Anybody Out There? Read online

  I whipped my head over my shoulder. The woman was walking away from us, wearing jeans and looking (I couldn’t help but notice) quite broad in the butt. Of course, I should have been proud that Aidan was the kind of guy who didn’t discriminate against girls with big bums, but I had other things on my mind. She was quite tall and her hair was straight and dark and hung to her shoulders. Her bag was nice, I’d seen them in Zara. In fact I’d nearly bought one myself but I already had another that was very similar. I kept watching until she disappeared into the lot.

  I turned back and settled myself firmly against the seat. “That was Janie, wasn’t it?” If he lied to me at that moment, there would be no future for us.

  He nodded, a little grimly. “Yes, that was Janie.”

  “A bit of a coincidence.”

  “Yep.”

  Back at the Maddoxes, having a cup of coffee before leaving for the airport, I noticed several fat photo albums in the bookcase and I suddenly imagined them whooshing out from their shelves, their pages flying open and the photos taking flight, filling up the room like a flock of birds. Hundreds of them, flying past me, getting tangled in my hair as they documented countless Aidan and Janie events: Aidan and Janie at their prom; Aidan and Janie at their high-school graduation; Aidan and Janie at Aidan’s thirtieth-birthday dinner; Aidan and Janie at the surprise pah-dy Aidan threw for Janie’s promotion; Aidan and Janie at their high-school reunion; Aidan and Janie winning a bowling trophy; Aidan and Janie on holiday in Jamaica, cooking clams together in Cape Cod, at the farewell shindig before Aidan went to New York, painting the house in Bah Hah-ba pink…

  We were very quiet on the flight home. The visit had been a terrible mistake, a risk worth taking but that hadn’t worked out. Aidan was a great guy in lots of ways but he had too much baggage and too much unfinished business. He belonged in Boston with Janie, and I admitted to myself that, no matter what, he would always return to her and she would always take him back. They had too much history, too much in common.

  He was gray green with tension and in the cab from the airport he held my hand so tight he hurt my fingers. He was trying to figure out a way to tell me it was over, but there was no need, I knew exactly what was going on.

  The cab dropped me at my apartment and I kissed Aidan on the cheek and said, “Take care of yourself.”

  As I clambered out of the cab he called after me, “Anna?”

  “Yes?”

  “Anna, will you marry me?”

  I stared at him for a long, long moment, then said, “Get a grip on yourself,” and slammed the car door.

  20

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: You’re going to love this!

  Coming in to work this morning (second day back) I met Tabitha from Bergdorf Baby and she checked out my scar and said, Hey, that look is beyond! Then she got it that it was a real scar and she literally recoiled in horror. Her head pulled back so far her skull was practically resting between her shoulder blades. She went straight to the bathroom. I think she might have varminted.

  I hope you’re okay, I love you.

  Your girl, Anna

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: You’re going to love this too!

  People at work think I’ve been to Arizona. On my way back from lunch with Teenie, I met an EarthSource girl in the elevator and she said that she hadn’t seen me in a while, and I said, No, I’ve been out of town.

  I thought everyone here at work knew what had happened but I suppose those EarthSource girls are space cadets. It must be the diet of mung beans. She asked how long I’d been gone and I said, About two months. Then she gives me a meaningful look and mouths something, and I had to lean closer to her rough-woven, sacking pinafore and say, I’m sorry, what was that? So she does it again and this time I got it and she was saying, One day at a time.

  Er, right…

  I hope you’re okay, I’m thinking of you all the time, I love you.

  Your girl, Anna

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: Thursday’s clothes

  A yellow poplin Doris Day style shirtwaister, over black leggings patterned with blue spiky hearts, a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off, and my blue pumps, the ones you said were the pointiest shoes ever made, so pointy that the last six inches are invisible. No hat today—a little treat for myself.

  I love you.

  Your girl, Anna

  I was writing him two or three e-mails a day, keeping the tone light and breezy. I didn’t want to guilt him out by saying how desperate I was to hear from him. Better to just keep the lines of communication open so he’d contact me if he could. I was also checking his horoscope every day, trying to get some insight into how he might be feeling. Stars Online said:

  Don’t allow others’ need for closure to force you into hurried decisions. Since you’re unlikely to know all your options until early May, they’ll just have to wait.

  I didn’t really like that, so I went to Hot Scopes!

  Career-minded Scorps could be looking at an overseas business trip. Could be, you meet a desirable stranger who speaks a different language. Whatever or whoever it turns out to be, you’ll be pleased that the world is a small place!

  I didn’t like that at all. It made me cry. Quickly I clicked on Today’s stars.

  Try to make plans and you’ll only encounter frustration. Be a free spirit and by mid-May you’ll be so confident that you’ll wonder why you ever worried.

