Jenny Sparrow Knows the Future

by Melissa Pimentel

  ‘I thought the insurance racket was a good one,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not bad.’ I felt suddenly defensive of the payslip that arrived in my inbox each month. ‘But London isn’t particularly conducive to saving money.’

  ‘I hear that. I pretty much only ate baked beans when I lived here, and I walked everywhere because I couldn’t afford the bus, never mind the Tube. Best way to see the city, though, so I don’t regret that.’

  I paused before saying what I said next. ‘You mean when you lived here with your ex?’

  He nodded but didn’t say anything more. And really, that should have been the end of it. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it, and it wasn’t any of my business, but I couldn’t help myself. It was like trying to ignore a mosquito bite – eventually you were going to tear into the skin like a rabid dog with a chicken.

  ‘What happened between you two?’ He caught his breath as if I’d punched him in the gut, and I felt instantly, horribly embarrassed. ‘Sorry!’ I said hastily. ‘Honestly, just ignore me.’

  ‘No, it’s fine.’ He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘She died.’

  I felt my face fall. ‘Oh my God,’ I gasped. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s okay.’ He shook his head and corrected himself. ‘I mean, it’s not okay’ – he let out a little half-laugh – ‘of course it’s not okay, that she died. But it’s okay that you asked.’

  ‘We don’t have to talk about it.’

  He took a sip from his pint, placed the glass back down on the table, and stared into it, as though an answer might be conjured from it. ‘It’s okay. Really. Her name was Anna. She was English – a real East London girl, all blonde hair and long legs and attitude.’ I felt a twinge of jealousy and shooed it away. I had no right to be jealous of any girlfriend of Jackson’s, and I sure as hell didn’t have the right to be jealous of a woman who was dead. ‘We met when I was backpacking through Europe,’ he continued, rolling his eyes at the cliché. ‘In Greece. I was off my face on ouzo and was walking back to the hostel when I ran into her. Literally. I physically ran into her. Almost knocked her over. I actually did fall over, right at her feet.’ He shook his head at the memory. ‘I remember looking up at this – this goddess towering above me, and thinking someone must have slipped something into that last glass because there was no way someone that beautiful could be anything other than a figment of my imagination. And then she opened her mouth and said, in the most incomprehensible cockney accent, “Fucking hell, watch where you’re bloody going, you fucking idiot!”’ He looked up at me and smiled. ‘And that was it. Love at first sight.’

  ‘I met Christopher the same way,’ I said.

  ‘You did?’

  I nodded. ‘I tripped running for his cab. He had to scrape me off the pavement. Though there was less cursing, and I’m pretty sure the word “goddess” didn’t enter his mind when he was doing it.’

  He shot me a weak smile. ‘You never know. There must have been something to make him fall for you.’

  ‘Maybe it was the way the light hit the asphalt,’ I said. ‘So you guys met in Greece, fell in love, and then you moved to London to be with her?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘How long were you together before …’ I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

  He didn’t hesitate. ‘Two years, three months, and eighteen days.’

  ‘That’s a long time,’ I said. ‘Especially when you’re that young.’

  He shrugged. ‘Yeah, well. Not long enough.’

  Silence fell at the table. I picked up a beer bottle and started peeling strips off the label.

  ‘You’re wondering what happened to her,’ he said finally. It wasn’t a question. I nodded. ‘A car accident.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘She was on her way to some reclamation yard in Dorset. She loved going to those things – the more junk, the better. I used to call her Oscar the Grouch – obsessed with garbage.’ His eyes creased fondly at the memory. ‘She was good at it, though. Our flat was filled with stuff she’d found. “My gems”, she called them. Anyway, she’d been wanting to go to this one place in Dorset for a while, so she convinced her father to lend her his van – he was in construction – and off she went.’ He shook his head, just once. ‘I was supposed to go with her. She’d been on at me about it for weeks, but the day before we were supposed to go, I got a call about a job. We needed the money, so I took it. And she went on her own.’ He picked up his pint, swirled the liquid around. ‘It should have been me that was driving. I’m a bad passenger, I would never have let her drive. She must have got distracted or something, taken her eye off the road. She went too fast around a sharp corner and—’ He took a long drink from his pint and set his glass back down on the table.

