It occurred to me that Cassie would have to have thought she knew who she was searching for. She thinks she knows who I am, and that can only be because of Franko, which is a little unsettling after so long. If I had liked being that visible, then it’s fair to say my life would have turned out differently. Perhaps I wouldn’t have hated being in Franko so much. Maybe it would have been more bearable because I’d have accepted that those were the breaks. Perhaps if I’d have done what was expected of me, and sucked it up I’d be rocking sell-out stadium tours now. Who knows?
Still, it’s reasonable to assume that since I’m not the only Jesse Franklin in the world, she may have got the wrong one. She won’t have been looking for me. Why would she? No one has for a long time. No big deal. I left that friend request without responding, and didn’t think about it again.
Today though, one of Travis’ friends added me, and Cassie was still there. She’s changed her profile picture and now, instead of a headshot, she’s leaning on the shoulder of a brunette woman, and they are both smiling into the camera. Cassie is wearing sunglasses, and you can see that her arm is outstretched to take the photo in the reflection in the lenses. She has a wide, pretty smile, big silver hoop earrings in her ears, and blonde hair, pulled back off her face. She’s wearing a necklace with a pendant in the shape of the letter C, and a black t-shirt. There’s no point in denying it, she’s definitely nice to look at, and I’m all kinds of intrigued.
The coffee machine in the kitchen beeps at me, and interrupts my browsing. I set the laptop down on the couch, and grab a cup to take outside, flicking on the stereo on the way out. It’s a habit. Richard, my neighbor, has done the same. He doesn’t look pleased that he can hear my music through the back doors, but then he rarely looks pleased about anything. Richard is a bit of an asshole. He spends half his time in Chicago, and half his time here, and he stands on his upstairs balcony and has shouty conversations on his cell phone, often culminating in him cutting the call and cursing loudly. I suspect his blood pressure could do with being monitored.
‘Hey man.’ I raise my hand in a half-assed wave over the wall.
‘Hello,’ he says. There’s a slight pause, like he’s trying to remember my name and can’t.
‘Nice day, huh?’
‘Very pleasant,’ he says. ‘Are you working at home today?’
‘Sure am,’ I reply, glancing across at him, chipper as anything. He purses his lips. He doesn’t like it when I work from home. He won’t come out and say it, but occasionally he’ll hint that the noise from my amp disturbs him. Well, too bad, bro. I don’t know what he does exactly, but the noise he makes screaming at people in various offices around the world sometimes disturbs me, too, so I guess we’re even. And at least my noise is melodic.
‘I see,’ he says, gathering up the papers he was reading through and deliberately tapping them into a neat stack on the edge of his table.
‘Bye, Richard,’ I call out, as he slams his back door closed behind him.
When I go back inside, the computer catches my eye again. Cassie Banks’ new profile picture is still static on the screen. You can retract friend requests, and she hasn’t done that. Best Coast have put me in a good mood. I let my curiosity win out. Who are you, Cassie from England, and what do you want from me? This time I click to respond, and she and I are now connected. Just like that, on a Tuesday morning.
Chapter Four
Cassie
Jesse Franklin has accepted your Friend Request
* * *
I stare at the message until it fades out. Surely not? Surely. Not? But there’s a tick indicating our friendship and obviously I’m now going to snoop, and if he’s at all internet-savvy he’ll be doing the same. Now we’re pals it’s like I’ve found the entrance to Narnia. There’s the usual stuff people post; a couple of links to news stories, a few sporadic updates. Photos of his basses, photos he’s been tagged in, and, oh my days, he’s still completely lovely. The years have definitely been kind to Jesse Franklin. I go to the profile photo and enlarge it. It’s definitely him. I’d recognise him anywhere. He is looking away from the camera, and all in all still quite the dish.
Racking my stalker level up by yet another notch, I systematically go through all his photos. There are some of Jesse with Travis, or Jesse with Brandon, but none of Jesse with Adam, and this intrigues me. There’s a story there, I can feel it. Something has happened. The only photos of them all together are a couple taken at Christmas or Thanksgiving. Always in the same dining room, with wooden panelling on the walls below a dado rail and a gold coloured sixties-style wall clock that looks like the sun. Jesse and Adam are never sitting near each other.
Next I find a couple of Brandon with his family; a pretty wife with a button nose and green eyes and a rosy toddler called Nancy who looks like her mum. It’s interesting, seeing photos of Brandon all grown up with a family. He would have been fourteen the last time I saw him. There’s a photo of Jesse holding Nancy as a newborn. She is swaddled in a blanket and her dark eyes stare up at him, wide and unblinking, and he’s looking back at the camera, holding this tiny infant like she’s the most precious thing in the world, and smiling. It tugs at my heartstrings. I’m pretty certain that inside me, my ovaries are going into overdrive.
I carry on clicking through the photos, careful not to like any of them, and scrolling down his time line, and I even go to his friend list to see if I can find anyone else, but it’s set to private, and we have no mutual friends, so it’s blank. I’m half expecting him to message me, but he doesn’t. And when I see he’s offline again, I close the page.
