Tore Renberg - See You Tomorrow

She knows that relationships fall apart. She knows that people leave one another. But this is different. This is a higher power. This is for the rest of her life.

One day he was just standing there. It was the week Tiril left an hour early to rehearse the Evanescence song. Sandra could feel the sweat making her T-shirt stick to the skin between her shoulder blades while she vacuumed the floor, and in the distance she picked up some sounds from the entrance. Sandra has clear instructions not to open the shop after closing time. They’ve told her not to talk to anybody if they knock on the glass, because there was an incident a few years ago where a guy managed to break in and threatened one of the cleaners while he stole money and whatnot.

But the sounds wouldn’t cease; it was raining cats and dogs out there, and Sandra moved cautiously towards the door, worried about what she was going to see.

There was a boy standing outside with a moped helmet in one hand. He looked so small, so wet, so terribly good-looking and he didn’t look dangerous. What did he want? He was trying to form words with his lips; he smiled, pointed at himself to show that he wanted to come in; what was it he was trying to say?

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. She pointed at the door while she wagged her finger. She mouthed the words as clearly as she could: ‘I can’t let you in, I’m not allowed.’

But he just stood there.

He was so good-looking!

His mouth was so … so bright.

And then she realised who it was. Bewildered, she said: ‘Daniel?’

‘Yeah.’

She watched him form the words with his lips. It was a super strange moment, she felt it right down to the soles of her feet. It was Daniel William Moi standing there, the boy there were so many rumours about, the foster brother of Veronika from the flats. And the weird thing was that she said his name and smiled at him, stupid Sandra who’s only fifteen, and that he actually smiled back, Daniel William Moi , the one in sixth form nobody dared talk to, the one all the girls thought was so hot with those deep eyes of his, and dangerous. The fact that she smiled at him and that he smiled back, it was almost unreal.

‘Yes,’ he repeated, pointing at himself again.

Sandra’s eyes began to blink. Was she going to let him in? Now he said that word again, what was it he was saying? He started doing something with his hands too, as if he was drawing in the air, a square, no, a circle, while his lips repeated what he was attempting to say.

He began to laugh, and Sandra couldn’t help but laugh as well, it was a really odd situation, two people standing miming and laughing on either side of a glass door. Now he began to write something on the rain-soaked windowpane, what was it?

Sandra went as close as she could. He put the moped helmet down on the ground, his hair was already wet, his face glistening, and when he stood up he traced his forefinger across the glass again. But what he wrote was washed away by the rain.

Now he was standing right against the pane.

Today’s paper?

Is that what he said?

He’s so gorgeous!

Today’s paper?

‘What are you saying?’ Sandra spoke louder.

He read her lips. He’d probably learnt it from Veronika, the lip-reading, and he repeated, as slowly as he could:

toi

let

pa

per

Sandra burst out laughing, she felt her face crack up. Daniel William Moi was standing there yelling for toilet roll. He was so cute, you could see how white his teeth were when he laughed and he was soaked to the skin. She leaned towards the glass and formed the words as clearly as she could:

‘Wait. Wait. Okay? Wait.’

He nodded, and she dashed back through the shop. Sandra knew she was doing something wrong, but it felt right so she did not allow herself time to think, she just ran into the backroom, ran with one arm under her breasts and the other swinging through the air, got the keys to the entrance and whispered to herself: ‘I’ll do it. I’ll just do it.’

‘Hi,’ he said and laughed as she let him in.

‘Quick,’ she pulled him further into the shop, away from the windows, ‘quick, I’ll lose my job if they think I’m letting people in…’

‘Right, yeah…’ The rainwater was dripping from him and forming small puddles on the floor, he shook his long fingers and sprinkled the droplets around him.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, feeling the perspiration begin in her armpits and under her hairline. ‘It’s only water.’

‘I’ve been at band practice — I play in a band — and I’d promised Inger, that’s my foster mother, to buy toilet paper on the way home, but I forgot the time and got here a bit late, and well…’

He looked at her.

Sandra swallowed.

‘Hi,’ he said, ‘my name’s Daniel.’

He extended his hand. She took hold of it and felt small. She released it quickly.

Sandra nodded and swallowed again, ‘I know,’ she said, something catching in her throat.

He looked at her. For a long time. Sandra tried to look away, because his gaze was so penetrating, but she wasn’t able to.

‘What’s your name?’

His voice was so deep.

‘Sandra Vikadal,’ she said and curtsied.

She curtsied!

‘Well, look, you can get toilet roll,’ she said hurriedly, to cover what she’d just done. She turned so he wouldn’t see how stupid she looked. ‘But I’ll have to just give it to you,’ she said, ‘because I can’t open the till…’

He laughed as he followed her along the aisle towards the shelves with the toilet paper. ‘Theft.’

‘Gosh, yeah,’ she said.

They stopped in front of the shelves. She grabbed a packet, felt the fear over what she was doing course through her hands, then held it out to him.

He’s a lot taller than me, she thought.

And then — it was so unbelievably strange and so unbelievably nice and Sandra has thought about it every day since, as though it were a sign — then he jutted out his chin, giving his face a sort of silly look, and raised his forefinger. He held it in the air in front of her. Then he brought it to her nose, gave it a gentle press and said:

‘Now the two of us have a secret, Sandra Vikadal.’

And then?

Then the days, the hours, the minutes and the seconds just came crashing down. They collapsed on top of one another. The following night he was back, she let him in without any questions, the night after that he kissed her in the backroom, and the next night she met him in the woods for the first time, and the next night … everything merged together, she hardly slept, he took her over, they kissed and kissed and neither mouth could get enough, they touched one another and touched one another and neither pair of hands could get enough, they stared into each other’s eyes and Sandra felt she was drowning in them, they entwined hands, and what did they talk about?

The future, countries they would travel to, things they would see, how beautiful the world was right here, right now. They talked about each other, about the storm of emotions that had suddenly arisen one rainy night, they retold and retold their own short history, how he had stood outside the shop with the moped helmet in his hands — you were so wet! — how he had tried to make her understand what he was saying — toilet paper, I said! A thousand times. But you, you thought — I thought it was today’s paper! Over and over again they repeated their own short history, and they thought it was the most important story of all. And every day they came closer. Every day, greater courage in their kisses, every day, greater courage in their hands, every day, greater courage in their words. Every day, a wild joy over recognition — Oh, you’re well sexy in those jeans — and an equal joy in discovering new things — Your lips look so beautiful when they gleam like that — and every day an all-engrossing interest in everything the other person does — I just have to hear that band, I’ve never liked metal but I’m sure I’d love them — and every day a drawn-out farewell, that horrible moment when they had to part: