Читать книгу Drowning in the Shallows - Dan Kaufman - Страница 6

4

You know …” Susan says, as if she’s just had a light bulb moment, “she could have been a prostitute.”

We’re having coffee in the newspaper building lobby and I’ve just told her about Amy. Susan is the paper’s entertainment, arts and lifestyle editor (there used to be a separate editor – and deputy editor – for each of these areas, but those days are long gone) and most of my stories are written for her. This is partly because she’s a friend, partly because no-one else will touch me, but also because she knows how to butter me up to write revealing articles about my dating life (and other failures) that no normal person would ever confess.

In other words, I’m the humiliation correspondent for the paper.

No matter how unwilling I may be to write something, Susan will always manage to twist my arm – either by getting me drunk or flattering me with lines such as:

“You can do it in your sleep!”

“You were born to write this!”

“No-one else could do this like you!”

She should have been a used car saleswoman – but just as she knows how to massage my ego when she wants something, she knows how to deflate it when she doesn’t.

“What, you mean the only way a girl would talk to me is if she were a hooker?” I say, almost offended.

A small smile plays on her lips, perhaps unconsciously.

“No, no, don’t get me wrong – it’s just that it is suspicious. After all, you were introduced to her through PR …”

“It was the photographer!” I say.

“Yes, who you were introduced to by PR. I’m telling you, there’s something not quite right about that place. Last time I was there Steve had a beautiful girl whispering certain things in his ear and I know girls don’t normally do that to him. I certainly don’t.”

Steve is her belittled bore of a husband, a man dependable in a sports match, who makes jokes that barely raise a thin smile, who can put on a tuxedo and turn up for the wedding day. Perhaps if he weren’t so docile I’d like him but … well, let’s just say I’m glad he’s the bitch and Susan’s the butch in their relationship. Then again, almost any man married to Susan would be.

Susan’s one of those larger-than-life characters who’s both the life and death of a party – and she regularly hosts many at their East Sydney apartment. Susan’s terrifying when drunk (and sometimes when sober) but that only endears her to me more.

Sometimes.

“No, no,” I say, “this girl wasn’t …”

I trail off. Now I’m starting to wonder myself.

“What did that girl whisper to Steve?” I ask.

Susan raises her eyebrows before looking at her watch.

“I better get back up before they tear me a new one. Good luck with tonight.”

Before I can interrogate her further she’s up and brushing friand crumbs off her clothes.

“Ah … thanks,” I say. “I’ll need it.”

She pecks me on the cheek before strutting away, leaving me to think about tonight.

Christ.

I need more than luck tonight – I need my head read. In its simplest form, this is the back story:

I, the story’s putz, meets aspiring actress and falls in love.

Aspiring actress gets leading role in small indie film where she spends half her time naked with muscled men. She convinces me into taking a cameo since the director needs someone bookish for a café scene.

The now up-and-coming actress dumps me and my cat (we’re a package deal).

Three months later, I get an invite to the opening night – which Susan insists I cover for the paper because she thinks my humiliation will make for great copy (“Go on,” she urged, “who else could cover this story like you? You’ve been on the film set, you dated the lead AND you’re our best writer. How could you not write this? You were born for it …”).

Did I mention I’m a putz?

I admit there’s an awful lot of info I’ve left out but … well, how do I say this without sounding like a pussy? I really, truly loved Tori. I honestly thought she was the one. And I finally began to trust her when one day I got the dreaded call that heralded my rejection.

It couldn’t have happened in a more ego-crushing way.

It was around midday and I was sick in bed when she rang. I crawled out to pick up the phone while Jackson, my cat, got excited and raced in circles around me.

He must have just pooped – he loves a good victory lap afterwards.

“Hey,” I say, my voice thick with sleep.

“Are you in bed?” Tori asked, disgusted.

“No,” I say, which wasn’t a lie – I left my mobile on the other side of the room.

A whir of fur raced past me.

“And anyway, I have a chest infection, remember?”

“What, still?”

It was then, at full speed, that Jackson lunged, like a furry obese ninja flying through the air – and his claw pierced my throat. The claw snagged on my skin, Jackson’s considerable weight pulled down on it, and it was then it REALLY began to hurt – especially when he started struggling to get free, unable to get the claw out.

“Jesus!” I cried, holding the phone with one hand while scrabbling at my neck with the other, Jackson clawing at me with his one free paw.

“What … what’s going on?” Tori asked.

I’m trying to prise the claw out, which was hard as Jackson is one fat heavy cat – so I had to support his weight with one hand to take the slack off the claw.

By this stage, I’m really worrying about what damage is being inflicted.

Finally, thankfully, the claw popped out – and as soon as it was free Jackson sulked away, as if offended I wouldn’t let him play with my neck a little longer.

I feel my throat, and my hand comes away covered in blood.

“Jackson just pierced my throat with his claw!” I say, freaked out. “It’s like a fucken horror movie in here!”

“Oh … ok,” Tori said, like there’s something seriously wrong with me.

Jackson licked his paw, relishing the moment.

While I looked for something to compress the bleeding, Tori said she needed to meet me that night on the rooftop of a bar near her place – and we argued when I said I didn’t want to be outdoors while sick. She finally agreed we could meet at her place, and there was a pause.

“I’ll see you then,” she said.

“Is everything ok?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Then she hung up.

That was weird, I thought, as I pressed some toilet paper against my throat. Actually – that was more than just weird. Why does she have to meet me? And why was she so insistent on meeting on that rooftop?

The phone rang again.

“Sorry to call again,” she said, in a softer, nicer voice.

“Don’t be, it’s always nice to hear from you,” I said.

Yes, I actually said that.

“You asked me, and I don’t want to lie anymore,” she said. “Everything isn’t ok.”

That night I drove to her apartment and listened to her tell me about how the heart wants what the heart wants – which wasn’t someone who’d leave in the middle of sex because he forgot to feed his cat (in my defence, that only happened once – and I lost my mojo once I imagined Jackson moping around his empty bowl). Rejected and dejected, I bought some Portuguese chicken on my way home to soothe my now-single soul while telling myself she’d come crawling back.

After all, she told me on our first-year anniversary that she could never live without me, that I was her soulmate …

Well, it turns out she can live without me, since she never came back, crawling or otherwise.