Chapter 11
11
ERIC BANCROFT MADE EDITS IN THE FOLLOWING DOCUMENT:
“DITTO PROJECT REPORTING.”
I enjoyed participating in this experience:
Agree.
Additional comments:
Relaxed atmosphere, tasty food and great teacher. The lesson is a good opportunity for bonding.
My body sags with relief after waiting for this report to come through for close to a week now. Thank God he didn’t mention the knife incident. As I reread his comment, just to double-check, my eye snags on the final word. Surely he doesn’t mean we bonded; he just means it would hypothetically be a good opportunity for bonding. For anyone who isn’t us. I pull out my phone, lingering on the empty conversation before finally typing out a message.
GH: Thanks for not ratting me out.
EB: You didn’t stab me deep enough to warrant telling Dad.
GH: That’s a relief, because snitches famously get stitches.
EB: And luckily for you I only needed light first aid and a bandage.
We don’t speak for a few days after that. Maybe with our new shiny truce in place, it’s better if we have limited communication. If you don’t have something nice to say, then don’t say anything at all. That’s the healthy mindset I should have adopted when hyperfixating on what William’s text meant, the dark underbelly of the casual message. With Alice and Yemi’s guidance, I’d decided not to recklessly jump at the opportunity for an in-person meet.
Hey, things are kind of busy at work at the moment. What did you want to talk about?
William read the message almost immediately; he’s one of those people who have no qualms about leaving his read receipts on and replying whenever he feels like it. The digital equivalent of living in a ground-floor flat and walking around naked with the curtains open. Despite myself, I kept checking for a reply.
When I wasn’t regretting my message, I locked in another trial date. I’d had a pottery class in mind for a couple of weeks now, and had been talking to the owner, Mellie, about a brand partnership.
“So we’re here to make a... cup?” Bancroft asks as he holds open the door for me and I duck in under his arm.
“My flatmate brought me here a while ago; she calls it ‘creative therapy.’” I cartoonishly roll my eyes to avoid the truth of why I know about this place.
Alice claims that when you feel like everything is falling apart, making something out of nothing helps the healing process. While it didn’t do exactly that, it took my mind off things for a while during those first few post-break-up months. We made matching polka dot “friendship mugs”; pink for Alice, yellow for Yemi and blue for me. They didn’t actually end up being used for liquid, having too many cracks in them and chips around the edges that cut our lips, but they made perfect decoration for our dull, cramped kitchen.
“Hiiiiii!” Mellie exclaims when she sees us lingering by the entrance. Her green resin earrings bob against her cheeks as she walks over to us, hugging me and shaking hands with Bancroft.
I smile. “Thank you so much for having us.”
“Yes, I’m very excited about the therapy cups,” Bancroft adds self-assuredly with a nod.
Mellie laughs. “I guess you could call them that. I prefer emotional support pots.”
The sun-soaked room is filled with the earthy mix of houseplants and clay. Colorful mugs and bowls sit on wooden shelves lining every wall. It’s surprisingly calm, considering any wrong move could destroy infinite amounts of handmade treasures. The anxiety I felt when I first stepped into this room mirrored my own mental health in a way that was too on the nose to ignore. My mind conjures that version of myself: pale, red eyes encircled with tired bluing skin. One sudden move and whole thing would come crashing down.
After talking through the logistics of the partnership with Mellie, Bancroft and I slide on dark gray overalls that make us look like a couple of naval deckhands. Well, they make me look like a plumber, and they make him look like the most dashing seaman ever to grace the ocean.
We sit down in front of two stained pottery wheels, each cradling a textured lump of brown-gray clay. Like El Turo, we are two of many in the pottery class, but unlike at the restaurant, this session is a lot more free-flowing. Less “add exactly three garlic cloves,” more “go where the clay takes you.” Following Mellie’s instruction, we dip our dry hands in a bucket of cloudy warm water sitting in between us. The backs of our hands briefly slide up against each other as they’re submerged, sending a jolt up my arms straight to my heavy shoulders. I avoid eye contact with Bancroft, hairs from my ponytail falling loose over my cheeks as I focus down on my squishy bundle of joy.
