The Summer Without You (14 page)

Ro beamed. ‘Totally upper middle!’ And she sipped the cocktail through the straw happily, her eyes on Greg and Bobbi talking at the bar.

They had spent most of the night so far head to head, talking intently. Early on, they had established they’d both been at Penn University at the same time and from that moment on neither
Hump nor Ro had been able to get a word in edgeways as they reminisced over old bars and friends of friends they knew and how come they’d never met. Almost an hour ago now, they had gone to
the bar to get refills, but on finding two stools there, they had sat down and basically not come back.

‘
You
don’t think I look like a man, do you?’ Ro pouted unhappily. What had happened at the door had been among the most embarrassing moments of her life.

‘Ro, the guy was a douchebag! First off, he clearly needs new glasses. You couldn’t look
less
like a guy. So what if you wear men’s clothes? You’re a gorgeous
woman, absolutely gorgeous. Like . . .’ He looked up at the ceiling, trying to find inspiration in the colours and shapes thrown out by the lasers and glitter balls. ‘You’re like
a bundle of pillows all stitched together.’

‘Hump!’ she shrieked. ‘That is not a compliment!’

‘What?’ he asked, open-mouthed with surprise. ‘It totally is! That’s what every guy wants – softness and comfort.’ He pulled a face. ‘These skinny
girls, they just don’t get it,’ he said, swiping his hand through the air, just as a girl in a size-zero, very little black dress sashayed past, drawing his stare like it was
magnetized.

‘Oh,
really
?’ Ro said crossly, sipping her drink harder. ‘Well, Greg obviously doesn’t think so.’

They both watched as he leaned in to hear something Bobbi was saying.

‘Hump, look at his hand! Look! It’s resting on her bare thigh!’ Ro shrieked again, properly scandalized.

‘Oh no, I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all,’ Hump said, watching them with exaggeratedly slitted eyes, although it could just have been the dry ice. ‘If
they hook up now and then break up . . .’ He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘That wouldn’t make for a pretty summer.’

‘Well, it’d be fine as long as Bobbi got to do the dumping.’

‘Yeah, true. Greg’s a gent. He’d take it on the chin.’

They watched as Greg and Bobbi stood up, making their way over to the dance floor, Bobbi looking sinuous as she shimmied gently like a quivering flower in front of Greg.

‘Come on, let’s join them. Can you dance to this?’

‘Can I dance?’ she laughed, sliding along the booth and standing up just as Eminem screamed his angry lyrics over a bass beat. ‘Can
I
dance? Hump, nobody does the mashed
potato like me. Watch and learn, fella. Watch and learn.’

Bonding came at a price, Ro remembered, as she struggled to identify the alien sound that was pulling her from the comforting fug of her bed. She hadn’t drunk so much
since university. The Long Island iced teas had segued into mojitos and dirty martinis (a filthy combination) before finally ending, lethally, with tequilas. Bad dancing had been involved –
she was vaguely recalling a pole.
A pole?
Some bad singing too. She couldn’t exactly remember how they’d made their way home, but she was now on top of her bed, still in
yesterday’s clothes.

Her hands found her phone on the bedside table and she – in a misjudged, too-violent move – slapped it to her ear. ‘Ow! Yes?’ she groaned.

There was no reply. It wasn’t on. The alien ringing was coming from somewhere else.

She groaned again. There was nothing for it. She was going to have to open her eyes.

She tried and light blasted at her like a cosmic glare, forcing her to shield her eyes with an arm. The room appeared to have grown its own centre of gravity overnight, spinning round her as she
gripped the bed for balance.

Ro sat up, groaning yet more. Why wouldn’t it stop? The spinning, the ringing . . .

And then she realized!

‘Uuuh, uuuh,’ she grunted, clambering out of bed and trying to make her way to the laptop sitting on the chest of drawers.

She pressed ‘answer’ and just like that Matt was in front of her, like a genie from a lamp, bid at her command, drawn from her dreams.

His face fell as she materialized in front of him too. ‘What the hell’s happened to you?’ he asked, sounding genuinely worried.

Ro pushed a tangle of hair back from her face. It moved as one solid form – and felt sticky.

‘Oh God, you look
amazing
,’ Ro wailed as she took in his tan, bright eyes and stubble, which was on the right side of sexy. She was vaguely aware that her mouth was hanging
open, but keeping it closed was a reflex too far just now; her body had more than enough to deal with. ‘Where are you?’

‘In Tuol Sleng.’

Was . . . was he grimacing at her?

‘Tuol what?’

‘The genocide museum.’

