That Green Eyed Girl by Julie Owen Moylan

Author:Julie Owen Moylan [Moylan, Julie Owen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Random House UK
Published: 2022-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

18

New York City, 1955

It was three weeks to the day since Gillian had left New York and I must have picked up the telephone a dozen times to call her, but then I heard her voice in my head pleading with me to leave her alone. I put the telephone back down again and tried to find things to distract me from the pain of waiting.

I read books that I’d been putting off reading all year, long English novels full of manners and polite love affairs. I cleaned things, tidying and busying myself in meaningless tasks. I watched the sun rise and set from our window, sitting in Gillian’s armchair and wondering if she was watching that same ball of fire coming and going. I felt desperate but there was nothing I could do except wait. The waiting hurt. I felt it in my bones, in every part of me. I ached from waiting.

Judith in the meantime brought home pot plants and cushions, making her presence felt in every corner of the home I loved. She didn’t mention Gillian. It was as if she had never existed, and instead Judith was endlessly cheery, trying to persuade me to accompany her to summer concerts in the park, or picnics at the beach, all of which I declined. She made me soup to eat and brought me small packages of cookies or candies to comfort me. But I wanted to be alone. I circled vacant apartments in Judith’s price range, looping large red circles around the classifieds and leaving them on the kitchen table for her to see. Whenever I did this, Judith would bring home another ornament, a china dog with a pink tongue hanging out or a colourful box for her herbal teas, and ignore my gesture. Little by little, she was taking over the space that was once a home for Gillian and me. She spoke of us as a pair, forever friends, and in my cowardice I said nothing.

The August heat soon grew too much and it seemed the whole city was unable to sleep. The electric fans only waved the air around and made no discernible difference to the temperature. Even a plain white sheet was too hot, and I tried sleeping with all the windows thrown open, but was kept awake by nightmares about masked strangers creeping in. The whole city was a swamp of heat and dust and noise. People were up half the night because it was too hot to sleep, and that meant music playing, or people talking out on fire escapes, or rooftops, until dawn. From sleeping too much I suddenly couldn’t sleep at all. The small alarm clock glowed the minutes of my insomnia at me until eventually I gave up and went into the living room, hoping a whiskey would help encourage sleep to come.

I poured a glass, cracked a chunk of ice into it and made myself comfortable in the armchair by the window. I liked to watch the

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