Just Friends (12 page)

“I forgot to say,” she called out. “All the trousers need shortening.”

“Okeydokey.” Joe picked up his pen again.

He copied down her instructions obediently and handed her the tickets. She stuffed them into her pocket. Michael had a brain, didn’t he? He’d track down his suits eventually. It was a pity she couldn’t be present when he put one on. She pulled open the rickety door to the street.

“Hey, just a minute! These trousers: did you say
six inches
?”

Freya paused, hand on the doorknob. Then she turned and fixed Joe with a dazzling smile.

“Haven’t you heard? Short is the new long.”

CHAPTER 8

Jack opened the door of his bedroom. He was wearing a sleep-creased T-shirt and faded undershorts with a lipstick kiss imprinted on the right buttock. After steadying himself on the jamb, he launched himself on a trajectory that should, with luck, lead him across the north side of the living room and around the corner to the bathroom. Walking on autopilot, eyes squinched with sleep, he successfully negotiated the corner and biffed the bathroom door with the heel of his hand, as he always did. Normally it flew open with a satisfying
pop!
Today it nearly broke his wrist. It was locked! He recoiled sharply and cradled his arm, panting with the pain.

“Out in a sec,” chirruped a voice, a female voice: Freya. He kept forgetting she was here.

Next there came the hiss of water, which meant that she was only just beginning her shower. Women always took forever. Muttering to himself, Jack stomped through the kitchen and unlocked the door to the backyard, a wasteland of weeds and rotting cardboard boxes. He took a couple of paces across the cracked concrete and peed vigorously onto a patch of dandelions. As his senses juddered into focus, he became aware of an annoying whistling noise. Eventually Jack made out a little brown thing on the back wall. Hop hop. Tweet tweet. Dumb bird. He hated cheerfulness in the morning.

Something was fluttering at the edge of his vision. Jack turned his head and gaped. A makeshift clothesline had been strung out across one corner of the yard. From it dangled various pieces of unmistakably female apparel, including flimsy wisps of underwear. This was awful. What would the neighbors think?—especially Henpecked Harry from upstairs, who was practically Velcroed to his wife and depended on Jack to live a life of brutal, undomesticated masculinity. Jack winced his way across the prickly terrain, snatched the clothes off the line, and took them inside.

His plan had been to position himself in an armchair bang in the middle of Freya’s path back to her room so that he could rustle a newspaper impatiently when she finally emerged. But to his surprise he found the bathroom already vacated and exuding warm, scented steam. Jack wrinkled his nose. What if that stuff got into the water system? He didn’t want to wind up smelling like a girl.

He shut himself in the bathroom, only realizing once he was inside that he still had Freya’s clothes. He dumped them in a pile on the toilet seat, then ran water into the basin and lathered his face with shaving cream. He dipped his razor into the warm water and cut a long swath through the foam. Ouch! Whimpering softly, Jack bathed his stinging cheek in cold water, then peered in the mirror to examine the damage. One side of his face was covered with tiny red pinpricks beginning to bleed. What had happened to his razor? But he already knew the answer. He flung open the bathroom door.

“Freya!” he bellowed.

“Morning, Jack,” said a voice about three feet away from him. “I was about to make some coffee. Want some?” She was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, immaculate and aloof, already dressed in her zippy career-woman suit.

Jack brandished his razor in the air as if he were about to lasso a steer. “Have you been using this to shave your legs?”

“I might have. Oh, all right, I did. Sorry. I left mine at Michael’s.”

“Then buy yourself a new one. Look at my face! I’m going to have to go around all day with Kleenex polka dots, like a nerdy teenager.”

“Sorry,” she said again, but she didn’t sound properly penitent.

“And you locked the bathroom door. I practically broke my wrist on it.”

“Bollocks.”

“You could have stopped me working for weeks. I need my hands. A writer is like a concert pianist.”

She folded her arms and gave him a smile he didn’t altogether like. “Which one, O Toscanini?”

“Huh?”

“Which wrist sustained the near-fatal injury? The one you’re waving your razor around with, or the one you’re using to prop up the wall?”

Jack glowered. “Kiss my ass,” he said nastily, and turned to go back into the bathroom.

“Looks like somebody already did,” she called after him. “Love the shorts.”

Jack slammed the door, readjusted the showerhead to its harshest setting, and stood under the drumming water. It was only a temporary arrangement, he reminded himself, trying to calm his heartbeat. “Two weeks,” he’d said, “two weeks
max
.” If today was Tuesday, that meant only nine more days of cohabitation.
Only
nine days? Only
nine
(9) days? Only nine
days
? He closed his eyes and tipped back his head as if in supplication to a compassionate deity. Water ran down his face like tears.

The best policy was simply to avoid one another. So far, he’d managed this rather successfully. Jack’s mood brightened as he recalled how he had charmed Candace off her high horse and persuaded her to go out with him Saturday night, as he’d known she would, though he’d delayed calling until six-thirty to keep her guessing. When she answered at the first ring, he knew he was in. Girls! The evening had gone pretty much according to plan, though their discussion of Candace’s writing was bumpier than expected: Who would have guessed that she’d set such store by her adverbs? Candace herself, in a skimpy black dress, was even prettier than he’d realized. Out of the black dress, she was sensational. At the end of the evening he had escorted her home, like the Southern gentleman he was, learned that her roommate was fortuitously absent (another giveaway), and decided to stay.

