Zigzag Street by Nick Earls

Author:Nick Earls
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House Australia
Published: 1996-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

34

The alarm goes off way too early.

We happen to be facing each other and we make eye contact.

Hi, she says.

Hi.

In case you’re wondering, a nine o’clock meeting is out of the question.

Yeah. It’d be funny though. The two of us looking as though we’d both had three hours sleep after telling them at five-thirty that we wouldn’t go out to dinner because of your headache.

Yeah. Very funny. I’ve got an idea. How about you call Shelton’s—someone’s bound to be there even though it’s really early—you call them and tell them my headache was a migraine, and it got worse and I have to sleep now. And can we have the meeting this afternoon. Then call and re-organise our flight home. Later I’ll make whatever calls I have to to handle the child-care issue. Dan has to be picked up by five-thirty.

So I sit by the bed, still naked, talking to someone who went in to work early to call New York. I think I can tell from the tone in his voice that he’s wearing a dark suit, though he may have taken off the jacket. I hope he can’t tell that I am sitting wearing only guilt and bodily fluids (particularly when the bodily fluids are a mixture of mine and my manager’s).

Changing the airline booking is easy. They can think what they like.

Then I lie down, and Hillary curls subconsciously back against me and I sleep.

She wakes me late morning.

We should eat.

She orders breakfast.

This is when we realise that we are naked and in the same room. That this is more than simply horribly incongruous, and that it really doesn’t matter whether or not it’s fine by the person who brings the breakfast.

We should get dressed, she says. We should have a shower. There is a pause. Showers. I should have a shower, and then you should have a shower. That’s what I meant.

She goes into the bathroom and leaves me sitting on the messy bed, facing a chair that has my today clothes thrown over it, looking like yesterday’s.

When she comes out she’s wearing a towel and the fact that she’s covered at all makes my nakedness feel very inappropriate.

I take my clothes into the bathroom and I shower using the one-use-only bottles of hotel shampoo and conditioner, and I shave with the hotel disposable razor. Today, I do cut myself shaving. I’m never good with new razors.

When I go back into the room Hillary is fully dressed and breakfast is on the table. She’s looking unsettled.

I just called Peter’s parents, she says. I told them I’d had a migraine. They said they’d love to pick up Dan from child care, so that’s all sorted out.

Good.

So come on, eat.

I sit down and face the unfamiliar choice of fruit, toast and cereal.

Wow, real breakfast.

What do you mean?

I tell her a bit about my diet.

Doesn’t that make you incredibly constipated?

Sure. I kind of hoped the popcorn maker would turn it around, but, you know, you’ve practically got to be in the mood to cook when you make popcorn, if you want it to have any kind of flavour.

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