CHAPTER 20
Vic showed up at the door, her face obscured behind a mountain of groceries. Behind her stood Deven, equally burdened.
“You came,” Ava said. Deven glared at her, then dropped his bags and headed back down the stairs. Ava picked up the bags and stared after him. That was odd. “Is he mad at me?” She looked around Vic and yelled down the stairs, “I saved a lot of seagulls today!”
“He said you could feed his entire village with your order,” Vic said. “The trolley's overflowing. We couldn't get it up the stairs.”
Vic shoved her way in and dumped groceries on the kitchen counter. She put her hands on her hips. “Are you having a party?”
“A party for one,” Ava said.
“You're a pig,” Vic said.
Ava took a step back. Vic just said whatever came to her mind. Not a clue that it might hurt her feelings, or was it . . . not a care? Ava wasn't a pig. Was she? “I'm conducting a social experiment.”
Vic reached into her Sainsbury's apron and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She went to the window and threw it open. “Mind if I smoke, luv?” Ava did mind. But she didn't want Vic to leave.
“Make sure you blow it out the window,” Ava said.
Vic lit her cigarette and sat on the windowsill without any hesitation. She turned to Ava and studied her.
“What kind of social experiment?”
“The kind where you stay inside your flat for an entire year and order everything online.”
“Christ. That's idiotic.”
“And brave.”
Vic shook her head, then blew smoke out her nose. “Where'd you disappear to the last time? One second you're kissing the ground, and the next, poof. Vanished.”
“I ran into Jasper.”
“Jasper?” Vic's voice rose an octave.
Ava wanted Vic to leave. Where was Deven with the rest of her groceries? She headed for the kitchen to start putting them away. “My barrister.”
“Ooo la, la. I didn't realize you had your own barrister.” Vic pushed herself to a standing position and began walking about the kitchen as Ava put away groceries. Vic touched everything, with nail-bitten hands, infecting every surface with snaky trails of smoke. What had Ava been thinking? She didn't know this girl from Adam. She wasn't very nice. Not nice at all. Where was Deven? “Whose flat is this?” Vic held up a carving knife and ran her finger along the blade. Ava wanted to yell at her to put it down.
“Sort of mine,” Ava said. Vic's head snapped to attention.
Uh-oh.
Had Ava said something she shouldn't have?
Don't talk to strangers, don't talk to strangers, don't talk to strangers.
“Sort of? It's either yours or it's not, isn't it?”
“Can you please put down the knife and smoke the rest of that out the window?”
Vic put the knife up to her own throat as if she were holding herself captive. “If you tell me how you sort of own this flat.”
The Mob was alive and well in London. “My aunt Beverly owned this flat. She's bequeathed it to meâbut there are conditions.”
Vic tossed the knife in the sink. Even though Ava had seen it happening, the clatter still made her jump. Vic stepped toward the window, never taking her eyes off Ava. She sat on the sill, inhaled, and blew the smoke out her nose. Ava wondered if the smoke would eventually rust her nose-piercing. “What conditions?”
Deven entered, arms outstretched like Frankenstein, four bags hanging on each limb. He stared at Ava as he let his arms drop and the bags slid to the floor.
Ava put on a bright smile. “Thank you.”
Deven did not smile back. “This would feed my village for a month.”
“It's for science,” Ava said.
“You said it would feed your village for a week!” Vic yelled from the windowsill.
Deven shook his fist. “Possibly one year.”
“Doesn't quite have the hang of bartering, does he?” Vic winked at Ava.
“Would you like some water?” Ava asked Deven. He nodded, then went to the kitchen sink, turned on the faucet, and drank directly out of it.
“I have glasses,” Ava said.
He held up his hand and waved her away.
“What conditions?” Vic said.
Ava kept staring at Deven. She wanted him to stop that. She got out a glass and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, swallowed, and then started to cough.
“You've choked 'im,” Vic said. “For every seagull you save you lose one poor Indian boy from across the street.”
