The Happy Hour

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

I’m really sorry about outing your Etsy shop,’ Lola said. ‘But I was just shocked to hear about this Ash person from Spade, rather than you. And it is a good idea, letting everyone know about your prints, because they’re amazing and you shouldn’t be hiding them.’

‘

She was sitting cross-legged on Jess’s bed, while Jess sat backwards on her armless desk chair, twisting left and right, because she couldn’t settle enough to sit still. They had goblets of rosé wine, and Jess had set the fairy lights over her headboard to a soft pink, the mood cosy and subdued.

They could have been fifteen again, talking about boys in one of their bedrooms, posters unfolded from magazines Blu-Tacked to the wall, the crowd sounds of a televised football match echoing from the other room. Women, Jess realised, would sit in rooms and discuss love at every age: it was only the naiveness of their outlook, the nature of their sighs – from hopeful to world-weary – that changed.

‘I don’t mind really,’ she said. ‘I don’t think, anyway. I’ll get back to you once Wendy fires me for conflict of interest.’

‘She’ll probably set aside half the shop for you and your posters.’

‘Doubt it.’ Jess flung a screen-cleaning cloth at her friend, but it only just made it to the end of the bed.

‘Anyway, enough of that. I need to hear allabout Ash. I am so, so happy for you.’

‘We’re not even a thing,’ Jess said. They’d had one kiss. Two, if you counted the kite-flying moment (and Jess was counting every moment, each one as precious as a priceless gold coin). ‘I’ve known him a month. We’ve had four hours together.’

‘But you like him? Who is he? This is all very important.’

‘Why is it important? It’s not like I need a guy to be happy.’

‘You need people to share things with,’ Lola said. ‘People you’re close to, who you can trust, and you’re not a natural sharer. You have me, and Wendy, but you don’thave your parents, because you’ve bottled up a whole mare’s nest of misinterpretations, and held grudges for far too long.’

‘Can we not,’ Jess said, because they’d been over this ground so many times it was nothing more than a muddy, churned-up puddle.

Lola made an exasperated noise. ‘They’re your parents, Jess. And I know what you heard her say, but if you just take my interpretation of it—’

‘I know what she meant,’ Jess said. ‘It fits, OK? It all fits.’

‘With your warped, insecure sense of—’

‘Get back to the sharing thing,’ Jess said. She didn’t really want Lola to go on about this, either, but anything was preferable to talking about what Edie Peacock had said about her.

‘You’re impossible,’ Lola moaned. ‘I’m going to write you a long WhatsApp about your mum later, when you can’t cut me off. But Ash is important because you need another person to share with. Wendy and I, we’re not enough for you.’

‘I’ve never said that.’

‘No, of course you haven’t, because you’d rather stay in your tiny bubble where you think you only need your best friend and your boss. I’m saying it. Me.’ She sipped her wine. ‘I didn’t think I needed anyone else either, until I went to collect my order from the McDonald’s counter and realised, horrifyingly, that I’d picked up a bag with a Filet-o-Fish in it. Malik had my double cheeseburger, they’d somehow got the order numbers wrong, and in doing so inadvertently created the greatest love story of this century – and that’s despite Malik liking Filet-o-Fish.’

‘Getting their Fitbit steps together until the end of time,’ Jess said dreamily. ‘Nothing more romantic than that.’ Lola threw one of Jess’s colourful, yeti-fur cushions at her, which was much more effective than a screen-cleaning cloth, and almost knocked her wine out of her hand.

‘It was fate, karma, magic – that’s what I’m saying. I didn’t know that being with Malik would change anything, but now I’ve got him, I can’t imagine being without him. How will you ever know if you need something, if you don’t give it a chance?’

Jess’s thoughts went immediately to Ash, pressed up against her, the cool wind coming off the river at her back, contrasting with the inferno she’d become the moment he had pushed her hat off her forehead. The raspberry baker-boy cap was hanging on her headboard. Lola hadn’t noticed it, or she would have commented on it.

