PART THREE:

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS

EIGHTEEN

Sam

The Lambert Book Fair is always expensive with tickets costing three hundred a pop and a stand costing another nine hundred a day, plus hotel fees and whatever food and drink we decide to buy for staff or potential partnerships.

Mark has assured me we are well within budget though and so I don’t trouble myself to think much further. If Mark says we’re fine, then I trust his judgement.

Instead, I am standing in my open-floor apartment, surrounded by books, with an open suitcase laying in front of me, when I hear the door click open behind me.

‘You know that key is for emergencies, right?’ I ask, deliberately not looking up from what I am doing.

‘It was an emergency,’ Vic says in a sulky tone, ‘My favourite cousin was going to leave me without saying goodbye!’

I try not roll my eyes. ‘You’re checking up on me because of Sylvia, aren’t you?’

There is a silence behind me, and when I finally look up, Vic is regarding me carefully – cautiously – like he is observing some kind of wild animal that might bite him at any moment.

‘Her visit to your work did come up in conversation…’ he admits. ‘Did you really tell her that you considered yourself an orphan?’

I have to bite back a laugh.  Oh, the irony.

‘I didn’t say it in quite those words,’ I concede. In fact, I didn’t say it in any words. But it is so like Sylvia to read so carefully between the lines.

‘She said she told you about Uncle dying, and she said you didn’t care.’

I neither confirm nor deny what Vic is saying. The way he is looking at me, that pity in his eyes makes me feel vulnerable and like a child again.

But I am not a child. And I have not been one for a long time.

‘I didn’t say that. But I don’t… care, I mean.’

‘Sam…’ Vic whispers. ‘What happened between you and him, surely it can’t – ’

I slam my suitcase shut. ‘Are you done?’

Vic opens his mouth, pauses, then closes it again. ‘How long are you going for?’

‘Three days. I’m staying for the entire book fair,’ I say.

He nods and for a moment an uncomfortable silence ebbs and flows between us. I hate it when this happens.

I never mean to shut him out.

‘Dani is coming,’ I say quietly. I’m not really aware of deciding to speak the words, but there they are, laid out in the open.

Vic’s mouth breaks open into a big grin. ‘Oh? And is this part of an evil masterplan to seduce her?’

I regret telling him anything, ever.

‘Don’t be a moron,’ I snap. ‘It was the smart move to bring her, she’s signed one particularly lucrative deal, and I need her to promote it,’ I pause. ‘But…’

‘But?’ Vic asks eagerly.

I turn away from him, so that I’m not looking at him when I speak next. ‘I find her interesting.’

I can practically feel the excitement hum off him, his mouth cracks into a sly grin. ‘Oh, I bet you do.’

I don’t elaborate any further. My family has this unique talent for taking my words and twisting them into something more positive or negative than they are.

 Interesting can simply just mean… interesting.

 ‘You can tell me anything, you know,’ Vic says quietly. ‘If you ever want to talk about what happened between you and your dad, or how you feel about your sister, or even how you feel about this Dani girl… you can tell me anything, you know that, right?’

Again, I don’t say anything.

It’s not that I don’t trust him. I do. In fact, he may be the only person I trust on this earth. 

But there are some words that can’t be spoken aloud. Because to do so gives them life, makes them real. And I have never been able to form them, not by putting them on paper or by breathing life into them.

I wouldn’t even know how to start.

Finally, I nod. A small gesture, that in no way compensates for all the words I cannot and will not say.

I can tell that Vic thinks this too.