Air Kisses (2 page)

Chapter Three

‘Another coffee?’ The waitress hovered over my table, jamming a pen into a bun she’d made of her long hair. She was wearing lashings of black mascara, tight black jeans, tight black T-shirt, black trainers, and would’ve weighed about the same as a grasshopper. She raised her eyebrows impatiently.

Why not? I wasn’t in a rush. It was Saturday morning and the only thing I had planned was a manicure and pedicure at Lovely Luck Nail at two. With Jesse away and Iz always working, having recently set up her own catering company, I was getting used to luxurious, lazy weekends to myself. Plus, I had only made my way through a quarter of the papers. I had been intently reading the
Times
’ beauty pages, trying to figure out how their beauty editor managed to write about
exfoliation and make it sound enthralling. It was an art, I realised. I spooned in another mouthful of my gluten/
fun-free
muesli and began flicking through the gossip pages, where I was abruptly faced with a huge picture of a smiling Jesse, with an inset image of a pretty brunette.

What the—?

My heartbeat quickened as I read the headline of the quarter-page article.

These sentences had the right letters and syntax, but made no sense at all. I was shaking and felt overwhelmingly alert, in the same way I imagined you would just before you were hit by a car.

‘Here we go – skim latte.’ Grasshopper placed the coffee down right on top of Jesse’s face and spun away.

I didn’t know what to do except to read the article again and look at the photo of Jesse, all preppy private school with his blond wavy hair, blue eyes and broad chest – only it wasn’t him but a complete stranger, because surely none of this was really about him. Surely they had the wrong guy. Surely it was all some big mistake.

After a few minutes, my conviction that they had made an
enormous error made way for the revolting possibility that, in fact, they had exactly the right guy – only he was supposed to be
my
guy.

I closed the paper and focused on not being sick. I suddenly felt ill. Just-eaten-a-warm-oyster-milkshake ill. Rage and hurt and embarrassment and completely irrational thoughts flashed through my head. Like, who would see it? My new workmates?

Ladies’ man?

Smitten?

Can’t keep away from each other?

I reopened the paper and stared at his face, unable to process it. And what did ‘exotic’ mean anyway?

I grabbed my phone and called him.

‘Hi, you’ve reached Jesse. You know what to do.’ Beep.

I hung up.

Dialled again.

Same thing.

Why was his fucking phone off? I took a deep breath and dialled again. This time I’d leave a message. But what the hell was I going to say? I hung up, realising I had no idea.

I dialled Iz instead, to blow off some steam. It rang out, and as she didn’t have voicemail I couldn’t even leave a distraught message.

I belted out a text:

I dialled Jesse again and, holding back tears so as not to give myself away, very slowly said, ‘Hi, it’s me. I need to speak to you. Call me urgently please.’

I didn’t want him to know he was in deep shit or he might
never call. He was rubbish in confrontational situations. Hang on: why was I making allowances for him? For all I knew he’d been sleeping with some weather wench.

I wanted answers. Time to text.

Sending…sending…sent. I immediately wondered if I’d now given him ammunition to lie with. He wouldn’t dare. He was my boyfriend. I deserved a goddamn answer. A truthful one. Jesus, where had this all come from? I’d thought we were happy; in love; that everything was going well – although I never
could
understand why I wasn’t invited to things like that ball. He just said they were work functions, and that as I had so many of my own work functions now he didn’t want to put me through more.

Struggling to compose myself under the weight of all that was racing through my mind, I got a twenty-dollar note out, left it on the table, gathered my things and the offending paper, and left in a hurry. Outside it had started to rain. Of course it had. I ducked for cover and thought about what I should do next. My phone buzzed.

I called him straightaway but his phone rang out. What the
hell
was he playing at? My rage was building by the second. I called again – no answer. Three times – nothing. Huddling under a flimsy awning, I texted him with such anger and speed that I kept punching in the wrong letters; I cursed as I retyped.

Nothing.

I walked down the street, calling Iz. Dammit, why was no one answering their phone, today of all days. I had almost made it home – and was consumed by what I would say to Jesse when I finally got to him – when my phone beeped.

His text threw me. What exactly do you write back to something so dismissive?
Okay, honey, I believe you – can’t wait to see you next week! xxx
Not likely. A text was the easy way out. He was a coward. I needed him to defend himself in person, or at least over the phone.

Oh no he didn’t. He didn’t just patronise me when
he
was the one who had been busted cheating. Mumbling a brand of swear words usually reserved for angry pirates, I pumped
out a few replies, but none of them nailed the exact sentiment I was trying to express, which was along the lines of:
Gosh, you’ve really annoyed me! I am quite upset with you and wish you many hours of torture in a Chinese prison and a string of nasty STIs also.

Midway through composing The Text, my phone rang.

It was Iz. Finally.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Have you seen the papers?’

‘No, not yet. What’s happened?’

As usual when talking to Iz, I exaggerated a little for dramatic effect.

