You & Me and You & Me and You & Me

Chapter 1 Jules “Seaside”

Jules

“Seaside”

“Time,” I call, hitting the service bell before wiping a tiny basil emulsion smear from the edge of one of my signature risottos and tweezering the homegrown micro herbs perfectly into place. The handsome waiter takes the dish from the pass.

“Come out. They want you, Jules,” he says with a smile.

I turn to look at my kitchen brigade. Delicious smoke rises from the chargrills, knives flash, and the air is filled with focused commands. They can cope without me for a moment.

Following the waiter through the service doors, I see the sun is setting over the magical view of the Golden Gate Bridge, bathing the restaurant in ethereal warm light.

I greet the diners around the white-clothed tables on the veranda, most of whom have been on the waiting list for a year.

Their hands press mine, but I demurely bat away their congratulations. Hey, I’m just me…doing me.

At the private table, I sink into the comfortable batik cushions beside my business partners, both of them famous Hollywood actors, as this season’s must-have Zinfandel from Paso Robles is poured into my outstretched glass.

They’re here to persuade me to re-create my culinary alchemy elsewhere, but seriously, no, I can’t.

Didn’t they read the profile piece in Time magazine about how I’ve got my work-life balance just right?

We chat briefly and, as the stars twinkle, I tell them to hang around.

This place always turns into the hottest nightspot after dark.

Later, when the DJ arrives, I hear the familiar tango beat of Gotan Project’s “Mi Confesión” bleeding louchely from the speakers.

Then suddenly Adam’s here and my heart soars at the sight of him striding confidently across the restaurant in his svelte ivory Tom Ford suit.

My Adam. He extends his hand and I take it, feeling a heady, thrilling jolt of connection as we touch.

He twirls me onto the small dance floor, tipping me over his arm before flipping me up against his firm body, his hand caressing my face as he stares into my eyes with such intense passion, it takes my breath away.

His lips a breath from mine, he sensuously smooths his knee between my thighs…

Although…hang on…no, he’d better not do that… because I really, really need to…

What the…?

Huh?

Oh… You’ve got to be kidding me.

Squeezing my eyes shut against the piercing daylight splaying around the sides of our threadbare bedroom curtains, I try desperately to go back to sleep, but it’s no good. My dream has vanished. And I really do need to pee.

Yawning, I remove my earplugs, the squalling seagulls outside suddenly competing with Adam—the real Adam, not dream-tango Adam—who is snoring loudly beside me.

I swing my legs out of bed and he subconsciously, yet somehow victoriously, snatches my portion of the duvet and re-cocoons himself, wrapping it tightly around his furry belly.

In the bathroom, as I notice he’s left the loo seat up, as per usual, I turn on the masochistic mirror light.

Bloody hell. I look like Shrek.

This hydrating avocado and apple cider vinegar face mask was meant to “invisibly absorb overnight.” Instead, I look more like I’ve face-planted in the dip section at a wedding buffet.

Washing it off hardly improves matters. Rather than having fewer wrinkles, if anything, I seem to have more. Given I was clearly living my best life in my dream a minute ago, it feels like an extra slap round the face.

Great. So much for looking younger. For being party-ready.

Adam’s best mate, Darius, is hosting a “Pool, Fun, Barbecue, and DJ Beats” get-together today to celebrate moving back from the States, having sold his video gaming company there for a whopping fifty million bucks.

He’s just bought a humongous mansion overlooking the whole of Brighton, which he’ll no doubt pack with the kind of cool, beautiful people I’m always seeing on his Insta feed—the fairest-of-them-all kind of people that this old magic mirror tells me I am not.

Of course, I’m looking forward to hanging out with Darius again, we both are.

We haven’t seen him since his last fleeting visit a couple of years ago.

Since then, he’s developed that same chiseled, mega-wealthy, multivitamin sheen as the rest of his Insta buddies.

What if he finds us horribly parochial? What if that’s all we are to him now? Just people from his past?

Stop it. It’ll be fine. It’s Darius. I’m being ridiculous.

I open the posh moisturizer Ngozi got me on her last breeze through duty-free, accidentally dropping the little plastic disk covering the product onto the floor.

Cursing, because that always happens, I scrape the expensive gloop from the faded lino with my finger and apply it to my face.

Disgusting, I know, but three-second rule and all that.

As I rub it in, I glance down at the glossy cover of last Sunday’s newspaper supplement magazine, left beside the sink.

