Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) (9 page)

There was a goldfish swimming in a plastic bag sitting on the desk.

In the booth, Damon had his head down, earpiece in, his eyes closed. He was memorising copy. The goldfish wasn’t gold, but spotted orange, black and white. It had a fantail that was the same length as its sleek body and wafted about in the water. It had black and white speckled fins and beady eyes. It waved its filmy, partly transparent fins and moved its mouth at her.

She looked up and Damon was looking back at her as though he knew she was there. She’d been one step off evil to him yesterday and he’d bought her a fish. Her eyes burned and she rubbed at them. She was going to tear up over a stupid fish in a plastic bag; over a man who’d taken her never having a pet comment to heart and hadn’t stupidly overcomplicated it by presenting a kitten. He’d meant this as gesture of something, she simply wasn’t sure what, especially as it really was her turn to apologise.

She toggled the intercom. He heard it and got a comment out first. “Her name is Fluffy.”

“You know how to sex a goldfish?” She covered her mouth with her hand. That traitor mouth which should’ve said thank you, that was very kind of you, I’m ready to record when you are. Instead she’d said the word sex to a man who looked like, well, weight loss hell in a chocolate box, he looked like sex.

“My powers of perception extend to all creatures great and small in the animal kingdom.” He wasn’t exactly smiling, but there was dimple.

“It’s a very nice fish.”

“For someone who doesn’t like seafood.”

“I don’t mind it when I don’t have to eat it.”

“Fluffy.”

“Why Fluffy?”

“Because I wanted to get you a kitten, but I have no idea if you long ago grew out of that desire or if you’d welcome that kind of a gift. A kitten is for life. A goldfish is something you can flush in ten seconds.”

She gasped. “I wouldn’t flush her.” She was a pretty goldfish. Not that you could form a relationship with a goldfish, but she was Georgia’s first ever pet. She wiped at her eyes. She was such a dope, the thing would probably die in the plastic bag before she got it home.

“That’s good. I won’t have to return the tank and fish food.”

“You bought me a tank and fish food?”

“I didn’t think you’d have that stuff hanging around.”

“I don’t. I.” She stopped to steady her voice. He’d be able to hear her emotion. “Why did you do this?”

He inclined his head to one side. “I need a reason?”

“Most people don’t buy other people who are awful to them goldfish.”

“You were awful?”

She nodded, then shook her head. It was so hard to remember he was blind. “I was.”

“You weren’t awful, Georgia. And I don’t want anything from you. Can we just be easy with each other?”

“You bought me a fish.”

Damon laughed. “She’s a cool fish, but I don’t really know if she’s a girl. I forgot to ask. Would you like to get started?” He fiddled with his earpiece. He was ready to work.

She looked at the fish. “Yes please.” Fluffy skimmed her mouth over the surface of the water, the tail working to keep her upright.

“I haven’t driven a car since I was fifteen. That’s something I miss.”

A fish and fish accoutrements, and another offering of himself. She looked back at him. “You were young to be driving.”

“I figured I should get a taste of everything possible while I still had sight. My parents were on board with that.”

“Everything?”

He dropped his head, but not before she saw his wide grin. “Yeah, I put my own foot out and tripped over that one didn’t I? Yes, everything, including things not necessarily fully clothed.”

Her eyes weren’t misty anymore, but other parts of her body reacted to that, tensing, tightening. What would he have been like as a teenager, knowing he was going blind and trying to fit everything he needed sight for into the time he had. “I can’t compete with that.”

“It’s not a competition, and I’m not asking for your sexual history. Just one thing about you I can hold onto while I’m in here on my own.”

She had no idea why he wanted that. Why he was so persistent. “I bought burnt fig, honeycomb and caramel ice-cream last night. I like it too.”

Damon smiled, dimple and all. He’d given her so much of himself and a goldfish, and she’d given him a grocery review.

“I came home to make a fresh start. I was married. It wasn’t good. I’m not seeing anyone either, and um, that’s the plan, to um, be on my own.”

“Georgia.”

