Authors: C. K. Kelly Martin
“Different in a
lot of ways.” Yunhee blinks, the beginnings of a smile on her lips. “Thanks,
Leah. I’m glad we’ll be able to hang out more when I’m back. But you were never
a bad friend; I just didn’t want you to cut me off.”
Maybe I wasn’t
actively a bad friend, but I was an absent one. Given how empty I felt for so
long I don’t see how things could’ve been any different. All I can do now is
try to make up for it, and I unzip my purse, pull out my cell phone and say,
“Look what I’ve got! We can text each other while you’re in Ottawa.”
“Seriously?”
Yunhee’s eyes light up. “You’re no longer incommunicado? Next thing you know
you’re going to tell me you’re back online.”
“Hey, don’t rush
me!” I crack. “The cell’s a big step.”
I explain how it
came to be in my possession and Yunhee asks, “How’s that going with Liam
anyway? Are you getting your rocks off on a regular basis?”
“You could say
that, yeah.”
My grin must
reflect my enthusiasm because it inspires Yunhee to say, “It’ll be months
before I can have sex again. It’s hard to remember what it would even feel like
to
want
to. But Chas has been dropping by a couple of times a week
anyway, just to hang out. I think he’s starting to wear my mother’s innate
disapproval down.” Yunhee plays with her straw. “Hey, are you going to see
Liam’s play or what?”
I shake my head.
“He hasn’t asked me. We’re not tight like that.”
“But aren’t you
curious? I’d be dying to know whether he was any good. As an actor, I mean.”
“Not really.” I
don’t doubt that Liam’s talented but I haven’t let myself wonder about the play
in any detail. It doesn’t make sense to think about things that will only make
it more difficult to say goodbye to him in December. As it is, I already look
forward to seeing him too much. “I’m trying to keep this thing contained, you
know? Like how we talked before about not letting myself become attached.”
“Smart,” Yunhee
declares.
It would be. If
I could actually do it.
I tell Yunhee
that I’m thinking of taking summer classes, to find out whether I’m ready for
the real thing, and that if it works out I’ll probably be back at school with
her next September.
“That would be
awesome!” Yunhee exclaims. “We can revive noodle night.”
“I would love
that! I had the exact same thought.” And maybe we don’t have to wait. I’m
hoping we can start getting together regularly, in the spring once Yunhee’s
caught up on her course work, for noodles or whatever else she wants to do.
Soon Katie arrives
fresh from humanities class and I make us all instant coffees. We’re finishing
them up when Vishaya and Mrs. Kang return within ten minutes of each other.
Mrs. Kang greets us cheerfully before commenting that Yunhee looks tired and
should rest, because tomorrow will be a long day for her.
These days I’m
always careful when I hug Yunhee goodbye and today is no exception, but I hold
on to her a little longer than usual. “Text me tonight,” she says when I let
go. “I want that cell number from you.”
“I need it to,”
Katie adds. “We should get together soon.”
“We will,” I
promise, and I text them both from Abigail’s house that night to prove what
I’ve already told Yunhee, that things are going to be different now.
Return messages
shoot back from Yunhee and Katie within an hour and I’m so happy to be back in
touch with my friends on a regular basis, and aware of how Liam’s helped to
make that easier, that the next day at work I spontaneously buy a package each
of Bourbon Cream cookies and Barry’s Tea for him as a kind of thank-you.
However, on Saturday morning I lose my nerve and decide giving him the tea and
cookies is too much of a girlfriend thing to do. I leave them at home when I
walk down to his apartment, relieved I had a chance to catch myself before I went
overboard.
Liam has a scowl
on his face from the moment he opens the door for me, and when I ask him what’s
wrong he replies, “Nothing. I’m just tired.”
The soles of my
shoes are wet from a puddle I encountered along the way and I slip them off and
push them close to the wall so neither of us will trip over them. “For an actor
you’re not very convincing,” I declare.
Liam rolls his
eyes like he’s ten instead of twenty-six and I’m glad I didn’t bring the tea or
cookies. He looks every bit as mesmerizing as the last time I saw him, but
prickly vibes dangle from his person like chainmail made of thistles.
“Are you sure
everything’s okay?” I ask as we move towards the living room.
