In the bathroom she splashes water on her face, swears when it smears her eyeliner. Walls spinning, realising how drunk she is now she’s alone. Shower head dripping. Hand towel rough on her palms, Josie’s towels are always so soft, she uses an entire bottle of fabric softener per wash, Freya berates her for it, think of theenvironment, Jose, all those chemicals in the seas, but my towels aren’t going in the sea, are they, Josie says, Freya’s head, then, in her hands. Nora’s own hands dry, now, as she stares at herself in the mirror. Emotions high, tonight, and happy, yes, but with a melancholy for what was, because a new chapter means the current chapter is ending, and she sort of doesn’t want it to. She’s just tired, though, probably. Just hungry.
Glance at her watch, then, because the pizza is due any minute. And then right on time the doorbell rings, she says yesssss, under her breath: laughing to herself as she escapes the bathroom, because she’s thirty-one and excited about dinner. There are people singing in the living room, a drink spilled, dark and wet on the carpet as she unlatches the front door and swings it open and there, on her doorstep, is someone who is not delivering pizza.
She stares at him. At his flare of red hair.
At his pale skin and green eyes.
And he smiles, a little. Like he always has; shy, almost, like he’s unwilling to show his teeth; like he is figuring things out, first, waiting to see how things might go.
Bren, Nora says. Still staring.
Hey, Nora, he says, and time, for one long, immobile scene, stops, as if with the flick of a switch.
_
He looks the same. Except he doesn’t. His face is thinner, his cheekbones stretching the skin as though he needs a good meal, like he’s been up before dawn for years, or is jet-lagged, or hungover, or both. White T-shirt, cargo trousers low on his hips. Muscles on his arms, defined but not with weightlifting or gym visits, not as though he makes the effort. He never had to make the effort, with anything.
There is a small gold hoop in his left ear.
A stain, like suncream, on his neckline.
And his hair is as red as she remembers. The colour of mandarins. Shorter than it used to be, when he used to sculpt it with his hands, checking it in shop windows or car wing mirrors as they passed, withstood her gentle mockery about that, didn’t care.
Bren Ferguson.
The boy who walked out on her, and their plans, and his mother. The boy who is no longer a boy, but a man, and she, a woman, withnewplans, her own life, but she feels it all behind her, for that one stilled, suspended moment – a party with music Robin had chosen, snacks she had prepared, friends celebrating a choice they had made – and all of it feels like a vague sort of nothing as she steps out of the flat and closes the door behind her and leans her body against it and says his name, again, her heart rushing, now, after the initial freeze, everything kicked back into full speed.
_
Bren, she says.
You already said that, he tells her.
What are you doing here?
Street lights behind them, orange like his hair. Dark shadow of trees on the other side of the street. Nora squints at him, wishing she was sober, and Bren grins, properly this time, that crooked break of a smile that moves something in her, a slow, upward sensation, like a trap door lifting.
You invited me, didn’t you?
I didn’t think you’d actually … come, Nora says.
Well, surprise, Bren says, and he lifts one shoulder in a shrug, the way he used to when they were teenagers, and the familiarity of that gesture does something to her; the shock of having him here, in front of her, melts away. She begins to feel other things. Elation, and disbelief: two things at once, hot despite the cold February air.
I can’t believe you’re here, she says.
Same, Bren says, and he’s still grinning. They stand opposite one another for a second longer but then he steps forward to touch her, hug her, maybe, and Nora knows she should do the same but she’s feeling too much and so ends up holding out her hand to stop him, which instead turns the whole thing into an awkward, half-missed high five. They sort of clasp hands and knock shoulders before she steps back, sorry, him too, sorry, someone singing loudly from the living room where Robin must be.Robin, she thinks, likely wondering where she is – and she is going to turn away when Bren says her name.
Steps closer again.
So close now, that if she were to inhale, she would be able to smell him; the suncream, the sweat and sleeplessness from the plane. He reaches a hand towards her, says it’s okay, which he’s probably saying because she feels like crying, or is crying, maybe, she’s trying not to.
She looks at his hand, reached out towards her, like that.
Doesn’t take it in her own.
And then a car mounts the kerb and the pizza is here, and Bren turns at the sound of the engine, drops his arm. Both of them standing there as the guy gets out in his branded polo shirt and baseball cap. Says Robin’s name, which sees her pulse skitter with alarm, or guilt, but he was simply the one who placed the order, so she says yes, and the guy opens the car boot and begins to ferry pizza boxes down the garden path, and Bren moves forward to help. So Nora opens the front door, says in there, please, the door to the right, and the pizza is carried in, towers of it, and she hears people cheer when it enters the living room, and in all the chaos and excitement and after paying the delivery guy and taking a breath she is back inside with the fug and the noise of the party, and Bren is there, too. Already eating pizza with her friends, Robin’s friends. And somehow they’ve sidestepped their chance for a proper hello, the need for introductions, and there is no moment of truth or understanding, after all the years she had pictured seeing him again; there is simply garlic bread, an array of dips in plastic pots, and someone turning up the music and announcing thatnow, people, it’s a party.
_
