I raised my hands in protest. Maria was even tougher than my kickboxing instructor back at Yale.
"Come on, girl. You keep saying. You all mouth? That what it is?"
I sighed. Maybe beating the c.r.a.p out of heavy punchbag was just what I needed.
Or maybe, after all that running, what I really needed was a five-minute burst on the skipping rope while Maria watched critically.
"Come on, girl," Maria kept saying. "Train hard, fight easy, yeah?"
I hadn"t sweated so much since, well, since last time Maria had talked me into a session at the gym.
After the skipping, she had me doing a bit of shadow-boxing before she put the focus pads on her hands and started to work me even harder, eyeing my combinations with just the right amount of disdain. I was rusty as h.e.l.l, and it showed.
I know she frowned at me playing my music while I trained, but hey, it was my call. There"s nothing like a bit of Bon Jovi coming up on shuffle to make you want to beat the c.r.a.p out of a punchbag.
Just then, my music was interrupted by a call from Julie Donovan, star writer on my list at Ellison and Coles and turn-to c.o.c.ktails partner at the very least excuse.
I paused to answer, but Maria gestured impatiently for me to keep going. I was using my phone hands-free, so I gave Maria a rapid sequence of jabs and then a hefty overhand, and then, my breath ragged, snapped, "Yes?"
"Jesus, girl, please tell me you"ve not answered the phone while you"re having s.e.x," came my friend"s voice into the earpiece. "All that grunting and panting. Or is that just how I do it, eh?"
Maria was waving a pad at me and pulling a face. I gave the pad a quick side-kick before pausing again.
"You are, aren"t you? Please, Trudy darling, let me call you back, would you? How long do you need? A minute? Two? Or is that just my experience coming through again?"
I waved No at Maria, who gave a snort of disgust, and dropped her arms.
"It"s fine," I said. "I"m done now." And left it at that.
"Good good," said Julie. "So how was it, then? Your man and his dead ex?"
Julie never had been a one for subtlety, which is probably why we got on so well. "Was weird," I said, still breathing rapidly. "I know it was a funeral. n.o.body likes funerals. But it was all so... so stiff. And then at the house afterwards. Charlie helped himself to too much of the wine and started making an a.s.shole of himself which isn"t hard for him, after all."
"Ooh," said Julie. "Your ex was at the funeral of your current beau"s ex. There would have been fireworks, I"m guessing?"
"Oh yes," I said, and went on to tell how Charlie had segued from standing there with his d.i.c.k in his hand to almost as much as accusing Will, or his family, of being responsible for Sally"s death. "He tried to warn me off," I told her. "Said I shouldn"t get involved with Will, that I shouldn"t cross swords with "the sacred family"."
"That what he said? And was he still waving his k.n.o.b at you both at the time, or had he tucked the wee man away by then?"
I laughed. "He"d put it away," I said. "He was actually quite sweet, in a drunken Charlie kind of a way. He told Will not to harm me. Threatened him."
"Wow. Real duel at dawn stuff," said Julie.
"Yeah. I guess. Julie, why can"t I ever just have a straightforward relationship?"
"That"s a contradiction in terms, darling." Then, a sudden change of tack. "You think he might have a point?"
"What, Charlie?" Of course I did. That was a large part of the problem. "Yes, he probably does. Do you think I"ll ever be able to really trust Will?"
"You"re the only one who can answer that, honey. This whole thing: so many ups and downs, so many questions and complications. You"re the only one who can say if you score enough points on the plus side to make that whole cost-benefit a.n.a.lysis work."
"So you"re not going to give me all the answers and tell me what to do?"
"That."
"Not even if I beg?"
"You"re not the kind of girl to beg. Listen, there"s one thing I"ll do, apart from ply you with Cosmopolitans next time I"m in the city. I can do a bit of digging around, see what I can turn up. No matter how good they are at closing in and protecting themselves there must be something we can find. And no, I"m not going to make any comment about how unhealthy it is that you need to do this, okay?"
"Thanks, Julie. You"re a star."
