24
Ash
‘I just feel …’ Ash says to Mona, as they sit across a table from each other at the same restaurant they first met, ‘like it’s all my fault. I knew she’d never had group sex that way before, and they both knew I had, and so it’s like … was I the leader? Did I make her think she wanted something she didn’t? I’m desperate to apologise, to talk to her about it, but she’s not texting back, and she’s not been at work. Luis says she’s on annual leave. I half want to show up at her house, but if I know CJ as well as I think I do, that’s the wrong call. She doesn’t do well being backed into a corner, emotionally speaking.’
Mona takes a big sigh, digests everything Ash has told her about what happened three nights ago.
‘Well, doll,’ she declares. ‘I don’t know what to say. I think she’s an idiot for leaving, because you’re a hot piece of ass – and take it from an old bird: the threesome invitations dry up before you know it. And I think you’re an idiot, too, for not taking advantage of the four-poster bed and the gorgeous man in it once she’d gone.’
‘Mona!’ Ash laughs. ‘I couldn’t have sex after that! The whole vibe was off!’
‘A vibe is easily rectified,’ Mona says, wafting her hand through the air. ‘Once again I point you to: you’re a hot piece of ass. Sex is like peeing and eating, you don’t want to miss an opportunity for it, because you never know when it will next come by.’
‘Words I should get printed on a T-shirt, to remember you.’
Mona smiles at this, a little sadly. The time has come for her great European adventure to end, and this is her final rendezvous with Ash. Ash takes the hint, the way Mona doesn’t say anything then, not even a stupid overly sexualised joke. She reaches out a hand to squeeze Mona’s arm.
‘I’m so happy you got me pissed that day,’ she says. ‘And I know you’ll roll your eyes and saylet’s not make promises we won’t keep, but I really do want to stay in touch. I’m really good at it! I still send out proper Christmas cards and everything!’
‘Oh, doll,’ Mona says. ‘You are one of the good ones, that’s for sure.’
‘So are you,’ replies Ash.
Their food arrives, and they feast onBacalhau à Brás, and a single glass of wine each. Mona is meeting her young lover for their goodbyeliaisonlater, so wants to be sober, and Ash generally just feels … off. Thinking she’s upset anyone is enough to nauseate her, but knowing CJ is upset feels worse. Even Luis said he’s never known her to lie so low. Ash has retraced her steps from Luis’s birthday party over and overagain, as she’s showered, before falling asleep, when she’s on thefunicular. On the one hand, CJ is a grown-up and can do what she wants. If she wasn’t into sex with Ash and Luis, she was perfectly within her rights to just get up and leave. But, she didn’t simply leave. Shefled.And people who flee aren’t experiencing neutral thoughts. People who flee are agitated. Ash has texted her four times, which feels like an adequate but not overbearing amount. Text one, the night of, said,hey, you ok?Text two, sent the morning after the night before, said,hey CJ, hope you got home ok and slept well. I’ve got a bit of a sore head, lol. Just checking in – be good to know you’re all right.Ash sat with her phone in her lap after that one, saw the three dots that indicated an imminent reply appear, disappear, and then reappear again, sending false hope of reassurance that ultimately did not materialise. The third text said,if you’re upset or mad or have absolutely any emotions or feelings at all, I’d really like to hear about them.Finally, yesterday, she sent just two kisses, simply a double ‘x’, the only way she could come up with to say she was thinking of CJ but didn’t want anything from her. Luis has fared better – at least she’d been in contact with him, he reported back. Gone to the beach with Jorge, he told Ash. Not for long.
‘Should I be worried about this cold shoulder?’ Ash asked him. ‘Upset? Take the hint that she never wants to talk to me again?’
Luis looked at her kindly. ‘You really don’t understand why she’s disappeared?’ he asked her.
‘No,’ Ash said, a growing feeling of heaviness in her stomach. ‘Can you explain it to me?’
Luis stroked her cheek, ran a finger over her lip and then pulled away. ‘I really can’t,’ he said, with finality. ‘Você encontrará a resposta.’ You will find the answer.
And so the days pass, Mona leaves, and Ash confirms the trip to Porto with Willow, who has booked her flights and paid for a double suite in a fancy hotel for them both upfront, in four weeks and counting. She sits with a book in front of her but doesn’t really read. Walks aimlessly and doesn’t realise she’s got blisters. She’s restless, antsy. Wonders if six weeks is the limit one can spend in any one city, if for the last six weeks of sabbatical she should head off somewhere else. But where? The enormity of the question weighs on her so heavily she decides it is easier, then, to stay put, if only to end the pain of trying to decide. Perhaps she can start writing a novel, or log in to her work emails just to parse through anything worth sorting out now instead of on her return. She tries to make conversation with other CoLab-ers, but it turns out she can’t be arsed, she struggles to listen to the hopefulness of new arrivals or the worries of those moving on. And then, two weeks since she last saw CJ, she boards a coach to the Algarve. It’s a CoLab trip she forgot she’d even signed up for, an overnight on the beach with a BBQ and ghost stories around a fire. Luis knocked on her door an hour ago, said he had a feeling she’d forgotten she was signed up. She had. That’s why now, as she clambers aboard, everyone else is waiting for her. Her tardiness in Lisbon, it’s a problem! She’s never on time any more, seldom looks at the clock, even.
All the seats are taken. She looks down, to her left, when a voice says, ‘You can sit here.’
It’s CJ. Beautiful, sun-kissed, missing-in-action CJ. She moves her tote onto her lap to emphasise Ash is welcome. Ash sticks her overnight bag above her head, brain whirring (it’s CJ! Finally!), slinks down, looks at her friend, searching her face for clues about her mood.
CJ flushes and looks away, says to her lap, ‘You all right?’
‘Yeah,’ Ash says, as the coach doors close and they head off through the streets. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Took Jorge away,’ CJ says. ‘He wanted somemamãe-and-Jorge time, just the two of us.’
Ash nods. ‘I didn’t know you’d planned to go away.’
‘It was last minute,’ says CJ. ‘Spontaneous. Sorry I didn’t text back. My phone was on airplane mode. So Jorge had my attention.’
Ash remembers those three typing dots, proof CJ’s phone can’t have been off. But she doesn’t push it, doesn’t bring it up. She’s worried if she does, she won’t like what she hears. Ash just wants everything to go back to normal.
‘Was it fun?’ Ash asks, instead.
‘Huh?’ says CJ, still to her lap. She looks up, briefly, but past Ash’s head.
Ah. It hits Ash like a hurricane: CJ doesn’t want Ash to get the wrong impression.
‘Oh my god,’ Ash says, putting her head in her hands and letting a small giggle escape from between her lips. She sits back up. ‘CJ. Shit. I only just now understood what’s going on. Why you’re being so weird.’
