Page 36 - WTP Vol. VIII#2

Cape Wind (continued from preceding page)
that night, and I was ravenous. Ian still wasn’t back from the studio. A message from him stuck to the fridge said he’d try to be back before 11:00 pm. I put some music on and heated up some leftover chicken and rice.
I had just poured a second glass of wine and put the dishes in the sink when the doorbell rang.
Thinking Ian must have misplaced his key, I went to the door, wiping my hands on a dishtowel. There, instead of Ian, was a woman with long, stringy
hair the color of dull brass. Her eyes had the sort
of too-open look of the insomniac. Her hands were clutching something in a plastic bag in front of her. My first thought was that she was going door-to- door, begging for money. This, Ian warned me, was not uncommon in this neighborhood, and the usual thing to do was to keep the security gate locked—it seemed everyone in the area had one of these; the Cape Town equivalent of the screen door—and just pass them a few Rand through the bars and send them on their way.
“Is he here? Ian?”
“Uh, no. Actually, he’s out. He said he’d be back some- time toward midnight. I can tell him you stopped by, though?”
“I’ll wait.”
I didn’t know what to say to this. It was just after nine pm. Did she really mean she would wait the entire time until he came home?
“I mean, I...can’t even say for sure when he’ll be back. He’s editing. He told me not to wait up.”
“I’ll just sit out here...” She gestured to the garden walkway and made her way to a portion of the low, stone wall that marked the property line of the next house. She sat down and began examining her nails. Her hair fell in a limp curtain over her left eye so I couldn’t see her expression.
What does one do in a situation like this? I could let her in, but she seemed decidedly off. On the other hand, though, she didn’t seem violent.
The Manson girls didn’t seem violent either, I reasoned, reaching for the phone to call Ian on his cell.
When he picked up, the first thing I did was apolo- gize, then I told him what was going on.
“Oh, Jesus. Did you ask her name?” 29
“No, should I?”
“It’s Celeste. Damn it, I didn’t think she would do this again. Jesus...”
“Do what again?”
“She’s kind of obsessed with me. We had a little—I don’t know. A stupid fling, I guess. When I first moved here. I was feeling kind of lost, and it just happened. Anyway, I came to my senses and ended it. And she didn’t take it very well. Turns out, she’s actually not very stable.”
“You don’t say?” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
“She’s done this a couple of times since I called it quits. Just shown up out of the blue.”
“Well, what do you want me to do? I could let her in, but I was about to lie down with a book. I’m tired.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. She’ll just stay out there until I come home.”
“She’s sitting on a stone wall in the dark. Staring into space.”
“Or maybe she’ll leave, I have no idea.”
His passivity was getting on my nerves.
“So, this is, what? All okay for you? That she just sits around here for hours until you get home? Because I’m going to bed.”
It was a lie. There was no way I would be able to fall asleep with her sitting there. Inside or outside,
it made no difference. The night was irrevocably invaded.
A loud exhalation of breath crackled on the other end of the phone.
“Give me forty-five minutes,” he said, and hung up.
Leaning all the way to my right, I could just see her through the bars of the door, half illuminated in the next-door neighbor’s patio light, still in that same drooped-over pose. I was pretty sure she couldn’t see me.
I tried to imagine Ian falling for her, even momen- tarily, in a weak moment. The feeling was like a reptile clawing in the mud of my stomach. He was either not who I thought he was, or I didn’t feel about him how I thought I felt. Nothing added up. The Big