his. The feeling of time being suspended. The silence of my world breaking. She’s all I can think about and now the movie makes no sense. June passes the bucket of popcorn over but I nudge it back towards her.
“Actually, June, I don’t feel so good. I’m going to go home I think. Sorry.” I’m sitting on my leather jacket and I move around, trying to wriggle it free.
“Oh, honey, sure! Let’s go, some fresh air will do you good.” She begins to gather her things but I put my hand on her arm.
“No, you stay, enjoy the movie.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not really into it, anyway.”
Behind us a man makes an impatient click of the tongue and we scurry away, half bent in the darkness.
We end up at the Wonder Bar where we manage to score the window seat, a long padded bench nestled in a nook against the glass. I immediately order a Bourbon lemon tonic and lean back against the fake-fur pillows.
It only takes two sips before I tell her what happened during my lecture. She listens, her mouth agape, her eyes growing wider until she brings her hands against her face and groans.
“How horrible, Anna.”
“Trust me, it could have been so much worse.”
“But where did the photo come from? Who took it?”
The words tumble out of me, making me realize how tightly coiled they were inside me, like I’ve let a spring loose.
“I kind of screwed up.” I say this with my teeth bared, like an emoji trying to be funny. “This was when I had my suspicions Luis was having an affair. I’d also just found out Mila had gotten the promotion instead of me. I’m not trying to make excuses here… or maybe I am.” I wave a hand in the air. “Suffice to say, I felt like shit, and there he was, this nice man who made me laugh and who was interested in me. Somehow, we ended up in some empty office… Honestly, I didn’t even know what he had in mind but when he started to kiss me… I went along with it. Let the god of perfect wives come down and strike me with thorns or something, but I was thinking about what Luis had done, and frankly I was in the mood for revenge. I was imagining myself telling him later, one day, a long away. Guess what, Luis?” I laugh. “Hey, now the joke’s on me. And Luis will probably find out. One day, Ryan will strike.” I press my fingers against my eyes. “I think he’ll want money.”
“Money? Like blackmail?”
I nod. “I should have tried to stop him long ago. I kept wishing he would go away.”
“You weren’t to know, Anna.”
I look at her. “Oh, but I did. You remember the word on my car that day? I’m pretty sure he did that.”
“But that was weeks ago! And, anyway, wasn’t it just kids?” She looks doubtful.
“Will you help me find him, June? I don’t know what else he’s going to do but he’s scaring me. He’s stalked me in the past—”
“Stalked?”
“Yes. The day I found out about the prize, we went out for dinner to celebrate—”
“At the Confit d’Oie?”
“Yes! Wait. How do you know?”
“You told me!”
“Did I?”
“In Geoff’s office. When we had those celebratory drinks.”
I shudder when she says his name. Geoff. I’m yet to tell June what he did. I think I haven’t because I want to banish the event from my mind. Pretend it never happened. But I don’t think June would let me if she found out. She would tell someone, even if it meant she would lose her job.
I shrug. “Anyway, he showed up outside the restaurant. They’ve got those big bay windows, floor to ceiling. It was awful. He stood there for ages, watching me. Everyone saw him. Creepy doesn’t even begin to describe it. I went to chase him up at work, of course, and that’s when I found out he doesn’t work there anymore.”
“I’m so sorry, Anna. That’s awful.”
“I know. Then this… photo… what if he sends it to other people?”
She shakes her head for a moment, then she jerks her chin towards my bag. “Show me.”
“No way. I don’t even want to talk about it anymore.” I knock back the rest of my drink. June motions to the waiter to get us another round.
“Okay. Tell me about the dinner with Isabelle, then,” she says. “What happened?”
I hop from one bad experience to the next. I describe the whole