CHAPTER 18 #2
‘Yes!’ Jed had said, rapping his knuckles on the table. ‘That’s what separates successful people from ordinary people, that obsession. I love that word. We’re looking for someone obsessed with Clix and our brand of relatable content.’
‘Well, that’s easy as it’s such great … content,’ Jeremy had agreed, his neck almost breaking from the excessive nodding.
Even in the middle of the job-interview bubble, his brain filled with confected enthusiasm for the job, Jeremy had found himself internally scoffing at his own ass-kissing.
Clix did not have good content, and was in fact little more than an advertising platform launched by a huge conservative media conglomerate in an ill-advised attempt to get some readers below the age of sixty.
‘You like superhero films?’ asked Jed, chewing loudly on a croissant. He hadn’t offered Jeremy any food. ‘I think Batman is a real aspirational figure. That’s how you meld wealth and passion projects, you know?’
Jeremy blinked, trying to work out if he’d just heard the theory that a billionaire beating up a man dressed as a clown was pursuing an aspirational passion project.
‘Anyway,’ Jed continued, ‘we do a lot of superhero articles – how to watch all the Avenger films in order or whatever. The army and the navy and the air force love having ads placed on shit like that, so we make muchos bank, you know? So, yeah, it’s good to be across all that stuff.’
By the end of the interview, Jeremy had known he was in with a good chance to get the job – and when he got the call the next day officially offering it to him, he’d been surprised how much dread had flooded him.
He’d promised to give his answer after the weekend, giving him a few days to think it over.
The problem was he couldn’t think of any reason not to take it – the managing editor role was a huge and impressive step up in title alone, and also came with an eye-popping salary (for digital media, though not for any normal job).
But he still felt … more than hesitant about it. He felt uninspired.
Perhaps Sam had rubbed off on him more than he realised.
It was a sign of his misery that he didn’t even smirk at his own innuendo.
Clix took a huge amount of money from the mining industry, was partially owned by one of the largest oil companies in the country, and had several press complaints against them for publishing pro-mining perspectives without disclosing who’d paid for them.
Sam had regularly included attacks against Clix and its parent companies in his climate messaging, and would get uncharacteristically angry when ranting about how evil the publication was.
Come to think of it, a lot of the angry political opinions of young people that Jeremy published at PopBuzz were also about how terrible Clix was.
Jeremy could see exactly how Sam would react if they were still friends and he took the job – he wouldn’t say anything, just look quietly disappointed, that expressive face closing down to prevent insult.
But, as much as Jeremy hated it, he could hear his mother’s waspish advice echoing around his huge empty skull, telling him to face up to his feelings, and own his mistakes.
Jeremy took a deep breath and wrote in the pro list: revenge .
Then he paused, and firmly wrote in the con list: losing Sam .
The next night, Maria pulled out the expensive bottle of Moet, and Jeremy had to shake his head regretfully.
They were about to sit down for dinner, the winter evening cold enough that the fake fireplace was switched on, providing a cosy glow.
Jeremy’s mum had been out for the entire day in a busy schedule of socialising with various ladies named Jan and Ann and Fran at various locations.
When she returned, she’d noticed that Jeremy had bathed, washed his clothes, and was busy tapping away at his computer with purpose, and she approved.
Jeremy knew this because she’d said, ‘Thank god you’ve had a shower and put on a new outfit and stopped sighing all the time. I approve.’
‘I’m not taking the job,’ he told her now, setting out the plates and the salt and pepper and thousands of condiments she liked.
He’d spent the afternoon preparing a meal, and he noticed her look of surprise and satisfaction when he pulled his chicken bake out of the oven instead of serving up take-away like he’d been doing the past few nights.
‘If it was up to me, you would never have to work again. You’re too beautiful,’ she said breezily. ‘But that sounds sensible to me. Conservatives are dreadfully dull. They always have some sort of weird sexual hang-up – trust me – so I can only imagine their internet newspapers are equally awful.’
‘That’s true,’ agreed Jeremy. ‘But – and this is probably going to make you mad because you always say “never do anything for a man, because they’ll always let you down” – it was actually realising that Sam wouldn’t want me to take the job that made me come to a decision.
I know he will probably never forgive me, and it’s probably too late to even ask, but maybe he can stop me making future mistakes.
I don’t know.’ Jeremy was being firm and decisive, which felt good after feeling awful for so long, but he also felt his voice crack.
He’d fucked it up with Sam. He was ready to admit that.
Maria looked uncommonly serious, no longer fussing around with the table settings, holding the serving spoon limply.
‘Jeremy,’ she said, and it wasn’t so much a serious tone as it was stripped of her usual artifice and archness, and it made him sit up straighter.
He’d rarely heard this kind of … contemplation from her.
‘You’d think that a woman with five divorces under her belt would have a lot of regrets, but I only have one. ’
‘Five? You’ve had four!’ Jeremy interrupted, laughing.
‘I’m counting my next one,’ she snapped.
‘And listen, I’m imparting advice, and I’ll only do it once.
’ She took a breath and began unwinding the cork covering of the Moet.
‘I’ve never regretted my marriages or my divorces because I never think that throwing yourself into romance is a bad idea.
I know I claim it was for the money or the houses or the cars, but that’s only half true.
I loved each of my husbands, in some way.
What’s the point of being alive if you aren’t going to let yourself love? ’
Jeremy nodded silently as she began to worry at the cork.
‘But I only got to that point, discovered that ethos, because I did have one regret. I got scared and didn’t let myself be loved by someone, didn’t let myself love her back.’
Jeremy shut down his instinctual urge to shout ‘ Her? ’, realising that if he said the wrong thing he might spook his mum, like approaching a wild horse after finding out that horse had had a lesbian era.
‘It was before I met your father, when I was young. It was a different time, I guess, and I was so caught up in the problems, in the barriers, in the … strangeness of it. But I loved her. And by the time I realised that, it was too late. I thought I’d made my bed, and then burnt it.
But years later, decades even, we caught up and she told me that she would have forgiven me, that she’d understood, if I’d only been brave enough to own up to my mistake, to my fear.
Anyway, last I heard she was happy. She’s been in a relationship for years with a woman who was strong enough to love her back. ’
‘So, you’re saying I should … what?’ asked Jeremy, still reeling from his mother’s legacy queerness.
‘I’m saying that if you think you made a mistake, if you think this is going to be a regret for you, then you only deserve to feel sad if you know you tried everything you could to fix it. Do you want to fix it?’
Jeremy nodded, his mouth strangely dry. He could recognise that his mum was basically saying the same thing Liz had, just slightly less aggressively.
‘Can you apologise and own your actions? Can you eat shit for this guy?’
Jeremy thought about it for a second, and then said, ‘Yes. Yes, I can.’
‘Well, now – that’s something worth celebrating,’ Maria said grandly, popping the champagne and letting the foam splash into the glasses.