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‘Yes. Weird. You’re hiding. I know this weekend meant something to you. I know you’re pissed off with me. Contrary to my stupidity on Sunday night, it meant something to me too.’
‘Caleb, I can’t be one of your friends with benefits,’ she says, pointing her spoon at me.
‘Maybe I don’t want to go back to having friends with benefits. Dash was a bit of a lapse in judgement.’
‘“Dashes” are par for the course. Honestly, I’m not mad at you. I was a little hurt, I guess, but not surprised.’ She shrugs. This is not the intended result.
‘I don’t want “Dashes” to be par for the course.’
‘Caleb, stop.’
‘Why?’
‘Because part of me feels like I’m cheating on Jasper.’
‘But you’re not together.’
‘I know, but he’s constantly here.’ She taps her index finger to her temple.
‘Let’s clear your head then.’ I pass her a page ripped out of my notebook, setting my plan to dislodge Jasper in motion.
She takes it curiously. ‘What’s this?’
‘I got you a month’s pass to the yoga studio near the station. Here’s the activation code. It has a great write-up, so I booked you into a class today, because sweating out whatever’s in your system might help. There’s another one near work where celebrities go to realign their chakras or whatever. They have private shower pods and smoothie bars with fresh grapefruit too, so you can grab breakfast there if you want. I got you a month’s pass for that one too, so you can decide which you prefer.’
A smile spreads across her face, lighting up her eyes.
‘Thank you. You didn’t have to.’
‘You’re welcome. It seemed pretty important to you. Anyway, you should go, a class starts in an hour.’
‘Will you come with me?’
‘It’s supposed to give you space from everything, me included.’
‘Please? Just this once?’ she pleads.
‘Okay. Just this once.’
I grab some swim shorts and we make our way to what looks like a yoga shop. Ariella walks in, finds an assistant and dispatches her to find two sets of yoga wear in a medium. We leave with clothes, mats and towels in under ten minutes. She is childlike in her excitement and chatters as we walk to the studio. I like her like this.
But the next ninety minutes are a nightmare. Normally, being surrounded by women in tiny bits of Lycra, making suggestive body shapes, would be heaven; but throw in a room the temperature of the Sahara and encouragement for me to make the same body shapes, and it becomes hell. Of course, Ariella sails through. For me, it is torture. I have the flexibility of a brick.
I reward us on the way home with a huge, loaded pizza from the local takeaway. Ariella whispers that she has just seen a mouse as I order. She’s minimising. It is a bloody rat the size of a squirrel. I don’t care. I carry the pizza home and inhale a slice in the kitchen before I get in the shower. It’s late afternoon by the time I get out, weak with exhaustion. I carry the pizza to the living room, place it on the coffee table and flop onto the couch. Everywhere hurts. Ariella emerges shortly afterwards in the ridiculous pyjamas she was wearing earlier, and I swear that top has even more buttons than it did before.
‘The Wire?’ she says, suggesting the new series we are working through now we’ve finishedThe Sopranos.
‘Two conditions.’
She smiles at me and nods eagerly.
‘First. You’re sharing this pizza with me. No cooking for you tonight. Secondly. Try and contain yourself when Omar comes on screen.’
‘He’s lovely, though.’
‘I’ll never understand it. Everyone else in the world has a crush on Stringer Bell and you’re all about low-level criminal Omar? You’re not even his type!’
‘He never swears and he loves his granny,’ she defends him happily.