Sensing my lackluster mood, Bancroft rolls his shoulders back and tries to fill the silence. “Do you want to be Patrick Swayze or the ghost?”
“Patrick Swayze is the ghost,” I say ineffectually, squeezing the clay to test its durability. The wet substance leaks between my fingers as I slowly push my foot down on the pedal to make the pottery wheel turn under my hands.
“Hey, spoilers!” he says.
“That movie is older than me. How could that possibly be a spoiler? That’s like saying the ship sinking at the end of Titanic is a spoiler,” I say, my eyes fixed on the spinning clay.
Mellie, now dressed in lilac overalls covered in clay, heads over to us. “How are you two getting on?” She leans on the wooden utility shelf full of bowls, vases and abstract speckled sculptures behind us.
Bancroft beams up at her. “I’ve been told I’m good with my hands but now I’m not so sure!”
Mellie laughs politely at his dumb joke and snatches a glance at me. “Your boyfriend is funny,” she says before turning back to Bancroft. “Like everything in life, it just takes practice. You’ll get there.” She slaps him on the back. “Grace, we’ll talk again later, yeah?”
“He’s not—” I silence myself before I stop the positive conversational flow with a potential partner. “That would be great, really excited to be working with you.”
I shoot her a believable smile and a muddy thumbs-up. If I nail this, it will be my second locked-in partnership opportunity, meaning I’m currently ahead of Bancroft’s one. I have no doubt he’s going to pull something huge out of his gold-lined bag soon, so I’m enjoying the feeling of singular success while I can.
Bancroft looks up from his wheel, side-eyeing me under his brow. “I like this angle you’re taking, having a mix of local and bigger partners, working with female entrepreneurs. It’s... nice.”
I scoff. “You know, a week ago I would have interpreted the word ‘nice’ coming from you as ‘derogatory,’ but since you agreed to a truce I’m deciding to take that as a compliment.”
“Wow. Look at us, getting along,” he replies with a sarcastic smile.
“Practically besties,” I shoot back with a singsong tone, matching his smile.
He clears his throat. “So, since we’re attempting a ceasefire... I’ve been thinking about how we can collaborate more efficiently.”
“Right...” I reply monotonically.
“You need to be taken on a real date,” he says resolutely, nodding his head as though it’s been said and therefore decided.
My lump of clay spins freely until I take my foot off the pedal and turn to him, blinking. “What?”
“You need to be taken on a real date,” he repeats, still focused on his clay, which is beginning to take shape.
“Why?”
“Well, correct me if I’m wrong but have you actually been on a date since...?” He shifts slightly in his seat, his gaze still fixed on his spinning plate.
I realize that he doesn’t want to say William’s name. A button he doesn’t want to press just in case it opens a trapdoor below him.
“Not exactly,” I say quietly, feigning concentration on my clay ball, which I set spinning again. There was that one date when I cried about William in the middle of the restaurant. Practically encouraging the guy to pretend to go to the bathroom and leave me with the bill. “I did go on one, but it didn’t work out.” I barely even consider that a date.
“OK, so... how is the research for Ditto going to be effective if you have no idea what dates are like nowadays? You have no contemporary frame of reference.” He throws up his eyebrows, opening the space for me to protest. To prove him wrong.
I suck in my cheeks, trying to remember the last date-esque outing William and I had... and come up short. “I’m not seventy! It’s only been like”—I count the years on my clay-covered fingers—“six years?”
“So you’re saying you’ve gone without a date for the equivalent length of World War Two?”
I side-glare at him. “Surely you have enough experience for the both of us?” The regret hits my chest like a volleyball as I remember his words in the garden the other night.
His jaw tightens and releases. “In your own words, I’m pretty well-versed.” He gives me a wink but the usual twinkle in his eyes is absent. “I’m just saying, if we’re working together, I need a strong partner. I can’t have you dragging me down with your Amish ways and terrible conversation.”
I straighten my shoulders. “Hey! I’m on Fate... I just haven’t seen anyone that’s piqued my interest. And even if I did... between this Ditto project and my normal job I barely have time to do my laundry...” My thumbs press into the middle of the ball, forcing a round lip to appear on the edges. “... let alone go on a date where I waste a good outfit and two hours of my life with a person who I’ll inevitably discover down the line doesn’t match my needs and expectations.”
