The night was preparing to clock out, the early birds singing, telling us that summer’s on the way. I was sleeping, like a normal person should be at that time on a weeknight. So Susi called me. It’s urgent, she says.
She was at a guy’s house. Her male project of the month.
“I’m on the way.”
And like the friend I was, tired, I got up, grabbed the keys, and went off in the car to pick her up in the dark. I had her location from the tracking app on my phone. Technically she could track me too, but she’d never had to use the app in that way.
As I pulled up to the house, I knew I was at the right place. A pair of golden lion statues guarded an imposing black slab that was the front door. Typical of the kind of guys she’s been getting into these days. She gets into types of guys like people get into music, or food. The slab opened from the centre, opening to a London side road, when it should’ve really been opening to a moat with robotic sharks swimming around. Screaming and armed with her lethal heels in her clawed hands, she was whacking a dude, wearing cumbersome looking muscles and almost as tall as the door. I doubt he knew she was 18. It looked like he was pleading with her. I leaned over to open the door of the passenger seat. She never even looked back to see if the car was there or who was there. She knew it would be there, and she knew I would be driving it. The morning birds were still singing their tunes, while Susi’s excited insults and the dude’s bassy ‘uh uh uhs’ momentarily joined the jam, their human take on the early morning classic. With a ke-flumpf Susi fell into the car and snapped the door closed, leaving the admirably muscled dude alone on the pavement, his golden lion statues watching a rerun of this familiar show.
I had to keep my eyes on the road, but whenever I looked over at Susi she was totally still. Just staring down at her feet, like they were the only things in the world that mattered anymore, which wasn’t even much.
I’d grown to expect late night calls like this from her towards the end of her monthly explorations of boys. I didn’t ask questions. I was there to take her home. I was being a good friend.
After I dropped her off at her’s, I dropped me off at mine, and it was daylight. I returned to my bed and scraped together a little less than an hour more of snooze before my alarm winded me awake.
I had work. And no sleep. I didn’t want to go…. but I liked work. It paid for my car, my days out with Susi, my phone and I liked my boss… I guessed I should go if I wanted to keep those things.
Work was at a boutique fashion outlet in Soho. I found myself a placement after walking into any place that didn’t scare me off and tried selling myself with my A level textiles portfolio and some of my own personal clothing designs. Lorraine gave me a chance.
“Good God!”, it was she, Lorriane, my boss, observing me through electric yellow framed sunglasses,
“Toni, darling, you look like death!”
“Goodmorning Lorraine” I said as I slithered past her and a gaggle of half dressed mannequins.
“Did Susi call you last night?” Lorraine and I had gone through this routine multiple times, each of which the mannequins got to watch. She preached, as she often did, and as someone who cared, about why I should drop my friendship with Susi, about how she’s manipulative and selfish. Settled in my inner conflict, I responded with my mm-hmms and uh-huhs.
At the time, I felt that Lorraine didn’t understand my significant history with Susi, or how I was responsible for her, and how no one else was there for her. Though in hindsight, she completely understood – she understood the most meaningful friendship in my life better than I did.
For the last couple of years, I was the most constant thing in Susi’s life. And after what we’d both been through, what with our parents separating, and how she had made me feel like I wasn’t crazy or selfish for feeling the way I did, and being there for me when my mum wasn’t, we had some significant history. I owed it to her, to be there for her when she needed someone.
Susi couldn’t help being the way she was. Well, sometimes she could’ve…
Was I supposed to just leave her at that guy’s house? She was smart in many ways, sure… but if you saw a headline about some killings in London, it wouldn’t have come as a surprise to find her to be one of the victims diced up for the fishies in the River Lee. Damn, what an ugly picture. I didn’t mean to be cynical. I just cared about her was all. Perhaps imagining harrowing happenings happening to the people you care about is uncomfortable, but also something that just happens sometimes. Like my mum, when she got scared and called the police on time, when I was running late at work and didn’t think she would worry about where I was. Involuntarily forming such harrowing scenes kept me aware of how vulnerable Susi was.
In the back room, I set up my workstation for the day. It was a smallish space but had a big enough window looking out onto a Soho side street, which let in a civil amount of daylight. A mannequin kept me company. I liked to have it a few feet away from my desk, as though it were walking a catwalk, envisioning my creations as I hoped to see them one day….”One day” I said aloud, pathetically sitting behind my desk, rest my chin in my hand, romancing with the future.