Call Me, Maybe

by Call Me, Maybe (retail) (epub)

  Sara and Jon are surprised when they get home and find me moping in the lounge. Jon can see something is up, but he doesn’t know what to say. Sara cooks us all a rice dish for dinner, leaving the components separate for Jon. She grates cheese and chops up salami for us to sprinkle on top, and does the washing up without saying anything about fair distribution of the household chores. They both offer me the TV remote but I don’t want to watch anything. I slope off to bed early.

  * * *

  How was your flight? Can we talk? I miss you.

  Nope. And later:

  I’m sorry about everything Cass. I understand that you might need some time but can you at least let me know you got home safely. I didn’t know which flight you got on so I couldn’t track it.

  Not today, Satan.

  Cassie, can you let me know that you’re okay. It’s been a couple of days now. I tried calling you but I think your phone is off?

  It isn’t. I couldn’t deal with the phone calls or the texts so I took a leaf out of Nicole’s book. Amazed he didn’t guess, to be honest.

  Please, Cass. I know you’re reading these. It says you’ve read them.

  Ugh. Damn you, Zuckerberg.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Cassie

  I go back to work the next day. There’s no point in wasting my holiday allowance wallowing in my bed, crying my eyes out on my own. Actually, I’m not sure I have any tears left to cry in my bed, or anywhere else, in fact. The rims of my eyes are swollen and sore and the whites are bloodshot and pink. I don’t see Sara before I leave, but I encounter Jon in the kitchen and he finds it all so painfully awkward and difficult that he can’t get away from me fast enough. He thinks I can’t see, but our kettle is stainless steel and I watch his reflection back out of the room as I lean against the corner unit. On the tube, I lean against the door and stare out of the window at the soot and grime and miles of thick cables as the train rumbles and rattles through the tunnels. At Oxford Circus I go straight to Starbucks and order my usual skinny latte. Everything is like it always has been. The same baristas make my coffee. The same homeless man sits outside, staring into his lap with his paper cup and his black fingernails. It’s like I’ve never been away. It’s like the last ten days haven’t really happened at all. Except they have, and nothing will ever be the same again.

  Our receptionist, Jenna, beams at me as I walk past.

  ‘Oooh, not seen your face for a bit,’ she says, cheerfully. Her hair is pinned up on the top of her head in tiny little clips shaped like butterflies. I think they are glittery.

  ‘I’ve been on my hols,’ I tell her.

  ‘Somewhere hot, judging by your tan,’ she says. She’s observant, that Jenna.

  ‘California.’

  ‘You don’t seem happy to be back.’

  Funny that, I want to say. Neither would you if you’d had your heart broken by someone you’ve been a bit in love with for half your life. ‘Oh, just post holiday blues,’ I reply. The phone rings. She picks it up.

  ‘Beauchamp and Taylor, good morning,’ she trills into her headset. I punch the button to call the lift.

  Mimi stops when she sees me at my desk.

  ‘You’re not due back in until the end of the week,’ she says. ‘It’s Tuesday today.’

  ‘I had to come home early,’ I say, my voice monotone, my eyes staring blankly at my screen.

  ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Mimi shifts. ‘Well, since you’re back, we need to run through a couple of the new lines for winter next year. Shall we nip to a break-out room at ten for a catch up?’

  ‘Sure.’

  In our meeting, Mimi reminds me sign-off is approaching, and that Sam and I will be presenting next year’s kitchenware lines to senior management. The chief exec will be there, the finance will be scrutinised. I have to go through all our profit margins and report on what kind of sales we’ll be looking at. She hands over a stack of reports and tells me to pretty them up into graphs and tables. I try to get enthused about it all, really, I do. But all I can do is nod along, and all I can think about is that today should have been my last day with Jesse.

  ‘Wait here a minute,’ she says. I do as I’m told and cradle my head in my hand. After a minute or two I cross my arms and lay on them. I am annoyed with myself for wallowing at work. If I’d wanted to sit and mope I could have done it at home. The very reason I came back to work early was to provide me with a distraction. The door opens again, and Mimi puts two coffees and a bar of Dairy Milk on the table. She pulls a travel pack of tissues from her back pocket and drops it next to my coffee.

  ‘Spill,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re home from your holiday early, and you’ve come back to work instead of just taking the days. You look, frankly, terrible and your eyes are pink. Talk to me.’

  I look up at her and sigh.

  ‘Back in July,’ I start, ‘I had a sort of date with someone. Do you remember? You let me leave early that day.’ She nods. I don’t know if she remembers or not. It doesn’t really matter either way. We didn’t talk about it again. ‘Well, I didn’t think it would be anything more than a quick drink, because he was in a band I absolutely adored when I was a teenager.’

  ‘What?’ Mimi laughs. ‘Who is this guy?’

  ‘Jesse Franklin. He was the bass player in Franko.’

  ‘Oh. I thought you were going to tell me you’d shagged a Backstreet Boy or something.’

