People liked them. People actually really liked them. Years of being under-appreciated at Art Today had definitely not prepared me for this.
‘This one’ – Alice pointed to my favourite beachscape – ‘has gone viral!
It had been shared six hundred times on social media. For a second I wondered whether I should explain to Alice that ‘going viral’ usually referred to six-digit figures but thought better of it. Six hundred was still pretty cool.
‘Check your emails. Anything from the press releases?’ Alice asked, excited enough for both of us. I was sure I would be excited too, once I’d finally been able to accept that this was happening.
Unable to speak, I logged on to my emails and watched the loading bar with bated breath, sincerely wishing that I hadn’t sent the press release to the ‘Atwood’ sisters by accident. Four replies. Far from viral but I’d take four over nothing any day. I clicked on the first. It was from a local newspaper asking whether they could include one of the images in a feature. They’d pay me a hundred dollars. I was sure if I had an agent they’d haggle the fee up to two hundred, but having just worked an eight-hour shift at twelve bucks an hour, it took me all of two seconds to accept.
I opened the second. It was from an agent called Tina Conrad. Where had I heard that name before? I scrolled down the email to the footer: Conrad & James – Leo Todd’s agency. There was no way; a lump rose in my throat as butterflies flew round in my stomach. She wanted to take me for coffee. I looked across to Alice, reading the email over my shoulder – it appeared the right to privacy was treated with a light touch in Australia. Tina Conrad wanted to take me for coffee. She squeezed my arm. A thrill of excitement filled my chest; surely I must be dreaming. I hovered the cursor over the third unopened email and froze at sight of the sender. G. Stefani. ‘Call me Giorgio.’ Vogue Australia. Alice gasped behind me, holding her breath as I opened the body and read:
Jessica, great exhibition and wonderful collection. You should be proud of yourself. G.
No offer of coffee, no contract on the table. But a demand to be proud of myself, and one I actually felt I could live up to. I felt strength rise up inside me. The feeling I’d had on opening night was nothing compared to this. I’d made something happen by myself.
Last but not least, I looked at the name of the sender of the fourth email and paused.
‘Joshua,’ I said.
Alice smiled knowingly, proceeding to grab two champagne flutes from the back of the cupboard. Stop it. There is nothing to smile knowingly at. Alice returned to the dining table, two flutes in her hands, brimming with bubbles. With trepidation, I clicked, the text of the email for both of us to read:
Hi J. Mark showed me your collection. It’s awesome. You’ve really captured Coogee. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know. Don’t be a stranger. Joshua.
Chapter 40
1 October 2020 – Sydney, Australia
Comments are like crack. I sat upright in bed, laptop balanced on my knees, scrolling through the posts underneath my paintings until I reached the final one and then started again from the beginning. Somewhere between Giorgio’s ‘you should be proud of yourself,’ Joshua’s ‘don’t be a stranger’ and the promise of coffees with people outside the four walls of The Coffee Shop, I had forgotten about calling Sam. It was probably for the best, anyway. But either way you cut it, my best friend of over five years would be taking a monumental step on Saturday while still thinking I was a monumental nob. And now that I could accept I had been, and seeing each new encouraging comment coming up on my screen, I felt an unfamiliar feeling wash over me: the slow release of forgiveness. Not from Sam but from myself. So what if I’d screwed up? I couldn’t wallow in it forever. Note it, learn from it, move on. Which was why I was sitting here in borrowed shorts about to go running with Alice.
‘Jess, are you ready?’ I heard Alice shout from the other side of the door. ‘Let’s stretch before we go, I’m so out of shape.’
I stashed the laptop away and swung open the door to find a tanned, toned, six-foot Alice. If this was out of shape I did not want to see her in it.
‘Ready?’ she asked again, seeing my oversized T-shirt and shorts, broken at the waistband. I looked like I’d forgotten my PE kit. I nodded. Ready as I’d ever be. I followed Alice’s pert bottom out of the apartment, down the steps and onto the street, the pavements already hot from the sunshine beating down.
Alice turned the corner into the park, high enough on Coogee’s iconic hills to look out over the beach. She started to stretch in ways I could only dream of. I tried to touch my toes unsuccessfully. Something told me this was not going to end well.
