…

Time and I never quite achieved that level of understanding required for me to be where I was supposed to be at the appointed time.

It was why my mother always told me my appointments were an hour earlier than the right time, and while she was alive that worked well.

At Uni I simply tagged along with the others and was rarely late for lectures tutorials and exams.

But once that ended and I was cast out into the big unhelpful world it became a problem again.  Time became my enemy.

It was that thought, along with a dozen other unrelated but equally worrisome thoughts that were uppermost in my mind.

I had an important meeting at 10am that morning, one that might just decide the course of the rest of my life.

I was lying awake staring alternately at the ceiling and that alarm clock, on one hand fearing I would go to sleep and miss waking up and on the other how unrelentingly slow time took to pass.

Only three minutes had passed since the last time I looked, and it felt like at least an hour.

Annabel had said she would stay with me and make sure I was ready, then take me, just to make sure I got there, but it seemed overkill, and surely, she had better things to do.

It wasn’t until about two hours ago that I finally realised what she really meant, and I’d been kicking myself for being so blind.

Several others had told me she liked me, but I thought she was being nice to a somewhat eccentric friend.  Now I realised it was more than that, and I would have to make amends somehow.

I just didn’t understand the nuances of romance or women for that matter.

As daylight seeped in he the cracks in the curtains I knew it was time to get up, and I’d never felt so tired before.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was after six, so nearly four hours to stew over the questions they were going to ask and the answers I’d give them.

That mock session in my head lasted precisely ten minutes when there was a knock on the door.

No one came to visit me at this hour.  No one came to visit me, period.  I crossed to the door and looked through the viewer.

Annabel.

Then panic of a different sort set in.  She’d never called by my place never expressed a desire to go there and now she was here.

I had never invited anyone home, it was always a borderline mess, but in an organised way, because I never thought that day would come, or that it be a girl who would want to.

The place was more disorganised than usual, I wasn’t dressed, and it had been impressed on me a long time ago that it would never do to be seen other than immaculately dressed, and I couldn’t leave her standing outside the door.

Whatever hope I may have had in fostering a relationship of any sort was about to go out the window.  I took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Annabel.”

“Richard.”

And then I stood there like a statue, the extent of my social small talk exhausted.

She waited about thirty seconds and then asked, “May I come in?”

“It’s a bit messy, well, a lot messy.  I wasn’t expecting visitors.”

She smiled.  “You should see my room.”

I shrugged, stood to one side, and let her pass.  I closed the door and leaned against it.

She did a 360-degree turn in the middle of the living room, ending up looking at me.

“This is what I would call a representation of you, Richard.”

I was not sure how to take that.  There were piles of papers and textbooks on the dining table and chairs.  Unlike some places I’d been, discarded clothes did not stay where they landed or languished on the backs of chairs.  The kitchen bench was crowded with appliances and food boxes.  The floors were clean, whereas stacks of books were not.

At least you could sit in the chairs.

“A place for everything, and everything in its place.  You have a lot of books.”

She’d notice the four sets of shelves filled to overflowing.

“I don’t get out much.”

“Perhaps you should.”

A hint.  Was she hinting she was available?  I had not realised then that I was still in my pyjamas, and could feel the pinkish tinge of embarrassment.

“Sorry.  Just got out of bed.  Didn’t sleep much.  Didn’t want to sleep through the alarm.”

“I thought I’d drop in.  Just to make sure you were OK.”

“I’m sorry about yesterday.  I wasn’t thinking.  I appreciated the gesture, and perhaps didn’t quite…”

“You get dressed, Richard.  I’ll make some tea and ferret out something to eat.  Then we can talk.”

About what, I wondered as I went up the passage.

I wanted to believe that it might be about her and I, but I was realistic enough to know that there were expectations of her from her parents that didn’t include people like me.

And I was fine with that.  Just to be her friend was enough.

I spent more time that I should, showering and dressing, and thinking of all the topics she might have up for discussion, and I finally came to the conclusion that this was probably the last time.

She had been mentioning the fact her parents were moving to the other side of the country, and she was to go with them.  Her studies were done, and she was now ready to take up a management role in her father’s company.

