Lucy in the Sky

room and strain to take in what he’s saying.
    ‘Yep, he just wants to clarify a couple of points in his contract before we sign. That’s right…’
    Okay, so it is only work. I’m becoming paranoid. I go back through to the kitchen and lift a couple of glasses down. A minute later he joins me. ‘How was your first day back?’
    ‘Yeah, good. Gemma and Chloe seemed really pleased to see me.’
    ‘Where are your earrings?’ he asks suddenly.
    My hands immediately go up to my ears. ‘I took them off to go su-swimming,’ I tell him, altering my first lie halfway through toform another one. I haven’t even told him I went surfing in Sydney. He’d only feel threatened because he doesn’t know how to do it himself. And I’m certainly not about to admit I removed my earrings before I left because I couldn’t get the guy I went surfing with out of my mind.
    ‘Where did you go swimming?’ he asks.
    ‘Manly beach, a few days ago. I forgot to put them back on,’ I explain.
    ‘Oh,’ he says, looking upset. ‘Didn’t you wear them at the wedding?’
    ‘Um, oh, yes, I did actually,’ I stutter. ‘Sorry, I’m getting confused. I put them back on but took them off again for the flight because it’s uncomfortable enough on the plane without having bits of metal digging into the back of your ears…’ I realise I’m rambling and no doubt making him suspicious, so I quickly tell him I’ll go and find them now. Feeling guilty, I head to the bathroom to discover the earrings floating around loose in my jewellery bag. They seem heavy on my ears.
    Back in the kitchen and keen to divert the attention away from me, I decide that now is as good a time as any to broach the subject I haven’t been able to stop obsessing about.
    ‘James,’ I say.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Did you ever find out who sent that text?’
    ‘No, Lucy, I told you, it wasn’t worth causing a fuss,’ he responds.
    ‘What if I wanted you to cause a fuss?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘What if I said to you that if you didn’t find out who sent that text, I would check it out myself?’
    He looks at me in surprise, then lets out a sharp laugh.
    ‘Seriously, though,’ my voice is brittle, ‘if I said to you that our relationship was over unless you gave me the names of the culprits who ruined at least twenty-four hours of my life, what would you do?’
    He stares at me gravely now. ‘I’d find out, of course.’
    ‘Would you?’ I ask him hopefully.
    ‘Of course I bloody would,’ he insists. ‘I’m not going to lose you over some little tossers from my work, am I?’
    ‘Go on, then.’ I call his bluff.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Call and find out.’
    ‘Are you serious?’
    ‘Yes. I am.’ I look him dead in the eye.
    ‘You want me to ring around this evening?’
    ‘Yes. Or I will.’
    ‘Okay, then.’ He raises his eyebrows and gets out his phone. ‘I’ll call Jeremy now and see if he can shed any light on it. But it’s going to make me look like a right twat.’ He scrolls through the names in his contacts list, then presses the green button and puts his phone up to his ear.
    ‘Wait!’ I say.
    He looks over at me.
    ‘Hang up!’
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Hang up,’ I tell him.
    He flips his phone shut.
    ‘I’d do it if you wanted me to,’ he says.
    ‘No. It’s okay. It’s okay.’
    I go to bed early again that night but this time James comeswith me, holding me in his arms as I fall asleep. I’m sure he’d like to have sex with me, but he doesn’t try it on, and if I wasn’t so tired I might ask him why.
    The next morning when I wake up again just in time to catch the sunrise, I allow myself half an hour of thinking about Nathan, wondering what he’s doing, what could have been. I’m lost in my sad thoughts as the sun grows bigger and brighter in the sky, but when James appears from the bedroom I tell myself that’s it for the day. I try to keep my daydreaming to a minimum on the way to work, and the next morning, I allow myself just ten minutes of feeling lonely and depressed before I force myself to buck up. As the first week passes, James and I settle back into our easygoing routine. I stop playing segments of my stay in Sydney over and over in my head like a film on repeat. And when I do start to drift back into thoughts of nights out under the stars, cool, damp beaches and that tall, messy-haired surfer, it all seems a touch surreal and I drag myself back to the all-too-real present.
     
    ‘Hello…’ James