She didn’t want to read the emails, or entertain those thoughts. Life was only just getting back on track and tonight was meant to be a celebration. But she couldn’t help it. Jessie blinked back the tears of frustration that had gathered without her realising, then began meticulously blocking the email address and deleting all of the messages, then emptying them from her trash folder. Maybe it was just a weird virus or some kind of spam, she tried to reassure herself. She and Lauren had been using dodgy streaming sites to watch old episodes of Sex and the City, after all. It was probably just that. Besides, Matthew hated anything tech-related anyway, so would he really go to all that effort? Needing to feel in control of something again, Jessie fired off a message to Ian at Happy Homes, asking if he could please arrange replacing the lock on her bedroom door. She put her phone back in her pocket gingerly, not wanting to touch it, and forced herself to stand a little taller.
She spotted Priya, slouched against a wall outside The Mash Tun, absentmindedly tapping away at her own mobile and deliberately ignoring a group of workmen who were trying to engage her in conversation.
‘Oh thank Christ, you’re finally here!’ she said, waving.
Jessie apologised and hugged her friend, then steered Priya towards the bar, where they both ordered a house white wine. The pair edged their way through the crowd towards an empty table at the back of the room and toasted Jessie’s new job. She made a silent vow not to think about Matthew and the messages, or let either of them ruin her night. This was her new life, where she got to choose how she felt.
‘It’s so nice to be back in town and have things clicking into place.’
Priya twirled a strand of her long dark hair around one finger.
‘And how’s the new flat going?’ she asked, genuinely interested. ‘Hopefully you’re not living with a psychopath any more?’
‘So far, so good,’ Jessie nodded fervently. ‘Although one of the housemates, the only guy – his name is Marcus – seems a bit lazy and … odd.’
By the time Jessie had explained the unusual sounds keeping her awake at night and Marcus’s strange eating habits, failure to clean up after himself and lack of eye contact, she had Priya hanging on to her every word. One glass of wine soon turned to two, then three.
‘This always happens with us, Pree!’ she laughed, getting up. ‘I knew we should’ve just ordered a bottle – I’m going to get one now.’
Jessie made her way unsteadily to the bar, taking wild guesses as to what the time might be. Probably around half nine. She’d deliberately left her phone back at the table. Spotting a gap in the queue of waiting customers, she slotted herself in neatly and waited, tapping her debit card against a box of straws to an imaginary beat playing in her head. The alcohol was moving gently through her veins, loosening all her tight screws as it went. Those messages were just spam, that’s all, she repeated to herself. It was a busy night but the harassed bar staff were still high-fiving and cracking jokes as they passed one another. Jessie watched a barmaid wearing a tartan dress chop a lime, then push the segments into a plastic box with the edge of her knife.
‘Who’s next?’ she asked, wiping her hands on the lower half of her dress.
‘Me!’ a woman edged Jessie out the way, thrusting a banknote over the bar.
Once she’d finally been served, Jessie walked back to the table and deliberately placed the ice bucket down with a thud, ready for a rant. The sound of the bucket made Priya jump. She had picked Jessie’s phone up and was fully engrossed in whatever was on the screen.
‘What are you looking at?’ Jessie asked, unscrewing the bottle of chardonnay. ‘That’s my phone!’
Priya shrugged, clutching it to her chest.
‘Stop it! Don’t be a witch, what have you done? You’ve not been on my emails, have you?’
‘No! Why, should I have?’
‘Tell me what you’ve done!’
‘Okay, don’t be mad at me but I just downloaded Tinder,’ Priya grinned. ‘And I’ve made you a cheeky little profile, because it’s about bloody time you met someone nice for a change.’
‘Oh Christ, no!’ Jessie wailed. ‘That’s so desperate. I don’t want to meet up with some random from the Internet.’
‘And yet, you’ve quite happily moved in with three of them?’ Priya retorted.
Jessie paused for a moment. Flatmates were different somehow. They just were.
