide,” I said to Luke, who sighed.

  “Do you not want me to meet them or something?”

  I looked up at him, so strong and sure and handsome. How could I put this?

  “I’ve only ever brought one boyfriend home before,” I said, “and he cheated on me. And I haven’t seen anyone since. So I’m a little out of practice.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll be nice to them.”

  “It’s not them I’m worried about.”

  SO17 has this rule where we’re supposed to have a couple of units of alcohol a night to keep our resistance levels up in case we need to drink a lot (I find this happening with increasing regularity), but can still drive and work things properly. Obviously while I was away I didn’t want to lapse in this, so I took an entire week’s worth every night in Fuerteventura.

  I was sick of Guinness, didn’t like the memories, so I chickened out and had a Smirnoff Ice instead. It was cold and sweet and good, and it didn’t last long.

  “So what did happen to you?” Luke said, gesturing to the raw graze on my arm, where a couple of stubborn bits of grit still dwelt.

  “Nice of you to ask.”

  “I figured you might want to tell me.”

  Not really wanting to get into it right now, I said, “I fell over.” This isn’t so hard to believe, I have been known to trip over with no obvious cause. And I really did trip over a soap packet in Menorca two years ago. I blame Ella. Who leaves a soap packet on a damp floor in the bathroom when I’ve been drinking?

  “Fell over what? You’ve got half of Manhattan in that graze.”

  “Voice down, Luke, I’m not supposed to have been there.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  I sighed. He can always tell when I’m lying. “I—” I began, but was cut off by someone crying my name. I looked around and saw Ella and Evie, my two best friends since school, come rushing towards me. Ella was wearing tight jeans and a clingy vest with no bra. Evie had sparkly pink trainers, a top trimmed with marabou, and glitter in her hair.

  I stamped on Luke’s foot before he could say anything.
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  “I didn’t know you were going to be here!” Evie said. “I texted you about it but you never replied.”

  “No, well, I was in Fuerteventura with Angel,” I reminded her.

  “Thought you came back on Wednesday,” Ella said.

  Bollocks. “Well—yes, but my phone’s been playing up. You haven’t met Luke, have you?”

  They both stared. “Oh my God, he’s with you?” Evie gasped, and Luke and I both tried unsuccessfully to hide smiles.

  “Yeah. Luke, this is Ella and Evie. My best friends since school. Guys, this is…well, this is Luke.”

  “I haven’t known her since school,” Luke clarified, shaking hands with them. I was glad he hadn’t kissed them. They might have fainted.

  I know I nearly did the first time.

  “You cow,” Ella hissed in delight, “you never told us!”

  “Well…” I began, and ran out of things to say. “Evie, I love your shoes.”

  “Nice try.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “I didn’t—well, I mean…I—Luke, help me out here!”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “She hasn’t let me meet her parents yet either.”

  “How long has this been going on?” Evie demanded.

  “Your parents are over there,” Ella said.

  “Well, a couple of—of weeks,” I fabricated. “Not really long at all.” I stamped on Luke’s foot again.

  “But how did you meet?” Evie asked.

  “They’re coming right over,” Ella said.

  “I—well, at work,” I said.

  “I just started at Ace,” Luke said. “Sophie’s been showing me the ropes.”

  “Bet that’s not all she’s been—” Ella muttered under her breath, then her face brightened. “Hi! Sophie, your parents…”

  I spun around and froze, grinning like a corpse.

  “Hi, Mum, Dad.”

  For a few seconds we all looked at each other, and then Ella tugged a disgruntled Evie away to the bar.

  “Sophie,” my mum hugged me and left a lipstick mark on my cheek, “you look so—” she looked me over. “Did it rain?”

  Luke laughed softly.