Page 12 of The Moon Also Rises
I wouldn’t say I’m going on these walks to avoid Jake, but it’s become clear over the last week or so that we’re definitely not going to be friends. Despite my zealous use of emojis in all my emails to him, far too many minutes spent researching funny GIFs for Fridays, and the way I bring him a coconut milk double shot latte most mornings, he hasn’t exactly mellowed to my presence in the office. His tone changes whenever he speaks to me, and he’s even stopped making jokes at my expense, something that shouldn’t depress me at all, but it does. I lived a fairly banter-free existence for the last six or seven years, and I crave the kind of sense of humour Jake has.
There’s something about being near him when he’s bantering with Sharon or someone on the phone that wakes me up, excites me almost. I get this sense that what you see is what you get with Jake and considering my past, that’s very reassuring. But it’s not there when he talks directlytome.
It’s not like on my first day I expected to walk into a room of people willing to be my best friends, but I did think I’d have made a few friends by now. But to most people I work with, I’m their boss and to those on a similar level to me – like Jake – they don’t come to work to make friends. They already have countless friends, as well as their own families and busy lives away from work. They just want to do their work and then go home. They don’t want to have coffee for more than fifteen minutes. They don’t want to go grab something to eat after the working day is done. Sure, Bill and Simeon have both invited me out for a dinner, but so far I’ve refused. Becoming closer to the company’s owners would do little to improve my popularity with everyone else.
Jake clearly has more than enough friends and I dare say the rest is true about everyone else roughly the same age as me. It’s not liketheyspent a number of years deliberately cutting everyone they loved out of their life.
Maybe that’s why today’s walk has a specific destination and I’ve timed it so I’ll hopefully get there at a good time. If not, I’ll sit and wait until she’s free. I just really need to see somebody who cares about me.
A bell rings as I open the door, and my sister is the first person behind the long glass counter to look up and see me. Dressed in a three-piece suit made from purple and yellow tweed with a matching lilac hijab, a smile beams out of her face as she approaches me.
“Rami!” she says before I pull her into a big hug. “This is a surprise.”
“Yeah,” I say and release her. “I was in the area so thought I’d pop in. You got time for a quick break?”
Radia glances at the man at the far end of the counter, who I assume is her boss, Giles. His name does not match his short, stocky body, nor his impressive, curled moustache. He’s wearing tailored suit trousers with a waistcoat, both in a royal blue pinstripe. Muscles bulge out of his white shirt, and I know my eyes linger on them a little too long because my sister subtly knocks her elbow into me as she asks him if she can take a break.
“Go ahead, take as long as you want,” Giles says as he stops folding fabric to walk over and shake my hand. I don’t know if it’s his physique or the firm grip of his hand but my body heats as he pulls away. “Heard all about you, man. It’s a real honour to finally meet you. I couldn’t believe it when Radia told me who you were.”
I flash a quick glare at my sister. “Well, thanks. All a long time ago now,” I say, my stomach swirling in on itself with something nauseating. Nostalgia? Regret? Shame?
“Come on,” Radia says and she leans over the counter to grab her phone and a set of keys, clipping them onto her belt hoop with a carabiner. “Lunch is on you!”
Once we are outside and a decent distance away from the shop, I return the nudge that Radia gave me, but it’s a little harder than hers was. “You told him about me. Do you tell everyone?”
“No, but he’s my boss and my friend. I’ve been working there for a long time. He was there for me when…” she trails off.
“When I came back from the dead,” I finish for her.
“I was more thinking when your brain started working again.” She leans her arm against mine and I know she wants me to look at her, so I do. Her silvery eyes – the same narrow shape and shimmering grey shade as mine – twinkle in the early summer sunshine. It’s good to see her.
“Whatever it was, I’m glad it happened,” I say, and despite it all, I really am.
“Me too,” she says, and we walk together in silence for a few seconds before she speaks again. “How’s work going? Still a refugee in the diva’s office?”
“I did not call him a diva!” I protest. “And I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t call me a refugee considering our parents wereactualrefugees.”
“Dark humour is my speciality, and you can’t take that away from me.” Radia points a finger at me. “Fancy some falafel? There’s a place around the corner and it’s heavenly.”
“Take me to your leader,” I say.
“Anyway. You didn’t call him a diva, but you definitely said he was being a bit ‘diva-ish’. Remember? You were telling us about this whole wedding date drama he’s having.”
“Oh, did I tell you about that?” I know I talked a lot about my new job with Mom, Radia and my youngest sister Roxana on Sunday because they’d almost been more excited about me starting it than I had been myself. I wanted to reassure them it had all gone well, even if that wasn’t quite true.
“Sounded like he annoys you a bit,” Radia continues.
“You could say that.”
“Just because he’s a bit… camp?” Radia is filling in the blanks but is doing so perfectly. “That’s not like you to hold that against someone.”
I sigh and am glad when I look up and see what I assume is the falafel place, a Lebanese deli a few doors away. “That’s not why he annoys me. He… No,the situationannoys me because it’s hard work sharing an office with someone who doesn’t like you very much.”
“I doubt he doesn’t like you. He probably just doesn’t know you yet.”
“Well, he’s hardly trying to get to know me. I actually offered to do him a big favour – be his plus one to that wedding he’s going to, the plus one he’s apparently so desperate to find – and he declined, so I think that does actually mean he doesn’t like me.”
“Not at all. It means he thinks it’s a bit weird going to a wedding with a complete stranger, and I would go some way to agree with him.”
