[2014] Looking for Leon

by Shirley Benton

  I wasn’t sure if I should have any more alcohol – I was starting to wonder if I’d already had too much to drink, because if I wasn’t very much mistaken, I could have sworn that Colm Cannon had just opened himself up to me. Wonders would never cease.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  BB,

  You have got me in SO much trouble. Remember Jane, that girl I was seeing a few months ago (the one that went off travelling for the summer not long after we met)? Well, she’s back – and she’s working in the same building as you. Her desk faces out to the front of the building. She can see everyone coming and going. Can you see where I’m going with this? Yes, she’s been watching me hiding behind trees and popping up behind parked cars at lunchtime, and she thinks I’m stalking her! She rang me screaming down the phone at me, calling me an obsessive freak and saying she’s lost a stone in weight because she’s so afraid to leave the building at lunchtime to buy a sandwich. She says if she sees me there as much as one more time, she’ll call the cops on me. I couldn’t care less about the cops bit, but I’d kinda thought there might be some chance of us getting back together when she came back from travelling – looks like there’s no hope of that now. (I suppose there probably wasn’t anyway when she didn’t even bother letting me know she was back in Ireland, but still, I’m pissed off with you for putting me in this position in the first place, so I’m going to blame you for everything. So there.)

  You’re on your own with this from now on, sis.

  Adam

  PS Send me on the address of your hotel there so that I can send my obsessive-freak therapy bills to you.

  “Oh, God.” I put my head in my hands. Poor Adam. He’d really liked that Jane girl. We hadn’t seen him for weeks after she’d gone off to the States on her J1 visa. His sleeping habits had reached hibernation levels, and he stopped bothering to eat. Mum’s food bill went down dramatically over the course of those few weeks, which was the only vaguely positive by-product of the whole debacle, but I got the impression that Mum would have preferred to have been stuck in the kitchen doing bouts of much-hated baking to entice Adam out of his hunger strike rather than seeing him fade away. It looked like she would only need to set the table for herself and Dad for dinner over the next while. Great. What a brilliant start to the day.

  To make matters worse, I had a brainstorming meeting with Lindy to suffer through for the next hour. I hoped she had a few more tricks up her sleeve, because I was all out of ideas as to where to take this whole Leon thing. Much as we clashed on a personal level, I needed Lindy. Our programmes for Éire TV were practically making themselves, thanks to everything she’d thought up, even though her approach drove me mad most of the time. I just hoped she wouldn’t mention the possibility of Leon having written those emails again though, or the only storming that I’d be doing was out of the room.

  “Colm’s just great, isn’t he? He’s like an undiscovered gem. Or a diamond in the rough.”

  “I suppose.”

  I suppressed a sigh. I should have been grateful really that we were on this topic again, with all of our ideas now in place for the next week. It turned out that Lindy hadn’t been so much interested in brainstorming with me as notifying me about her already-formed plans, which suited me fine. There were more TV interviews lined up, there were more radio interviews, there was a magazine interview for one of the Sunday papers, that kind of thing. It appeared there was still a big appetite for the story in the States, despite the fact that I hadn’t made much progress with finding any concrete leads. As for home, the third episode of the documentary had been broadcast, consisting mostly of coverage of the Leon Line-up and the subsequent date (Colm had cajoled Lindy into sharing it with him, in keeping with our usual LVTV/Éire TV tit-for-tat procedures), and Isolde reported back that the show was still a prominent talking point in the media. As for my columns, she hadn’t given me much praise for them recently but hadn’t complained either, so I could only assume she was reasonably happy with them.

  “I realise I’m not talking to his biggest fan,” Lindy continued, “but there’s so much to him – he’s fascinating –”

  “Actually, we’re getting on a lot better recently. He makes me laugh. Take yesterday, for example – he suggested that maybe Leon is gay, and that’s why he hasn’t contacted me – I laughed until I nearly turned blue, I can tell you. I never even thought of something like that! Imagine if he was!”

