Part I - Chapter 4“I can understand why you want to live here,” Carrie said in delight after Roger had given her a tour of the house. She had been enthusiastic from the moment he had stopped the car in front of it. She loved the outside because it was simple, it fitted the look of the area perfectly, and it had a garden. There were lots to do about it, but it could be saved. When they had gone inside, she had been impressed by how spacious and bright it was. It was everyone’s dream house. As they walked from room to room, ideas were born in her mind. “It’s going to be hard, but if you help me we can do a great job.”
“Then we’re on?” Roger blinked, avoiding to sigh in relief yet. One more second, and he could.
“We’re on,” Carrie nodded.
“Thank God!” he exclaimed. “I was beginning to think I’ll never live here again. Or get married,” he confessed. “Mirka is going to be so glad about this.”
“By the way, congratulations for the engagement. I think you’ve got your hands on a good girl.”
“I know. Thanks. What about you? Is there anyone in your life?”
“Yes. But… Never mind, I don’t want to bother you with my problems,” Carrie trailed off.
“You can tell me anything,” Roger encouraged her. “I’ll only tell Mirka,” he winked.
“How did you know she was the one? Listen to you, you’re sharing secrets. And… I keep saying I love you back, but I don’t know if I mean it. I’m almost positive I don’t,” she complained.
“How long has it been lasting?” he asked, thinking to himself that it was ironical. He would have never imagined Carrie insecure about a relationship, or not knowing if she loved her boyfriend. He had rather thought of her as a romantic person who would live a passionate love story. She deserved to have her prince charming on a white horse.
“A few months,” Carrie answered. “I met him when I came back from Paris, a year ago. He works with Emma.”
“That explains it. It’s too soon.”
“I know, but… I have to keep up,” she smirked. “I care about him very much, don’t get me wrong. But I always thought that I’d have butterflies in the stomach, and my feet would give in under me, and all those gooey things they say. Maybe it’s my fault, I don’t know how to enjoy what I have,” she went on, saddening more and more.
“Hey, it’s not the end of the world. If it’s not him, it will be someone else,” Roger comforted her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. If Marat saw her like that! He’d probably take advantage and make her feel even worse, he dismissed the thought.
“But I want him to be him,” Carrie said childishly. “If you could see his smile! He has the most charming smile in this world! And his eyes are so bright, and when he’s happy he has a twinkle and…” She talked for minutes on end, stopping barely when she realized that Roger was watching her in a strange way.
“And you doubt you’re in love,” he rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t speak like that if you weren’t.”
“Are you sure?” she asked with enthusiasm.
“Extremely sure,” he replied, reading the message he had just received. “Will you join Mirka and me for lunch?”
“Yes, we need to start making plans for this house. Thanks for listening to me. I appreciate it,” Carrie smiled, leaning her head on his shoulder. She had to tell Ryan to come back already from his business trip. She was missing him badly.
“Anytime,” Roger squeezed her shoulder. “Certainty comes with time,” he whispered.
Carrie nodded as a cue she understood what he meant.
--- --- ---
“Look, over there,” Marat showed Mirka after a few looks at the people who sat under the umbrellas. “Couldn’t he have gone inside?”
“Enjoy the nice weather for once,” she hushed him. “Remind me to get the dress from your car when we leave.”
“Ok. He has company,” he grinned at seeing the hand of a woman waving through the air. Unfortunately, the man that was standing right in front of her back blocked the sight and he could not have a proper view. But maybe she was staying for lunch. By the hand, she was promising. As they advanced, he realized it was Carrie. The living proof that the most hot women were in fact screws. Just like Mirka, who was now kissing Roger, who had stood up to help her sit down. Could those two be more sickly in love?
“Bye. Love you too, Ry!” Carrie said, taking the phone from her ear. She had noticed someone with the corner of her eye, but she ignored him, thinking it must be a waiter.
“And there you go again,” Roger teased her.
“Huh?” Mirka frowned.
Roger leaned and started whispering in her ear. Carrie would have felt uncomfortable at other times, but she remembered what he had said about certainty. That must be the case with sharing too. Finally the chair next to hers was occupied, and she could not believe she had to stand next to Marat.
“Hi.”
She crossed her arms and looked in the other direction. She was not talking to him.
“You could at least say hi back, it’s not that hard, just a word,” he went on undisturbed.
Carrie humfed under her breath, but she did not open her mouth.
“Marat, what did we agree this morning?” Mirka scolded him.
“Fine,” he gave in, “but it’s her fault. She’s being rude. It says in the code of good manners that you have to…”
“Marat,” Mirka started again.
“Ok, ok,” he raised his hands in the air. “But she’s not working for you yet,” he found an escape.
