TheRapist (9 page)

*

Jezzy

‘I can’t stay long, I have to be back in LA by Wednesday.’ Adrian possessively wrapped his long arm around
Jezzy
’s neck as they strolled along Upper Street in Islington on Sunday morning. The sun had been fighting hard all morning and had finally broken through the clouds. Momentarily. Rain was forecast for the afternoon. As uncertain as the weather,
Jezzy
didn’t know how she felt. She was so confused and desperately needed a coffee, something to give her mind a little lift. Miraculously a bakery appeared. Euphorium bakery, one of a handful in the area. There was a queue of people outside which meant that it must be good.

‘Shall we go here?’ she suggested, stopping abruptly behind a man with a pram.

‘Sure,’ smiled Adrian slowly.

A woman in front of the man with a pram started speaking to him, making idle, queuing conversation.

‘Could you hold my place for a mo? Must cadge that table,’ she asked him, thrusting her neck towards the vacant table against the wall. He nodded, attempting a half smile. His baby was so new and he was showing the effects. The woman flung her bags on both chairs, marking her territory and stood back in the queue.

‘Thanks, you don’t know what day it is anyway, do you!’ she exclaimed rhetorically to the new father.

Again, he summoned up a hint of a smile and nodded agreeably, somewhere in a faraway place, his mind milky and soft.

The queue diminished in front of them and
Jezzy
and Adrian were in front of the counter which was crammed with sweet, intoxicating pastries. The smells wafted in from the back of the bakery.
Jezzy
chose a pain au chocolat and a latte.

‘Black Americano for me,’ said Adrian to the dark, pretty girl behind the counter. He gave a little smirk as he spoke to her and
Jezzy
wondered why. The girl behind the counter looked up at Adrian and smiled, looking a little withdrawn. She repeated the order with a heavy Mediterranean accent and she had a scratch on the top of her right hand. There was still a long queue out onto the street and the sun still fought to shine. Taking the only vacant table, the one in the middle of the room,
Jezzy
felt as though she had a deadline. She felt under pressure and didn’t know why.

Adrian took a sip of his coffee, licked his lips and gave a slight, almost imperceptible pout. ‘
Jez
, I’m leaving Tuesday.’

‘Yes, I know, you said you might.’
Jezzy
took a sip of her latte. It was too hot and she burnt her tongue.

‘I want to come back soon,’ Adrian said softly. ‘Now that I’ve found you again I don’t want to lose you. I won’t lose you, I can’t.’ His face grew tight as he bit down on his jaw.

Jezzy
smiled at him. She felt as though she loved him or at least as if she should love him, as though she hadn’t ever got over him completely from all those years ago. There was something about him that charmed her completely, as if he wove some kind of mystical spell over her. What was that? Was that infatuation, true love or something else? So why did she feel unsure? Something just didn’t feel right, she kn
ew that much. But she already in her thirties
, never been married and wanted kids, desperately wanted kids. Was it all being put in front of her, handed to her on a long lost silver platter? Just then Adrian cupped her face gently in his large hands. Her face fitted perfectly. He tilted her chin very slightly and looked into her eyes.

‘I love you
Jez
,’ he said very softly. ‘I never stopped loving you. I want to marry you and have children with you.’

She was lost in his deep brown eyes. All negative thoughts were instantly washed away.

All of them.

Gone.

Almost. Apart from one little piece of jetsam caught at the edges of her mind.

*

Manny
and Meringue

Manny stood in his office beside the window, a couple of hundred feet above the ground. This is where he always stood to think. To contemplate. Only now, on this murky Sunday morning he had a flash of realization resulting in the knowledge that this position really did him no good at all. Despite himself, he missed Devon. She had been away for days and wasn’t due back for another week. He was so confused because his heart had seemed to open new chambers and one of the spaces could only be filled by Meringue and it really bothered him. Meringue! What a stupid name. He couldn’t call her that, not with a straight face and Mary seemed too archaic. But there was something about her that touched him. Something wanton and forlorn. She made him want to protect her. This was so new and unexpected that even she didn’t know. He was going to take her out on a real date. Not just stuck on her knees in his office. Somewhere real. He wanted to go to dinner and a movie like ordinary people did. He had felt out of control with Devon for so long and had taken advantage of Meringue’s feelings for him. She truly liked him, although he couldn’t understand why. Up until now, he’d only had a relationship with the top of her head. But that day, when she had looked up at him, warm tears in her incredible violet eyes, she had plucked at a string in his heart. He sat down heavily at his desk, letting out a long breath of suffocated air. Then there was the other problem, if you could call it a problem. He had met someone online, of all places! Months ago, when he was so frustrated with Devon and had yet to meet Meringue, he had joined a dating website. Even the sound of it made him flinch. He hadn’t bothered to contact anyone but the messages came flooding in. He deleted most of them but one in particular had caught his eye and he had begun a cyber-relationship, becoming slightly cast in the spell of an English girl. Thankfully she lived 6,000 miles away, but whereas he had once dismissed possibilities, due to being Geographically Undesirable, he now tended to carefully embrace them. At one point the wrong side of the 405 would have been GU. Only now the world was becoming smaller. He was caught in a triangle and didn’t know which girl w
ould turn out to be his hypoten
use.