She held her breath. Now she’d said too much. And she didn’t want to have to answer his questions. But that’s all he said, as if he was the one wanting reassurance.

“Yes, Damon.”

“I’m ready when you are.”

He meant to record, obviously, and for that she was thankful, but while she set his levels and he started on the script, it was hard not to imagine what it would be like to have a friend in Damon Donovan.

At the end of the day, Fluffy rode home in her plastic bag on Georgia’s lap in the bus, but the fish much preferred her tank with its little porcelain bridge and fake ferns. Georgia watched her swim in circles then hide under the bridge. That’s what she’d been doing with Damon, swimming in circles around her feelings and hiding in plain sight and for as much reason as the fish had.

She had no cause to be freaked out by him. She’d made what might have been a normal human interaction into something twisted and complex, because she was attracted to him and she didn’t know what to do about that and the whole thing was so straightforward. She needed to do nothing, because he was simply passing through her life and he’d be gone in three days. She had three days to make it up to him by behaving like a normal human being.

Next morning she waited for him in reception. He pushed through the front door, sunglasses on, a takeaway coffee cup in one hand, a white cane in the other.

“Good morning.”

“Georgia, it is. How’s Fluffy?” He folded the cane and tucked it in his satchel.

“Loves her tank. Does a lot of hiding from imaginary forces of evil.”

“That sounds serious. She might need therapy.”

“Maybe I can get a two-fer.”

He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head and gave her a quizzical look.

“I do a lot of hiding from imaginary forces of evil too.”

It was the perfect line. If they’d been a couple in a rom-com they’d have kissed and all the misunderstanding would’ve been forgiven and the Lauren character watching them would’ve been seen wiping her eyes or cheering, or maybe frowning as she plotted revenge.

Damon sipped his coffee but it didn’t cover his smile. “I think you’re safe with me.”

She was. Damon wasn’t Hamish. He was funny and generous. He didn’t feel sorry for himself, or hold her accountable for his issues. Of course he didn’t. In the scheme of things she was no one to him. She did need therapy. More of it. This time to adjust to being on her own and overreacting to men who pushed her carer trigger.

Before he was settled in the iso booth and had a chance to take control again, she said, “I went to England on a university exchange program and stayed.”

He stopped unpacking and looked up. “I’ve got a rare degenerative disease. It’s aiming to leave me in total darkness one day.”

He said it so matter-of-fact. “Do you worry about that day?”

He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “No. I’ve always known it was coming.” He was so pragmatic where Hamish was studiously unreasonable. “I’m ready when you are.”

They recorded the session and this time she joined the others over sandwiches with Damon, laughing at his stories about the trouble he could get into in airports, taxis and hotel rooms. But what she heard behind the humour, his willingness to make others laugh at his own misfortune, was how important his residual sight was to him, how often it saved the day. He might say he was ready for total darkness but it was hard to imagine how you could be.

The next day, Friday, their second last session together, she opened with, “I married my uni sweetheart. But we both changed and the marriage wasn’t good.”

She’d practiced that on Fluffy overnight and since she hadn’t hidden under her bridge, Georgia figured Damon would cope. Saying it made her feel like she had her own fantail to help her stay afloat.

“Were you too young?”

“Yes.” And both of them too damaged to know they wouldn’t be good for each other.

“You’re still young.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”

Damon was quiet a moment, looking at her through the glass. “I can’t stand songs where the singers name check themselves. Britney, Jessie J, Mr Worldwide. Who needs that.”

Now she was quiet, but she recognised he was trying to lighten the mood.

“Please laugh at that, Georgia.”

“Leonard Cohen, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell.” It wasn’t just a rap craze. She named the greats. She’d one-upped him and Damon laughed then spouted Mitchell’s lyrics to
Big Yellow Taxi,
the line about paving paradise for a parking lot, which she used to set their session up
.

They had lunch together again and talked about nothing particular because there were others around, but back in the studio the urge to keep spilling her secrets was impossible to ignore and there was something about their tentative conversation that was tender and secret. “My soon to be ex-husband has a brain injury.”

