No Big Deal

by Bethany Rutter

  It’s only when I’m sitting at the bus stop, hands jammed in my pockets for warmth, that I notice the poster for the touring production of Journey’s End, young men in uniform waiting expectantly in a trench. Oh no. Panic rises in me from the soles of my feet to the roots of my hair: that hot, sick feeling; that vertigo; that nightmare grip of fear. I have an essay on First World War poetry due in at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Hours away. Not weeks, not days. Hours. And it’s not just any essay; it’s my mock A-level coursework. This isn’t the sort of thing I do! How could I forget the whole thing? I’ll tell you how. Joe’s pushed everything else out of my head.

  Well, that’s that. I guess I’ll be awake until who knows when. I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack. I nervously tap Morse code on the bus window all the way back to Purley. Pure adrenaline powers me up the hill from the bus stop to my house.

  By the time I get home, my parents have already gone to bed. I sneak up to my room as quietly as possible, open my laptop, and throw myself into the trenches. I ignore the clock, disappear into a whirl of words, managing to stay awake through pure fear of not having something to hand in on time. It doesn’t matter how long it takes; it just matters that I get it done. It’s not my style to just not do essays. Maybe I’ll skip revising for the odd test, but not mock coursework. After I don’t know how long, I hear a creak on the floorboards outside my room. A slow, tentative knock follows, before my dad’s bleary face appears around the doorframe.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep, and then I saw your light was on,’ he whispers. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘I messed up, Dad,’ I say. Time to confess.

  ‘Why? What did you do?’ He looks pained.

  ‘I forgot about an essay. I thought I had more time. I’m an idiot,’ I say, exhausted, burying my face in my hands. I hate myself right now for falling so far down this Joe rabbit hole that I just abandoned all my responsibilities. It’s amazing how much brain space boys can take up.

  ‘Oh, Emily. You silly sausage.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I really didn’t mean to . . .’ I’m trying not to cry. Who cries over homework anyway? ‘I know I’m an idiot.’

  ‘You think I never left things till the last minute?’ he says kindly.

  He’s being too kind. But it’s what I need right now. Bless him.

  ‘Yeah, but this is, like, last second. And it’s a mock coursework essay!’ I cry.

  He winces, inhales deeply, and sits down on my bed behind me.

  ‘It’s not great. There’s no two ways about it,’ he says. ‘And I know it feels important now, but in the long run, you’ll see it’s no big deal. It’s not real coursework; it’s not an exam. You’re a sensible girl, and I know you won’t let it happen again.’

  ‘No, I won’t. I really won’t.’ I really won’t. Nothing is worth this stress. I just want to make sure I have some idea of how I’ll do in the real thing.’

  ‘Good girl,’ he says.

  ‘How are you, Dad? How come you can’t sleep?’

  ‘Oh, it just happens sometimes; it’s nothing much,’ he says breezily. ‘But I’m glad I couldn’t. I hate the thought of you struggling with this on your own.’

  ‘I’m doing all right, I think. Given the not-ideal circumstances,’ I say. Thank God it’s true, bless my past self for at least taking decent notes in class.

  ‘You definitely try harder than your sister ever did. She’d have left it until the last minute on purpose,’ he says, smiling.

  ‘What? Katie?’ This does not tally with the superindustrious engineering genius I know and love.

  ‘Yes, Katie! As far as I know, you don’t have any other sisters.’

  ‘But she works so hard, and she’s so good at her job, and she does so well at everything!’

  ‘That only really started when she got to university and was working on stuff she really loved. I don’t suppose you were that interested in how much homework your older sister was or wasn’t doing – I’m not surprised you don’t remember.’

  ‘I thought she’d always been a hard worker.’

  ‘Quite the opposite. It just goes to show that the way things are when you’re at school don’t always stay that way forever. Or rather, you don’t have to stay the way you are forever. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing, I don’t know. Probably good . . .’ He cleans his glasses on his T-shirt. ‘It’s nice to have time to figure out what sort of person you want to be, what sort of life you want to have.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear things won’t be this way forever,’ I say, forcing a weak smile through my zombified tiredness.

  ‘Why? What’s the matter, treasure?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m fine.’

  ‘Is it . . . boy trouble?’ he ventures, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, but . . . I really don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘That’s OK – I’m not going to make you. I just hope it’s not worrying you too much.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ I lie. I think lying’s OK in the pursuit of avoiding an awkward conversation.

  ‘Well, do what you gotta do,’ my dad says, before getting up and leaving me to get on with my essay.

  I beaver away for another couple of hours and then decide enough is enough. I’m going to bed. I do a final sweep of all my social media and check my emails before turning off my laptop. I think it’s my tiredness playing a trick on me when I see a Facebook message notification appear on my phone, and when I click on it, I find it’s from Joe.

  There’s a link to a Spotify playlist, and even though my eyes are burning from fatigue, my tiredness is outweighed by the lightness in my chest and the butterflies in my stomach. I click the link and am taken to a Spotify playlist full of Talking Heads, Ramones, New Order, right up to Sufjan Stevens and Ryan Adams . . . Except it’s the Ryan Adams cover of one of the tracks on Taylor Swift’s album 1989, which made me and all my friends roll our eyes when it came out. I mean, dudes messing with stuff by women and making it worse? Come on!

  A twist of irritation niggles, but the warm excitement that he was thinking of me pushes that feeling aside, mingles with exhaustion, and sends me drifting off to sleep.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘True Faith’ – New Order

  Thursday has come around way too quickly. Dizzyingly fast. I feel sick. I almost don’t want to go. I’m so nervous. Arrrrrrgh. I feel like a wild fizzing ball of energy, like my insides are a pinball machine where the stress pings from one side to the other. All my excitement about seeing Joe tonight has converted into pure dread, and I cannot shake it off. Breathe, Emily. Breathe. You’re going to have a nice time. This is what you want. You want to get to know him, and you want to spend time with him, so stop trying to talk yourself out of it. Put on your big-girl knickers and be your best charming self. No excuses.

  ‘So . . .’ Abi says as she looms over my shoulder while I reapply my pretty, subtle, dusky-rose lipstick.

  The lighting in the sixth-form bathrooms leaves much to be desired but, in a crumbling old school like ours, it’s certainly not the dingiest corner I could have found. I wish Camila was here, gently reassuring me. Instead I have to make do with Abi’s boundless, energetic optimism. Camila is still stewing in her righteous indignation. Maybe energetic optimism is actually what I need right now?

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I feel fine. Honestly!’ Not honestly at all. In fact, very dishonestly. I want to vomit. I keep thinking about what Oliver said to me on Sunday night, about how many girls are presumably chasing after Joe. I don’t stand a chance.

  ‘Are you excited?’ Abi dances around me, twisting her streamlined hips and waist in an approximation of a sexy grind.

  Excited is maybe half of what I’m feeling. The other half is some sort of mix of scared, anxious and deeply, deeply curious as to how this will play out. There are so many potential outcomes, and I’m nervous to find out what will actually happen. But yes, I am excited.

  ‘Yes,’ I say decisively, clickin
g the lid back on to the tube of lipstick and shoving it in my bag. ‘Yes, I am excited.’

  ‘What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?’

  ‘I don’t know the answer to either of those questions. All I know is I’m meeting him at Beats Per Minute, and then we’ll figure it out from there. You know, it’s just . . . casual.’

  I’m trying to sound chilled out rather than terrified. The vagueness of the plan concerns me, as if it might not be real, or it might be easy for him to back out of. But I try to push those thoughts out of my mind and just look forward to seeing him. I try to conjure up a vision in my mind of pom-pom-wielding cheerleaders surrounded by fireworks spelling out ‘T-H-I-N-K P-O-S-I-T-I-V-E, E-M-I-L-Y!’ I suppose Abi isn’t such a bad cheerleader herself.

  ‘I know you say that, but this one feels like a proper date, you know?’ She squeals, with a feverish excitement that I can’t match.

  Just as I open my mouth to protest, a cubicle door bangs open, and who should emerge but Horrible Holly.

  ‘You’ve got a date? Really? How precious.’

