Page 2 of The Last to Know
After ninety minutes on the runway they’d had turbulence when they were finally in the air, and then there was one passport control desk open for a whole plane-full of people, so Ash’s taxi driver had thought she wasn’t coming and left the parking lot. She’d had to send a strongly worded email to the booking company via the dodgy airport Wi-Fi and as she waited for him to come back around, she tried to figure out what smelt so bad, like bin juice mixed with hairspray. As she lifted her travel bag into the taxi – once it had finally arrived – she realised the smell was her. She can’t wait to check into her place and shower the travel journey off herself. She just wants her stuff, her creams and gels and picture frames and books. The stuff she was clever enough to send ahead, everything that will help keep her feeling like herself. Well. Not that feeling herself is really the aim of herSpring Fling with Life. She’s supposed to be trying something else – a different personality – on for size. Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Well, if Ash is ever going to actually find somebody, the gamble is: what if she tries it somewhere new? And acts like a less insane, less desperate version of herself to boot? She needs to try. Lord knows, shemusttry. Not that she’s going to Lisbon on the pull, of course. She’s going because her boss, Willow, who is also her best friend, has made her take a sabbatical, because she never does anything and it’s leeching the life from her and she’s becoming a bummer to be around. Side-note: Willow isn’t known for mincing her words.
Ash is in Lisbon staring down the barrel of a three-month-long adventure armed with a manufactured explore-and-try-everything mentality and a fixed smile, knowing full well that even if you don’t feel excited, sometimes you have to make your choices and fake it till you make it. Life not turned out like you’d planned? All three sisters married and rearing ten (ten!) kids between them? Parents celebrating forty-five years of marriage (forty-five!), yet you’re somehow deeply repulsive and unlovable and cannot find anyone to even commit to a second date? Got a high-paying job at a company you’ve been at from the ground up, yet literally cannot spend even half the money you make because you have nowhere to go and nobody to go there with anyway? Not-so-secretly concerned that life is actually one big con and everyone got the instruction manual but you? Well then, step right up withyour battered second-hand copy ofEat, Pray, Loveand let’s see what (*spins globe to randomly pick a new locale*)Portugalhas to disappoint you!
No, she scolds herself.Not disappoint. The rest of my life could be waiting for me here. I just need to stay positive.
Urgh. Why does anyone thinkstay positiveworks as good advice for anyone in a downward spiral? Like oh, thanks, Trisha, I hadn’t thought of that! Silly me! I should just stay positive! I misread the briefing. I’m such a doo-doo head. Yes. I’ll be positive instead. Thanks!
If only being happy were that simple.
‘Hello?’ Ash says into the intercom outside of CoLab, her home for the next three months. ‘This is Ashley Davies? I’ve just arrived.’
The taxi had pulled up right outside, winding its way through a steady stream of people spilling out onto the cobblestoned streets for early evening drinks. Stomach of butterflies and nervous lump in her throat notwithstanding, Ash has to admit itisall a bit bloody magical. With the sun low in the sky the air seems to glow with potential, burnished amber light leaking through the gaps in the quaint buildings, colours an expensive Farrow & Ball palette of Ammonite and Skimming Stone and Wimborne White warmed by deep terracotta and Dutch Orange rays. Laughter tinkles in gleeful echoes, couples walking hand in hand, a few young families with kids on shoulders and fingers laced around buggy handles, everyone suspiciously beautiful as fact, not opinion. It’s a movie scene so evocatively stirring that Ash doesn’t feelworthy of it – is she really going to try and slip into this life, a life of octopus salad and Albariño out at the pavement cafés, all broderie anglaise slip dresses and make-up-free make-up? It’s laughable.Sheis laughable.
‘I’ll buzz you in,’ a voice replies through the intercom, followed by the sound of a lock releasing. Right as Ash makes to push through the huge entryway door, a motorbike revs its engine as it passes, startling her so deeply she screams – full on, back-of-the-throat screeches. It whizzes past her perilously close, two people on the back, one of whom turns around at her, shouts and throws up a hand crossly as if it’s Ash in the wrong. She thought they were going to mug her!
She looks down at her white knuckles clutching The Row half-moon leather handbag on her shoulder, a gift to herself when her youngest sister got engaged.
‘Fuck me,’ she mutters, looking back up, shaking, watching them zigzag to the end of the lane and whoosh away around the corner. That would be just Ash’s luck, to be in Lisbon for less than three minutes before being robbed, or hospitalised, or both. She’s heard awful stories about British families in Spanish hospitals going unfed, because the culture there expects family to come visit daily and feed you. If she was a patient in Lisbon, and if the rules are the same, what if she was left to perish on her own? UNKNOWN BRITISH WOMAN TO BE BURIED IN PAUPER’S GRAVE AFTER NOBODY COMES TO CLAIM HER, the headlines will say.
Focus, she wills herself.Stop catastrophising. You’re fine. She pushes on the door, but it doesn’t budge. It’s locked still. Orhas it re-locked? Oh god, they’re going to think she’s an idiot if she rings the bell again.
