Chapter 22 Now
Twenty-Two
Now
Callie had just settled on her bed, walled in by boxes of her mother’s unsold beauty products, when her phone buzzed.
She glanced at the screen. Neil.
Please fuck off.
Then she remembered that ignoring producers was the quickest route to career death. She answered.
‘Callie, love,’ Neil said, more hassled than she’d ever heard him, and that was saying something. ‘I need help only you can give me.’
Callie prayed this wasn’t a drunk call demanding she describe her knickers. She’s had that from a producer before.
‘What’s up?’ she asked tentatively.
‘Mae.’
Callie’s stomach dropped like a knackered life. ‘What about her?’
‘She’s refusing to let us shoot tomorrow.’
Callie rubbed her forehead. ‘Of course she is.’
‘You said that like you knew it was coming.’
‘I didn’t,’ Callie said quickly. ‘But she wasn’t exactly thrilled today.’
‘Thrilled?’ Neil spluttered. ‘She’s the most difficult person I’ve ever had to deal with. Even that woman whose prize-winning geraniums got trampled by a grip the other day had some humanity about her.’
That description of Mae made Callie oddly nostalgic. But there was no time for it.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘So… what do you want me to do about it?’
There was a pause. A pause she didn’t like.
‘Well,’ Neil began, ‘I was hoping… since the two of you seem to have some kind of… history… that maybe you could talk to her?’
Callie shut her eyes. ‘Neil.’
‘I’m desperate,’ he said. ‘We can’t scrap the segment. We got all that stuff today that needs a bookend. The date part of the date. I can’t just chuck it. The execs will have my hide.’
‘Mmm,’ Callie murmured with fake sympathy.
‘But she might listen to you,’ Neil pushed.
Callie let herself laugh long and loud.
‘Just try,’ Neil said helplessly.
Callie groaned. The very last thing she wanted was to march into Mae’s space and beg her to open the bakery for another day. But the alternative was letting the whole shoot collapse, which she couldn’t do. Professionally. For what little that meant.
‘Fine,’ Callie said eventually. ‘I’ll try. But don’t expect anything.’
‘That’s all I’m asking.’ Neil exhaled, relieved. ‘And I owe you.’
‘Goodnight, Neil.’ She hung up before he could grovel more.
Callie went through her contacts, and it was still there, never deleted. Mae Morgan.
She tried it. ‘Hello?’ said a hassled woman.
‘Oh, is this… Mae?’
‘Who?’ The woman put a hand over the receiver, but Callie still heard her say, ‘It’s not Deliveroo, it’s a wrong number. I swear, if that curry is cold, I’m going on the warpath.’
Callie hung up. Shit. She didn’t have the recent number. Obviously, she could ask Neil…
Why was that so embarrassing to ask? Why was it so embarrassing to say, ‘No, I don’t have my oldest friend’s number anymore?’
But it was. Callie would rather the alternative. Maybe it was better. You couldn’t hang up on a visitor.
***
The night air slapped Callie’s cheeks the moment she stepped outside. The village was quiet, lamplit and still. She could remember that feeling so well, this deadness to the place.
She walked fast, hands shoved into her pockets, rehearsing half a dozen versions of what she might say. All thin.
The bakery appeared at the end of the street, dark below, warm light spilling from the upstairs window. Mae’s flat. Mae and her dad’s once.
Callie climbed the narrow outside stairs, dread filling her. At the top, she lifted her hand and then lowered it again.
Callie hated this. She hated how nervous she felt. But if she didn’t do this, the whole production would fall apart.
So she knocked softly. But nothing happened, so she wrapped a bit harder. The sound echoed down the quiet street. Callie held her breath and waited.
Back Then
Callie did not sleep.
She tried. At least twice, she turned off the bedside lamp and made a token effort, eyes jammed shut, counting backwards from a hundred. By ninety-three, she was replaying the moment in the bakery when Mae’s mouth had met hers, familiar hands reaching for unfamiliar places…
Okay, no more counting.
It wasn’t just the kissing. Although, God. The kissing. Callie had been waiting for a kiss like that her whole life. And she’d had some epic snogs in her time. Well, she’d thought she had.
But the grade curve had shifted significantly now.
This wasn’t Callie. She didn’t do staying up all night worrying about someone else’s feelings. But now here she was, horribly conscious at four in the morning, trying to work out how not to ruin the most important thing in her life.
Mae had kissed her. That was yes to something, Callie thought. Hoped. But she knew she was on probation.