‘I met Ash at the market four weeks ago,’ she told Lola. ‘It was completely by chance – we both went after a shoplifter – and he asked me for coffee.’

Lola held out her hand. ‘Picture?’

‘I don’t have one,’ Jess said. She hadn’t got a selfie with him, she was only now telling Lola about him, and yet she already thought of him as an integral part of her life.

Lola looked aghast. ‘Tell me about him, then.’

Jess closed her eyes and conjured him easily. He wasn’t by the river, now, but standing on the heath, holding the handle of the kite while she stared up at him and he looked down.

‘Flying isn’t as hard as it looks … Just make sure a part of you stays tethered to the ground.’

Had that been a prediction about spending time with him, because she was starting to feel more and more untethered in his presence?

‘You’re smitten,’ Lola said.

Jess opened her eyes. ‘What?’

‘You were grinning,’Lola told her. ‘Sappily. You have never done sappy in your life. Not even on that holiday in Suffolk, where you met Scott and spent a lot of time banging—’

‘He was a holiday fling,’ Jess cut in quickly. ‘We had an expiry date before we even said hello.’

‘And what about Ash?’

Jess shrugged. ‘He doesn’t live here. He’s got a flat in Holborn.’

‘Oh my God, then why are you even bothering? A couple of miles up the river, and on the northside, too? No long-distance love affair has ever survived such a chasm.’ She pressed her hands on either side of her face, doing an excellent impression of Munch’s The Scream.

Jess threw the cushion at her. Lola caught it and grinned at her over the top. ‘Continue, please.’

Jess scowled, but she couldn’t hold it in, now. ‘He has an hour at the market every Sunday, and—’

‘Why?’

Jess chewed her lip. ‘He hasn’t told me that, yet. He has this appointment he has to get to, every week. I’ve asked him about it, but he always changes the subject.’ Or distracted her with a tour, a kite, an unspilled Americano, frothy with crema. ‘But before that, we have an hour together. We’ve been to the park and flown a kite on Blackheath. Last weekend he made up this film location tour, about Thor and the Muppets...’ She broke off, laughing.

‘Holy shit,’ Lola whispered.

‘What?’

‘A minute ago you said we’re not even a thing, but you’re cracking up at the memories. You’ve flown a kite together. This isn’t just a thing, Jess. This is more than a thing.’

‘It’s just fun,’ Jess told her. ‘He’s easy to be around, and whenever I think about him, whenever we spend time together, I’m full of happy, nervous anticipation. I can’t wait to see him again the moment he leaves, and it’s like... when you only have a small amount of time for something, you make the most of it, don’t you?’

‘Like me and Malik on a Monday night,’ Lola said. ‘There’s only a small window between him finishing work and his online World of Warcraft game. Monday night sex is the best sex as a result.’

Jess shook her head slowly.

‘So you and Ash, you’ve kissed?’ Lola asked.

‘Last Sunday,’ Jess said. ‘But I think... I mean, I like him a lot. And he must like me too.’

Lola rolled her eyes. ‘He didn’t put his tongue in your mouth to get a bit of lettuce out of your teeth, did he?’

‘I am running out of things to throw at you.’

‘I know. That’s why I said it. Seriously, though, what’s next?’

‘Next is the fact that you’ve arranged a Market Misfits meeting when we usually meet up, so unless I abandon you to manage Spade and Susie and our fundraising for Enzo all by yourself, then Ash is going to have to spend his Sunday morning helping us.’

‘Whoop!’ Lola clapped so enthusiastically the fairy lights shivered. ‘I meant it as a joke when I said he should come along, but I knew there was a reason I wanted to do it on Sunday. I must have had a secret intuition.’ She tapped her temple.

‘Yeah, well. This is when it all falls apart.’

‘Why?’ Lola laughed incredulously. ‘Because he’ll get to meet your market friends, and me? Is it me you’re worried about?’

