How Do You Like Me Now?

by Holly Bourne

  About the Author

  Holly Bourne is a bestselling author. She is passionate about gender equality and mental health. How Do You Like Me Now? is her debut adult novel.

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Holly Bourne 2018

  The right of Holly Bourne to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 473 66774 7

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  To Lexi,

  for the phone call.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Month One

  Month Two

  Month Three

  Month Four

  Month Five

  Month Six

  Month Seven

  Month Eight

  Month Nine

  Postscript

  Acknowledgements

  Month One

  Olivia Jessen

  Six month bump alert. The belly has popped people, the belly has popped. #BumpSelfie #Blessed

  81 likes

  *

  Harry Spears

  I liked it so … I put a ring on it.

  Harry Spears and Claire Rodgers are engaged.

  332 likes

  *

  Andrea Simmons

  Poo explosion! But look at that cheeky face …

  52 likes

  Comments:

  Olivia Jessen: Oh no, Andrea. I’ve got all that to look forward to.

  Andrea Simmons: I’ll give you a nose peg at your baby shower!

  *

  Event invite: Olivia Jessen’s super-secret baby shower.

  16 attending

  *

  Tori’s WhoTheF*ckAmI? Official Fan Page

  Alright my f*ckers! Who’s coming to the London show tonight? I can’t believe it’s sold out! I love and adore you all. See you at seven. I’ll be the one on stage with the microphone, wondering how the hell I got so lucky in life.

  2434 likes. 234 comments.

  *

  I look out at a sea of earnestness.

  There are too many faces to make anyone out individually, but there is a collective look. A collective glow. Their eyes are dewy; their hands are clasped.

  They hang on my every syllable.

  I’m getting to the good bit. The bit I know they’ve been waiting for. The bit I’ve been building up to. I walk across the stage in my designer heels and smooth down my designer dress. I look exactly how a successful woman should look. Groomed, plucked, highlighted, contoured … but not in an obvious way. I look right out at them. At their anxious, eager faces. And I say:

  ‘That’s when I realised it.’ I raise one threaded eyebrow. ‘Sitting there, cross-legged in that fucking tent in Sedona. Chanting bollocks with a load of wankers, wearing a rosary necklace for God’s sake. That’s when it hit me …’

  I pause.

  The audience stills. You could float a boat on the expectation filling the air.

  ‘I was trying to find myself how everyone else finds themselves,’ I say. ‘I was having a nervous breakdown exactly how everyone else has a nervous breakdown and I was healing myself how everyone else tries to heal themselves. And I said to myself NO MORE.’ I hold out my hand like I’m signalling stop. I pause again, waiting for the beat. ‘“Just who the fuck am I?” I asked myself. “What do I want?” Because life isn’t a paint-by-numbers. You cannot find yourself along an identikit path. And, actually, even after my quarter-life crisis, even after this whole year of self-discovery, I was still twenty-five and doing exactly what had got me into this mess in the first place. I was doing what I thought I should be doing rather than what I fucking needed to be doing.’

  A stray whoop. The audience softens into gentle laughter. I laugh, too, and it echoes around the walls, bounces out of the various speakers.

  I nod. ‘Exactly.’ I pause to let them settle. I clop back to the other side of the stage. There is a hush. I blink slowly, trying to remember that moment. Trying to invoke the triumph I felt. Six years ago. On that day, that incredible day. The day where everything started going right for me.

  ‘So,’ I tell them. ‘I opened my eyes, I uncrossed my legs, and I walked out of that stupid meditation yurt and never looked back.’

  The applause is overwhelming, like it always is. It takes about five minutes for them to calm down, like they always do. I make my own eyes go dewy to show my appreciation, like I always do. Then I get around to telling them the rest of my story. The story they all know already. Because all of them have my book clasped in their hands, waiting for me to sign it afterwards. Waiting to have their moment with me. To tell me about their own messy twenties, their own terrible boyfriends, their own shitty jobs, their own smacking disappointments. And to tell me how my book, my words, my story helped them through. Still helps them through.