  “Hmm.” Lindy looked off into the distance.

  “He’s not, though. I would have known if he was. I’m not that bad with men!”

  She raised an unconvinced eyebrow. We walked down the street in silence for a few seconds, then she rounded on me. “Tell me this straight out. Do you think he’s interested?”

  I shrugged. “I can only hope he is, otherwise, I’m going to look like an absolute idiot at the end of it all, aren’t I?”

  “Not Leon! Do you think Colm is interested in me?”

  “Oh, we’re back to talking about you. Sorry.”

  “Well? Is he?” She pushed her head forward and made her eyes bulge, all sarcasm lost on her as she waited for an answer.

  “I have no idea. I don’t know Colm well enough to be able to tell when he’s interested in a woman.”

  “Does he talk about me much?”

  Uh-oh. This wasn’t going to be nice. Should I be honest or lie? I opted for somewhere in the middle. “Only when your name comes up in conversation for work-related reasons.”

  The truth was, Colm never seemed to have any interest in saying anything positive at all about Lindy. All he ever wanted to do was avoid her. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that Lindy was everything Colm wasn’t into. They had absolutely no connection, and there was no spark between them at all when they did have dealings with each other.

  “Hmm. There’s a spark there. I can feel it. Maybe he’s shy. He actually is shy, isn’t he?”

  I shrugged. It didn’t matter what I thought or said. If Lindy wanted to believe he was shy, that was exactly what she would do.

  “I mean, he comes across as all confident and bossy, but I think when it comes to women, he needs a little direction. And who better to provide it than my good self?”

  “Indeed.” The only direction Colm would be taking was the route to the airport to get away from Lindy. He was definitely the type of guy who would run a mile if someone came on too strong. Telling Lindy this was completely pointless, though. She’d probably accuse me of being jealous because I hadn’t found Leon yet, or some such twisted logic.

  “Anyway, I have to go,” she said, gathering up her notes and adopting a self-important look. “I have an inspired idea rolling around in my head that I really need to work on straight away.”

  “Has it anything to do with Colm, by any chance?”

  She laughed as she breezed out the door. “I suppose it has.”

  Colm had left the office after lunch to work from the hotel for the afternoon. Apparently, the noise in the office was too distracting, and he wanted some headspace. When I got back to the hotel after work, I flopped down on the bed and rang his extension as soon as I’d dumped my laptop bag on the table.

  “Hey. Where do you fancy going for dinner this evening?”

  “Oh, hi, Andie. Sorry, I can’t have dinner with you tonight.”

  “Oh?”

  “Lindy asked me to go for a drink with her.”

  “Oh.”

  ‘Oh’ is what I said. What I actually wanted to say was, ‘What? Why the hell did you say yes? I thought you couldn’t stand her?’ But I held my tongue. With great difficulty.

  I waited for Colm to elaborate, to explain, but he didn’t.

  “Right,” I said then. “Well, enjoy your drink. Talk to you tomorrow.” I hung up, confused as hell.

  It was one of those evenings where I didn’t fancy sitting on my own in a restaurant, so I ordered room service. Shortly after I finished eating, I was relaxing on my bed with a mud pack on my fac
e when the hotel phone rang.

  “Hi, Andee. I wanted to give you a call just to say ’ello.”

  “Oh, hello, Philippe. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. The kesteeon is, ’ow are you?”

  “I’m great, thanks! Why is how I am the kest-ee-on?”

  “Because I am your friend, that is why. You sound very ’appee for someone who should be sad today.”

  “What are you talking about, Philippe?”

  “Surely you must be sad that you were chasing after a gay man? It was never going to work out, no matter ’ow ’ard you tried. But you must not beat yourself with a stick about this, Andee. You were not to know. You –”

  “Woah, woah, woah! Back it up there, Philippe. What are you talking about? Leon’s not gay! Why are you saying he is?”