  That was better. No desirable strangers. I shoved my feet into my pointy blue pumps and picked up my keys, but at the door of the apartment I stopped, then went back to the phone. I just wanted to ring his cell phone. Again. The pleasure of hearing his voice, even if it was just his phone message, was like a mouthful of chocolate when you’re craving sugar.

  21

  The best in landlubberly eye care! I stared at my screen and took a swig of coffee. No, the coffee didn’t help—the line was still atrocious. I deleted it and faced my blank monitor, willing inspiration to strike. I was trying to write a press release for Eye Eye Captain, our new eye treatments, and was attempting a play on mutiny, salt water, piracy, rum, and other ship-based stuff. But it so wasn’t working. I’d seen Aidan again on the way to work this morning. This time he was walking along Fifth Avenue in a jacket that I didn’t recognize. He’d found time to buy new clothes but not to call me? Once again, the taxi was moving too fast, so I didn’t get the driver to stop. But now I desperately wished that I had and the regret was interfering with my concentration. Or maybe it was the painkillers. Something was filling my head with cotton wool.

  I typed Eye, Eye, Captain, then had absolutely nothing further to say. God, I really needed to get it together. It wasn’t as if I was in the lowly position of junior account assistant (that was Brooke now). I was assistant senior account manager and I had responsibilities.

  How I got promoted

  The summer I joined Candy Grrrl, our Lip-plumping Iced Sorbet Übergloss sold out across the world and there were fights at makeup counters. Well, there weren’t really. What actually happened was that at Nordstrom in Seattle there was a little tussle between two sisters over the last Candy Grrrl gloss in the Pacific Northwest. However, it was settled quite amicably—I believe the terms were that the one who got the gloss would babysit the other one’s kids that night. But some smart girl (me) managed to spin the incident into an (almost) news story. I issued a press release with a big, bold header, CANDY GRRRL BITCH FIGHT, and the gods must have been smiling on me because the New York Post and Daily News picked it up. Then the regionals, then there was a small segment on CNN. See, it was August, nothing else was happening. But by then enough buzz had been generated so that there really were scuffles at Candy Grrrl counters. At the Manhattan Bloomingdale’s concession one woman shoulder-shoved another and the shoved
woman said, “Hey! Watch it! It’s not even your color!”

  Then Jay Leno made a joke (not very funny, but who cares) about people pulling guns on one another at Candy Grrrl counters, and the net effect of all the publicity was that I got promoted. Wendell, the person I replaced at Candy Grrrl, got moved sideways to Visage, our po-faced French brand, and she happily surrendered her pink trilbies and novelty shoes for pencil skirts and fiercely waisted jackets.

  I typed Eye, Eye, Captain one more time. I was actually scared. This was my third day back at work and I still hadn’t produced so much as a decent press release. I realized I had hoped that the short, sharp shock of returning to work would snap me back into normality, but it hadn’t happened. I felt like I was in a dream, trying to run, with legs of lead. My head wouldn’t think, my body was in pain, everything felt like the world had tilted off its axis.

  Forty minutes later, my screen said:

  TAKE IT ON BOARD, ME HEARTIES!

  You can sail the high seas but Eye Eye Captain is the most effective,

  most advanced one-stop eye treatment you’ll find.

  Dark circles?—All washed up!

  Morning puffiness?—Throw it overboard!

  Fine lines and wrinkles?—Make ’em walk the plank!

  The parrot on your shoulder?—Sorry, that’s your problem.

  Teenie looked over my shoulder at my screen. “Yo ho ho,” she said, with sympathy.

  “You’d want to see my other attempts.”

  “It’s your first week back, you’re out of practice.”

  “And on heavy medication.”

  “It’ll get easier. Want me to have a go?”

  Teenie did her best to help me, but Teenie had her own troubles: she was responsible for the diffusion ranges, Candy for a Baby and Candy Man. Mind you, with only twelve products in the children’s line and ten in the men’s, she had nothing like the same responsibility as me. (Fifty-eight products, in innumerable colorways, and counting. We seemed to launch something new every other week.)

  Lauryn ran in and shrieked, “Is that press release ready?”

  “Just coming,” I said while Teenie muttered in my ear, “First the fat gets metabolized. Then the lean tissue; eventually the muscle goes, and finally the organs. At this point the body is actually digesting itself. Would that dumb woman ever eat something?” Teenie was studying medicine in night school and liked sharing her knowledge.

  I printed out my crappy press release and went to Lauryn’s desk, ready to play the humiliation game.

  The responsibility for Candy Grrrl’s publicity was shared out between me and Lauryn like this: I did all the work and came up with all the ideas. While she made my life a misery, was paid 50 percent more than me, and got all the credit.

  I had a second-tier duty: badgering beauty editors, taking them out to lunch, telling them how lovely Candy Grrrl products were, and persuading them to give us a four-line sound bite and a photo on their Beauty News page. This was a massively important part of my job, so much so that my performance was targeted; the inches of magazine coverage I generated were measured, then compared with how much would have had to be spent in advertising to get the same space.

