And in that moment, staring at the plain
black uniform in my hands, in a stinking bathroom made even more
smelly by the hops and malt covering my attire, I felt like I'd
suddenly let something go. And in my mind, I heard a mirror crash.
And I was through it.
I hefted the clothes in my
hands, sighed, and looked meaningfully at Dani. She stood there
akimbo, her left
Converse
shoe tapping, her eyes burning the life back into
me.
"Well?" she urged.
"Well, I think I better get
changed before hottie over there decides to hit on
you
or
something..."
She pointed at a cubicle like an old matron
shouting at a miscreant boy who just kicked mud on a little girl's
shirt. I saluted her and said, "Yes, ma'am."
"You bet I'm your ma'am. And, for your
information, if Mr. Skyscraper out there asked me for a shag, I'd
tell him he didn't stand a chance with me. Because it is now my
goal to have him break you in, finally. This saving yourself for
Mr. Wrong is all bullshit, Ms Caivano!"
Her final statement ("...break you in...")
made me hunt the cubicles. Thank God they were empty!
But those cubicles also made me think, just
one more time before I left that bathroom, of Conall. And of my
statement to him just before he'd left New York:
But I know one thing. No
matter who I fall in love with, or who I spend the rest of my life
with, or if you and I work out, or if you suddenly decide you like
silicone blondes or...
guys
, even... No matter what, there's
one thing I've decided I always want to have. And that is that you
will be my first. No matter what happens. I want that.
He never got to be that, not all the way.
Actually, I still wanted that. If I was being completely honest
with myself. I wanted Conall to be my first, all the way. There'd
been a connection there, a bond, a link between us...
A level of trust that I
couldn't get out of my mind. It wasn't infatuation. I knew it
wasn't. There'd been something deeper between us and, somehow,
despite every sun, moon, and star of the heavens proving me wrong,
I somehow still believed that Conall had
not
lied to me. That he
hadn't
just left me for
no reason.
I'd been giving him time, time that he
clearly needed. That's why I was here.
It made no sense, his disappearance, the
reduced texts, fewer phone calls until, finally, only a few weeks
prior, total silence.
There was an explanation, and he needed time
to give it to me. I knew this. On some level. Somewhere.
And I was right. Only I didn't know it
then... Not consciously.
I didn't know it on the night I first spoke
to Dorian.
On the night I met Dorian,
I thought — no, I had
convinced
myself, against my own good judgment — that Conall
was a coward, a liar, craven.
I should've stuck with what I believed in my
heart. Things would have all been so much simpler...
Guardian-Angel-Dani took my
beer-covered clothes as I walked out the bathroom into the merry
atmosphere so common of English pubs and that I'd come to count as
my comforter each night. That, and the seagulls which woke me every
morning (yes, even in winter), as well as the salt-licked air I
breathed on every jog I took at about six A.M. — cold or not — kept
me going. (OK, I confess, the jogs weren't every morning. Not even
close... But the salty air
had
come to give me a sense of comfort.)
A man bellowed in the back, laughing at some
or other joke. The smell of beer on wooden tables was never fully
gone and, even though I didn't drink the stuff (hated it, in fact),
it was now a familiar smell that I looked forward to each day. A
freckled red-head with a rounder-than-most ass leaned at a table,
showing her cleavage to the middle-aged man who seemed to be more
interested in the only-just-legal blonde with her elbows on the
counter ahead of him.
I made my way to that counter, not looking
around but, at the same time, yes looking around, from the corner
of my eyes, for Dorian. And there he was, still sitting back
against a low carpeted wall, long legs crossed, burly arm holding a
pint of something or other (probably Amstel, everyone drank either
Amstel or Guinness here), and with that constant grin.
