Trying to Throw my Arms Around the World

Deflection

Deflection

I sat there, in the glaring lights of Anna’s kitchen, across from Roz, once again, but this time outside the ambiguous safety of her office. She looked at me expectantly, her eyes glowering through her glasses − and I was already feeling so self-conscious.

“What are you trying to say?” I felt as if I had somehow landed myself in the middle of a frustrating semi-erotic dream.

“Nothing, maybe we should−” 

“I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” Anna said as she paced back into the kitchen. “She’s usually not much of a drinker.”

“Maybe she’s feeling a little neglected,” I blurted out, eager to shift the focus away from my problems. I had trouble handling one shrink, I couldn’t face both Roz and Anna’s best intentions.

“What? Did she say something?” Anna asked, crashing down on a kitchen chair with a heavy sigh.

“Yeah.” They both peered at me with analytical eyes and almost identical frowns folding along their foreheads − Anna’s was smoother because she was a few years younger. “She suspects you’re having an affair, with Roz.” The disbelief gripping both their faces tightly, wrinkling their skin with worry, confirmed my earlier conclusion. Nathalie was wrong. If Anna was cheating on her, it wasn’t with Roz.

“Why would she think that?” Roz asked. It was the first time I saw her lose some control over her demeanour. She turned to Anna, who sat next to her, and shot her a confused look full of despair. “Anna?”

“I really wouldn’t know.”

“I told you because I clearly thought it was bollocks,” I said. “I think I’d better go now.” Anna just kept sitting there, her long slender figure erasing the chair.

“I’ll go with you.” Roz put her hand on Anna’s shoulder and said, “Talk to her. Now.”

“I can assure you there’s nothing going on between us.” Roz and I stood in the downstairs hallway.

“It’s not me that needs convincing.” I opened the door and stepped outside, ready to put this strange Monday night behind me.

“Do you want to go for a drink?” The street lamp caught her hair again, directly this time, without the window as a filter, and it glowed so much that I felt it in my soul. “I sure could use one. There’s a pub just at the next corner.”

No, I thought. 

“Yes,” I said and I wondered if it was more than projecting, more than idle self-centred stupid lust. “But don’t you have a husband to go home to?”

“Richard’s away this week, big electronics fair in Switzerland. He’s an engineer, he’s introducing a new product. Worked on it for years.” Her voice beamed with pride. Anna loved Nathalie and, judging by the change of tone in her voice as she spoke of him, Roz was crazy about her husband. Good for them, I thought, but what about me? When will someone’s pitch lower when they talk about me?

“Sorry about earlier.” Roz sipped her pint of Stella as if it was the most expensive brand of wine. If she kept up that pace, we’d be here all night. “I shouldn’t have cornered you like that.”

“It struck me as very unprofessional.” I lifted my eyes from the thin foam collar of my beer to her face. “How can I ever trust you again?”

“Tone down the drama and let me help you.”

“How much help are we talking about here?”

“We may need a few more months.” When she smiled her face didn’t light up, she didn’t have that kind of a smile. 

“OK then,” I said. “Take my money, insult me, and call it therapy.”

“Gladly.”

To be continued…