The rest of the week passes in much the same way as normal. Mum calls and talks about my aunt’s sprained ankle for far longer than is necessary. At work, the creative team sign off on an initial colour palette for next year’s Autumn/Winter kitchenware range. It’s all reds and purples and mustard yellow and teal, and I spend the week researching how similar colours have sold in previous years. Sam, my kitchenware buyer counterpart, is excited, and his face lights up like the Blackpool illuminations when we discuss it. He’s spotted some gorgeous melamine in just the right shade of grapey purple.
On Friday evening I meet Rachel at The Dog and Duck; a small, but conveniently located pub about halfway between our offices.
‘I’m glad you wanted to meet,’ she says. ‘I have some wedding stuff I need help with.’
‘Okay, but first… I have something to tell you.’
‘About Date My Mate?’ she asks, hopefully. ‘How’s that going? Any matches?’
‘Yeah, a few, but –’
‘And? Any dates?’
‘Nope. I’ve seen everything I need to and it’s a no from me so far.’
‘I think you’re being too picky, Cassie.’
‘Really? I think perhaps Charlotte isn’t picky enough. No thanks to your tits comment, which I’ve removed, by the way, all I’ve had are offers of a shag and dick pics. And not even pretty ones. Although, I got one message from someone potentially passable but then he went quiet.’
‘Can a dick really be pretty?’
‘Jack’s was,’ I shrug.
‘Yes, well Jack was a cheating ratbag. If a nice-looking cock was the best thing he had going for him then that says a lot. Anyway, don’t give up just yet. And I need to ask that you never mention this around George. That cool?’
‘Why?’ I laugh.
‘Because he is not so secretly hoping for a union between you and Marcus, and I’ll never hear the end of it if he thinks I’m sabotaging it.’
I wrinkle up my nose. ‘Gross. Marcus is a pig.’
Marcus is George’s rugby playing, Ralph-Lauren-polo-shirt-wearing, champagne-swilling, grammar-school-educated best friend and I find him repellant. His claim to fame is going to the same school as a Tory backbencher. George can wish upon as many stars as he likes, but it’s never going to happen.
‘Hmm, yes,’ she says, diplomatically. ‘I tend to agree. But I obviously can’t
say that to George.’
‘Oh no,’ I say. ‘He thinks it’s all going to happen at the wedding doesn’t he?’
Rachel’s shoulders slump, and I don’t think it’s because I’ve busted her fiancé’s matchmaking plans.
‘The wedding I’ve been left to plan entirely on my own, you mean? Can you help me?’
‘Yes, but first, I have to tell you –’
‘Oh Christ, yeah, sorry. I interrupted. What did you want to tell me?’
I’m sipping my beer, trying to be nonchalant. ‘I did a thing.’
‘Uh oh, sounds ominous. What kind of thing?’
‘Do you remember that evening we looked up Franko on the internet?’
‘Yeah,’ she says, shaking her head and looking bewildered.
‘Well, that was my thing.’ And then I find it hard to get the words out. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about Jesse after you left.’
Rachel rolls her eyes and suddenly I’m hugely embarrassed.
‘Here we go again,’ she says.
‘Yeah. Anyway, I went back for another look, and got a bit curious. And added him as a friend. On Facebook.’
‘Oh, Cass,’ she says, giggling. ‘You absolute loser.’
I stare at her for a few seconds whilst she giggles into her glass. This is not the reaction I was hoping for. It’s a bit of a slap in the face, if I’m being honest.
‘Aah, I can just imagine it! A lost love rekindled.’ She clasps her hands together and sighs and stares, dreamily, into space.
‘Maybe,’ I say, shrugging. ‘It could be. He added me back.’
Suddenly she’s not laughing any more. Suddenly shit’s got real.
‘You what?’ she says.
‘Took him a couple of weeks, but yep,’ I say, smugly.
‘What the fuck? Have you spoken to him? You have the app on your phone, right? Cassie, you need to show me immediately.’
‘I haven’t spoken to him.’
‘Then how do you know it’s really him?’
‘You said so, Rachel. You said, why would anyone pretend to be him? And anyway, there are photos.’
‘Yeah, when it was just a little picture and a job description. What do I know? You have to initiate contact. You’ll know immediately if it’s him or not.’
‘Hmm. Not sure. What would I say?’
I’ve given it a lot of thought, but it always ends up the same way. The things that spring to mind are mortifying. I’d probably panic and spout off about how I used to want to marry him.
‘What’s the matter with you? Start with hi. He’s probably expecting you to say something. Get your phone out. I want to see.’
We snoop again, heads huddled together, anonymous in the corner of the pub, but I don’t scroll back as far as I did on Tuesday night.
‘Yeah, you crack on, but I feel like he’s so normal it’s boring,’ she says.
‘Probably,’ I say, but I’m unconvinced. ‘What was it you wanted help with?’
‘Sample menus,’ she says, without missing a beat.
I buy another round and try to prise more information out of her about why George isn’t helping more with their wedding, but she rolls her eyes.
‘He wanted beer pong at the reception,’ she shrugs. ‘I think Marcus suggested that to be honest.’