‘Ready?’
I wished she’d stop asking that. Either oblivious to my trepidation or choosing to ignore it, she began to run. ‘You set the pace.’ She turned back to me in a way that told me our ideas of pace were miles apart.
Two boys, both tragically good-looking, passed me on the path. They were walking. Come on, this was Sydney. I was a Sydney-sider now. Running should be part of my adopted DNA. I began to pick up pace.
‘There we go!’ Alice affirmed, not breaking a sweat. I was breaking enough for both of us. Oh crap. I couldn’t keep this up. Alice continued to chat to me as I concentrated on staying alive. Something about how nice it was not being alone in the apartment. If she were saying it over a wine I might have believed her, but the fact that she had taken me on this run was speaking volumes; clearly, she was trying to kill me.
‘Look who it is!’ Alice turned back to me, struggling to maintain my snail pace. Shit. Please don’t be Jamie, please don’t be Jamie. I squinted through the sweat burning my eyes. Oh crap.
‘Joshua!’ Alice slowed as a topless Joshua jogged towards us.
‘Alice.’ He leaned in to kiss her cheek, her make-up still perfectly intact. Please don’t kiss me, I thought for the first time ever when faced with a half-naked good-looking guy who was still managing to pull off a headband.
‘Jess!’ His kiss sizzled on my red-hot cheek. ‘Great to see you,’ he lied. ‘Great day for it, isn’t it?’ he said, turning to gaze out across the horizon before us. Light blue sky blended into deep blue water as far as the eye could see. I studied Joshua’s profile as I watched him look out across the ocean. I had missed seeing him do that. Between CreateSpace, the box room and lunches with Sam, I had failed to appreciate how much fun our surfing lessons together had been, until it was all a little too late.
He turned to look at me.
‘So how are things going over at Team Bride?’ Alice chirped, before sending an apologetic glance my way.
‘Things seem to have calmed down a bit.’ No doubt because of one noticeable absence. ‘Thankfully, the closer it gets the more the stress seems to be taken over by excitement.’
Alice and Joshua locked eyes again, shifty and suspicious.
‘Guys.’ I needed to say something. Both of them turned to me. ‘It’s okay, you can talk about the wedding. Yes, Sam was a big part of my life; yes, part of me wants to be there but yes, you can talk about it and I won’t cry.’
Though I might cry if you make me run one more metre.
‘Part of you wants to be there?’ Joshua asked, perplexed. I tried to keep my eyes on his face. He was even more tanned than the last time I saw him. It looked good on him.
‘Jess?’ Oh crap, concentrate.
‘Yeah of course,’ I said. ‘You can’t be someone’s girlfriend for five years without becoming their friend as well.’ Alice and Joshua nodded.
‘That’s what Sam thought as well,’ Joshua said and cocked an eyebrow.
‘Yes I know. I really wasn’t in a good place when we met, and I’ve said sorry a thousa—’
‘No,’ Joshua interrupted, ‘that’s genuinely what Sam thinks. That’s why he invited you to the wedding. We just assumed when you didn’t reply that you didn’t want to come.’
Hold up. Sam invited me? If I wasn’t going to pass out from the run, this would do it.
I needed to sit down.
‘Sam and Jamie sent you an invitation,’ Joshua said again, confused. I looked to Alice, who was nodding in agreement. Why hadn’t she mentioned it? ‘After the dust had settled, you know…’ After I woke up with my naked breasts pressed against Sam’s back, yes, I think I remember, Joshua.
‘Sam explained to all of us how excited he’d been to have you back in his life. How he’d always felt terrible about how you guys left things, and how maybe in trying to make things right, he’d given you the wrong impression, kind of led you on a bit… Anyway, he said he realised when he saw you how much he’d missed you,’ Joshua continued. He did say he’d missed me. ‘And that he’d got his friend back, and even if you didn’t feel comfortable coming to the wedding he’d still like you to think you were invited.’
I’d had no idea that Sam had felt that way. Like he’d actually led me on. Like he’d let me hang on to the chance of us getting back together. Like he’d only gone and done it again. And all this time, I was the one who was feeling sorry. Maybe it hadn’t all been my fault after all; maybe I hadn’t got it all wrong.