I knew she was having reservations, starting at the middle, over the top of others who had to fight their way up the ladder, and the resentment it would bring.    All I had said was it was a golden opportunity.  It hadn’t been received very well and I had wondered later if I should have not agreed with her father.

That’s the trouble with words, once they’re out there, there’s no taking them back.

When I came back, she had cleared the table and sat, a cup of tea in front of her, and one on the other side, waiting for me.

She had a pensive look on her face.  Or was it troubled?

I sat.  It felt like a seat at the inquisition.

“I’m not going.”  She used a tone that dared me to disagree.

“Going where?”

“San Francisco.  Why would I want to go there?  It’s the other side of the country, away from everyone I know, everyone I care about.”

Should I agree with her, or play devil’s advocate?  I sipped the tea instead.

Perhaps if looked closer before I might have seen the hastily repaired eye makeup, a sign that she had been crying, or maybe shed a few tears?  Had she been arguing with her father? I’d met him once and he was a force of nature, not a man I would cross.

And I just remembered last night she had been summoned to dinner with her parents and brother, an equally forceful type that I didn’t like.  He’s once warned me that his sister would never be allowed to have a boyfriend like me, and I’d assured him that had never been nor ever would be my intention.

I was just surprised he could think that.

“So dinner didn’t go well.”

“Not after I threw my pudding at Leonard.”  The seriousness left her face for a moment to allow a whimsical smile at the memory of it, then back to thunder.

“Well, that is an interesting way to decline an invitation, one I might add, most people your age would kill for.”

“I’m not a manager.”

That was another bone of contention.  She completed her MBA, as well as a few other degrees, as a means of staying here.  That was no longer a reason.

“Not what your qualifications paint you as.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“Whose side do you want me to be on?”

A ferocious glare told me I was treading on very, very thin ice.

“Alright.  I’m on your side.  Stay.”

“Where?  If I stay, no allowance, no apartment, no car, nothing.  I was virtually told that I would have to be either a checkout clerk or a waitress in a sleazy bar.”

“Why a sleazy bar?”

“Leonard obviously frequents them, enough to suggest it.”

A thought came into my head, and I cast it aside instantly.  “Would you?”

“No.  A diner maybe, I can and have been a waitress, and it’s not all bad.”

“With an MBA at your disposal?”

She made a face.

“What do you really want to do.  I mean, you have spent your life being someone else, someone who deserves more than just being a waitress.”

“There’s more.”

“How can there be more?”

“My choice of boyfriend.”

“I thought what’s his name, yes, William, was just the sort of boy who would be eminently suitable.  You took him home one weekend, and what was it you said, they loved him, more than they loved you.”

“That was the problem, he was too perfect.  I didn’t love him; I couldn’t love him.”

“Why?”

“Because… I care about someone else.  Of course, he’s too blind to see what’s right in front of him.”

A new boyfriend.  She’s been playing that one close to her chest.

“Then perhaps I should go and see him and drop some very unsubtle hints.”

Of course, it took a few more seconds for the cogs to turn, and the pieces fall into place.  It was not another boy.

“I have no real prospects, Annabel.  If it’s me you are alluding to?”

“Yet I know how you feel about me, how I feel when I’m with you, even if you are frustrating me into the middle of next week.  You’re going to get that job, Richard, and then you will have prospects, certainly enough for me.  You do love me?”

“More than you can imagine, I just never thought…”

“No.  It’s what I love about you, you never assume, and you never take me for granted.”

“Where are you going to stay?”

“Here, of course, though it could do with a woman’s touch.” She smiled.

“Are you going to survive without the Davison billions?”

“I have an MBA, you said so yourself.  I’m sure I’ll come up with something.  Besides, when I told my father anything he could do I could do better, my mother muttered under her breath, ‘good for you Annabel.’.  At least she had faith in me.”

Well, that seemed settled. 

“When are you moving out of the penthouse?”

“Now.  We have just enough time for me to move in before your appointment.”

…

©  Charles Heath 2023