‘How did you even manage to unlock my phone?’
‘You passcode has the same number of letters as “Jessie” so it really wasn’t hard,’ Priya snorted, making her blush. ‘Everyone uses apps to meet people nowadays, it’s normal. Besides, look at this guy – he’s already matched with you and he definitely doesn’t look like a loser. Even I’d say he’s pretty fit, actually.’
Jessie snatched her phone back and stared. The profile belonged to a man named Rob, a couple of years older than her at 26. His cherry-picked photos showed that he was slim and good-looking, with dark hair, blue eyes and a dimple on one cheek. Priya was right – whoever Rob was, he was handsome. One photo showed him wearing a smart camel-coloured coat, walking a dog alongside a friend, sharing a joke. She zoomed in on his shoes. Brown desert boots. Not bad. In another picture he was making a toast at a wedding, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, revealing a light patch of chest hair. The other squares he’d carefully curated – showing him drinking a pint at a festival, another standing in front of Sydney Opera House – were having the desired effect on her too. Rob looked fun, as though he had a bit of a zest for life, confident. The kind of person who’d be good for her. He’d travelled, was obviously a music fan, and somehow radiated self-assurance through an app without having said a word.
‘Why would he be interested in me?’ Jessie questioned Priya, sincerely. ‘How do I see my profile?
Priya clicked onto it. She’d somehow managed to build an online persona for Jessie that made her look equally outgoing and fun, through a mixture of photos from their university days, before things with Matthew had turned really nasty. It was sad seeing herself like that, sitting so naively on Brighton beach with an ice cream, not knowing what lay ahead.
‘What would I say to this guy?’ Jessie asked. ‘I don’t know how to do stuff like this. I’m pretty sure my Twitter picture is still an egg because I’ve never managed to come up with anything interesting enough to say since I made an account ten years ago.’
At that, their giggles morphed into shoulder-shaking laughter, helped along by the wine.
‘I’ve got so scared of saying the wrong thing that I’ve taught myself to say nothing instead.’
Priya gave a sympathetic smile, took the phone back, typed out a simple introduction and pressed send.
‘There you go,’ she cackled. ‘I’ve said it for you.’
Rob replied quickly. Jessie, emboldened by the booze, picked up the phone and looked at it.
‘He says he’s good and wants to know what I’m up to,’ she read aloud, then looked at Priya. ‘What am I up to?’ No, she was determined to respond herself this time. ‘Maybe I’ll say I’ve just had a few celebratory drinks as I’ve got a new job, but am on my way home? It’d be weird to say I’m in the pub with you, wouldn’t it?’
Priya spluttered into her wine.
‘Yes! You definitely cannot say you’re on Tinder down the pub.’
Jessie was already hooked on the notification that popped up whenever Rob sent her a message. She’d deliberately slipped in the new job as bait, in the hopes that he’d pick up on it and continue their chat. Her little test to see how interested he was in getting to know her.
Another notification pinged – an email, which prompted a sudden drop in euphoria. She ignored it. As her friendship with Priya had only just got back on track, Jessie was keen not to mention the unwanted messages from earlier either. Instead, she steered the topic of conversation onto Priya’s work and put her phone away. She nodded along enthusiastically when Priya began talking about breezing through tar
gets and potentially being up for promotion, but her mind was wandering. By the time last orders had been called, the world was starting to resemble an out-of-focus watercolour and Jessie knew she needed to get to bed. She hugged Priya and promised to let her know if there were any Rob updates, then queued for a taxi home.
After forcing herself to down a glass of water in the kitchen, she crawled up the stairs to bed and threw her phone somewhere down the side of it, swallowed a couple of tablets and settled down under the covers. Then the shouting started and Jessie’s eyes opened groggily; she couldn’t quite tell if the raised voices were coming from the upstairs neighbours or downstairs in Marcus’s room. Maybe it was neither and the wine mixed with medication was playing tricks on her. She listened hard for noises other than her heart pounding, then fell asleep before managing to figure it out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A tentative knock at the door, followed by the sound of her name being called, dragged Jessie out of a restless sleep. Her tongue was dry. She’d been dreaming of drinking ice-cold water.