  Colm. I’d kill him! Just when I was starting to think he was sound – him and his stupid sense of humour!

  “I am not saying it. The paper is saying it!”

  And then, the penny dropped. Lindy. I’d kill her! I’d really, really kill her!

  “I ’ave a copee at reception if you want to read it.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  And I was. Philippe thrust the paper in my hand as soon as I had taken my first step out of the elevator, wisely refraining from commenting on my mud pack. I scanned the paper hungrily.

  There’s been a new twist in the Looking for Leon story. The elusive Leon might be gay, according to reports. Andie Appleton commenced a nationwide search three weeks ago for Leon, a man from Arizona that she met in Las Vegas last month, believing him to be the love of her life. However, the story is now swinging in another direction. A source close to Andie tells us that she has voiced her fears that Leon may not be interested in women at all. “It just hit her that this was one very obvious reason why someone wouldn’t come forward if they were being searched for,” a good friend of Andie’s told us. “She actually couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. Now, she’s so confused, and really doesn’t know what to think. Leon is the only person who can tell us if she’s right or wrong about this new theory of hers, though. She’s just praying he’ll come out of the woodwork soon – so to speak.”

  This time, Lindy had gone way too far.

  “This is outrageous! She has no consideration for how this makes me look! It’s a disgrace!”

  “Calm down, Andee. You sound like me. And I like me, but me does not suit you.”

  “I won’t calm down!”

  Guilt engulfed me as Philippe actually recoiled from me. Adam always told me that I could be very scary when I was cross, but then, Adam is a bit of a softy, so I’d never really taken that seriously. But Philippe was now looking at me as if I’d hit him.

  “I’m sorry, Philippe.” I reached out to give him a hug. “It’s not you I’m mad at.” After some hesitation, he reluctantly stepped forward to accept my hug, despite the crumbles of mud pack that were falling from my face every time I said something.

  “You must tell ’er ’ow angree you are, instead of telling me.”

  “Oh, I will!” I released Philippe. “The problem is, though, she won’t listen! She just doesn’t care! She’s career hungry, Philippe, and very driven. She doesn’t care who she steps on to get to where she wants to be.” I picked up the paper and put myself through the torture of reading the article again. “She’s made me look totally desperate by saying something like this.”

  “Why would she even think of saying something like this to the medeeah?”

  “I repeated a joke Colm made about Leon possibly being gay to her, and she must have pounced on it. She wasted no time, did she? I mentioned this to her this morning, and it’s now in the evening paper! And if you’d seen her at the time I said it, Philippe – she acted like she was totally disinterested! I actually wasn’t sure she was even taking in what I said, that’s how distant she was!”

  “She is a sly one. She ’as the slitty eyes. And as for Col-um, he should not be stirring the shit in the pot by making those suggestions.”

  “Ah, no, Philippe. It was just a flippant comment he made to try to make me laugh.”

  “You are defending ’im? That is a new development for you!”

  “Yes, well, we’ll see how long it lasts. I’ll tell you one thing, though. If he gets together with that Lindy, I’ll never speak to him again. What a wagon!”

  “A what?”

  I smiled. I had often wondered how anyone who moved to Dublin could possibly have a clue what we were talking about half the time.

  “Sorry, I meant she’s a walking fucking bitch. Pardon my French.”

  “That kind of language is not sophisticated enough to be French.” He winked.

  “Listen, thanks for letting me know – at least now I’ll know why everyone is looking at me with pitying stares today.”

  “No. They are looking at you thinking that maybe they ’ave a chance with you now that Leon is off the scene.”

  “For that, you get another hug.” Philippe was wonderful; he knew exactly what to say when a girl was feeling down. “And now, I’m off to commit murder.”

  “You go, girl!” Philippe swayed his hips. And people thought Leon was the camp one!

