Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes (7 page)

from the choux pastry horns and smearing their fronts with it that made Aidan ask, "Anna, can
we get out of here?"
Can we get out of here? I looked at him, annoyed at his presumption. All that spur-of-the-
moment, let's-do-the-relationship-right-here stuff is fine when you're nineteen, but I was thirty-
one years old. I didn't just "get out of here" with strange men.
I said, "Let me just tell Jacqui I'm leaving."
I found her in the kitchen, showing a cluster of rapt people how to make a proper Manhattan, and
told her I was off. But before I could leave, I had to retrieve my coat from beneath a grunting
couple having sex in Kent's bedroom. All I could see of the woman was her legs and shoes, one
of them with gum stuck to the sole.
"Which coat is it?" Aidan asked. "This one? 'Scuse us, buddy. Just need to get this--"
He tugged and the coat moved an inch, then another, then with a final yank, it slithered free and
we were out the door. On a high from our escape, we couldn't wait for the elevator, so, fueled
with more energy than we'd normally have, we belted down several flights of stairs and ran right
out into the street.
It was early October, the days were still bright but the nights were chilly. Aidan helped me on
with my coat, a midnight-blue velvet duster, painted with a silvery cityscape.
"I like your look." Aidan stood back to check me out properly. "Yeah."
I liked his, too. With the hat and the jacket and the big boots, it was very Workingman Chic. Not
that I was going to tell him. And good thing Jacqui wasn't there to hear Aidan because remarking
on my clothes was classic Feathery Stroker acting-out. (Details on Feathery Strokers to follow.)
"Just a point I'd like to clear up," I said, a little snippily. "I didn't `disappear.' I went away.
Because you didn't want to go for a drink with me, remember?"
"I did want to. I wanted you from the very moment you head-butted me. I just wasn't sure I
could have you."
"Excuse me, you head-butted me. What sort of not sure?"
"Every sort."
T    wo blocks away we found a small weird underground bar, with red walls and a pool table.
Dry ice curled around our knees--the barkeep explained they were trying to re-create the glory

days before the smoking ban--and at Aidan's request, I told him all about my life as a magician's
girl.
"We're called Marvelous Marvo and Gizelda. Gizelda is my stage name and we're huge in the
Midwest. I sew all my own costumes, six hundred sequins per outfit, and I do them all by hand. I
go into a meditative state when I'm doing it. Marvo is actually my dad and his real name is
Frank. Now tell me about you."
"No, you tell me."
I thought about it for a while. "Okay. You're the son of a deposed East European despot who
stole millions from his people." I smiled, a little cruelly. "The money is hidden and the two of
you are looking for it." He looked progressively more anxious as his identity worsened. Then I
took pity and redeemed him. "But the reason you want to find the money is to return it to your
impoverished people."
"Thank you," he said. "Anything else?"
"You've a good relationship with your first wife, an Italian tennis player. And porn star," I added.
"In fact, you were an excellent tennis player yourself, you could have gone professional, until
RSI put paid to it."
"Speaking of which, how's your burned hand?"
"Good. And I'm happy to see you've recovered from the coma I put you in. Any side effects?"
"Evidently not. Judging from how this Saturday night has turned out, I seem to be smah-tah than
evah."
That Boston accent again. I found it devastatingly sexy.
"Say it again."
"What?"
"Smarter."
"Smah-tah?"
"Yes."
He shrugged, willing to please. "Smah-tah."
A rush of physical desire, similar to but worse than hunger, overtook me.
I'd want to keep an eye on that.

"Game of pool?" I suggested.
"You play?"
"I play."
Double entendre central and a meaningful eye meet that depth-charged something down low in
me.
After twenty minutes of potting balls into swingy pockets that reminded me of testicles, I beat
Aidan.
"You're good," he said.
"You let me win." I poked him in the stomach with my pool cue. "Don't do it again."
He opened his mouth to protest and I pushed the cue a bit farther. Nice hard stomach muscles.
We held a look for several seconds, then, in silence, returned our cues to the rack.
When the bar closed at 4 A.M., Aidan offered to walk me home, but it was too far. By about forty
blocks.
"We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," I said.
"Okay, we'll get a cab. I'll drop you off."
In the backseat, listening to the driver yelling in Russian on his cell phone, Aidan and I didn't
speak. I took a quick look at him, the lights and angular shadows of the city moving across his
face, making it impossible to see his expression. I wondered what would happen next. One thing
I knew: after the last knock-back, no way would I be offering business cards or convivial nights
out.
We pulled up at my crumbling stoop. "I live here."
Privacy would have been nice for our awkward "what happens now?" conversation, but we had
to sit in the cab because if we got out without having paid, the cabdriver might have shot us.
"Look...I guess you're seeing other guys," Aidan said.
"I guess I am."
"Can you put me on your roster?"
I thought about it. "I could do that."

