The One Who's Not the One: A feel-good, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy

by Keris Stainton

  One minute she’d been taking a step and looking up at a beautiful white building with curved stone across the top, wondering if it was a government building or something more interesting, and the next she was on her arse with pain radiating up her hips and a really hot man looking down at her. He was full of apologies, even though it had been entirely her fault and she was embarrassed. Plus she’d dropped her bag and everything had rolled out of it including tampons and condoms and she was embarrassed about that even though she knew she shouldn’t be because they were both sensible things for a twenty-two-year-old woman to carry. She’d tried to be more Kelly, but she still wasn’t quite there. Also she’d smashed her phone.

  The hot man helped her to her feet and off the road and onto the pavement alongside the river. She sat on a bench and checked herself for injury while the hot man – who had, by this time, introduced himself as Sam, but who Cat was still calling ‘the hot man’ in her head – asked if she wanted him to take her to hospital. She eventually convinced him that she didn’t need hospital but she would quite like a drink and so they walked to a pub on Villiers Street and Sam bought her a brandy because he said it was good for shock. She’d never had brandy before and it made her head feel heavy, but she still ordered a lager after because she didn’t want to leave.

  Despite having hit her with his bike (yes, even though it was her fault), Sam seemed nice. And funny. And hot. He asked where she’d been and she told him about the disastrous date and he said the guy must’ve been an idiot to be more interested in his phone than in Cat. And then he took a gulp of his beer and then looked at his own phone, but he hadn’t been joking or taking the piss and when he realised what he’d done, they both laughed and Cat thought, I could like you.

  Cat was halfway through her pint when he asked her what she did for a living and she told him about the boring office job she’d taken just to pay the bills while she tried to become a stand-up comedian. And he said, ‘Are you shitting me?’ and she said no. Which was when he told her he was also a stand-up comedian, pretty much just starting out, although it transpired that he was a bit further along than Cat was. And they laughed about what a massive coincidence it was and then argued about which of them got to put the story of how they met into their routines.

  They’d both ended up doing it and it had worked for both of them. In fact, quite often they’d both work aspects of their relationship into their respective stand-up routines and Cat had loved it. It had sort of been like therapy, seeing things from the other person’s perspective, but with the addition of their own and the audience’s laughter. They’d even talked about doing a sort of ‘He said/she said’ joint show, but had never got further than talking about it.

  So Cat felt like she couldn’t really be pissed off that Sam was still doing stand-up about her when she was the one who’d stopped.

  ‘It’s cos you’ve got no, like, right to reply,’ Kelly said when Cat phoned her. Kelly had been throwing up so Sean had come home from work early and collected Arnold so Kelly could go back to bed.

  ‘I guess,’ Cat said. But she didn’t think it was that.

  ‘Like in the past you could’ve responded to this. Either onstage or actually to him, you know, in your actual life. But now you just have to accept it.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Cat said. And she thought there was perhaps a little truth in it but she was sure there was something else too, a niggling feeling in her stomach that she couldn’t quite identify.

  ‘I know he has the right to talk about his life,’ Cat said. ‘But it’s my life he’s talking about too.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Kelly said.

  Cat ignored her. ‘And he’s used my name. I think that’s it. It’s cos my name’s in it. So people will know it’s about me.’

  ‘If it is about you. We don’t even know yet. And I think if it really bothered you, you could ask him to not? Wasn’t there a stand-up recently whose ex sued her?’

  ‘God,’ Cat said. ‘Imagine. I don’t want to do that.’

  ‘Of course you don’t.’

  There was something in Kelly’s tone that made Cat think she knew something Cat didn’t.

  ‘What?’ she said, rotating her office chair slowly to make sure no one was sneaking up on her or listening to her conversation.

  ‘What?’ Kelly echoed.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  She heard Kelly suck in a breath. ‘You know. You know what’s bothering you about it. You just can’t admit it to yourself. Denial—’

  ‘Not just a member of One Direction, I know. You think I’m feeling guilty?’

  ‘You’re always feeling guilty.’

  ‘You think I should have asked to go with him.’

  ‘I think you could have done, yeah.’

  ‘You don’t think it was up to him to ask me? He was the one moving away. It wouldn’t have been normal to say, hey, I’m moving to the other side of the world, would you fancy coming with me? Or even, long distance isn’t so bad these days with Skype sex and whatnot?’

  ‘I think he should have asked, yeah. But I also think you could have asked. And we both know why you didn’t.’

  ‘This isn’t about my dad.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Kelly said.

  ‘You’re really annoying,’ Cat said.

  ‘Look, we don’t even know if it’s actually about you. Let’s wait and see it before we rain hellfire upon him.’

  ‘Obviously it is about me,’ Cat said.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  * * *

  Cat woke in the middle of the night, stomach churning. At first, she couldn’t place the source of her anxiety and then she remembered: Sam’s show.

  She just wouldn’t go, she decided. She didn’t need to. Just because he was back didn’t mean she had to seek him out. She could just pretend he was still in Australia. But. If the show was about her, she really should go and see it. She wanted to know what he was saying. What if it was about how he never should have left, had regretted it every day, crying himself to sleep and… Yeah, it wasn’t going to be that.