‘There’s a huge story on Jesse in the gossip section saying that he’s having an affair with the weather girl!’

‘He’s what? What do you mean he’s having an affair? Jesse doesn’t have affairs… Jesse can’t be in the gossip section. Han, this is mad; I don’t understand!’

‘And he’s denying it, but in such an arsehole of a way that I’m starting to think
it might even be true
.’

‘Oh Han…this is just awful. Is there proof? Like a photo of them together? Do you think that it might just be total rubbish, like when they say Lindsay Lohan is pregnant but really she’s just eaten pasta?’

‘There’s no photo – but several eyewitness accounts. And you know these things don’t just come from nothing. And he does always work back, and travel for business, and she would too, so it’s not like it’s far-fetched to think he could be, be…cheating…’

The tears came on without warning and with great ferocity. As I sobbed into the phone, Iz comforted me with ‘there there’ and ‘Han, you just let it all out,’ until finally I
calmed down to sniffs and eye-wiping.

‘I guess you’re right, Iz. I should get some better proof before I take this as gospel. But how? It’s not like I can call this Lisa girl and ask if she’s been sleeping with Jesse, is it?’

‘Hmmm. Well, I guess you’ll have to rely on Jesse to tell you the truth. Which I’m sure he will, and you know you’re fierce at body language so I’m sure you’ll be able to tell if he’s lying.’

‘Fierce’ was Iz’s new favourite word, and she used it to describe everything from a new bra she’d bought to the weather. Last month everything was ‘magic’.

‘That’s all fine and good, but he’s away for another five days. How am I meant to see where his eyes are looking over the bloody phone?’

Iz was the right person to ask – she was the chief detective of love gone foul after having overstayed her time in a
self-destructive
relationship with an absolute arse of a man called Finbar. He hadn’t so much as cheated on Iz as brought her into his harem of women.

‘Okay, when he calls you do the psychologist’s trick and be silent so he does all the talking. Works a treat: they get all awkward and over-talk, and that’s when you’ll catch him out. If there’s anything to catch him out on. People always feel they have to fill any gap in conversation. Oh, and if he ridicules it all, and defends himself excessively without being prompted, that’s a bad sign too. All bad liars do that. They usually even protect the tart they’ve been cheating with, too, can you believe it? And if he starts making final comments, using you being pissed off as a sign that you two may as well give up altogether?
Very bad sign.
’

Realising how serious and morbid what she’d just said
was, she backtracked. ‘But I don’t think you’ll get any of those, darling. Seriously, I mean, this is
Jesse
we’re talking about! He adores you! I’m sure it’s just stupid gossip.’

The idea of staying alert to all of those things exhausted me in advance, but I promised to play silent on the phone when Jesse called, and to phone Iz straight after so she could dissect his words. I consoled myself by confirming I now knew how Jessica Simpson must feel when she read gossip about
her
relationships.

Not two minutes later, the phone rang. It was him. I stared at his name flashing on my screen and proceeded to cry all over again. I couldn’t answer in this state – no way. I’d be useless at playing policewoman. He’d just play Doctor Soothe and make everything okay, and my only chance to catch him out would be gone. I let it go to message bank, finger poised on the voicemail button for the second the little envelope came up. Beep beep.

‘Hannah, why aren’t you answering your phone? You’re clearly all worked up over this silly article. I know you’re upset and it’s not a very nice thing to see, but I haven’t done anything wrong and I’d at least like the chance to tell you that in person before you write me off. Lisa’s just a friend. Nothing more. And yes, we go to work functions together, but there’s nothing seedy about going somewhere with workmates so I’ve never felt I needed to mention her.’ (Sigh.) ‘Look, call me back, okay?’

So he HAD been hanging out with her!
Dirty little tramp
. My mind hit the red zone. Maybe the gossip dragon was right! Maybe he
was
cheating with gorgeous, flirty Lisa Sutherland! I felt my breath quicken.

I had no idea what I would say, but I dialled his number.

‘Hello?’

That he answered like that when my name would’ve come up irritated me immediately.

‘It’s me.’

‘Oh, hey, Hannah. Did you get my message?’

‘Yep.’

‘Well, I don’t have much else to say really.’

I bit my lip so as not to explode and ruin my psych-out effect.

He was
already
being an arsehole.

‘Are you there, Han?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, aren’t you going to say something? I mean, I feel like I’m pretty unfairly under attack here.’

Shhh, Hannah, shhh.

‘And you know, put yourself in my shoes for a second – how would you feel being accused of this and not having a chance to defend yourself?’

‘This is your chance.’

‘All I need to say is that it’s crap, and that if Lisa and I go to a function as workmates, then why should we be crucified? If she were a fat old man, this wouldn’t be happening. It’s a joke.’

He was being defensive. He was defending her. My heart was beating furiously with the realisation that there was a real chance the papers weren’t lying. I had to say something.

‘Why would this just come from nowhere? What does the paper have to gain from making up a story on a couple of over-hairsprayed news muppets?’