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Lindy was nowhere to be seen the next morning. Apparently, Dave had her out reporting on something for a pilot of a new show he was working on. I would have accused her of running scared if I hadn’t known that she wasn’t one bit scared of me. Her drubbing would have to wait. My anger at her hadn’t abated at all – if anything, it was escalating with every moment that passed.

  I bet Colm knew where she was. Maybe she wasn’t able to walk today after the rogering he’d given her the previous night, the big turncoat. He certainly looked tired himself today. I desperately wanted to find out what had gone on between them – and to find out where Lindy was, so that I could wring her neck – but I wasn’t going to give Colm the satisfaction of asking. No way.

  I needed to take my mind off Lindy before I went nuts. “Let’s go for a coffee later this morning and thrash out this Isolde and Martin scenario,” I said over the partition to Colm, trying not to hold his possible association with the enemy against him. Since Adam’s mail, I’d been at a complete loss as to what my next detective move would be.

  “Right, yeah.” Colm didn’t look up. For someone who’d come to me wanting to do something about this situation, he suddenly didn’t seem too pushed any more. Maybe he was reliving last night’s wild night of sex in his head.

  “Eleven o’clock, so?”

  “Yeah. Grand.”

  I sighed, then opened my inbox to work through today’s email. Amongst the fifty-something emails, a mail from Adam caught my eye.

  Subject: Thank you, thank you, thank you!

  You are the best sister a man could have! Or a woman could have, if we had another sister! Or if I had another sister – for you, it would just be a single sister. I digress. I do that. You know that I do that.

  Anyhoooooo . . . (actually, that wasn’t very manly, and I’m feeling very manly today, so let me try that again . . .)

  Oh, God, I thought. This could take a while. The other forty-nine emails didn’t have much hope of being read today.

  Anyhow, I’ll move on by telling you there’s been a development. After I emailed you telling you how you’d ruined my life, I looked up Jane on Facebook, found her and sent her a message explaining the entire situation. And what do you think happened? She rang me straight away, apologising and saying she’d only been such a bitch (her word, not mine – I think she’s lovely – you know that – I’m doing it again, aren’t I?) because she still wasn’t over me. Yes, you read that right. She said she would never have gone away for the summer if I’d asked her to stay, but I hadn’t, so she had thought I didn’t care and just wanted to get rid of her. She said she never stopped thinking about me while she was away. When she saw me spying, she just saw red, but she said a part of her was thrille
d to bits to think I was stalking her – she was actually a bit disappointed when she found out that I wasn’t. (How brilliant is all of this? It gets better!) And then, she said there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to get back with me. Next thing, I hear the doorbell going. Mum and Dad were out, and I’m there ignoring the fact that there’s someone at the door so I can read her email over and over again. This person just won’t go away, though. I’m thinking about calling the police when I hear someone shouting. “Please answer the door!” I instantly recognise her voice (pity she hadn’t started shouting on the first ring – it would have saved her a lot of trouble). I open the door, and there she is. Now, I’m going to skip over what happened between then and now, but suffice it to say we’re back together, and things are great.

  Next time you have a problem you need to solve, definitely come to me. I think your problems give me luck.

  From: Andie.Appleton@hotmail.com

  To: Adam.Appleton@gmail.com

  That’s fantastic! I’m so happy for you! So, I guess you owe me then for reuniting you with the love of your life . . . ?

  From: Adam.Appleton@gmail.com

  To: Andie.Appleton@hotmail.com

  Hint taken. OK. I’ll do a few more days. Jane thinks it’s all quite an adventure, so maybe I can incorporate a bit of quality stalking into our first official date tomorrow.

  “Hey, Colm, listen to this.” I briefly filled him in on Adam’s email. “So we can cancel that coffee.”

  “Ah, no. I was so looking forward to it. Highlight of my morning.”

  “Yeah, you sounded pretty enthused about it.” I looked around my desk for the nearest thing to throw at him, saw a pink stressball and chucked it over. He caught it mid-flight.