Lissa

HE DOES NOT CALL. SHE DOES NOT CALL HIM. HE DOES NOT text. She does not text him. She looks at her phone. Keeps it in her pocket. Waits for the buzz of a message, but a message does not come.

She has forgotten how this goes. How you cede your power to the man after sex. How this appears to be a fundamental universal law. How you can move from sane to mad in a few swift moves, even if he is the husband of your best friend.

The. Husband. Of. Your. Best. Friend.

Think about that for a moment. Examine it. Let it sink in.

PRESS NIGHT GOES well. The cast may be a little pushed, a little forced, but the play has its own engine, its own life force, and as they take their curtain Lissa can sense the excitement, see it reflected in the eyes of her fellow actors—it is working, the play is alive, they are part of something good.

The whispers go around the bar after the show that there was plenty of press watching, that they should expect a decent handful of reviews, and this news evokes in Lissa a familiar sense of relief and dread.

By Saturday morning there are four reviews online. The Telegraph, the Independent and The Times are all four stars. The Evening Standard carries a five-star review: Where has Johnny Stone been? With a talent this rare, he should be a household name. It’s taken an out-of-the-way theater and a little-known director to give him the opportunity to shine.

Helen is a young actress on the cusp of something huge.

And of Lissa, the reviewer writes that she is as languid, lost, and dangerous a Yelena as I have ever seen.

She gets a message from Cate.

Saw the reviews! Wish I could come. Having a thing in Canterbury—December 10th. But I think you’re performing?

Thanks, Lissa writes back. But you’re right. I’m performing. Hope all’s well.

She leaves her phone in the house and goes for a walk around the park. It is market day, but the weather is cold and the crowds are small. She feels conspicuous, there is every chance she might bump into either Hannah or Nathan or both of them together—buying bread or bacon or croissants or fish. Are they still having sex? Hannah and Nathan? What are they doing now? She could go over there. Just knock on the door and stay for a coffee. Hey, Han! Nathan seduced me. Yeah, on Thursday, in his office! Have you ever fucked there? On the sofa? And that thing with his thumb. Is that what he does to you?

Perhaps he is fucking all of them, she and Hannah and the long-limbed succulent girls who rise from his sofa and leave it warm. Perhaps none of them knows him at all.

Or perhaps it is she who does not know herself.