She wonders if he will lean in for a kiss – a brief peck on her cheek, or the double air kiss – but he steps back. There is nothing to do but lower her head and climb into the back of the car. Frank shuts the door behind her. It’s another lesson for her. Every time she thinks they’re moving on from friendship, she finds they are still right there. Is this what it was like for all the guys who wanted her heart when all she could give in return was friendship?
The journey to the hotel is uneventful and Anna, yawning with tiredness now the buzz of being with Tolly has disappeared,is deposited at the entrance, clutching her phone in her hands. Bella’s is gone. She assumes her friend picked it up when she left with Randy. She is glad. She has no idea what time Bella will roll in – if at all – and she has no wish to be woken up at five in the morning by Bella retrieving her phone.
Zombie-like, she rides the elevator to her floor and lets herself into her room. She surveys the devastation with dismay. Stopping only to wash off her make-up and empty her bladder, she sets an alarm. Then she sweeps all the detritus of cosmetics and abandoned outfits to the floor and crawls into bed.
Just like a lovesick teenager, she closes her eyes, imaging what it might be like to be kissed by Tolly Hyde.
Down with Love
Anna is woken by the shrill ring of her phone. She cracks an eye, feeling like she has been asleep for minutes, not hours. But then she registers it’s her ringtone, not the discordant chirp of the alarm. A dream flits from her brain. She’s not sure what it was, but it must have been torrid because her bed covers are heavily rumpled. Grey light is leaking from the edges of the curtain. It’s early. For one moment she thinks Tolly may be calling to cancel and she sits bolt upright. The man is an early riser. She remembers his personal trainer comes at six every morning.
The screen is alight, making it easy to find. Anna pulls it closer and checks the caller. Not Tolly. James. Slightly addled from alcohol and too little sleep, as she answers her boss’s call, dimly wondering why he is calling so early in the morning.
“Thank god,” James breathes down the phone like one drowning in relief. “Are you with Bella?”
“Not at the moment,” Anna replies, sliding back down in the bed and pulling the covers over her.
“She’s not picking up.” James sounds fraught. “I’ve tried her phone a million times. The last thing I knew, she was in bed beside me. When I woke up, she was gone. All there was, was a message on my phone saying,With Anna.”
The unmistakable tinny voice of a tannoy echoes down the phone, but it is too distorted to make out the words. “Where are you?” Anna asks.
“At the airport.” Anna recalls James has an early flight on his trip back to the UK. “But I’m worried about Bella. I can’t get hold of her.”
“Bella is fine.” Anna sincerely hopes this is the case, but she has no way of knowing, especially if Bella is not answering her phone. James, cool, calm and collected even in the boiler-pressure environment of an emergency department, is being dismantled by his love for Bella. He needs to calm down before he embarks on his long flight. And Anna’s words are probably true: “She’s most likely not answering because, unlike me, she was smart enough to put her phone on silent while asleep.” Anna is deliberately vague about where and with whom Bella might be sleeping. This is not the time to tell James what she knows or suspects of Bella’s whereabouts.
“She came with me to a friend’s house last night.” So far, so true. Now for the supposition. “We were out till late and she wouldn’t have wanted to wake you when she came back.”Ifshe came back. “And before you ask, no. I’m not trotting through the hotel in my pyjamas to ask her to answer her phone. Look, she’ll be back in the UK soon enough. You guys can catch up then.”
Silence. Then: “I suppose you’re right. But if you see her, tell her to call me.”
“I wouldn’t count on my seeing her. I’m out all day. She’ll probably see your messages before then. But I will tell her if I do see her. Go get your flight and stop worrying.” That last is valid. Bella doesn’t deserve James’s consideration.
James disconnects.
Fully intending to go back to sleep, she swigs water from the bottle by the bed and checks the time. She can still get in a couple of hours if she skips breakfast and make-up. After all, the make-up would probably just slide off her face in the California heat. And there really is no point in trying to compete with the tanned leggy women strutting along the boardwalks. She resetsher alarm, then drops the phone to the floor and her head to the pillow.
A veteran of on-call shifts, she’s asleep in minutes. When the alarm sounds, she’s a lot perkier. A shower further helps to restore her. She tosses her hair into a messy knot, pulls on a cute pair of ditzy shorts and a white top and she’s ready. She’s careful to apply a layer of sunscreen to her exposed skin and set sunglasses on her head. This is California, after all. Finally, she picks up a loose white overshirt in case they are out late, slides her feet into trainers and heads out of the door. On the dot of nine o’clock, she’s exiting the hotel foyer, bubbling with an excitement she doesn’t care to examine too closely.
Her heart plummets when she sees Frank, not Tolly. The driver steps forwards. He has a cup in his hand, which he holds out to her. “What is it?” she asks.
“My generation would call it coffee.” Frank’s mellow tones make it sound like the greatest delight. “But yours would say,Americano. With milk, not creamer.”
Someone knows European tastes. “Where are we going?” she asks, ignoring the door he’s opened to the rear seats and walking around to ride shotgun.
Frank shrugs and climbs in beside her, tucking his belly carefully under the steering wheel, before answering: “The marina.”
Frank must have magical driving skills because somehow he manages to navigate Los Angeles’s rush-hour traffic, snaking through roads but never once falling prey to its notorious tailbacks. By the time Anna has finished sipping her coffee, he is pulling to a stop beside a palm-tree lined walkway. As Frank takes the empty cup and helps her up, he nods to one of the gangways. “Mr Hyde’s just coming.” It’s the first indication Frank has ever given that he knows the identity of his hirer.
A figure appears. He is tall, clad in a loose sky-blue shirt, sleeves rolled, and dazzling white shorts. Sunglasses shield his eyes and a cap hides his hair. Even knowing it is probably Tolly, Anna hesitates. She reflects that it’s an effective disguise. His stubble is not really long enough yet to obscure his jaw, but from a distance, he looks like any other mariner. It’s only when he raises his arm in greeting that she becomes certain it’s him and starts off in his direction, casting a thanks towards Frank as she leaves.
They meet halfway. Anna, being British and not wanting to be over-familiar, stops a pace short and smiles her greeting. “This looks exciting,” she says. “Are we going somewhere in particular or just out on the water?”
Tolly grins happily back at her and her heart does one of its annoying skips. She’s hoping exposure therapy will work to calm it down, but so far it’s having no discernible effect. But then, this is only their third meeting. “Santa Catalina Island,” he says. “I thought it’s somewhere you probably wouldn’t have been.”
He takes her hand to lead her onto a gangway and it feels natural, like her palm belongs in his. But he drops it again as they walk along the pontoon. Boats surround them. The sun sparkles off the chrome trim of gleaming, sleek monster motorboats, while weathered tarpaulins cover sailboats bobbing at their mooring. The air is full of clinks of metal and the slap of the sea against the dock and the smell of brine and seaweed. And diesel.
Tolly stops beside a mid-sized motorboat, still as shiny as the day it was first sold. It’s been backed into its mooring, making it easy to step from the dock to its rear platform. Another man, dressed in a similar style to Tolly, is waiting on the platform. Tolly takes her hand again to help her step onto the boat, but really, it’s a little gap and the water in the marina is barely rippling. The other guy holds his hand ready to helpher onboard if she needs it. Instead, she moves to the side of the small deck to make room for Tolly. He steps across with no help at all. The other guy has already turned away and is moving towards the helm when Tolly says, “Anna, Marco. Marco, Anna.”
Marco twists around long enough to raise his hand and moves on. Plainly, he is not going to be part of the party.