  My target this year was 12 percent higher than the previous year’s, but I’d lost two months’ worth of badgering while I’d been in Ireland. It was going to be hard to make it up. Would Ariella or Candace and George Biggly make allowances? Probably not. Looked at objectively, why should they?

  I gave Lauryn my Eye Eye Captain press release. A one-second glance was all it took.

  “This is shit.” She threw it back at me.

  That was fine. I always had to present her with at least two attempts; she would trash my first offering, then trash the second, then she usually accepted the first.

  Unpleasant perhaps, but it was nice to know where I stood.

  I didn’t leave work until about seven-thirty, and when I got home there was an e-mail from my mother—something which had never happened before.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: The woman and her dog

  Dear Anna,

  I hope you are keeping well. Just remember you can come home whenever you want and we will mind you. I am writing in connection with the woman and the dog who was “doing his business” at our front gate.

  Oh, cripes, what can of worms had I opened?

  I will admit that we all thought you were imagining things, as a result of the tablets you are on. But I am not afraid to “step up” to the “plate” (what does that mean? Is it a barbecuing term?) and say I was wrong. Myself and Helen have watched her over the last few mornings and it has become clear to us that she is indeed urging her dog to “pee” at our front gate and I just wanted to keep you “in the loop” as they say. As yet we haven’t identified her. As you know she is an old woman and all old women look the same to me. As you also know your sister Helen has high-powered binoculars, which your father paid for. But she will not give me a “go” of them, she says I have to pay her the going rate for her time. I do not think this is one bit fair. If you are talking to her, will you tell her I said that. Also if she tells you any “scoop” on the woman’s identity be sure to let me know.

  Your loving mother,

  Mum

  22

  Less than a week after he first asked me to marry him, Aidan did it again, this time with a ring, made by a jeweler I’d once said I liked. In white gold with a delicate band and seven diamonds in a star setting, it was a very nice ring and I was very freaked out.

  “Snap out of it,” I said to him. “Take it down a notch or two. We had one bad weekend, you’re overreacting.”

  I hurried home to Jacqui and related what had happened.

  “A ring?” she exclaimed. “You’re getting married!”

  “I’m not getting married.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Duh…because he asked you?” Testily, she said, “It was a joke. Sort of. So why won’t you marry the guy?”

  Incoherently, I spluttered, “Reason (a) I barely know him and I’ve spent so much of my life being impulsive, I’ve used it all up. Reason (b) Aidan has too much baggage and I don’t want a fixer-upper. Reason (c) As you yourself, Jacqui Staniforth, said—and I bet you’re right—he’s probably a hard dog to keep on the porch. What if he’s unfaithful to me?”

  “Actually, it’s none of the above,” Jacqui said. “It’s reason (d) Because you’re a late starter. Which means,” she said loudly, “that while every other single woman of our age would be delighted to marry anyone, even a three-eyed dwarf who has to shave his nose, you’re still naive enough to think you shouldn’t go round marrying the first man who asks you. Yes, you barely know him! Yes, he’s got baggage! Yes, he might have trouble keeping his lad in his pants! But basically, Anna Walsh, you haven’t a fucking CLUE how lucky you are!”

  I waited for her to finish shouting.

  “Sorry,” she said, her color high, her breathing louder than usual. “Got a little…overexcited there. I’m really sorry, Anna. Just because he has only two eyes and is of average height and nose-hairiness for his age, is no reason to marry a man. Not at all.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But you do love him,” she accused. “And he loves you. I know it’s been quick, but it’s serious.”

  The next time he produced the ring I said, “Please stop.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Why do you want to marry me?”

  He sighed. “I can list the reasons but it still won’t convey anything like enough: you smell good, you’re brave, you like Dogly, you’re funny, you’re smart, you’re really, really cute-looking, I like the way you say ‘curly-wurly,’ I like how your head works, how we can be talking about FedExing my Mom’s birthday gift to Boston and you suddenly say, ‘It’s impossible for someone to look sexy while licking a stamp’…” He spread his hands in a gesture o
f helplessness. “But it’s much, much more than that. Like much, much, much, much more than that.”

  “What’s the difference between how you feel about me and how you felt about Janie?”

  “I’m not dissing Janie, because she’s a great person, but there’s no comparison…” He snapped his fingers. “Okay, got it! Have you ever had, like, a really bad toothache? One of those screaming ones where it’s like electricity crackling up into your head and ears, it’s so bad you can nearly see it? Yeah? Okay, convert that same intensity into love and that’s how I feel about you.”

  “And Janie?”

  “Janie? Janie is like when you bump your head on a low ceiling. Bad but not unbearable. Am I making any sense?”

  “Strangely, yes.”

  Obviously, I’d known the first time we’d met that there had been something, some connection. Then, accidentally bumping into each other seven weeks later looked like a “sign” that we were meant to be together, but I didn’t want to live my life by “signs,” I wanted to live them by facts.