Chapter 2
“I don’t like to be judgmental,” says Lauren from work.
You’re not sure if that’s a true statement or not. She doesn’t seem to mind gossiping with you, as this is not the first time you’ve gotten together for post-work drinks. Not that gossip is an inherently judgmental activity, but...
It’s Thursday and you’re tired from a long week, so you don’t go to the whole trouble of dressing up like you would for a Friday night. You’re wearing the white blouse, gray trousers, and windowpane-check blazer you wore to the office today. Lauren has her hair down and is wearing a pink top, brown skirt, and a cardigan. You know that the English like to work hard and then drink hard—you've learned to pace yourself and your alcohol tolerance when you're out with them. But you’re not going hard tonight, just wanting enough of a drink to relax and maybe some chips. The more you drink, the more you like chips.
“But that sounds like something to walk away from,” Lauren finishes.
You had the same thought yourself. “Yeah,” you agree. “I mean, it’s not his fault that he has other stuff going on, but…” You widen your eyes, indicating the scale of catastrophe that losing four days of time is.
“Yeah, my uni boyfriend was a sleepwalker,” Lauren says philosophically. You're about to explain that the worrisome behavior here isn't the sleepwalking, it's that Steven claims he lost four days of time, but then she goes on. “Not the only thing he did in his sleep.” She widens her eyes at you significantly.
Your eyebrows go up in surprise and you lean closer, feeling some instinct to keep the conversation private. It’s not like you’re tucked away in a corner booth, but the place is quiet tonight, and nobody is approaching your sprawl on the couches.
“Really?” you ask. You know sleepwalking is a thing, but sleepsex sounds both more illicit and dangerous.
Lauren nods, her mouth grim. “Used to wake up with crackers all through my bed.”
Well, that wasn't what you were expecting.
Lauren seems oblivious to your train of thought--you probably just have a dirty mind. She shakes her head. “Thought he was faking, you know, spilled his Cheez-Its and then lied about it rather than waking me up, but.” Another head-shake. “I could tell, when he was sleeping but he was walking around. He’d sit up and look at me and his eyes were all red, and he’d scroll through his phone but too fast to be reading anything.”
“That’s so weird,” you say. Your own phone sleeps plugged into the charger on your nightstand. It’s your alarm clock for work in the morning. The idea that staring at your phone might become such a rote behavior that it’s embedded in your subconscious is unnerving.
“That’s not the worst of it,” Lauren says, her eyes widening. She lowers her voice and whispers, “He wet the bed a couple times.”
You blink. That is also not what you were expecting, but it's not nearly as funny as expecting sleepsex and ending up with crackers in bed. “Oh,” you say.
She shakes her head and leans back against the couch. “If he’d been drinking, that’d be one thing, but he woke me up twice in the middle of the night to change the sheets. I just don’t have the patience.”
At the moment, you like sleeping in your bed by yourself. You even went out and bought sheets with embroidered sunflowers on the pillows. The idea of making room in your bed for someone else, and then that person messing up your new sheets in a very not-fun way, is distasteful. You remember from your past relationships that getting used to sharing a bed with somebody else is tough, and often uncomfortable. A man would have to be bringing an awful lot to the table for you to let him risk peeing on you in his sleep. It's just not your thing.
“And you think that was the sleepwalking?” you ask. You’re not sure that there’s an actual medical basis for the connection Lauren’s making. You have dreams where you walk into a bathroom, too, and you've always stopped yourself before actually letting your bladder go in the real world, but you didn't think that sleepwalkers actually acted out their dreams.
“Yeah,” Lauren says. “You know, the mind is sleeping, but the body keeps going. The whole—” She holds up her finger and thumb about half an inch apart. "—separation between the two is thinner.”
That… doesn’t sound right, but it’s not like you know any better.
“Don’t look,” Lauren says without changing her tone, “but there’s a man watching you.”
Your head begins to turn, but you catch yourself and keep your eyes on her. You’re thinking of Steven. If Steven is here and watching you, then you have bigger problems than you thought.
“Oh god,” you say. “What’s he look like?”
Lauren’s eyes flick up and over your shoulder, then back to you. “Older,” she says. “White guy, long face, gray-brown hair.” She touches either side of her chin with both hands, miming how long his hair falls.
You frown, a little relieved you’re not being followed by a guy you failed to have a date with. “I don’t know a guy like that.”
“Well, I think he’s checking you out,” Lauren says. She takes her phone out of her purse. “Come over here, I’ll pretend I’m showing you photos and you can sneak a peek.”
You get up and bounce onto the couch beside her, leaning in to point your face at Lauren’s phone. But your eyes come up and scan the part of the lounge that you had your back to.
There, at the table in the corner by the door, is the man Lauren described. He’s wearing a burgundy shirt and has a cane leaning up against the table, and you definitely make eye contact with him as you perform your once-over. You force yourself to look across the whole front window, pretending you’re just looking around at the place. That’s something normal people do, right? Survey their surroundings.
“I see him,” you whisper to Lauren.
Lauren mimes swiping through something on her phone and you pretend to smile at an imaginary picture. “What do you want to do?” she asks.
