Who’s That Girl? by Celia Hayes (19)

Accidental Interference

“Come in, this way.”

I find Dave waiting for me by the door. He’s wearing jogging bottoms and a hoodie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him dressed like this before. He’s always so formal, so attentive to every detail. It’s strange to see him in his apartment with messy hair and not even the shadow of a tie.

“Take a seat wherever you want,” he says, gesturing to the living room and walking in front of me. “Please ignore the mess,” he adds, picking up a wine glass from a coffee table. “I’m making some minor modifications to the decor.”

“No problem.”

I walk over, take off my jacket and sit myself down on the couch. I didn’t have anything to change into in the dressing room, so I had to choose between the stuff for the pageant and the clothes I was wearing this morning. As a result, I have made my entrance into Dave’s house wearing only a pink dress that doesn’t even come down to my knees and shows off my shoulders. It’s very low-cut too, and I still have the hairdo they gave me for the photo shoot I endured with an embarrassed expression. So what, you’re asking? So it looks like I did it on purpose is what – it looks like I got dressed up like this just for him.

Embarrassing, right? He’ll think that I’m trying to hit on him or, even worse, that I’m trying to hit on him without realising just how terribly ridiculous I am.

“You weren’t dressed like that this morning,” he comments, watching me carefully.

I squirm.

“Ah, this? Err, no, you’re right. No, no. I absolutely wasn’t, no,” I say, fiddling with my cuff.

“Were you on your way out?” he asks, surprised by the discovery that I might actually have something else to do apart from toil away at The Chronicle.

“No,” I say, but then I think for a moment and I realise that it would be perfect. At least it would explain the dress, the make-up and especially the heels. “I mean, yes,” I correct myself.

“Errr….” He looks confused, but for the time being decides not to go into it. “Did you bring your computer?” he says, changing the subject and coming to sit down next to me.

“I’ll get it out right away,” I say, taking the opportunity to put some distance between us. I play for time, opening my bag and taking out my laptop, and in the meantime I look around for something to lean on, because I know that I won’t be able to handle two hours sitting on the couch next to him. I spot an armchair next to the bar. Discreet, far away, sheltered behind the table. I set off in that direction, ready to breathe a sigh of relief, but Dave’s voice pipes up, condemning me to emotional incontinence for the rest of the evening.

“Come and sit over here – I won’t be able to see anything if you’re over there.”

“No, it’s fine here. Look.” I start up my computer. “You can see perfectly from there.”

“Sam… come over here.” I can’t argue, so I look at the floor and shuffle back over to the couch, sitting as far away as possible so as to minimise any possible contact. I realise that it’s a bit over the top and I know that he can’t not have noticed. We are just colleagues and we are here to work, and so the obstinacy with which I try to keep my distance from him is absolutely ludicrous. He’ll think I’m crazy and from the way he’s looking at me, I get the feeling he hasn’t taken it particularly well, but he can’t insist. It’s already pretty unusual that he’s invited me to his house. To avoid being misunderstood, he’ll just have to put up with it, so he sighs and watches what I’m doing on the screen on my PC from a ridiculous distance.

“Shall we start with the interviews? Have you drawn up a summary of all the events?”

“Yes,” I say, nodding.

“Okay, let’s start from there, then.” And from that moment on we dive headlong into the work, re-emerging only two hours later exhausted, confused and dog tired. Two hours are only two hours, I know, but you have to add them to the six spent in the offices of The Chronicle, the two on the catwalk and the one and a half hours of make-up and hair. And that’s without mentioning what we’ve managed to do in so little time. For two workaholics like us, two hours can mean thinking up, defining and creating a project. No kidding. This is one of the things that we do have in common, and one of the things I admire most about him. He’s an amazing journalist and an amazing deputy editor. Everyone trusts Dave, and everyone knows that if there’s a problem, you talk to Dave. I would really like to be able to earn a crumb of his respect because that would mean that I’m worth something too. And I know it’s sometimes really exhausting, but working with him is great. Of course, maybe not tonight, because the watchword for tonight was obviously let’s squeeze Sam until the pips squeak. He has completely worn me out. He wanted to check through all the backlog of work, make appointments, re-organise the reporters shifts for the press conferences and arrange the list of guests to be sent to photographers attending the event. And this is because while we are at the Fashion Week, The Chronicle will continue with its usual routine and will have to do without us. I repeat, time obeys different rules if the person managing it happens to be Dave. As each of my sore vertebrae can testify. The only positive note is that I have stopped acting like a high school girl with her first crush. Checking through all that stuff ended up absorbing my existential worries about how well my mascara would hold up, so after a while I relaxed and started to behave as if it really was just work and that this wasn’t his bachelor pad but some room in the office that I’d just never seen before.