"Yeah, yeah," she said, and then hung up.
Maria was still standing there, pads on her hands. I wondered how much she"d been able to work out from my end of the phone conversation.
After a slight pause, she nodded, and said, "I think you need the punchbag now, yeah? Let"s see how much s.h.i.t you can beat out of it, yeah?"
Mostly, I planned to spend the rest of the day hurting. And moving as little as was humanly possible.
That gym session had been utter madness. Running until I could barely stand and then a really intense kickboxing session when I was so out of practice, I can safely say, is not to be advised. Afterwards I went through to the pool area, my legs like jelly. In the steam room I claimed a bench and stretched out, only now starting to wonder what madness had taken me over. I had clearly had some issues to work through, as Julie would no doubt have told me if I"d given her half a chance.
So, that afternoon I sat on my sofa with a Domino"s New Yorker and a stack of ma.n.u.scripts that I had to read through by Monday.
Cla.s.sic avoidance tactics, Trudy.
When my cell phone went I remembered that Will had said he would call later. I reached for the phone and saw that it wasn"t Will after all.
"Charlie," I said, after thumbing "Answer" on the little screen. "Charlie, can I just leave a recorded message for you that you can play whenever this mad urge to plague my very existence steals over you? It would say, "Charlie. You"re a sweet and surprisingly sensitive man, but there is no us and there"s not going to be. Despite all your flaws you"re quite a catch and I really hope someone catches you soon. Goodbye, Charlie. Beeeeep.""
I hadn"t expected the long pause, or the steady, very reasonable tone of his voice. "I know," he said, eventually. "I know that, Trude. But look outside your window, would you? See the guy in the green puffer jacket. I"m pretty sure you don"t know him, and I saw him coming out of your flat this morning when you were out. I don"t want you to be the next Sally Fielding, Trudy. You have to take this seriously."
It hurt me to move off that sofa, in more ways than the obvious. As well as the aches throughout my body from that h.e.l.lish workout, it hurt me that Charlie was still obsessing over me, and it hurt me that even a small part of my mind bought into his paranoia.
I stopped short of the window, figuring that I could see out but it wouldn"t be so obvious to any onlooker that I was there.
It was a typical Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Automobiles threading their way along the parked-up street, a bunch of hoodied teenagers cl.u.s.tered around the steps down to a bas.e.m.e.nt doorway, a young couple with two small children, heading towards the park.
And, idly picking through a tray of apples at the shop on the corner, a nondescript guy in a green puffer jacket.
"You see?"
"I see a guy in a green puffer," I told him. "And I"m p.i.s.sed that you"re telling me this because it means you"re somewhere nearby too and in anybody"s book that kind of thing is too d.a.m.ned close to being a creepy stalker for comfort, Charlie. I told you: there is no us."
"I"m not a stalker," he said. "I"m just the only one who genuinely cares. One day you"ll be able to see the difference."
He hung up, leaving me standing there with a dead phone to my ear, pretending not to be looking out of my front window as puffer jacket guy picked out his apple and headed inside to pay.
I knew that Charlie was just playing on my insecurity, making me feel vulnerable so that he could be my protector, but still, I checked the door of my apartment. It was shut, and the security chain was on. I stood there and looked around at my familiar surroundings. The full-length mirror, the over-burdened coat stand, the scattering of Post-it reminders on the inside of the door.
Nothing was amiss. There was nothing to suggest that anyone else had been here today.
You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Charlie.
My bedroom: the same. Nothing out of place, the duvet pulled up and smoothed down, the trio of randomly patterned cushions arranged at the foot; all just as I"d left it this morning.
The front room, the tiny kitchen, the bathroom.
No sign of anything wrong, no indication that there had been any intruder.
"Call them off, Will."
"Who?" His voice sounded tight, sharp, and very distant at the other end of the line. "Call who off, Trudy?"
"The guy who"s sitting across the street in his dark blue Peugeot, munching on the apple he"s just bought from my local store, never quite looking up here where I"m standing staring out at him. The guy Charlie tells me broke into my apartment while I was out this morning. Him."
