Some Kind Of Girl

By Verdiana Nobile

London. A guy meets a girl. But this is not a love story. Not a traditional one, at least.

She has petroleum coloured hair, she's a bit 'wacky, talkative, pushy. He, a brilliant young journalist trapped in an unrewarding job.

Together they plunge to the discovery of their city, turning every date into a little adventure, learning to know each other and dreaming about the future.

But, one morning, she disappears. Without a note, with no explanation. Every object related to her seems magically vanished.

Finding her, for him, becomes an obsession leading him to doubt himself, to face uncomfortable truths, to re-evaluate his choices, his relationships with other poeple, the whole concept he has always had of himself and his world.

Who really is Leila? How much is she real?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jan 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781507171707

Book preview

Some kind of girl

Verdiana Nobile

"This is not a love story,

this is a story about love."

(500 days of Summer)

––––––––

"One baby to another says

I'm lucky to have met you,

I don't care what you think

unless it is about me..."

(Drain you, Nirvana)

01

––––––––

For the fourth time, the pre-recorded voice of the telephone company tells me that the number I selected does not exist. This is a number I know by heart but, despite this, I keep checking obsessively on my organizer, to make sure not to have typed it wrongly in a hurry.

This is a number that, until last night, was among the first speed dials on my mobile, but this morning it seems to have auto removed itself completely, without leaving any trace. With it, all text messages and calls are gone, in one fell swoop. I surrend to the idea of having to buy another phone and try to start the day.

I force myself to be slow, because it's Monday and the light that filters through the half-open shutters has a grayish taste that commands to stay at home. One cannot expect anything good from a day such as this.

I crawl into the kitchen, wrapped in a faded robe coming from a couple of lifetimes ago, back when I allowed my mother to buy me something expensive, ugly and useless, without telling her clearly that I thought it was expensive, ugly and useless. At least, this robe is not so useless since it turned out to be a decent shield against the impossible cold that reings in this house, but I would never admit it in front of my mother.

I calmly have breakfast, in the kitchen dim light, with the feeling that something just isn't right. There is a vague alarm bell that tickles my thoughts, making my orange juice taste bitter.

I look around and all of a sudden I see it. The white square on the wall next to the fridge, smooth, spooky, without even the shadow of a hole left by a nail.

I approach to inspect the area and, instinctively, I blurt out "What the ...?!".

* * *

The list is two pages long, but maybe I wrote a little too wide. It sits still on the still unmade bed peering defiantly at me, sure not to miss.

The disappearance of the kitchen magnet board started everything; a lot of things are missing here. Clothes are missing, lamps, books (lots of them), a keyring, all recent photographs and God only knows what else.

I could call for help, report the matter. But I don’t think someone has broken into my house... on the contrary, it seems to have gone out of it.

All missing things, including those suddenly forgotten by my cell phone, concern Leila.

02

––––––––

Leila is 25 years old, but she’s not so sure ‘bout that. Sometimes she thinks she’s forty, some other days she feels like five years old and some other times I could swear she’s only sixteen. It depends on the weather, on the bed she wakes up into (that, quite usually, is not even a real bed), on the number of people present and on many other things I can’t even begin to see.

I met her for the first time in a pub, on St. Patrick’s Eve, but I didn’t notice her wright away.

As a tradition, the customers in the room were a smelly green explosion of alcohol.

Including me.

It was one of my drinking buddies that attracted my attention on her. We were seated at the counter – a terrible place - constantly jostled by people ordering yet another round of beer at the busy bartenders. Among the general confusion, an exchange of gags coming from the stool next to mine worked its way up to me, grabbing my attention.

  Have you dyed your hair green for the occasion? -

  My hair is not green, it’s petroleum. -

  Well, then it’s not fair, you’re not wearing anything green; you haven’t followed the tradition! -

  My eyes are green! -

  Effectively... hey, you’re really brilliant then! -

It was her last reply that totally convinced me to turn around and give a face to that voice.

  I’m not bright, I’m beautiful! –

She said it in an offended tone, almost as if one thing could exclude the other, then she sat at the counter and said, smiling:

- And since I’m beautiful, you’ll offer me a drink! -

She wasn’t beautiful; pretty maybe, surely charming, interesting, but not beautiful.

Anyway, after three beers, two shots of rum, and an Irish Coffee (that she left untouched), I couldn’t have described her in any other way.

Beautiful.

Beautiful while talking of a certain book that everyone should read once in a lifetime (that I still have to read).

Beautiful while the pub emptied and my friends went away forgetting about me.

Beautiful while offering me a ride by bike, saying "I live near here, you've been drinking, you might not want to drive?!".

Beautiful as she slipped off her shoes, threw one over her head, exclaming Okay, there!, with her finger pointing at a big, long-haired carpet, dented at a point due to the landing weight.

Beautiful as she helped me lie down on that very mat and approached me smiling in a languid manner.

Beautiful while I watched her a few centimeters from me, a moment before dark.

* * *

I opened my eyes with great effort, as if someone had poured inside them spoonfuls of honey, making them sticky. My dry mouth and the heavy head forced me to pull myself up despite the need to sleep for at least two more days. I needed water. A jug, possibily. I also needed one or two aspirins, before my brain exploded, dirtying the shaggy carpet on which I had evidently slept.