She deserved that. She’d been romantically flighty since puberty, and no one knew that better than Mae. Callie would have to be someone she’d never quite been before to make Mae know how serious Callie was, how in love with her.
And she was. She really was. It was all over as far as denial was concerned.
She was in deep. Up to her tits in something terrifying and beautiful.
Mae. She was it for Callie now. The centre of the universe.
Just as she’d always been. But with, potentially, a lot more touching and maybe some new titles.
Callie felt a sweat break out on her neck.
Her phone buzzed. Who the hell would be texting her at… Oh, it was morning.
For a wild second, she thought it might be Mae. Telling her last night was a mad moment, and she didn’t want to talk about it ever again, and while she was at it, she would actually rather never see her again, and if she bumped into her in the village, she was just gonna pretend Callie didn’t…
It was something else, though.
EMMA: Hey. I hope we can see each other again soon, but if not, that’s okay x
Callie let her head fall back into the pillow with a groan. She’d failed to factor Emma into her life rebrand.
She stared at the message. It was horribly kind.
You’re going to have to tell her, said a voice in her head. She didn’t recognise it. Who was this voice? Why, it was Romantically Adult Callie! This is what she sounded like.
So far, Callie wasn’t a fan.
But she was listening. Could she text Emma? That would be simple enough. And maybe all she owed someone after two dates and no kiss.
Or she could do the hard thing.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she muttered, and hit call before she could talk herself out of it.
The ring seemed very loud. After three rings, she nearly hung up. On the fourth, Emma answered.
‘Callie?’
Callie tried to make her voice sound light. ‘Hi. Sorry to cold call you.’
Emma knew right away this wasn’t a pleasant call. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Sort of,’ Callie said, and winced at herself. ‘No. That’s a lie. I’m… I just wanted to tell you something happened to me. Actually, it happened a long time ago, and I was just the last to know. And it affects this. You and me.’
‘Right,’ Emma said nervously. ‘Callie, if this is about the other night, it’s fine. Honestly. First dates are weird. Or second. Or… what were we calling that?’
Callie swallowed. ‘That’s sort of the thing. I don’t think we should be calling it anything.’
Oh God. Had she really just said that? This was officially brutal. Callie was a monster. How was this better than ghosting?
‘Okay,’ Emma said after a moment. ‘Did I do something wrong? Because you seemed… I thought you liked, um, me.’
‘I do. That was never the issue.’ Callie pushed herself upright, bracing her back against the headboard. If she was going to be honest, she might as well suffer physically as well as emotionally. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ she said. ‘You were… Emma, you are lovely. I need you to know that.’
Emma said nothing.
‘The problem is me. I have been an absolute idiot.’
‘All right,’ Emma said slowly. ‘In what way?’
Callie shut her eyes. ‘You know my friend? The one who runs the bakery.’
A tiny beat. ‘Mae.’
‘Yes. Mae.’
Another pause, longer this time. When Emma spoke again, her voice had moved to deep, tired resignation. ‘You’re in love with her,’ she said.
Callie let out a helpless little laugh. ‘Is it that obvious?’
‘It was… not subtle,’ Emma said. ‘You lit up whenever you talked about her. And you kept looking at your phone the other night. I suppose I was just hoping we still might…’ She stopped there.
‘I really am a disaster,’ Callie said weakly.
Emma didn’t jump in to defend her.
Callie gritted her teeth. ‘I’m sorry. You deserve better than this.’
‘That’s true,’ Emma said. ‘Bye, Callie.’ She hung up.
Callie kept the phone pressed to her ear for a moment longer, listening to the silence, then dropped it onto the mattress and flopped sideways.
She’d told the truth. To Emma. To herself. To Mae.
Mae.
She thought of Mae asleep above the bakery, curled on her side with that stubborn little furrow in her brow. Callie wished she could be there with her.
Jesus, wasn’t it a bit early for that thought?
She rolled onto her stomach and smacked her face lightly into the pillow. ‘You are not going to fuck this up,’ she informed the bedding. The pillow declined to comment.
She reached out, found her phone again, and opened her messages. Her thumb hovered over Mae’s name.
What could she possibly say that wouldn’t sound either deranged or nauseating?
Thanks for last night x
That sounded like she’d helped her with her homework.
About earlier…
Too vague. Too cowardly.
She kept typing, then deleting, then typing again until the simplest version was left. Are you okay? Can I see you this morning?
This was officially pathetic. How was she this nervous sending a text to someone whose toothbrush she’d once accidentally used on a school trip?