It’s mid-afternoon by the time I get James back to my place, with a bandage on his face and his leg stitched and strapped up, and Alex goes into sympathy mode. He gets James a coffee and cookies, then puts onTed Lasso. I don’t like how red-rimmed James’s eyes are, so I grab his keys, leave the two of them settled on the couch, and head back to Brooklyn. It’s too early for Jane to be home from work, but perhaps it’d be no bad thing if I ran into her. She turned down James’s marriage proposal, split up with him, and now she’s brought her new boyfriend to stay? That isbrutal. I’m already thinking I should run some interference here.
I wiggle the key in the door to their apartment and step into the small entrance, heading past an old-fashioned 1980s kitchen and a couch to the spare bedroom where James told me I’d find his stuff. A dusty blind is down over the window, and thin covers are tucked neatly into a single bed in the middle of the far wall. There’s a small built-in closet, some boxes stacked up near the window, and an old dining chair next to his bed with a lamp on it: no pictures, no rugs, just a few books under the chair in a small pile. It’s a tiny space. My gut tightens.He’s been living like this?I wish I’d pushed for more information when he got upset in the office. How could Jane go from being someone who supposedly loved him and had his best interests at heart, to somebody who lets him live in their spare room and brings another man into what’s been their space for five years? What is up with that? They’ve been together for twelve years, ever since high school.
I pick up a comic book and leaf through pictures of alien landscapes, green people, and spaceships:James and his sci-fi. I wrench open the closet and find a row of neat, ironed shirts and pants.Figures.I’d have pegged him as an obsessive ironer. In the hallway, I dig a couple of blue suitcases out of the closet that James said would be there, and drag them back to his bedroom, pulling his clothes off the shelves and hangers, folding them all in, and adding the books for good measure. I’ve got one suitcase packed and I’m about to start on the second when a key rattles in the door.
“Hey, Jane!” I call out. “It’s Des! I’m just packing up some stuff for James!”
“Packing up some stuff?” she says, appearing in the doorway in a smart suit, her dark-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She does something in finance, a bit like Alex, I think. Despite having met Jane a few times, I don’t know her particularly well. Safe to say, she does not wear her heart on her sleeve at all.
She frowns at me. “Why are you packing up his stuff?”
God, I should have prepared for this conversation. “James fell over and hurt his leg and his face, and I had to take him to the hospital for some stitches. The doctor said to keep an eye on him, and he’s having a bit of trouble walking, so he’s staying at my place for a few days.”
“Stitches?” Her eyes land on the suitcase, and her frown deepens. “What kind of trouble walking? And what the hell happened to him? I’ve been trying to reach him all day. He disappeared on us last night. I got a message saying he’d gone out for some alcohol, and he’d already left for work when we woke up this morning.”
Not so much left as never went home.The idea of him being on the roof all night sends a chill right through me. And what is thisweandus …?Ugh. “He’s fine. He can’t put weight on his leg, that’s all.”
“What’s he done to it?”
“It’s just a cut that they’ve stitched up and strapped. You know what hospitals are like.”
“He can come back here. I can take care of him.”
Yeah, Missy, like you’ve been taking such good care of him lately. Parading your new man in front of him.
I cock my head at her. “James said that you’re out at work all day and away most weekends nowadays.”
Her eyes slide away from mine.Yeah, right.
“My other half, Alex, is between jobs at the moment, and he’s around, so it seemed sensible that James stays with us,” I add.
Alex was only too happy, and I’m proud of how plausible this all sounds, but I’d still like to say she’s the most insensitive person on the planet for having her new boyfriend to stay while the one who thought she was going to marry him is still living with her. But I can’t confront herwithout talking to James. I don’t really know where things stand. What if this all somehow got resolved and they got back together?Ugh.
But she’s frowning again. “But we’ve always been best friends! I should be the one looking after him.”
Say, what?Best friends?My mouth drops open, and I snap it shut. “Well, I think it’s all organized now.”
She huffs and stares down at her phone. “He hasn’t responded to any of my messages. He’s always been like this! So sparse in his communication. It’s so frustrating. I wanted to know what he thought of Kevin.”
“Kevin?”
Her cheeks pink a bit. “My man in Philadelphia. He came here this weekend to meet James. He went back today.”
I can’t help but gape at her now. Oh, she’s Miss Oblivious, isn’t she? Does she think James is so easygoing that he’d beokaywith this? I always thought James and Jane were a cute couple, that she was measured and studious like him, but I’m revising my opinion now. And I have to get out of here before I do something bad, like race through to the kitchen and find a knife and stab her with it. No way on God’s green earth am I letting him come back and live with her, even after he’s healed up. I turn back to the closet, pull out several more T-shirts, and fold them in a neat pile on the bed. She carries on leaning on the doorjamb, watching me.
“Why does he need so many clothes for a few days?”
I swing around and stare at her. “Would you like to pack for him?”
She waves a hand. “No, no. You carry on,” she says, turning away. “But tell him to call me, Des, yeah? I have no idea why he’s not returning my calls.”
I make a face at her behind her back. Childish is my middle name.And thanks for offering me a coffee, or anything else, like a nice, kind, normal person would!I don’t say.
“I think his phone died, but I’ll tell him!” I say instead.
Over my dead body am I asking him to call her back.
After I say goodbye to Jane and make a rude gesture when she’s not looking, I order an Uber and stand on the sidewalk with two bulging suitcases. The traffic whizzes past along the parkway between the cluster of nondescript brown-brick apartment buildings that must have gone up in the sixties. I hate the thought of James stuck out here with her and no friends to call on.
