Gatsby's Smile - by Morana Blue

There was a time when I would've called Harry a minute or two after I'd seen the body. While I was still seeing, in fact.

I'd be stood there, staring down at tonight's shade of death. Absorbing the scene. Disorganized killings, mainly. Crimes of anger; crimes of passion. The same thing, in the end. Ordinary, regular murder. Men who snap. Women who smoulder.

I'd take a moment. Pull out the 'phone. Then call him. And in that long silent open moment - the moment just after you've pressed the button but just before the first bell tolls - I'd get a vision of Harry and what he was doing, right then, when he got the call.

Another call.

From another crime scene.

From another me.

He'd be stood there, staring down into a skillet - or a sauté pan, maybe - with a le Creuset spatula in one hand and a cold beer in the other. He'd flip his steak, taste his beer and his mobile would ring. It'd be in his overcoat pocket. Or re-charging, perhaps, by his exclusive wine rack in a dark walk-in cellar-type space just off the kitchen. He'd take the skillet off the heat and go answer the 'phone. Maybe he'd be hoping it wasn't me. Or was me. Though more probably he had no notion at all of whom it might be.

Harry wasn't waiting on anything. Or anyone.

'Hey,' I'd say. There'd be a beat. Maybe he'd flip. Or taste. Then, 'What've we got?' he'd reply.

I used to wonder whether Harry ever did the things I imagined. I'd never seen him in his home. I'd never seen him eat.

But I knew he drank.

Nowadays he's waiting, I suspect, to feel safe. To forget that he'll ever have to answer the 'phone to me again. On account of what I'd done. On account of him never being able to forgive me.

Harry has eyes like Gatsby's smile.

And it's putting me off.