‘Are you up? Mind if I come in?’
It was Lauren. Jessie cleared her throat and mumbled, ‘Sure, I’m a bit of a state though.’
Her bedroom door opened and Lauren ducked down to retrieve two mugs from the landing.
‘I’ve put a bit of sugar in yours to get your energy up,’ Lauren said, with a knowing smile. ‘And prescribed you a motivational mug.’
Jessie took in the writing on the white china – You have the same amount of hours in a day as Beyoncé – and gave a sleepy laugh.
‘Amazing, thank you. I hope I didn’t disturb you when I came in last night?’
Lauren shook her head and curled her top lip, indicating it was either fine or she hadn’t heard. Jessie didn’t have the energy to question which, the pulsating in her temples growing stronger by the second. It was difficult to keep her eyes open, but at least she’d managed to change into pyjamas before falling asleep. The heavy brocade curtains, that didn’t close fully, revealed a rectangle of white sky outside.
She wanted to look at the time, then remembered all the awful emails from yesterday, which, combined with the thought that Rob probably wouldn’t have messaged her back, made her apprehensive about checking her phone all over again. With the alcoholic high from last night well and truly gone, Jessie opened her mouth, suddenly wanting to offload some of her worries onto Lauren. She badly wanted to move them out of her own head and into another place, in an effort to stop the crunching of anxiety taking over her entire day. Instead, she sipped carefully at the tea, trying to focus on feeling grateful for it.
‘I’m off work again if you fancy hanging out and having a lazy day,’ said Lauren, sitting gently at the end of the bed. ‘Maybe we could start a new season of Real Housewives? I hear the Orange County ones are proper bitches.’
Lauren smoothed out Jessie’s duvet with her free hand. The bedroom reminded her of a psychiatric in-patient’s room, all white walls, white covers and dark windows.
‘Well, what’s left of the day anyway, given that it’s almost lunchtime.’
She’d managed to sleep for nearly eleven hours and yet Jessie felt drained – she didn’t envy Priya who’d had work today as normal. Spending the remainder of the afternoon with Lauren sounded infinitely more appealing than tossing and turning in bed alone.
‘That’s quite possibly the greatest plan I’ve ever heard. Let me just have a shower and sort myself out. Give me half an hour?’
The water soothed Jessie as she stood, eyes closed, enjoying the heat running over her wet body. She lathered up some shampoo and, as she washed it out, imagined rinsing away some of her worries too. She sang an old TLC song about chasing waterfalls to herself as she combed the conditioner though – it always came to mind when she was in the shower. Today was a new day and she had lots to look forward to, her new job starting soon for one. When she’d moved into Maver Place she’d vowed to only focus on the positives. But of course, that was easier said than done. She was allowed the odd slip-up, but now she had to get her mental state back on track.
She stepped out of the shower and dried herself off, wringing her hair as best she could over the sink, then wrapped the towel around her chest. Opening the door and looking to her left, Jessie noticed her own bedroom door was ajar. That wasn’t right. She’d definitely closed it. A trail of damp footprints appeared on the carpet behind Jessie as she tentatively walked over. She was surprised to find Ian, the letting agent, in her bedroom.
‘Ian?’ The unease in her voice was palpable.
‘Lauren let me in,’ he said quickly, holding up his phone. ‘I’m just taking pictures of that lock you emailed me about. I did reply but there was no response so … Sorry to catch you at a bad time.’
Jessie had forgotten all about the request she’d sent him.
‘Oh, of course. Thanks for coming over so quickly. It’d be great to get that sorted.’
‘No trouble. I’ll send these to the handyman your landlord uses and have him replace it,’ he said, giving her a relieved nod. ‘Bad news, though, the landlord wants you to foot some of the bill.’
