Not a good day. Not in the best of moods.
She answers immediately.
I’m sorry to hear that. If you need me, I’m here.
Goodnight, Liam.
“I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light.”
I toss the phone to the table and drop back on the sofa, covering my face with my folded arm. A thought crosses my mind, an odd one that both makes sense and doesn’t at all. I wish I could talk to Anna, really talk to her, voice, cadence of emotions, the whole thing. My phone beeps with an incoming email alert. For a few beats I consider ignoring it, but then reluctantly check it. For a whole moment, I stare at the screen incredulous, my mouth slightly gaped.
There’s a phone number followed by, if you want to talk.
Now, that’s an unexpected turn. Not even blinking, I turn down the music and dial the number. Whatever I’m feeling, this rush, thrill, is inexplicable because even though it’s a feeling it’s nearly damn tangible.
“Hey,” she says, and I close my eyes, letting the sound sink in. Her voice is low and feminine and a little hoarse.
“You have a beautiful voice, Anna.” Words come out of my mouth unfiltered.
There’s silence on the other end.
“Cheesy? Did I just make it weird?”
She laughs briefly and it sounds a bit like relief. “No, you didn’t. I like your voice too, Liam. And yeah, pretty cheesy!”
My turn to chuckle. And that’s when I mellow onto the sofa, with my eyes still closed, slightly less depressed.
“Are you okay?” she asks next.
“Much better . . . now.” Something about the notion that it’s her, something about her voice, makes the weight pressing on my chest ease a little. It’s still there, burning, but at least my attention has shifted elsewhere.
She makes a pleased sounding confirmation then chuckles as an afterthought. “This is both strange yet, I don’t know, natural, expected?”
I smile to myself. “It’s been a long time coming, Anna.” I take pleasure in saying her name out loud. Till now we had countless written conversations and endless ones in my head. This is so much better.
“I guess.” I can hear the smile in her voice, and it makes mine soften. “Rough day?”
I exhale. “You can say that.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We lost someone today in the OR. Just a few hours ago. A kid . . . a teen.”
“Oh,” comes out as a gasp. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”
The candor in her voice encourages me to go on. “It wasn’t the first time, but it’s something that – it’s just so hard. Fortunately, there aren’t many cases that end up this way, but when it happens you feel like a piece of you dies with the person. I can’t detach myself from it. I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“I think that’s what makes you human,” she says in a tender voice and adds in a softer tone, “the good kind.”
“Sorry, that’s some heavy-duty load to drop on a stranger,” I say.
“I don’t think that we’re strangers.”
How I enjoy her voice. “You can’t see it, but the smile on my face is your doing,” I say. We’re quiet for a few beats, but it’s not an awkward kind of silence. It feels like she’s giving me the space to decide where I want to take this conversation next.
The pause lingers until Anna decides to navigate the conversation to different waters. “So, you called Little Shit a wanker. Where’s that coming from? Are you British royalty or something?”
And for the first time today, I laugh. And then the conversation just flows. I tell her how Benjamin and I picked up the glorious appellation on a trip to England years back and it sort of stuck. We talk a bit about Benjamin and how we met, and Heather, aka the Flamingo.
“Why Flamingo though?” Anna says in a humored tone.
“She has the longest, skinny legs and gets so flushed when she’s embarrassed, ergo, Flamingo.” I ask her about her friends next.
“There’s Panda, short for Pandora who’s the sweetest kindergarten teacher by day and a hilarious, filthy-mouthed adult by night. Then there’s my sister, Victoria, and Kayla.” She pauses. “Vic is what you call an ambitious, clever career woman yet a complete moron when with friends. The best kind of moron and sister, of course. And Kayla . . . um, my nonsexual girl crush who’s a drummer.” She lets out a humored huff. “But Panda, you need to meet her to understand the phenomenon. You know how we first met?”
“Tell me everything.”
“It was about ten years ago. I was in a toilet room in some restaurant bawling my eyes out, because you know, late teens – every little drama was a full-blown existential crisis. So I’m sitting in the stall crying in my own bubble of drama when this voice comes from over the divider telling me that everything will be alright. Obviously, I halted my crying to find out if I heard right, and then she started reciting a poem to me. I kid you not, a poem! Something about sisterhood and that if you need support find your girlfriends and everything will be better. Borderline wacko.” She laughs a little and I mirror with a brief chuckle. “Next thing I know, she knocks on the flimsy divider and tells me she can be my friend tonight.”
I smile and voice my input, “Sweet and indeed a little crazy.”
“Exactly!” she says animatedly. “So we stepped outside and hugged. Me and that complete stranger. We’ve been close friends ever since.”
I tell her about Billy and Freddie, and we move on to different topics. It’s a bit of a chaotic ordeal, but it flows as if our written chemistry has been taken to the next level. We work. We work fucking well.
“Morning news or evening news?”
I chuckle at the random question out of the blue, and answer with a smile, “Morning.”
“Okay, ask me something you wanted to ask me over emails, and you wouldn’t dare,” she says next.
I chuckle and say, “You’re reducing me to a hormonal teenage boy here.” In a serious tone, I ask next, “So tell me all about your most memorable girl on girl experience, Anna.”
We laugh in unison. My animated, “Just kidding,” collides with her, “Last year of high school . . . ”
I fall fucking silent.
“Tamara and I, in one of those photo booth things, you know – olden days selfie machines,” I huff with amusement in confirmation. “We were taking the prerequisite goofy, tongue sticking out, squinted eyes, photos and then she pressed her mouth to mine and well, resumed the sticking her tongue out only this time it was in my mouth.” She makes an amused sounding puff. “Sorry to disappoint hormonal teenage Liam, but that’s where it stopped. I thanked her and said I was more into her brother. The best part, I still have that photo.”
I let out short laughter and then ask, “Are you real, Anna?”
Her voice is tinted with mirth when she says in a semi-goofy, robotic manner, “I’m not at liberty to divulge such information. Professor Madmind said humans aren’t to be trusted.”
I’m not even sure how we got here, but we find ourselves talking relationship status. When she tells me she’s single, I want to throw my fist in the air like I won something. Makes zero sense.