I don't know what came over
me. I don't know where the confidence or even the
desire
to do it came
from, but I went over to him and spoke to him. Surely he'd been
flirting with me, hadn't he? And surely he'd tailed me here. At
that moment — just then, a very precise instant — I lost all
reservations, and I stood next to him. I "showed him my stuff" (as
Dani would put it) and stood with my back extra straight. (Yeah,
OK, that reads: my tits were out a little farther than
usual...)
The
Jolly Roger
cotton shirts with the
logo of
Fill 'er Up!
on the back — accompanied by a winking blonde that looked like
she came out of a sixties advert, holding an overflowing beer mug
with far too many phallic connotations to be comfortable — were not
the hottest things to wear around town, and did little to show what
meager shape a girl might or might not have underneath them, but
that never stopped the guys hitting on us. Heck, two beers and most
dudes in here were hitting on everything from the geriatric club,
here for cheap meal, to the teeny-boppers who'd snuck in without
ID.
Dorian Brant, however, made
no effort to hide where his gaze was lingering... It was on my
breasts, for far longer than needed to keep any sort of gentlemanly
appearance to him. No, I knew then, as I'd known on the day he'd
first seen me at the Starbucks (no,
glared
openly
at me!), that Dorian was no
gentleman. He was the worst possible thing for me.
And I was glad for it. Better the snake that
you can see...
"I'm Leora," I said,
sticking out my hand formally to shake his. (Give a girl a
break,
wouldya
? I
wasn't very good at this, and Dani knew it. And I knew
it...)
Dorian sipped his beer, let my hand hang
there for a fraction longer than would be considered polite, put
his beer down next to him (my hand was still waiting for his to
meet it) and then, finally, shook it.
"I know," he said. "I
asked. Caivano, isn't it?" (He'd said it:
i'n i'
? No T's, no S's...)
He knew my name? Who'd he asked?
Torrents of memories of
Conall hit me once more. I fought them back. Deep down I felt I was
betraying him, lying to him.
Get a hold of
yourself, Leora! He's gone!
My skin went warm at the thought that
monster-sized Dorian Brant already knew my name, that he looked at
me like he wanted to devour me. And at the thought that, I could
see, I would fit entirely within his arms and that his size would
completely engulf me.
I swallowed, tried to act
cool,
tried
to say
something smooth. I failed. "Y — y — you know my name already?" I
think I smiled there, maybe. I'd been aiming for a flirty Jessica
Rabbit thing, what I got was something like Kristen Stewart in the
first Twilight movie when Robert Pattinson sits next to her in
class... Very awkward.
"I know more than your name. I know you live
three blocks away from where I'm staying — Lewinson Avenue, I
believe? I know you take coffee breaks at the Starbucks at Tesco. I
know you haunt hospice and charity stores in this town for the
second-hand books and walk out, each time, with six or seven of
them, only to do it again on, what is it again, Mondays? I know
that you head on out to the shingle and bronze yourself as best you
can on a Saturday when the sun shines (which is not very often in
this godforsaken land.) Only, because it's winter, all you end up
doing is rolling your sleeves up and hoping you don't freeze to
death. And you read there as well. And, most important of all, I
know you're single, and looking..."
Stalker!
My legs felt like they were suddenly made of
rubber. My heart thumped. My skin went cool from the sudden sweat
which had broken out on it. The AC vent directly above me tickled
the side of my cheek. I lifted my hand, half in a daze, and
scratched my chest aimlessly...
Dorian, grinning, much like a ten-year-old
kid prankster grins when sticking a fart-cushion under the ass of a
girl he likes, in the middle of class, pointed at the bar counter.
More specifically, he pointed at my manager, Troy: A pimply guy
with ragged red hair who looked like he was drunk half the time, or
wanting to be.
"He told me," said Dorian.
"He and I are friends. We went to school together." Dorian stared
at me, waiting for the moment of clarity which still hadn't hit me.
