Words in Deep Blue(26)

‘Sure, that’s embarrassing for me, but that wouldn’t make her angry.’ I lean on the counter and watch her. ‘After Rachel left in Year 9, you didn’t find a letter from her for me?’

‘If I’d found it, you’d know,’ she says, ‘and now I must go to make Martin’s life a complete and utter misery.’

While she’s doing that, I serve customers and watch Rachel. Serve and watch, serve and watch, trying to remember the missing pieces of the night. I remember her saying we were friends. I remember her apologising for not writing. I don’t remember us arguing at all. I remember us making up.

Lola walks in around one o’clock, and I ask her what she remembers. ‘I saw you drinking,’ she says. ‘I saw you walking over to Amy, Rachel helping you up. I saw you crawling away from her across the floor and into the girls’ toilets.’ She takes a mint from the bowl and rolls it around her mouth for a while. ‘You really shouldn’t drink,’ she says through her mouthful.

‘That fact has been more than established.’

‘So,’ she says, changing the subject, ‘I have news. Bad, bad news.’

‘Amy’s asked Greg to go overseas with her?’

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes, when it comes to Amy, you sound like a self-centred dick.’

That’s actually not an unfair call. Lola’s been hearing about Amy for a long time now. ‘I’m all ears. Tell me your problems.’

‘The Hollows are breaking up,’ she says, and this news is in a category at least as shit as Amy and I breaking up. ‘Hiroko told me last night after we’d played. She’s moving to New York to study percussion. She didn’t even tell me she was thinking of applying. Four years of work and it’s all been for nothing.’ She throws her mint at my head and it bounces off towards the specials table. ‘Sorry. That made me feel better.’

‘Glad to be of help.’

‘I just got us a regular gig at Hush. A paid, regular gig that I’ll have to cancel.’

‘You could get a replacement.’

‘There’s no replacement for Hiroko,’ she says. ‘She’s going so The Hollows are done. We’re playing our last gig this Valentine’s Day. End of story.’

She throws another mint, and I manoeuvre myself so it hits me, because I don’t know how else to cheer her up. The Hollows has been Lola’s love, her obsession, since she and Hiroko met in the line for Warpaint tickets in Year 8. They dreamed it up that night and in the cold, dodging calls from their parents, they wrote their first song.

‘What school did Hiroko get into?’ I ask, and Lola eats another mint and signals she doesn’t want to talk about it.

Some customers come in and I help them find the crime fiction and when I come back, Lola’s looking over at the Letter Library. ‘You’re right. Rachel looks mad,’ she says, and goes over to do some investigating on my behalf.

They talk. I hear laughter. Rachel shakes her head, and keeps shifting the books into order. Lola watches her and they talk for a while longer before she finally comes back.

‘You’re not fighting,’ she says. ‘You fixed everything last night. You did kiss her, but she’s okay about it. You made her miss her ex, Joel, that’s all.’

I try to look happy about this because I am happy about it. If I’m not happy then I’m the kind of guy who cares more about his ego than he does about his best friend. And I’m not that guy.

‘The kiss must have been good, though. If it made her miss Joel,’ I say.

‘Or, incredibly bad,’ Lola says. ‘But I can’t answer either way because the quality of the kiss was not discussed.’ She writes an address on a piece of paper. ‘Justin Kent’s having a party this coming Friday. Hiroko and I are playing what will be our third-to-last gig. Invite Rachel. She needs cheering up.’

Easier said than done, I think, and go back to my watching.




By the Friday of the party, I’m deeply confused.

Every day of this week I’ve been friendly to Rachel and every day I’ve expected Rachel to turn back into her old self. But every day she’s arrived at work and walked past me, straight over to the Letter Library. She doesn’t take a break till lunch, when she disappears for half an hour. She doesn’t go to Frank’s. I know, because I’ve gone in to look for her.

Everyone in the bookshop has been going out of their way to be friendly to her this week – asking questions about her mum, about Cal, about the ocean, about Year 12 – but she cuts us all off, saying she has work to do.

I buy her coffee. I read interesting science articles to her while she’s working. I don’t once tell her how tired I am of listening to her complain about the Letter Library. This weird thing happens where I’m missing Rachel while she’s standing right next to me.

‘She’s upset about her ex-boyfriend, apparently,’ I say to Martin and George on Friday afternoon. ‘But that changes tonight. We’re going to Justin Kent’s party. All of us,’ I say, pointing at George and Martin. ‘It’s a work outing.’

‘Am I getting paid?’ George asks.

‘No.’

‘Then I’m not going.’

Martin laughs.