Jack stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel to frisk himself dry. Candace was a sweet girl, too. When they finally got out of bed, she’d insisted on making him waffles and maple syrup for breakfast. He didn’t especially like waffles, but he’d enjoyed watching her make the effort for him. After that, frankly, he’d become restless. Candace’s apartment was tiny, its windows looking straight into other windows or at blank, dirty walls—probably the best she could afford, but it made Jack feel claustrophic. She’d suggested going to the park (what for?), but he got away by claiming to have a squash date, which was true once he’d called Gus to arrange it.

Jack’s thoughts reverted to Freya. So far, they’d gotten through three days without difficulty; there was no reason why the remaining time shouldn’t pass smoothly, as long as they were both polite and respected each other’s space. They were mature adults, after all. One tiny niggle remained, which was that he still hadn’t got around to telling Candace about Freya moving in. But he’d been busy. A man couldn’t do everything.

Wrapping the towel around his waist, Jack returned to his bedroom to dress. As he pulled on his usual jeans and comfortable shirt, he sniffed appreciatively at the smell of coffee and toast. There were some good things about having a woman about the place. He arrived in the kitchen, determined to be good-humored, and looked around for his cup of coffee and his plate of toast. Neither was to be seen.

“Didn’t you make me any toast?”

“Hmm?” Freya was sitting on the only stool—his stool—and appeared to be totally absorbed in reading the newspaper—his newspaper.

Jack cleared his throat testily, making his point. When she didn’t react, he began to fix his own breakfast, rustling the plastic bread bag and banging the toaster loudly enough to shame her into an apology.

Sure enough, her head suddenly lifted. “Listen to this: Bliss and Ricky split up!”

Jack waited a few withering seconds. “And who, may one inquire, are ‘Bliss’ and ‘Ricky’?”

“Bliss Bogardo the supermodel, you cretin. Ricky Radical, the rock star. She caught him with a female drummer and set fire to his maracas. What a hoot!” She returned eagerly to the paper, shedding buttery crumbs.

“Stupid names,” said Jack. “They can’t be real.”

“Of course they’re not real. Have you been living in a cave?”

“I prefer not to clutter my mind with trivia. Now, might I trouble you for the sports section?”

She gave him a look, then disengaged the relevant pages. As she handed them over, Jack caught sight of the headline: STRAINED PINKY THREATENS YANKEE CHANCES. His heart contracted. This was cataclysmically bad news.

“Dear me, a strained pinky,” murmured Freya. “Just as well it’s nothing
trivial
.”

Silence followed while Jack poured himself some coffee, put his plate of toast on the table, and set the paper next to it. He opened the refrigerator door and closed it again.

“Where did you put the milk?”

“All gone, I’m afraid. There was only a teensy bit left anyway.”

Black coffee. Jack hated black coffee. He would have thrown it down the sink if he weren’t above childish gestures. Instead he heaved a chair from the living room, grunting loudly with effort, and seated himself at the rickety table. He reached for the butter—at least she hadn’t finished that, too—and spread a generous amount across his cooling toast, aware of Freya’s critical gaze.

“You certainly like butter.”

“Yes. I do,” he said evenly.

“Frightfully fattening.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“No.” She crunched into her second—third?—piece of toast. “Though you have put on weight since I first met you.”

Automatically Jack sucked in his stomach. “That’s muscle. I’ve been playing a lot of squash.”

“Muscle!” Freya cackled with merry laughter.

Jack picked up the paper and held it in front of his face. The news wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. The star pitcher was fine, but—

“I’ve been thinking,” said a voice behind his paper. “If I’m going to be staying here for a bit, we need to establish some ground rules.”

Jack flapped the paper and read on.

“I mean, people who share a place usually have house rules. . . . Hello? Are you there?”

“What?”

“Don’t you want to give me instructions about garbage and laundry, and who does the dishes or cooks dinner?”

“No.”

“What about cleaning? That bathroom’s a health hazard.”

“Cleaning is not one of my interests.”

“What about bringing people home?”

“I usually go to their place.” Then the full implications of her question struck him. He lowered his paper. “You mean—
you
?”

“No. Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.”

“Well . . .” Jack was flummoxed. Was Freya really intending to bring another man
here
, to his apartment, to his study, to his inner sanctum, and—and—
fool around
? She’d only just broken up with Michael. Where were her standards? “I guess we could let each other know beforehand if we wanted to . . .” He coughed gruffly. “The other one can stay out of the way, so we’ll have some . . .”

“Privacy?” She pronounced the word the English way—
priv
to rhyme with
give
.

“Pry-vacy,” he corrected.

“Righty-ho. One more thing: I’d like to make some contribution to the household. I thought I’d try to get to the market today—stock up the fridge. Is there anything you’d particularly like?”

“Peanut bu—”

Jack bit back his words.
Stock the fridge.
Wasn’t this what Leo had warned him about? The older woman, the supposed “friend” who wormed her way into your life and
never left
.

“No! Do
not
go to the market.”

She gave him a mystified look, then shrugged. “Okay. You go. I hate buying food anyway.”

Jack also hated buying food. How had he got himself into this mess? He watched grumpily as Freya got up and put her cup and plate into the sink—unwashed, he noticed. But at least she was going. Jack returned to his paper. Peace at last.

But instead of leaving, she opened the back door, looked into the yard, and shrieked.