Me Without You (6 page)

‘A little,’ she admitted easily. Again I was surprised, and she shrugged her shoulders. ‘I told you, we had a great night together. We really connected, and you’re right, I’ve never clicked with someone like that before. But like I said, Callum,’ she drew in a determined breath, ‘I am
really
not the relationship type.’

‘Well, Lilah,’ I paused. ‘Is it Lilah?’ She hesitated, and I decided to press on. ‘I’ll do you a deal. Give me one dinner and I’ll leave you alone.’

‘You had one dinner.’

‘One more dinner.’

‘You
will
leave me alone—you have no choice; you don’t know who I am,’ she pointed out. Before I could think of my next argument, she turned on what I assumed was her most determined tone, ‘So that deal is actually pretty shit, given that I already have what you’re offering. No, you’re going to have to argue this case on its own merits. Tell me
why
I should have one more dinner with you.’

Because I need to get to know you. One way or another, I’m going to be marvelling at how I felt last night for the rest of my life.

‘I’m not the
relationships type
either,’ I mocked her gently. ‘I’m not looking for a wife. I’m not even looking for a girlfriend. I’m looking only to spend some time with you. End of story.’

She didn’t seem impressed.

‘One more dinner.’ Was I pleading? Surely the whiny tone was getting close. ‘Maybe you’ll bore me to tears and the next time we run into each other on George Street I’ll jump in front of a bus to avoid speaking to you.’

She was staring at the ground beside me, contemplating my offer I suppose. I was an anxious child waiting for approval and acceptance, literally holding my breath as she turned the request over in her mind.

‘One more dinner,’ she agreed. I smiled at her. She pursed her lips and her eyebrows nearly met. ‘Don’t go getting clingy.’

‘I smiled. How is that clingy?’

‘Let’s do this tonight then,’ she exhaled, as if she was suggesting we get a distasteful task over and done with, but I suddenly realised she was as excited about this as I was. It wasn’t in her tone, but it was sure as hell in her eyes, the shared sense of relief that we’d found each other. ‘How about
you
pick the restaurant this time, and I’ll try to wear shoes.’

‘Deal,’ I said, once the celebrations in my brain had eased off and I could speak again. ‘And who exactly am I having dinner with?’

‘Lilah,’ she said firmly. ‘Lilah who will meet you at the five p.m. ferry tonight.’

‘What if I break my ankle and can’t make it? How will I contact you?’

‘Send one of your evil advertising minions to give me a message.’ She was glancing again to the revolving door, and I knew I’d pushed my luck already. No, finding out her real name would have to wait. But that was okay. I could be patient, as long as there was a chance. ‘I’m sorry, Callum, I really have to go—we’re on a break from court and I need to get back to my team and prepare for the afternoon session. I’ll see you at five?’

‘You will,’ I said, and she nodded curtly and disappeared through the revolving doors. I watched her go then turned back towards my office, the grin on my face so broad that I felt the stretch in my cheeks.

T
he day was now
a certified write-off. I sat in my office with the door closed, interspersing brief sprints of essential work tasks between long stretches of daydreaming.

When the time finally clicked over to four, I gave up on work for the day and left the office. I’d meant what I’d said to Lilah about Sydney energising me and there was something particularly inspiring about Friday afternoons. So many suits, all rushing—towards home, towards a bar, towards the park. I disappeared into the crowd and emerged when I spotted some flowers in a window. Maybe the gesture was quaint, maybe it was antiquated, but I needed to
somehow
express that I was enthralled.

And at five p.m., I was waiting at the turnstiles when she appeared. It was a long way off dark yet but the shadows were beginning to grow long, and a cool breeze was coming off the harbour. She’d let her hair out and the wind was stirring it. I had to remind myself to breathe. Belatedly, it occurred to me that environmental types might not appreciate cut flowers. I looked from her rapidly approaching figure to the bouquet in my hand and contemplated tossing them into the nearest bin.

Too late. She was right before me.

‘You bought me flowers,’ Lilah said. She was surprisingly,
blessedly
, pleased. ‘How sweet. Thanks, Callum.’

I had to clear my throat to speak.

‘You said you’d wear your shoes. It seemed the least I could do.’