You shake your head—it’s not that the man is unhandsome, even if he’s not the type you usually go for, but after dealing with Steven this week you don’t feel like getting picked up on a Thursday. “Nothing,” you say, already thinking about how you’ll be getting home tonight. You parked your car at the train station closest to your apartment, as usual; even if he follows you from the lounge to the train, you’ll have time to lose him. “I just want to chill out tonight, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” Lauren sighs, lowering her phone. You take your cue and hop back to the couch facing hers. “Can you believe that Rebecca actually put that in writing? On a company system?”
“I know!” you say, relaxing back into the drama from work. “That was so uncomfortable, but what was I supposed to do?”
“You’re on the ethics committee!” Lauren agrees.
You shake your head, lean back in your seat, and sip your Pimms and lemonade. It’s your go-to drink while you’re here in England—sweet, syrupy, not too strong, and definitely something you’ve never had in the states. “It’s a liability if we don’t actually own the—”
Lauren is nodding. “I know. But for what it’s worth, I talked to Margot in the kitchen and she was totally on your side.”
Well, you didn't know that Lauren was already gossiping with the department head about you. You'd better hope that she was being honest when she said she doesn't like to be judgmental. You continue venting about today’s drama between the legal department and the publishing team, and are thinking about getting something unhealthy but filling for dinner when Lauren’s face changes, becoming alert.
“He’s coming over,” she whispers.
“What?” Oh no. “Don’t leave,” you urge her, wanting female solidarity in the face of an unknown variable.
She nods and then looks behind you again. You turn your head just in time to see the man from the corner round the couch and take a seat on the other side. He leaves a respectable amount of space between the two of you, but it’s very clear that he’s inserting himself into your conversation.
“Good evening,” he says.
It gives you a weird feeling. That’s the kind of thing you’d expect a vampire in an old movie to say—an odd too-formal greeting, even for a man in his forties.
“Hello,” you say, nonplussed. On the other couch, Lauren adds her own greeting.
“How are you both tonight?” he asks. Again, it’s not an unreasonable question, but smalltalk usually has to lead up to something.
“Oh, doing all right,” Lauren says.
“Just letting off steam from work,” you add.
His eyebrows lift at your accent. “An American,” he says.
You smile; you’re used to that response. “Yes,” you say. “Here for work.”
“Where do you work?”
You glance at Lauren; you do not want to give him the name of your business, but since you’ve mentioned work twice you feel you sort of have to answer the question.
“We work at a publishing company,” Lauren says cheerfully, apparently on the same wavelength as you.
“In the legal department,” you add.
He looks surprised. “You’re attorneys?”
“No,” you both say at once. Then, to explain, you clarify, “We handle rights and plagiarism disputes.”
Lauren nods at you. “She does rights. I do plagiarism.”
“That’s very interesting,” the man says, though you know that objectively it’s not. “Does your company publish in languages other than English? Arabic translation rights, that sort of thing?”
Oh, so he knows a bit about the industry. “We only publish in English,” you say. “But when people want to make translations into other languages, they talk to me for permissions.” You can’t say you’ve gotten any requests for Arabic translation recently.
He smiles at you. “And are you bilingual?”
You exchange a glance with Lauren. “No,” you say. “I took some French in high school, but it’s been a long time.”
He nods, still smiling. “I don’t want to disturb your night too much, I just saw you over there and I thought I recognized you from a mutual acquaintance. Marc Spector?”
You blink and look at Lauren. “No,” you say. “I don’t know any Marc Spector.”
He tips his head to the side. “Ah, well. He’s also an American, so when I heard you speak, I thought, maybe. I’ve been looking to get in touch with him.”
He’s definitely pushing. “No,” you repeat. “No, I don’t know anyone named Marc. Not unless you know Marc Gilson from my high school.”
“And Spector is an…” Lauren begins.
You nod. “Yeah, I don’t know that name. Except for from that TV show, Suits.”
“The one Meghan Markle was on?” Lauren asks.
You nod.
“Was it any good?”
You don’t remember it all very clearly. “It was so-so?” you offer.
The man looks between the two of you. “Ah. Well, I must have been mistaken. Please excuse me for bothering you.”
“That’s okay,” you say reflexively, even though it’s really not.
“We were getting ready to move on anyway,” Lauren says. “Ought to get some dinner before everywhere closes.”
“Yes,” you agree, reaching for your work bag. “You reminded us, it’s getting late.”
He smiles and gets up, bracing his cane on the floor. “Thank you for your time, ladies,” he says, and he leaves the lounge. You watch him go out the door and turn right, then vanish out of sight.
Once he’s gone, you relax and turn to Lauren. “That was weird, right?”
“So weird,” she agrees. “And how would he recognize you through an acquaintance? Like, what does that even mean?”
“I don’t know,” you answer. “I do want to move on, though, do you want to grab something to eat?”
“Yeah, I’ll go with you,” Lauren says.
You walk to a cheap but good noodle place a couple blocks away and get a scalding hot bowl of penne fra diavolo, which doesn’t actually come with penne but instead some kind of curly pasta. Lauren perches next to you, eating lo mein in teriyaki sauce. You check the street behind you occasionally, but there’s no sign of the strange man again. You’re relieved.
You and Lauren part ways at the train station. “See you tomorrow,” you say.
“Be safe.” She squeezes your fingers. “Bye-bye.”
You board the train and get home without further incident and try to put the evening out of your mind.