‘I’m assuming from your face that you didn’t get the invite?’ Joshua gritted his teeth in painstaking realisation. Observant and good-looking. ‘We sent it to CreateSpace.’
‘Oh shit.’ Alice brought her hand to her forehead. ‘You told me not to tell about, you know,’ she mouthed the words.
‘Losing my job?’ I looked at Joshua. He looked genuinely sorry.
‘So, I didn’t and I just assumed they’d sent it to my place and you’d picked it up when I was out and just decided not to say anything; you were working so hard on your painting, so I didn’t want to bring it up, bring you down…’ If exercise didn’t colour Alice’s cheeks, embarrassment certainly did. ‘I guess that’s why Sam and Jamie haven’t tried to get in touch, they thought you needed more space…’
‘So, let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘Sam and Jamie have forgiven me for what happened?’
Joshua and Alice nodded their heads.
‘And Sam even feels a bit bad about it?’
They nodded again. It wasn’t all me; I knew it.
‘And they’ve invited me to the wedding?’
They nodded again.
‘And that’s everything?’
Joshua shot a glance at Alice, her eyes widening with memory or realisation. What had I missed? Apart from well, everything.
‘Oh man, I just remembered I’ve left my straighteners on!’ Alice said loudly, but rather woodenly. Model? Sure. Model/actress? Definitely not. Her hair was scrunched up in a bun. Before I could stop her, she was gone, running back in the direction we had come from. I turned to Joshua, who had taken a little step closer. He really should put his top back on. You’d never get this kind of temptation in England.
‘That’s not everything,’ Joshua said quietly.
Shit. What else could there be?
‘The invite wasn’t just to the wedding.’ I drew the line at going on my ex-boyfriend’s honeymoon. ‘It was to come to the wedding as my date.’
What?
‘I know it might be a bit strange, but then this whole thing has been a bit strange, right? You, sleeping in your ex-boyfriend’s spare bedroom. Jamie trying to set us up this whole time…’
Jamie had been trying to do what? Everything suddenly fell into place: Jamie’s excitement at having Joshua round for lunch; the one-on-one surf lessons; the wine-tasting, orchestrated for two. Shit. Jamie had been trying to set us up. I looked at Joshua, confused, flattered and knackered all at the same time. I needed to lie down.
‘Can I have a think about it?’ It was a question I’d neglected to ask myself countless times in my twenty-seven years on the planet and yet, somehow, agreeing to be my ex-boyfriend’s fiancée’s brother’s date to the said ex-boyfriend’s wedding seemed to warrant some thought.
‘Sure, I’ll be going either way.’ Brutal; he didn’t even care. ‘You know, brother of the bride and all.’ Oh yeah, of course. This was too strange. ‘It’s good to see you,’ Joshua added for good measure. I looked Joshua up and down from his dimpled, chiselled face to his equally chiselled torso. I had to admit, it was good to see him too. ‘Just so you know, Alice will be waiting around the next corner, if you want to run along and kill her for arranging this.’ He grinned, adjusting his headband in preparation to run on.
‘Just so you know’ – I looked into his blue eyes earnestly – ‘if I have to “run along” anywhere, I’ll bloody well kill myself.’
Chapter 41
‘So?’ Alice emerged from her hiding place. She was around the next corner just like Joshua had said. I stared at her; her face was bright red. It had nothing to do with the exercise. She smiled back in return, eyes all aglow, her embarrassment outweighed by the relief of all secrets finally being out.
‘I think you know,’ I said, deadpan.
‘And? What did you say?’ See, she knew exactly what Joshua was going to ask. How long had she waited to ask about this, sounding me out around the apartment with tangential questions to see what I thought about the invitation, even Joshua’s invitation?
‘I can’t.’ I looked up at Alice, who was trying to read my expression. I couldn’t, could I? She shrugged her slender arms as if to say: why not?
‘Take Sam’s fiancée’s brother to his wedding?’
Alice wandered towards the edge of the cliff and looked out over Coogee Beach, to the ocean I had first learnt to surf in. I walked across to stand beside her.
