Chapter Nine #2
“Sorry!” He comes to and shakes his head. “Sorry! It’s weird. I was just thinking about my ex, Lara.”
“Oh.” Marie keeps smiling, exactly the same amount of smile, but I can see the muscles tense up a little in her jaw. “What about her?”
“I don’t know.” Josh screws up his face, looking perplexed. “I was just thinking what it was about her and me that went wrong.”
“Relationships end.” Marie sips her water. “Who knows why? These things happen.”
“Yes.” Josh still has a faraway look in his eyes, which isn’t surprising, as Sadie is yelling like a siren in his ear. “Say why it went wrong! Say it out loud!”
“So.” Marie changes the subject. “How was your week? I’ve had a hellish time with that client. Remember the one I was telling you about—”
“I suppose she was a bit intense,” Josh blurts out.
“Who was?”
“Lara.”
“Oh, really?” I can see Marie trying to feign interest.
“She used to read me out ‘relationship issues’ from some bullshit magazine and want to talk about how similar we were to some other random couple. For hours. That annoyed me. Why did she have to analyze everything? Why did she have to unpick every single row and conversation?”
He gulps at his wine and I stare at him across the restaurant, stricken. I never knew he felt that way.
“That does sound annoying.” Marie nods sympathetically. “Anyway, how did that big meeting go? You said your boss had some announcement to make?”
“What else?” Sadie is shrieking at Josh, drowning out Marie. “What else?”
“She used to litter the bathroom with her creams and crap.” Josh frowns distantly at the memory. “Every time I tried to shave I had to fight through this thicket of pots. It drove me mad.”
“What a pain!” says Marie, overbrightly. “Anyway—”
“It was the little things. Like the way she used to sing in the shower. I mean, I don’t mind singing, but the same song every bloody day?
And she didn’t want to open her mind. She’s not interested in traveling, not interested in the same things as me…
. Like, I once bought her this book of William Eggleston photography; I thought we could talk about it or whatever.
But she just flipped through with zero interest—” Josh suddenly notices Marie, whose face has almost seized up with the effort of listening politely.
“Shit. Marie. I’m sorry!” He rubs his face with both hands.
“I don’t know why Lara keeps popping into my head. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Yes, let’s do that.” Marie smiles stiffly. “I was going to tell you about my client, the really demanding one from Seattle? You remember?”
“Of course I remember!” He reaches for his wine—then seems to change his mind and picks up his glass of fizzy water instead.
“Soup? Excuse me, miss, didn’t you order the soup? Excuse me?”
Suddenly I realize a waiter is standing by my table with a tray of soup and bread. I have no idea how long he’s been trying to get my attention.
“Oh, right,” I say, quickly turning to him. “Yes, thanks.”
The waiter deposits my food and I pick up a spoon, but I can’t eat.
I’m too flabbergasted by everything Josh just said.
How could he have felt all this and never mentioned it?
If he was annoyed by my singing, then why didn’t he say?
And as for the photography book, I thought he’d bought it for himself!
Not for me! How was I supposed to know it meant so much to him?
“Well!” Sadie bounces up to me and slides into the seat opposite. “That was interesting. Now you know where it all went wrong. I agree about the singing,” she adds. “You are rather tuneless.”
Doesn’t she have an ounce of sympathy?
“Well, thanks.” I keep my voice low and gaze morosely into my soup. “You know the worst thing? He never said any of this stuff to my face. None of it! I could have fixed it! I would have fixed it.” I start crumbling a piece of bread into pieces. “If he’d just given me a chance—”
“Shall we go now?” She sounds bored.
“No! We haven’t finished!” I take a deep breath. “Go and ask him what he liked about me.”
“What he liked about you?” Sadie gives me a dubious look. “Are you sure there was anything?”
“Yes!” I hiss indignantly. “Of course there was! Go on!”
Sadie opens her mouth as though to speak—then shrugs and heads back across the restaurant. I push my earpiece in more firmly and dart a glance over at Josh. He’s sipping his wine and skewering olives with a metal pick while Marie talks.
“…three years is a long time.” I hear her lilting voice over the buzz and crackle.
“And, yes, it was hard to finish, but he wasn’t right, and I’ve never regretted it or looked back.
I guess what I’m trying to say is…relationships end, but you have to move forward.
” She gulps her wine. “You know what I mean?”
Josh is nodding automatically, but I can tell he isn’t hearing a word. He has a bemused look on his face and keeps trying to edge his head away from Sadie, who’s yelling, “What did you love about Lara? Say it! Say it!”
“I loved the way she had so much energy,” he says in a desperate rush.
