Page 74 of Caught in a Storm
“You don’t know the first thing about me.”
“Don’t I? Liar. Those videos? I was telling the truth. You looked amazing. But there was something else, too. Your eyes. They were ablaze. I hadn’t seen that fire in a long time. I know you were never keen on the celebrity rubbish. But Margot Hammer was born to play the drums. She’s a proper rock star. I loved seeing her again. And you know as well as I do that you loved being her again, din’cha?”
She doesn’t bother telling him that he’s right.
“Going off the grid like you did, though…”
“Why does everyone think I’m a mole woman now? I live in Chelsea, Lawson, in our old apartment.”
“You know what I mean,” he says. “You think giving it all up was a way to punish me. Nikki, too. And it worked. I can’t speak for her, but I felt like shite—I still feel like shite. But what’s that worth if you’re just punishing yourself as well?”
“You playing a shrink in your next movie or something?” she asks.
“Bloody wish,” he says. “I’m in talks to thwart more fucking aliens.”
Billy’s old neighborhood is a scene at night—bustling and noisy. This place, though, is quiet after dark. Adults pass them. Couples walk expensive dogs, talk politics. A few of them do double takes when they see Lawson, but no one says anything. Eventually, he sits on a bench. Margot sits beside him. Eddie’s Market is across the street, closed for the night. The E in the Eddie’s sign flickers. Lawson touches some words stenciled on the backrest between them. Baltimore: The Greatest City in America. “Bit of a bold statement, don’t you think?”
“Go fuck yourself, hon,” she says, doing her best Baltimore accent.
“Beg your pardon?”
“They’re proud of their city,” she says. “Good for them.”
“Right. Ironic, though, innit, considering there’s a rat over there?”
“What? Where?”
Lawson points at shadows across the street. “See, the wee beady eyes?”
“No, that’s a…a cat. Right?”
It isn’t. The rodent stands on its haunches and assesses them before it disappears into the sewer.
“Fair warning,” says Lawson, “that thing comes back, I’m using you as a human shield.”
The lights at the coffee shop next to Eddie’s shut off; two teenagers in green aprons walk out, lock up. Neither sees them.
“You warm enough, Mar?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good, because I’m freezing my tits off, you fucking cow.”
Margot lets loose her first spiteless laugh of the night, and it feels like letting go. Two things can be true at the same time: you can be epically pissed at someone and you can miss them, too, and Margot has missed this man on an atomic level.
“If you’ll indulge me, love,” he says. “Back to the time machine?”
“Oh God. Fine. What?”
“I really am sorry.”
“You said that. Five minutes ago. You said it back then, too.”
“Bears repeating.”
“It would’ve hurt less if you’d loved her,” she says. “If you’d cared about her. But it was just an affair. You ruined everything for…an affair.”
Lawson hugs himself. “I understand. But listen, Mar, if it hadn’t been Nikki, it’d’ve been someone else. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Every woman I met suddenly wanted to shag me. It was bloody overwhelming.”
