Page 25 of People In Love
I’d rather circle back to what the hell happened to us, Nora says, her voice taut. We used to talk about everything.
Her eyes are bright. Shining, in a way he can’t handle. But he makes himself look at her the way she is looking at him, straight in the face, coffee cups and a whole lot more between them, fucking hell, and there’s him, just trying to be friends.
Life happens, right, is all he can say, because for all his good intentions, all his hopes to make amends after the party, she can’t play it like this. Can’t play it like she doesn’t know, like they can crack on as they were, as if nothing happened. Even though that’s exactly how he tries to play it, too. Most of the time.
I’ve got to go, she says, standing up.
I thought you had some time?
What Ihaveis a life, Bren, Nora says. A business, and a job,and a partner who you never ask about, which means I never know how to – what to –
He keeps looking. Her anger, now, morphed into upset.
It might not be shark bite material, she says, as she shoves her stool beneath the table, but Ihavetried to share that stuff with you, Bren. It just felt like you never wanted to hear it.
Bren does not respond to this. Doesn’t know how to. She looks as confused as he is, and they hold each other’s eyes for a moment in which they see and don’t say all that they want to and then she repeats that she has to go, and Bren watches her leave, winding her scarf around her neck and the wet ends of her hair. Wondering how he’d got it so wrong, yet again. Why he can’t ever get it right.
_
Nora gets back to her café, hot despite the cold, riled with emotion. Without saying hi to Shay, she dumps her bag and coat in the back room and sits down at the desk with the company laptop, which freezes when she jabs at the touch pad; a spinning wheel suspended on the screen.
Hello to you too, Shay says, sticking her head through the curtain.
Sorry I’m late, Nora says.
You’re actually early, Shay says. I thought you were gonna be another hour?
Too busy, Nora says.
Too flustered, more like, Shay says. You look like you ran all the way back from Hampstead.
I’m behind with the chakra workshop, Nora says, double-clicking on the touch pad.
Nora, Shay says. D’you remember what Desmond used to say?
Nora does not answer, clicks once again at the still-frozen screen.
Desmond was their sculpture tutor at Saint Martins; a big, brawny man everyone called Baloo, mostly behind his back. He’d roared with laughter the first time he’d heard it, before humming Robin Hood and Little John for the rest of the lesson, wrong movie, Des, Nora had told him; same animation, though, good catch.
He said that art journalists are thelastthing a society requires, Shay says. Not artists, even, but the people thatwriteabout art. Which is the height of sophistication, right? But also the most expendable career on the planet.
Nora does remember this, but does not see why it’s relevant. Uh-huh, she says, as she holds down the power button to reboot the machine.
Our chakra workshop is the equivalent of art journalism, Shay tells her. Not exactly the most urgent of projects.
Great, Nora says. I’ll be sure to write that on the digital ads. Improve our chances of selling some tickets.
Jeez, you’re flinty, today.
You’re flinty every day, Nora fires back, and rather than huff, Shay barks out a laugh, says she’ll leave her to it: this charming mood of hers.
He got bitten by a shark, Nora says, as the curtain falls.
Background voices, clink of teaspoons. Shay pokes her head back into the room.
Bren got bitten by a shark, Nora tells her. He has this ginormous scar on his leg which was just, like,staringat me, in the water. He’s been away for twelve years and has at least twelve tattoos to show for it, and he didn’t tell me about them, either, and they look ridiculous, Shay, honestly, like a Rorschach test threw up on him, all abstract and ugly andweird.
Shay nods, her bottom lip protruding with interest. Nothing, in their eleven years of friendship or six years of business ownership, has ever seemed to rattle her.
