July
I wait anxiously in the diner, sipping my coffee as the summer sun pours through the window and warms my left leg through the thin yellow cotton of my skirt. It's another scorching day, and sitting beside this huge plate glass window I'm beginning to feel like an ant beneath a magnifying glass.
I've felt on edge all morning, my hands sticky, my stomach churning. On the way here, I kept looking in the rear-view mirror, worried about being followed. Feeling a surge of relief whenever a car that might be following me turned off. I couldn't help feeling that this could be a trick, a ruse to get me out in the open with my precious journal. Not that it actually belonged to me, of course.
I've been too nervous to eat anything since breakfast and my stomach gurgles loudly. I glance around to see if anyone noticed and wonder if I should get something to eat. Where was she? She texted to say she'd be here by one; I look at the slim gold watch that Jay gave me for my last birthday. It was already quarter past.
I look to my right, once again checking that my large black handbag is still sitting in the chair next to me and can't resist reaching inside, checking that the journal is still safely inside it. It is, and I take out my cell phone instead, my thumb flicking the screen until I find her text.
"see you at 1, i'm 5 foot 8, dark hair, i'll be carrying a large red beachbag, x"
I swirl the coffee grounds around the bottom of my cup and ponder how I ended up here, at this diner in the middle of nowhere, scanning the faces of the other customers, looking for a slim young woman in a denim jacket. My mind drifts back to when it had all started, the day I found the journal.
March (1)
I rolled over in bed and reluctantly opened my eyes. Thin pearly slivers of silvery grey light squeezed through a gap in the new curtains and prodded me awake. We'd chosen the curtains last weekend along with the paint for the bedroom.
Hours spent debating the subtle differences between the seemingly endless shades of pale blue: "Mount Fuji", "Dragonfly", "Periwinkle", "Laguna Bay". After a while, they'd all started to look the same.
We'd only been in this house for a week. Jay had been offered a very well paid job as a lawyer in the city and, ever the dutiful wife, I'd agreed that he should take it even though it meant moving away from my family and the only town in which I'd ever lived.
We'd been high school sweethearts, and had gotten married just about as soon as we were old enough. My friends would always say, "How sweet!" whenever they were reminded of this, but lately I'd been wondering if what they really meant was: "How unusual! You mean you've only ever slept with one man? How old-fashioned!"
Our plan, if you could call it that, was that I'd sort out the house and garden in the short term then get a part-time job in a few months when we'd both settled into the area. I'm not sure why it was called Wilderness Road. It wasn't a very suitable name for such a neat suburban area full of manicured lawns, expensive cars and well-pruned roses. The house was lovely; a three bedroom detached property with a large back garden. It did need some modernising though, and perhaps that's why it was so reasonably priced. Or "Priced to sell" as the agent put it.
I lay there for a few minutes listening to the strange new sounds of the house: the distant roar of planes taking off from the airport, the gentle ticking of the radiators, the tree branches tapping against the window. That last noise reminded me that I'd have to find someone to cut the trees back. I had hopes of sunbathing in the back garden in summer and the trees were overgrown, casting the large patio in leafy shade.
It was half-past-seven, so we didn't have to get up for another half-an-hour. I rolled over and wrapped my arms around the reassuringly warm solid bulk of Jay's body. I felt his chest rising and falling. It occurred to me that we hadn't made love since we'd moved in. I guess there was a lot on our minds and we'd fallen into bed every night exhausted, our minds constructing lists of things to do the next day.
I pressed my body against his, feeling his firm buttocks against my thighs, as I slowly ran a hand down over his skin, skimming the light fuzz of golden hair on his chest, then his firm, flat stomach, before cupping the warm bulge in his pyjama bottoms. He groaned as I gently squeezed him, feeling a little frisson of pleasure run through me as I felt his dormant cock swell beneath my fingers.
"Sorry, babe," he groaned. "It's my first full day in the office and I promised I'd be in early. Plus I've got to help you move the furniture before I go."
I smiled, hiding my disappointment as he rolled over, pecked me on the cheek then slid out of bed. Soon I heard the expensive new shower we'd had installed running in the bathroom.
I got up, slipped on my dressing gown, and made us both breakfast as I heard him moving about upstairs, putting on the stylish new suit I'd bought for his birthday. He was from a traditional, religious family who believed that it was the wife's duty to be at home, cooking and cleaning, and I'd easily slipped into the habit of making him breakfast in the mornings. It seemed the least I could do as he was the one with the full-time job.
I knew his parents expected us to have children in the next couple of years. They hadn't said anything explicitly, it was just subtle hints, here and there. Saying how much they enjoyed his brother's family, that kind of thing. I wasn't so sure though. I was only twenty-six and felt that there was plenty of time to start a family.
After he'd finished his scrambled eggs, we went back upstairs. Today I'd planned to start painting the bedroom and needed his help shifting all the furniture over to one side of the room. It was when we were shifting the chest of drawers that it happened, although I wouldn't realise how significant it was until later. We'd just started moving it by awkwardly rocking it back and forwards, when I heard a muffled thump over our grunts.
"What's this?" Jay said, reaching behind and pulling out a dusty A4-sized black notebook. It must have been trapped in the narrow gap between the back of the chest of drawers and the wall.
"Looks like a diary or something, I'll have a look later," I said, taking it from him and tossing it onto the mound of clothes on the bed.
---
I didn't think any more about it until the late afternoon after I'd finished painting the empty half of the room. I'd tidied up and was sitting on the edge of the bed whilst trying to decide whether to take a shower now or start preparing tonight's dinner first.
I picked up the notepad, turning it over in my hand whilst I sipped my tea. It was very thick, spiral bound and inside its cover it read: "If found, please return to Roxy Walker". I was sure that the previous tenant had been called Abigail Walker. Maybe it belonged to her sister?
When I leafed through it, I found pages and pages crammed full of small, neat, feminine handwriting. I flicked through the first few pages and started reading one at random.
Sometimes I look back at my life and wonder how I ended up in this profession. I guess there wasn't any one point where I consciously decided on this life, just a series of small, perhaps questionable, decisions that led me here. I wonder if I'd make the same decisions given another chance. If there was a beginning, I suppose it started when I decided to take that job behind the bar at the strip club. At the time, I was a drama student, struggling to pay my rent and although the pay wasn't great, the tips seemed amazing. It was after I made friends with some of the girls working the poles that I found out that they were earning ten times more than me.
