Anybody Out There?
Page 51

I assumed the baked Alaska was wedding related. Rachel wasn’t getting married until next March and already she and Mum were sniping at each other. And no way was I getting involved—wedding-menu cross fire could be very messy.
However, I almost brought it up that evening, because Rachel appeared unexpectedly at my apartment, which couldn’t have been more inconvenient, as I was just about to start my crying.
“Hello,” I said cautiously. I should have expected this: I’d given her the slip all weekend.
“Anna, I’m worried about you, you’ve got to stop working so hard.”
This was a regular gripe of Rachel’s. She insisted I was using work as an excuse not to see her—or anyone. And she was right: it actually felt harder, not easier, to be with people. The toughest challenge was my face; maintaining a “normal” expression was utterly exhausting.
And poor Jacqui was so intent on cheering me up that every time we met, she was armed with an arsenal of funny stories from her work and I was knackered from smiling and saying, “God, that’s hilarious.”
“Working all through the weekend?” Rachel said. “Anna, that’s not good.”
What could I say? I could hardly tell her the truth, which was that I’d spent most of Saturday and Sunday on the Internet, looking up psychics and asking Aidan for some sort of sign to indicate which one I should use.
“It was an emergency.”
“You work with cosmetics, how can it be an emergency?”
“You’ve obviously never gone out without your lip gloss.”
“Oh, I see your…look, anyway! I came to talk to you in person,” she said, “because I don’t seem to be getting through to you on the phone. And I mean getting through in an emotional sense, by the way, not getting through in a telephonic sense.”
Like I’d think anything else. “I know, I know. So tell me, Rachel, how are the wedding plans?” If she badgered me too much, I’d say, “Two words, Rachel. Baked. Alaska.”
“Christ,” she said. “Wedding plans. Don’t ask.” Resentfully she exclaimed, “Luke and I just wanted a small wedding. With people we liked. With people we knew. Mum wants to invite half of Ireland: several thousand third cousins twice removed and everyone she’s ever nodded to on the golf course.”
“Maybe they won’t come. Maybe it’ll be too far.”
“Why do you think we’re getting married in New York?” She laughed darkly. “Anyway, don’t think you’ll distract me. I’m here because I’m concerned about you. You can’t keep hiding in your work, pretending that nothing has happened. You have to feel things. If you feel things you’ll get better. Have you any Diet Coke?”
“I don’t know. Look in the fridge. Did you do something to your eyebrows?”
“Got them tinted.”
“They’re nice.”
“Thank you. Practice for the wedding, to see if I’m allergic. Don’t want my face puffing up like a puffy puffer fish on the big day.” She stopped moving and cocked her ear to listen. “What’s that racket?”
In a nearby apartment someone bellowed, “Gooooooooaaaaaald-fin-GAH!” at the top of his voice.
“It’s Ornesto. He’s practicing.”
“Practicing what? Scaring the living bejesus out of people?”
“Singing. He’s taking lessons. His teacher says he’s got a gift.”
“Heeeza maaaan, maaaan wida Midas TORCH!”
“Does he do this a lot?”
“Most nights.”
“Doesn’t it keep you awake?” Rachel was a bit neurotic about sleep. There was no point telling her I hardly slept anyway.
“BUT HEEZ TOO MARCHHH!”
“Any luck with the Diet Coke?”
“No. There’s almost nothing in here. It’s a wasteland. Anna, you need to see a therapist.”
“To help me buy Diet Coke?”
“Using humor is a classic deflection technique. I know a lovely grief counselor. Very professional. She won’t tell me anything that you say, I promise. I won’t even ask.”
“I’ll go,” I said.
“You will? Great!”
“I’ll go when I’m a bit better.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. This is exactly what I’m talking about! I see you putting in all those hours at work, trying to forget—”
“No, I’m not trying to forget!” That was an awful thought; the last thing I wanted to happen.
“I’m trying…” How could I put it? “I’m trying to get far enough down the line so that I can remember.” I stopped, then continued: “So that I can remember without the pain killing me.”
And the days were stacking up. And weeks. And months. It was now almost the middle of June and he’d died in February, but I still felt like I’d just woken from a horrible dream, that I was suspended in that stunned, paralyzed state between sleep and reality where I was grasping for, but couldn’t get a handle on normality.
“Golden words he will pour in your EA-AH!”
“Oh God, he’s off again.” Rachel looked anxiously at the ceiling. “I don’t know how you cope, I really don’t.”
I shrugged. I quite liked it. It was a bit of company without me having to actually see him. He kept knocking on my door but I never answered, and when we met in the hallway I told him I was taking a lot of sleeping tablets, which was why I didn’t hear him. It was better to lie: he was so easily wounded.
“But his LIES can’t DIZ-GUISE what you FEA-AH!”
“There’s something I must ask you,” Rachel said. “Are you feeling suicidal?”
“No.” I studied Rachel’s worried face. “Why? Should I be?”
“Well…yes. It’s normal to feel like you couldn’t be bothered carrying on.”
“God, I can’t do a thing right.”
“Don’t be like that. But have you any idea why you don’t feel suicidal?”
“Because…because…if I died I don’t know where I’d go to. I don’t know if it would be the same place that Aidan has gone to. While I’m here I feel close to him. Does that make sense?”
“So you have actually thought about it?”