left it for the girl that didn’t come. That red writing coiled across its surface will say, ‘Lucy, lovely Lucy, why didn’t you meet me?’ Or at least that’s what I tell myself, as I try to leave without reading it.
And then somehow I find myself crossing the carpet, to get a closer look. I see the word ‘girl’ and the word ‘wardrobe’, and I know what’s coming, though I try to deny it for another moment. I was so sure he didn’t know I was there. I was so sure I got away with it. He gave no sign, you see. There was no indication he’d guessed – I thought I was safe.
Now I know I’m not.
‘To the girl in the wardrobe’, the card says, on its blank white back. Then on the front: his name, and his number, and one simple instruction:
‘Call me.’
When I get to my desk I do everything the same as always. I put my coffee on my little Garfield coaster and turn on my computer. I check my emails and send out various messages, then call down to Finance to make sure they’ve got my updated details. It’s just another ordinary day, I think to myself, though I can already tell it’s sliding into something else. I’m concentrating too hard on work tasks for it to qualify as normal. Usually I hardly care; now I can tell I’m caring too much.
Once I’m done with the typical morning tasks I straighten my desk, as though it really needs straightening. Everything needs to be at right angles, and there are far too many paperclips lurking behind sheets of paper. The sheets of paper themselves shouldn’t be here, so I file them away in a filing system I don’t yet have.
But I soon will.
I spend a good hour creating one – with tiny tabs and little plastic inserts and everything. Michaela snorts at me over the divide of our two cubicles, wanting to know why I’m suddenly so busy … but of course I can’t tell her. I can’t tell anyone about this, because my usual go-to confessor has flown the coop and I’m still no closer to finding out why.
I don’t want to be any closer to finding out why. I’ve already dialled his number twice and hung up, and I really can’t risk any more. The night before last was frightening enough, and maybe explanation enough, and I’d far rather be normal and busy and a customer services operative again. The phone rings and I answer it like I always do: ‘Alissa Layton speaking, how may I help you?’
And I expect the person on the other end to be boring and possibly stupid, the way they always are. ‘My payment went out at the wrong time, I don’t understand these forms, I don’t like what I’ve signed up to, do you sell milk?’ I even have my sigh pre-planned, soft and low and aimed at something other than the phone receiver. Just beyond our dividing wall Michaela rolls her eyes and makes a winding finger around the edges of her own phone conversation, like every other day in this mundane place.
So I suppose it’s more of a jolt to hear that voice, in the middle of all of this. Back there at The Harrington he belonged, but even then it was a shock. Now it’s almost impossible … like hearing a lion roar in a library. You turn around expecting dusty books and there it is, sleek and predatory and ready to devour you whole.
‘Hello, Alissa,’ he says, and I think he might devour me whole. In fact, I know he will. He’s barely said a word and I’m already speechless and frozen, unable to process his presence in my silly basic office. How did he know where I was? Why does he care where I am? He wrote those words – ‘Call me’
‘I’m very disappointed in you.’
Or that I was capable of provoking an emotion like disappointment. I’ve never been important enough for anyone to be disappointed in me. No one has ever expected me to make something big of myself; I’ve never done anything so awful that it let anybody down.
This is entirely new territory, and so disturbing because of that fact. It’s like I’ve stepped into another dimension, while drunk. The world slants sideways and my stomach goes with it … if this carries on for much longer I’m going to lose my lunch. I’m sweating already, and my skin is prickling, and worst of all: I don’t know how to answer him.
I don’t know.
I don’t belong in your world, I think at him, but phones don’t pick up thoughts. He has to make do with my stupid silence, and my shaky breathing.
‘Calling then hanging up? That’s hardly polite. Why would you do such a thing?’
‘I don’t know,’ I tell him, while the image of my own fear and panic rises inside me. It’s like seeing a bird caught inside a bottle.
‘Perhaps you were busy, and couldn’t complete the call,’ he says, in this purring persuasive tone – almost as though he’s daring me to say yes. Make it easy on yourself, he seems to be suggesting, but weirdly I can’t quite do it.
I can’t say, ‘Yes, go away, I’m busy’ now.
‘Perhaps.’
‘Or maybe you had an appointment you had to attend.’
‘That could be the case.’
‘You have such an important life,’ he says, and I know for sure then. He’s teasing me, in the most subtle and strange way I’ve ever been teased in my life. I can almost hear a lick of laughter in the back of his voice, but it’s not unpleasant. It’s not even infuriating.
It’s something else, instead.
‘I really do.’
‘So many matters to attend to.’
‘Absolutely.’
He makes a little hmm-ing noise in the back of his throat, like some friendly psychiatrist. I can almost see him nodding with understanding, though of course it’s obvious the understanding is fake. It’s obvious even before he knifes me with his next words, hard and fast and right under my ribs.
‘Nothing at all to do with being afraid and intimidated.’
I fall silent again then – mainly because I have to. It’s impossible to talk when your throat has sealed itself up, and your body is frozen in one weird position. I’m almost bent double over my desk and my hand has made a fist in my best suit jacket, as though my body just had to prove him right. Naturally I’m afraid and intimidated.
I’m a completely ridiculous person talking to this scion of business. He probably eats people like me for breakfast. I’m probably not even good enough for his breakfast. I’m the water he swills around his mouth after brushing his teeth with his gold toothbrush, before spitting me into the sink.
‘Are you still there, Alissa?’
I wish I wasn’t. I wish I could tell him where to go, but there are so many reasons why I won’t. There’s Lucy and what happened with her, and that place and its mysterious allure. And then of course there’s the real reason:
Him.
‘Possibly.’
‘This
