‘Hello?’
The air vent made the voice below tinny and unfamiliar but I was fairly certain it was a man. Without a better plan, I steeled myself to put up a fight. Whoever this man was, this man with keys to my apartment and no concern about finding someone inside. Sheesh, it was as though he owned the place …
‘Angela, are you in there?’
‘ALEX!’ I shouted, banging on the air vent. ‘Alex, I’m in here!’
The echo really did not make me sound ladylike.
‘Holy shit.’ Obviously I couldn’t see him but I could hear his voice was closer and, unless I was very mistaken, he was trying not to laugh. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Can you please just get me down?’ I sniffed, overwhelmed with the emotional charge of the fact that he had come to find me, that I wasn’t going to starve to death and be eaten by rats and that I was going to be able to have a wee on a toilet within the next five minutes. ‘I left something up here.’
‘Gimme a sec,’ he replied, definitely laughing this time. ‘I think there’s a ladder in the hall.’
I wiped away a tear and rocked myself from side to side until I was as close to the edge of the vent as I could get without falling out.
‘OK, there’s no ladder,’ he shouted. ‘Can you wait while I go find one?’
‘No,’ I called back, panic levels rising again. ‘Please can you just get me down? Please?’
‘Can you fall and I’ll catch you?’ he suggested.
I shook my head, the tears coming again. Maybe if I kept this up, I wouldn’t need to pee after all. There couldn’t possibly be that much fluid left in my body after all the sweating and puking that morning.
‘Are you shaking your head instead of talking to me?’ Alex asked.
‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘I can’t fall. I’ll squash you and then you’ll die and then everyone will hate me.’
‘You won’t squash me and I won’t die.’ I felt a warm hand on my foot. ‘And no one hates you.’
‘Everyone hates me,’ I corrected him. ‘How did you find me?’
‘I looked everywhere for you in the store,’ he said, squeezing my toes. ‘But you weren’t there so I called your phone and you didn’t answer. Eventually I went back to the apartment and you weren’t there so I figured you’d be at Jenny’s.’
‘I didn’t get any calls.’ I tried to squeeze his fingers back with my toes. It was a little gross. ‘I had my phone on all day.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m dumb. I was calling your old phone.’
‘Oh.’ I couldn’t really call him on that, I’d done stupider things. Like climb into the ceiling of an empty apartment on my own on a Saturday night. ‘So you called Jenny?’
‘Yeah.’ The hand around my foot tightened. ‘I don’t know what went down there but she is steaming.’
‘I know,’ I said. Having had some time to reflect, I felt pretty horrible. ‘I messed up. Really messed up. She didn’t say anything?’
‘She said a bunch of things,’ he said gently. ‘None of which need repeating right now.’
‘Alex, I’m so sorry.’ I pressed my face into my hands and groaned. ‘I’ve been such a twat lately. Such a complete twat. I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I’m sorry I haven’t been listening. I’m sorry I haven’t been good enough.’
‘Hey, don’t,’ he replied, tapping my calf. ‘I guess I got ahead of myself in the baby conversation. In that there wasn’t even really a conversation.’
‘I need to talk to you about that too.’ I watched a couple of fat tears plop onto the metal vent and roll towards me. Thank God I hadn’t had that wee. ‘I went to see a doctor with Jenny the other week and had some tests.’
I felt him stiffen beneath me and really wished I could see his face.
‘So, I don’t really know anything but she said there might be some problems.’ I breathed in, waited a second, and breathed out again. ‘With me. Having a baby.’
‘What exactly did she say?’ he asked, his comforting hand turning into more of a clamp. ‘Exactly?’
‘Just that things weren’t exactly where she’d like them to be?’ I tried to remember her exact phrasing but I’d told myself this story over and over so many times I couldn’t quite remember the original words. ‘She wants me to go in for some tests. She didn’t say it won’t happen, just that it might not be as easy as it is for some people.’
A couple more tears plopped onto the air vent as my breath fogged up the metal in front of my face. Alex didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything – at least not anything I was aware of – so I decided to carry on talking. Because that always went so well for me.
‘I didn’t want to worry you about it yet,’ I said. It was more or less true, I just hadn’t actually scheduled a time when I did want to worry him about it. ‘And I didn’t think it was something we were thinking about right away so I just sort of, you know …’
‘I know,’ he said, his grip on my leg loosening a little. ‘But you also know I want to be worried about things. Not just this, all the things.’