  It’s crazy really. I sometimes forget how crazy it is.

  We don’t sell many books despite the queue that snakes around multiple corridors. They all already have their copies. Battered copies with crippled spines and Post-its to highlight their favourite parts. I sign for over three hours – my grin stapled on, trying to keep my energy up for all the women who’ve waited so long for this moment.

  This moment with me.

  Like I’m special or something.

  So I smile and smile and I high-five them when they tell me of their own adventures. I hug them when they cry. I lean in and listen carefully as they whisper their secrets. My publicist hovers, twitchy, and asks if I’m OK. If I need a break. If I want some water. I smile at her and say no. I’m OK. I’m fine. I’m managing. But thank you.

  Every single person asks the same questions:

  ‘So, when is your new book coming out?’

  ‘What are you working on now?’

  ‘Do you have a new project coming out soon?’

  ‘I’m so impatient. How long do I have to wait?’

  My smile goes tight and I tap my nose and say, ‘Wait and see’ and ‘Watch this space.’

  Then, of course, they also want to know:

  ‘So, are you still together?’

  ‘The guy you met at the end of the book? Are you still with him?’

  ‘Are you still in love?’

  They ask the way a child asks their parents if Santa Claus is real – their eyes big, wide with a mixture of excitement and fear. I know why they’re excited and I know why they’re scared. They’re excited because if I can find him, they can find him. If I can make it work, they can make it work. If magic is real for me, it is real for them. I am the reflection of everything they want in their own lives. I’m essentially the Mirror of Erised.

  They’re scared because I could also be their albatross. If I can’t make it work, who can? If magic doesn’t work for me, it most
certainly won’t work for them.

  I nod and simper and coo and look all bashful. I repeat the phrase over and over. ‘Yes, we’re still together. We live together now.’

  Oh, how that makes them happy. They gasp. They demand photographs. They swoon, they sigh. Their eyes grow bigger and wetter and they are so relieved. It makes my own eyes water and I blink like crazy to stop it. Because they make me remember Us. The Us we were. The Us that we were when the story they clutch finishes. I can remember it so clearly – maybe because I’ve been forced to talk about it non-stop for six years …

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Huh?’

  I blink and look up at the face of a woman standing over me. Her entire body jolts with nerves; her fingers tremble on her copy of my book, which has over one hundred Post-its glued in.

  ‘Sorry.’ I smile and take the book off her. ‘Now, what’s your name?’

  ‘Rosie.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a lovely name,’ I say. It’s what I always say.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I sign her book with the message I always write:

  Dear Rosie,

  Live the life you fucking need to live.

  Love,

  Tori xx

  She’s crying.

  ‘Oh wow, thank you,’ she stutters through her sobs. ‘Can I … can I take a photo?’

  I hand her book back. ‘Of course, of course. Are you OK?’

  She laughs a little and says, ‘I’m fine, it’s just so amazing to meet you.’

  I hold out both arms warmly. ‘Come here for a hug and a photo.’

  Rosie hands her phone over to my publicist and is so overcome with emotion she forgets to even ask if it’s OK for her to take the picture. Then she clatters around to my side of the table and quivers next to me. I pull her in, putting my arm around her. She’s hot and sweaty. Her dampness sinks into the crisp fabric of my dress, but this moment is worth more than my dress.

  ‘Smile!’ my publicist says, holding up the phone.

  I smile with my good side facing towards the camera – chin down to give me better jaw definition, eyebrows relaxed so my forehead wrinkles don’t show. There’s a flash and Rosie giggles and steps back to her side of the table, retrieving her phone and checking the photo.

  ‘Thanks so much for coming.’ I hand her book over.

  ‘No, thank you. Thank you so much for writing it. You don’t understand. When I was twenty-three, I was such a mess … then I found your book and … it changed my life … it really did.’

