Because of Lucy (3 page)

“Is that so strange?”

“Umm. Yes.” Vanessa twists her glass on the table. “Next you’ll be telling me you write poetry too.”

“Nope, too busy corrupting innocent virgins with my sexy fit body.”

Vanessa’s attempt at her customary stare is marred by the hint of embarrassment on her face. “Byron was a poet. And he was a bit like you.”

“A bit like me?”

“A bit of a misogynist.”

I draw in a deep breath. I’m bored of this now. I don’t have to sit and be insulted by some chick who I have no chance of getting into bed. I don’t mind flirtatious battles of wills. But not when playing around won’t get me anywhere.

“You like to put people in compartments?” I ask her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You call me a misogynist but I think you’re being fairly sexist. What about the girls doing the same as me? Are they using the guys they sleep with? Or would you call them worse names than misogynist”

Vanessa shifts in her seat and picks up her drink. “No.”

“So get to know someone before you make a decision about who they are.”

“Okay, sorry…”

I grin into my beer as I take a drink, I love getting one over on girls like her. Those who make snap judgments about me, imagining themselves superior. After offending her last night, maybe she has an excuse. Whatever, she’s got sharp claws and unfortunately they won’t be raking my back anytime soon. I search the bar for someone else I know. There’s a group of girls from one of my lectures, I’m pretty sure the petite blonde in the very low cut top has given me the come on before. And she’s smiling at me now.

I excuse myself more politely than I feel, cutting short something she was about to say. What I don’t understand is what tugs at me when I see the hurt in Vanessa’s face as I walk away, leaving her alone.

Chapter 4

NESS

I’m cuddled up under a blanket, dozing off as I watch a late night movie, when the front door opens. I heard them coming before they got here, loud voices in the street, and toyed with the idea of retreating to my bedroom. Too late, Abby stumbles in first, rain glistening on her long hair as Matt pushes her through. Some guys I recognize from previous party nights trip in after her. One, straggly hair and black band T-shirt, carries a clinking carrier bag and another skinny guy balances a stack of pizza boxes. Great.

My stomach lurches as a pretty girl with long blonde hair and drunken eyes enters the house. She’s pushed through the door by Evan, who has his arms tightly around her waist. Evan’s drunken brown eyes meet mine and he drops his hold on her. The door closes behind him and he leans against it, not touching the girl who curls herself into him.

By this point, I’ve turned away, angry with myself that seeing them bothers me. And why should it? We only had a brief meeting in the pub, which ended abruptly. Okay, I enjoyed holding a conversation with someone who was interested in talking to me, even if our words were a bit snarky. He tried to turn his charm onto me, briefly, successfully flattering me into thinking he liked me. God I must be desperate for attention. Thinking about it, I’ve not tried to connect with people since I got here. At work it’s easier to keep my head down and get on with things. Perhaps after these few weeks of feeling like a piece of Abby’s furniture I was flattered by Evan. Something he’s evidently good at, I decide, watching the girl pushing herself into him.

“Oh! You’re still awake, have a drink with us!” shrieks Abby and pushes one of her bottles of alcoholic juice into my hand.

“No thanks, I’m going to bed.” I push the drink back at her.

Evan’s looking at me. Staring. I meet his eyes, look pointedly at the girl he’s with, then back to him. Bizarrely, he shrugs at me. This small exchange sends heat across my face so I turn away. When we sat together in the pub, I was on guard. I thought I had him figured out and then I made the comment about Arts students and my embarrassment caused a slip in defense. Evan emanates confident sexuality and at that point he drew me in with flirtation, using his looks and words to try and suck me in. And afterwards I kicked myself because his tricks worked. Yeah, works on both random blondes and me. I shake my head, dismissing my attraction to him. Ignoring the gaze burning my skin, I turn and disappear upstairs before he tries to speak to me again. I don’t want another encounter with the drunk Evan.

Switching the lamp on, I then plug my iPod into speakers and throw a book onto the bed. My night: a book and some music until the revelers below pass out. I pull on warm pajamas - cutesy kittens on pink flannel. Oh so not me.

When I come out of the bathroom, Evan is sitting on the top stair, leaning against the wood chip wall. His smart shirt has a button missing and is
untucked. The blonde girl.

“All yours,” I say nonchalantly, indicating the bathroom.