“Hmmmmmm…” I moan, massaging my neck. He raises his face from the agenda he is noting everything down on and silently turns to look at me, putting one elbow on the back of the couch.

“Tired?”

“A little,” I admit, trying to maintain a slightly less relaxed position than him.

He looks at his watch. “It’s past eleven. Can you keep going for a little longer?” he asks me in a distracted tone. “Because I would like to talk about your notes on Adam Graham. The man behind Beautiful Curvy. Tomorrow we’ve got the opening night of Fashion Week and that’ll keep us busy until late, so I don’t want to leave anything undone. How’s the article going? Have you already started working on it?”

Shoot, it’s true! How could I have forgotten about it? Time has just flown by and tomorrow it’s the start of San Francisco Fashion Week, one of the most important events of the season. What with all the celebrities who are going to be in town, the next few days are going to be totally frantic and not only have I not started the article, I haven’t even got a damn dress to wear!

“So?” he presses me, in the face of my sudden silence.

“Er… well… yeah, of course I’ve started. Of course. I haven’t … I still haven’t finished because I wanted to follow the selections, but for the most part… in the sense… the outline…”

My rambling obviously sets alarm bells ringing. “Are you sure you’re going to manage to do it? I talked to Margaret about it, too. She wasn’t totally wrong, because there are a ton of girls waiting for the results. We thought we’d devote a bit more space to it, but I want the article on my desk in time for the final,” he says, leaving me to imagine that if something goes wrong it won’t just be him who wants me out on my ass in double-quick time.

“Yes, I think I can do it. I’ll sort it out over the next few days,” I mutter and put my hands on my knees.

“Okay. How about a little break?” he suggests.

“Sure.”

“You want something to drink?”

“I don’t know… what have you got?”

Dave gets up, goes over to his bar and looks through the bottles, checking the labels. “I don’t know, let me see…” He lists them loudly: “Gin, rum, whiskey…” He puts his hand into a cupboard. “There’s even some beer. Brian must have left it here.”

“I’d say beer’s fine.”

“Yes, I think so too,” he says. He pulls a couple out, opens them and brings them over. “There you go,” he says, passing me one and sitting back down. Only, when it’s him deciding where to sit, he doesn’t worry about where like I do, and so ends up dropping down right next to me. Right next to me, with one hand resting casually on the back of the couch behind my back and the other holding a freshly opened bottle of beer.

“Too much?”

“What?” I whisper softly, too distracted by his scent to understand what he is talking about.

“Am I too close?”

“No, of course not, what are you talking about?” I say, struggling to smile, but I think I’ve gone purple. Yup. My face is almost certainly somewhere between dark plum and deep violet.

“I don’t know…” he says, gazing at me with curiosity. “You’ve been hiding behind the cushions all night. I thought you were trying to avoid me.”

He looks relaxed, perfectly comfortable. Not like me. Not at all. I am curled up in my shell, twisting the hem of my dress between my fingers.