  I am tired of smiling, but I need to smile at this because it’s important to her. ‘Wow, I’m so touched to hear that. How old are you now?’

  ‘Twenty-five.’

  She’s only twenty-freaking-five. They just keep getting … younger.

  ‘Well I’m so glad you enjoyed it.’

  I’m looking past her now, to the next person. Because it’s gone ten and I’ve got the wedding tomorrow. But, just as I reach out to take the book off the next shaking fan, Rosie discovers the courage to say one more thing.

  ‘Hey, sorry. But, can I just ask? Rock man? The man from the book? You are still together, aren’t you?’

  Rock man.

  The man who found me on the rock. Who found me on top of a vortex in Sedona screaming ‘fuuuuuuuuuck’ and throwing my rosary beads off into the skyline, and somehow found that endearing.

  Tom …

  The man who could’ve been anywhere else in the world that day, but whom a thousand gusts of fate somehow blew to Arizona too. Sedona too. Climbing up to the vortex too.

  My happily-ever-after.

  The one you’re always rewarded with in stories where a character decides to be brave.

  ‘Yes,’ I confirm, feeling like my smile might snap. ‘We’re still together.’

  She lets out a little squeal and a yelp, arms flailing in the air. Then she blushes. ‘Sorry. I’m fangirling.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  I’m looking past her again because, in the nicest possible way, she is taking too much time now. There are still at least fifty women waiting not-so patiently any more. Rosie doesn’t read my vibe. My response has only given her more confidence. She is conducting the conversation that she needs. In her head, we are friends now. Already great friends.

  ‘And you’re still blissfully happy?’

  I close my eyes for a second longer than I should. When I open them, my smile is still there. It has to stay on. For the next fifty people it has to stay on. I give Rosie my dimples and my charm and my glowing, golden happiness. My wisdom. My serenity. Everything she expects. Everything she has paid for in her ticket price.

  ‘Of course,’ I tell her. ‘We’re still blissfully happy.’

  *

  The adrenaline starts to ooze out of me in the taxi home. I feel each muscle clenching and releasing. The cocktail of performance hormones steadily filtering out of my tight stomach, unravelling my intestines inch by inch. I lean my head against the blackened glass and watch London twinkle outside. This city just keeps getting taller, refusing to let anything stunt its growth – much like the people who live in its turrets.

  My phone lights up and buzzes angrily in my hand.

  Dee: HELP ME HE IS A CRAZY PERSON

  I smile as the taxi passes the looming ostentatiousness of Big Ben and we drive over the black currents of the Thames. There will never be a time when I don’t want a mid-date message from Dee.

  Tori: He can’t be as bad as last week’s surely?

  Dee: He’s married, Tor. HE’S MARRIED!!

  Tori: Then why is he on a date with you?!

  Dee: He said he WOULD get a divorce but he CAN’T FIND HIS WIFE BECAUSE SHE VANISHED.

  I tap out a few replies as the cab plunges through the murky depths of South London – where glittering lights are replaced by concrete slabs of sort-of-affordable housing as long as your parents can help you with the deposit to dodge inheritance tax. I try to find the right mix of sympathetic, concerned, and taking the piss.

  Tori: Seriously, are you OK though? It would only happen to YOU. X

  Dee: I’m safe! I’m home. I really want to drink Merlot with my spritely young housemates but we’ve got the wedding of doom tomorrow.

  Tori: Don’t remind me. I’m still picking you up at 9, right? X

  Dee: 9 it is.

  Then five minutes later:

  Dee: And, it’s not me. This is just what dating is, Tor. Everyone apart from me is either boring or totally insane.

  I put my phone away as we slow down around the park. The pavements are clogged with smokers and drunk people spilling out of bars, ripping into boxes of fried chicken, laughing loud and shrill and leaning into each other, and putting their hands on each other’s chests. We pull up at a red light and the taxi throbs softly from the music blasting out of a flat above. London never rests. It doesn’t do bedtime or catnaps or even dozing. It’s so exhausting living somewhere this constantly awake.