  ‘Fraid not,’ I say. ‘They were really big in Germany. Smaller fan base here. Anyway, I found him on the internet, said hi. Didn’t expect a response but got one and we started chatting, and then he came here for a gig and we met up. And it went well. Unexpectedly so. He took me out for dinner and we had a romantic walk and a snog by the river and then I stayed over, and… well you know. But the thing is, he lives in California.’

  ‘You mentalist. I love it.’

  ‘It was brilliant. So brilliant in fact, that we talked about visas and stuff.’ I rip open the chocolate bar and dunk a square into my coffee. ‘We were ridiculously in love. Absolute fairytale stuff.’

  ‘I mean, hasty, but stranger things have happened. Be a shame to lose you though.’

  ‘Right, well I don’t think there’s much danger of that. Because it turns out it’s very likely he is about to become a father, and he hadn’t thought to mention it.’

  Mimi spits her mouthful of coffee back into her mug. It’s possibly the least refined I’ve ever seen her, and Mimi’s charade on the away day was Deep Throat.

  ‘Fuck off,’ she gasps.

  ‘Yeah,’ I shrug forlornly.

  ‘So, baby mama crawled out of the woodwork whilst you were there? Absolute bastard!’ she says, and even after all this, I feel protective of him.

  ‘He isn’t sure,’ I say, quickly. ‘The mother of the child is his ex. But as far as I can tell the dates are very questionable.’

  ‘How questionable?’

  ‘As in, she’s due imminently and they broke up in January but only because she got a job in New York.’

  ‘Hmm, admittedly, not looking good. But maybe it’s not his and she’s just saying this to get at his pop star megabucks? Did he ask her? Isn’t that the first thing blokes do when responsibility knocks?’

  ‘Hmm, I don’t think there are any pop star megabucks, to be honest.’

  ‘Spent it on coke and women? Snorted it through rolled up hundreds off their tits and bleached arseholes?’

  ‘Mimi!’ I say.

  ‘What? It’s possible! That’s rock ’n’ roll, baby.’

  ‘I think you’d find him entirely too salubrious. As far as I could tell his best things are music and tacos. Definitely no Colombian nose candy. Anyway, he says he did ask her but she blocked him. He also tried to call her in front of me but didn’t get through. But I was so upset that I left.’

  She looks at me as if she thinks I’ve jumped the gun. Why does she think
I’ve jumped the gun? I haven’t jumped the bloody gun.

  ‘Well, if you know you did the right thing then it sounds like it’s for the best,’ she says, diplomatically. ‘Seems like a waste of a nice holiday though.’

  * * *

  During the afternoon lull, I sign into Facebook.

  Cass, I know you’re home, I can see you’ve been online, so I’m not sure how fair it is to cut me off over something neither of us know for sure, especially when you know I’ve been trying to contact you. I wish you hadn’t just left. We should have been able to deal with this like adults.

  I’m sorry, what? Did he just tell me I haven’t dealt with news of his probable fatherhood like an adult, when he had a classic ostrich moment and didn’t seem to want to deal with it at all? When he knowingly kept it from me and was absolutely hoping it would all just go away? All things considered, I think that’s really quite rich.

  I hadn’t cut you off, I was taking some time to think about everything after a giant comedown and frankly, a hideous shock. Did you manage to speak to her?

  No. I’m still blocked.

  And there’s no email or parents to call?

  Let’s be real, there’s no way I could contact her parents about this even if I did have their number (I don’t, for the record. Met them once. They live in Michigan.) As for her email, I don’t know it.

  You don’t know your ex girlfriend’s email address? Convenient…

  WTF, Cassie? Literally none of this is convenient. What do you want me to do?

  Go back in time and make the (correct) decision to tell me, so I wasn’t massively humiliated in front of your entire family.

  And I told you why I didn’t: 1) I didn’t want you to react in exactly the way you have. 2) If we’re really being honest, it’s not exactly your business. I have to go now but this isn’t over.

  Not my business? What is the matter with you? You broke up because she got a new job across the country. Then you find out she’s pregnant and are concerned enough about the timing to ask if there could have been an oops moment. And what if it turns out to be yours?

  You seem to expect me to roll with this like it’s no big deal but I can’t do that. I don’t want to have to share you and right now you can’t be sure I wouldn’t have to. My head’s all over the place and I can’t do this.

  I’m sorry but it IS over. I love you but I can’t put myself through this. Not with you.

  By now there are tears spilling down my cheeks and I’m grateful that Sam and Mimi are both in meetings. I hadn’t woken up this morning with the intention of ending it, but after the way it spiralled and the things he said? I’m not sure you can come back from that.

  I close down my browser and head out for a walk. I eat overpriced and not very nice sushi for lunch. The claggy rice sticks to the roof of my mouth. The specks of tuna distributed through the middle of the roll are the only hint that it’s ever even seen a piece of fish, and the wasabi is pasty and mild. I stay late at work because I don’t want to go home and face up to the realisation that my life has taken a turn for the shit. That I still live with Jon and Sara in grotty Shepherd’s Bush, when less than a week ago I had the first spark of a plan to move to California and live out my days by the beach with the love of my life and I’m not even remotely close to that anymore. And I’m not sure, all things considered, that I ever was.

