Chapter 43 Ore
Chapter 43
Ore
There, she’d said it. She’d straddled the elephant in the room and marched it into the glare of daylight.
Ore waited for Daniel’s response and when it didn’t come, she soldiered on. ‘When we kissed in the cinema room, and then you ran away.’
There was a long pause, but Ore resolved not to say another word until Daniel responded. A silent battle of wills ensued.
Finally, Daniel spoke: ‘I wanted to stay, I wanted to … do more. I just think that maybe it’s a bad idea.’
Ore waited again for his reasoning and when it wasn’t forthcoming, she prodded, ‘Why?’
Daniel threw his arms up in the air with such energy that it made Ore jump. She’d never seen him so expressive. ‘Oh I don’t know, Ore, take your pick. There’s a million reasons why. Because I’m a boat captain, and I spend eighty to ninety per cent of my life in the middle of the ocean and you’re only on board for another week and then you’re flying back to the other side of the world.’ What had started as a burst of fury petered to a whimper by the last word.
Ore hung her head. He was right. It was selfish of her to demand his affection because she needed it right now. She was lonely on this boat, scared, out of her depth, literally and metaphorically. He was an escape, a welcoming port in a storm, and it was unfair for her to nestle herself in his warm embrace only until she was ready to go back to her real life, with her real friends, and her hook-ups and her new job. She would leave him behind; she had to, and he knew that.
‘I’m sorry, Daniel.’ And she was, for all of it. When she looked at him, he hastily swiped a single tear away from his cheek, and she felt her heart break.
Daniel silently stacked her plate on his and then balanced the coffee cups on top. ‘I’ll take these inside,’ was all he said as he disappeared through the sliding doors and into the salon.
Ore sat staring at her reflection in the glass of the table. Why did she insist on only developing feelings for men she could not have? Her therapist, and then the captain of a boat she was only staying on for a fortnight. Her friends would probably say that it was ‘classic avoidant behaviour’. Maybe it was, but if the goal was to avoid hurt, she was definitely doing something wrong.
‘Oh sorry, I didn’t realise there was anyone out here.’ Ore looked up to see Agatha, hands up in a gesture of surrender, retreating backwards. She looked tired and almost bewildered. Ore realised that she hadn’t seen Agatha since the day on the island and wondered what she’d been up to.
‘It’s fine. I was actually just about to leave.’ It wasn’t a lie, except Ore had no idea where to go. Usually she spent her days chasing the story and being trailed by Daniel. The hours of the day stretched out before her. Agatha seemed to understand her look of hesitation as she made to get up from her chair.
‘You can stay, I … I just wanted to sit in the sun and I don’t know … chill? For a moment?’ Agatha managed something that was almost a laugh, but was too scratchy to be completely convincing.
‘I didn’t take you as the type to chill.’ Ore was a bit thrown off by Agatha’s casual tone. She sounded like her actual twenty-four years, as opposed to the Chuck Robo assistant 3000 schtick she usually had going on. Ore thought back to that picture she’d found during her research, of Agatha in her final year at Oxford, taken only two years ago.
Agatha’s voice was raspy when she spoke. ‘It’s been pretty full-on … I’ve barely slept since the island. Chuck has had me up all night preparing business models for all the investors and then …’ Agatha’s pale blue eyes watered. She opened her mouth to continue but instead of the end of the sentence, a sob escaped.
For a moment Agatha seemed horrified at herself, eyes wide with shock and disgust. She brought her hands to her face just in time to meet a second escaped wail, which turned into a third and fourth. Ore was paralysed with surprise. Sitting opposite her now Agatha seemed so young, so vulnerable, a million miles away from either the formidably stony persona Ore had met on the first night, or the determinedly ‘fun’ Agatha from the island trip.
It was strange to be sat in such an outrageously serene setting, floating in the middle of the ocean, basking in the almost over-clarifying light of the Australasian sunshine, opposite a crying companion – for the second time in twenty minutes.
Ore weakly reached over the table, her fingertips gingerly resting on Agatha’s shoulder. The contact seemed to bring her back into the moment.
‘Goodness, I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’ Agatha scrubbed at her swollen eyelids.
‘You look tired,’ Ore offered.
Agatha scowled. ‘Thanks.’
‘No, I didn’t mean … I …’ Ore felt too emotionally drained herself to say anything more comforting. She pulled her hand back.
After a moment of silence Agatha sniffed and then said, ‘I guess you and Daniel are the golden couple now.’ Her tone was sneering.
‘I definitely wouldn’t say that.’ Ore was wary. What did Agatha know, and how?
‘Chuck is shipping you guys so hard that I find myself wondering if he wants to jump into bed with you both himself.’ Ore was a little stunned. This was a very questionable opinion for Chuck’s primary PR representative and executive assistant to be voicing.
And there was more: ‘After you two saved the day with Mel, he won’t stop going on about it, and who gets it in the neck for “losing her” in the first place?’
It was a rhetorical question but Agatha paused long enough that Ore felt the need to shrug in response.
‘Me, I get it in the neck.’ Agatha’s tone was accusatory.
‘That wasn’t my intention, Agatha. I had no idea …’ Ore began.
‘No of course not, just like you had no idea that you’ve trained Daniel into your little lapdog. When you say jump, he says how high, right?’
Ore had no idea what to say. Agatha was working herself up into a frenzy.
‘You just swan onto this boat, with your frankly absurdly long legs, and your razor-sharp cheekbones and your perfect bum, and your stupid little notepad and your article for the New York Herald , and everyone swoons, and the rest of us just have to get out the way.’
Ore understood that she was meant to feel attacked, but it was hard to keep a completely straight face. Agatha’s face had turned an unsettling shade of crimson as she got angrier, and despite the venom in her voice, her insults were absurd.
‘Agatha …’ Ore said softly, as through trying to soothe an agitated pet. Agatha’s breathing slowed, as she climbed down from the peak of her rage.
‘Despite …’ Ore searched for the right word ‘… appearances … I do not have my shit figured out, like, at all.’ Ore sighed heavily. ‘To be honest I thought I was onto something, I don’t know, bigger here, but what I’ll end up putting out is just another puff piece about Chuck Regas, hardly Pulitzer-prize-winning journalism. I’m selling out to pay the rent, just like everyone else.’
Agatha’s expression was impassive for a moment, and Ore held her breath, worried she’d said too much. Why did she tell Agatha, of all people, that she was digging for a bigger story? She scolded herself for getting caught up in the moment.
Agatha took a deep breath and wiped the smudged mascara from under her waterline. Then she looked Ore straight in the eye. ‘There is,’ she said calmly.
Ore was confused. ‘There is what?’
‘Something bigger there.’ It took a moment for Ore to register what she was hearing: someone from within Chuck’s inner circle confirming her hunch.
Agatha let out a thin laugh. ‘And you know, if you find out what it is … there might even be a Pulitzer in it for you.’ With that, she stood up suddenly and marched back inside, leaving Ore, once more that morning, trying to process a bombshell revelation.