Read Online The Last Time I Saw You by Eleanor Moran - Free Book Online
Authors: Eleanor Moran
Tags: Fiction
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moisturizer and then whine that it had run out. I need to get him on my side: there’s so much that’s pulling me away, and Idon’t want to fail. I saw the complicated look that Mary gave me when she pushed the task on me against my will—despite her flash of sympathy, she needs to see that I know how to let professional take precedence over personal.
“We’ll do research, we’ll look at campaigns for completely unrelated products that have worked, we’ll look at his films and see if there’s a pattern to his taste. It’s totally winnable.”
Rosie gives me an encouraging smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, while Chris continues to exude his poisonous combination of resentment and disbelief. When my phone starts to ring I could almost cry with relief. Of course I should ignore it, but today is asking too much of me and it feels like a parachute.
It’s an unfamiliar number, so I duck out of the office to take the call. I know Mary likes to keep her beady eye on us, but open-plan working is madly inefficient—there’s always hordes of people congregated like pigeons in the corridor, furtively squawking into their cell phones.
“Olivia?” says an unfamiliar cut-glass voice. Hardly anyone calls me that.
“Yes?”
“It’s William Harrington, Sally’s husband.”
“William, hi.” I want to ask him how he is, but it feels too crass. “I’ve . . . I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Thank you,” he says, stiffly. “I hope you won’t think it presumptuous to follow up on our conversation at . . . yesterday but I would very much like to talk to you about Sally.”
“Oh,” I say, my voice no more than a squeak.
“Please say if this is too soon, but I wondered about tomorrow evening? I’m not sure how long we’ll be here and I don’t want to let the opportunity slip through my fingers.”
Something in his voice, in the way it catches, reminds me of me, the way my thoughts are catching on the jagged edges of impossible questions. Fear begins to thrum through my body, a fear that I can’t put a name to but I know could engulf me if I let it. I feel rooted to the spot, words frozen in my throat. I can see the page in my diary, see its blankness, but something in me can’t say yes.
“I’m really sorry, but tomorrow’s . . . I can’t do tomorrow,” I say, hating how alien my voice sounds. It’s the voice of a liar, a bad one at that, high-pitched and tinny.
“Of course,” he says, “I knew it would be a big ask at such short notice.”
I’m a horrible person. A hypocrite. I made him a promise, after all. Perhaps in a couple of days I’ll feel less fragmented, more capable of giving him what it is that he needs. Although my truth surely cannot be what that is.
“Will you be here later in the week?”
“Perhaps.” He pauses, his voice dropping to something more gruff. “Everything’s very much in flux.”
As he says it, I feel a stab of deep, illogical empathy. Flux, chaos, confusion—they’re all words that could add up to a dictionary definition of Sally.
“Please try me again once you know,” I say, emphatic. Surely I can do this if I put my mind to it?
“I will. Goodbye, Olivia and . . . thank you.”
Thank you—like yesterday, I can hear something in that one little word that speaks to something bigger. Something that’s just as overwhelming as the fear that stalks me every time I teeter on the verge of opening the door back to the past.
January 1996
There was distance between us, I knew that, but it was shadowy and insubstantial, hard to name. Sally still offered me lifts to campus, afforded me the odd Friday night out, but we didn’t have that Galaxy-munching intimacy of term one. I tried to reassure myself it was nothing more than the fact that we’d met people—my romance with Matt was spluttering into life, and I knew that her fling with Dr. Roberts was still happening, even though she was hazy about the details every time I fired a
“We’ll do research, we’ll look at campaigns for completely unrelated products that have worked, we’ll look at his films and see if there’s a pattern to his taste. It’s totally winnable.”
Rosie gives me an encouraging smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, while Chris continues to exude his poisonous combination of resentment and disbelief. When my phone starts to ring I could almost cry with relief. Of course I should ignore it, but today is asking too much of me and it feels like a parachute.
It’s an unfamiliar number, so I duck out of the office to take the call. I know Mary likes to keep her beady eye on us, but open-plan working is madly inefficient—there’s always hordes of people congregated like pigeons in the corridor, furtively squawking into their cell phones.
“Olivia?” says an unfamiliar cut-glass voice. Hardly anyone calls me that.
“Yes?”
“It’s William Harrington, Sally’s husband.”
“William, hi.” I want to ask him how he is, but it feels too crass. “I’ve . . . I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Thank you,” he says, stiffly. “I hope you won’t think it presumptuous to follow up on our conversation at . . . yesterday but I would very much like to talk to you about Sally.”
“Oh,” I say, my voice no more than a squeak.
“Please say if this is too soon, but I wondered about tomorrow evening? I’m not sure how long we’ll be here and I don’t want to let the opportunity slip through my fingers.”
Something in his voice, in the way it catches, reminds me of me, the way my thoughts are catching on the jagged edges of impossible questions. Fear begins to thrum through my body, a fear that I can’t put a name to but I know could engulf me if I let it. I feel rooted to the spot, words frozen in my throat. I can see the page in my diary, see its blankness, but something in me can’t say yes.
“I’m really sorry, but tomorrow’s . . . I can’t do tomorrow,” I say, hating how alien my voice sounds. It’s the voice of a liar, a bad one at that, high-pitched and tinny.
“Of course,” he says, “I knew it would be a big ask at such short notice.”
I’m a horrible person. A hypocrite. I made him a promise, after all. Perhaps in a couple of days I’ll feel less fragmented, more capable of giving him what it is that he needs. Although my truth surely cannot be what that is.
“Will you be here later in the week?”
“Perhaps.” He pauses, his voice dropping to something more gruff. “Everything’s very much in flux.”
As he says it, I feel a stab of deep, illogical empathy. Flux, chaos, confusion—they’re all words that could add up to a dictionary definition of Sally.
“Please try me again once you know,” I say, emphatic. Surely I can do this if I put my mind to it?
“I will. Goodbye, Olivia and . . . thank you.”
Thank you—like yesterday, I can hear something in that one little word that speaks to something bigger. Something that’s just as overwhelming as the fear that stalks me every time I teeter on the verge of opening the door back to the past.
January 1996
There was distance between us, I knew that, but it was shadowy and insubstantial, hard to name. Sally still offered me lifts to campus, afforded me the odd Friday night out, but we didn’t have that Galaxy-munching intimacy of term one. I tried to reassure myself it was nothing more than the fact that we’d met people—my romance with Matt was spluttering into life, and I knew that her fling with Dr. Roberts was still happening, even though she was hazy about the details every time I fired a
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