The Goldfish Heist And Other Stories by Jay Stringer

Author:Jay Stringer [Stringer, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stringerville
Published: 2012-12-07T23:00:00+00:00

Fathers Day

"I think I'm pregnant."

How do you respond to that?

I offered my wife another salted peanut. We were in our local and someone was murdering a 60's country song on acoustic guitar. A special level of hell is reserved for open mic nights. There's only so much Oasis and Rod Stewart I can take without becoming homicidal.

But what had Laura said?

Focus, Miller.

"I'm late. It's been three weeks."

"Are you sure? You eat a lot of fibre, maybe you're just, you know, bunged up."

Not the best thing to say.

She stood up and left. I turned back to the music to hear about someone's sex being on fire.

***

The house was dark and quiet when I got home. I found my mobile phone in the living room.

It was never very mobile.

I'd missed several calls from my best friend, Terry Becker. I could already hear him complaining about it tomorrow. He'd not left any messages, though, so we both failed at the whole phone thing.

I climbed the stairs and stood for a long time in the bedroom doorway. Laura was taking in the slow, peaceful breaths of deep sleep. I watched her for awhile, breathing in and out, until it started to feel creepy. Then I turned around and headed into the spare room, the one that we'd talked about setting aside as a nursery. It was big and empty, and I realized how much it was going to take for me to fill it.

My throat closed in and my heart climbed up a few inches.

I swallowed it all down and went to bed.

***

“Ground control to Major Tom.”

I lifted my head of the car window. I’d been staring at the scenery as we drove, watching it fly past out of view. Somewhere between Wolverhampton and Bloxwhich I’d drifted off into another world.

I turned to smile at Becker, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove.

He took his eyes off the road long enough to shoot me a look, “You okay?”

I shrugged and looked back out of the window. His car was very new and very blue, and something about that was annoying me. I decided maybe it was the smell. I’d never liked the smell of new.

Or maybe it was his CD player. He was offending me with some jazz shite.

Every few months he’d go through a new phase, trying to prove that he was a middle class white man with a brain. He’d buy some new CDs and learn a few new recipes. A few times he’d dragged me along to some foreign film festivals at the Electric Cinema in the city.

So far he had missed the point of;

Alternative country.

Jazz.

Blues.

Palestinian food.

Italian cinema.

When he’d picked me up that morning he’d asked if I’d ever seen a film called Sholay and I didn’t think the world was ready for his Bollywood phase. He worked so hard at being something that he wasn’t.

Maybe that’s why we were best friends.

“Laura thinks she might be pregnant,” I looked over at him, watching his eyes jump a little. “She told me last night.

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