‘Hi,’ she says, forcing a smile when she buzzes up once more, so she sounds more confident than she feels. ‘Me again, sorry. The door has locked again? Can you release it?’ It’s not until she hears the clicking sound, moving swiftly to catch it this time (she can’t have it lock on her twice!), that she realises she hasn’t said please. Ash is aware that in times of high stress it can be her manners that are the first thing to go. She doesn’t do it on purpose. It just takes so much energy to quiet her brain and get out the strictly necessary words that any superfluous ones can get lost. She’ll be sure to sprinkle extra p’s and q’s once she’s in. This will be home for the next twelve weeks, after all. She wants them to like her. She wants everyone to like her.
Ash slips inside and takes her carry-on suitcase and handbag up the flight of marble stairs immediately through the door, making a conscious effort not to be annoyed that this is something she has to do herself. Still, this isn’t a five-star hotel (by design! She’s here to meet people, after all) and what does she do all that Pilates for if not to be strong enough to schlep her own bags at the end of a murderously long day? It’s fine! It’s fine. She stumbles over the last step, clattering into the reception area – a sleek, modern set-up at odds with the history of the building – where at the far end a woman with a brunette crop scowls, sighs, and motions her over to the glass desk with an impatient hand wave.
‘Ashley?’ the woman asks, impervious to Ash’s pasted-on grin and hearty hello.
‘Yes!’ replies Ash, enthusiastically. ‘I’m so happy to be here! It’s been a terribly long day – the flight was delayed, every line seemed grotesquely long and understaffed … just awful, really. But then we drove into the neighbourhood, and it’s so pretty, and it feels like a film set! What a sight to start off my adventure here in Lisbon!’
The woman doesn’t look up, simply taps away, faint frown on a face that would be quite pretty if she didn’t look like she’d just smelt the inside of a badger’s arse. Ash takes in the three people clicking away at laptops around them, another two in a kitchen area playing table football. She waits for the woman – who hasn’t introduced herself, nor has any sort of lanyard or badge with her name on, not that Ash wants to know it in case the manager asks about her check-in experience, it’s just an idle observation – to acknowledge her. She’s in cut-off denim shorts and old-looking sandals, no make-up, jumper artfully rolled up at the sleeves and hanging off one shoulder. She’s terrifying, the sort of woman that unnerves Ash deeply. A cool girl. Badass vibe, one-of-the-boys aura, like a bar owner who knows how to pour strong drinks and takes no shit, probably smokes roll-ups and doesn’t use a glass for her beer. The kind of woman that makes Ash feel like a priss, simply for daring to have a manicure.
‘You’re supposed to be here for three months?’ the woman says, and when she finally glances in Ash’s direction Ash can’t help but notice her eyes. The woman’s pupils quickly dilate, growing large like planets, a flicker of something – knowingness, familiarity – lightning-quick across her features. Ash thinks,oh! A friend!And then just as suddenly thelook changes, hardens, and it is gone. A stone sinks in the pit of Ash’s stomach, a feeling she is familiar with: disillusionment. Disappointment. Disenchantment. All the dis-es. The woman presses, ‘Right?’
‘Notsupposedto be,’ Ash clarifies. She feels stupid for wanting this woman to be friendlier, for wanting her to set the tone of Ash’s stay better. Hourly employees who do things like this as a second or third job seldom actuallycareabout what they do, Ash knows this. The woman probably works here whilst trying to get her tattoo studio off the ground. Her attitude isn’t to be taken personally. And yet. ‘Iamhere for three months,’ Ash states, overtaken with a petty desire to win. Win what, she can’t articulate, but there is definitely an invitation to a pissing contest happening, and Ash is just annoyed enough by this woman’s unfriendly demeanour to accept. ‘I’ll be here through till July first.’ It comes out uppity, but the distinction matters. This woman makes it sound as if Ash might not last that long, somehow, like although she’ssupposedto be here for an extended stay perhaps she won’t stick it out.Fuck her, Ash thinks.I think I will report her to her manager, after all.
‘Sure, fine,’ the woman says.
Ash can see that the woman isn’t wearing a bra. Urgh. She probably gets mad when men perv on her chest, but knows full well she’s inviting the attention. Ash hopes this woman doesn’t work here a lot, not if this is the attitude she’ll have to brush up against daily.
‘Big suite at the end of the hall, next flight up,’ the womantells her, pointing to another set of marble stairs. ‘Here’s your key.’
She doesn’t even wish her a good stay. Wow.
‘And my other bags?’ Ash asks, gearing up for a fight when this woman dares to act like she doesn’t even know about the cases she sent on ahead.
Ash is met with an impassive stare. The woman blinks. Looks Ash up and down, takes in her high-rise Citizens of Humanity jeans, her Khaite jacket and gold jewellery, her swishy blonde ponytail. Ash reaches a self-conscious hand up to her neck, wiping at an invisible nothing, mad to be giving a point away.
‘Already up there,’ the woman replies, taking a beat before adding, the word dripping in mockery, ‘ma’am.’ It sounds sarcastic to Ash’s ear, but she couldn’t prove it was meant that way in a court of law.
‘Oh.’ It’s the first semblance of professional courtesy Ash has had since crossing the threshold, her bags being in her quarters already. She wasn’t expecting that, not after the whole climbing-the-stairs-with-her-hold-luggage-herself start. ‘Great.’ She remembers her pledge for better manners and adds, ‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome,’ the woman says, like Ash is anything but.
Ash nods. ‘And just for reference your name is …?’
‘CJ,’ the woman replies.
‘Thanks, CJ.’
