Chapter 24
Ash
‘I just feel …’ Ash says to Mona, as they sit across a table from each other at the same restaurant they first met, ‘like it’s all my fault.
I knew she’d never had group sex that way before, and they both knew I had, and so it’s like …
was I the leader? Did I make her think she wanted something she didn’t?
I’m desperate to apologise, to talk to her about it, but she’s not texting back, and she’s not been at work.
Luis says she’s on annual leave. I half want to show up at her house, but if I know CJ as well as I think I do, that’s the wrong call.
She doesn’t do well being backed into a corner, emotionally speaking. ’
Mona takes a big sigh, digests everything Ash has told her about what happened three nights ago.
‘Well, doll,’ she declares. ‘I don’t know what to say.
I think she’s an idiot for leaving, because you’re a hot piece of ass – and take it from an old bird: the threesome invitations dry up before you know it.
And I think you’re an idiot, too, for not taking advantage of the four-poster bed and the gorgeous man in it once she’d gone. ’
‘Mona!’ Ash laughs. ‘I couldn’t have sex after that! The whole vibe was off!’
‘A vibe is easily rectified,’ Mona says, wafting her hand through the air. ‘Once again I point you to: you’re a hot piece of ass. Sex is like peeing and eating, you don’t want to miss an opportunity for it, because you never know when it will next come by.’
‘Words I should get printed on a T-shirt, to remember you.’
Mona smiles at this, a little sadly. The time has come for her great European adventure to end, and this is her final rendezvous with Ash. Ash takes the hint, the way Mona doesn’t say anything then, not even a stupid overly sexualised joke. She reaches out a hand to squeeze Mona’s arm.
‘I’m so happy you got me pissed that day,’ she says. ‘And I know you’ll roll your eyes and say let’s not make promises we won’t keep, but I really do want to stay in touch. I’m really good at it! I still send out proper Christmas cards and everything!’
‘Oh, doll,’ Mona says. ‘You are one of the good ones, that’s for sure.’
‘So are you,’ replies Ash.
Their food arrives, and they feast on Bacalhau à Brás, and a single glass of wine each.
Mona is meeting her young lover for their goodbye liaison later, so wants to be sober, and Ash generally just feels …
off. Thinking she’s upset anyone is enough to nauseate her, but knowing CJ is upset feels worse.
Even Luis said he’s never known her to lie so low.
Ash has retraced her steps from Luis’s birthday party over and over again, as she’s showered, before falling asleep, when she’s on the funicular.
On the one hand, CJ is a grown-up and can do what she wants.
If she wasn’t into sex with Ash and Luis, she was perfectly within her rights to just get up and leave.
But, she didn’t simply leave. She fled. And people who flee aren’t experiencing neutral thoughts.
People who flee are agitated. Ash has texted her four times, which feels like an adequate but not overbearing amount.
Text one, the night of, said, hey, you ok?
Text two, sent the morning after the night before, said, hey CJ, hope you got home ok and slept well.
I’ve got a bit of a sore head, lol. Just checking in – be good to know you’re all right.
Ash sat with her phone in her lap after that one, saw the three dots that indicated an imminent reply appear, disappear, and then reappear again, sending false hope of reassurance that ultimately did not materialise.
The third text said, if you’re upset or mad or have absolutely any emotions or feelings at all, I’d really like to hear about them.
Finally, yesterday, she sent just two kisses, simply a double ‘x’, the only way she could come up with to say she was thinking of CJ but didn’t want anything from her.
Luis has fared better – at least she’d been in contact with him, he reported back.
Gone to the beach with Jorge, he told Ash. Not for long.
‘Should I be worried about this cold shoulder?’ Ash asked him. ‘Upset? Take the hint that she never wants to talk to me again?’
Luis looked at her kindly. ‘You really don’t understand why she’s disappeared?’ he asked her.
‘No,’ Ash said, a growing feeling of heaviness in her stomach. ‘Can you explain it to me?’
Luis stroked her cheek, ran a finger over her lip and then pulled away. ‘I really can’t,’ he said, with finality. ‘Você encontrará a resposta.’ You will find the answer.
And so the days pass, Mona leaves, and Ash confirms the trip to Porto with Willow, who has booked her flights and paid for a double suite in a fancy hotel for them both upfront, in four weeks and counting.
She sits with a book in front of her but doesn’t really read.
Walks aimlessly and doesn’t realise she’s got blisters.
She’s restless, antsy. Wonders if six weeks is the limit one can spend in any one city, if for the last six weeks of sabbatical she should head off somewhere else.
But where? The enormity of the question weighs on her so heavily she decides it is easier, then, to stay put, if only to end the pain of trying to decide.
Perhaps she can start writing a novel, or log in to her work emails just to parse through anything worth sorting out now instead of on her return.
She tries to make conversation with other CoLab-ers, but it turns out she can’t be arsed, she struggles to listen to the hopefulness of new arrivals or the worries of those moving on.
And then, two weeks since she last saw CJ, she boards a coach to the Algarve.
It’s a CoLab trip she forgot she’d even signed up for, an overnight on the beach with a BBQ and ghost stories around a fire.
Luis knocked on her door an hour ago, said he had a feeling she’d forgotten she was signed up.
She had. That’s why now, as she clambers aboard, everyone else is waiting for her.