  I sigh. ‘No, I don’t.’ Congrats, fate, on finding me the only person that could make me feel even more nervous before seeing Joe and throwing them into my path. Real cool. ‘I’m just meeting a friend.’

  ‘That sounds more likely,’ she replies, smirking to herself as she takes an inordinate amount of time to wash her hands at the sink next to us.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Abi snaps, defensively.

  Even though I know she means well, I have to suppress an instant groan. I wish she hadn’t bothered.

  ‘Oh nothing, I just didn’t know the fuller figure was back in fashion.’

  I feel all my nervous energy build up inside and turn into a boiling rage with nowhere to go. I feel my face flush with embarrassment and anger that it always comes back to this, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  ‘You know what, Holly?’ I say as she’s drying her hands on some paper towels. ‘Screw you.’ And I do something I’ve never done before. I push her. Not hard. Not into anything. But I do push her. And the sensation of relief I feel as my hands make contact with her shoulders is like squeezing a spot or something. I know it’s wrong, but it feels so right – and in that moment, it’s so satisfying.

  She gasps but rights herself, then stares at me, lip curled. ‘All right, then,’ she says. ‘I see how it is.’ She barges out of the toilets, looking haughty and aggrieved.

  ‘Holy . . .’ Abi trails off and gapes at me in complete disbelief.

  ‘What, like she didn’t have much worse coming for a really long time?’

  ‘No, totally,’ says Abi. ‘I just didn’t ever think it would be you that cracked. You, the one that doesn’t care about what people think.’

  I brush my hair in silence while Abi eyes me with apparent newfound respect. It’s not the worst reputation to have: someone who ‘doesn’t care about what people think’. But it’s more pressure, isn’t it? Pressure to keep not caring. And when you do care, it becomes a huge deal.

  ‘Um, anyway, have you done your UCAS form?’ I ask, changing the subject. I’m hoping she’ll say no.

  ‘Yes, I sent it off last week – couldn’t miss that Cambridge deadline,’ she replies.

  This half makes me feel better, because I don’t want to go to Cambridge, but it also troubles me because the fact remains that, all around me, people are making their minds up about what they’re going to do with themselves – and I’m not.

  Leaving the girls’ loos, Abi and I trudge down the long, winding staircase of the sixth-form block. Part of me doesn’t want to get to the bottom. But of course we do, and before we know it, we’re out in the cold November dusk. Darkness has started to fall surprisingly quickly lately, and since I spent so long loitering in the bathroom, attempting to beautify myself for Joe, it already feels like evening. Abi walks me up past McDonald’s, past the weird army surplus store that’s definitely run by a neo-Nazi, past the charity shops, and leaves me at the corner of the side street where Beats Per Minute has its home.

  ‘Goodluckhavefun,’ she says all in one breath so it becomes one word, our go-to mantra, benediction, whatever you want to call it. She pulls me into a bear hug. ‘You’re going to have a great time. Don’t worry so much.’

  I try to take her words to heart.

  As I round the corner and Beats Per Minute looms into view, I feel moved by the vibrant blue of the shopfront. There’s hardly anything else on this street. No one cares about it at all. And you probably wouldn’t even come down here unless you were looking for the shop. But Joe’s family care enough to keep their corner of the world looking beautiful. The thought calms me as I push the door, but it doesn’t move. I start to panic. Have I got the wrong day? What the hell? I scrabble around in my bag for my phone. No message from Joe. My head snaps up as I hear a clunk-click in front of me, and there’s Joe unlocking the door from the inside. A smile spreads across my face, and I hope against hope he can’t read the relief in my expression that he turned up at all.

  ‘Hello, you,’ he says with a grin, ushering me into the shop.

  What’s up with that phrase, huh? Even when it’s used in an entirely neutral, friendly way, it sounds like flirting.

  ‘Hi! Are you all done for the day?’ I ask as I set down my jacket on top of the New Releases section.

  ‘Yes. As you can guess from the locked door, we’re not expecting any more customers,’ he replies, to my great relief. ‘I’ve put in an honest day’s work and can now hang out with you guilt free.’

