The first thing I do this morning is telephone Jessica. It's 10.15. I slept badly last night. She sounds sleepy when she answers.
"Hello?"
"How are you?" I ask.
"Fine, why?"
"Just wanted to know."
"Do you want to know if I started?"
"Yes."
"No."
"No what?"
"No, I didn't start."
"Right."
"Yeah."
I hang up and drop my mobile onto the bed. "Fuck," I say to myself.
I light a cigarette and take a long drag. I tap it into the ashtray on the bedside table, it's full of stubs. I hear my mother's voice in the hall. She's talking to my brother. Suddenly the door opens and my mother bursts into the room.
It's foggy in here," she says, waving her hands to disperse the smoke. "Do you want to stink of smoke?" She goes over to the window and opens it. A freezing late autumn draught hits me.
"Are you crazy!" I protest. "Shut it!"
"What's this?" asks my mother, bending down and picking up the tube of Vaseline I used yesterday evening.
"A tube of Vaseline?" I say.
"What's if for?"
"I've got scabs on my nose."
I put the cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, get up and push my mother out of the room.
"Manners!" she says.
I close the window, I sit on the bed again. I pick up the phone and call Jessica again.
"Darling," I say. "You don't have to worry about anything. I'll take care of it."
"Now I feel a lot better," says Jessica.
YOU ARE READING
LAST CUBA LIBRE
General FictionIf you're looking for a gripping read, look no further than "Last Cuba Libre". Meet Jessica, who's a bit of a slag. Claudio, who rocks designer threads and snorts lots of cocaine. Then there's Tony, cruising in his Porsche, leaving a trail of broken...