‘Of course not,’ Jess said. ‘And he knows everyone at the market already.’ She didn’t know how to explain it. Her hours with Ash felt like a precious, almost fantastical bubble, and the moment she brought him into the real world, with Lola and her voracious enthusiasm, all the ways in which he might find out that she was less than perfect in comparison to her best friend, that she was often a grumpy, cynical person, it was likely to burst. An hour a week felt contained, like nothing could go wrong. ‘It’s just new and... a bit precarious,’ she said. ‘We’re just meeting for coffee, so—’

‘And kisses,’ Lola reminded her.

‘One kiss,’ Jess said. ‘And I don’t know if it’ll be more. You can’t have a proper relationship in one hour a week.’ Perhaps that was why she’d let it happen.

‘So break through the boundaries,’ Lola said. ‘Meet him one evening; take him to the cinema or to dinner, or bring him here.’ She patted the bed. ‘Be honest with him, see what he wants, and if it turns out that he wants what a long,

fiery-hot kiss suggests he wants, do all of it with him. Enjoy every moment. Don’t confine this thing, Jess – and don’t confine yourself. You don’t have to put all the bits of your life in separate little boxes, or... Russian dolls. What are they called?’

‘Matryoshka,’ Jess said.

Lola looked surprised, and Jess shrugged. She couldn’t tell her friend that she’d Googled it after seeing the chaotic collection on Felicity’s kitchen windowsill. That was another thing she’d yet to come up with a plan for, and the reminder was like an itch, somewhere on her body she couldn’t quite reach.

‘Right,’ Lola said. ‘Don’t separate your life into matryoshka dolls – that’s not how it works. Things are messy, they overlap all the time. Embrace the overlap!’

Jess managed a smile, but she wasn’t convinced by Lola’s suggestion. Ash was the one who had put a one-hour limit on their time together – coffee with his neighbour beforehand, the thing he wouldn’t talk about afterwards. But maybe that’s how they worked best. An hour of doing silly, fun things, having the occasional kiss, not letting themselves ask too much of each other.

‘How did it go with Spade?’ she asked, wanting to change the subject.

‘Oh great,’ Lola said. ‘He is the definition of chillaxed. And he’s an amazing guitarist. I get the feeling he could have kept going with his career all these years, but he’d made more money than he knew what to do with, so he gave up. He’s been so generous, giving me his time and knowledge – he’s really changed things for me. So many of the comments on TikTok are excitement that Spade’s playing again. I don’t think he even realises what a favour he’s done me.’

‘Or what a favour you’re doing Enzo by using your popularity to help him,’ Jess pointed out, because Lola hadn’t pushed back once; she had instantly accepted it as something worthwhile.

‘The market’s a community, isn’t it?’ Lola said. ‘And it’s your place, Jess. You moan about it sometimes, you pretend you want to spend your life hibernating from everyone, but I can see how much you care about them all. If I can help even a little bit, then I will.’

‘It’s lovely of you, that’s all. More wine?’

Lola thrust her empty glass forward. ‘Yes please.’

Jess topped up their glasses to the gentle patter of rain against the window, the shush of tyres on wet tarmac, the faint sounds of Terence’s football match on the TV in the other room.

‘Also,’ Lola said, when her glass was full, ‘you have just come up with the bestname for us.’

‘I have?’

Lola laughed. ‘Do you not pay attention to yourself? The Market Misfits. It’s brilliant,Jess. I’m changing my TikTok handle now. Spade is going to fall off his chair in delight.’

‘The Market Misfits,’ Jess repeated. She’d said it as a joke, but now she thought about it, it was the perfect name for all of them: Lola and Spade, who were part of their group but didn’t work there; Roger, Susie, Kirsty and Enzo with their stalls; her and Wendy in the shop. Perhaps their haphazard group really could make a difference to Enzo with a few music videos and some motivational signs.

She felt a sudden sense of camaraderie, an unusual happiness at the thought of being part of something, and for the first time she wasn’t apprehensive about Ash joining their meeting on Sunday, she was actually looking forward to it. But then she always looked forward to seeing Ash. She was coming to think of him as essential to her happiness and, as much as she wished she could be braver about it, that felt like a very precarious place to be.