Jessie pulled the towel tighter around herself, dreading the possibility it might slip in front of Ian, even though he was now intently studying his shiny Oxford shoes, barely daring to look at her.
‘Really, why?’
‘He said that, as the incoming tenant, you should pay it all because it’s your responsibility to liaise with the outgoing tenant, but I’ve managed to bargain him down to half price. I said it’s not your fault the one before you did a moonlight flit with the key.’
He delivered the last sentence with pride, hoping Jessie would understand that he was one of the good guys. His industry didn’t have the best reputation when it came to morals, after all, but Ian liked to think of himself as an exception to the rule. Very rarely did he bend the truth to make a property seem more appealing to a potential renter or buyer, beyond abbreviating ‘the city centre is a half an hour walk from here’ to ‘it’s just five minutes down the road’. Besides, who was to say whether he meant by foot or car?
Jessie’s nose wrinkled. She’d never even met Magda, the woman who had occupied her bedroom previously, so it seemed unfair that she was expected to pay out. But Lauren said she’d changed her number, so unless she messaged every ‘Magda’ living in Brighton on Facebook there was no way she’d ever be able to get the key back.
‘That really doesn’t seem fair.’
Ian drew his eyes up from his feet to meet Jessie’s. She looked different with wet hair and her fringe pushed back like that. Different in a good way.
‘I agree, but I’m afraid I can’t do much more about it. Anyway, let me get out of your way.’
He gave her his best professional smile and muttered ‘Excuse me’ as he brushed past her in the doorway, ready to get on to his next appointment across town.
Pulling on her jeans, Jessie thought back to the other thing that Ian had said, about Magda fleeing in the middle of the night. The way he’d slipped it into conversation was almost casual, so perhaps it really had just been meant it as a joke. But she wanted to know. Jessie decided to see how the afternoon with Lauren panned out and maybe ask her about Magda again later on, although last time had proven awkward.
After drying her hair, Jessie steeled her nerves and got down on all fours to retrieve her phone from under the bed. With the screen still facing the floor, she gingerly pulled it along the carpet before turning it over and squinting. Her mouth gaped at the Tinder notification on her home screen. Know it’s short notice but how about drinks this evening? x.
She stared hard at the ‘x’ rounding off the sentence. A virtual kiss. Rob’s message had only been sent twenty minutes ago. Best to wait a while before replying, so as not to look too eager – things were going to be different from now on when it came to relationships. There’d be no more running after men – time to let them do the running for a change.
Je
ssie deliberately slowed the process of styling her hair, then applying make-up, but the numbers on the clock had barely changed. Maybe, instead of waiting, it was better not to play games? Start as you mean to go on and all that. She composed a quick response: Hey, you too. I was just going to have a quiet one with my housemate but I’m up for a couple. Let me know when and where x. Her thumb dithered over the send button, before hitting it defiantly. It was done now. A flutter of nerves and excitement stirred within her. If this actually happened, it would be her first new date in years. Her first time navigating the playing field as a proper adult, throwing herself into the messy back and forth of texting, agonising waits in between and, hopefully, slow kissing at the end of the night. She tossed her phone back onto the bed, conscious that she’d be checking it too often if she kept it with her, and headed downstairs.
Lauren lay across one of the sofas, propping her head up with her hand, flicking through the TV channels aimlessly before settling on a music video. Three rappers, sitting around a nightclub table heaving with overflowing drinks, were gesturing animatedly at the camera, the fisheye lens making it look as though their fingers and gold jewellery could burst through the screen at any moment.
‘Wanna know something crazy?’ she asked, sensing that Jessie had entered the room.
‘Go on then.’
Lauren gave a coy snort of laughter.
‘I made out with one of those guys once, the one on the left. It was at a house party when they were just getting big. His name is B Rock. How shit is that?’
Jessie looked at the screen again. The man was attractive, but he looked intimidating, someone she’d never dare approach herself. He had a gold tooth that flashed whenever he snarled for a close-up.
The Wrong Move Page 5