“Actually, she is,” Roger informed them, making his fiancée sigh in relief.
“By your reactions, I’d say the devil himself ruined your plans until now,” Carrie laughed.
Marat threw her an angry look, while the two tried not to laugh, knowing it would have made him angrier.
“And no black walls, I promise,” Carrie winked at Mirka.
“That was a good one,” the latter laughed. “Very good!”
Marat eyed them in suspicion. They had met less than 24 hours, and they already had jokes together. That was not good. Not for him.
“I am going to get you involved in the process, if that’s ok with you. I need your opinions,” Carrie announced them.
“That sounds fine. I’m going to wash my hands,” Mirka replied, standing up.
“I have to take this call,” Roger followed a second later, pacing away and leaving them alone.
Carrie studied the menu diligently, trying to make head and tail of it.
“I’m sorry about yesterday. I shouldn’t have gone to your parents, you were right. And I shouldn’t have mentioned… you know,” Marat shook his head, studying his menu as well.
Carrie rolled her eyes, decided not to give in. Whatever he was trying to do, she would fight against it.
“Say something, don’t let me talk to myself. I’m trying here,” he went on. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Carrie, we’re going to see each other often if you help Roger. You can’t pretend I don’t exist.”
She raised her eyes and looked at him for the first time. He had his eyes over the menu, so she put her hand under his chin and made him watch her. She raised an eyebrow in defiance, then she grinned, and then she turned back to her menu. That was Carrie. The one who could make him boil without uttering a word, he cursed.
“I did you a favour, and look how you’re paying me,” he observed, looking at her attentively, waiting for a reaction.
“You shouldn’t have gone to my parents, you shouldn’t have mentioned Emma, I’m doing a great job pretending you don’t exist, and you didn’t do me any favour,” Carrie said wearily. “I didn’t agree to help them because I’m desperate or because I owe you something. I only agreed because I want to do it, and for Roger.”
“For Roger?” Marat blinked. “In case you haven’t noticed, he’s engaged.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, a man and a woman can be just friends,” Carrie said mockingly. “There are things that escape you.”
“If a man and a woman can be just friends, why aren’t we?” he inquired, trying to prove his point. He knew it was absolutely illogical, but he had never lost an argument to her.
“I don’t know. Maybe because you are absolutely annoying. Maybe because you broke my best friend’s heart. Maybe because you are a jerk with me, and you make me treat you bad,” Carrie answered on an indifferent tone. “This has no point. We are the living proof that men and women can’t be friends, so you win. Happy?”
“No, I sound awful,” he protested. “I did all that, but… I can’t be that bad, can I?” He refused to believe it.
“You’re free to be all you like,” she shrugged.
“Carrie?”
“What?” she asked, already annoyed at his insistence.
“Let’s make a truce,” Marat suggested. “We have to stand each other a month from now, we can’t have a war all this time.”
He was right, Carrie cursed. A whole month! She had seen him three days on row and she already wished she had died instead. A month meant ten times more. They would exhaust all the insults and tricks, and all the low blows. It was impossible to keep up with that. A month, she mouthed without realizing. Thank God he still had his eyes over the menu. “What do you have in mind?” she wanted to know, suddenly interested in the perspective.
“We can’t be friends overnight…”
“You and I are never going to be friends. Not as long as I’m sane enough,” Carrie warned him.
“It was just a hypothesis. Why would I want to be friends with you?” Marat snapped. “What I meant was that we should control ourselves a little bit. Do you think we can avoid fighting all the time?” Did men really get lost in blue eyes, he wondered.
“You are always daring me,” Carrie pointed out, unsettled. He had been staring in her eyes ever since he had stopped watching the menu. It was too… intimidating. She was sure that any moment he would offend her again without blinking. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, running the risk of a smart answer.
“You told me not to look lower than your neck, so I’m left with the face. I could watch your lips, but then you’d probably say I’m a pervert, so your eyes are the perfect target, don’t you think?” he smiled. She did have beautiful eyes, and a man could get lost in them, damn it!
Carrie gulped. She had fallen in her own trap. “Can you stop, please? You’re making me nervous.” Why had she said that? Now he would mock her forever.
“Ok,” he looked away. “See, we can do this.”
“Yes, I believe we can,” she smiled. “Why aren’t you always like this? We could have gone along,” she sighed.
He was about to admit that when Mirka returned.
“Isn’t this a miracle? You’re not fighting. Where’s Roger?”
“Business call,” Marat explained. “Let’s order, I’m going to die and he’s not coming soon,” he suggested, noticing the waiter that stood to his side.