  In an attempt to avoid Jesse, I steer clear of Facebook and instead shift my focus to Rachel’s hen night. Turns out I’m not the only one.

  From: Marie Michaels

  To: Cassie Banks

  Subject: Hen do

  Hi Cassie,

  I spoke to Rachel. She told me what happened. I’m sorry. I feel bad for ribbing you when we went out for tapas before you went away :( Can’t imagine how shit that must have been for you.

  I know this is probably a bit insensitive given the circumstances, but I was wondering if you’d managed to book the roller disco? It’s just that it’s not all that long until the hen, and we do really need to give her a send off she’ll remember.

  Let me know if you need any help.

  Marie

  * * *

  From: Cassie Banks

  To: Marie Michaels

  Subject: Re: Hen do

  Yes Marie, it’s all booked. I’ll forward you the confirmation. I got us on some kind of list so we don’t have to queue. Oh, and we have a reserved table and some fizz, too. I had to pay upfront, so I’m going to send round another email so I can recoup costs. Obviously Rachel isn’t paying.

  Don’t worry about me. I am fine. It was fun whilst it lasted, but you know how these things go. I will be fine. Can’t wait for the hen night, it will be just what I need to take my mind off everything. Anyway, I’m sure I will be fine.

  See you soon,

  C x

  * * *

  From: Marie Michaels

  To: Cassie Banks

  Subject: Re: Re: Hen do

  You DEFINITELY sound fine :-/

  Marie

  * * *

  In the morning, the red notification symbol of doom is there again, glaring at me, angrily, from the corner of my Facebook profile. I used to love seeing it, but now it troubles me. I have a message and I am scared to look at it.

  Is that how it’s going to be?

  That’s how it HAS to be.

  As things stand it is. Because the thought of waiting for her to give birth and then him calling me to break the news, or, worse, waking up one day to some kind of announcement would be more than I can handle.

  He doesn’t reply. Not then. Not later on. Not the next day, or the one after. He doesn’t fight for me. Doesn’t try and stop the end of us. Doesn’t promise to make everything okay again. Doesn’t even try to. So I hover over a button I never dreamed I’d ever press, and click, and I’m sure, if you opened me up right at this point in time, you’d find my heart torn from the safety of my chest and tangled up with all my other organs. Away from where it should be, mashed up and squeezed to nothing more than a misshapen, bloody lump.

  You are no longer friends with Jesse Franklin

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Jesse

  ‘Okay, I’m sorry, can we go again?’ I say into the mic. It’s a little over a week since my final, dreadful conversation with Cassie and I’m still just trying to blot everything out and get on with stuff. The days sort of merged after Brandon and Lainey went back to San Francisco, and today is the first day I’ve left the house at all. I’m in a studio in Hollywood, and it’s fair to say things are not going well.

  ‘Yep, not a problem.’

  The guide track starts again. I count along in my head and start playing. It’s a simple bassline to begin with, repeating over and over throughout the verses, with nice little fills in the chorus that change slightly each time, and then finally, a fast, relatively tricky solo in the middle eight, before the chorus repeats until the end of the song. I haven’t even got as far as the solo yet. I’m messing up the second chorus fill every single time. It’s infuriating. It’s my fill. I made it up, and it’s all played on one specific part of the neck, so it’s not even a stretch to reach the frets. But the fast string skipping, and the hammer on, and the octave I have to hit are all throwing me today. I get to that point in the song again and I know what’s about to happen. The string skipping is fine. So is the hammer on, but my finger slips and I miss the octave on G. A bum note rings out and I stop playing.

  ‘Shit, man, I’m sorry.’

  ‘No big deal.’

  ‘One more time?’

  ‘As many as you need.’

  The relaxed approach is definitely appreciated but I’m not used to needing this many do overs. It’s been more than a handful. Usually I get in, run through a couple of times, record, and am out of there. I’m efficient, everyone knows it, and that’s how I like it. Now everyone is watching me from behind the glass, and it’s putting me off. I turn away from them all slightly as the track starts again in my headphone
s, in the hope that I won’t get distracted. I’m going to nail it this time. But I hit the wrong string during the hammer on and it sounds awful. A jarring twang that absolutely does not work in the key. Eddie, the sound engineer, stops the track before I even have time to ask. I am frustrated.

  ‘Fuck!’ I snap. ‘Fuck this. Fuck it all.’

  ‘You okay?’ he says into the mic. ‘Do you need to take a minute?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I insist.

  But I’m very much not fine. I can’t concentrate. My mind is elsewhere. My mind is, as it has been since September eighth, on Cassie and the way she left, and the dimness of her eyes as she sat in that car. And still I can’t completely believe it. It’s almost as if wherever we went, little parts of her broke off and dispersed, and they hang in the air like a spritz of that perfume she wears. She’s everywhere I look in my house. She’s on the beach, sitting on the pier, staring out to sea. She’s curled up on the couch or switching TV channels whilst I get a drink from the fridge. She’ll be in Venice, too, leaning against the bridge, and at Griffith Observatory, gazing back at the hazy view of DTLA and holding my hand.