Ava pounded him on the back. “Sorry. Sorry.” Deven wiped his mouth with his sleeve and walked over to Vic. The water was still running. Who were these people? She shut it off and put the glass away. The entire floor was covered with groceries. She ordered all this? Deven was right. There was enough here to feed a village for a month. What kind of person was she? She couldn't eat all this.
“Bloody hell. If you don't tell me what conditions I'm going to jump out the bloody window,” Vic said.
“Me too,” Deven said.
Oh, please do.
Ava didn't want to tell them now. But she didn't see a way out. “This is going to sound silly.”
“Oh, believe me, it already does, luv.”
“If I want to keep this flat I have to live here for one yearâ”
Vic slapped her thighs and jumped off the window. Deven stared at her ass. “Is that all? I could live in a bathtub full of urine in the middle of Sussex for a year if it meant I owned a flat like this.”
“I as well,” Deven said. “I would even supply the urine.”
Ava wrinkled up her nose. “There's also a list.”
“A list?”
The more Ava tried to make things sound like no big deal, the more Vic zeroed in on them. “A list of things I must do within ninety daysâwell, sixty-six days now, or is it sixty-five? Or Queenie will inherit the flat instead.”
“Who the hell is Queenie?”
Ava had spent the past few weeks wondering the same thing, but it sounded kind of mean when Vic said it and she felt bad. “He's my flatmate.”
“You're competing for this flat with your flatmate?”
“Yes.”
“Is this going to be on telly? Like
Big Brother
?”
“God, no.”
“Pity. Show me the list.” Ava hesitated. She didn't like how intense Vic was getting. “Go on.”
Ava held up her finger. She went to the bathroom where the list was taped to the mirror above the sink. She hoped reading it every time she was in there would somehow reinforce it, help her visualize doing it, seep into her skin and erase all her fears. God, this was a mistake. Vic was going to chew her up and spit her out. Then again, maybe that's what Ava needed. A little tough love. A kick in the butt. Ava grabbed the list, took it to the kitchen, and handed it to Vic.
One by one Vic read the list items out loud. Deven nodded along, smiling in approval. Vic finished the list, then crumpled it up and tossed it across the room.
“Hey,” Ava said. She ran to retrieve it.
“You're joking me, aren't you?” Vic said. She stubbed out her cigarette on the windowsill and left it there. Ava wanted to swat it off. If she happened to push Vic out the window at the same time it would be purely by accident. “What kind of a competition is this? You could knock these out in one day.”
“No. I couldn't.” She just had to ask them to leave. That was it. She never had a problem asking Cliff to leave, so why was she finding it so hard with Vic? She was afraid of her, that's why. Vic was scrappy. She'd probably gotten in a million physical fights in her life. She could bust Ava's lip open.
“Two days at the most then,” Vic said.
Ava eyed the pack of cigarettes. “Can I bum one?”
“Ah course,” Vic said. Ava didn't normally smoke, but what a brilliant idea. Smoke out Queenie. Payback for emptying out the fridge and cupboards. Ava lit a cigarette, inhaled, and choked. The coughing went on forever.
“Crikey,” Vic said. “You're a virgin.”
“I just want to smoke out my flatmate,” Ava said. The instant she said it, she realized that it wasn't true. A few minutes in Vic's presence and she missed Queenie. Fond of him even. She rushed to the kitchen and ran her cigarette under water. “I forgot. He's allergic.”
“The guy competing for your flat?”
“Yes.”
“What do you care then? Even more reason to smoke, isn't it?”
“It's probably better to get along while we're living under the same roof.”
“This is because of your problems, isn't it? Your panic attacks?”
“Yes,” Ava said. Vic had known this all along. She was trying to force Ava to say it out loud. She suddenly remembered Queenie's lucky charm. “Did you find a gold coin on a chain?”
“A gold coin on a chain?” Vic repeated.
“The day I came into the store.”
“Sounds important,” Vic said. “Valuable?”