‘I’m a bad person,’ she wailed again. ‘You’re . . . you’re off being noble and human and healthy, and I’m . . . I’m hung-over.’

She ran her hands over her face, wanting to hide but wanting to see him too, to drink him in.

‘You’re having a good time, then?’

‘I got here
three days ago
. Why haven’t you called?’ she whined, her hands falling petulantly to her sides. Why was he all the way over there and not here, warm in bed
and gently combing out her hair while she slept through this on his tummy?

‘Because we’ve been trekking for five days to get here and there was no Wi-Fi in the middle of the jungle.’ His features softened. ‘You know you’re green,
right?’

‘And you’re so brown.
Why
do you have to look that good and be so far away?’ she whimpered. Her mouth had turned into an upside-down U.

He put a hand to his chin. ‘Like the beard?’

‘Love it. Love it. You look gorgeous.’ She shook her head dejectedly, feeling like she might cry. ‘Are all the girls falling in love with you? I bet they are. They are,
aren’t they?’

‘There aren’t any girls here. I’m staying in a monastery.’ He grinned. ‘And this reaction is exactly why I have to be so far away. You wouldn’t be reacting
like this if you’d seen me yesterday.’

‘But—’

‘No buts. I’m missing you too.’

She blinked. ‘You are?’

‘I am. Even with you looking like the undead.’

‘Oh God, I’m disgusting!’ she wailed, pulling her hands down over her face, distorting her features like Munch’s
Scream
and not doing herself any favours.

Matt laughed. ‘You are not disgusting. You are just very badly hung-over. Fumes are coming through the screen this end.’ He peered closer. ‘Have you shrunk?’

‘No!’

‘Well, what are you wearing? You look like you’ve been dressed by giants.’

She pouted. ‘They’re your clothes.’

‘
Why
are you wearing my clothes?’

She sniffed. ‘Because they smell of you.’

Matt cast her one of his stern looks as she started smelling the collar of his shirt – it smelt mainly of beer and cashew nuts now. ‘
Still?
Ro, you cannot wear my clothes the
whole time I’m gone. At some point – really quite soon – you are going to have to wash them and then you’ll find you’re actually just wearing clothes that are way too
big.’

‘Nooooo,’ Ro wailed, tipping her mouth back down into an upside-down U again.

‘Yes, Ro,’ he chuckled, amused by her dramatics. She never coped with hangovers well. ‘Wash them. Better yet, wear your own clothes. Mine swamp you.’

She gave a sigh, too broken to argue further.

‘So how is it over there? Nice bunch?’ Matt’s eyes swivelled the screen, trying to take in her surroundings.

Ro leaned closer, her nose scrunched up like she was smelling something bad. ‘We’re worried about Bobbi and Greg,’ she stage-whispered. ‘They’ve got a biology thing
going on.’

‘Biology?’ Matt arched a quizzical eyebrow.

‘I mean chemistry. But Bobbi forgave me for blowing my nose on my face in yoga—’ she continued.

‘
What?
’

‘She said she’d been more distracted by the woman next to her who always farts in the tranquillity pose. She holds her breath in readiness, she said.’

Matt blinked back at her, his mind racing, vague panic on his face. ‘Did you mix your drinks? You know champagne and wine destroys you.’

‘And Hump’s lovely. Such a pudding.’

‘A pudding? Well, I guess that’s something,’ Matt said with relief.

Ro just nodded, her eyes fixed on his even though there were nearly 9,000 miles between them. The screen flickered, then froze for a moment and she knew the signal was going. Already?

‘How many days till you’re back?’ she whispered, her head tipped to the side.

‘One hundred and fourteen.’

‘One hundred and fourteen,’ she echoed.

‘You can do it.’

‘I can do it,’ she repeated, without conviction.

‘I love you, Ro.’

Her eyes teared up instantly, knowing this was goodbye again. They only ever seemed to say goodbye these days. ‘I love you.’

‘We’re leaving for Bayon tomorrow – more jungle trekking – but I’ll call you as soon as I can, OK?’

She nodded bleakly. One hundred and fourteen days.

‘Flash me your boobs as a parting gift.’ He winked.

Ro chuckled, in spite of the tears, and pulled her (his) shirt over her head. She could hear him draw in his breath.

‘God, I miss you. Behave yourself, baby.’ His voice warped as the signal wavered again. ‘And remember to wash!’

From beneath the cocktail-spattered linen shirt, she heard the connection between them break again and she fell back on the bed, closing her eyes and curling up into the foetal position. In
under a minute, she had succumbed to oblivion and her brief call with Matt was as fleeting as a dream.

