He looks at me like I had never been looked at before. I don’t mean this in the sense that no one has ever looked at me before, I mean this quite literally as though he has never seen a woman on the tube sitting across from him. I notice his sleeves are chewed. From what I notice with each “mind the gap” announcement he is pulling the right one a little more and more, until the sleeve falls below his right shoulder exposing his collar bone. His skin is perfect, not a single blemish. His hair is freshly washed, he doesn’t smell bad, and his shoes are Vejas. Starting at a 135 pound average, I know his tattered shirt project nothing deeper onto his lifestyle than the fact that it is simply over worn, perhaps his favorite. In no way is he homeless, or even remotely poor. The clasp of his bracelets on his left hand become visible the more he tugs on the right sleeve, Cartier.
In between studying my face he is intently and intensely typing. I wonder who could be rattling him so much. He looks up at me again only this time I am not peripherally spying and he catches my stare. He smiles. His thumb turns off his iPhone and mouths “Hi” over the rudeness of Victoria’s screeching. “Hi” I smile back. It’s just like my favorite scene when Tom mouts hi across the fire and football crowd over to Sandy. Oxford Circus is next so I stand up from my seat to prepare ahead of time to exit. My anxiety is too high to enjoy the comfort of my chair until I actually reach the stop I need to get off at. He turns his phone back on once again and begins typing something. I should have expected the train’s abrupt halt but rather my sneakers slipp on the leftover rain from whoever stood where I was before and gravity just so happened to pull me down onto him. Somehow he manages to smoothly place his phone next to him as he catches half of my body from touching the floor. The other half now unfortunately wet and stained. I can’t help but look down at his open screen that lay on the chair next to him. “We are over.”
Our whole future crosses my mind in the time it takes the train to stop, me to fall, and him to catch me. That’s like what? Maybe two seconds tops? I think all of the Disney prince saves princess equals happy endings have caught up to me now that I am turning twenty five in two weeks and my internal female clock is screaming “You’re losing eggs. Oh no. Hurry.” I imagine the house that was welcoming him at whichever stop he ended up exiting at. I imagine walking up to the door arm in arm, emulating a chivalrous movie scene, laughing as we rang the door bell and his parents ecstatic smiles welcomed me into the family. A golden retriever barking at the sound of my laugh and knocking me over before I set foot into the mansion. The chef greeting me with a “He’s told me your favorite is salmon so that’s what we shall have.” His mother, “You’re just as beautiful as he said you were smart.” A compliment that reinforces my love for him. He didn’t just describe me as a pretty girl to his parents, but a smart one.
Six and a half months have passed, he is taking me home to meet his family, we have said ‘I love you,’ and have already planned what color our bedroom wall will be painted. We have a Tuesday tradition of penne and arabiatta because we both hate spaghetti. The stress that comes with getting the perfect amount of noodle wrapped around your fork versus the amount that slides off and the time it takes to finish your plate is extravagantly disproportionate and unsatisfying. Messy noodles, shouldn’t have been invented. I am studying at a university in London for the year and he’s been here for ten. Originally from France but when he was thirteen his father invented Lime and they moved here to base headquarters. He is quite the typical extrovert. Including everyone in discussions, making sure no one felt unseen. Throwing a pence or two into the hat of the musician at the bottom of the never-ending Angel escalator.
You already know that the salmon was the best salmon I’ve ever tasted and the wine, oh the wine. A Domaine Leroy Musigny Grand Cru that’s appreciated in value 2,848.5% over the last five years and decreased to zero the moment it touched my lips. I excuse myself to the bathroom and prepare myself as best as possible to expect the unexpected. Silk hand towels now that just doesn’t make any sense -even to the most rich of the rich bathrooms- but then again, if I were opening a $40,000 bottle of wine for dinner every night I guess dry cleaning is the least of my problems. Beautiful red tints of maroon were embellished into the marble countertop almost camouflaging what catches my eye as two drops of blood. I trace my eyes back and forth between the two spots, curious to find a third, or fourth. I find seven playing follow the leader to what ended at the base of a handle. Like a curious cat, I open it and luckily whatever inner conscious I have up here slams my hand over my mouth and muffles my scream. A hand falls off of her torso and kerplunks onto the beautiful floors, oh so beautiful. Fuck Serena, focus. There’s a fucking dead girl in front of you. Wait is she dead? I check her neck like I actually paid any attention to the red cross training I had in high school. From what I gather, yes she is dead.
Oh fuck times three. In all the movies I’ve seen the always check the pockets. Yes, check the pockets. I covered my eyes with one hand, I am so grossed out. And I reach blindly into the purse that lays between her lifeless grip and feel out a wallet. I open my hand into the peace sign of an alien and peak between my two middle fingers at a student ID that has the same colors as my uni. Oh fuck times four. It says my name on it. I drop it immediately. I have to stay c o o l. Either the salmon has caused me to release the world’s longest shit or I have just found a dead body in the bathroom and for the first time in my life I am hoping that the people on the other side of the bathroom door believe it to be the first. I push her head back into the cupboard, put the purse back on her torso, wash off the my ID, and slide it into my pocket.
“Serena honey you look like you have seen a ghost!” His mother jokes with me, but I am thinking ‘ironically it’s not entirely a joke.’
“Oh, I just don’t think the salmon sat as well with me as it tasted.”
“Oh no, I have some tums in the bathroom and Lionel can warm some tea for you. Just let me go get those tums.”
“Oh no, really it’s okay. I will be fine.”
“No no, I insist. Tums help everything. Alex isn’t that right? He just loved them as a boy. It’s like candy for him, watch out.” She laughed.
At this moment, all I am hoping is that this bottle of Tums is not conveniently in the same cupboard as the dead girl. Alex puts his hand on my thigh and kisses my forehead, “Are you okay?”
“Yes I am fine, my stomach is doing that weird thing again but I’m sure it will go away soon.” One of the few times I am grateful for my tummy issues because it’s the only alibi I have for having been in the bathroom for so long and not discovering a dead girl with the same name as me lying in the cupboard of my boyfriend’s parents’ houses’ guest bathroom.
The ‘chook chook’ of a shot gun leads me to break the Alex’s glance to the head of the table where his mother is pointing the barrel.
“Alex she knows.”
“Knows what mom? Jesus Christ.”
“She knows about Serena.”
He looks at me like I had never been looked at before. I don’t mean this in the sense that no one has ever looked at me before, I mean this quite literally as though he had never seen a woman at his dining room table sitting next to him, “You found you?”
“I don’t know what you mean but yes I found a body in your guys’ bathroom but I swear I’m not going to tell anyone. I know how the only way I’m getting out of this house alive is if I promise you that, I swear to god, I promise.”
“Alex we can’t trust her. She’s seen too much. The ID isn’t in the wallet anymore.”
Alex slowly turned to me, “You found you?”
All this crossed my mind in those two seconds it took for me to fall onto him at the Oxford Circus tube stop.