Page 15 of Two Chances With You

“Okay, that’s a relief. Well then, can we talk about other sensitive topics?” She smiles and gets a cunning, unforgettable look on her face. “Ouch…” It’s obvious that my expression changes. “Here we go. Here comes some sorrow. Well, you asked for it.” She drains the last sip of beer. “Well…have you talked to Babi at all? When’s the last time you heard from her? Did you try calling her at all while you were away?”

She’s clicking away like a typewriter. She never seems to stop.

“Hey, calm down, for fuck’s sake. I feel like I’m getting grilled by the cops here!” I try my best to seem relatively indifferent to the whole subject. But I don’t know if I’m successful. “No, never talked to her once.”

“Not once?”

“Not once.”

“Swear it!”

“I swear.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“What the hell? You think I’m lying to you? Then I talked to her.”

“No, no, okay, I believe you. But I’ve seen her.”

Then she pauses. A long pause. Too long. She doesn’t say a thing. And she’s doing it on purpose. She looks at me and smiles. She wants me to say something. She waits some more, too long now. But why? What a pain in the ass.

I can’t take it. “All right, Pallina, enough. Come on. Spit it out. Let me hear the rest.”

“Still cute as ever but…”

“But what?”

“Different. I couldn’t tell you how. But she’s definitely changed.”

“Okay, that’s no surprise. We’ve all changed.”

“Sure, I know. But she’s changed in a way…I don’t know, but look, she’s changed in a different way.”

“You already said that! But what do you mean when you say different?”

“Listen, I couldn’t tell you. She’s just different, and that’s all I can say. That’s how it is, and I don’t know anything more. Either you understand or you’d have to see her to get it.”

“Well, thanks for that.”

And then, I don’t even know how I did it, but I ask the question. It comes out naturally. I thought it but I didn’t want to say it. But I just blurt it out like that, without meaning to, as if it weren’t even me asking. “So was she alone?”

“Yes. And you know where she was going? Shopping.”

I can’t help but laugh. I remember Babi, I imagine her, and suddenly I see her.

“Wait right here. Don’t budge from this spot, Step. Don’t disappear on me like you usually do. No, seriously, don’t go because I want to get your advice…” Babi left me standing in front of a shop window. She went in, looked around, made her choice, and then called me.“Look, I’ve made up my mind, I’m getting this. Do you like it?” But she didn’t even give me time to answer before she thought it over and changed her mind. She tried on something else, and it looked good on her. Now she seemed to have made up her mind. She did a sort of runway presentation, and then she looked at me. “Well? What do you say?”

“I think it looks great on you.”

She looked at herself in the mirror again. But then she found something about it that didn’t work, something only she could see. “Excuse me, I just want to think it over some more.”

Then she left the shop and gave me a hug. “No, no, I decided against it. Too expensive.”

And after all, I bought it for her as a gift a few days later. It made her laugh. It had turned into a game. Babi, why did you have to stop playing? But I wasn’t fast enough to find out the answer.

“Oh, did you know she’s not dating that guy anymore?” Pallina asks.

“No, I don’t know any such thing. I told you that I haven’t talked to her. What, am I supposed to have a network of secret informants?”

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