Her tardiness in Lisbon, it’s a problem!
She’s never on time any more, seldom looks at the clock, even.
All the seats are taken. She looks down, to her left, when a voice says, ‘You can sit here.’
It’s CJ. Beautiful, sun-kissed, missing-in-action CJ. She moves her tote onto her lap to emphasise Ash is welcome. Ash sticks her overnight bag above her head, brain whirring (it’s CJ! Finally!), slinks down, looks at her friend, searching her face for clues about her mood.
CJ flushes and looks away, says to her lap, ‘You all right?’
‘Yeah,’ Ash says, as the coach doors close and they head off through the streets. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Took Jorge away,’ CJ says. ‘He wanted some mam?e-and-Jorge time, just the two of us.’
Ash nods. ‘I didn’t know you’d planned to go away.’
‘It was last minute,’ says CJ. ‘Spontaneous. Sorry I didn’t text back. My phone was on airplane mode. So Jorge had my attention.’
Ash remembers those three typing dots, proof CJ’s phone can’t have been off. But she doesn’t push it, doesn’t bring it up. She’s worried if she does, she won’t like what she hears. Ash just wants everything to go back to normal.
‘Was it fun?’ Ash asks, instead.
‘Huh?’ says CJ, still to her lap. She looks up, briefly, but past Ash’s head.
Ah. It hits Ash like a hurricane: CJ doesn’t want Ash to get the wrong impression.
‘Oh my god,’ Ash says, putting her head in her hands and letting a small giggle escape from between her lips. She sits back up. ‘CJ. Shit. I only just now understood what’s going on. Why you’re being so weird.’
CJ’s eyes widen in horror. ‘You … do?’
‘Yes!’ says Ash. ‘OK, I understand how things got uncomfortable the other night, so let me spell this out as clear as day. I do not fancy you. I do not have a crush on you. I am not secretly in love with you. I did not orchestrate a three-way as some sordid plan to get close to you, to trick you into sleeping with me because you’re the only woman for me.
We’re friends. I know we’ve become quite good friends, too.
Right? I mean, that’s been amazing, hanging out with you and getting to know you.
But that’s all it is. Friendship. Please do not worry that I lie in bed at night wondering what you smell like.
I do not. In fact, I know what you smell like, and it’s skin, and sometimes a bit of sweat. ’
CJ clicks her jaw back and forth, and Ash can tell she’s weighing up whether or not to believe her.
‘I speak only the truth,’ Ash presses. ‘OK? This?’ She motions between the two of them. ‘Platonic love only. I am straight. And obviously you are too.’
‘Obviously,’ says CJ.
Ash rests back in her seat, mildly out of breath.
Phew! Thank goodness it all makes sense, now, why CJ would do a runner, and then hide out.
She’s probably spent all this time wondering how to let Ash down gently, or even been worried that Ash wouldn’t take rejection well.
Ash knows the emotional ups and downs her past relationships have caused, and even that a couple of guys she’s dated have had to tell her she’s a bit much.
Maybe that’s part of her healing process, whilst she’s out here.
She needs to learn that she is too much, and acknowledge out loud when that’s happened.
‘I was worried,’ Ash says. ‘When you disappeared. I’ve missed you.’
CJ looks at her, sideways. ‘Yeah?’
Ash bats at CJ’s upper arm. ‘Of course I have! I’ve got really used to seeing you every day. You’re my Portuguese partner-in-crime at this point. Especially now Mona has gone.’
‘Charming,’ says CJ. ‘Especially now Mona has gone. That makes me feel really special.’ She sounds like her normal sarcastic self. Ash is thrilled to hear it.
‘You are special,’ Ash laments. ‘Shut up.’
‘That’s a kind thing to say to somebody you missed.’
‘I forgot how difficult you are.’
‘That’s part of the charm, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ says Ash. ‘Your charm is all about how self-effacing and modest you are.’
CJ laughs. ‘I’m screwed, then.’
‘Just not by me,’ Ash says, a stupid joke.
‘If you tell me again how much you do not fancy me, you’ll start to hurt my feelings,’ says CJ.
Ash shakes her head, laughs. ‘There’s just no pleasing you, is there?’
CJ shrugs, like, can’t help who I am!
Ash says, ‘I’ve never met anyone so unapologetic about who they are, you know. It’s a real gift. It really inspires me.’
CJ rolls her eyes, looks at her lap once more, fiddles with a stray piece of cotton hanging from her jeans shorts.
‘I don’t have all the answers,’ she says, her voice unusually small. ‘Don’t … don’t put that on me. That’s too much for one person. I’m still just a human. I act all big, but I still do have feelings and worries.’
Ash feels chastised. ‘I know,’ she says quickly. ‘Sorry. I was just being dumb. I didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘OK,’ says CJ.
They sit, both look out the window.
‘Are you sure we’re OK?’ asks Ash, nervously. CJ showed her old self, but then just as fast hid her away again. Ash can’t tell if she has her guard up, or is actually so OK with Ash that she’s finally ready to let her see some of the vulnerabilities that of course exist. Of course they do.
‘Yes,’ says CJ. ‘I’m sure.’
They return to looking out the window again, sky bright blue, cloudless, the warmth of mid-May radiating through the windows making them sleepy, until one of them nods off and then the other, and they spend the rest of the journey leaning against each other.