her diary and notes, takes her tea, mumbles something under her breath which sounds like Spanish, but I'm not sure, I don't do languages, and she leaves.
K proceed in collected canter left.
That woman is poison. Note to self, stay as far away from her as possible.
Daniel and James look at each other and James rolls his eyes, “OK” he says closing his diary, “that’s what happens when you keep ex’s around.” What?
“Stop it” Daniel tells him....And, what?
“Didn’t I tell you to get rid of her Danny, she’s a weird one, and that’s no lie, remember…?” Daniel cuts him off before he can finish, James shuts down the thread of conversation.
“Not now Jim, please.” He turns to indicate there's another person in the room. Daniels phone vibrates, “I have to take this” he tells us walking out of the room, but not before shooting James a warning glare, we can hear him talking on the phone.
“She was obsessed with him Tharie” James tells me conspiratorially in a whisper, “they dated for a couple of months.” Why is he telling me this I wonder? “It ended badly” he leans into me and lowers his voice even more, “she followed him home and slept in her car in his driveway, every night for a week until Stan found her.”
I don’t know what to say. So I don't. For a while.
“Why are you telling me this James?” I close my notebook, “I can tell she doesn’t like me, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” I sound surer of that than I feel. “Daniel must keep her around for a reason?” James is looking at the phone in his hand, likely he feels I deserve an explanation because of Pete. But that might be reaching?
“She got weirder, followed him everywhere, he broke it off it was only casual, she went mental. Broke down, had to be admitted to a clinic” he looks down at his hands, he wants to tell me everything, I’m not sure why. Perhaps Pete has spoken to him about me?
“And?” I help.
“Danny paid for her stay, said it was his fault, which of course it wasn’t.” He looks up at me, “but he ignored all our advices on the matter, and his guilt about the whole affair made him offer her a job here.”
“I can't believe he did that?” How lovely is this man? And also, how dumb.
“She’s a good designer Tharie, she’s been getting slowly and steadily better, for months they didn’t talk, but it’s been good lately. We hear Daniel wrap up his conversation, and he glances toward the door, he doesn’t want to upset his brother. “But the last few days, the old Steffi is emerging, making secret phone calls, furtive looks, behaving nervously. Then this morning, after you arrived, she books a holiday right out of the blue.” He raises his brows to me as Daniel walks in, “no notice even.” Daniel looks at us both, one face to another, aware we’ve been chatting. Well, we’re hardly subtle are we?
“Jim, please don’t,” Daniel sits down, “leave it.”
“OK, OK, once more I’ll keep quiet about it, but that girl, she’ll break one day, and it won’t be pretty.” He stands to leave, “let her go Danny.” And he leaves us alone.
Newton leans in through the door, hanging on the frame, “there’s a call for you Danny,” and he passes Daniel the office handset, and leaves immediately. Daniel holds the handset to his chest, kisses me on the head and leaves. I take this to mean meeting over, and head back to my own office to absorb this information, put my phone in the docker and hit play shuffle. You never quite know what you’re going to get, but it starts with Killswitch Engage, so I’m very happy.
That’s why Steffi has taken an instant dislike to me, she thinks Daniel and I are together, well maybe we are, but I’m not sure ‘together’ is something Daniel does. He likely just wants a fuck-buddy, well that’s nice and uncomplicated for now, but knowing me, I’ll get bored waiting for something more. I look over the balcony outside my office into the cavernous hall below, Steffi glares up at me, she's on the phone, I take that as a cue to leave.
TC: “Boys are odd aren’t they?” True story.
EC: “Your Dad was, it’s why I loved him” I recall.
TC: “And did you ever get closer to understanding him?” I certainly didn’t.
EC: “Nope, but I always had spare pants, a plastic spoon,