--- --- ---
“I’m going home to get my paper and crayons, and then I’ll go to the house and start sketching,” Carrie told Roger while Marat transferred Mirka’s shopping bags in the other car.
“Done,” he sighed in relief, joining the others.
“Do you remember how to get there?” Mirka asked.
“Not really, but I can manage, don’t worry about me.”
“We’d drop you there, but we’re already running late for the meeting with my parents,” Roger remarked.
“I’ll be fine. Write down the address, and I’ll get on my own from there,” Carrie assured them.
“Why don’t you show her the way?” he asked Marat. It was tricky to leave them together, but they both seemed in an excellent mood. They had been polite to each other during lunch. They had behaved as best as they could under the circumstances. That was something. They both looked willing to cooperate. Or they were the best actors in the world. He preferred to leave out the last option. “You don’t have a car anyway since we went in mine,” he told Carrie. “He can drop you home, and then you can follow him there.”
“I don’t know…” Marat started.
“I wouldn’t…” Carrie said at the same time.
“Go ahead,” Marat offered. This gave him more time to think of a good excuse.
She saw behind his sudden chivalry and hated being a woman. She would have to go first. “It’s just a drive, it can’t go too bad, can it?” she faked a sweet smile which only Marat could distinguish.
“No, I don’t see why it should,” he smiled back charmingly, playing with the car keys.
“Then it’s settled. Don’t forget about that meeting at six,” Roger reminded him, walking to the other side of the car to open the door for Mirka.
Marat followed his example, although he felt like laughing out loud. He could not remember the last time he had held the door for someone. Carrie took the passenger’s seat, wondering what had gotten into him. She listened to the music for the rest of the drive, giving him directions when it was the case. So far, they had both been silent, and she couldn’t have been happier.
“I’ll be down in a minute, you wait here,” she said when he stopped in front of her building.
“What happened to inviting me for a cup of coffee?” he teased her.
“Sometimes Emma comes home for lunch. It affects her to see you,” she revealed. “We already argued about you, I don’t want to make things worse.”
“Then I’ll wait here,” Marat agreed. “I don’t want to hurt Emma either.”
“It’s a little late now,” Carrie could not help remarking before she disappeared.
“Yes, it’s too late,” he echoed. He decided to change from that moment on. He had to do something about it, he could not lose the woman of his life just like that. Just because she was Carrie’s friend, and he hated Carrie. Because Carrie had proved she can be human if she tried hard.
--- --- ---
“Do you think it was a good idea to leave those two alone?” Mirka asked Roger, concerned.
“Yes. Maybe they patch things up. They are both great people, they’re just too busy to hate each other to death to see it,” he chuckled.
“This is not sane, whatever this thing between them is called. And they are two different people in one, did you see?”
“I’ve known them longer than you,” Roger reminded her. “Marat was my friend, but God I wanted to punch him when he made Carrie cry.”
“Oh, new things! You haven’t told me that until now,” Mirka teased him.
“Because you didn’t know Carrie until now. I had a crush on her, like every other boy from the group. And I had seen her just once… But Marat made it clear they were enemies, so no one dared disobey him.” He stopped there, realizing it was better to keep the rest to himself.
“Little tyrant, Marat,” she laughed, caressing Roger’s face.
“Yeah. I don’t know how he did it, but she was always an outsider.”
“Poor girl! I can imagine an army of boys against a defenceless girl.”
“But then, just when Marat had thought he was on top of the world, she stroke back. She gathered an army of girls,” Roger laughed. “There was a war in the neighbourhood, I remember I used to visit and they were throwing water balloons at us.”
Mirka laughed too. “And how did it end?”
“It didn’t. Now it’s just the two of them fighting, the others got bored.”
“They looked promising today,” she observed.
“Let’s hope that goes on,” Roger smiled, arriving at the destination.
--- --- ---
“Leave the keys somewhere in sight and you can go,” Carrie told Marat from the middle of the staircase.
She took the rooms one by one, chewing the end of the crayons while she was not sketching. Hours later, when she felt her fingers hurting and her back starting to ache, she called it quits. Luckily, she had finished. She leaned to grab the keys from the floor, ironical at Marat’s choice of leaving them there. Then again, there was no piece of furniture except a sofa. She heard the noise of someone moving on it, and when she got closer she spotted Marat. Wasn’t he supposed to be long gone? She checked her watch. It was half past six. He had missed that meeting. Not that it surprised her. He looked adorable sleeping, she sighed. If he could stay like that forever! Like an exhibit in a museum. She bit her lip to stop the laughter. She had to take advantage of the situation. With a devilish grin, she took the permanent marker out, but when she had got it just an inch away from his face he grabbed her by the wrist.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed.
“You were pretending to sleep?” She blinked.