  But what if it was about why he’d left? Why he hadn’t asked Cat to go with him? What if it answered all the questions she’d been asking herself for the past five years? She had to go then. It would be ridiculous not to.

  Six

  It wasn’t a huge venue. It wasn’t The Comedy Club or Jongleurs. It was one of the smaller rooms in a multi-space venue, but the bar was buzzing and it made Cat’s stomach flutter. She’d side-eyed Sam’s poster – with its glowing testimonials from other comedians – on the way in. She’d read them all online by now anyway. And since she was about to see his actual face in real life, she didn’t need to look at yet another photo.

  ‘Beer?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘What are you having?’

  ‘J2O probably.’

  ‘Christ. Yeah, I’ll have a beer please.’ She should’ve asked Kelly to get her two. At least. Since she did not want to do this sober. Actually she should’ve gone to the bar, not Kelly, because Kelly was pregnant and—

  Harvey. Harvey was there. She’d been so focused on Sam, that she hadn’t even thought about whoever else might be there. If he saw her, he’d tell Sam and she didn’t want Sam to know she was there because then Sam would think… she didn’t even know what Sam would think because she had to get away from his brother. She pushed through the small crowd – she’d have to text Kelly once she was safely hidden – and through the double doors out to the foyer. People were still coming in, chatting and laughing. It was a pretty young crowd and slightly more hipster than Cat had been expecting. She excused herself all the way to the exterior doors and stepped out onto the street. It was bloody freezing and her coat was inside.

  ‘Shit.’ She texted Kelly to say she’d just nipped out and then looked around. The only other people standing out in the cold were smokers. She really should have started smoking years ago, for moments just like this.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said to the nearest man – a
skinny guy with a floppy fringe and a worried expression, like a guinea pig, ‘I couldn’t bum one, could I? I’ve just had a bit of a shock.’

  He rolled his eyes, but he handed her a cigarette and lit it for her. She thanked him, put it in her mouth and turned away so he wouldn’t see her not actually inhaling. And she did feel like she’d had a bit of a shock. She hadn’t thought about Sam’s family. She’d made herself not think about Sam’s family. Because they’d been so bloody lovely. It had been almost as hard losing them as it had him. And Harvey had looked so good. He was younger than Sam and he’d been maybe twenty when they’d split. And even though he’d been handsome then, he’d been handsome like a teenager – gawky and not quite in control of his limbs. But the man she’d seen in the bar hadn’t been like that at all. He’d been—

  ‘So when did you start smoking?’ Harvey said directly into her ear.

  She inhaled sharply, setting off a coughing fit that made her eyes stream and flecks of saliva fly out of her mouth. She half hoped she’d actually die since when she stopped coughing she’d have to explain why she’d been outside in the freezing cold pretending to smoke in order to avoid her ex-boyfriend’s brother.

  ‘I, um, don’t. Much,’ she managed to croak out.

  ‘Really? You seem so comfortable with it?’ He grinned at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘It’s really good to see you.’

  He ducked down and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug.

  ‘Are you actually taller?’ she said into his shoulder. ‘Or have I just forgotten how tall you were?’

  ‘I don’t think I’m taller,’ he said, releasing her. ‘Pretty sure I was fully grown last time we saw each other. Does Sam know you’re here?’

  ‘Fuck no!’

  Harvey laughed. ‘I assumed. So that’s why you legged it when you saw me?’

  ‘I did not “leg it”,’ Cat said, blinking; the cigarette smoke was curling up and burning her eyes. ‘I came outside for a… break.’

  ‘Right.’ Harvey reached over and took the cig out of her fingers and put it in his mouth, sucking on it until his cheeks hollowed. He blew out a couple of smoke rings, dropped the cigarette on the floor and crushed it with his foot. Cat stared at him. It was, no question, one of the hottest things she’d ever seen. She was furious with herself.

  ‘I don’t think you should see the show,’ he said, a frown line appearing between his eyebrows.

  ‘I’m pretty sure you remember me well enough to know that I am one hundred per cent going to go, now that you’ve said that.’

  Harvey sighed. ‘Yeah. I mean, I didn’t remember that. But now I do.’

  ‘It’s about me, right?’

  Harvey bit his bottom lip and dropped his head back, looking up at the sky. Cat stared at his jawline, which was, quite frankly, completely ridiculous.

  ‘It’s not about you exactly. But there’s a lot about you in it.’

  ‘Is he shitty about me?’

  ‘No?’ Harvey said.

  Cat barked out a laugh. It hurt the back of her throat. Stupid bloody cigarette. ‘Is it good?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s really good.’ He had the decency to look apologetic.

  ‘I want to see it then. Come on. I left Kelly in the bar.’

  * * *

  ‘It’s not too late to back out,’ Kelly whispered, as the lights went down in the theatre. When Cat and Harvey had got back to the bar, Kelly had been chatting and laughing with a woman who apparently followed her blog and was a PR for a nearby hotel. So no doubt Kelly and Sean would soon be off for some sort of saucy mini-break gratis. Her life, honestly.