  ‘After she died, I couldn’t handle it. I just cut and ran – packed a suitcase and caught the first flight back to Texas. I didn’t even stay for the funeral.’

  ‘You were in shock,’ I said.

  He shook his head angrily. ‘I was a coward. I knew I couldn’t stay in London – everywhere I looked, I saw her.’ He smiled sadly. ‘I still do. But I should have stayed and faced it with her family like a man, rather than running off like that. I’ll never forgive myself.’ He looked desolate. ‘I’ve been running ever since, I guess.’

  My heart thudded in my chest and I realized I’d been holding my breath. ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I said, in one long, rushed exhalation.

  He looked up at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling at the edges. ‘You said that the first time,’ he said sadly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I told you about Anna that night in Las Vegas. I thought you might remember but … it doesn’t matter.’

  I clapped a hand over my mouth. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, ‘I can’t believe I don’t remember. I’m such an asshole.’

  He put up a hand. ‘It’s fine.’

  ‘It’s not fine!’ Shame shot through me like a hot flush. ‘God, I can only imagine what sort of wisdom I was spouting in that state. I can’t believe you ever wanted to see me again.’

  He stared down at the table and rubbed at a water ring with his thumb. ‘Actually, you were great.’

  I studied his face for a minute. ‘I was?’

  He nodded, but wouldn’t meet my eye. ‘You were the first person I could talk to about it. It was strange – I mean, I never talk about it, about … her, but something about you … It was like I couldn’t not tell you or something.’

  I struggled to make sense of this. ‘Sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger,’ I said, floundering.

  He opened his mouth and I saw the hesitation on his face. ‘You told me about your mother, too,’ he said quietly.

  I froze. ‘What did I tell you about her?’

  ‘About her breakdown. Her condition. About how you had to look after her after your father left.’

  ‘Oh.’ I wasn’t sure what to say. I never, ever talked about my mother, but apparently I’d told a total stranger on a night out in Las Vegas. The realization brought the familiar terror with it. Maybe this was how it would start. Maybe I was finally losing control.

  ‘Hey,’ Jackson said, giving me a nudge. ‘It’s okay. We all need someone to talk to sometimes.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry I offloaded on you like that,’ I said. ‘You must have thought I was …’ I swallowed, hard. ‘Crazy.’

  He shook his head decisively. ‘No. I definitely didn’t think you were crazy.’ He lifted his eyes to meet mine, and an electric current ran through me. ‘I thought you were amazing.’

  Jackson looked bemused as my gaze flicked around the room like a startled bird. I was definitely flustered. There was no chance of hiding that. What had he meant by ‘amazing’, exactly? That I was amazingly easy to talk to? Isla always said I had a ‘responsible mom’ vibe about me – that even when we did crazy and/or stupid things in our twenties, she knew she could count on me to
have correct change for the bus, or tissues tucked away in my bag. Was this the same thing? Maybe, even in the depths of drunken oblivion, I’d tapped into those reserves. Maybe I’d offered him a shoulder to cry on, or sourced some soothing warm cocoa. Honestly, who knows?

  I knew, deep down, that it was possible that he wasn’t referring to my aptitude for packing tissues or proffering comforting beverages. There was some kind of connective undercurrent running between us. I raised my eyes to his, just for a minute. He was watching me with an intensity that was downright unnerving.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said finally, the words just managing to edge their way past my lips.

  He opened his mouth to speak just as his phone started to buzz on the table. He looked down at the screen and his face fell. ‘Shit,’ he said, ‘I have to get this.’ He stood up from the table, picked up his phone, and walked to the far end of the bar. But not before I saw the name that had flashed up on his phone: Colette.

  Colette. That was a pretty name.

  I watched him as he spoke into the phone, head bowed, fingers running through his hair. He caught me looking and turned his back to me.

