The Vacation by John Marrs

Author:John Marrs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

73

It had been a long, cold night sitting outside Zak’s home in the Hollywood Hills.

To fend off the chill, Ruth wore the jumper she’d almost completed for Zak. Expensive-looking cars and yellow cabs had dropped a couple of dozen people off at the gate up until around midnight, and although she’d strained her eyes to get a better view of them it had been too dark to make out their faces. She was envious of the way the new arrivals were granted immediate access to Zak’s estate, and could only imagine what celebrities he might be playing host to. They were so close, and yet so far away. Dance music blasted from his garden until the sun began to rise. Ruth felt resentful of the laughter coming from behind the gates that separated her from her soulmate.

Eventually, exhausted, she fell asleep. She slept through the guests’ departures, only waking at the sound of a van’s exhaust pipe backfiring. She stretched, took off Zak’s jumper, wiped her armpits and face with the moist tissue from a KFC box she’d bought earlier that night and felt her stomach rumble. She had long run out of food, but she risked missing another chance to talk to Zak if she left now.

Ruth’s eyes were blurry and too sore to finish knitting the last cuff of the sweater and instead she reflected, admitting to herself that her first meeting with Zak hadn’t gone according to plan. She’d sounded like an idiot when she’d spoken.

But once Zak got to know her, his opinion of her would surely change. She was excited about their next meeting, and it came much sooner than she’d anticipated. By mid-morning, his gates opened and his SUV began to pull out of the drive. However, the vehicle braked sharply before it reached the road.

‘What the hell?’ began Zak, opening the driver’s door, pulling off his sunglasses as he exited his car. ‘Have you been here all night? Are you paparazzi? Because you can’t prove shit about anything.’

Ruth was wrongfooted by his shift in tone from when they’d met the previous day. She panicked and thrust the jumper into Zak’s chest. He held it out to examine it – one arm was longer than the other, the neck was huge and the colours garish. When he realized the crude effigy on the chest was supposed to be his face, he couldn’t contain his amusement.

‘Am I on camera somewhere?’ Zak continued. ‘This has to be a prank, because this is fucking hilarious!’

‘No, it’s just me,’ she replied, her face aching with disappointment. Then she watched Zak throw her jumper onto the grass verge and get back into his car before driving away.

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