‘Not very you,’ I say, diplomatically. ‘Anyway, it’s not up to Marcus.’
‘Exactly,’ she says. ‘But it’s not just that. He hasn’t sorted his suit and I’m annoyed about that, too. Is that silly? It’s the marriage I want. Not just the wedding. It shouldn’t matter what he wears, right?’
‘I guess it’s easier for blokes,’ I say.
People come and go. We share a few packets of crisps and some peanuts. Our ‘one for the road’ turns into ‘two for the road’, and by the time we leave, we are at that stumbly stage of drunk where everything is funny. Rachel’s wedding and George’s lack of suit is suddenly funny. The fact that I am now Facebook friends with a pop star I used to fancy is hilarious. We lurch down Oxford Street, stopping to coo at clothes and shoes in the shop windows. Eventually we are at the tube station. She’s going north towards Islington, I’m heading west.
On the train, I listen to Now or Never. It’s nice. I’m in my own little Franko bubble and no one else knows about it. I bet I’m the only person in London listening to this album at this moment. Possibly even the only person in England. I’m right back in my bedroom in Amersham in 1999, sprawled on my bed with my headphones on and a Coke float on my nightstand. All the words to all the songs come back to me, and I’m sixteen again. Lost in it. Happy.
By the time I’m back in Shepherd’s Bush I’m still three sheets to the wind and have developed a serious case of the munchies which I satisfy at a chicken shop on the green. Now the air feels thick, the way it does before it rains, and the sky is covered in a blanket of smoggy, orange clouds. My heels clip along the pavement in time to the music still in my ears, and by the time I get home I’m full of salty chips and deep fried chicken and conscious of every little noise I make. The key in the lock, the creek of the front door. Water filling a pint glass. My shoes on the stairs. Running the tap in the bathroom. I can’t sleep. The chicken’s sort of repeating on me and when I’m still wide awake at two, listening to rain pattering on the window and feeling faintly sick, I give up and reach for my laptop. Maybe I’ll see if Date My Mate has gifted me any more potential suitors.
But before I do, I nip over to Facebook. It’s a force of habit, the first thing I ever do when going online. I don’t even think about it. Rachel’s tagged me in a photo of our drinks. She’s scattered peanuts around the bottom of the glass and captioned it Wedding planning and ALL the gossip with my BFF.
And the message icon’s lit up. I click it open. Jesse Franklin. Good grief, were his ears burning or what? There’s a little green circle next to his name. My eyes snap open. My food lurches inside me.
Hi there
I stare at the message for a minute or two before I think about replying.
Hello.
I watch the screen, transfixed. The house is so quiet that I can hear my own heartbeat, and it’s so dark that the illuminated screen looks like the light at the end of a tunnel.
You already said that.
I did?
You did.
I did. Bloody Rachel, the mischievous cow. I knew she’d looked like she was trying to hide something when I came back from the loo. I scroll to the top of the chat window.
’Sup, hot stuff ;-)
Oh, no.
How are you?
I’m OK thanks. Can’t sleep though, even though it’s raining and that usually gets me right off! So that’s why I’m up at 2am. And I got the munchies on the way home and sprung for some chicken I’m regretting now, like a complete numpty. How are you? By the way I didn’t write that. At the beginning. It was my (now ex) best friend.
Oh my god, what’s wrong with me? Talk about verbal diarrhoea. That bit about the rain was poorly phrased to say the least. And numpty? Of all the words in the English language, I choose ‘numpty’, proving once and for all, that I am one.
2am huh… you really are in England then.
It’s not a question, and he doesn’t answer mine. I’m just relieved he doesn’t ask why Rachel hijacked my phone.
Yep. Where did you think I was? The moon?
Venus, actually. I’m not sure I know anyone from England these days. Are you sure you were looking for me?
Yes, if you’re the Jesse Franklin who used to play bass in Franko.
As soon as I send the message, I’m worried. What if he really didn’t want to be found? But then why accept my friend request at all? I stare at the chat window waiting for him to reply, but he doesn’t for ages and I begin to panic. Then:
How did you find me?
I just typed your name into the search box, and then recognised you from your photo.
I see. Is this something you do often?
Excruciating.
This is excruciating. I’m cringing. I’m mortified. I don’t know what he thinks of me, but I’m certain it involves the phrases ‘nut job’ and ‘internet stalker.’ I need to keep this as lighthearted as possible.
No. Never actually. You’re the first (congratulations).
Ha. But why me?
Well I was quite keen on you back in 98. Just tell me to bog off if it’s a problem. I promise I won’t be offended.
Please don’t tell me to bog off. Please don’t tell me to bog off. I won’t be offended, but I’ll definitely be gutted.
But how do you know it’s really me? How do you know you’re not getting catfished?
Well, I guess I don’t. Though your reactions suggest it is ;-) It is you, isn’t it?
Yep.
As replies go, you can’t get much more direct, or, I think, much less interested than that. This is going just about as well as I’d imagined it would. Why did I ever think this was a good idea? My fingers hover over the keyboard and they are definitely trembling a little.
Call Me, Maybe Page 3