“No,” Ava said. “It's just a lucky charm.”
“It's not real gold?” Vic said.
“No,” Ava said. “It's not.” Did that mean Vic had it? “There's a reward.” Ava studied Vic, but the girl didn't move a muscle. Not so much as a blink or a twitch. “Have you seen it?”
“The coppers might have it,” Deven said.
“Have what?” Ava said.
“Your lucky charm.” He glanced at Vic. “They almost took my fertilizer.”
Vic smiled. “That's shit. Get it?”
“I don't understand,” Ava said.
“Fertilizer is shit,” Vic said. “Horse shit, cow shit, pig shitâ”
“Not that. I don't understand why the coppers would have my lucky charm.” Ava looked at Deven. He tried to stare back but ended up blinking ferociously.
“Vic called them and told them I could be a terrorist,” he blurted.
“You did what?” Ava said.
Vic grinned. “I wanted to see if they'd come.”
“They did,” Deven said, nodding. “Quick and in force.”
“I ran away,” Vic said.
“What happened?” Ava asked Deven.
“I had to show them the garden. They let me keep the fertilizer.”
“Do you feel any safer?” Vic said, throwing up her arms in a what-has-the-world-come-to kind of way. “I certainly don't.”
“What does this have to do with my lucky charm?”
“Maybe you dropped it on the footpath in front of Deven's and one of the coppers fingered it on his way in.”
It was such a ludicrous scenario, which meant only one thing. Vic was lying. She had the lucky charm. “Please give it back. I'll pay you.”
“Did I say I have it?”
“You haven't denied it either.”
“That's London for you. Sometimes it takes things from you and you never get them back.”
Deven stood near the window, peering down at Ava's pile of sketches on the floor. The top several were of Deven, in various poses in front of his building. “What in the bloody hell?” It was comical to hear him swear. But this wasn't the time to laugh. He shook the picture at Ava. “Who are you? Are you stalking me?”
Ava laughed; she couldn't help it. “I'd be the world's most pathetic stalker.”
“Are you a spy?” Vic said. “Is he a terrorist after all?”
“I'm just a girl. I like to sketch.”
“I'm not a terrorist,” Deven said.
Vic walked over and grabbed the sketch out of Deven's hand. “Looks like a Wanted poster to me. She really captured your scowl.”
“I don't have a scowl,” Deven said, his expression matching the one on the sketch to a T.
Ava grabbed her other sketches. “I'm just passing the time. See?” She held up the sketch of the couple on their first date. Vic squinted.
“They look like cartoons,” Vic said.
“People like cartoons,” Ava said. She put the pictures away. They felt soiled now. “I need to rest. I'll see you to the door.”
“What's it like then? Your agoraphobia?” Vic's voice was loud. She didn't care who heard her.
“It's like you're going to die,” Ava said.
“A right in-valid,” Vic said.
“Don't pronounce it like that. âIn-valid.' Like I have no value.”
“You have value,” Vic said loudly.
“Thank you.”
“Your life doesn't though, does it?”
Ava clenched and unclenched her fists. “Good-bye.”
“We just got here,” Vic said. “You haven't even offered us tea.”
“I have to unpack the groceries. Maybe next time.”
Vic and Deven ambled to the door. Deven exited, but Vic stopped before she reached it. “I have to go to the loo,” she said.
Damn it. Couldn't she wait?
Ava pointed to the bedroom.
Through there.
Vic disappeared into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Why did she do that? The bathroom had a door of its own; she didn't need to shut the bedroom door too.
“Do you think she'd steal anything?” Ava said.
“Most definitely, yes,” Deven said.
Shoot.
Should she go in there? She turned back to Deven. “Do you like her bossing you around?”
“No,” Deven said.
“Then why put up with it?”
Deven looked up, as if someone he admired were floating on a cloud just above him. “She has the personality of the butchi-est lesbian, and the body of a straight girl. She's every woman who has ever rejected me all rolled up into one. Colored ponies couldn't drag me away.”