Liam taps one of
his fingers to his lips as he drops onto the couch. “Yesterday just before the
play I had some not entirely good news and some not entirely bad news.” He
clams up at the point where I’m hoping he’ll reveal what both those things are.
“About the
show?” I venture, sitting down next to him.
“Yeah, that’s
part of it.” He sighs and drums his fingers against his thigh. “If I come back
for January and February they’ll let me out of the contract early.”
“So, basically
you have to go back to shooting right after Christmas?” I sum up, not sure
whether that’s the good or bad news.
Liam nods, his
face taut. “They want a chance to wrap up my storyline properly. Two months but
then I’m free.” Liam’s right hand cups my left knee. His eyes are tense and
plead for understanding. “The other part involves you and I thought about
keeping you in the dark, because you’d probably never know, and really, I don’t
think it’s going to break in any bigger way, so it should—”
“Break?” I cut
in. “Liam, what are you talking about?”
“Right, well…”
Liam glances at the window and then over at me again, his eyes resolute.
“There’s a photo of us together on an Irish gossip website. They don’t mention
your name so obviously they don’t know who you are, but it’s there and I
thought you should know.”
“A photo?” I croak.
“Where was it taken?”
“It looks
like it was snapped at the pub with someone’s mobile.” Liam’s hand grips my leg
more firmly. “Are you okay? Honestly, nothing’s going to come of it as far as
you’re concerned. It must have taken by someone over here on holiday. No one
outside of Ireland would give two shites about it. No one over here would
probably even be on that website in the first place.”
I stare at
Liam’s face, feeling dizzy as I watch him beam reassurance at me. All it takes
is one person to catch sight of the photo and decide to forward the link to a
member of Bastien’s family. I don’t want to think about what that would do that
to them. Hurting them is like hurting Bastien. Even if he’d understand, would
they?
“Can I see it?”
I ask, my voice scissor-sharp.
“There’s no real
point,” Liam tells me. “Trust me, we’re not doing anything incriminating in the
photo. It doesn’t prove we’re involved. Whoever took it was obviously just
trying to fan the flames of what’s already been printed about me in the press.”
I level a decisive look at him and Liam bobs his head in defeat and says,
“Okay. Let me get my laptop.”
In two minutes
he’s back in the living room, balancing his laptop on my thighs and opening the
lid to reveal a somewhat grainy picture of us in The Rose and Crown. We’re
standing between two tables, a poster of Winston Churchill behind us,
Churchill’s finger pointing authoritatively at the viewer and the caption
declaring: Deserve Victory. Liam’s hand is on my waist, his ear bent to hear
whatever I’m saying into it.
Maybe it doesn’t
prove that we’re involved, but we certainly look
close
, comfortable.
There’s a brief article next to our photo which begins:
Six West star Liam
Kellehan obviously hasn’t wasted any time making new ‘friends’ in Canada. In
Toronto to star in a production of the Brian Friel play Philadelphia, Here I
Come and to escape the scrutiny brought on by his fiancée’s affair and a string
of his own raunchy relationships and bad behavior, Kellehan was recently
spotted in a pub 30 kilometers west of Toronto cozying up to a dark-haired
beauty presumed to be a local girl.
The remainder of
the article is essentially a recap of what I read in The Evening Herald in
October and as I’m scanning the page in front of me Liam says, “You see, they
don’t know who you are and the rest of it is pure speculation.”
My eyes return
to our picture. It’s not crystal clear but there’s no denying it’s me in the
photograph. I’m smiling at Liam, completely oblivious to whoever was pointing
their cell phone or camera at us. I can’t imagine how they got so close without
either of us noticing; I suppose people have their cell phones out so often
that they seem inconspicuous, even when they shouldn’t be. All those up-skirt
pictures on the Internet show how easy it is to be devious.
“It’s creepy
that someone would do this,” I say. “It’s not right.”
“No, it’s not,”
Liam agrees as I shut his laptop and give it back to him. “But try not to let
it bother you. I guarantee no one you know will see it.”
I hope he’s
right. This would be a terrible way for Abigail or Bastien’s mother to find
out. They could easily be excused for believing, upon seeing that photo and
article, that I’ve been using Abigail.
“How come you’re
not more upset?” I ask. Considering the vitriol with which he’s spoken about
the press before he seems remarkably composed.