“I’m not saying go find a husband, Ms. Bennet!” He holds up his clay-covered hands in defence. “Fate just takes itself way too seriously; it’s not the place for you right now.” He pauses, contemplating. “You should create an Ignite profile.”
I snort. “Because you think my soulmate is someone with a pet iguana and katana sword collection?”
He smirks, shifting so our legs are nearly touching. “So you can enjoy some casual dating and maybe, God forbid”—he lowers his voice to a mock-whisper, tilting his head toward me—“some sex!”
Our gazes linger; his eyes flick to my lips. The orange glow of golden hour slips through the windows and illuminates his already intense stare. My fingers go straight through my emerging vase, ruining the shape I’d just managed to carve out. Bancroft’s lips curve up as I try to play it off as a deliberate artistic choice by poking another hole on the opposite side.
“You’ve never even thought about it?” he teases, pupils dilated. His voice sounds like a dare.
My cheeks flare: he knows I have. And he knows exactly when.
Sensing my awkwardness, Bancroft switches the subject. “All I’m saying is, you have this idea that seeking out your ‘one true love’ is actually going to lead to it. When, in my experience, the people who find something epic aren’t looking for it.” He swallows, staring intensely at his clay. “Real earth-shaking love can’t be forced or sought out. It happens to you, not because of you.”
I arch a brow at him. “Funny coming from someone who doesn’t believe in true love.”
He glances up at me. “You assume I don’t.” We sit in silence for a moment, until his smile, eventually, breaks the tension. “You really think you’ve got my number, don’t you?”
I smush my ruined vase back into a ball. “I do, actually. It’s saved in my phone under Spawn of Satan .”
“Referring to my father as the devil is giving him way too much credit. He’s more your run-of-the-mill chaos demon. Anyway, stop changing the subject. You are making an Ignite profile.”
I stare at my vase-bowl-jug lump, considering the idea. “What would I even write on it? Besides age, sex, location and whether I’m DTF?”
He licks his bottom lip. “It’s not that hard. Just something simple but interesting about yourself.”
“Like what?” I push because I, like any normal person with self-esteem issues, can’t think of anything interesting about myself on the spot.
He ponders for a second, pouting out his top lip. “Your music taste: it’s bonkers.”
My cheeks are plump as I try to suppress a smile. The night before our monthly report meetings when we would both inevitably end up working late, Bancroft would take my phone and hook it up to the Fate office’s speaker system and press shuffle. Whatever random song title it landed on first would have to be shoehorned into the meeting the next morning. There were some easy ones like Frank Sinatra’s “I Couldn’t Sleep a Wink Last Night” and the Strokes’s “Is This It”; upping the difficulty was Ariana Grande’s “God Is a Woman” and Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On.” We peaked with me managing to drop an “It’s Not Easy Being Green” in the middle of a sentence with neither Susie nor Dharmash noticing. The only one we failed at was 2006 Eurovision winner Lordi’s “Hard Rock Hallelujah.”
I’m quiet, in the depths of nostalgia, when Bancroft offers a more enticing proposal: “OK, how about this? We switch apps; try out each other’s platforms. Then at our next trial date, we can discuss which features could translate to Ditto. What we liked, didn’t like, functionality, clientele, etc. But you can’t just be on it, you have to use it. Go on an actual date, not a fake date.”
“Wouldn’t Margeaux Bardin have a problem with you being on Fate?”
His jaw twitches as his eyes flick down and then back to me. “I stopped seeing her a couple of weeks ago.”
I blink. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” He goes to run a hand through his hair but hesitates at the clay on his fingers. “Looks like Societeur hasn’t caught up to that one yet.”
My brow tightens. “Well, as much as I appreciate this digital wife swap, I just don’t think I have the right qualities for a casual hook-up. I’m not fun, like you. I like going to museums and—”
“If you say you’re ‘not like most girls’ I’m going to have to rescind your feminist card,” he interrupts.
