Page 42 of The Missus
Keira was pretty sure that Alanna was in the flat today. But she hadn’t seen her in person since her date last night. Keira considered knocking on her door and simply asking how it had gone. But she didn’t. She had work later, so Keira didn’t want to bother her if she was just getting ready. She’d see her later, anyway, at her mother’s anniversary thing. They could catch up then.
Until then, Keira decided she was going to stay out of the flat. She went to the cinema alone, something she did occasionally. The movie was crap and nothing she’d even wanted to see. But the cinema had the advantage of not being within metres of where Alanna was possibly having sex with someone.
She drove straight from the bad movie to a bad party, trying not to get in her head about it all. But it didn’t work. Her mind was locked on to Alanna.
She knew it was crazy. She knew it didn’t matter if Alanna was sleeping with someone. Keira knew just how meaningless sex was. Only, that wasn’t how Alanna did things. So if she was with someone, did it mean something?
What the hell kind of a line of thinking was this? Keira didn’t dissect the motivations of women. She didn’t think about whether they liked her as much as she liked them. She didn’t care.
But this, this was different. Today, Keira cared.
Well, of course shecared. She was supposed to bloody care. They were friends. It made it easier to share living quarters at any rate. Keira might even go so far as to say it was good having Alanna there. And not just for the rapid ejection service she provided. It was… nice. Comfortable. Sort of cosy. Almost like it turned Keira’s place from somewhere to live into a home.
Keira had a thought that almost caused her to crash the car. That the way Alanna brightened up the place was possibly how it felt to have an actual girlfriend.
Keira didn’t wantthat. She’d never wanted it. Why would she? She didn’t even know what it would look like, not really, not up close. All she knew had been provided by fictitious representations: books and TV. But she’d learned early that fiction lied about things. Fiction told you that if you were a good person, life worked out for you. The universe rewarded you. Bullshit. Keira hadn’t been a bad kid. She’d done her best, yet no good had come to her. Round after round of meet and greets where people came and talked to Keira and acted as though they liked her before they selected a different kid to adopt. People didn’t choose Keira, not in the long term.
Some of the people she slept with thought they would. But even a flighty fuck-up like Kelly would do an about-turn if it ever got real. As soon as Keira said yes to somebody, they’d see the mistake. Keira knew that. Everything she’d ever had, she’d scratched and fought for—her home, her work, her life. But people weren’t something to fight for. They were fickle. They could carry you in their belly for nine months, give birth to you, and still change their minds about you.
Needless to say, carrying all that heavy shit into a party for a person she didn’t like probably wasn’t the best idea. What didn’t help things was that when she rang the bell, bloody Benjamin opened the door. Buttoned to the neck as ever, he frowned upon seeing Keira. ‘Oh.’
‘Hello to you too, Benjamin.’
‘I didn’t thinkyou’dcome,’ he said.
‘I have no idea why you’re answering the door, but you really need to work on your greeting skills,’ Keira told him.
‘The party’s in the back. I was just using the toilet, and the door went. I was being polite.’
‘I think you might need to look up that word.’
Benjamin gritted his teeth, and Keira looked at him for several seconds until he realised that the next stage of this thing was him getting the hell out of the way so she could get in. Once she managed to squeeze into the house, she had a look around. It was a swish place. Big and filled with classic fancy boomer shit. Rotary phones, leather Chesterfields, the whole thing.
‘Is Alanna here yet?’ she asked, wiping her feet on the mat.
‘She didn’t come with you? That’s a bit odd,’ Benjamin smirked.
‘She had a late appointment today. She said she’d meet me here.’
They stared each other down for a moment until Benjamin couldn’t stand it anymore and gestured down the hall. ‘Just head out, it’s through there.’
Keira headed down the hall, noting portraits on the wall. Many of Mrs Lennox and a cheery-looking guy that Keira presumed was the surgeon husband Alanna had told her about. There were no photos of Alanna.
Out in the very large, precision-manicured back garden, there was classical music and drink trays, as well as lots of old men in linen trousers and women in hats. Keira decided that not one of these old dudes wearing linen did their own ironing, or they wouldn’t wear it. It took bloody ages to press it, and some miserable sod was probably sweating over it for them on minimum wage. That darkened Keira’s already sour mood. Just seeing linen.
‘Oh, Keira. You came,’ said a light drawl, and she turned to see Mrs Lennox. She was wearing a white linen dress. Keira’s hatred was reignited. ‘Mrs Lennox,’ she said simply.
‘Alanna not with you?’ Mrs Lennox asked, frowning down at Keira’s jeans. Keira didn’t care. They made her arse look spectacular, and that was higher on her priority list than impressing this woman.
‘She’s probably on her way.’
‘I see.’ Mrs Lennox turned and grabbed a drink from a passing tray. ‘Champagne?’
Keira took the glass and had a swig. It was disgusting. She was more of a beer girl. But she said, ‘Thanks,’ anyway.
‘I didn’t take you for a champagne drinker,’ Benjamin said from behind her. She didn’t realise he’d crept up on her. She downed the entire glass and handed him the empty. ‘Thought wrong.’ He looked around awkwardly and saw a table, placing it down.
‘Another glass, Benjamin?’ Mrs Lennox asked him, a smile for him that Keira hadn’t gotten.