  The thought of coming home to Tom makes me feel safe. The thought that he will be there, and that he says he loves me; the thought that I don’t have to go back out there into a world of ghosting and dick pics and messages with two ticks but no replies. But the thought of no Tom … I shiver. The thought of the alternative. The thought of starting again. Thirty-one and alone. Thirty-one and putting that number on an online-dating profile. Knowing the assumptions people make about that number. The wilting pair of ovaries they see. The desperation they smell. The sand you leave behind on the chair as the hourglass pours from top to bottom …

  Tom loves me and I love Tom. That is special. That is rarer than you think. That is all you need.

  By the time the driver has halted and pulled up his handbrake, I adore Tom. I feel blessed to have Tom. I’m even impatient to see him, snuggle into him and show him my love and my relief. I fiddle with the keys to our block of sterile, modern flats. Tom said it was better to get a new-build rather than a Victorian conversion. I agreed because it
was easier, even though it was mostly my money paying for it. But I don’t want to have bad thoughts about Tom. Not after tonight. Not when I know just how many people are rooting for us. He is my happily-ever-after and I love him and I don’t want to be alone.

  Cat greets me at the door, launching herself at my leg and twirling around it like a maypole, purring before I’ve even put my stuff down.

  ‘I’m back!’ I call out needlessly.

  There is no response.

  I can sense his presence here – the lights are on, his coat is up on the hook, I can just feel him in the flat – yet he doesn’t reply. I dump my stuff and pick up Cat. She resists, twisting in my arms and trying to bite me, so I relent and put her down. She scurries off into the bedroom and I follow her, shedding my coat on the way.

  ‘Hey,’ Tom says from the bed. His face glows blue from his iPad, his shoulders hunched over it. He does not even look up when he says it. ‘How did it go?’ he asks the screen.

  ‘Yeah, really good.’

  ‘That’s great,’ he tells the screen.

  And, just like that, the love drains out of me. Like someone has pulled the plug on a cold bath.

  Cat jumps up onto the bed and onto the lump of Tom’s body. She thrusts her head into his iPad, doing an exotic cat-version of the Dance of the Seven Veils. Her assertiveness works when it never works for me.

  Tom’s face cracks into a smile. ‘Hello Trouble.’ He puts his iPad fully down and rubs Cat under her chin. I see the love pour out of him as I stand there in the doorway, hardly acknowledged, jealousy pumping through my body. This is a new thing. A new thing that I hardly dare admit to myself because of how truly pathetic it is.

  I am jealous of my cat.

  My boyfriend loves my cat more than he loves me.

  He certainly touches her more …

  I ask Tom about his day and he says it was OK. I ask how work was and he says that it was OK. I ask what he had for dinner and he tells me what it was and that there are leftovers in the fridge if I’m hungry. Then he’s distracted by Cat rolling onto her back and kicking his hand away.

  ‘What are you doing? Silly thing. Oww, oww! That hurts!’

  My cat and my boyfriend are having a moment and I am not part of it. So I wilt out of my dress, peel off my matching underwear and clamber into my pyjamas. He’s still playing with Cat when I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and get ready for bed. I first take off my make-up using cotton pads soaked in micellar water, then I rub an organic cream cleanser into my face for two minutes before scrubbing it off with a flannel. I splash my face with cold water to act as a toner and dab it dry with my towel. I spill out some anti-ageing serum with retinoid onto my fingertips, dot it around my face and then rub it in gently. I go through the same process using my tiny pot of eye cream. I sit on the loo and pee while I wait for it all to sink in. Then, after washing my hands and brushing my teeth with my sonic toothbrush, I finish with a thick night-cream. Pulling the mirror out on its extendable arm and flipping it to the magnifying side, I examine my face. I turn this way and that, raising my eyebrows and lowering them at least ten times. Still surprised at the lines that are there. Already. But I’ve been told it would be worse if I didn’t use the creams.