Everybody is back in London. I mean everybody, and we are crammed in Mum and Dad’s house in the cul-de-sac… Isabelle, Imogen, Elaine, myself of course, even some of Elaine’s friends that I don’t know.
And I am sitting on the orange overstuffed leather armchair in the TV room, my legs hung over one of the arms, when I get a call from Ted Bucco.
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Ted’s in London. Yes, he too is back in town, and he wants to meet up at four o’clock.
The line is crackly. I can picture him sitting at a café in Piccadilly Circus. It’s already dark and the buses and taxis in the background are speeding through the rain, their lights washing across raindrop screens.
“I want to see the Louis CK movie,” he pleads. It’s in town.
“But I cannot,” I say back to him but the line is really bad.
“I want to see the Louis CK movie at four,” he repeats.
“But I cannot right now,” I insist.
Isabelle and Elaine, and Mum and Dad are in the room with me. There is the general bustle of others passing through and into the kitchen. It makes hearing Ted harder.
“How about tomorrow? It will be better,” I suggest.
Ted’s only in town for a few days. And the line is still breaking up.
“Look, give me a second while I move,” I tell him. “I’m going upstairs where hopefully the connection is better.”
As I step out from the room, I see one of Elaine’s friends in Mum’s bedroom, the other side of the landing. She is naked, and she is balanced on her hands and knees, on a stool facing away from the dresser.
The woman stretches her left leg up and back, pointing her toes towards the mirror, before putting her leg back down. Her long blonde hair covers her face so I don’t recognize her. Again, she stretches her leg towards the mirror, before putting it back down.
I cannot believe what I am seeing. Who is she? She must be one of Elaine’s friends. And who would do be there, naked, while visiting?
“Hang on,” I say again to Ted.
And I hesitate a second too long before continuing up the stairs.
London photo by Luca Biada via Flickr.
Line drawing by Ananda K. Coomaraswamy from The Cleveland Museum of Art via RawPixel.
