CHAPTER 5
‘Oh no, oh no, oh no,’ Jeremy said.
Sam sucked in a breath and answered with a mild, ‘Uh oh.’
Jeremy glared at him.
‘Don’t worry, this shitty old lift does this sometimes – it’s like a rite of passage,’ said Sam, pulling open a panel and pressing down on the emergency button.
A tinny bell sounded somewhere above them a couple of times.
‘They’re very practised at getting her started again, don’t worry.
’ Sam pressed the button a few more times.
Jeremy nodded, suddenly aware of how small and stinky the elevator was, the red light making it seem crushingly tight. He also realised he was in a box suspended by a rope over a void.
‘Okay! Okay! Good. I’m not great in small places,’ he said, feeling the woozy beginnings of panic.
Sam reached out an arm and once again Jeremy felt a warm hand steadying his shoulder.
He was already breathing shallowly, but against his will he felt himself returning to that moment earlier when they’d been standing like this, except with no clothes on, and Sam’s broad chest and wet thighs and other things were flashing through his head again.
‘Oh god,’ mumbled Jeremy, shaking his head.
‘Just breathe,’ said Sam. ‘Honestly, it’s perfectly fine. This is, like, my third time stuck in here – we’ll be out so soon. Sometimes it does take a while though. Hopefully you’re not running late for something.’
‘Oh my god, I’m going to miss my French class,’ Jeremy said.
He’d already been pushing it, running directly from the gym to the class, which was a good fifteen-minute walk away.
‘Or maybe it’s Italian cooking – I have to look at my diary.
I can’t remember. I know it’s not pickling, because that’s on the weekend,’ he babbled, still breathing shallowly.
‘Wow, bonjour,’ Sam exclaimed. ‘Are you going to Paris soon? Or Italy?’
‘No,’ Jeremy replied, leaning against the wall, trying to work out if the elevator was actually swinging.
‘Are you … dating a French person … who enjoys little vinegar cucumbers?’
Jeremy huffed a little laugh. ‘I’m not dating anyone.’
‘I am extremely intrigued now … Why are you learning French, and why do you have so many hobbies, or are you just one of those people who does a lot of stuff? Are you a prepper who is going to pickle your way through the apocalypse?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Jeremy said through a gasp, now properly hyperventilating.
‘Well … we have time.’ Sam laughed, looking around. ‘And maybe it will help take your mind off all the claustrophobia and your crushing sense of doom.’
‘That doesn’t help,’ said Jeremy, half playing along and half still panicking.
He crouched down, hoping it would make the floor feel less like it was swaying.
‘Uh, okay – so in answer to your question, I’m learning French as an elaborate way of making my ex-boyfriend feel bad.
It’s a huge exercise in revenge, I guess. ’
Sam looked at him curiously. ‘Now I’m more confused than ever. How does you learning French make your ex feel bad? And why do you even want revenge?’
‘Ergh, I bet you’re one of those people who gets along super well with your exes,’ groaned Jeremy.
‘Well, yeah, my ex and I broke up about six months ago and I was going to deliver her some soup after this, because she has a cold.’
‘Well, isn’t that lovely for her?’ Jeremy said sarcastically, squirrelling away the confirmation of Sam’s heterosexuality, deliberately tamping down an odd feeling of disappointment at the fact this annoying man wasn’t gay.
Made sense – there was nothing more annoying than handsome men who aren’t gay.
He didn’t hate all straight people, but it was always a red flag in men, mostly due to the insane length of their shorts. ‘I happen to hate my ex, and I wish for him to suffer.’
‘Okay, sorry. I’ll stop bragging about my mature adult relationship with mine. But seriously how does beginner French help with revenge? I am truly fascinated. Also, I am stuck in a lift.’
Jeremy considered lying, or at least spinning the plan – he’d done so over the phone to his mother, framing it as a self-improvement mission rather than letting her in on his deranged revenge scheme – but he was too nauseated and panicked right now to be bothered.
He also didn’t particularly care what Sam thought.
He was essentially a stranger, so he might as well just be honest. Jeremy settled onto the grimy floor of the lift and sighed.
‘Right, well, what you have to understand is I haven’t seen my ex for many years, since he broke my heart and fucked me over,’ he said, realising yet again that trying for a flippant tone was impossible when it came to Miles.
Sam just stared back at him solemnly.
‘I won’t go into it,’ Jeremy continued, ‘but trust me when I tell you it was bad. Really bad. And now I have to see him at some big reunion thing where everyone loves him, and I have to make sure my life is awesome and I’m perfect, and I have to make him feel jealous and sad for leaving me, or at least I have to make sure I don’t look pathetic in comparison to him. ’
Sam stared at him in clear confusion.