“I can feel you, Carrie. I can feel you from far,” Marat said on a low voice.
“Are you a wizard now?” she laughed. “It was an innocent joke. Remember when you drew measles on my face while I was asleep?”
“But I was eleven. And I used lipstick,” he pointed out.
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at that meeting?”
Marat looked at his watch in shock. Roger was going to kill him. Another one on the list. He jumped from his seat and straightened his clothes. How could he have been so unconscious as to fall asleep? But the sofa had been so comfortable…
“I have to go. Lock up when you leave,” he cried to Carrie on his way out.
“What?” She frowned at seeing him come back right away.
“Um… I can’t get the car out because your car’s in the way,” he explained. “Can you move it?”
“Sure,” Carrie smiled. Looked like that meeting was important.
--- --- ---
“Carrie!” Pamela exclaimed. “What’s the miracle?”
“I came to see Emma,” she explained, walking behind the desk to sit next to her. “How are things around here?”
“Regular. No new gossips. What about you?”
“The usual,” Carrie trailed off. “Is Emma busy?”
“She’s just finishing the last appointment of the day. And then we can go home.”
“Excuse me, Ms. Emma Ripley?” a man asked.
“I’m her secretary,” Pamela replied, throwing Carrie a curious glance.
“I have some flowers for her,” the man went on, putting a huge bouquet of yellow roses on the desk. “Can you sign the form?”
Pamela signed for receiving, while Carrie wondered who had sent them. She knew of no recent admirer of Emma, which intrigued her all the more. She could take a peep at the card, it wouldn’t harm anyone. With that thought in mind, she opened the envelope and an angry expression was drawn on her face. Not as long as she could stop it, she muttered, tearing it to pieces and throwing it in the bin.
“Carrie, what a surprise!”
“Matt!” she grinned, giving him a hug. After Ryan, he was the man she would have liked to have as a boyfriend.
“You haven’t been here lately,” he reproached her.
“I didn’t have anyone to come to since you sent my love away,” she pouted.
“Don’t worry, he will come back. Can you come to my office for a second?” Matt pleaded.
Carrie followed him, warning Pamela that Emma was not to learn about the flowers. She would arrange that later. Five minutes of awkward silence and a failed attempt at a conversation later, Matt finally gathered his thoughts in a coherent question.
“Should I ask Emma out?”
“Why are you asking me instead of her?” Carrie giggled.
“Because you know her better than anyone else. I don’t want to look like a fool.”
“You have to take the risk,” she shrugged, standing up. She walked right into Emma’s office, not forgetting to pick up a random file from Pamela’s desk. “Excuse me, Ms. Ripley, but it’s extremely important that you read this,” she said on a formal tone, avoiding to look at the two men who were seated in front of Emma.
They had nothing left to do but leave, promising they would come back another day.
“Thanks, they were killing me,” Emma grinned.
“My pleasure. Was I convincing enough?”
“Very. What’s with you here?” Emma asked, puzzled.
“What’s with everyone? Can’t I come here? I know people. I know Ry, Matt, Pam, that girl from the copying machine, what’s-her-name, and the most important, you. I saw you’re angry, so I wanted to apologize.”
“It went away, Carrie. After a day of work you love everyone,” Emma giggled. “We’re not going to talk about it again, are we?”
“No,” she shook her head. “The second reason why I’m here is that I’m playing Cupid. Matt wants you to go out for a drink, but he’s not sure whether you’d agree.”
“Should I go?” Emma asked innocently, thinking that if frustration had a face, it was Carrie that moment.
“Should I go?” her fried mimicked her voice. “Am I in your place? It’s not my decision, Emma. But I’d go. You have nothing to lose, and who knows, maybe it actually works.”
“I’m going,” Emma smiled widely, clapping her hands in a girlish delight. “I have to stop moping around, don’t I?”
--- --- ---
“Did you see how cute they were together?”
“Yes. I created them, Pam,” Carrie grinned, proud of herself.
“What should I do with the roses?”
“Throw them. And do that every time she gets flowers, are we clear? You got the name, right?” Carrie asked with a harsh expression.
Pamela nodded.
“See you,” Carrie followed as she left. She would spend the evening alone, but at least Emma would be entertained. She could not believe her ears when she had said she would go, but she had done it. She walked to her car, only to see someone standing in the middle of the sidewalk, looking like a lamb taken to the slaughter. As much as she disliked him, she could not avoid thinking that she had caused his pain. Because that was what his features betrayed. Pain. That was life, with good and bad things, and he had lost. Because of her, though he had no idea yet. She threw him a smile and went to her car, convinced that it was too late to change things now, unaware that she had caused a radical turn.