“No, no, really…” I say. “Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed,” and to escape from my awkwardness, I dive into my bottle of frozen Bud. Unfortunately, Dave doesn’t stop looking at me – he seems terribly interested in the variations of expression that flit across my face, so to distract myself I look around for something to talk about. Anything to fill the silence. “That’s cute, what is it?” I say, taking a wooden statuette from the table by the couch. “I like ethnic ornaments,” he says, smiling enthusiastically until I turn it over in my hands and realise that the thing sticking out at the bottom isn’t a fishing rod. “Ah…” Of all the things I would have expected to find in Dave’s apartment, this was for sure at the bottom of the list and I can’t imagine a single reason why someone would spend a thousand dollars to display it in their living room. “It’s very… very unusual,” I stammer, not quite knowing where to look. I try to put it back where it was, but in my embarrassment I fumble and it falls to the floor, followed an instant later by the still full bottle of beer.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry…” I drop to my knees to pick everything up. “Oh just look at the mess I’ve made. Dave, I’m so sorry. Maybe if we have it cleaned? I’ll pay for it, don’t worry. I’m certain that…”

“Sam…”

God, can I really be this damn clumsy? Two hours – all I had to do was last two hours, and I’ve managed to ruin the upholstery, break the ashtray and…

I pick up the sculpture and look at it. “Oh…”

And as if that were not enough, I’ve also… broken the ethnic statue.

“I’m such a disaster, I’m so sorry,” I murmur in mortification, dabbing at the stain with a handkerchief. “I’m so sorry, really, I didn’t mean to,” I whimper as I wonder how much all this is going to cost me. I have no idea, but everything here looks so damn expensive.

“Hey… hey.” Dave comes over and kneels down beside me. “It’s fine, Sam. Nothing’s happened.”

At the same moment, we both lean forwards and crack our heads together.

“Ow!” I sit back and rub my forehead.

“Careful!”

I lose my balance and the next thing I know, it’s me on the floor. My dress gets hiked up and gathers between my legs, revealing them, and by the time I’ve managed to sort myself out, I’m no longer the only one who has noticed.

“I’m sorry…” I say again like a broken record, and he holds out his hand to help me.

He has never touched me before. It’s the first time in three years that I have felt the touch of his fingers, even though they have only barely touched me. Feeling disorientated, I look up and try to figure out if I’m the only one who has realised this – or if he noticed it too. I find him exactly where he was, with his hand suspended over me. And it is at that moment that his gaze turns into a caress. A slow, soft caress that slips across my skin, climbing up my dress, fold by fold, with no embarrassment. It pauses on my waist, climbs up my hips, descends between my breasts, loses itself in my breathing and unhurriedly reaches my face, savouring every moment like a small victory. And when our eyes finally meet, his proverbial self-confidence dies on my lips, leaving room for something that I cannot explain, that I cannot describe. This really can’t have happened, because I’m just…

“Sam,” he murmurs in a very low voice, before slowly leaning over me. I stay where I am, immobile, incapable of stopping him, unable to carry on. I watch him as though I were just a spectator of that slice of life that no longer belongs to me – that I had dreamt of until yesterday and that now seems close to becoming a reality.

“Say no,” whispers Dave.

“Wh… what?”

“Please, Sam – say no,” he repeats, his usual cockiness completely gone. You heard the man, Sam, tell him no. “Say no, Sam,” he murmurs one last time, looking me in the eye.

Did you hear him, Sam? He said to say no! I am trying, I swear… “Dave…”

“Too late,” he whispers to me before I have time to think any more and he grabs me with both hands and pulls me towards his face, his mouth, his arms. He thrusts his lips upon mine with enough force to keep me from moving, but his touch is oddly gentle, almost thoughtful – a contrast that prevents any possibility of protest right off the bat. Enveloped in his scent, cradled by his breath, I put my arms round his neck and abandon myself to the moment in a way I never have before. Dave senses my surrender and the realisation that I am finally his tears an ecstatic moan from him. It all happens so suddenly. One moment we’re sitting next to each other on the couch and in instant later he has me imprisoned beneath him on the carpet, crushing me with his weight. I don’t have time to think and I barely have the strength to breathe. I only feel his hands which, with an almost angry gesture, force me to open my legs to make room for him.

“I want you, Sam,” he whispers between one kiss and the next, his eyes looking into mine.

The only thing I manage to ask myself is, ‘is it actually possible that this is really going to happen to me?’ Because it doesn’t seem real. I’m about to make love to Dave. I’m really about to…

Halfway between dream and reality, I let myself be devoured and I lose control of my thoughts, my heart, my breathing. I just allow myself to feel how much he needs me, and when his fingers reach the hem of my skirt and pull it up, all I do is wait for it to happen, begging him inwardly to take me with him, wherever he wants to go.