‘So, long story short, I have six months, or just under, to fix my life, and that’s why I’m at the gym all the time, and why I’m learning French, and doing all this other stuff … you know … because it’s impressive.’
There was a moment of silence, then Sam said slowly, ‘So … walk me through this … you walk into the reunion …’
‘Yep,’ said Jeremy, having visualised this a lot. ‘And I’m hot and muscular and fit.’
‘Pfft,’ said Sam. ‘You’re already a very attractive man, but okay. So you walk in, with your new gym body, and let’s pretend that’s not incredibly problematic body image stuff.’
‘Yeah, let’s just skip right past that, please,’ said Jeremy, who was well aware of the bad message he was sending to impressionable youth. He figured he would get hot and make Miles jealous, and then make sure it hadn’t given him an eating disorder or something.
‘Okay, you walk in, you’re benching pounds and pounds of weights. You walk up to …’
‘Miles,’ Jeremy supplied.
‘Yuck,’ said Sam. ‘You walk up to Miles, flex your arms, count to ten in French, and then, what? Serve him some delicious pasta? Show him a jar of pickles?’
‘Well, no …’ Jeremy said, feeling a spike of irritation. ‘I drop it into the conversation, obviously … in a natural way.’
‘“Hello! It’s me, Miles, your ex-boyfriend. Wow, it’s been so long since we caught up …” What do you say?’
‘Um,’ Jeremy said. ‘I’ve been … good. I speak French now. Bonjour. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. You’re right! Oh my god.’
‘Look, if all these things make you happy, you should just do them! If pickling makes you happy, you should just pickle.’
‘That’s the thing – I don’t give a shit about pickling! And is it racist to say I hate the French?’
They stared at each other, and that’s when Sam started laughing.
At first, Jeremy was annoyed – what the hell did this literal stranger, who he didn’t even like, know about Jeremy’s life?
It was more complicated than just learning French – there was a history of pain and betrayal to consider.
But as Sam continued to guffaw, Jeremy couldn’t help imagining himself rocking up to the reunion and presenting Miles with a jar full of pickled beets labelled Revenge .
Besides, Sam had a truly infectious laugh, maybe because there was nothing cruel in it, just delight.
Jeremy smiled slowly, rolling his eyes. ‘Okay, enough mockery. What’s your brilliant plan? If you suggest I forgive Miles, this elevator will be your tomb.’
‘No, now that we’ve been in this lift for ten minutes, I feel like I know you and this situation well enough not to suggest you take a slice of humble pie, turn the other cheek …’
‘No, I will keep my revenge cheeks firmly front and centre … I shall be eating a huge slice of spite pie,’ Jeremy said.
‘Of course, it sounds delicious and extremely mentally unhealthy … So, here’s your problem – you’re running an inefficient campaign.’
‘Aha, someone’s been watching Veep .’ Jeremy tried not to roll his eyes again.
‘I’m serious,’ Sam said. ‘You’ve made the mistake a lot of people make when they’re trying to achieve a goal. Let’s say … you want to save the whales.’
‘Absolutely, they deserve the world: ocean queens, fish icons.’
‘So you think of a list of thirty different things you can do that will make a difference – maybe more – but there’s a problem …’
‘The whales are homophobic,’ Jeremy said with exaggerated sadness.
‘The problem is your organisation only has three people in it who want to save the whales, and one of them is an idiot, and one disappears once a month every full moon. You don’t have the time to do thirty to fifty things on your own that will help the whales —’
‘So you do the most effective thing?’ asked Jeremy.
‘Maybe.’ Sam shrugged, his eyes alight with energy.
‘But what can three people do that would efficiently save the whales? All three of you could be rolling whales back into the ocean, spending all your time and energy doing that for the rest of your life, but in the end you’d only be saving a handful of whales … effective for you, but limited.’
‘That’s depressing,’ said Jeremy, now firmly intrigued.
‘The best way is to get other people involved. Three people can’t make a huge difference, but get lots of people involved, enough people to force real change to happen, to impact politics, to raise large amounts of money, to become an army …’ Sam gestured around the cramped space.
‘Are you saying I should crowdfund my elaborate revenge on my ex-boyfriend?’ Jeremy asked.
‘Possibly! Not necessarily though. Because here’s the point I’m getting to – in order for three people to get the attention of lots of people, and become an effective unit, they have to run a smart, attention-grabbing campaign. They need to do something big and flashy!’