Let’s Keep in Touch
“How did he take it?”
“Not great.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“It was hard for her.”
“Where is he now?”
“Locked in the restroom. Tim’s trying to convince him to come out. He’s already told him that Mary’s left, but he doesn’t believe him. He’s terrified of running into her in the corridor.”
“I would be too. Just try and imagine what she’d say to him now that she’s won.”
“She’ll find a way to in the end anyway, so it’d be better to face her right now.”
“Poor Lou, it’s all my fault,” I sigh, slipping on my coat.
“No it isn’t, you did what you could. Angelina had her own sponsor, Mary played dirty and, unfortunately, I didn’t have any say in the final decision.”
“Al…”
“If I had, I’d have made you win, you know.”
“Yes, but that wouldn’t have been right. I’m not the face of Curvy.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. I’m just Sam, a temporarily unemployed journalist who now has a closet crammed full of clothes that I’ll never wear.”
“They all look great on you.”
“I don’t think Mister Donut’s dress code allows zebra pattern tube tops at the counter.”
“You’re not going to end up at Mister Donut,” he says, trying to cheer me up.
It’s past midnight and we are the only two left in the dressing rooms apart from a cameraman, a sound engineer, and a couple of cleaners. There is a strange silence and I can’t help feeling sad. It’s a bit like saying goodbye to a piece of myself as I put the last of my things in my bag. He looks at me without saying anything, but I know he wants to talk. Maybe he doesn’t feel brave enough to, and I understand him, because suddenly I don’t either.
“So what are you going to do now?” I ask him elliptically.
“I’ve got some things to do in town, then I’m going back to Los Angeles. We’re thinking about starting up a reality show. How about taking part?” he asks, as if he had suddenly come up with a brilliant idea.
“Al, no!” I answer firmly. “Let’s not start all that again. No reality shows.”
“But why not?”
“No shows, no showbiz, no photos, no videos – I don’t want any more of that stuff!”
“But you could be a star!”
“I don’t want to be a star!”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m absolutely sure, yeah,” I say categorically.
“You just can’t imagine the possibility that I might be right, can you?” he says, trying to charm me with a breathtaking smile.
“I’ve already accepted the possibility that you might be right once, I’ve got no intention of doing it twice.”
“Okay then…” he says, “whatever you want.”
Feeling calmer I sigh and while I look into his face I keep saying to myself ‘this can’t be happening’. This guy, the one who always has a smile always on his face and is always dressed in baggy clothes, is a millionaire. And he wanted me. A millionaire wanted me. And I said no.
“Thanks,” I say.
“So? What are you going to do, then?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I think I’ll take a week to get my head together, and in the meantime I have to clear out my desk at The Chronicle.”
“Are you seriously not going to consider going back?”
“No. Not after everything that’s happened.”
“I know he wrote to you in the paper.”
“News travels fast, I see.”
He smiles. “What did you expect? You’ve met Tim, right?”
“Yeah, I should have imagined it,” I murmur, resignedly raising my eyes to the ceiling, “but he can’t have read you the whole thing. Do you know what he wrote? That everybody’s waiting for me. Not him. Everybody. What’s the point of writing me a message like that if you don’t have the guts to say that you miss me? And I have to get it through my head once and for all that he doesn’t need me, he needs someone to dump all his worries and his research and his backlogged work onto. That’s the truth. He doesn’t want me.”
“I want you,” Al whispers, stroking my hip.
“I know…” I say, leaning against him, I hide my face in his sweatshirt and hold him tight – so tight I’m worried I might hurt him, but he doesn’t protest. He embraces me with his eyes closed and his fingers in my hair. “Why aren’t you an asshole, Al? Can you explain it to me? Why are you like this? It would be so much easier if you weren’t.”
“Why? Because if I was an asshole, I’d be the one you’d want to be with?”
“Maybe…” I admit, letting go of him.
“Sam, promise me something…”
“What?”
“If you should ever realise that you’re actually in love with me, call me.”
“I promise.”
“So… I guess I’ll see you around, then?” he says with a forced smile, holding my hand.
“See you around, Al.”
“Hey, my real name is Adam. So now you know.”
“No way – Adam Graham is a stuck-up snob. You’re just Al.”
“Okay, Al’s fine.”
“So see you around, Al.”
“Bye, Sam.”
And we say goodbye, promising to call each other soon, even though we both know that we won’t. Some relationships are like that – made to disappear, leaving you with just a handful of memories that now and again, maybe when you’re sad, reappear to make your heart ache. You spend a night with them, holding them tight while you ask yourself what it would have been like, and then you wake up in the morning and they’re already far away.
With a sigh, I collect my things and leave the building, but before I go home I stop on the pavement, turn round and look at the Beautiful Curvy venue for one last time. I imagine the people on the other side of those closed windows with stories more or less like my own and I seem to hear again the noise, the chaos of the corridors, the spotlights. But then the horn of a taxi cuts through my thoughts and I put them aside and head for home.
The journey is over.