‘Try this,’ Florence said with knowing eyes, pushing a mug of green – green what? Algae? – towards Ro.

Ro smiled quizzically, trying to look baffled by Florence’s concern. She thought she was doing an admirable job of passing herself off as bright and perky. ‘Really, it’s just
the tail end of jet lag.’ She sipped the unidentified liquid while mastering her gag reflex and refusing to acknowledge that it had taken four attempts just to get her feet and the pedals
working in unison on the twelve-minute bike ride over. (It should have taken three.) She had slept solidly for another four hours after Matt’s call – stoutly refusing to respond to
Hump’s knocks on the door that she should go kayaking with him – and although she was far from well, she could at least keep her mouth closed for minutes at a time now, and her eyes
were working together too. Bobbi had looked pleasingly broken as they’d passed on the landing, but Ro had no idea who the other brunette was emerging from Hump’s bedroom, her shoes in
one hand as she’d tiptoed down the stairs. As for how Greg had fared on his morning after the night before – and, more importantly, in which bedroom he had slept – well, Ro
couldn’t wait to get home for the lowdown.

‘Your home is beautiful. Have you lived here long?’

She looked around at the kitchen she was sitting in. Glass-fronted pale blue cabinets were topped with a giant slab of rococo-cut white marble, the floor laid with white ceramic tiles. Blue
gingham pelmeted curtains framed the many paned windows, with a large kitchen table running alongside them, and the window seats were upholstered with cushions in the same pretty check.

From the island unit, where she was sitting on a tall white stool, she could look through the row of arched floor-to-ceiling windows to the terrace and the vast, steam-rolled lawn beyond that
boasted densely planted beds on either side and was fringed at the far end by the dancing grasses on the beach dunes. An ocean view in East Hampton? Even Ro knew she was probably housed, right now,
in $10 million.

‘It’ll be thirty-one years in November. My late husband, Bill, and I moved here from Manhattan when our daughters were born. We used to come down for weekends and holidays anyway,
and it seemed the perfect place to raise a family. New York’s no place for children in my opinion. They need backyards and beaches to play and explore.’

‘Oh, I completely agree,’ Ro replied, aiming for all out jauntiness. ‘Most of the pools I’ve seen out here are bigger than my entire garden in London. Matt and I could
maybe have one child where we are now, but we’d have to move before the second was born, and I honestly don’t know if we could afford to upsize in our area. Prices are just going
through the roof again.’ She rolled her eyes in a ‘what can you do?’ gesture. ‘I imagine we’ll be moving out sooner rather than later.’

‘So you’re planning on getting married?’ Florence asked from her position by the sink. She was tending a row of kitchen herbs that released their aromas as the watering can
nosed their leaves.

‘We’re getting engaged when he’s back.’ She closed her eyes for a second – one hundred and fourteen days. This time tomorrow, one hundred and thirteen . . .

Florence seemed surprised. ‘How long did you say you’d been together?’

Ro interlaced her fingers round the mug. ‘Since university.’

Florence seemed even more surprised. ‘How lovely.’

‘He is.’

A buzz on the intercom made them both turn, and Florence put down the watering can. ‘I wonder who that could be,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Excuse me, please.’

‘Of course.’

She heard the sound of metallic voices in the hallway and, a moment later, saw a delivery van speeding up the drive. Ro looked down at the shallow trays on the worktop before her, with new
batches of seed bombs rolled and ready to throw. She picked one up and rolled it in her palm absently. She had enjoyed her slice of ‘guerrilla gardening’ yesterday and she had a feeling
a long, brisk walk into the wind after this meeting was what her body needed. It wasn’t going to be enough to merely metabolize last night’s alcohol – she had tried sleeping it
off; now she was going to need to work it off and have it blown out of her too.

‘It’s good to see some people still have manners – he brought up my mail from the gate too,’ Florence said, coming back through carrying a small box and a clutch of
letters. ‘I’m really so glad you could come over this morning,’ she continued, opening the top letter with a steak knife she pulled from a drawer. ‘The seed bombs generate
so much attention and support whenever I take a stand at the local food fairs, but it’s not enough. Long Island has a hundred miles of coastline, and almost all of it is at the mercy of the
Atlantic. I can’t get enough people mobilized from food fairs alone, and we have
got
to get these dunes replanted as quickly as possible. The thicker, more established the dune
vegetation, the more resilient the dunes are to coastal erosion and the safer we all are. Those hurricanes, they just blow their way across the water, getting stronger and stronger, and
we’re
the first thing they hit! The dunes down there were the only thing stopping this house from being five feet underwater.’