‘Stranger things have happened, Jess.’ She shrugged again. ‘I thought you wanted to see Sam get married, you know, as a friend?’
‘I did but…’ My tired legs finally surrendered and I sat down. Alice folded her impeccably long limbs to do the same. ‘What about Jamie? She must hate me.’
‘Yeah.’ Alice laughed. ‘She wasn’t your biggest fan at first.’ Couldn’t blame her. And I couldn’t imagine her opinion had changed much since then. Well, maybe for the worse.
Alice shifted from side to side.
‘What?’ I demanded, giving her a playful poke. I could forgive her for the invite thing but she owed me for abandoning me with a sticky, hot Joshua. He was tanned and topless, anything could have happened.
‘Well, you can’t repeat this…’ Alice said.
I nodded; I wasn’t sure if I couldn’t take any more surprises today.
‘…but she’s actually really glad you stumbled into their lives. Kinda thankful for you.’
Now it was my turn to raise an eyebrow in disbelief.
‘In a God loves everyone, all creatures great and small kind of way?’ I asked, thrusting my hands together in prayer.
‘No, you idiot.’ Alice laughed out loud. ‘Now, you can’t say anything, but Jamie’s faith is really important to her,’ Alice went on. ‘And, well, for her personally, she can’t really imagine not sharing that with someone. Well, when Sam first started coming along to church Jamie thought it was just to get in her pants.’
‘So did I!’ I was right. I was right. I was – but Alice’s look made me zip it.
‘Anyway,’ Alice continued, ‘obviously as time passed Jamie became convinced that Sam’s faith was genuine, but there’s always been that little doubt that one day he’d change his mind somewhere down the line and then you turned up on her doorstep. Sam’s past. Everything he was before. Everything she’s not.’ Jamie was beautiful, intelligent, kind. I tried not to draw any damning conclusions. ‘She trusted him, obviously.’ Obviously. ‘But I guess, if anything was going to make him change his mind, if anything was going to make him want his life before…’
‘It was me,’ I whispered in realisation. ‘But it didn’t.’ I said the words matter-of-factly. For the first time in a long time that thought didn’t hurt like hell.
‘No, it didn’t.’ Alice looked at me with kindness. ‘But you see, now she knows. He’s not going to go back to what he was before, what he wanted before.’
&n
bsp; I nodded. Now I knew it too.
‘And so, even though it sounds crazy, she thanks you.’ Alice smiled again, slinging a slender arm around my shoulder. We turned to look out over the ocean. What was even crazier was that one day I thought I might thank her too.
Alice had gone out for her nightshift; let the normal routine commence. Cupboard, Pringles. Laptop, sofa. Sketchbook, open. I used to hate the monotony of my old everyday, all Underground travel and deadlines and umbrellas at dawn. I opened another email from Tina Conrad, my maybe-agent, and put two Pringles in my mouth at once. My Coogee routine was easier to swallow. Our meeting was set for the following Monday. She had suggested CreateSpace. I had suggested otherwise. After Tim’s visit to see me at The Coffee Shop, I had received no end of niceties via text, email and WhatsApp. I never had him down as an emoji man. Regardless, I didn’t want the scent of Tim – albeit fabulous – lingering around my conversations with Tina Conrad.
I flicked through my sketchbook, full of ideas and possibilities for the future. I turned to a blank page at the end and began to draw, drowning out the will she, won’t she third-person monologue playing on in my mind. Tomorrow was Friday. Friday came before Saturday. On Saturday, Sam was getting married. Practically overnight, it seemed, two months had turned into less than two days. As I moved my pencil back and forth my mind did the same. I could go and see my best friend of five years get married and show the happy couple that I was okay, that I was moving on. Or, I could stay at home, bury myself face-deep in Pringles and show them just how not over everything I was. Crunch. The Pringles made a persuasive point. Then there were his parents. Not that I had anything to prove to them. Then there was Joshua. Who still seemed to like me despite every mess I’d made. Immature delinquents were clearly his thing. But no one likes to take work home with them. What the hell should I do? I continued to draw. I needed a sign.
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