‘Um … then Jesse from work tried to kiss me last night, I think Cici is going to try and get me sacked, Jenny and Louisa aren’t talking to me because I said some really horrible things to them and I’m worried that I’m going to pee on you if I don’t get out of here in the next five minutes.’
‘Jesus,’ Alex breathed. ‘Shall we just deal with this baby stuff first?’
‘You’ve got five minutes.’
‘OK, here’s how I see it,’ he started. ‘I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I guess, yeah, I didn’t mention it because I figured you would get there on your own and I wasn’t in any kind of rush. But then Erin got pregnant again and then she had the baby and then Grace came to stay and you just didn’t seem interested at all.’
‘I was interested,’ I protested weakly. ‘Sort of.’
‘You weren’t,’ Alex corrected me. ‘And that’s totally fine. You had so much going on with the magazine and, you know, I get that. I have my music, I know how it feels to want to create something, to want to see it succeed. That’s kind of like a baby too, you know?’
‘Mm-hmm,’ I agreed. He was right, that was exactly how it felt.
‘And you can’t rush shit like that. But it didn’t stop me being a little jealous that the magazine was taking you away from me.’
‘Nothing could take me away from you,’ I interrupted, slapping the side of the air vent for effect.
‘OK, stop hitting things before the whole damn thing falls out of the ceiling.’ He slapped my leg just as hard. ‘And let me finish before you pee your pants. Like I said, I know it’s irrational but I felt a little abandoned. And so I started looking for a new place, thinking maybe it would get you thinking.’
‘Crazy idea but it would have been a lot easier to just ask me.’
‘Since when was just asking you anything ever the easy option?’
He took my silence as tacit agreement. Which it was.
‘And actually, I tried to start the conversation a bunch of times but you always shot me down,’ he reminded me. ‘So I stopped asking and I thought I’d stop thinking about it.’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘But I didn’t,’ he agreed. ‘And I guess earlier, I was just so tired and so frustrated that I lost my shit. And that’s not OK. I’m so sorry. As soon as I walked away, I wanted to come back and make it right but I couldn’t find you.’
‘We were both tired and stressed. I was a dickhead as well,’ I said, gently patting his shoulder with my right foot. At least I hoped it was his shoulder. ‘Please don’t apologise. I feel horrible about it.’
‘Then it never happened,’ he replied. ‘And we never, ever have to go back to Ikea again. Unless it’s just for the hot dogs.’
‘Deal,’ I replied, feeling the first smile of the day spreading across my face. I wasn’t sure whether it was for the hot dogs or my husband but I was happyish and that was enough.
‘But about this baby stuff …’ Oh, Alex wasn’t done. Damn him for wanting to have the full deep and meaningful while I couldn’t get away. ‘We’ll make an appointment for the doctor first thing in the morning, right?’
I nodded.
‘Are you nodding?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ One more squeeze of the foot for luck. ‘And it’s not because I’m trying to get you barefoot and pregnant, it’s because we need to know. Whatever we decide, whatever you want to do, it’s not healthy to have uncertainty hanging over you, babe.’
‘I know,’ I told the air vent.
‘And it doesn’t matter what the doctor tells us,’ he said. ‘You’re still you, we’re still us. We’ll work this out however. And if you decide you never want a baby, regardless of what happens, I don’t know, I’ll get a puppy or something. There’s no rush.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want a baby ever,’ I tried to explain the best way I could. ‘I think a tiny little version of you would be amazing. I just want to be ready.’
‘Then we wait until we’re both ready,’ Alex promised. ‘All I want is you. A baby would be, like, the icing. Really expensive, poop-covered, cries-all-the-time-and-never-lets-us-sleep icing.’
‘Way to sell it, Reid,’ I choked on a happy sob. ‘I really was going to tell you, it’s just been one thing after another this week.’
‘Yeah, getting back to that,’ he said, raising his voice a little. ‘What do you mean Jesse from work tried to kiss you?’
‘Can you not punch him out?’ I asked. ‘I don’t want you in prison over Christmas. Also, I really don’t want to have to hire a new managing editor.’
‘DUDES!’ I heard the door being flung open and riotous laughter filling the apartment below me. ‘What is going on? This is some kinky shit.’
‘Shut up and put up the ladder,’ Alex sighed, letting go of my feet. ‘Come on, she’s stuck.’