“And she was quirky. She always had some cute necklace on, or a pencil stuffed into her hair or something…. And she really appreciated stuff. You know, some girls, you do things for them and they just take it as their due, but she never did. She’s really sweet. Refreshing.”
“Are we talking about your ex-girlfriend again, by any chance?” There’s a steely edge to Marie’s voice, which makes even me wince. Josh seems to come to.
“Shit! Marie. I don’t know what’s got into me. I don’t know why I’m even thinking about her.” He rubs his brow, looking so freaked out I almost feel sorry for him.
“If you ask me, you’re still obsessed,” Marie says tightly.
“What?” Josh gives a shocked burst of laughter. “I’m not obsessed! I’m not even interested in her anymore!”
“So why are you telling me how great she was?” I watch, agog, as Marie throws down her napkin, pushes back her chair, and stands up. “Call me when you’re over her.”
“I am over her!” Josh exclaims angrily. “Jesus Christ! This is fucking ridiculous. I hadn’t thought about her until today.
” He pushes back his chair, trying to get Marie’s full attention.
“Listen to me, Marie. Lara and I had a relationship. It was fine, but it wasn’t great. And then it finished. End of.”
Marie is shaking her head.
“Which is why you bring her up in conversation every five minutes.”
“I don’t!” Josh almost yells in frustration, and a few people at nearby tables look up. “Not normally! I haven’t talked about her or thought about her for weeks! I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with me today!”
“You need to sort yourself out,” Marie says, not unkindly. She picks up her bag. “See you, Josh.”
As she moves swiftly between the tables and out of the restaurant, Josh sinks back into his seat, looking shell-shocked.
He looks even more gorgeous when he’s hassled than when he’s happy.
Somehow I suppress an urge to run over and fling my arms around him and tell him he never wanted to be with such an uptight, toothpaste-ad girl, anyway.
“Are you satisfied now?” Sadie returns to my side. “You’ve ruined the path of true love. I thought that was against your creed.”
“That wasn’t true love.” I scowl at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because I know. Shut up.”
We both watch in silence as Josh pays his bill, reaches for his jacket, and gets up to leave.
His jaw is tight and his easy saunter has gone, and I feel a flash of guilt.
But I force myself to quell it. I know I’m doing the right thing.
Not just for me but for Josh. I can make it work between us, I know I can.
“Eat your lunch! Hurry up!” Sadie interrupts my reverie. “We need to go home now. You need to start getting ready.”
“For what?” I look at her, confused.
“For our date!”
Oh God. That.
“It’s nearly six hours away,” I point out. “And we’re only going for a drink. There’s no rush.”
“I used to take all day getting ready for parties.” She shoots me an accusing look. “This is my date. You’re representing me. You need to look divine.”
“I’ll look as divine as I can, OK?” I take a spoonful of soup.
“But you haven’t even chosen a frock!” Sadie is hopping with impatience. “It’s already two o’clock! We need to go home now. Now!”
For God’s sake.
“Fine. Whatever.” I push away my soup—it’s gone cold, anyway. “Let’s go.”
—
All the way home, I’m deep in thought. Josh is vulnerable. He’s confused. It’s the perfect time for me to rekindle our love. But I have to use what I’ve learned. I have to change myself.
I keep obsessively tracking back over everything he said, trying to remember every detail. And every time I reach one particular phrase, I squirm and wince. It was fine, but it wasn’t great.
It’s all blindingly clear now. Our relationship wasn’t great because he wasn’t honest with me. He didn’t tell me any of his little niggles. And they all built up in his head and that’s why he chucked me.
But it doesn’t matter—because now I know what the problems are, I can solve them! All of them! I’ve put together an action plan, and I’m going to start by tidying up my bathroom. As soon as we get back to my flat, I stride in, full of optimism, to find Sadie heading me off.
“What are you going to wear tonight?” she demands. “Show me.”
“Later.” I try to get past her.
“Not later! Now! Now!”
For God’s sake.
“All right!” I head into my bedroom and wrench open the little curtain that hides my wardrobe. “What about…this.” At random, I pull out a maxiskirt and my new limited-edition corset top from Topshop. “And some wedge sandals, maybe.”
“Stays?” Sadie looks as though I’m brandishing a pig’s corpse. “And a long skirt?”
“It’s the maxi look, OK? It’s really fashionable, actually. And these aren’t stays, it’s a corset top.”
Sadie touches my corset top with a shudder. “My mother tried to make me wear stays to my aunt’s wedding,” she says. “I threw them on the fire, so she shut me in my room and told the servants not to let me out.”