Page 7 of Still Me
“Right,” I said, as my throat constricted. “Okay. I’d better grab a nap.”
“Me too,” he said. “I’ll think of you.”
“In a disgusting porny way? Or in a romantic Nora Ephron-y kind of way?”
“Which of those is not going to get me into trouble? You look good, Lou,” he said, after a minute. “You look... giddy.”
“I feel giddy. I feel like a really, really tired person who also slightly wants to explode. It’s a little confusing.” I put my hand on the screen, and after a second he put his up to meet it. I could imagine it on my skin.
“Love you.” I still felt a little self-conscious saying it.
“You too. I’d kiss the screen but I suspect you’d only get a view of my nasal hair.”
I shut my computer, smiling, and within seconds I was asleep.
—
Somebody was shrieking in the corridor. I woke groggily, sweatily, half suspecting I was in a dream, and pushed myself upright. There reallywas a woman screaming on the other side of my door. A thousand thoughts sped through my addled brain, headlines about murders, New York, and how to report a crime. What was the number you were meant to call? Not 999 like England. I racked my brain and came up with nothing.
“Why should I? Why should I sit there and smile when those witches are insulting me? You don’t even hear half of what they say! You are a man! It is like you wear blinkers on your ears!”
“Darling, please calm down. Please. This is not the time or the place.”
“There is never a time or place! Because there is always someone here! I have to buy my own apartment just so I have somewhere to argue with you!”
“I don’t understand why you have to get so upset about it all. You have to give it—”
“No!”
Something smashed on a hardwood floor. I was fully awake now, my heart racing.
There was a weighty silence.
“Now you’re going to tell me this was a family heirloom.”
A pause.
“Well, yes, yes, it was.”
A muffled sob. “I don’t care! I don’t care! I’m choking in your family history! You hear me? Choking!”
“Agnes, darling. Not in the corridor. Come on. We can discuss this later.”
I sat very still on the edge of my bed.
There was more muffled sobbing, then silence. I waited, then stood and tiptoed to the door, pressing my ear against it. Nothing. I looked at the clock—four forty-six p.m.
I washed my face and changed briskly into my uniform. I brushed my hair, then let myself quietly out of my bedroom and walked around the corner of the corridor.
And I stopped.
Farther up the corridor beside the kitchen, a young woman was curled into a fetal ball. An older man had his arms wrapped aroundher, his back pressed against the wood paneling. He was almost seated, one knee up and one extended, as if he had caught her and been brought down by the weight. I couldn’t see her face, but a long, slim leg stuck out inelegantly from a navy dress and a sheet of blond hair obscured her face. Her knuckles were white from where she was holding on to him.
I stared and gulped, and he looked up and saw me. I recognized Mr. Gopnik.
“Not now. Thank you,” he said, softly.
My voice sticking in my throat, I backed swiftly into my room and closed the door, my heart thumping in my ears so loudly that I was sure they must be able to hear it.
