Jim is already waiting for me in his car outside by the time I emerge from the bathroom.
‘How do I look?’ I ask, pulling at my seatbelt.
Jim shrugs.
‘Do I look different than before?’ I ask.
‘No.’
‘Not better? Even slightly?’
‘Slightly.’
‘You’re just saying that.’
Jim says nothing.
‘Are you not wondering where I’m going?’
‘Nope.’
‘Even though I told you I was going to the airport? And where we’re going isn’t an airport?’
‘Nope.’
‘Glad to see the coffee has perked you up, Jim.’
Six months ago, I was at a ladies’ night in Dubai with a group of girls for Katie’s birthday.
Sixty-eight floors high, the rooftop bar – aptly named Sky High 68 – was a current hotspot for midweek partying. Large cushioned sofas created sociable L-shapes amongst small infinity fountains, changeable neon colours zooming from the one long bar. The music was more a series of calm, futuristic sounds playing alongside a monotonous beat, the zesty smell of shisha sprinkled through the hot night air like sweet sherbet, doing a fine job of masking the copious amount of cigarette smoke. Pink cocktails flowed, all free for ladies, of course. The place was a meat market.
True, the look of the bar was impressive, each corner of the floor pristine, but it lacked a soul that I won’t ever give up searching for. It made me miss those laid-back bars in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, with their power ballads and their many, many lanterns. If only I could have found some sort of job there; some reason to stay, to be needed. Promo work in Dubai could be fun, at times lucrative if I landed the right event, but it was ad hoc, inconsistent, and depended upon the weather being cooler – just hot, as opposed to burning like an angry furnace. At least the quiet times gave me the chance to escape, to travel.
‘Shots!’ Katie announced.
I cheered alongside the girls, but made a swift exit to the ladies’ room before having to neck sambuca. Locked in a cubicle, I scrolled through my phone. Nothing. Why hadn’t George been in touch? The last exchange of messages was so promising, the proof in words right there on the screen. Okay, so he wasn’t my dream guy, but we’d enjoyed numerous hilarious dates that included a lot of alcohol and a lot of mutual appreciation for Stranger Things. We also had pretty wonderful sex. Often. So, why the silence?
Ah fuck it, I was going to break the goddamn silence.
Hey You … at Sky High 68 with the girls. You out tonight? x
Delete, delete, delete.
I tried another approach.
Just bumped into a girl at Sky High 68 who is the double of Winona Ryder … Delete, delete, delete.
I reapplied my lip gloss. Maybe a shot was a good idea after all.
As I left the ladies’ room, the hot desert air hit me hard after spending so long inside the cold air-con. I took a breath, adjusted myself and felt my heart begin to race as I caught sight of someone across the bar. There was no need to text, to wonder, to speculate. There he was.
‘George!’
He turned. His shirt was crisp, white, and tucked with precision into his slim, black jeans.
‘Hey babe,’ George said planting one, two, then three kisses on my cheeks. I don’t know why he went in for three. He’s English. ‘How’s it going? I didn’t expect to come out tonight – I was working late. We’ve got a big event starting next Sunday, been in meetings all day. I’ll be project manager again, which is nuts because my role never started out that way.’
I was baffled as to why he was educating me with this drivel.
‘Who’s your friend?’ another guy asked.
George put his arm around me and gave me a little shake, like a tambourine.
‘Oh, this is Zara. Zara this is … everybody.’
I gave a half-hearted wave and rocked back and forth in my high heels.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked turning to look at George.
He made a huge effort to create a blank expression across his wide, clean face.
‘George. I was under the impression we were having fun.’
‘We did have fun.’
‘Yeah, exactly. We are.’
‘So what’s your problem, Zara?’
‘I don’t have a problem. It’s just that we’ve been having fun for five months—’
‘You’re counting?’
‘No! I’m just good with dates. A wasted talent.’
‘Sure.’
‘And I was just wondering when we were, I dunno, gonna meet up next?’
‘Hmm. Hadn’t thought about it.’
‘Okay …’
‘What? Is that not good enough for you, Zara?’
It wasn’t good enough for me, no. But George was being quite aggressive, a side that I hadn’t witnessed at all apart from when he yelled at taxi drivers for taking a wrong turn.
‘Look, babe,’ he said, lighting a cigarette. ‘I’m in the middle of a work thing here.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Sure.’ He gave my bare shoulder a hard, but subtle squeeze. I brushed him off and took a step back. George was not as good-looking as I made out and his voice was definitely higher pitched in reality, as if stuck behind his nose. But we had definitely been having fun. Nothing bad had happened between leaving his place on Saturday morning and now. A couple of texts, a touch of interaction on social media, nothing to suggest things were over.
‘Why are you treating me like this?’ I asked.
‘Babe. Not now.’
‘Yes, now. Why not now?’
‘Zara. You’re drunk. Fuck off back to your mates.’
‘Why are you being so mean? What did I do?’
He came in closer, his spiced scent overpowering, his cheek resting against mine.
‘Look, babe,’ he said. ‘You’re not my girlfriend.’
I jerked myself away.
‘Well, thank God, if this is how you treat girls,’ I said.
‘Will you lower your voice?’
‘No. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of.’
A petite blonde bounced over to join us, her figure designed for lycra, the volume of her locks unaffected by the outdoor heat. She introduced herself as Amanda from Australia. She seemed hungry for gossip, eager to know who I was and how I knew George, or Georgie, as she referred to him.
‘Georgie knows EVERYONE,’ she said, continuing to bounce.
I made a pained effort to bounce back. ‘We haven’t known each other long.’
‘Oh, are you guys dating?’ Amanda asked. ‘Oh, yay!’
George said, ‘No,’ as I said, ‘Sort of.’
‘Oh, shame! You guys have amazing chemistry. Just saying!’
Another guy put his arm around George, offered him a drink. George turned his back on me.
‘So, how long’ve you been in Dubai?’ Amanda asked. The first question every expat asks another when left alone to make small talk.
‘On and off since I was a kid,’ I said. ‘But, I’ve lived all over … Singapore, Hong Kong, New England, actual England, sort of, for school and uni …’
Sometimes, I wish I could record this story to play aloud to new people I find myself chatting to, saving me from repeating it. My story is exhausting, unspecific. There’s no strength in its background, no meat to its middle. The present is an ongoing maze.