The Confusion of Languages by Siobhan Fallon

Author:Siobhan Fallon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-05-18T14:42:59+00:00

May 13, 2011

8:08 P.M.

I close her journal, pressing the pointed corner of the cover into my forehead. Oh, Margaret. There she goes. Wandering around a construction site. In the middle of the night. With Saleh.

I reach for my phone. She’s been gone four hours now.

It suddenly vibrates in my hand, a message.

But it’s from Dan.

Just ran into Crick, what’s up? You still at her apartment?

I hesitate before replying.

Yes. No word from Margaret.

I want to call him, but surely he has heard about everything that’s been going on here, and surely Dan, being Dan, will immediately realize my role in it all. What if this really is the last straw, what if Dan has decided he’d rather be in a different time zone than with me forever?

I get up. I carry the journal into the kitchen.

I need to think about Margaret. What could she possibly be doing right now? She can’t be at the station unless they threw her in a prison cell. Considering how she was behaving at the scene of our accident today, that might not be so far-fetched after all.

I go to the window. It feels terrible, claustrophobic, the apartment closed up like this. I consider cracking the shutters to look down in the street again but I don’t want to see Saleh slinking around.

What did Crick tell Dan? And why hasn’t Crick called back? I think of the last time I saw him, a few days after the party. I was at the embassy, picking up mail. I had called Margaret that morning to see if she wanted to come with me, but she had just put the baby down for a nap. I was heading toward the parking lot carrying a box in my arms, probably an order from Amazon, probably more Campbell’s cream of chicken soup—certainly something I will never make for the Brickshaws again—when I saw Crick sitting under the little “smoking section” gazebo. I almost dropped the box. Instead I made a quick left, hoping he hadn’t seen me, even though I had been thinking of him that morning when I got dressed, thinking maybe, just maybe, I might run into him, so why not wear the blue shirt that best highlighted my cleavage? Why not leave the cardigan in the car?

“Cassie?”

I had no choice but to stop. “Hello there.”

“Let me get that.”

He took the box from me. His eyes snagged on my breasts before he quickly looked away.

“I’ve been meaning to thank you for having us over the other night.”

I could smell smoke on him. I’ve always hated cigarettes but right then I had a disturbing image of myself sucking on this man’s nicotine-stained fingertips.

“It was entertaining,” I managed to reply.

He glanced my way, very deliberately looking at my face and only my face. “I had a hangover all week. Your husband’s generous with his scotch.”

“Mmm. I drank a little too much myself.” I tried to smile. There was silence between us until we reached my car and I opened the trunk.

He put the box inside, closed the trunk, adjusted the embassy badge around his neck.

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