"Charlie? b.u.g.g.e.r it all, I told him to stay out of this. He doesn"t... Listen, Trudy. Believe me: I don"t know who this guy is. I haven"t sent anyone to watch you, or to snoop around in your flat. Just move away from that window and sit tight, okay? I"ll be there in ten."
He got here in less than ten minutes, but still wasn"t in time.
As I watched, puffer jacket guy rolled down his window and tossed the stripped apple core out into the road. I saw him more clearly then, a thirtyish guy with thinning chestnut hair and a curved, blade-like nose, that drew my look up to the dark pits of his eyes.
Then he looked up and there was the briefest moment of eye contact.
I stepped back from the window, but it was too late. His expression remained unreadable, but he had seen me watching him, and he knew his cover was blown.
Or he was an innocent stranger who had just finished a snack and glanced up to see a mad woman staring out of her window at him.
It was either deeply menacing, or entirely innocent, that exchange of looks.
Definitely one of the two.
He rolled his window up, dabbed at his pursed lips with a handkerchief and then reached down to open the door.
Standing in the street, he smoothed down the front of his puffer jacket, then unzipped it, removed it, and turned to place it carefully on the pa.s.senger seat of his car. Straightening again, he closed the door and there was a flash of lights as he locked the car.
Checking both ways, he crossed the street.
I felt like a gazelle being stalked by a lion. The big was cat there, in full view, and I was powerless to do anything but watch, transfixed.
He stretched, covering a yawn with the back of one balled fist.
Big hands. What a thing to notice. Big hands, no rings. His cream shirt rode up his forearm when he stretched, then slid back down to cover his wrist. Silver cufflinks, nothing flash. He was just an ordinary guy with an ordinary car, a well-made shirt and big hands. That was all.
He took a step across the pavement, as I watched him from the shadows.
My mind had been stuck on those details, but now it started to race. Mine was a ground floor apartment, and my kitchen had a door into the shared garden at the rear. From there, there was a gate set into the tall back wall, an alleyway. Would that escape be staked out, too?
It was a moot point. My feet were stuck to the ground, my legs as weak and jelly-like as they had felt when I finally stepped off that G.o.d-d.a.m.ned treadmill this morning, but for different reasons now.
He was at the foot of the steps that led up to the shared entrance now.
Was he really that slow, or had time somehow stretched for me, as I stood there in my own personal bubble of sick antic.i.p.ation?
Abruptly, the world caught up.
I moved, stepped back, raised a hand to my mouth, feeling that I might actually be sick.
Then puffer guy who was no longer wearing his puffer paused and started to turn.
A guy, shouting at him, haranguing him, gesticulating with a raised fist.
Charlie.
d.a.m.n it, Charlie. Don"t be a f.u.c.king hero!
The guy took a step back, Charlie took a step forward.
Both of them, arms flying now, shouting at each other.
Charlie put a hand to the other guy"s chest, as if to push him or calm him, and then, as fast as a striking viper, the guy reared back and then whipped his whole body forward and down from the waist, his forehead cracking into Charlie"s face in a sudden mushrooming of red.
Charlie staggered, his hands clutching his broken face.
The other guy straightened, looked around, glanced up at me in the window, and then turned, strode across the road to his car, keys out, lights flashing again as he unlocked it, climbed in, and then was gone.
When I looked back at Charlie he was on the pavement, legs splayed, sitting up, supported by a guy in jeans and a black t-shirt. Will.
A woman approached them, clearly come to see if they needed help, while what must be her young son stared goggle-eyed at the scene.
Will shook his head to her, then waved gestured for someone else to come closer. Maninder, his driver and bodyguard, and who knew what else.
I went out.
"What...?"
The three of them looked up at me. Maninder was squatting to tend to Charlie"s mashed up face, and Will was on his knees, still cradling Charlie.
"Are you okay?" To Charlie. His nose and mouth were bleeding, and there was a nasty-looking split across one eyebrow, one eye blackening up already.