He doesn’t move, head resting on the wall, watching me. My neck prickles, wishing he’d sto
p
lookin
g
at me. The top of his chest is revealed by the missing button. Smooth and kissable. I squeeze my eyes shut. Hormones. Leave.

“Are you?” he says slowly, appraising me in my thankfully shapeless pajamas.

“Am I what?”

“All mine.” He pulls himself to his feet and places a hand on the
bannister. I think he catches the disgust on my face. “Just kidding”

“Isn’t she all yours? The blonde?”

“Nah. I’m too much of a misogy…misogyn..” He stumbles over the word and clears his throat. “Byronesque.”

“Arrogant and destructive?”

His signature smile creeps up his face. “‘What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman.’”

I gawp. That’s the only word I can think of to describe my reaction. A half-drunk guy is quoting poetry at me, as I’m standing in my pajamas above a room full of semi-inebriated students.

“Is that how you do it?” I ask him.

“Do what?”

“Seduce girls into bed?”

Evan laughs. “No, that’s my good looks and sexy fit body.”

He’s teasing me but he won’t win. “Don’t deprive her then.”

“Who?”

“You’ve forgotten her before you even have sex with her?” I say with mock incredulity.

He shrugs. “No. She’s a bit too keen. I prefer a challenge.”

“A challenge?”

He lowers his voice. “I bet you’d be a challenge.”

Oh, my god. This guy is such a wanker when he’s had a few drinks. He’s got a girl downstairs and now he’s hitting on me? “I’m not interested, Evan.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He pulls a dejected face then grins again.

“Off you go then.” I shoo him with my hand.

“Off I go.”

As he walks into the bathroom, he pauses and looks back over. “Such a shame. This feels destined somehow.”

“Destined. Right. Got a poetry line on that too?”

“No, I mean because we fit.”

“Fit?”

“Our names. Evan… Vanessa…” He gives me the lop-sided grin, accompanied by a shine in his eyes. “Evan fits into Vanessa.”

Evan raises an eyebrow in challenge.

“He most certainly does not!” I retort and rush into my bedroom.

I lean against the door, my heart thumps in my ears as I listen. The bathroom door clicks shut. I bang my head softly, annoyed at my pathetic comeback to his vulgar comment. He bloody won.

I’m still there when I hear him leave the bathroom and return downstairs. Every time we encounter each other, something new intrigues me about him and something new puts me off wanting anything to do with him. Apart from the obvious and frustrating attraction I have to him, there’s something else. A guy who quotes poetry and engages in battles of will, can’t be the vacuous womanizer I thought he was when we met yesterday. I want to know his story.

Chapter 5

NESS

I push the cereal around my bowl with a spoon; Abby leans against the sink waiting for the kettle to boil. Matt is upstairs, in her bed but nobody else remains in the house from the night before. I can’t help thinking about Evan and the blonde girl, even though it’s none of my business. After we spoke at the top of the stairs, I tried to concentrate on a book and music so I didn’t have to think about him. My heart thumped for too long afterwards, the evening replaying in my mind. How Evan looked at my mouth, flirted in the pub. Then chose another girl. Logical choice, as if I would do what he wanted anyway - no sex from me. I’d drifted off as the voices faded downstairs, images of Evan’s missing button and intense looks dancing into my dreams.

“Does Matt live with Evan?” I ask Abby.

She rubs her panda eyes, the make-up which accentuated them so beautifully last night spread down her cheeks. “In the same Halls, yeah.”

“And they knew each other before
uni?”

“Think so. I’ve heard them mention places from the same town.”

I spoon cornflakes into my mouth.

“Why the sudden interest in Evan?” asks Abby. Her face lights up. “Oh! You’re into him. Hmm. Join the queue there.”

She pours water into the three chipped mugs and pulls her hair over her shoulders. I shouldn’t push the conversation, but I decide to keep going.

“What do you think of him?” I ask.

“He’s a nice guy. Mostly. He gets drunk a lot. And stoned. More than Matt, anyway. But I guess some people do when they hit the freedom of uni.”

“Yeah, he seems to be with a different girl every time he comes here.”

Abby smiles. “I don’t think he’s the boyfriend type.”

“And Matt hasn’t said anything about him?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, about his past.”

Abby walks over and taps me on the head with a teaspoon. “You mean is he some kind of dark, brooding broken guy?”

