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“Look,” I exclaim, slapping my thighs. “God’s clearly sent us these specimens of manhood to test us.”
“And you greedy whores have both failed,” deadpans Rami, sending all three of us into laughter as she absorbs a pillow from both of us.
I glance at the little table on which my make-up and hair stuff is spread out, searching for the watch I couldn’t find earlier. “Fuck.”
“What?” asks Fran.
“My watch.”
“Where did you last have it?”
“I…” I think back to Grey removing it from my wrist last night before sliding his meaty hands up my slim back. “Last night. I took it off during the massage.”
“Did you bring it back inside before going to bed?”
I think back to following him back inside and seeing him off. Later, I drank some juice before heading upstairs to wash the oil off my body and get into my long T-shirt ready for bed. Before that, I went back onto the balcony to bring my stuff inside and rearrange the chair.
I thought I saw my watch and brought it in…
Or did I?
I can’t remember now.
It’s Marilla’s watch. My mom. Well, my surrogate mom. She didn’t give birth to me and I met her when I was already about seventeen, but she’s the woman who most feels like a mom to me. My biological mom is not exactly the maternal type, to put it very mildly.
Marilla and her wife, Orpha, gave it to me for my twenty-first birthday two years ago. It’s this vintage watch from the twenties with a small gold oval watch face and thin black velvet straps that they had specially put on along with a butterfly clasp to make it easy to put on and take off.
It’s not waterproof, not practical for yoga, and frankly, I barely use it seeing as I have my phone on me most of the time, but I wear it to feel close to them, especially when I go away.
I don’t want to lose the thing.
“I’ll check outside again,” I say. “Maybe it fell through the slats. It was dark outside.”
“Maybe you knocked it off the table when your brain floated off into space,” Rami gibes, and I laugh as I climb to my feet, grabbing my purse and following my friends downstairs as they prepare to go out—Fran with Gideon, and Rami by herself to meet up with a couple of yogis from the yoga retreat.
* * *
After seeing my friends off, I head to the balcony and turn the light on as the sun is beginning to wane. My anxiety over Grey coming over hits me as I step out, lifting the cushions of the chair and moving the table to see if anything fell underneath it.
Nothing.
Glancing down through the slats at the sandy paving stones below the balcony, I open the little wooden door to the exterior staircase and head down in case the watch fell through them.
As I make it to the bottom, I look all around, sliding my feet left to right to see if it got covered by sand during the windy night.
A few minutes later, I decide it must be languishing back in the house somewhere, and I turn to walk up the stairs only to stop in my tracks at the sight of two cigarette butts lying just next to the thick wooden post holding the balcony up. I peer down at them, sure they weren’t there yesterday or the day before when I climbed up these stairs from the beach.
I run my eyes up and down the wooden post, to see two grey spots charred into the wood, as if the cigarettes had been put out there.
While I know that it was probably some passerby taking a shortcut to the path on the other side of the house, the sight of it still makes moths flutter in my stomach, filling me with dread.
But then, I always seem to be paranoid these days…
Shuddering out a weighty breath, I kick some sand over the butts and head back up the stairs, closing the little door to the balcony before pulling the glass door closed and locking it, checking it twice before heading back into the kitchen at the sound of my phone beeping.
I’m running a little late. I’ll let you know when I leave. Grey.
Well, if you’re playing hard to get, I’m not impressed, I think about typing, but instead opt for:
