Chapter 15 #2
CJ holds her breath as she climbs the stairs to the CoLab social space and reception.
Ash had hugged her last night, as she left, briefly but tightly, and CJ couldn’t help but notice her smell: light, floral, pineapple-y.
What is she going to do about Luis, now?
When she first marched up to Ash’s studio she wasn’t really thinking – she just wanted to somehow make Ash face up to her weird weakness, the weaponised crying and constant state of emotional heightened-ness.
CJ didn’t want to do that as a bully, but as a kindness.
Seeing Ash so perpetually unnerved by, well, everything, was like seeing a cat screech in pain because it won’t get off the hot tin roof.
Sometimes you just need to grab the cat by the scruff of its neck and stick it in the shade, you know?
Not to be horrid, but for its own good. But in between mounting the stairs and issuing the final knock on Ash’s door, CJ had decided, inexplicably, to get Ash out of the CoLab building, so they could be on neutral ground.
And then furthermore, in between asking her to open the door and Ash actually doing so, neutral ground had become dinner at CJ’s place, because who can be mad at being offered dinner?
A home-made, nutritious, dinner? Nobody, that’s who.
And then Ash was there, in her house, talking to her child and her cousin, and being tremendously good company, even helping with the dishes.
And who could have guessed it – in a new environment, she wasn’t crazy.
Ash at home, albeit CJ’s home, was relaxed, and totally herself, and CJ had found it quite captivating, really, to be confronted with her normality, her ease – not to mention how good she was with Jorge, and how easily Jorge took to her.
‘What’s the news, then?’ Luis says as way of greeting, once she’s deposited her tote bag in the back office. ‘You never texted me back last night.’
‘Oh,’ says CJ, slurping from her water bottle.
She had one glass of white wine too much last night, now she’s thinking about it.
‘I went to bed pretty early and only saw it this morning. Ash came to my house for dinner, in the end. Well done for following instructions and leaving when I asked, so we could get out of here with no further theatrics.’
Luis purses his lips, looks upwards as if pulling in an idea from above his head.
‘She came to your house for dinner,’ he repeats, and CJ nods.
‘Yes. And we talked, and she was very calm, and, you know, I just think, she’s all right, a good girl, and—’
‘Is she mad at me?’ Luis interjects.
‘We didn’t talk about you, actually,’ CJ admits. ‘Not directly.’
Luis narrows his eyes. ‘So what did you talk about?’
CJ shrugs. Of course Luis can’t comprehend not being their focus. Of course. ‘Just … life,’ she says. ‘Stuff, you know. She played with Jorge, the guys told her about their house-buying plans, that kind of thing. And then she went home.’
‘By herself?’
‘Yes, by herself. You’re asking me a lot of questions here, Luis.’
‘Because you are stealing my girlfriend,’ Luis replies, and CJ can’t tell if he’s kidding or not. His face is impassive.
It occurs to her that he might not be wrong. Is she trying to get Ash on side so Ash relinquishes her desires for Luis? Could CJ really be that cunning, even without admitting it to herself?
‘She’s not your girlfriend,’ CJ responds, refusing to unpick the notion any further.
‘Is she yours?’
CJ opens her mouth to speak, can’t decide what to say, closes it again and then takes a breath.
‘You told me to be friendly, so I was friendly,’ she reasons.
In a split second, she makes a choice. ‘I won’t get in the way of what you two have going on, but I don’t feel comfortable advocating for you, or whatever.
I’m Switzerland, OK? I am attending only to my own borders – you two can figure out your little tryst between you.
But yeah, Ash and I might hang out again, if she wants to. I think you’ll find that’s allowed.’
Luis smirks, but doesn’t speak. What is it with all these handsome men smirking today?
‘Do you need to say anything?’ CJ asks. ‘Because that half-smile is …’ She waves at his face, searching for the word and coming up blank.
‘No, no,’ Luis says. ‘I appreciate you making sure she was OK. I will do the same today.’ He touches his fingertips to his chest, where his heart is, and bows his head slightly, before South African Jonno shouts him over from the mess and he is pulled away to attend to an Ultimate Frisbee enquiry.
CJ organises staff rotas and checks in on two rooms that have been vacated and cleaned, ready for new guests tomorrow.
She does a stocktake for coffee, tea and biscuits, and pays invoices from the greengrocer and laundry service.
She gets to inbox zero on the staff email, and calls Luis’s grandmother just because, filling her in on CoLab’s social calendar and saying she can’t wait to catch up properly at Luis’s birthday party in a couple of weeks.
And the whole time, in the back of her mind, she thinks of Ash and wonders where she is, if she’s come down from her studio yet, if they’re in the same building, or if Ash will bound up the stairs from another touristy adventure and say hello.
CJ finds herself concocting follow-up questions to some of the things they talked about last night: if Ash was a ‘good girl’ at school, who were her friends?
Was she a geek, a theatre kid, a sporty kid?
And why doesn’t she have a kid alone, if she’s so desperate to become a mum?
CJ wants to ask her how she came to earn so much money, what she’s going to do with it all, what her plan is after Lisbon.
Last night was supposed to have been about answers to some of Ash’s more questionable behaviours, but, CJ concludes, she’s actually been left with more questions than she started with.
Could it be that CJ is actually making a friend?
By the time it gets to two-thirty and CJ has to start thinking about heading out to collect Jorge, she still hasn’t seen Ash.
She must be out. CJ doesn’t deliberately set out to go over to the members’ board, she simply finds herself there, in front of all the information about group events, and if she tells herself she’s just curious to make sure the fado night tomorrow has got a good number of CoLab-ers signed up, then she also tells herself checking each name is only due diligence, making sure that it’s a nice group, that the atmosphere will be a friendly, fun one.
She runs a finger down the list of names and lingers when she finds Ash’s.
Huh. CJ wasn’t going to go tomorrow – fado is sort of a Portuguese version of the blues, but not as cool.
It’s mournful lyrics and melancholic reflections on lost loves and the difficulty of being, and although the food is often great, fado can, to CJ’s mind, be a bit of a bummer – even if it is occasionally also beautiful.
But if Ash is going … well. CJ said they should get her out of her head and have some fun together, right?
They could have fun tomorrow, with a bonus of CJ also getting to ask these questions she’s amassing.
Before she can question herself, she grabs the sign-up pen and scribbles in her name, two innocent little letters denoting her attendance.
No big deal. Whatever. She goes to tons of CoLab stuff.
It’s her job! And she’s not been to fado in ages.
It will be cool to go, to just hang out with everyone.
It’s fine. It’s not just because of her new friend that she’s signed up.
Because if it was, that would be a little weird, and a little stalkerish.
No. It’s a totally normal thing that she’s done.