by Holly Miller
The rider flips his visor and climbs off, balances the moped on its stand, and opens the box on the back.
“Just think about it,” Mum’s saying. “Please?”
“Okay, I will,” I reply, which is the most I can assure her of right now.
* * *
—
Seb tosses a pizza crust back into the box. “Okay, so we’re saying the twist is, the Ugly Duckling is actually ugly. Because of the oil slick.”
Seb and I are sitting on beanbags in one of Supernova’s breakout spaces, our enormous pizza half-eaten between us. It’s almost ten o’clock, but the time has melted away, and we’re finally making progress on the core components of our campaign.
“Yes,” I say, scribbling away on my sketch pad. “And all the other birds stop migrating because . . . the winters are no longer cold, because of—”
“—climate change,” he says, lowering his index finger toward me before grabbing another slice of pizza.
I frown. “It’s pretty bleak, but . . .”
“But that’s what they said they wanted.” He flips through a pile of papers, then reads from the relevant page of the amends brief. “ ‘We need this to be more hard-hitting.’ ” He takes a bite from his slice and chortles. “Hey, bet you never thought working at Supernova would be this depressing. Last year was literally all high fashion and fast cars.”
I smile and shake my head. “Believe it or not, this is the opposite of depressing to me.”
I feel him observe me as he chews. “You really should have done this years ago, you know. You’re a great writer.”
Touched, I look up at him. “Thank you. Writing’s all I ever wanted to do, so . . . that means a lot.” And it does, especially coming from someone as talented as Seb, and when I’ve had so much to prove here. But now, for possibly the first time since I started at Supernova, I realize my fears about my lack of writing experience are starting to ebb away. I have earned my spot in this team—I contribute at least as much as Seb to our joint assignments, and whenever the entire creative team put their heads together on a brief, I’m never short of ideas, some of which get taken forward and worked on for major pitches and campaigns.
Seb shrugs, like he was only speaking his mind, which makes what he said even more meaningful, somehow. “So, what else have we got for this?”
I flip back through my sketch pad. “Jack and the Beanstalk—the beanstalk doesn’t grow because, global warming. And in Little Red Riding Hood—”
“—the forest’s being cut down by Big Agriculture.”
An idea begins to nudge the edge of my consciousness, some wordplay that’s been staring me in the face that, somehow, I’ve been missing. I tap pencil against paper. “Oh, hang on.” I look up at Seb and smile. “There must be something we can do with Grimms’ Fairy Tales.” I scribble it down, triple-underlining GRIMM.
We do a little fist bump. “Right. On that note, shall we call it a night?” He stretches his arms above his head and yawns.
“You can take the rest of the pizza.”
“Nah,” he says. “We’ll be back in tomorrow, won’t we? Let’s just leave it here for lunch.”
* * *
—
Seb lives in Battersea, so we expense a cab together. He gets straight on the phone to his girlfriend to discuss some plumbing emergency at home, which leaves me time to think about something other than work for the first time in hours, or maybe even days. As the cab heads across the river, the lights of the city sliding like rain over the rear window, my thoughts turn to Max.
Working all these crazy hours has had an almost tranquilizing effect on me: filling my brain with Supernova, fighting to prove myself, has stemmed the constant flow of doubt and questions and longing. It’s stopped me from dwelling very long on how I feel, or wondering what Max is doing right now—whether he’s also working himself into the ground, because stopping to think for even a second just hurts too much.
* * *
—
I manage to achieve a lie-in the next day, before letting Jools drag me to the market, where we slide into our favorite café for a brunch of coffee and toasted sandwiches. The air balloons with the scents and sounds of the market late morning on a Saturday—flowers and fish and fruit, the clamor of voices and crates and roller doors shuttering.
“Sorry if we made a bit of noise last night,” Jools says as we sit down, a mischievous glint in her eye.
For a moment, I can’t think what she means, before I remember she had a date after work yesterday. Another nurse, who’s recently moved to London from Edinburgh. I must have already been asleep by the time they got in.
She tells me they went to see a Tom Stoppard play, followed by cocktails at one of those bars that used to be a public toilet. “The urinals were built into the tables. Which was a bit weird, considering we both spend all day at work obsessing about hygiene.” She brightens. “But other than that, it was great. He’s funny, quite old-school chivalrous. Holds doors open, that kind of thing.”
Max holds doors open, I think automatically, before the alarming thought occurs to me that perhaps now he’s started holding them open for other people. It has been two months since I broke it off, after all, and Max never did go short of female attention.
“Do you think you’re going to see him again?” I ask Jools, through a mouthful of mushroom and Emmental.
“Maybe. Yeah. I think I will.”
I lean forward, trying to dislodge Max from my mind. “Sorry, what did you say his name was again? Victor?”
Jools laughs and sips her coffee. “Vince.” She peers at me. “Are you okay, Luce? Sure you’re not working too hard? If you don’t mind me saying, you look a bit . . . you know. Under the weather.”
It’s a fair observation: I seem to spend most of my life looking and feeling under the weather, these days. To try to take my mind off Max and my sister, my days have melted together in a series of skipped breakfasts and lunches, dinners snatched from boxes, too much coffee, late nights, zero sleep . . .