Liam sets his
laptop on the coffee table across from us. “I was yesterday. I don’t appreciate
the invasion of privacy, but it’s nothing new at this stage and I’ve had much
worse things said about me. I was more worried about how you’d take it—I know
it’s important to you that word doesn’t get out.”
“But you don’t
think it will?” That’s my only hope now.
“I really
don’t,” Liam assures me. “I wouldn’t have known about it myself, except that my
agent told me. Someone over here would have to go looking for the photo,
already knowing it existed, and that’s just not likely to happen.”
The frown’s set
so deep in my face that I can’t pull myself out of it, and Liam gets up and
says, “C’mon, no moping. Let’s go out and take your mind off it.”
“Go out? How can
we go out? You know Abigail works in Oakville, not that far away. And what
about this person who took the photo? How do we know he or she isn’t still out
there, hoping to find us and snap another one?”
“If I catch
anyone at it I’ll smash their mobile to bits.” Liam holds out his hand for me.
“But if it makes you feel better, we’ll get out of town. Do you like sushi? I
was at a good place in Mississauga with a friend last week.”
“Not so much,” I
admit. People are aghast when you say you don’t like sushi but I can never get
past the consistency. “But I like tonkatsu and miso soup.”
I take Liam’s
outstretched hand and get to my feet. We drive over to the Japanese restaurant
he was talking about. The journey only takes fifteen minutes but still won’t
allow time for anything other than lunch. Since I’m not in a very sexual mood
anyway that doesn’t bother me. I feel the way Liam looked when he opened the
door for me earlier.
In the present
he tries to cheer me up and makes me sample his sushi. I dunk a piece in soy
sauce and pop it into my mouth, but it tastes just as unappetizing as every
other piece of sushi I’ve ever tried. I chase it down with cold Japanese beer
and say, “Nope, I still don’t get the appeal. It’s just…slimy and cold and
tastes like the insides of a fish tank.”
Liam hits his
palm to his head. “Ah, Leah, I can’t believe my ears! This is gorgeous stuff.
How can you not enjoy it? Were you dropped on your head as a child?”
I laugh despite
my bad mood. “I don’t understand how you can force yourself to swallow more
than a bite. It’s foul.” My pork cutlet, on the other hand, is exceptionally
tasty and I feed Liam some to prove its superiority, but like so many other
people, for reasons I can’t fathom, he’s hung up on the sushi.
“You’re soft in
the head,” he tells me, with a wide, disbelieving grin. “There’s no other
explanation for it.”
“That would
account for some things, I guess,” I say lightly with a nod of my head.
“Like what?” he
wants to know.
“Bad decisions
I’ve made.” I raise my eyebrows and smile, not wanting to delve into them any
deeper. Now’s not the time to dissect them and he’s not the right person to
dissect them with.
“Like this, you
mean?” Liam motions back and forth between us.
“I didn’t mean
it that way. It’s just complicated.”
Liam’s hand
reaches for his beer but he doesn’t raise it to his lips. “It doesn’t have to
be complicated. This is just a minor glitch.” He picks up his bottle and drains
it dry. “Unless you think it’s becoming too much for you?”
“Don’t get
started on that again,” I warn. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily—not
until later in December.”
“Fine with me,”
Liam declares.
There’s a
dessert and coffee café next to our sushi place, which I happened to notice on
the way in, and when I mention it to Liam near the end of the meal he insists
we have time for dessert and should indulge ourselves. He gets Belgian waffles,
and I have an ice cream sundae, and by the time we’re done I feel bloated and a
little sick but in a much better frame of mind than when we left his apartment.
Liam jokes that
he should phone his private counterpoint (the other actor who plays Gar) and
tell him to have a couple cheeseburgers before he comes into the theater
tonight so Liam himself won’t feel so flabby in comparison. I wrap my arms
around his waist in the parking lot and assure him he has a long way to go
before he hits flabby.
He kisses me,
the taste of waffles on his lips and the taste of ice cream on mine, and I
realize we’ve just made things simple for anyone in the vicinity who might be
hoping to snap a photo and post it online. But even with that thought weighing
heavily on my mind, I don’t pull away from him; I haven’t had my fill of Liam
for the day.