  ‘It really is,’ Cat whispered back. ‘For a start, it’d be dead obvious if we left now. And of course I have to see it, now I know for sure.’

  ‘OK,’ Kelly said. ‘Well. If it’s horrible or mean we can leave at any time. I can cause a diversion.’

  ‘It’s way too soon for you to fake labour; you’re hardly even showing.’

  And then Sam walked out onto the stage. No fanfare or fireworks, just a man strolling out from behind the curtain. Cat still found it hard to breathe. Kelly grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

  ‘When I was a kid,’ Sam said, ‘I was desperate for a pet. I didn’t care what it was. I just wanted something to love unconditionally. Something I could cuddle at night. Something that would be happy to see me when I got home from school. So my mum got me a cat.’

  Big laugh. Cat slumped down a little in her seat while Sam talked about how at first the cat – Sparky – had been affectionate and sweet, but how, over time, it had become withholding and emotionless.

  Cat wanted to leave. She knew exactly where the story was going and, while it was pretty much what she’d expected, it turned out she didn’t want to hear it after all. Not in front of Kelly. Not in front of Harvey. But of course she couldn’t leave. Not when he would see her go.

  Sam was confident, poised, more comfortable onstage than he had been when they were together. His timing was better. He got bigger laughs. As he moved on from the original cat/Cat comparison to talking about the girlfriend he was with after Cat, she sat back up in her seat again. She didn’t really want to hear about her, whoever she was, but she was fascinated watching Sam again.

  ‘He’s really good,’ Kelly whispered about ten minutes in and Cat just nodded. He really was.

  He talked about Cat – not by name, just as one of his exes. The show was about his various previous girlfriends and the mistakes he’d made with them. Cat had been transfixed, leaning forward in her seat so she didn’t miss a word. He was charming and sexy and still did the thing he used to do where he started to laugh during a story as if there was just no way it wasn’t hilarious. Often the audience was laughing with him before he even got to the punchline.

  He compared his relationships to animals, talking about Old Cow/New Cow theory, which Cat had remembered them talking about years ago when they saw it in a film. It suggests that once a bull has mated with an old cow, he wants a new cow for any future mating opportunities. Sam said that had never been his experience. He was more of a sloth, in that once he was settled in a relationship he relaxed so much that it was almost indistinguishable from letting himself go and not giving a shit.

  The title came from a bit he did about a cat he’d seen stalking a pigeon on a wall. It had spent ages creeping carefully closer – its eyes bright with want – and then it pounced and caught the pigeon and didn’t know what to do with it. It held the terrified, fluttering bird between its front paws for a minute and then let go, watching in bewilderment as it flew away.

  * * *

  ‘So he thinks I chased him and caught him and then didn’t know what to do with him?’ Cat said, once they were out on the street and walking back to the car.

  ‘God,’ Kelly said, glancing around as if she couldn’t quite remember where they’d parked, ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. I think, if anything, you’re the pigeon.’

  Cat rolled her eyes. ‘How can I be the pigeon? I didn’t fly away. He flew all the way to Australia. Can pigeons even do that? Maybe he’s, I don’t know, a goose?’

  ‘I didn’t buy most of the analogies.’ Kelly seemed to decide left was the correct direction and set off. Cat couldn’t remember where they’d parked either, so she just followed. ‘I mean, he was funny. But it wouldn’t hold up, like, scientifically.’

  ‘Sean didn’t want a new cow after you had Arnold, did he,’ Cat said.

  Kelly snorted. ‘No way.’

  ‘And he won’t after the next one either.’

  ‘No.’ Kelly said. ‘He’d better not.’

  ‘Did you see Harvey?’ Cat said.

  Kelly stopped walking and turned to stare at her. ‘Fuck! Yeah, I was going to say. Bloody hell, he looked hot!’

  Cat scoffed. ‘That’s your pregnancy hormones talking.’

  ‘Nope. He was always really cute, but my god, I felt my knickers vibrate
.’

  ‘I’m telling Sean,’ Cat said. ‘I’m texting him now.’ She didn’t even have her phone out.

  ‘Did you talk to him?’ Kelly asked. She’d stopped at another junction and was looking left to right.

  ‘Do you really not know where we parked?’

  ‘It was somewhere around here. Did you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Talk to him.’

  ‘Harvey? Yeah. A bit. After I saw him and ran away and went outside and pretended to smoke and then he came out and called me out on it. I was totally chill.’

  ‘How do you get yourself into these situations?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cat said. ‘But you’re the one who can’t find your car.’

  Seven

  Cat had a meeting with a new client and then a VAT Return to finalise and then she was pretty much done, beyond all the fiddly little things she kept putting off because they were just too boring. Colin’s office door was closed and everyone else was either out or heads-down busy. When Cat had first started, she’d offer to help other account managers when her own work was done, but everyone kept ownership of their own projects and so it just didn’t work that way. When she was done she was done. And she was good at her job, so she often found herself at a loose end. It reminded her of school when she always used to finish exams before everyone else and would then sit there, wondering if she’d missed something vital. But no, she was just fast.

  So for the past hour or so, she’d been idly wandering around the internet. And she hadn’t even googled Sam once. OK, once. But she made herself click away before the page loaded.