“Sam…” I hear him mutter my name again hoarsely. He seems barely able to contain himself, and I feel the same way. We move together, tearing off our clothes, and from that moment on I’m no longer Sam, and he’s no longer Dave.

“Oh Jesus…” I moan, momentarily panicking when he pushes himself against me and makes me realise without a shadow of a doubt that this is not a dream and that my black lace lingerie has just earned my total respect.

“Touch me, Sam,” he pleads in a whisper, and then his fingers make their way between us and, without any attempt at gentleness, announce that from that moment on, I belong to him. My whole body trembling, I hug him tightly in a desperate attempt to hold back what I feel and…

And then reality returns between us. He mutters something, freezes and then, after a last caress, he jumps away as though he were on fire.

“Shit – no, no!” he curses. “Goddamn it, Sam!”

I somehow manage to open my eyes and look at his pallid face. On his knees between my legs, his shirt half undone, he is rubbing his face and staring at me as though he were no longer able to recognise me after some discovery that seems to have completely traumatised him. What discovery? I don’t know, I can only try to imagine – maybe that I’m a woman?

Timidly, I catch my breath and then try to pull myself together and somehow find the strength to ask him what just happened. Dave moves away and waits until I’m dressed to offer me a hand to get up.

“There is no need, thank you.”

I don’t know… maybe I’m being stupid, but it’s the last shred of pride I have to cling to and it’s certainly more consistent than his interest in me.

“Sam, I don’t … I don’t know what got into me.” He starts reeling off pathetic excuses that sound immature and irrational.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“No, I’m being serious,” he insists, looking very uncomfortable.

“So am I, it’s fine.” I look away and smooth out my skirt.

“I shouldn’t have. I really shouldn’t have.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” My answer leaves him speechless for a moment.

“Yeah…” he snarled. “It’s this goddamn thing with the Hoffman story…”

“Hoffman? The councilman?” I ask in surprise. Okay, I might not be an expert, but turning it into a question of local government seems a little too much.

“Yes, him and…” He stops. “But I mean, for God’s sake, why are you dressed like that tonight?”

“Would you mind telling me what’s wrong with my dress?”

“Does it look suitable for a business dinner?”

“This isn’t a business dinner!”

“Whatever it is, then!” he snaps.

“If you wanted me to be less casual, you should have told me beforehand. I don’t spend my whole life sitting looking at the phone and waiting for you to call, you know.” It’s something that I’ve never really thought, because actually I always have been sitting looking at the phone and desperately hoping that he’d call me even to tell me to take him a coffee, so let’s say that in a moment of profound confusion, I give voice to something that Terry has always thought. A half truth instead of a lie, because it’s still true even if I wasn’t the one thinking it, right?

“Yeah, I noticed! There’s a lot more going on in your free time than I imagined,” he replies sarcastically, crossing his arms.

“I can’t work out if you’re more annoyed that I have a life outside the office or simply that it’s one that doesn’t include you,” I say, completely at random. I don’t know why I said that, I swear I didn’t mean to. If only I could turn back the clock a few minutes…

“What the hell do I care what you do when you get out of work?” he snaps angrily, clenching his fists.

“You were the one who started it.”

“You were the one who asked.”

“And you couldn’t wait to answer, could you?”

“I…” he starts to shout, then covers his mouth with one hand, looks around in confusion and tries to normalise his breathing. One, two… I imagine he’s counting. He re-opens his eyes and seems to be himself again. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I’m really sorry, Sam. I’m… I’m under a lot of pressure. I’ve got some personal stuff going on at the moment. Nothing serious, not… I think I’m a bit…”

When I see him suddenly wilt like that, without warning, I calm down too. “Don’t worry.”

“We’re friends again, right?” he asks me, looking worried. “Everything’s like before, right? It’s… It’s just one of those things that happens, isn’t it…?”

“Sure, just one of those things that happen,” I repeat without much conviction while he seems to regain his usual calm. The moment of danger has passed. No problem. “Friends again,” I say to myself. My anger fades away and I find myself disappointed, bitter and sad – infinitely sad, because before it was all just a dream but now I really know how it feels to be in his arms. It’ll be much harder to get used to a life without Dave now that I’ve seen how it might have been with him.