I didn't ask if he was seeing other women; it was none of my business (that's what you had to
say anyway). Besides, something in the way Leon and Dana had behaved with me--pleasant but
not terribly interested, like they'd been introduced to a lot of girls by Aidan over the years--
made me sure he was.
"Can I have your number?" he asked.
"I already gave you my number," I said, and got out of the cab.
If he wanted to see me that badly, he'd find me.
9
I   woke up in the narrow bed in the sofa-filled front room and spent several dopey minutes
trying to look out of the window. Here came the elderly woman and her dog; I watched sleepily.
Then less sleepily. I half sat up: I wasn't imagining it. That poor dog did not want to do its
business but the woman was insistent. The dog kept trying to get up and leave but the woman
wouldn't let her. "Here!" I couldn't hear it, but I could see her say it. Odd.
Then in came Mum and I partook of a hearty breakfast--half a slice of toast, eleven grapes, eight
pills, and a record-breaking sixty Rice Krispies--because I needed to convince her how well I
was getting. While she was washing me--a miserable business with toweling cloths and a bowl
of scummy lukewarm water--I went for it.
"Mum, I've decided to go back to New York."
"Don't be shagging well ridiculous." She continued rinsing me.
"My scars are healing, my knee can take weight, all the bruises are gone."
It was strange, really; I'd had myriad injuries, but none had been serious. Although my face had
been black-and-blue, none of the bones had been broken. I could have been crushed like an
eggshell and spent the rest of my life looking like a Cubist painting (as Helen had put it). I knew
I'd been lucky.
"And look how fast my fingernails are growing." I wiggled my hand at her; I'd lost two
fingernails and the pain had been--I'm not joking--indescribable, far worse than my broken
arm. Even the morphine-based painkillers couldn't entirely negate it; the pain was always there,
just slightly further away, and I used to wake in the nighttime with my fingers throbbing so much
they felt swollen to the size of pumpkins. Now they barely hurt.
"You've a broken arm, missy. Broken in three places."
"But they were clean breaks and it doesn't hurt anymore. I'd say it's nearly better."

"Oh, you're a bone surgeon now, are you?"
"No, I'm a beauty PR and they won't keep my job open forever." I let that thought settle with
her, then I whispered darkly, "No more free makeup."
But not even that worked. "You're going nowhere, missy."
However, I'd picked my time well: that very afternoon I had my weekly hospital checkup, and if
the professionals said I was getting better, Mum wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
A    fter lots of hanging around, an X-ray was taken of my arm. As I'd thought, it was healing
fast and well; the sling could be removed immediately and the plaster could come off in a couple
of weeks.
Then onto the skin specialist, who said I was doing so well that the stitches could be taken out of
my cheek. Even I hadn't expected that. It hurt more than I'd thought it would and an angry, red,
puckered line ran from the corner of my eye to the corner of my mouth, but now that my face
was no longer being held together by navy-blue thread, I looked far, far more normal.
"What about plastic surgery?" Mum asked.
"Eventually," he said. "But not for a while. It's always hard to tell how well these things will
heal."
Then on to Dr. Chowdhury to have my internal organs poked and prodded. According to him, all
the bruising and swelling had subsided and he said, like he'd said on the other visits, how
unbelieveably fortunate I'd been not to have ruptured anything.
"She's talking about going back to New York," Mum burst out. "Tell her she's not well enough to
travel."
"But she was well enough to travel home," Dr. Chowdhury said, with undeniable truth.
Mum stared at him, and even though she didn't say it, not even under her breath, her "Fuck you,
fuckhead" hung in the air.
Mum and I drove home in grim silence. At least Mum did, my silence was happy and--I couldn't
help it--a little smug.
"What about your gammy knee?" Mum said, suddenly animated: all was not lost. "How can you
go to New York if you can't climb a step?"