I curse my pale skin and inability to hide embarrassment. “No.”

Abby returns to the mugs. “Nope, he’s just a player. Besides, guys don’t talk about that crap, do they?”

As I finish the cornflakes, disappointment rises inside. I wish he was a little bit broken then I could like him a little bit more.

Chapter 6

NESS

Working in a call center is akin to being a battery hen. Penned into the cubicle, we start the shift, plug in our phones and then we’re at the mercy of the automated telephone service. Fluorescent lighting hurts my eyes and the temperature control inside the windowless center of the building dries them out. Everything is logged - lunch breaks, coffee breaks and even toilet breaks. We’re in teams. With targets. This is to create camaraderie but only the team leaders are interested in the sales targets they battle to meet. Most of us want to get the shift over with and go home.

Abby is gradually getting more considerate. Over the last couple of weeks she hasn’t dragged half of campus home so I’m getting decent sleep. And less friends littering the place after I finish work, normally Matt and a few friends. No Evan for a week though, which I have mixed feelings about. I can rationalize my thoughts about him when I don’t see him, but the repressed side of me, sexually attracted to him, wants to see him again. Fool.

Even with the extra sleep, days like today are tough - an evening shift followed by a new roster the next morning. Almost a double shift. But I’m not in the mood and I’ve had some really difficult customers.

At lunch (thirty minutes and counting), I sit alone and flick through a magazine. I’ve worked at the call center for a month now and I’m still not accepted. Half of the team thinks I’m a student because of my accent and avoid me. The lack of camaraderie and bitchiness didn’t faze me to begin with but recently the animosity has started to bother me. Okay, so this work environment doesn’t lend itself to chatting around the water cooler when everyone’s plugged into their phones all day. But at breaks and lunch, people do chat and rarely to me. I won’t admit this to anyone but myself, but I’m regretting my rash decision to work here. The pay is okay but I’m isolated.

I’m toying with the idea of saving to go traveling. Saving all the money myself and not accepting a begrudging penny from my parents. I picture Mum freaking out and the idea freaks me out a little too. I have no-one to go with and I’m not sure I would be confident enough to backpack around the world alone. Then my head clouds in with all the indecision and stress so I stop thinking about what to do. That’s what happens when life is planned out for you from birth. Deviate from those plans and the house of cards crashes down.

“Julie wants to see you.” A middle-aged woman with badly permed hair and a shirt stretched too tightly across her chest regards me sullenly.

“Julie?”

“Yeah.” She walks away.

I gulp down the remaining muddy, tasteless coffee from the polystyrene cup and deposit it in the bin on the way out of the canteen.

Only the team leaders have their own offices. Little partitioned boxes around the edges of the battery farm. Julie’s is covered in team building slogans, sales charts and the face of the ‘team member of the month’ gazes out from a gaudy certificate.

Julie waits inside and I perch myself on the proffered seat. Her desk is covered in photographs of children and school paintings adorn her wall.

“Vanessa,” she says and smiles.

Julie is skinny; too skinny. Her highlighted blonde hair is carefully styled and she wears bright red lipstick on her thin lips. With her trowel load of foundation, I can’t tell how old she is. Now I’m closer to her I admire her lineless forehead and decide she’s had Botox.

“So, how are you finding things with us in Team Delta?”

Whenever anybody says the words, I imagine us whitewater rafting through Africa.

“Okay, I think.” Because she doesn’t think so, I can see from behind the false smile.

“Good, good. Well, I’m chatting to all our recent recruits, going over stats so we know how things are going.” She taps a couple of buttons.

“Is there a problem?” I ask, shifting in my seat.

“Only with your cross-sales figures. Tell me, do you offer our clients the option to sign up for other products every time they call?”

“Normally,” I lie. I’m not a natural sales person and I cringe each time I push unwanted products onto customers.

“Well, it seems you need a little more training in that area. We’ll fix you up with some sessions. Probably next week - I’ll put you in with the new starters.”

I groan inwardly. Basically, she’s telling me I’m being put in the remedial class. I plaster on a fake smile to match hers. “Sure, that sounds like a great idea.”

Leaving her office, I ignore the faces of my team watching me and walk stiffly to the bathroom. I gaze at the blurred reflection through tearing eyes. The harsh lights highlight my lack of sleep and pallid skin. I’m failing at something and the feeling isn’t good.