He knew Devon was really no good for him, despite her hypnotic, ineffable qualities and instead tried to focus more on the girl in London. The one he had met online but hadn't yet seen. Her emails were light and witty and charming and her thought he should make the effort to go and see her, to get away from Devon's close but unreachable proximity and Meringue's needy sweetness.

Pulling himself from his wiry, tangled thoughts, he broke free and buzzed his secretary; she with the scraggy neck.

‘Book me a return Virgin flight to London on Monday with two nights at the Halkin Hotel in Belgravia.’ He slammed the phone down before she answered and before he could rethink, picked up his cell and punched two numbers.

‘Hello?’ Meringue had a faux veil of expectancy across her tired voice.

‘I want to take you to the movies.’ Manny fumbled slightly. This was a new way of speaking between them.

Meringue’s heart leapt. ‘Really?’

‘Yes, Century City. Can you meet me now?’

‘Your office?’

‘Box office.’

‘Oh, OK.’
‘See you there.’

His heart was pounding. Stupidly. He had been taking women to the movies for close to thirty years! Now he was trembling like a teenager on a first date, flying across the world to meet a woman he had never even seen and still obsessed with the unattainable Devon. What was wrong with him?

Meringue was excited. She had never been out with Manny during the day. She had never been out with him before, period. She had already showered, so she pulled off her bright blue acrylic house dress with multi-colored birds flying across it, the one that nobody in the world had ever seen or ever would, quickly patted a fragrant, whipped lotion on her body and pulled on white terry track pants and a candy pink Abercrombie T, the perfect ‘Sunday Afternoon Movie in LA’ outfit,
despite the day
. Her skin was good so she needed only minimal make-up. Touche éclat to hide
the dark shadows in her translu
cent skin. A sweep of Nars creamy peach blush with hints of sparkle. A touch of mascara, waterproof in case the movie was a weepie. Michael Kors for Estee Lauder nude gloss. She stepped into bright white keds, bought for $12 at the outlets, grabbed a pale grey cashmere cardigan in case it was chilly later, fluffed her hair forward and back and was ready to go. Her stomach was filled with butterflies and hope was brimming all around.

A date. With Manny. Maybe LA had something to offer after all?

*

Devon

Harrods. The grand dame of iconic
British
department stores. Second floor. Book Department. The Signing.

Devon sat at a
crystal clear glass
table, looking pristine in a candy apple green linen skirt suit. Her blouse was sheer silk chiffon, the colour of deep olives and she wore a silk jersey camisole beneath it, the colour of her skin. The queue was long as her PR had once again performed sublimely. After her introduction she gave one of her warm, throaty readings. It lasted mere minutes but the crowd was entranced. It is not often that a hush is thrown across Harrods, but this was the effect her warm, mesmeric voice had on people. Devon signed book after book after book, unflustered, unhurried, a warm smile for everyone. She was unflappable and nobody could have imagined where she had been or what she had been doing only hours before.

‘Please sign this to Fiona,’ requested a lanky girl dressed entirely in an array of patchwork.

‘Can you write my name, Philip, on here, sign it to me please, it’s mine? I’m Philip!’ grinned a tall, thin man with an anxious, elongated smile, as he excitedly thrust his book towards his heroine of fiction
. Ignorant of the fact that she was
, in reality,
a
fictional heroine
.

She looked up at him slowly, at his eager look, thinking that he resembled a donkey, with jutting yellow teeth and a hanging expression. He looked down on her, adoringly, his smile growing even wider, if that were possible. Maybe she could ride him on the beach, sucking on a red ice lolly as she had done on seaside trips as a child. She also thought what she could do with him, how she could torment him into a stupor. A shiver travelled down her spine, brought suddenly to a halt by his excitement, which resulted in a dab of saliva dripping from his lower lip onto the table. Devon shuddered, pulling herself out of her mangled thoughts. She forced her mind back to the moment. Not know, she silently scolded herself, not in these clothes. She was Devon Cage the author, not her other self, the Other Person. Not that filthy, dirty little whore she hated. Her thoughts were making her chest prickle and her neck hot, she looked down and saw a pink glow creeping through her blouse.

‘Are you alright Ms. Cage?’ an enquiry from one of the more alert staff. Devon squinted against the gold gleam from the girl’s name-tag, as it shone coldly in her eyes. The lights seemed all too bright, almost hallucinatory. The pen had gone rigid in her hand. She couldn’t breathe. The heat was enveloping her, suffocating, vivid, breathless and the world began to swirl uncontrollably before her eyes….

She was helped from the chair and quickly ushered into a back room, where she was seated in a soft armchair and
handed a glass of water
. She tried to sip it, but misjudged where her mouth was and wet her blouse. For the first time in a long time, Devon felt vulnerable. She tried to laugh it off, make light of it.

‘It’s the jet lag I imagine, a total killer!’

‘Are you OK Ms. Cage, is there anything we can get you? Would you like some food?’

‘You know that would be great, I think I forgot to eat breakfast.’ She spoke with a smile, laced in charm.

Within a couple of minutes, a tray of croissants and Danish pastries filled with swollen, red fruits appeared, with a pot of strong English Breakfast tea, milk, sugar and honey. The tea was poured for her and she ate two croissants, thickly spread with butter and marmalade, eating quickly to quash her earlier thoughts. She would eat those thoughts away, gobbling them up to erase them with each bite of sweetness.

After her second cup of tea she was completely composed again and said, ‘I can go back now.’