“No, that’s not it. I mean I don’t have the qualities guys would be looking for in a chilled-out hook-up. I can’t be cool or casual and I’m...” I stop myself; this is the kind of vulnerability I could show him when we were friends, but not now.
Bancroft cocks his head, narrowing his eyes in disbelief. “Don’t give me that bullshit. You overthink enough to know you have plenty of shaggable qualities.”
His phone vibrates on the wooden surface between us. The word Rissy is emblazoned on the screen. He ignores it, choosing instead to take my face in his wet hands, smearing cold clay on my cheeks. “You, Hastings, are a catch.”
“Oh my God!” A teenage giggle-scream forces out of me, turning the heads of the others in the class. I grab his wrists, attempting to pull his hands away.
His hands hold strong as he pierces me with that icy gaze. “Do we have a deal?”
With the first genuine smile I’ve let slip in days: “OK, OK, OK! I’ll do it!”
“Good.” His hands slide from my face as he briefly glances at my lips. I wipe the splattered clay from them with the back of my hand, grabbing paper towels from the pile between us with the other. His phone begins to vibrate again, and he wipes his hands off. “I should probably take this.” He gets up, shoulders tense.
“Yeah, sure,” I say quietly, pretending to be so engrossed with wiping the clay water off my cheeks that I haven’t noticed his sudden change in demeanor.
He slips out of the door onto the busy street outside. I watch as he paces in the early-evening glow through the glass facade of the pottery shop. His face is solemnly laced with a flash of frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. I make out the words “stay there,” followed by a concerned look as he hangs up and clutches the phone in his fist.
A few moments later he stalks back through the room looking like the slightly disheveled evil twin of the man who was trying to lighten my mood just a few moments ago. “I have to leave.”
His gaze drags between his phone and me as though looking at both simultaneously will teleport him into two places at once. His half-formed vase slumps over on the wheel from lack of physical attention.
I look up at him from the pottery wheel; from this angle I can see how tense his jaw is so I try and sound nonchalant: “Everything OK?”
He nods his head. “Yeah. Well... no, it’s fine. It’s my sister,” he says, knuckles white around his phone. He’s pretending to sound annoyed but there is a clear edge of urgency to his voice that makes the hairs on my arms stand at attention.
“Is she all right?”
He runs a hand through his thick, sandy hair. “I think so. She and her friends have racked up a huge bill at Matilda’s Bar. The manager isn’t letting her leave until she pays and her card isn’t working. She sounds kind of... out of it.”
He looks embarrassed, as if it’s not the first time something like this has happened. Matilda’s Bar is one of the more expensive of the trendy London drinking holes. I’ve never been there but have heard they’re more likely to check your follower count than your age upon entry.
Bancroft sighs and pops the buttons on his overalls, revealing a pristinely uncreased white shirt and tightly pleated suit trousers underneath like a stressed-out reverse Superman.
“I’ll come with you,” I say, yanking off my overalls too; my T-shirt and jeans are a stark contrast to his outfit. We look like a farmer and the guy who wanted to pave paradise to put up a parking lot.
“No.” His voice is harsh but has a quality that makes me realize this is actually serious. Previously, if anything was causing him stress at work he would go into charm-bot mode and the Permasmirk would soon follow. Turning his work persona up to eleven to compensate for the panic going on behind the scenes in his brain. It dawns on me that this is the rare version of Bancroft I got a glimpse of after I fell on the hiking trail. Pure panic.
He’s saying he doesn’t need help but instead of leaving immediately he slides his hands into his pockets and waits for my response. I cross my arms and match his tense expression. “Do you really think you’ll be able to deal with the bar manager, your sister and her drunk friends on your own?”
One side of his mouth twitches up in faux-nonchalance as he shrugs. “I’ve done it before.”
The overwhelming urge to put my hand on his arm swells inside me but I hesitate, and instead put on my best resolute voice and state, “Well, you shouldn’t have to. I’m coming.” Not waiting for his reply, I pick up my jacket, fold it over my crossed arms and nod toward the door. “Shall we?”
He says nothing but doesn’t protest as I give an apologetic “family emergency” explanation to Mellie with promises to talk further details via phone. She waves me off insistently as I follow him out of the building, into the back of a black cab.