Chapter 2 #2
Yeah, fuck them. Max is here. Max is the only person that I need. If everyone else on planet Earth died except Max, I’d probably be pleased, because then he’d have to get back together with me.
Oh God. I’m drunk. And as Angie once said, “Drunk Becky is just the opening act for Desperate Becky.”
I’m about to say something else to Max when his phone rings. “Sorry, I have to take this,” he apologizes, standing up. I grab his arm.
“What?! No. You can’t abandon me.”
“Becks, it’s your party.” Max grins. “You know everyone in the room.”
But you’re the only one I want to talk to, I think as he leaves.
I can’t believe everyone is still poring over The Folder.
I unsubtly stare at them. Mum and Gavin are nodding intently at everything Phil is saying.
Phil, as usual, has his arm around Dami in that way that looks like he’s got her in a chokehold.
You can barely see her little head peeking out from his big, stifling, muscular arms. Angie’s sitting gracefully, with perfect posture, occasionally laughing, playing with her hair, and brushing Jacob’s leg.
Jacob is perched on the edge of the seat, looking around the room, obviously waiting until he can go home.
I dislike Jacob, but if he has one upside, it’s that he’s about as interested in The Folder as I am.
I think about going back over there. Then I remember the “I’ll never plan a wedding” comment and no one jumping to my defense, and stay where I am.
“Your parents are so cute!” A singsong voice interrupts my self-indulgent marinating.
Sara, one of mine and Max’s friends from Scintilla, is pointing toward Mum and Gavin.
Sara was a crazy drama student who was always leaving you stranded at the bar to rush off for last-minute auditions and, when she was there, mostly role-playing with kitchen appliances.
She once made me try to vent my “pent-up frustrations toward my mother” to a spoon.
Max and I don’t see that group often, but it’s always nice to catch up now and then and get tickets to Sara’s bizarre performances.
In the last one we saw, she played the shoe of a Nazi.
I’m not certain I fully understood the play but I’m pretty sure it was something along the lines of “Nazis are bad.”
“That’s my mum’s boyfriend,” I correct her. “Not my dad.”
“Oh, sorry!” Sara puts her hand to her mouth. “Well, they’re cute anyway. Oh, I almost forgot. Birthday present!”
She rummages in her bag and I’m expecting her to bring out some flowers or a bottle of gin to add to the pile, but she produces a dark blue, shimmering gift card covered in stars. It reads “Spellbound” in lettering that I recognize.
“Oh, is that . . .” I join the dots. Spellbound is a magic shop—magic shop? witchy lair? occult cave? what does one call this sort of establishment?—on the next street over from the bar we used to work in.
“Yes! Right by Scintilla!” She claps. “I’ve been going to Sue for readings for years.”
Max and I always laugh at how Sara never has money for food but always has enough for psychics.
I’ve sometimes secretly wondered if there’s anything in it—on some level, I’ve always liked the idea of there being some sort of wise, omnipotent magic that has all the answers, plus Sara was told she would meet someone who’d cause trouble in her life right before she met Toxic Tina—but Max would disown me if I admitted that out loud.
“She’s been so helpful for me with . . . well, everything, to be honest. I finally dumped Toxic Tina after a particularly cathartic reading. And found the courage to keep auditioning for things when I was having a massive crisis of confidence. Then I got the goose!”
Sara is currently playing the goose in a children’s production of Charlotte’s Web.
“So this is for . . .” I falter.
“A tarot reading!” She beams. “I mean, you can use it for anything. They do all sorts in there. But I’d really recommend tarot.
It’s especially great when you’re feeling a bit .
. .” She doesn’t finish her sentence and bites her lip.
I’m guessing she was about to say “lost.” Wow.
Even Sara thinks I need to get my act together.
I’d be offended, but she has a kind heart and is genuinely trying to be nice.
“Fun!” I say. “Thank you so much!”
“And enlightening and informative,” she replies seriously.
“Of course.” I nod, tucking the gift card away in my bag, alongside the gift card for a massage from Ang and Dami and the BFI membership from Max.
I’m surprised and touched—Sara is incredibly sweet to get me a gift—and I’m secretly a little excited too.
I would have felt foolish booking something like that for myself—I can already hear Max’s laughter pealing in my head when I tell him about this—but as Sara got it for me, I sort of have to go, right?
“God, can you believe we’re all nearly thirty?!” Sara goes on. “There’s Seth with his tooouuur.” She gestures to Seth, beside her, who is too wrapped up talking to his date to notice. “And Max with his flaaaaat. When did we all get so fucking old?! Oh, did you know Andi Summers had a BABY?”
Sara’s eyes widen. She clearly thinks this is juicy gossip, even though I can’t remember who Andi Summers is. All I hear is “Max with his flat.” What about it? He’s had his flat for ages.
“Max?” I repeat. “I mean, yes, the man has a mortgage, but he still has his Pokémon card collection, so . . .”
“I mean Fran moving in!” Sara delivers the words casually, taking a sip of her drink, like I must already know.
It takes a second for my brain to catch up. Thankfully, Seth leans over to ask Sara the name of Andi Summers’s “foxy baby daddy” and she’s too distracted to notice the sheer soul-devouring horror that’s swallowing me whole.
Fran . . . moving in? With Max?
Since when?!
It’s like someone has turned down the volume button of my life.
Every conversation around me fades into silence as I process this life-altering information.
I retreat inside my own imagination, picturing Fran and Max cuddling on the sofa together.
Pouring wine after a long day’s work. Making dinner together.
Taking baths together. Having sex in the bed they sleep in together.
Spending the rest of their lives together.
I abruptly leave the table and dash for the bathroom.
Every single sausage stick I ate this evening is threatening to come back up.
I make it to a stall and lock myself inside, trying to take long, deep breaths, but they’re ragged.
Now that I’m alone, behind a closed door, the tears I’ve been holding back start to burn. They spill down my cheeks.
Can this be right? How does Sara even know?
Why would she know and not me? They haven’t even been together very long.
How long has it been? Not long enough to move in together, surely?
That’s a huge, stupendous, cataclysmic, life-changing decision that surely requires significant rumination?
! Max is usually a thoughtful person. This is so unlike him.
Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding.
That thought doesn’t stop me feeling nauseous.
I lean over and vomit into the toilet.