She grinned at me and to my delight reached up to plant an innocent kiss on my cheek. I caught a hint of her shampoo as she brushed passed me. Lemon? Some hippy nature stuff for sure. The sand and the brine from the night before had been well and truly washed away.

‘So where’s dinner? Somewhere more impressive than that
last
crappy place, I hope.’ She was teasing me and I loved it.

‘You haven’t abandoned the vegan lifestyle today, by any chance?’

‘Sorry, can’t say I have.’

‘I guess that means the steakhouse is out.’ I gestured back the way she’d come, away from the ferries. She seemed surprised.

‘We’re eating in the city then?’

‘Prepare to be amazed.’

I
’d found
a vegetarian restaurant in Surry Hills that had some rave reviews online, and as we sat side by side in the back of a taxi travelling there, Lilah chatted freely about her day. The tough girl I’d bumped into on George Street was gone, replaced again by the free spirit I’d been so captivated by the night before.

‘Law is kind of like playing a board game with a lot of really detailed rules. It’s the kind of game where you have to spend years studying just to make a single move, and then you play for months at a time before anything happens.’

‘That’s a great analogy. I majored in law at uni,’ the taxi driver interjected.

‘Really! How did you end up driving a taxi?’

‘Well just like board games, some people who try to tackle the law are really good, and some people aren’t. The people who aren’t don’t pass the Bar exam, and live on their father’s couch for a decade before he buys them a taxi and kicks them out on their own.’ The taxi driver and Lilah laughed. I marvelled at the instant rapport she seemed to form with people—with the small crowd she formed on the ferry in our first discussion, with the waiter at the pizza place, and now with this guy—not to mention me. Every person Lilah met was more potential new friend than stranger. I wondered what it would be like to live life open like that.

She had never been to the restaurant I’d chosen and seemed impressed that I’d found it. The pleasant glow of my success faded quickly when I picked up the menu.

‘What the hell is tempeh?’ The restaurant’s website had said Australian vegetarian cuisine, but half of the dishes may as well have been Greek to me.

‘Fermented soy.’

‘Sounds delicious.’ I shut the menu with a shudder. ‘How about you just interpret this thing and order me something I’ll actually recognise?’

And so, over a bottle of red wine, we shared several dishes. There was something called cauliflower steaks—a most misleading name, given that it was essentially just barely cooked chunks of cauliflower rolled in herbs, and marinated gluten pieces with various other stir-fried vegetables.

‘Gluten is healthy now?’

‘Provided you don’t have celiac disease, it’s fine,’ she informed me wryly.

All in all, the food was nice enough—but the company was divine.

‘You said you moved around a lot growing up,’ I prompted her. Lilah was leaning on her elbow on the table top, and every now and again I saw her entwine a strand around her finger then smooth it down over her shoulders. She was relaxed and chatty, and I again enjoyed the full focus of her gaze on me.

‘Mum is as free a spirit as you’ll ever find. I was born in India, but by the time I was thirteen we’d lived in seven countries.’

‘Yikes!’

‘Yikes is right,’ she chuckled at my surprise. ‘That must appal you, Mr I-had-the-same-bedroom-until-I-was-an-adult.’

‘
Appal
is the wrong word.
Amaze
is better.’

‘It wasn’t amazing. I had some great experiences, but when I was about to hit high school, it suddenly seemed to occur to my parents that I could barely read and didn’t know how to keep friends.’

‘I’m assuming you learnt to read, given your profession. So they hastily settled down?’

‘Oh, no,’ she laughed again and reached for her wine. ‘They left me with my grandparents. Dad wasn’t nearly as flighty as Mum, but by then he was just used to doing as he was told.’

‘What did they do for work? How did they manage to move so much?’

‘Mum is a musician. A singer, actually, and quite a good one, but she was chasing her big break right up until a few years ago. She would spend a term here and a term there, teaching or doing theatre or just lining up for endless auditions. Don’t get me wrong; she had some great successes—but then there were some spectacular failures, like the year we spent in Hollywood. That whole year, she was at auditions pretty much every day without scoring a single role. So on we went. Dad, on the other hand, was a sensible horticulturalist and he brought in at least some money even when she couldn’t.’

‘That’s an interesting combination. Did they meet at school?’