I began asking myself whose house was this, trying to recall about last night’s bruised memories, to no avail. The heating seemed to be working on high and this was a relief, because I was wearing only my underwear and there was a hailstorm outside.

I spotted a pile of familiar objects resting on a table and recognized, above all, my mobile. I joined it dragging my aching legs, to control the time and date. It was two o'clock in the afternoon on a cold Sunday in March and I had no idea where I was.

She appeared on the doorstep, tiptoeing, tearing my confusion with an uncertain smile. We watched one another for a minute, silently, weighing the moment, then she smiled again and spoke in a calm, soft voice I didn’t remember.

  Leila... in case you’ve forgotten. -

I mumbled something unintelligible, uncertain of the reason for which to apologize first.

-Sorry to be half naked on your carpet? Sorry if I vaguely smell of vomit? Sorry because I don’t remember a thing about last night? In the end I opted for a simple "Sorry!", and she gave me a pair of sweatpants and an extra large t-shirt with the face of Mickey Mouse in the center.

* * *

Leila has big hands with which she likes to gesture what she's talking about. She can tell me anything about herself, punishing me with sharp silences if I'm not able to keep it in the right places, choosing the right words to reassure her, to swear to have understood her. She often wears white and her sudden way of moving from one corner of the room to the other makes her look spooky, like a vivid ghost of a passing girl. She makes tons and tons of coffee, every day, but she never drinks it, because it makes her nervous. I like the smell!, she told me, smiling, that first morning. She fills mugs and cups, placing them around the rooms as if they were incense sticks, leaving them getting cold.

She told me I could take one, if I wanted to, making a big gesture with her hands, inviting me to choose a cup. We settled near the small window flecked by hail, eating bread and butter on dotted placemats, chatting at first about the weather and then about how we met, once diluted the embarrassment in my last sip of coffee.

  So we...? -, I half asked, dropping the question with an implication that seemed tasteful, in that moment.

  Oh no, no! - , she quickly answered, swallowing a bite. – I would have liked to, but you collapsed; you were too drunk! And during the night you got up to throw up a couple of times ... the first, you didn't reach the bathroom, so I took off your clothes. By the way, they’re in the washing machine, I'll give them back to you as soon as they dry. -, she explained.

  What a fool I’ve beem... shit, I’m desolated, believe me! -

  Maybe there will be another chance, who knows...-, she said, pensively.

Breakfast inexplicably became a dinner and dinner turned into a marathon of episodes of "Murder, She Wrote (for me it was obvious who the murderer was while she always replied that Just because the evidence points to him, it doesn't mean that he is capable of killing, I trust him."), while my clothes dried next to the radiator. We said goodbye late in the evening, with two haste kisses on the cheeks that left me a bit puzzled.

Not that I expected to get right down to it, but considering her allusions to the previous evening, I was hoping to at least get to some petting. But no, after welcoming me into her house with the intimacy reserved to a longtime boyfriend, putting her feet on my lap while we watched TV, Leila dismissed me with a sudden shyness that I hadn't seen during the day, handing me an umbrella and a business card on which she wrote her phone number. The hail had given way to a clean and sharp air, difficult to walk through without shaking in my coat and quickening my pace. My scooter was there where I had left it, a few meters from the pub, ready to take me back to my everyday life, where I had never even heard of a colour called petroleum.

* * *

The next day turned out to be even more freezing and cloudy than what broadcasted by BBC news that, like every morning, had kept me company at my breakfast table.

When I say breakfast, I mean two stale cookies drained in half a cup of Earl Grey tea.

And when I say table, I mean a stack of unopened boxes that I hadn't yet decided to empty or at least put away.

I had moved in that tiny studio flat six months ago, but it still had the look of a temporary stage of my eternal wandering. Especially because of the boxes, of course. But perhaps the bare walls, the sofa bed that I often didn't even deem to open for the night, the frightening echo that could be heard beyond the refrigerator door had their part of guilt too. And there were other boxes.

Yes, the boxes were definitely the most obvious problem.

During those months of new-life-as-an-adult (Adults have no roommates!, my fathed used to tell me), I had only managed to fix – more or less – a small cupboard that, located between kitchen and bathroom, served as a wardrobe but also as a pantry.

Finding a flat that was, in this order: located in an area not too forgotten by God and by men; had enough floor space to accommodate both me and the furniture (which is worth specifying to some estate agents, judging from my own experience.); did not cost the equivalent of Belgium GDP ... In London this is really not an easy task.

Still, after weeks of searching, dotted with visits to homes that describe as surreal would be a pale understatement, I had managed to corner a respectable study flat.

With a single gas stove as heating; almost completely void of furniture; with a start of mould on the bathroom ceiling. But without the hateful carpet. So, I repeat, very respectable. Indeed, practically the Holy Grail, in England.

All this – it would deserve a big round of applause – no less than a stone's throw, literally two steps from Clapham Junction, whose slogan reads: Britain's busiest railway station, as a matter of fact.

I had a place all to myself and I could not complain.

Still sleepy I dove in the crowd