“Do you want… some water?” he asks, suddenly turning thoughtful. I think I preferred him when he was being an asshole. It was less humiliating than his compassion.

“Dave, I’m fine,” I reassure him, “I just want to go home.” And that’s the only intelligent thing to do. Get out of there.

More resolute than I can ever remember being in my life, I put my laptop in my bag and prepare to leave.

“If you give me a second, I’ll get my car keys and drive you home,” he suggests.

“There’s no need.”

“Come on, I insist. I can’t just let you go home on your own like this.”

“I’ll call Al and ask him to come and get me.” I only mention Al so as not to give him the satisfaction of thinking that my whole world has just fallen to pieces simply because I wasn’t good enough for him. Even though that is actually exactly how I feel, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“That guy from the other day?” Dave asks me, a frown appearing on his face.

“Yes,” I confirm, without being able to figure out what it is about Al that gets to him so much.

“Sam, listen, it’s none of my business…” he whispers, scratching his head. “Especially after what’s just happened. But the fact is… I’ve been thinking about it for days. I ought to keep my nose out, I know, but I’ve known you for a while and believe me, I’m really worried.”

“I’m not following you,” I admit, a bit surprised by the direction the conversation has taken.

“Well, what do you actually know about this guy?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, nothing. Just what I’m saying,” he replies awkwardly. “It’s just that I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

Ah, really?

“Dave, I’m a grown up.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well you’re not being very clear, so how am I supposed to understand you?”

“I just don’t want you to get your expectations up.”

“What kind of expectations?”

“Come on, Sam… you’re an intelligent woman, don’t pretend you don’t understand what I’m saying.”

“You must have overestimated my abilities because I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sam, have you looked at him?”

“Yes, and apparently I wasn’t the only one,” I answer, my words dripping with sarcasm. “Spit it out, Dave. I think I know where you’re going with all this.”

“Why do you keep putting words into my mouth?”

“And why can’t you just be honest?”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with warning you. It just means that I care about you.”

“Sure, you care about me and think that he’s out of my league. Girls like me are cut out for a different type of guy, right?”

“I think most women would be better off staying away from guys like that, Sam.”

“Don’t bring generalisations into it, Dave, because that’s nothing to do with it,” I snap. “Anyway, it’s late. I really should leave.” I no longer want to argue with him, especially not about my life. I walk towards the door. Dave watches me go without reacting, but when he sees me grab the handle, he realises I’m serious. He comes over and holds the door shut, barring my way.

“Sam… Sam, wait,” he whispers, a worried expression on his face. “Sam, damn it, have you looked at yourself? You’re not the same any more – you’re not working as hard, you’re always distracted and you’ve started dressing like this…” He breathes heavily, perhaps to stop himself from saying things he knows he shouldn’t. “There’s no point you trying to be someone else, because guys like him are only interested in… in certain things,” he says, hoping that he’s chosen the right words. And maybe he has, maybe it’s me who’s wrong.

“What the hell do you know about it? What the hell do you know about him, or about me, for that matter?” I yell, pointing to myself.

“I know you, Sam. I’ve known you for more than three years, which is a little longer than you’ve known him, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Yeah, Dave. Much longer. And isn’t it weird how in all that time you’ve never actually understood anything about me?”

There is a deep silence between us. As if suddenly something had broken.

I only realise that I’m shouting at him afterwards. I never would have thought it possible. Neither did he, and now he’s staring at me looking as though he doesn’t know quite what to say, and probably thinking that it’s somebody else standing in front of him, not Sam.

“Okay, we’ve both said too much,” I say, trying to sound conciliatory. “It’s late and I’m tired. Good night, Dave.”

I hope that he doesn’t stop me, doesn’t put up any resistance, and in this, at least, Dave is helpful, because he doesn’t lift a single finger.

“Goodnight, Sam,” he answers when I’m already far away, then the buzzing of the intercom in the lift drowns out the other sounds and all I can hear is the beating of my heart.