  ‘More than I can say for myself.’ This is true. I did not put in an honest day’s work at school. Also, I physically assaulted someone. Guilt free, I am not. ‘Hey, what do you want to do tonight?’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing much going on anywhere . . . and I don’t really want to go to the Fox again,’ he says.

  Oh no – what does this mean for me? Am I going to have to suggest something? Is he going to abandon me and our hangout altogether?

  He shrugs. ‘So, I was thinking maybe we could just hang out here.’

  ‘Oh!’ I chirp. ‘That sounds nice.’ It does sound nice. More than anything, I just want to chat to him with no distractions, no one ringing a bell for last orders, no one rushing us out of the restaurant because they need the table back.

  ‘Also, I just bought a new guitar, so I have, like, no money.’ He smiles sheepishly.

  Oh, OK – so that’s his angle. Not, Oh – wouldn’t it be nice to spend some proper time alone with Emily, that super cool and cute girl. Of course not.

  ‘Yeah, that’s cool. I get it,’ I say. Chilled out. That’s me. Famously relaxed.

  He rounds the counter and dips out of sight for a second before reappearing with a bottle of wine and two glasses. OK, could be worse. He leads me up a set of stairs that are blocked off to the public, up to a mezzanine level that overlooks the shop floor. There just isn’t enough stock or customers, he explains, to justify it being open upstairs any more. Plus, he adds bitterly, it made it too easy for people to nick stuff when they were out of sight up here. Now his family just uses it as a place to keep their junk: cardboard boxes, rolls of tape, marker pens.

  We’re standing on a worn-through patterned rug, which covers the floorboards in the centre of the mezzanine, around which are scattered a few sagging beanbags. Joe nods in their direction.

  ‘I like having somewhere out of the house that I can come to read or play guitar without anyone bothering me,’ he explains. ‘Anyway, I was going to put on some music. Is there anything you want to hear? You’ll never be in a better place to have your musical whims satisfied,’ he says, gesturing around the shop.

  ‘The one thing I always want to listen to whenever I get the chance is ‘Why’ by Carly Simon,’ I say, poised to give an explanation for why this so readily tripped off my tongue. I wonder if I should have pretended to give it more thought.

  ‘Yeah, it’s an absolute classic.’<
br />
  No explanation needed.

  ‘I was thinking something more sedate, but I would be a bad shop assistant if I wasn’t catering to your needs. The customer is always right.’

  ‘Who needs sedate when you can have an absolute banger, though?’ I’m very committed to this song, and he will not deter me.

  Joe dashes downstairs and reappears moments later with my record of choice, plus another tucked under his arm. I can tell from the washed-out yellow and brown tones of the cover that it’s Songs of Leonard Cohen. Of course he would like that; I like that. He blows the dust off the case of a record player that is sitting on a desk in the corner of the mezzanine and sets up the record, gently dropping the needle in place. The machine leaps into action, and the shop fills with the sound of that bouncing, distinctly eighties faux-reggae beat overlaid with Carly Simon’s mournful vocals.

  We sit cross-legged on the beanbags as he pours the wine. As we drink, the song eventually fades out, and Joe leaps to his feet to change the record.

  ‘This is just something I like listening to at this time of year,’ he says, blushing as the first track, ‘Suzanne’, starts up, the soft, low scratch of the vocals lapping against the restless guitar like a wave.

  ‘Um, that’s OK . . . You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I would be surprised if someone had heard this record and didn’t love it. It’s a nice choice.’

  And then a question occurs to me. ‘Where . . . did you come from?’

  ‘What?’ He lowers his glass and looks at me with a furrowed brow.

  ‘I mean, I’d never seen you before Ben’s party at the end of August.’ I sure as hell would have remembered if I’d seen him around before then, I think (but don’t say). ‘How did you end up there?’

  ‘Oh, well, I kind of flunked my A levels,’ he says, shifting uncomfortably on his beanbag. ‘So I didn’t get into the uni I wanted to go to. So I’m kind of stuck here for a while, and I figured all my friends are going to uni this year, so I’ll need some new parties to go to. Oliver comes in here sometimes, so he invited me, and I thought, why not.’