I check the time on my phone. “Actually, I’d better not be too long. I’m meeting Seb at one.”
“Can I say something?” Jools says.
“ ’Course,” I mumble into my coffee, the steam dampening my lips.
“I know what happened with Max was awful and horrible . . . but you can choose how you deal with it. You know?”
“I am dealing with it.”
Finishing her sandwich, Jools brushes crumbs from her fingertips. “No, you’re denying it. Massive difference.”
“I’m just focusing on work. And it’s going really well,” I say, remembering the high of our creative session last night, and the compliments Seb paid me.
A couple of teenagers push past our table, almost sending our coffees flying. We snatch up our cups with the dart-fast reflexes of the caffeine-dependent, then smile at each other.
“And that’s brilliant,” Jools says, “but you haven’t resolved things with your sister, and working like a maniac won’t do that. You’re going to have to face up to what happened sooner or later.”
I nod slowly, because I know she’s right: Tash has been drifting into my head more and more lately, and the harder I try to push her away, the more persistent she becomes. “My mum wants me to go to Dylan’s birthday party next month,” I say.
“Well, that could be a start.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say, nibbling my bottom lip.
“I’ll come with you, if you need the moral support. I’m an expert in family crises, remember?”
“Thanks, but I wouldn’t subject you to mine on top of yours.”
I finish my sandwich, and then we order two more flat whites to take out.
“Have you heard anything else from Max?” Jools asks, as we head back out into the market, dodging a group of men carrying babies in slings.
For some reason, the sight of them makes my blood pulse with sadness.
I shake my head. “Just that last message a couple of weeks ago. Think he’s given up.”
She nods. “Is that . . . a good thing?”
I swallow and take a sip of coffee, instantly skinning the roof of my mouth. “Yeah, it’s got to be. I couldn’t go back now. Not even if I wanted to.”
* * *
—
Because I’d be ashamed to admit that, in my darkest moments, I do want to. I find myself imagining that maybe I’ll just go and knock on Max’s front door, and we won’t talk, or say anything at all, because speaking’s too painful. Instead we’ll just let chemistry do its thing, which is easy, because that—to my mortification—has never really gone away, for me. And I won’t worry about whether he’s my soulmate, or just a guy I can’t forget. I won’t allow my brain to get involved at all—I’ll just leave it up to my heart. And maybe we’ll do that once a week after work, and sometimes at the weekends, and conversation—the thing that feels so impossible—will never actually factor into it.
I indulge in this fantasy so often that sometimes I actually find myself reaching for my keys, my wallet, my bag, and tapping through to the Uber app on my phone, before remembering that’s all it can possibly be, now—a fantasy, one that can’t ever be realized.
* * *
—
On the tube en route to Supernova, I reread Max’s last run of messages to me.
I won’t contact you anymore after this. I promise. I just need to say . . . that I know how good things could be between us. And yes, I messed up what we had in the worst way possible. But I’ll do whatever it takes to put it right.
If there’s even a chance I can save this, just tell me how.
Okay. Won’t message you anymore, I swear.
Just please know that this has been the best few weeks of my life, and I’d give anything to have you back in it. M xx
Eleven
Stay
On the morning of Dylan’s birthday, I wake to find he has climbed onto my bed and started tapping my face gently with a magic wand. “Auntie Lucy,” he whispers, “I’m six.”
“Happy birthday, darling,” I whisper back, reaching up to ruffle his hair. “Fancy being six.”
“I’m going to turn you into a rabbit,” he whispers with a grin, waving the wand around my face.
After I’ve obliged by making bunny ears with my fingers and chewing an imaginary carrot, I pull him into a hug. He curls up in the crook of my arm and rests against my shoulder. I put my nose to the crown of his head and draw in the comforting scent of him, of vanilla and sleep and innocence.
“Is Uncle Caleb coming today?”
It’s the first time he’s called him that. I wonder if I should gently point out that, technically, Caleb isn’t his uncle, before remembering that (a) it’s his birthday; (b) he’s six; and (c) who the hell cares? It just means Dylan enjoys spending time with him, and surely that’s all that matters.
“Of course,” I say, kissing the top of his head. “He can’t wait to see you.”
Dylan shuffles his little body even more tightly to mine. And I cross both my fingers, pray I haven’t just told him a lie, given I’ve hardly seen my boyfriend at all since our weekend in London with Jools.
* * *
—
Dylan’s YouTube obsession has recently graduated from young toy recipients to teenage magicians, so after he’d gone to bed last night, we festooned the whole house with magic-themed decorations in black and red and silver: top hats, wands, and huge alphabet balloons spelling ABRACADABRA, courtesy of the Pebbles & Paper stockroom. There’s a vast pile of gifts from Tash and Simon waiting on the coffee table downstairs, and she’s ordered in a cake with more constituent parts than you would for your average wedding.
I messaged Caleb last night to remind him of the party’s theme, but when I woke up this morning, he still hadn’t replied.
