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It was insane.
Felix put up with all of it though because he felt sorry for Janina. Or so he thought. He found out one night that the tattoo on her arm, of a big thundercloud, was not about how she loved stormy weather, but to pay tribute to a friend of hers, Storm, a man she had not told Felix she had been romantically involved with. Every time he saw the tattoo now, he kept wondering what else she hadn’t told him about. He couldn’t get past it.
I got it.
Sometimes the little things were worse than the big things.
“You and Star?”
“It’s okay,” I told him, telling him a little about LA. “She is serious about this Trevor guy, maybe he can give her what she needs.”
“And what is that? Prescription meds for schizophrenia?”
I looked at him and he quickly apologized. “Sorry, I’ve gone off crazy chicks.”
“You think Star is crazy?”
“You don’t?”
“Maybe a little,” I conceded.
To me, a certain kind of insanity went hand in hand with creative thinking and passion and enthusiasm. I liked a certain kind of lawlessness, but even I believed in following some of the rules. Especially in my old age.
I told myself to let Felix and Evie have fun.
If she slept with him, it would be fine, it would be a sign that she’d moved on, that we could go back to being friends at work. And she could stay in Summer’s life. I really wanted that to be true.
But I kept listening for Felix’s car.
By midnight, I went to bed, taking a sleeping tablet.
I needed my sleepand I was not going to lie awake all night wondering if Felix was staying over at Evie’s place.
I had very strange dreams that night.
All about men in boats, with semi-automatic rifles, dark glasses and receding hairlines. A little like a Godfather movie, but set in modern times, here in San Francisco. We were at my father’s yacht down by the harbor and someone wanted to kill me, I jumped in the water and nearly drowned but at the last moment, a huge wave washed me to the jetty. It didn’t exactly make sense.
When I got up the next morning, Felix’s car was not outside.
He must have spent the night elsewhere.
I decided to go for a swim, without the wet suit, to wake me up properly.
The water was cold and I felt the shock of it straight away, reveling in it. It took my body a few minutes to warm up, then I no longer felt the cold or anything else. My anger, my worry, all the things that had been weighing down on me, lifted away and drifted off. I started swimming in the open water, out to the open sea, turning around only when my watch said I’d been out twenty minutes. I didn’t want to get too cold. By the time I was back on the sand, shivery, my teeth clattering, all I could think about was coffee and a hot shower.
Nothing else mattered.
When I came down from the shower, the nanny was already there, getting Summer’s things ready for school.
“Good morning,” she said to me.
“It certainly is!” I said with a big smile. The endorphins had kicked in from my swim and I was feeling on top of the world.
Chapter 17
Evie
I guess I wanted to make him a little jealous.