  I tried to work my way through what Jackson had told me. He’d had a girlfriend called Anna, who he’d loved, who’d died. She was beautiful. He blamed himself for her death. He’d told me about this that night in Vegas – how could I not remember? – and I’d said something that had helped him. What had I said? How could I have helped?

  I looked back towards where Jackson was standing, still deep in conversation. He’d turned back to face me now, and when I looked up his eyes met mine. He forced a smile, but his eyes looked pained.

  I felt suddenly, irrationally, angry. Who was this Colette person, and what was she saying to make him look that way? A girlfriend, probably. I’ve never even asked if he was single. It’s an odd question to ask your husband, admittedly, but it would have been useful to ask in this case, before … before what? I was engaged to Christopher. It was none of my business if he was seeing someone. Even if her name was Colette. God, she was probably French, which meant she was gorgeous and rake-thin and smoked roll-ups, and had one of those blunt fringes I’d always wanted but could never pull off. She probably wore leather trousers and looked good in them. Man, I hated Colette.

  ‘Sorry about that.’ Jackson had rematerialized and was settling back down at the table.

  ‘No problem!’ I said brightly. Do not ask who it was, I chanted to myself, do not ask who it was. ‘Who was that?’ I asked.

  He shot the phone a treacherous glance. ‘No one important,’ he said. ‘Just a work thing.’ So beautiful French Colette was just a colleague. I did my best to ignore the relief that flooded through me. ‘So,’ Jackson continued, ‘where were we?’ My mind flashed back to the look on his face when he’d told me about that night in Vegas. What had he said again? ‘I thought you were amazing.’ No one had ever said anything like that to me before. And then the feeling that ran through me when I’d met his eyes, that fizzing electric heat.

  ‘I can’t remember,’ I mumbled.

  He leaned forward in his chair and brushed the back of my hand with his fingertips. My skin felt hot beneath his touch. ‘I can,’ he said gently. ‘Jenny, I have to tell you something.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you don’t,’ I said nervously.

  ‘I lied when I said I’m in London for work this week.’

  I looked at him. ‘What?’ What did this mean for French Colette?

  ‘I mean, I’m here for work, but that’s not the real reason.’

  ‘Oh.’ I could feel what was coming and gripped the arms of the chair as though preparing for take-off.

  ‘That night in Vegas … the way we talked … I haven’t been able to talk to anyone like that since Anna.’

  ‘Jackson …’

  He held up his hand. ‘Let me finish. I’ve spent the past ten years thinking I would never feel that kind of closeness with anyone ever again. Hell, I didn’t want to feel it – I knew how much it hurt when it was taken away. But then I met you. Even that night in the casino, when you had that awful sunburn and you got so pissed off at the roulette table – do you remember? Even then, I felt like we had a connection.’

  I raised my hands to my face. My cheeks felt hot to the touch. ‘I was a mess.’

  He smiled. ‘Even when you’re a mess, you’re a good one.’

  ‘Please,’ I said softly. ‘Stop.’

  ‘After you left that morning, I realized I had to see you again. Obviously there was the whole matter of us being married by Elvis, but it was something more than that. You had this … hold on me. And then when this job came up and I knew I’d be in London …’ He shrugged. ‘It felt like fate.’ He looked across the table at me, his green eyes clouded with uncertainty. ‘Was it?’

  ‘I should go,’ I said, scraping back my chair.

  He leaped to his feet. ‘Please, Jenny. Don’t run off like this.’

  I shook my head. I needed to get out of there. I couldn’t sit across from him one more minute – it was too much. Part of me was desperate to hear what he had to say, but another part of me – the same part that had worked so hard to build this life for myself, to tick off item after item on my list, to form myself into the person I felt I should be – couldn’t stand to listen to another word. It was too dangerous. It felt … incendiary. As if my whole life would go up in a flash as soon as he opened his mouth again. ‘I’ve got to write up these notes when I get home,’ I gabbled, ‘and Christopher will be wondering where I am, and—’

  ‘Jesus, will you stop wondering about what Christopher wants for one second?’ he spat angrily.

  The breath caught in my throat. I’d never heard him speak like that. ‘I do,’ I spluttered. I felt my cheeks grow hot. ‘I mean, I don’t. I don’t think about what he wants all the time.’

  He folded his arms across his chest. ‘That’s bullshit.’

  I was angry now, too. ‘You know what? You’re right, I do think about what Christopher wants. You know why? Because he’s my fiancé, that’s why. Because we have a life together. Because I love him.’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t have to waste your energy convincing me,’ he said. ‘You need enough of it to keep convincing yourself. How long have you been engaged now? A month? And you’re still not wearing a ring. When are you going to stop pretending that you want to marry him?’

  I gripped the edge of the table to stop my hands from shaking. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ he said, reaching for my hand. I batted it away. ‘I do know. I know you’re not happy with him. I know he’s not right for you. That night in Vegas, you told me—’

  ‘Will you stop talking about what happened that night? Don’t you get it – I don’t remember any of it! It didn’t mean anything to me! I was drunk, and stupid, and—’

  ‘You told me that you never made him laugh.’

  My mouth clamped shut. The truth of it pierced through me. It was true, I never made him laugh. I saw him laugh with his friends – a big, booming laugh, all teeth and belly – but with me, he never did. Maybe it was the whole British sense of humor thing – maybe we didn’t match up. Maybe I just wasn’t funny.

  And then, as though he could hear my thoughts, Jackson said, ‘You’re funny, Jenny.’ I looked up at him, and he nodded, just once. ‘You are. And if Christopher can’t see that, he’s a fool and he doesn’t deserve you.’

  ‘You don’t know him,’ I said quietly.

  He smiled sadly. ‘But I know you.’

  Silence settled around us. I could hear my heart thudding in my chest, the blood rushing through my ears. I thought of Christopher, the way he looked like a little boy when he came in from a run, bright-eyed and flushed. The solid warmth of his body beside mine when I slept. The years of long-distance phone calls and transatlantic flights. The look on his face when he picked me up from the airport when I finally moved to London, the way he’d held my hand an
d said to me, ‘This is where our lives begin.’ All the plans I had. The little house with the lilac bushes in the front yard (Number 34). The pink upturned faces of small children, a boy and a girl (Numbers 38 and 39). The vacations to Sardinia and Provence and Santorini (Number 43). The tiny white villa someplace hot where we’d retire (Number 51). It was all there for us, plotted out on a map that I held in my hands. And here was this stranger sitting opposite me, telling me I should scrap the whole thing and start again.

  The air inside the pub suddenly felt muggy and cloying, and all I could smell was stale beer and the scent of roasting meat wafting through from the kitchen. My breath started to come in short, staccato bursts. I had to get out. I grabbed my bag and stood up. Jackson reached for my wrist, but I dodged him and ran out the door and onto the street.

  The streetlamps had just switched on, casting a yellowish glow onto the pavement. Young couples walked arm in arm, peering in windows of boutiques that were now shut, heads tucked in towards each other as they murmured plans for the weekend. I pushed past them and set out at a run. I had to get away from all of them.

  I heard footsteps behind me, and then a hand tug on my arm. ‘Jenny, for God’s sake, stop!’

  I shook him off and spun around on my heel. Jackson was bent double, panting from the exertion. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said in between gasps, ‘I didn’t realize you were part cheetah.’

  ‘I did track as a kid.’ Number 14 on the list: Make the varsity cross-country team. Tick. I took in his broad shoulders and lean torso. ‘I didn’t realize you were so unfit.’

  He put a hand to his chest and patted it fondly. ‘I did Marlboro Reds as a kid.’

  I put my hands on my hips. ‘What do you want, Jackson?’

  ‘I want you to tell me why you ran out like that, to start with,’ he said.

  I sighed. ‘Because I want to go home. Because I don’t want to talk about that night in Vegas ever again. Because you have no right to sit across from me and judge the way I live my life. And that’s just to start with.’