‘Craig?’ I called. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yeah, I’m doing double duty as a moving guy and superhero today,’ he replied, still laughing. ‘Nice underwear, Angie.’
‘Thank you.’ I pressed my burning cheeks against the chilled metal of the vent and tried to be happy that any minute now I would be out of the ceiling and back on solid ground. The fact that I’d never live this down with Craig was something I’d have to deal with later.
I should have slept like a log on Saturday night but instead I spent hours staring up at my new ceiling while Alex snored quietly beside me. Every time I felt sleep washing over me, I’d get a sudden jolt, a tension in my shoulders. My arms and legs felt tight, like I wanted to shake them, like I wanted to run, so I knew something was wrong. I never wanted to run. I still had nightmares about a personal trainer I’d hired for a week when I started at
Gloss
. On a normal day, moving house might have been enough to put me under for a month and the stress of getting stuck in an apartment ceiling would, I imagined, be pretty exhausting. But when I piled everything up on top of each other, threw in the row with Alex, the apocalyptic battle with Jenny and Louisa, my mum’s transatlantic rage and the assorted work dramaramas, it really was all too much.
I rolled over and reached for my phone, hiding under the covers to avoid waking Alex. There was still no word from Jenny or Louisa but I knew if I could just get something out of one of them, I’d feel better. Even if it was ‘fuck off’ it would be better than this complete shut-out. It was still early in Jenny Land, barely even eleven, but Alex had passed out at ten thirty with half a slice of pizza in his lap and I was sure Jenny and Lou would still be awake, probably out somewhere, probably with James. I couldn’t pretend it didn’t sting that my three friends were getting along so well without me but I also couldn’t pretend I was blameless. Maybe I had got too wrapped up in my own problems. I had kind of assumed Jenny and Lou would sort themselves out – after all, they were so much better at that sort of thing than me. Arguing with Alex, on the rare occasions it happened, made me want to call Jenny, buy ice cream and watch four hours of
America’s Next Top Model
on her living room floor. Arguing with Jenny made me want to cut off a leg. Arguing with Jenny
and
Louisa made me want to cut off a leg and beat myself to death with the soggy end. It just wasn’t right.
Louisa would be mad but I knew she would forgive me eventually. We were practically blood and, aside from that, I knew she was physically incapable of holding a grudge. Jenny on the other hand thrived on grudges. It had been ages since we’d had a blow-up and I had no idea how long it might go on for, especially if she really was serious about this whole baby thing. I opened my text messages and scrolled back, tapping the ‘load more’ button again and again. I was very happy no one ever saw our conversations. ‘Why am I sat in my underwear eating cheese slices on a Sunday morning?’ ‘I just sent a sext to our dry cleaner by accident. He’s into it – what do I do?’ ‘How many Harry Potter movies is too many Harry Potter movies for an American woman over thirty in one afternoon?’
Yes, she was insane but I loved her. I was a bit mad we couldn’t go to that dry cleaner anymore but still. I really didn’t know what I would do without her.
‘I’m sorry. Can you call me?’
It was a very simple text but for some reason, despite my alleged profession, it took me nearly twenty minutes to get it right. As soon as I pressed send, I felt better. At least well enough to get out of bed, eat half a slice of cold pizza and have a wee. And that was enough.
‘Bagel delivery.’ Alex appeared from behind a pile of boxes bigger than him and threw a small paper parcel into my lap. ‘Have you actually unpacked a single box?’
I nodded, stuffing the bagel into my mouth and promising myself that I would go to yoga on Monday. I pointed towards the bedroom and chewed.
‘Shoes,’ I said from behind my hand. ‘Shoes and handbags.’
‘I’m glad the important stuff got figured out,’ he replied. ‘And now books?’
‘I can’t settle until all the stuff is on the shelves,’ I explained. ‘I’ll feel better.’
‘OK.’ He held up his hands and began to walk away. ‘Whatever works for you. I’ll be in the bedroom putting away my one bag of clothes.’
‘That’s not something to be proud of,’ I shouted after him, wrapping up the rest of the bagel and looking over at my phone for what had to be the hundredth time that morning. Jenny still hadn’t replied and I hadn’t heard a thing from Louisa. It was horrible.
‘Hey.’ Alex reappeared above my boxes, a sympathetic smile on his face. ‘Until you get this Jenny thing figured out, you’re totally useless to me. Go see her.’