Chapter Seventeen
‘Do we have any final questions from the audience, before we wrap things up?’ Orla blinks into the bright lights, squinting at her audience from the small stage. She points to a woman at the back, who stands up nervously.
‘What do you do to combat writers’ block?’ she calls out, and Orla smiles encouragingly towards her guest.
Sam and I are watching an in-person live recording of Orla’s podcast at a bookshop.
She’s just finished interviewing a well-known author of racy romance novels, talking with frankness and joy about the revival of smut and women’s pleasure in literature.
There are about seventy of us here in the audience, and I have to admit it’s been a really interesting and fun evening.
And we got to hear about rimming, which is always a bonus.
‘Everyone handles writers’ block differently,’ the author replies, leaning towards the captive room.
‘Personally, I like to do something really removed from the writing process. So, I’ll, like, watch a horror movie or something!
Take my brain as far away as possible from the latest rimming scene I’m trying to get down on the page. ’
Everyone laughs, enjoying the feeling of shock.
Orla leans into her microphone. ‘Personally, I don’t like horror films, I have Facebook showing me “memories” from 2009 every goddamned day. That’s more terror than anyone should ever have to endure.’
The audience laughs even harder, and Sam and I join in. God, she’s charming.
Orla professionally wraps things up, thanking her guest and everyone who came along.
‘We’ll be sitting at the table over there at the back,’ she tells the audience, ‘so come get your book signed by those of us who’ve written one’—she grins pointedly at the writer—‘or just to say hello and get a photo for the ’gram. ’
Sam and I exchange a look. Here we go, it’s happening. This is our chance to speak to her, one-on-one, face-to-face. At last.
We’re really doing this.
We join the queue of adoring fans snaking their way around the bookshop. ‘That was so much fun,’ Sam whispers as we wait.
‘I know,’ I moan. ‘I was hoping she’d be terrible but she’s a fucking delight. No wonder Justin is so happy. And she’s even prettier in real life. No fair!’
‘Sorry, babe,’ she murmurs sympathetically.
My heart pounds in my chest as we near the front of the queue. I feel adrenalised and scared and buzzy and ashamed. I feel alive. But it’s not until we’re suddenly next in the line, about to stand in front of this woman I’ve obsessed over for weeks now, that I realise the problem.
What if she recognises me?
Holy shit, of course she will! She would’ve looked me up just like I looked her up.
What the hell was I thinking? I glance in a panic over at Sam, but she’s already excitedly edging forward.
I wonder if I should make a run for it. I picture Orla watching me with bafflement as I suddenly flee from her presence and out of the building.
Would that be weird? And what if someone else recognises me as Tiramisu Girl and films me being mad again?
Either way, it’s too late. The queue moves me forward and I turn to face the music, waiting frozen, for Orla to look up from the table and make the connection.
‘Hiya!’ she says with warmth, her Irish accent coming through clearly, as we make eye contact. ‘Thanks for coming along. What’s your name?’
I stare at her and Sam clears her throat, throwing out a hand to shake. ‘I’m Sam, this is, er…’ She freezes, too, and I decide to go with the truth. After all, if Orla recognises me and I’ve used a fake name, that makes me way creepier, right?
‘Liv,’ I whisper, and her smile gets wider.
‘As in Olivia?’ She leans closer. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but that’s my real first name.’
‘It’s a good name.’ I swallow, still waiting for the click of recognition. It doesn’t come.
‘Have you had a nice evening?’ She asks cheerfully, clearly used to starstruck fans incapable of much in the way of speech.
‘Yes, thanks,’ I say meekly. ‘You are… funny.’
‘That’s so kind,’ she says warmly, and I really, really hate how nice she is.
‘Do you have any, er, relationship advice?’ Sam blurts, apparently doing as badly with all this as me.
‘Relationship advice?’ She looks a bit surprised, then composes herself.
‘Well, to be honest, I’ve only just started dating someone new, so I’m not sure I’m in the best position to be doling out how-tos!
’ She looks between us. ‘Are you two single?’ We both nod and she smiles.
‘Enjoy it. I was single for years before I met Justin – that’s the new lad’s name – and I loved it.
I think you truly have to be happy on your own before you can be happy with someone else. Don’t you reckon?’
We both nod silently. ‘Do you, er…’ Am I really going to ask her this? ‘… do you wash his underwear for him?’
She blinks with shock at my question. ‘Do I…?’ She looks baffled, then laughs hard. ‘No, we don’t live together and I don’t wash any of his things! He’s a forty-two-year-old man, of course I don’t!’
I join in, laughing robotically, though I am mortified beyond belief. Sam starts laughing, too. I can hear her laugh is genuine.
‘Yeah!’ she says through cackles, ‘I mean, who’d date a man-child like that?’ I jab my elbow into her ribs and her laugh turns into a cough.
Orla smiles. ‘I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with looking after one another in a relationship, but I do think it needs to feel equal, you know?
Like a partnership; a team. I never want to feel like I should be responsible for or in charge of the house just because I’m a woman.
I never want to feel like someone’s mother’—this hits harder than it should—‘and it drives me mad that so many of us have been conditioned to do that.’ She makes a face before continuing.
‘To look after the men in our lives as if they’re small, incapable babies.
We run around doing all this emotional and physical labour for them and half of them don’t even notice.
I never want to be a side character in my own life. ’
‘Exactly!’ Sam says with enthusiasm. ‘I was saying that very thing recently. And I’ve noticed so many of these dickhead men date women so much younger than them’—she side-eyes me—‘because they know those women are not as likely to stand their ground or assert their boundaries. They don’t push back in the same way. ’
Orla laughs. ‘You’re so right! I can’t tell you how nice it is to be in my forties now and not give a feck.’ She pauses. ‘But that’s obviously a long way off for you two. Are you in your twenties?’
Holy crap, I’m in love with this woman.
Sam laughs girlishly. ‘We’re both thirty-one.’
‘Your thirties are such good craic.’ Orla nods. ‘But just you wait. When you hit forty, you will realise how much you’ve put up with that you didn’t have to. So far, my forties have been even better.’
‘My friend Jools says being in her fifties is the best,’ I tell her, and Orla beams.
‘I can’t wait.’
The organiser behind her gives us a signal to wrap things up and we nod obediently, starting our exit shuffle.
‘Anyway, it was nice to meet you, Orla,’ I whisper, and she stands up, reaching over for a hug. She smells incredible. Like a Lush bath bomb shaped like a human. ‘Thank you,’ I murmur into her shimmery hair.
‘It was lovely to meet you both,’ she says with genuine warmth as we move away. We catch her greeting the next person in the line with the same sort of enthused kindness.
‘She didn’t recognise me,’ I whisper as we walk away. ‘How is that possible? What new girlfriend doesn’t look up the last girlfriend? Never mind my recent viral TikTok fame.’
‘Maybe Justin lied about you?’ Sam sounds just as confused.
‘He was the worst liar ever,’ I say, and then I turn to my best friend, horror dawning.
‘Is it possible, Sam, that Orla just didn’t ask him about his exes?
’ I shake my head in astonishment, glancing back over at this magical human-being-shaped bath bomb, chatting animatedly to a group of young women as they pose for a photo.
‘Is it possible she just doesn’t care? That she’s so emotionally healthy and mature, that she isn’t even threatened or bothered about her boyfriend’s previous relationships? ’
We stare at each other. ‘Oh my god,’ we say together, the idea of it blowing our collective minds. ‘Oh. My. God.’