"I'll make you a deal," I said. "If I can walk to the top of the stairs on it, I'm well enough to go
back."
She agreed because she thought I hadn't a hope of doing it. But she had no idea how determined
I was to leave. I would do it. And I did do it--even though it took over ten minutes and left me
covered in sweat and a little puky from the pain.
But what Mum was missing was that even if I hadn't been able to get past the first step, I was
leaving anyway. I needed to get back and I was starting to get panicky.
"See?" I gasped, sitting down on the landing. "I'm all better. Arm, face, innards, knee--better!"
"Anna," she said, and I didn't like her tone, it was so somber. "There's more wrong with you
than just physical injuries."
I processed that. "Mum, I know. But I have to go back. I have to. I'm not saying I'll stay there
forever. I might arrive back home very quickly, but I've no choice. I must go back."
Something in my voice convinced her because she seemed to deflate. "It's the modern way, I
suppose," she said. "Getting closure." Sadly, she went on, "In my day there was nothing at all
wrong with unfinished business. You just left a place and never went back and no one thought
there was anything wrong with that. And if you went a bit funny in the head and had nightmares
and woke the whole house, running around in the middle of the night screeching your head off,
the parish priest would be brought in to pray over you. Not that it ever helped, but no one
minded, that's just the way it was."
"Rachel will be in New York to help me," I reassured her.
"And maybe you'd think about going for some of that counseling stuff."
"Counseling?" I wondered if I was hearing right. Mum totally disapproved of any kind of
psychotherapy. Nothing would convince her that therapists employed confidentiality. Although
she had no proof, she insisted they regaled people at dinner parties with their clients' secrets.
"Yes, counseling. Rachel might be able to recommend someone for you."
"Mmm," I said musingly, as if I was considering it, but I wasn't. Talking about what had
happened wouldn't change a single thing.
"Come on, we'd better tell your father what's happening. He might cry, but ignore him."
Poor Dad. In a houseful of strong women, his opinion counted for nothing. We found him
watching golf on telly.
"We've a bit of news. Anna's going back to New York for a while," Mum said.

He looked up, startled and upset. "Why?"
"To get closure."
"What's that?"
"I don't really know," Mum admitted. "But apparently her life won't be worth living without it."
"Isn't it a bit soon to be leaving? What about the broken arm? And the gammy knee?"
"All on the mend. And the sooner she gets this fecking closure, the sooner she'll be back to us,"
Mum said.
Then it was time to tell Helen and she was quite distraught. "War crime!" She declared. "Don't
go."
"I have to."
"But I thought we could go into business together, you and me. We could be private
investigators. Think of the laugh we'd have."
Think of the laugh she'd have, snuggled up in her nice warm dry bed while I loitered in damp
shrubbery doing her job for her.
"I'm more use to you as a beauty PR," I said, and she seemed to buy that.
So they sent for Rachel to bring me back.
10
W      hile I waited to see if Aidan Maddox would find my number and ring me, I got on with
my life. I had my hands full of speed-dating dates.
However, Harris, the interesting architect, turned out to be a little too interesting when he
suggested that, for our first date, we have a pedicure together. Nearly everyone shrieked that it
was adorable, that it was original, and that he obviously wanted me to have a good time. But I
had my misgivings. As for Jacqui, who had no time for that Feathery Strokery sort of nonsense,
she nearly went through the roof.
She threatened to walk past the salon and shame me; luckily she was working that evening, and
when the time came and I was sitting beside Harris, the two of us like a king and queen, raised
above the salon on matching thronelike padded seats, up to our ankles in little pools of soapy
water, I've never been so glad.

Two women bowed before us, tending to our feet. All I could see were the tops of their heads,
and I was too ashamed to carry on a relaxed conversation in their abject, silent presence. Harris,
however, seemed perfectly comfortable, asking away about my job, telling me all about his. Then
he produced a cocktail shaker and two glasses, poured me a drink, and raised his glass. Christ, a
toast! "To the Mets winning," I said quickly.
"To toe sucking," he said.
Oh no. Oh, dear me, no.
So he had a foot thing. Which was fine. Fine. Not for me to judge. Just don't include me in it.
Not that he planned to. As soon as we'd finished and paid, he said to me, quite nicely, "We didn't
click. Have a good life." Then briskly he strode away on his freshly buffed feet.
Bloodied but unbowed, I prepared for my date the following evening with Greg, the baker from
Queens. Although it was October and far from warm, he'd suggested a picnic in the park. I had
to hand it to them, these New York guys had really raised their dating game.
We were meeting straight after work because Greg went to bed very early on account of having
to get up in the middle of the night to make bread. Also, after seven-thirty, it would be too dark
to actually see each other and what we were eating. As I marched along to the park, I insisted
that I felt hopeful. So this was a little unusual, but so what? Where was my sense of adventure?
At the park, I saw Greg waiting with a rug over one arm, a wicker picnic basket on the other, and
--with a thrill of horror--some sort of fool panama hat on his head.
It's a terrible thing to say but he was a lot fatter than I remembered from the speed dating. That
night we'd been sitting down with a table between us and I only really saw his face and chest,
which had been bulky but not noticeably tubby. But, seeing him at full height, he was...he was...
diamond-shaped. His shoulders were normal size, but he really sort of exploded around the waist
area. His stomach was massive--and although it kills me to say it because I hate when men say it
about women--he had a ginormous arse. An arse you could play handball against. But curiously
his legs weren't too bad and sloped down to a pair of neat little ankles.
He spread out the rug on the grass, then tapped his basket and said, "Anna, I promise you a feast
of the senses."
Already I was afraid.
Reclining on the rug, Greg opened his basket, took out a loaf, then closed the basket quickly, but
not before I'd seen that all that was in it was loads of bread.
"This is my sourdough," he said. "Made to my own recipe."