Chapter Five
Jess
All day, Jess feels unsettled. The builders have mercifully paused whatever torture they’re inflicting on the walls next door, but still, she is just as distracted as if a drill were currently perforating her brain.
Her latest book review is coming out flat, uninspired, when this particular book deserves so much better.
It deserves to fly off the shelves, and Jess wants her review to inspire that kind of shopping spree.
But all she has is a load of clichés – clichés, in fact, like flying off the shelves.
And still, Alex’s words and attitude bother her.
It bothers her that he looks down on romance, even though she should be used to this kind of attitude in the book world by now.
It bothers her that he doesn’t seem to understand the role of humour in fiction, and in life.
And it bothers her that this cutie from the bookshop has turned out not to be the man of her dreams, after all.
It’s probably for the best. He’s older than her – she’d have guessed thirty-three, but Google has put her right: he’s thirty-five.
The dimple she’s seen in photos gives him a boyish feel, and ridiculous elbow patches notwithstanding, he looks good for his age – for any age – with no sign of hair loss or male pattern baldness.
A little bit of grey, perhaps, but if anything, the salt-and-pepper specks in his almost-black hair are annoyingly attractive.
He’ll be wanting, no doubt, to settle, to have kids.
She’s only twenty-eight, and not ready for that yet.
True, the hustling for freelance gigs and the running around the country to bookshops events and festivals can get a little stressful, a little exhausting.
It’s also true that in the not-too-distant past, she’d stood inside Waterstones in front of a face-out copy of Sophie Kinsella’s The Burnout, swallowing back the prickle of inconvenient tears which she managed to stave off with the hasty booking of a solo holiday to Corfu.
But she’s not ready for the settling, for the kids.
It feels like there are more adventures to be had out there in the big wide world first.
Yes, it’s definitely for the best that Alex isn’t The One. But it still bothers her that the universe played this cruel trick. There were choirs of angels, after all. Does that not count for anything anymore?
Thank goodness for Lily, who has responded to her SOS WhatsApp with a good-natured series of GIFs and an invitation for dinner.
Gareth’s out at a work thing this evening, she’s written.
I’ll make you your favourite pasta dish and we can talk, or watch The Great British Sewing Bee, or have The Great British Sewing Bee on in the background while we talk. Whatever you like.
Lily, as always, is a gem.
As promised, Lily has made what she calls her Magic Pasta – magic because it’s so simple, yet so tasty.
She refuses to divulge exactly what’s in it – beyond bacon, courgette, cream, herbs of some kind – even though it has now served its ostensible purpose: she’d always said the only way to get the recipe was to marry her, and Gareth had taken her at her word.
Lily made it for him on their third date, and now here we are, four years later, Lily successfully coupled up, Jess still begging for the recipe so that she can work her own magic on an unsuspecting man.
She takes a deep breath and begins this particular instalment of recipe begging.
‘So,’ Jess says, twirling her fork in the linguine. ‘I thought I’d found a worthy recipient of your find-a-husband pasta.’
‘Magic Pasta,’ Lily corrects. On this, she is very particular. The proper terminology must be adhered to.
‘Magic, find-a-husband pasta.’
Lily takes a sip of wine, perhaps fortifying herself. ‘I feel we’re getting sidetracked onto your usual pleas for my recipe. Tell me about this worthy recipient.’
Jess has saved all the crucial information for a conversation in person. Her WhatsApp was deliberately cryptic. ‘Not worthy, as it turns out.’
‘Okay.’
‘I almost got a book deal today.’ It is only a slight exaggeration of the facts. And Jess has always wanted to say, ‘I got a book deal.’ This is close enough.
‘That sounds exciting. But what does almost mean?’
‘It’s a long story.’
In preparation, Lily refills their wine glasses, and then Jess talks.
She is aware of the length of her own monologue, and regularly checks Lily’s eyes for signs of glazing over, but she seems to be following, with appropriate oohs and aahs and cries of, That’s outrageous, and, How could the universe be so cruel?
‘But you’re going to do this, right?’ Lily says, once Jess pauses for breath and a large swig of Pinot Grigio.
Jess looks at her sternly, the were-you-even-listening look that Lily has always called her teacher glare.
‘I mean, obviously he’s an arrogant sod, and he is rude and unappreciative, and he doesn’t understand the importance of the romance genre and thinks he is superior because he writes literary fiction …’
Fine, so she has been listening after all.
‘But, like, Jess, what an amazing opportunity! You’ve always wanted to write a book! This is definitely a step in the right direction.’
Jess was afraid of this. Afraid of herself, too, and her own propensity to cave, especially when something new and fun is involved. Especially when that something new and fun is a man whom, despite her misgivings about his personality, she quite enjoyed looking at.
‘He clearly doesn’t want me to help. When I think about having to be in a room with him, trying to convince him that I know what I’m talking about, that my ideas are good ones … well, the words blood and stone spring to mind.’
‘It’s not like you to shy away from a challenge.’
Lily knows how to push all Jess’s buttons.
Words like shy, words like challenge. She is right, of course.
Jess had just let her irritation with Alex momentarily cloud her judgement.
She takes a sip of wine, tries the idea out in her head.
Of course she can do this. She is more than capable of rising to this particular challenge.
Of wearing Alex down, if that’s what it takes, until he holds his hands up in surrender and utters the magic words, ‘Fine! We’ll try it your way!
’ And he’ll see, Nathan will see, the world will see, that she actually does have what it takes.
That her hours of reading books weren’t just about escapism – there’s nothing wrong with escapism, anyway; she lives for it – but that they were teaching her something, making her into a great writer.
By the end of the evening, she and Lily are toasting Jess’s imminent success. Alex’s, too, of course. But mostly Jess’s.