Chapter 22 #2
‘A talent manager?’ Hannah said, nose scrunched in confusion. ‘What did she want with you?’
‘Apparently she thinks I could become the next big “fitfluencer”.’ He looked bemused as he said the word, as though uttering it aloud had provoked a fresh wave of confusion.
‘Fitfluencer?’ Hannah gaped at him, then took a deep drink from her glass. ‘I suppose it makes some sense.’ Before Ed’s career in teaching had taken off and he set his social media profiles to private, his sporadic posts about exercise and cooking had garnered him a surprising number of followers.
‘But I thought you loved working in schools?’ she said. ‘I mean, you’re voluntarily doing extra hours during the summer holidays, for god’s sake – who signs up for that, instead of just enjoying their six weeks off?’
‘I do love teaching,’ Ed said. ‘I didn’t go looking for this. If it went the way this woman said it could, though, I might be able to help people. Work with charities. Reach even more kids than I do already.’
Hannah nodded, then turned to deposit the salad, chicken and French dressing she’d bought in the fridge. Inevitably, Ed would eat most of it.
‘But . . .?’ she asked when she was facing him again. Hannah sensed his disquiet went deeper than contemplating a career shift, which – at least while it remained theoretical – wasn’t the sort of thing that would usually stress him out.
‘She wanted to tie Joe and I together,’ Ed explained.
‘Link me to him as some sort of counterpoint – the inspo for better physical health, to go with all the mental health stuff he talks about. She said it would be a “very compelling package”. His agent agreed, after seeing the shag party photos Joe put up last week.’
‘I can imagine,’ Hannah said. ‘It scans. But you don’t like it?’
‘I don’t know, Han,’ Ed said, moving from her tiny kitchen into the equally small living space beyond it.
He flopped down onto her sofa and continued, ‘I just feel like things I thought were separate – distinct – are all coming together in this big . . . blur. Me and Joe . . . we’ve known each other fifteen years.
I’ve basically been obsessed with him the whole time.
That feels too big – too personal – to put all the way out .
. . there.’ He made a futile gesture at the window, but Hannah knew what he meant.
She nodded and sat down next to him. She’d felt sure an epiphany like this was coming, though she couldn’t have predicted the catalyst for it.
‘I don’t want work – mine or Joe’s – to get too close to how we are with each other,’ Ed said, a little sadly.
‘I don’t want the online stuff, the “for show” stuff, to get confused with what’s real.
I don’t want us to end up more worried about follower engagement than having fun together.
I hate the idea of us planning weekends away, or even joint trips to the gym, based on how many likes we think they’ll get us.
’ Ed was almost breathless when he’d finished speaking, like the relief of saying all this out loud had temporarily winded him.
Hannah took his big hand in her smaller one and held it there.
‘Have you told Joe any of this?’
‘Not exactly. No.’
‘D’you not think you should, if you’re worried the sharing might go too far? Or d’you feel like it has already?’ she asked gently.
‘There’s no way to row all this wedding hoopla back now,’ Ed said, voice bleak.
‘Think about the work you’ve already done to get Renfrew on board with the journalists and photographers being there.
And Joe couldn’t be more excited about the magazine article.
’ He frowned into his water glass, expression pained.
‘He’d be far less thrilled if he thought you weren’t OK with it,’ Hannah reasoned.
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Ed said, with a brief, indulgent smile.
‘He’d never tell you this, but one of his earliest memories is of the Beckhams getting married.
Seeing the pictures on TV and in the papers.
He’d have been . . . five? He says he knew then that if he ever got married, he wanted the wedding to be spectacular. ’
‘That’s sweet,’ Hannah said, sincerely – imagining a miniature Joe, dark eyes lit up with delight at the sight of two beautiful, lavishly dressed people perched on red velvet thrones.
‘But him loving Posh and Becks’s big day is not a good reason to ruin your own twenty-six years later,’ she pointed out.
‘Nothing’s ruined,’ Ed said, eyes wide. ‘It’s just . . . a bit different than I thought it would be. I shouldn’t complain,’ he admonished himself. ‘We got the dream venue I wanted, we’re spending a fuck-ton of money . . . I need to get a grip and just be grateful.’
‘This is your wedding, too,’ Hannah insisted.
‘It’s not wrong of you to want it to be smaller and more intimate.
I sensed you were feeling this way, so I’ve already started saying no to extra bells and whistles – god knows we don’t have time for them anyway.
I promise you, nothing’s getting any bigger or louder from this point on.
But you have to talk to Joe if any part of the current plan is making you unhappy.
He deserves to know, and you deserve to have your needs considered.
That won’t be possible if you don’t share them. ’
Ed brightened a little at the thought that Hannah was already on the case with calming things. ‘Share your needs,’ he paraphrased, shaking his head with a laugh. ‘That’s a bit rich coming from you, Han.’
Stung, she deflected without missing a beat. ‘This isn’t about me.’
‘You don’t like to think anything’s about you – not since we were nine years old,’ Ed said, more serious now. ‘It hit me the night we went to the Mexican place, when we were talking about Livi working for you. Even now, you’d rather do what you think’s best for her than ask for what you need.’
‘Ed, can we not?’ Hannah implored. ‘We’ve got stuff to discuss this afternoon. We need to get on.’
Her brother refused to be waylaid. ‘You’re doing it right now: minimising your feelings so you can get on with sorting my wedding. Which is actually what you’ve been doing since that day at The Bluebell, isn’t it? Shoving your emotions out of the way since the second you found out we were engaged.’
Hannah gaped at him. It was beyond rare for Ed to challenge her like this.
‘I’ve been waiting for you to tell me what’s going on between you and Jude, too,’ he carried on. ‘Don’t think I haven’t noticed that the Twin Code only ever seems to work in one direction.’
‘Nothing’s going on,’ Hannah snapped. She was unnerved, and the lie tripped off her lips so easily it alarmed her.
Knowing how to handle difficult situations – being able to read others’ needs and make sure they were met – had made her brilliant at her job.
But she’d been doing it long before she set up Eventurous; how could she not, with three younger siblings, no dad and a wonderful but permanently overstretched mum?
It struck her that she’d never quite thrown off the habit of diminishing what she needed, dodging difficult moments when she should have made demands.
Giving felt good to Hannah. Being who people needed her to be had always kept her warm and safe.
On the other hand, asking for things made you vulnerable.
Admitting you wanted something, or someone, laid you open to disappointment.
To being let down. To being left altogether.
Then again . . . did not saying you wanted something really reduce the pain of going without it?
Did refusing to admit ‘I love you and I need you’ truly ease the awfulness of not having the person you loved and needed?
What had Hannah’s silence ever saved her, except a little face – and what might it have cost?