If You Don’t Use It, You Lose It, the dubious headline reads.

The woman on the front, a self-proclaimed “sexpert,” has enviably pert breasts underneath her tight top.

I suspect she’s airbrushed, though I do recognize that smug sex-glow that I used to have.

The article inside is all about the importance of regular “relationship maintenance sex,” along with some dire warnings about the consequences of women my age failing to be spontaneous and not putting out.

As if worrying about my face wasn’t enough, apparently I’ve also got to “make an effort” to keep toned… you know…down there.

But Fridays and Saturdays I’m out cooking for private dinner parties in the posher parts of town, if I’m lucky.

The weekdays go by in a flash and most nights after supper—invariably cooked by me—Adam and I end up vegetating on our separate sofas in the living room.

Me craving a foot rub while secretly snaffling my stash of Maltesers I keep hidden down the side of the cushion, and him channel-hopping between the several subscription services the kids insist are their birthright, before switching over to some obscure retro rock biopic, or other boysy documentary, like Secrets of the Neanderthals, his current favorite.

The sound of the News at Ten music usually wakes me up, leaving Adam muttering at all the doom and gloom in the world while I slope off to bed.

Which means that if we are going to have “relationship maintenance sex,” or any kind of sex at all, it has to be in the morning.

As in…I suppose…now.

I pad back into the bedroom, past Adam’s dirty socks and T-shirt, lying near the wicker laundry basket, and sit on my side of the bed.

“Shall we have sex?” I ask him matter-of-factly. I know he’s only pretending to be asleep.

My husband of nearly twenty-five years looks at me like I’m a stewardess who’s just asked him if he wants to be upgraded to business class. With complimentary drinks.

“Hell, yeah,” he says, after a beat just to check that I am being serious.

We begin the once titillating and fun, but now somewhat perfunctory, task of getting up close and naked.

We don’t kiss. Or talk. Or giggle. Not like we used to.

Back in the day, Adam and I used to jump all over each other all the time.

So much so, it used to feel like being between the sheets was our real life and everything else was just a distraction.

Right now, though, there’s not much “mood setting”—something else the article recommended.

We both know how to get the mechanics going on autopilot and soon I’m groping about in the bedside drawer for some lube and trying not to mind that his stomach squashes my diaphragm.

Or that his beard really does sometimes make me want to scratch.

Even so, a few minutes later, the movement we’re creating makes my body remember what it’s supposed to be doing.

All of which leaves me thinking: Get me!

I’ve spontaneously instigated relationship maintenance sex on a Saturday morning!

But then my mind starts wandering and I’m thinking about the catering job I’ve got on for the council tomorrow.

How about I knock up some Key lime pies for dessert? Oh, actually, that’s a great idea.

No. You’re having sex, I remind myself. Concentrate. Whip out a fantasy. Get in the zone.

My sexual fantasies are largely informed by eighties rom-coms, and these days they’re a little tatty and worn, but I mentally dust off a scene at a retro Hollywood-style pool party.

It’s got a sleazy vibe and there’s a Tom Cruise peak Top Gun–era look-alike approaching me in just a skimpy white towel.

Oh yes, now we’re talking… I’m on the pleasure tracks. Oh…oh… and yes, enjoying it…very, very—

“Mum!” Nelly’s scream from downstairs pops my erotic bubble.

“Ignore her,” Adam says, burying his face in my neck.

Good. I’m not the only one having a good time. But just a few seconds later, as we happily get going again, Adam freezes mid-thrust as our bedroom door bursts open.

Glancing over his shoulder, I see our twenty-four-year-old daughter, horror-struck in the doorway at the sight of us humped on top of each other under the duvet.

“Oh, Jesus!” she says, shielding her eyes with the arms of her pink terry-cloth dressing gown.

“What do you want?” I shout, pulling the duvet even tighter around us.

“It’s done it again. The Bot thing.” She now has her back to us, but she hasn’t left the room, like no matter what we might or might not be doing, her need is still greater than ours.

“We’re coming,” Adam groans, before his eyes flash wide at me, clearly realizing just how this might sound.

“To help,” I quickly add. “We’re coming to help.”

With a pained yelp of disgust, Nelly storms off downstairs, her curly ponytail swishing.

“For God’s sake,” I mutter, squeezing out from underneath Adam and flinging on my cotton robe.