He shrugs. ‘Never seen it.’
‘Fuck off-EEEEEP.’ My hiccup turns the ‘off’ into a disturbing screech that sets the kid off again. It’s gone ten, I should be able to hiccup if I want. I might report the parents to social services.
‘What causes hiccups? Is it stress?’ he asks with concern.
‘Is that right? Because I am super stressed out, Paul,’ I sigh.
‘Aw, Esther, are you really?’ He reaches out a hand to take mine. He’s always so tactile, it gives me a tingle every time. I really miss being touched. But I mustn’t read anything into it. ‘What is it? Don’t you like your restaurant? Are the team not nice?’
‘No, it’s not that,’ I say with a shake of my head. ‘I guess I do like it – and everyone’s nice. It took me a while to stop feeling like the hopeless new girl, but it’s been nearly two years since I left A’Diva.’
‘Wow, that’s gone fast!’ He breathes out and then looks at me closer. ‘So what is it?’ He looks so concerned I want to cry. ‘You can talk to me if you want?’
Oh, but that’s the trouble! I don’t know if I want to talk about what’s on my mind. And if I start, I won’t be able to stop. I stare down at the table.
‘At least you don’t have to deal with the dickhead’s demands anymore,’ Paul adds mildly, referring to our old boss. ‘You got out just in time. The guy’s out of control.’
I don’t know how much Paul knows about what happened to me at A’Diva – how I left in disgrace, under such a dark, horrible cloud. Paul never brought it up with me then – orsince – so I would hope very little. I just told him I’d had enough and quit without notice. He never questioned it. Enough people left like that, it was plausible.
‘Yeah,thishead chef is actually very nice,’ I say. ‘And I love being a sous. The hours are still so long and exhausting though, dude, I don’t know how much longer I can do it for. It’s endless and I feel like I get no life outside of it.’
‘Tell me about it!’ He rolls his eyes. ‘I can’t believe we managed to get the same night off, it’s like some kind of miracle! I barely see any of my friends, never mind having a second to do any dating.’
‘Cheers to that.’ I clink my glass of wine to his sherry.
Paul looks at me a bit impishly. ‘No blokes on the scene then?’ He gives me a wide, hopeful smile.
‘Definitely not,’ I confirm, burying my face in my large drink and – predictably – hiccupping into it.
I can’t talk to Paul about Alex. I just can’t. Mostly because I will cry and I can’t let him see me cry. I’m a hideous crier.
I still can’t believe we ended that way last month; I’m still in shock. It was all so out of the blue, so nasty. I didn’t know Alex was capable of any of it.
HICCUP.
‘Right.’ Paul puts down his sherry, looking determined. ‘I know how to get rid of your hiccups. I’m coming over there.’ He stands up and comes to my side of the table, where he grabs me around the shoulders. I fizz a little through my clothes as he repositions me to face him. We are suddenly closer than we’ve ever been and I can hardly stand it.
Staring at me intently, inches from my face, he reaches up and covers my ears with his hands. A blank, roaring sound replaces the noise of the pub and I instinctively swallow as if my ears have popped.
‘You OK?’ he mouths at me and I nod, feeling oddly vulnerable. We’re so close. I can smell the sweetness of the sherry on his breath. ‘Right, now count to fifty in your head, and open your eyes as wide as you can, without blinking.’ I read the words on his mouth, unable to hear much of anything. His bottom lip is a little chafed, as if from chewing, and I want to burst from the impulse to bite it.
One, two, three, four, five—
He leans in closer now and I fight the urge to blink.
—six, seven, eight, nine, ten—
I feel, rather than see, his mouth curl into a smile, an inch from mine.
—eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—
I can feel his warmth on my cheeks as my heart begins to race.
—eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four—
When he gently starts to blow across my skin, the smell of him intense, I honestly feel like my whole body lifts up off the ground. I can see nothing but him. I can smell nothing but his smell.
—twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty—