"In other words, I haven't been stalking you! But I
did
want to know a little
more about you, so, while you were extracting yourself from the wet
tee shirt competition — a pity, but fine — I asked Troy there a few
questions. Troy will say anything for a few drinks... It turns out
you and your friend Dani talk a lot during work hours. And you tell
each other
everything
, and half the bar's overheard everything about
you."
OK, I'm mortified... But at least he's not
stalking me!
I sighed, weakness from the sudden relief
that this dude wasn't a mass-murderer hot on my tail filled me from
my toes to my ears. And I chuckled, involuntarily. And I felt my
cheeks go red.
Goddamnit, not again.
"So, Leora Caivano from Manhattan, New York,
daughter of a rich mother, who's trying to make it on her own on
the other side of the Atlantic" — Jeez, I really needed to tell
people less about myself! Especially around my drunken manager at
work! — "could I interest you in a drink? Maybe after work? Or even
during? Troy there" — he pointed — "owes me a few favors. I'm sure
he'd give you a few hours off."
Grin grin grin. A confident "I'm so fucking
cool and I know it and I also know I'm so goddamn hot that you
probably wanna lick me all over, twice" grin. An
"I-know-what-I'm-doing" grin.
Fuck!
I shouldn't be doing this... "Uh, sure, I mean, not
during
, but after, yeah,
sure, why not?" I said.
He'd done it. He'd gotten under my skin,
just as That Other Guy I Liked had done. Was I really going down
this road one more time?
No, I wasn't. This was different. I didn't
love this guy. I knew that. I knew that clearly.
Dorian took a sip of his
beer, ever smiling, a twinkle in his eye which said, only,
I knew you'd say yes
, but
instead he said, "Good. Meet you outside at one. I know that's when
your shift ends tonight."
I paused for a moment (I was doing a lot of
that tonight; too much was going on in so little time), then I
turned around and left. Two or three steps away I said to him,
"Dorian Yates, he was a bodybuilder. English. One of the greatest.
Heard of him?"
Dorian (this Dorian in
front of me now, not Dorian Yates) frowned, and his grin
disappeared. "
Yates
?" He looked really confused, his almost-empty beer paused
inches from his lips. "No, never heard of him..."
I didn't think he had. Conall would've known
him. He knew stuff about bodybuilding.
And I really,
really
had to fucking
stop thinking about Conall!
Freckly Troy The Manager was in a good mood
so I didn't have to pay for the glass I dropped earlier in that
oh-so-dumbass move with Dorian. Then again, maybe Dorian had seen
to that as well. "Old friends." "Went to school together..."
Who was this guy?
His accent was different, very different.
Not Oxford or Cambridge, but not like Dani's either. Part of me
wanted to ask him that, and a larger part didn't. A larger part of
me wanted to see him only for "something to do." I'd lost all faith
in love. Heck, I'd never even told Conall I loved him (even though
I did love him. Both then and now.)
He hadn't told me either. But he'd told me
something else, so much deeper, so much more profound —
Enough!
I fought the urge to pull my phone from my
pocket and check if he'd texted me. I would've felt the vibration
anyway. Hell, I would've heard the clang-smash-bang ringtone I'd
set for texts from his number! I didn't want to miss any text from
him the moment it came in.
The phone hadn't chirped with a text from
him in weeks...
Later: After at least a hundred (or two
hundred) draught beers served, two thousand breast-gawks from
middle aged men, and thirty-two (that one I counted precisely)
lines trying to pick me up, my shift came to an end. I counted my
tips (seventeen pounds, not bad for a weeknight, the tight shirt
must've helped) and I walked outside. The crisp March air burned my
sweaty eyes. A whiff of tobacco blew across my nose. I turned
right.
There he was: One foot against the wall, a
cigarette in one hand, blowing smoke upwards, chest bulging from
behind his tee.
"Leora," said Dorian, not
looking at me but looking up only.
He
makes me feel
so
young
, I thought.
Vulnerable. Controlled
. My mind
drifted to You-Know-Who. I nipped the thought in the
bud.