She was struggling. Struggling to stay afloat, to breathe, to find her footing. April shot up in bed, sweat sticking to her pyjama top. The dream was a regular occurrence, but instead of drowning in a dark pit of thick nothingness, she had been surrounded by, almost engulfed by …
What the hell?
She laughed. Shook her head. Dreams were crazy. Like the hundreds or thousands of colourful plastic balls in children’s play centres, she’d been submersed among thousands of colourful condoms, as she flailed about and panicked like she was in quicksand. And Zac was there. He tried to rescue her, but fell into the pit and got engulfed too.
April was alone in her dark bedroom and yet her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
She considered taking one of the sleeping tablets she still had in her medicine box, but hadn’t taken one for over a year and didn’t want to start that again. She’d almost become addicted. Besides, they’d make her drowsy and she wouldn’t be able to focus at work.
She glanced at the clock. Almost three am. She rolled around in bed for a while trying to get comfortable, but within ten minutes made her way to the kitchen, rubbing fatigue from her head. She flicked the switch and noticed she’d forgotten to close the venetian blinds before bed. She froze. Zac’s light was on next door, and he stood in the middle of his kitchen, just like her. Only he wasn’t wearing flannelette pyjamas and nor did he have crazy bed hair. He had normal, neat, cropped hair, and his chest was bare, apart from tattoos. His kitchen window was high and blocking his lower body, so who knew what he was wearing, if anything, down below.
He waved. Not a ‘Hi! It’s me! Fancy seeing you here!’ wave. A ‘Hey neighbour’ wave. She waved back, then ran her hand discreetly through her hair but it got caught in a knot. She looked away to fill her glass of water, and when she looked back he was holding something large and square. He held it up. A whiteboard. On it he’d written: What’s your number?
Oh, nice one. Loser. Trying to hit on her by standing in his kitchen half naked and doing the old Love, Actually trick.
April eyed her own whiteboard that hung on the wall beside the fridge. It had the quote ‘each day is a new beginning’ handwritten on it. Lisa had suggested a while back that she have motivational quotes around the house to help with lifting her mood, after it had fallen deep into that dark, hopeless pit she sometimes dreamed about. She was supposed to change the quote each week, but this one had been on there a month. She lifted the whiteboard off the wall and rubbed out the quote, replacing it with: Why? She held it up to the window.
Zac rubbed out his own and started writing something, then he held it up:
You’re up, I’m up. Might as well talk.
April wrote:
Why not just talk over the fence?
Zac replied:
Because I’m naked.
April gulped and quickly rubbed out her last message, replacing it with her number.
Seconds later her phone rang from its charger in the living room. She picked it up and returned to the kitchen. ‘You’re not really naked, are you? I bet you’re wearing something, at least,’ she said.
‘Only a smile,’ he replied, and she glanced at him through the window, his smile sending a warm flush to her cheeks.
‘Aren’t you cold?’
‘Nope.’
‘Do you always walk naked around your house in the middle of the night?’
‘Yep.’
Why am I asking such questions? ‘If Nancy Dillinger was your neighbour you’d probably give her a coronary.’
‘Is she that lady next to you?’
‘Yep.’
He took a swig of water. ‘Nice hair, by the way.’
Oh man. The problem with having naturally wavy hair was that it had a mind of its own. You never knew what kind of strange arrangement you’d end up with in the morning; on a good day it could look like rolling hills of the countryside and on the bad days like the Sydney Opera House.
April defensively patted her hair and frowned. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t do my hair before coming to the kitchen in the middle of the night to get a glass of water. I’ll do better next time.’
‘Or shave it like mine. Number three. Then you don’t have to worry.’
‘I’m sure your choice of style would look just wonderful on me.’ April glanced down, tapping her right fluffy-polka-dot-socked foot on the floor. ‘Why are we on the phone anyway?’
‘Because I called you.’
‘Clearly. But what do you want to talk about? Need insomnia cures?’
‘If I needed them I’d be Googling and not asking advice from someone suffering the same problem.’
‘What makes you think I’m an insomnia sufferer? I could be having a one-off waking episode. Which is actually what’s happened.’ No need to tell him about the bizarre dream. ‘I should get back to sleep. Have to be up for work in four hours.’
‘Do you love your job?’
‘Huh? Yes.’
‘What’s your passion?’
‘My passion? Candles, of course. Why?’
‘But what is it about them? Why candles?’
She frowned again. ‘Because, um … I like them?’
‘I like them too. But that doesn’t mean I want to run a candle store. So why do you?’
‘Well, some of us actually have to do things to make a living, so candles is what I chose to, you know, allow me to have electricity, buy food and clothing—which, clearly—you’ve forgotten to do.’
‘It’s because they give you hope, isn’t it.’
Bam. It was like he had pried open her heart and soul and read her like a book. How did he know that? ‘It’s because, well, they smell nice, and look nice, and people like them and buy them and I get income from it. That’s why.’ She ran her hand across her bed hair and had the vague sense she’d messed it up worse than before.
‘Bring one back for me,’ he said. ‘Any candle. You choose. And I’ll pay you for it.’
She stood closer to the window and leaned one hand on the sink. ‘Why don’t you come into the store and choose your own?’
‘Because I want to see which one you pick for me.’
‘Is this some kind of personality quiz or something? Are you a psychologist who analyses people based on their purchasing tendencies?’ How did you know why I love candles? What is that tattoo on your shoulder? Why are your pecs so damn beautiful?
‘I’m just a man. I need a candle for my house. I want you to choose.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll see you and the candle at the end of the day.’ He ended the call and put his phone down, switched off the light, and walked his naked self out of the kitchen. April’s phone was still attached to her ear, her hand unable to move. This Zac guy was the weirdest person she’d ever met. But somehow, his weirdness drew her to him. She wanted to discover more. She wanted to stay on the phone and talk at three am. She even wanted to peer over and … No, April. No men. No thinking about men, no flirting with men. No men.
She flicked off the light and returned to bed. Lying on her back, she became aware of a cool film of sweat that had pooled at her lower back. She rubbed it away. It was also on her chest. She rubbed it dry against her pyjamas, but her hand lingered between her breasts, and she thought of Zac’s hand. She quickly removed it and rolled over. Maybe it was time to see what the real estate market was like in town. She didn’t know how she could handle living here, next to him. And it had only been a few days. And he didn’t look like he was planning on going anywhere else anytime soon.
* * *
If he hadn’t ended the call when he did it would have been dangerous. Things, feelings, were welling up inside, things he hadn’t allowed to well up for a long time. It was crazy, he hardly knew the woman. But it felt like he’d met her before. Anyway, she was dangerous … to the stability he’d worked so hard for, to his focus. But danger drew him close like a magnet. Always had, always would. As long as he didn’t get too close, he’d be okay. He could be friendly, a good neighbour, flirt a little, but that was all.
As he returned to his room and shut the window, a bird squawked far in the distance; a reminder that in a couple of hours the sun would start to rise. As it always did. Knowing that no matter what, the sun would shine with each new day, had kept him going over the last several months.
One day at a time, he reminded himself.
And there were only one hundred and forty-four of them to go.