Bound

“Can I get you anything?”
Her haunting voice, projected unnaturally loud because everyone was wearing headset radios, surprised and pleased Tom every time. She appeared roughly on the hour to do a drinks run.
“Tea, please,” he said politely.
She scribbled it down on her tiny, bound notepad, in scruffy handwriting because the truck was so dark. Tom watched her until she looked up, and gave him a flash of the most alive and luminous smile he’d ever seen.
“Thanks, hun,” he said quietly and with genuine appreciation, as she span on her heel carefully in the cramped space and took the drinks orders of the people in the row behind. The dozens of screens covering the front wall of the television truck illuminated her face in many colours. The truck was recieving multiple feeds from various cameras filming live women’s golf. Tom was supposed to be watching the screens and making sure any relevant material was saved on to tapes. If there had been any important advances in the last thirty seconds, he certainly hadn’t got it.
Reluctantly he turned back to his work, flicking back and forth through clips absent-mindedly. He looked at the sportswomen on the screens, deciding whether or not they were prettier than his girl, Salome. They were mostly more muscular and far less afeminate, although some of the American girls were approaching a ten. He pushed and pulled at his thick brown hair resembling a trendy short fringe, attempting to make it more scruffy and bed-headish.
A few minutes later a white, polystyrene cup appeared hovering near his right ear. The squeaky and kind of repulsive noise of fingertips on polystyrene had become one of his favourite sounds. Tom took the cup from her with both hands, and there was no better excuse out there to brush her little, hardworking fingers with his own.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” she replied distractedly, trying to adjust her headset that was slipping off and still keep the tray of hot drinks balanced.
The other boys in the truck voiced their appreciation for Salome without taking their eyes from the screens, and Tom secretly applauded their willpower. He was also grateful for the lack of competition for her affection. After she had handed out all the drinks she opened the door to leave and was illuminated in pale, smokey daylight. She squinted slightly from the brightness, turned her head to give a friendly “See y’later” to the boys and Salome was gone again.
Tom let his chair swing round slowly and then took a quick sip of his hot tea, the taste of anticipation and the only thing that could calm his butterflies. Of course, he would never admit that he experienced butterflies, which is a girl’s emotion, but he could do nothing to hide the restlessness that they imposed on his body. He fidgeted and tried to continue with his work for a few minutes more until he accepted the fact that confronting her would be the only way to get back his focus and, frankly, his sanity.
“I’m going for a...thingy,” he announced to the room, miming an exaggerated drag on a cigarette.
He walked out on to the rickety, steel platform struggling to see in the bright Sun after being stuck in the darkness of the truck all day. He took a slightly beaten cigarette out of his pocket and held it in his lips, but didn’t light it. Using a hand to shield his temporarily sensitive eyes, he scanned the area to try and spot his girl. Then he saw the dirty white skirt climbing the staircase of a truck two or three away from theirs. It was the editors truck, and he watched her struggle with the door and the tray and the steep stairs without considering rushing to help her. Then he climbed down the wobbling steps of his own truck and lit up, casually edging nearer to the one she had just entered. He smoked slowly and lightly so that when the sudden appearance of her beautiful face both shocked and delighted him once more, he had almost three quarters of a cigarette left.
The grass under his feet was dry and even dead in places, so that when she stepped off the last step with a bit of a bounce a little cloud of dust rose from the cracked earth. She leant on the steel handrail throughout their conversation, kicking up grey powder with her trainers.
“How’s your day going?” he asked.
All he truthfully wanted to do was grab her and kiss her, but he didn’t know which grand romantic gesture it was. He was yet to play it out fully in his head, and didn’t know whether it led to a passionate night in his hotel room, or an off-the-cuff proposal of marriage. Maybe it could be both.
“Yeah, not bad. Busy.” Salome replied, brushing the flustered wisps of blonde hair out of her periforal vision.
“Me, too.” Tom looked down at his cigarette and saw the ominous butt approaching rapidly. He was going too slowly.
“Salome, did you want to- I mean, d’you have a boyfriend? Are you spoken for?”
“Yes.” She nodded, not looking at all uncomfortable, unlike Tom whose heart sank or possibly stopped beating for a second, but it didn’t feel as bad as he thought it might.
“Of course you do,” he said with a small but genuine laugh, “I was going to ask you out for a drink.”
She nodded again, “I know. Don’t you have a girlfriend? I thought you did.”
Salome looked down at her feet that were still brushing back and forth on the dry ground, like an animal trying to get dusty to keep parasites away.
“Well, I don’t think I do anymore. I mean, I suppose technically I do, but...well, she cheated on me.”
“Oh.” Salome said sympathetically, which was really the only possible response.
“I haven’t really spoken to her since, and I definitely don’t love her anymore so I guess I’m a freebird again.”
She bought his cavalier and optimstic tone and grinned at him encouragingly.
“Not that you really want to know about my business.” Tom scoffed at his own open can of worms.
“It’s OK.” Salome reassured him.
He looked at the cigarette again and saw it was almost done. It was over. Salome followed his eyeline to the smoking butt with just a couple of milimetres of off-white still clinging on.
“D’you mind if I have a little of that?” she asked, clearly uncertain where the line of their friendship lay.
He handed it over willingly, “Finish it. What’s left of it. I’d better get back to work.”
For the first time since Tom had met Salome he felt that he might finally be able to do that with some level of concentration. He gave her a taste of her own signature ‘see y’later’ hand gesture and turned away.
“I probably would have said ‘yes’,” Salome called after him.
Tom turned back and felt the most alive and luminous smile he’d ever known appear on his face. It must have been contageous. She stood facing him exactly, her slightly thick, curvy body in the perfectly symetrical shape of a gingerbread figure, only unbalanced by the rapidly burning out cigarette in her left hand, a feeble stream of smoke rising from it.
“I probably would have said ‘yes’,” she repeated, “but sorry for making you come out here just to get rejected.”
“It’s really OK, I liked talking to you,” he breathed in the warm, fresh air for a few seconds, “It’s nice to get out of the darkness for a while.”