‘No. Dad was a few years older than Mum; they met when he came to do a job at my grandparents’ house. Pa hired him to tend the orchard one spring and he and Mum hit it off. Dad loved to be busy, so wherever we went he found something to do to bring home some money, even if it was packing shelves.’

‘And your grandparents? Hippies too by the sounds of things?’

‘Oh, hell, no. They were salt-of-the-earth-type people. They just happened to live on a big patch of land up near Gosford. They actually despaired over my parents’ lifestyle and were more than happy to take me under their wing when the time came. They were the most patient people I’ve ever met. Grandma pretty much tutored me up until I could handle myself at school and Pa was an incredibly wise, gentle guy. He also happened to be a very successful lawyer. He was a partner in a general practice in Gosford, so I spent a lot of time there after school waiting for him and fell sideways in love with the law.’ She shrugged. ‘The rest is history.’

‘Do you see much of your mother?’

‘I speak to her most days, and I do go to Gosford pretty often to see my place up there. Mum and I are pretty close actually.’

‘You don’t resent—’ I hesitated. She shook her head; there was no need for me to finish the sentence.

‘No, I don’t. Maybe I did when I was younger, but life’s too short to hold on to that kind of thing. They made some funny choices—but, God, so have I. I just don’t have a kid to inflict them on.’

‘Yet?’

Again, she shook her head.

‘I’m not having children.’

‘Why not?’ I asked.

I wasn’t sure I wanted children either, but I knew I’d probably want to consider the idea if I ever settled into a stable relationship. Maybe, if we got that far, just maybe I’d change her mind. Lilah pursed her lips. I saw a crease form between her eyes as her gaze sharpened. She didn’t even like the question.

‘Not everyone wants children,’ she said finally.

‘Most people do.’

‘Plenty of people don’t. And there’s no shortage of excellent reasons why a person would choose not to have them.’

‘I agree. I just wondered what
your
reasons were.’ I shrugged. ‘I’m not even saying that I
do
want them, but I know why I’m hesitant.’

‘Children are disastrous for the environment.’

‘Mostly because they grow into adult humans—right?’

‘Exactly. And there seem to be far too many of those already. It’s not just that… I don’t know. It’s just a decision I made a long time ago and it’s one I’m entirely happy with. What about you?’

‘I don’t plan on getting married, but if I ever did really settle down with someone, I’d probably think about kids.’ I shrugged. ‘I certainly don’t have my heart set on them. How old are you, anyway?’

‘Guess.’

‘Well, to be completely honest with you, I am pretty good at judging ages and I feel like tonight is going pretty well and I don’t want to risk that by guessing correctly.’

She grinned at me.

‘How old are
you
?’

‘I’m just on the right side of forty.’ Not by much, granted. ‘You’re thirty.’

She laughed.

‘Oh, please. That wasn’t even a convincing guess.’

‘Thirty-one.’

‘It’s going to take nine more guesses to get it right at this rate.’

‘Twenty-two?’ I offered, and she grinned.

‘So we’re about the same age then. What month were you born?’

‘December.’

‘Early or late?’

‘New Year’s Eve, actually.’

‘Ah, Mum would say we’re a terrible match.’

‘Why is that? Star signs?’

‘Actually, because you’re younger than me.’

‘What’s your birth date?’

‘Twenty-third of July.’

‘You just had a birthday.’

‘I did.’

‘And that means I’m younger than you by, what, all of five minutes?’

‘Five minutes is still five minutes. At this point I’m on the wrong side of forty and you’re on the right side so…’ She shrugged those skinny little shoulders. ‘Well, I gave you one more dinner. I guess this is where it comes to an end.’

‘Are you joking?’ I was hoping she was, but her expression was deadpan. She suddenly grinned.

‘Your place or mine?’

I didn’t miss a beat on that one.

‘Yours.’

‘Ah,’ I could see she regretted the offer instantly. ‘Is now a good time to reinforce that whole thing we decided about
just one dinner
?’

‘You can remind me in the morning,’ I suggested as I motioned for the waiter to bring our bill.

L
ilah’s unit
made my unrenovated bargain look like a shack. It was only a few blocks from mine, but where my home was on the ground floor of a 1970s red-brick box, hers was on the top floor of a near-new development right on the ocean. I looked out from my kitchen into a laneway, but the balcony off Lilah’s living areas skimmed the top of the pine trees that line Manly beach.