Chapter 39
My room is pretty much packed to move out.
Just my dressing table to clear. Obviously, my make-up and jewellery have to be the last things to go because, heaven forbid, I can’t express myself.
I wrap my perfume bottles in scarves, and then move on to my jewellery, packing things into boxes.
Then I spy something I don’t want to pack away: my letter ‘M’ necklace, a thorny tangle in a shell trinket dish.
Just looking at it provokes an audible sigh.
It doesn’t deserve to be in a box, all snarled up.
It should be around my neck, where it belongs.
Somehow the tangles have got worse since I last saw it, but there’s nothing for it.
If I could get through this weird mess of a year, I can get certainly do this.
As I’ve discovered, the only way out is through.
I take a deep breath, tip out the contents of the trinket dish in search of a safety pin, sit down at my dressing table and get to work.
Loosening what looks like the worst of the knot in one place seems to make it worse in another, so I move on to a different tangled clump instead, working away at it until I’ve cleared one patch and the chain can move more freely.
Slowly, slowly, I chip away at the mess until it’s nearly done.
I’m holding my breath, so desperate to get it over and done with, when –
‘Knock-knock,’ Aleesha says, poking her head around the bedroom door.
I look up, flustered. ‘Hi!’ I say, slightly manic.
‘You look like a person in need of a pizza . . . Morgan and I are going to order from that new place in a bit if you want to join?’
‘Of course I want to join,’ I say, my eyes now back on my task, even more incentivised to finish it now. ‘I’ll be down in like . . . two minutes.’ Optimistic, but that is the Mary-Elizabeth Baxter way.
‘Good luck with . . . whatever it is you’re up to,’ Aleesha says curiously, before disappearing downstairs.
And then, all of a sudden, it’s done. The sensation of slipping the chain through itself, back through the final knot, is almost ecstatic. I nearly shed a tear. When I fasten it around my neck it feels like a hard-won prize. I truly earned this.
‘We’re starving!’ Morgan yells up to my bedroom as I’m admiring my reflection in the mirror, the necklace glinting against my chest where it belongs.
‘Coming!’ I call back to my flatmates as I head downstairs.
Before I even set foot in the living room, Aleesha says to me, ‘We need a new QAC email address for our new-student customer discount scam. We’ve used all of ours already.’
‘We can use my old advice column email, that’s got a .qac address. I always use that for random marketing junk now.’
‘They actually send you a code to use to the email so you can’t even make one up – how rude is that?’
‘So rude. Lemme get my laptop . . .’ I say, trotting back upstairs to my almost-packed room.
The bed is still made because I’m sleeping here tonight, but everything else is in laundry bags and suitcases.
I grab my laptop and head downstairs, where Aleesha and Morgan look just about ready to gnaw their arms off.
‘Let’s hope Felix hasn’t somehow taken command of this email address and I can still get in .
. .’ I say, settling down in the armchair and typing in my email address and password.
‘I’m in – pizza scam is go,’ I tell them.
‘Put in askmeanything@ as the email. I’ll have the pepperoni one. ’
‘Weeeey!’ Morgan lets out a cheer.
‘I’ve forwarded you the code,’ I tell her, my role in the pizza scam fulfilled.
As we wait for the order to arrive, I cast my eye over the neglected email inbox, overflowing with spam marketing emails from all the brands I wanted to score a discount from, plus a couple of ‘Ask M-E Anything’ emails from people who clearly are not up to date with the internal politics of Quad Media and didn’t know a) that I’d jumped ship, and b) that the magazine is now dead.
I’m about to set the laptop aside and go to the kitchen for some water when something catches my eye at the top of the unread emails.
Suddenly, I can’t hear anything around me except the pounding of my heart.
My throat goes dry. I forget to breathe.
From: LOdo0894@
To: askmeanything@
Subject: Advice needed
Dear Mary-Elizabeth,
I doubt you check this email address any more, which is exactly why I’m sending it here.
I suppose I do need advice, but more than anything I just need to get something off my chest and out of my system.
My problem is this: I don’t know how to deal with the unhappiness I feel about you.
I liked you from the first time I met you, even if I had a funny way of showing it.
Every time I’ve seen you since then, I’ve felt more and more in awe of you, your confidence and your style and your charm – all of these things that felt so different not just from me, but from everyone around us.
But you were so set on Felix and, well, for better or for worse I’m nothing like Felix, so I told myself I didn’t stand a chance and reverted back to the old pattern of being on-again, off-again with Charlotte.
Then we got to know each other, and I can’t help thinking that underneath it all, underneath you being so sparkly and shiny and fun, and me being so .
. . well, myself, that actually we would be good together.
Charlotte’s just like me in many ways, so I thought we were a natural fit, however hard it was to make things work between us, and finally we’ve admitted that it just won’t work.
No more trying. But maybe what I need is someone who isn’t like me at all.
Maybe what I need is someone who’s just like you, and the unfortunate reality is that no one is like you except for you. So, as you can see, I’m a bit stuck.
I think what I need to learn from someone as wise as you is how I’m meant to just go about my business knowing you’re somewhere in the world, somewhere not that far from me, and we’re not together.
I’m sure you’re dealing with it better than I am, so any help in this area would be gratefully received.
As I said, I know you’re not checking this email any more, but I thought writing it all down might make me feel a bit less lost in this whole thing.
It hasn’t really helped at all. Although I understand there’s a lot of ‘mess’ (your word) to sift through, at this point I can’t quite believe that the act of sifting would be worse than not having you around.
Missing your shine,
Laurie
I read it once. And I’m about to read it again when I realise I DO NOT HAVE TIME TO READ IT AGAIN. When did he send it? Maybe this is old news, maybe he’s over it by now? I check the date. He only sent it yesterday. I have to find him. I have to find Laurie.
‘Guys . . .’ I say, my voice shaking, ‘I’ve . . . I’ve got to go . . . there’s something important I have to do . . .’
‘But what about the pizza?!’ Aleesha looks crestfallen.
‘You two have the pizza . . . I’ll . . . I’ll explain everything later . . .’
‘Are you OK?!’ Morgan asks, looking at me wide-eyed, but I think she can tell this is a good kind of stressed, not a bad kind of stressed.
‘I’m fine!’ I shout from the hall, pulling on the most sensible shoes I can find – some gold lamé Converse sneakers. I literally do not have time for uncomfortable shoes right now.
I’ve got somewhere to be.