* * *
—
He finds me in the kitchen later, where I’m taking refuge from all the parental politics and school-gates gossip by mixing up more color-changing cocktails for the kids.
“Hello,” Caleb says, from the doorway. It’s hard to tell how long he’s been standing there. I try to read his expression, but it remains coolly neutral, detached in a way that instantly unsettles me.
“Hi.” I feel shy suddenly, like I’m trying to impress a longtime crush at a house party. “You made it.”
“You look nice.”
“Oh, thanks.” I adjust my party hat faux-flirtatiously. On Tash’s request, I’m wearing silver to complement the magic theme, though the only thing I could find was a revealing strappy top more suited to a nightclub than a kids’ party. “So do you.”
His T-shirt bears a single white star on the front. It’s years old, I think, an ancient band T-shirt, and it’s hard to know if he’s sticking to the theme or just fancied wearing it.
“Sorry,” he says, slightly gruffly, “that I’ve been a bit AWOL these last few weeks.”
I swallow. “That’s okay.” I have a horrible feeling it’s because he overheard the conversation between Jools and me in the kitchen when we were in London. I didn’t want to bring it up that night, for fear of us falling out while we were staying with Jools. But ever since, he claims to have been busy, either out with friends or swamped with work, splitting his time between corporate jobs in London, a wedding in Whitstable, and a midweek job for one of his stepbrothers in Devon.
“Have you seen Dylan yet?”
“Er, no.” He lifts up a gift-wrapped parcel. “Where should this go?”
“Oh, you didn’t have to—”
“Got him the Harry Potter Lego in the end,” he says brusquely, almost cutting me off, and then we both just stand looking at each other for a moment or two. I feel something resembling dismay creep through me, and almost have to blink back tears.
“Caleb, are we—”
“I’ll just go and find Dylan,” he says. “Catch up with you in a bit.”
Catch up with you in a bit. Like we’re office nemeses bumping into each other at a networking do, and he’d been secretly hoping to avoid me.
* * *
—
Twenty minutes or so later I manage to track him down, once I’ve handed round more drinks and helped to herd the kids into the dining room, where their communal hyperactivity is currently being contained by a man with a beard pulling stuff out of hats.
I watch Caleb for a few minutes before I approach him. He seems familiar with a fair amount of the people here. I know he’s taken pictures for Dylan’s school before, and I guess he’s done work for quite a lot of the parents, too. He moves smoothly between groups, chatting easily, cracking jokes, laughing at all the right moments. Perhaps it would be a cliché to say he lights up the room, but I can’t deny it seems a whole lot brighter for having him in it.
Eventually I see him extricate himself from a particularly involved conversation with two of the mums, one of whom kept touching him on the arm and laughing uproariously whenever he opened his mouth. It was at this point that his eyes found mine, the smile he shot me seeming to say, Could do with some help here.
“Do you need rescuing?” I whisper, my hand finding his next to the Pin the Scar on Harry Potter poster, willing him to say yes.
A flurry of delighted screams erupts from the dining room, and he smiles. “Well, if I didn’t before, I do now. Shall we go somewhere quiet?”
“Yes please,” I say, immediately, but as we’re turning to go, a woman I half recognize but can’t quite place taps me on the shoulder. “Lucy! God it’s been years.”
She obviously decided to ignore the memo about the touch-of-magic dress code, being perfectly groomed in the manner of Gwyneth Paltrow—tall and slim with long sandy hair, in skinny white jeans and a silk teal-color
ed T-shirt, her skin beach-holiday brown.
“Briony,” she prompts me quickly, saving me the embarrassment of having to confess I can’t remember her name. “I was at school with Tash.”
“Of course.” I give her a hug, trying not to cough as I breathe in a powerful punch of perfume.
“Listen, hate to pry, but is your sister okay?”
I frown. “Yes, she . . . Yes, I think so. Why?”
“I saw her crying just now,” Briony says, in an exaggerated whisper, tipping her head toward the hallway.
“Sure it was Tash?” Maybe they were happy tears, like the ones she shed this morning at Dylan’s present-opening session.
“Yes—blond bob, silver playsuit?”
Feeling my smile fade, I decide to try to find her and check, but then Briony turns to Caleb. “Max, is it?”
“No,” I say quickly, heat rushing to my face. “This is Caleb.”
“Oh, sorry. I thought . . . I thought your boyfriend was called Max, for some reason.” She lets out a shrill sliver of laughter. “God, sorry! I must be thinking of someone else.”
“No, Max lives in London,” I say, completely without thinking, before instantly wishing the man with the beard would come and magic me—or preferably Briony—away from Caleb and this excruciating conversation.
We chat for a couple more painful minutes about Briony’s children, and Caleb’s photography—her curiosity piqued by the camera hanging around his neck—and then she asks what I do.
“Oh, I’m . . . writing a novel.”
“You’re a novelist?”
“Well, no,” I say hastily, feeling instantly fraudulent. “Not yet. I’m just writing a first draft, really. Actually, I work part time at Pebbles & Paper too. You know, the—”
“What’s your novel about?” she asks, eyes glimmering almost intrusively.