Damon frowned. “Was he injured before you married him?”

She looked down at her hands. This new desire to tell Damon such terrible truths was an ache in her chest that wasn’t relieved by saying it. “He was in a hospital bed.”

“That’s tough. You looked after him.”

“As best I could.” She looked up and Damon was gone.

He came out the door of the iso booth and stood looking at her. “Is that why you didn’t want to know me? You thought I was going to be like your husband? You thought I was going to need looking after?”

He was offended. “That’s a leap, isn’t it?” He was right.

“Is it? I’m disabled like he is.”

“You’re not. He’s. It’s.” It hadn’t gone this way when she’d talked it through with Fluffy. She’d thought this was what Damon wanted from her, something real, something that told him about her. But she’d told him about her prejudice.

“Jesus, Georgia. We’re not one size fits all, us disabled guys. Just because things were difficult with your husband.” He stopped abruptly and turned back to the door. “Never mind.” He felt for the wall, found the handle and let himself in. He went to the lectern and put his earphone in place. “I’m ready when you are.”

But he wasn’t. He muffed it. His annoyance bleeding through his tone and in the way he clipped his words. He called a stop before she did and stalked around the booth. She should probably go to him, but what was she supposed to say since she’d caused him to lose his cool? Eventually she said, “Can I get you anything?”

He came across to the window and leaned his forehead against it. He had his eyes closed so even if he could make her out through the glass he wasn’t trying to. She stepped around the control desk and up to the glass. She stood directly in front of him. She ran her hand over his image, across his hair and down his shoulder and arm.

Damon was the man she’d thought Hamish would be, talented, fearless, ambitious and undefeated. She pressed her hand to his spread on the glass, aligning their fingers, not able to meet the spread of his palm, the end of his fingers, wishing she was brave enough to do this without the thick silicon between them.

He straightened up and moved away. “Let’s get this done.”

When he started up again, he had it together. But he called the pace. And suddenly she was aware she’d never really been in control. He knew his voice. He knew when he’d given a noisy read and when he needed to redo a sentence. He could’ve engineered himself. Requesting her made even less sense.

When he was satisfied with his last read, he simply pulled his earpiece out and packed his gear away. He came out into the control room and looked in her general direction. “I’ll see you Monday. Have a good weekend.”

His voice was flat. She might’ve been a cardboard box to him. She couldn’t let him go without apologising. “Damon.”

“Let’s just get this job finished, okay?”

“It was my fault.”

He rested a hand against the wall. “One goldfish is all you get out of me, Georgia.”

“I mean it was my fault he was hurt.”

“How was it your fault?”

“I don’t. I can’t.”

“Then what did you tell me for?” He felt for the handle of the door and let himself out.

There was a problem with a recording in Studio A that afternoon and Trent asked if she’d stay behind to help redo the job overnight. It was a godsend. If she worked late she could go home exhausted, take a pill and stumble into bed, stay there the whole weekend and not think about how screwed up she was about Damon and about her new life in general. She needed help, but she’d not made any time to find a behavioural therapist to work this through with. That had to be her priority.

It was after midnight when she got back to the flat. Fluffy stirred when she switched on the light.

“Hello fish. Did you have a good day?” She took a carton of milk from the fridge and drank directly from it. “I was horrible to Damon again. I don’t know how to stop him tying me up in knots. I don’t know how to tell him what freaks me out about him, or why he’d even be interested. He must think I’m psychotic.”

She took another slug of milk. It was probably true. Fluffy made fish lips and fanned her tail. She floated in space, watching Georgia with googly eyes. Georgia had no idea if Fluffy could see and recognise her, but Damon had a way of looking straight into her heart.

And he can’t have liked what he saw there because he went and hid under his bridge.

She didn’t take a pill. She slept because she had a new plan. In the morning she went to the medical centre to ask for a referral to a cognitive behavioural therapist. Talking to someone trained, to help her sort through her actions and fears, kept her functioning after Hamish’s injury, and it would help now. And the sooner she started the better.