Floored

by Sara Barnard

  ‘Dawson Sharman!’ I blurt out. He is famous! Sort of. Was famous. ‘That’s why I recognize you!’

  Avani and I loved Dedman High back in the day. I used to have a poster of Dawson Sharman on my bedroom wall. And now here he is, standing in front of me! He’s pudgier than he was back then, of course. Everyone knows the Dawson-got-ugly story. But still. I can feel the old stirrings of fangirl within me.

  But then he tells me that he’s not Dawson Sharman, that he just looks like him, that he gets this all the time, and he looks embarrassed and awkward, and I instantly feel really bad. Of course I’m wrong. Imagine me thinking I can recognize someone – me, with my traitorous eyes. This poor guy, being mistaken for the he-got-ugly Dawson Sharman!

  ‘Right,’ I say, aiming for breezy. ‘Sorry, I just . . .’ Make a joke, Kaitlyn! ‘Yeah. I suppose it would be a bit weird if you were him, just wandering around the UKB randomly.’ Eh, that’ll do.

  Not-Dawson tells me that he works here as a runner, and he doesn’t seem that bothered about the mistaken-identity thing, so I relax. I steal a head-to-foot glance over him – blurred, but good enough – and he really does look like Dawson Sharman. But then what do I know?

  A lift pings, and I turn towards the noise, blinking as the people around us surge towards it. Sometimes I get wobbles with my sight; suddenly the whole world blurs. My stomach lurches – this is what it will be like all the time one day – and I’m just wondering whether I should go and sit down for a minute when I register that a man with TV-white teeth is coming towards me, beaming. No, not towards me, towards Not-Dawson.

  ‘Dawson!’ he booms.

  Dawson! Not Not-Dawson. Dawson! I can’t help myself – a melodramatic gasp escapes my lips. That sneaky liar!

  The man with the teeth is saying words, but I’m too stunned to listen properly. I catch snippets like ‘school for norms’ (norms! Charming!) and ‘method acting’. This guy probably loves the sound of his voice as much as he does his shiny white teeth, because he carries on talking even as Dawson just stands there looking mortified. He’s trying to cover it with cool, but I can tell. He wants to sink through the floor right now.

  No sympathy from me though. When Teeth Man strides off, I turn to him. ‘You lied,’ I say.

  Dawson looks at me, his expression a little dazed. I can feel from the energy around us that everyone’s looking at him, and I hear the telltale click from someone’s phone. Twitter is about to light up. Good.

  ‘Can you blame me?’ he asks.

  I try to remind myself that he doesn’t know. Why should he? How could he possibly understand that the days when I can recognize someone’s face are numbered? That the warmth of recognition, that flash of comfort that comes with your mind going, ‘Yes, hello, I know you!’ is a gift? A gift he waved in front of me, then threw away.

  I don’t say anything. I think about my aunt’s cosy, cheerful salon and how she’d promised me a box of nail-polish samples. The smell of wet, freshly snipped hair.

  Dawson moves past me and presses the button for the lift in front of us. The doors open straight away and he walks in, keeping his back to me. I briefly consider slamming into him again, just because. I feel all ragey – too ragey to go to a health and safety induction and pretend like I give a damn about any of this placement bullshit.

  Everything is going blurry again. Oh shit! Am I crying? I can’t bloody see anything.

  ‘Are you coming in, or what?’ Dawson says, but not unkindly.

  His voice is like a lifebuoy thrown into the dark, so I grab it. I let it pull me out of the blur and into the lift.

  SASHA

  I wake up with a jolt when one of the packages slides off the pile on my lap and into the footwell.

  ‘No dozing on the job,’ Dad says from the driver’s seat, giving me a wry smile.

  ‘Not for you, maybe,’ I say. ‘I’m just the passenger.’

  ‘Assistant courier,’ he corrects, like it actually matters.

  Neither of us wants to be doing this, but me and Dad aren’t the type of people who get what we want. Dad’s the type of person who gets made redundant and can’t seem to find another job, and I’m the type whose applications for fancy work placements get as far as someone’s inbox and no further.

  Still, I’d rather be working with my dad for the week than at the local council, where there’s a kind of buy-one-get-ten-free deal on students from my school. One of the ten being Billy Goodart.

  I should not have touched his penis.

  Another package almost slides off as I wipe the memory off my hands on to my jeans.

  ‘Seriously though, Sash, you need to keep a hold of them,’ Dad says.

  Dad’s been freelancing as a courier driver for a few months now – he says it’s better than signing on, that at least he’s working for himself and gets to choose the jobs that suit him so he can be around for me . . . not that I need it at fifteen. But Dad’s a proud man, and I think it’s been good for him to feel like he’s working, even if it isn’t a job he likes. Or one that pays well.

  Three hours in, and I know for sure that this isn’t the career for me:

  1. Early mornings: I’ve been up since sparrow fart, and (as we’ve just established) I’m not allowed to nap.

  2. Other couriers: They’d run you over if they thought it’d get them an extra delivery slot. Seriously. The sub depot this morning was carnage.

  3. Delivering things: You have to talk to strangers, even if it is just to say ‘Name?’, ‘Sign here,’ and ‘You have to press hard – the screen’s a bit rubbish.’ I’d thought Dad would let me off, this being my first morning, but he’s all about maximum efficiency and minimum tolerance for my ‘confidence issues’.

  4. Magic FM: It’s like being trapped in wedding playlist.

  Although I guess that last one isn’t compulsory. It’s just Dad’s terrible taste in music.

  Dad said something about a round he’s picked up because another driver just had a baby, and I gaze out of the window at a landscape of tiny roundabouts and tall buildings. It’s not until Dad pulls up into a parking bay by a curved bank of windows that it clicks.

  ‘Is this MediaCity?’ I say.

  ‘Did the giant letters “UKB” give it away?’ Dad calls back, already half out the car.

  I have to wait for him to come round and take the packages off my knee so I can get out, and I stand while he sorts through the ones in the back of the car, muttering to himself and stacking things on my arms like I’m a human forklift.

  I’ve always been strong – one of the better things about being a big girl. Dad’s stature; Mum’s colouring. I’ve seen pictures on Facebook, photos scanned in from when she was my age, me in miniature. A hint of something more permanent than a tan, brown eyes, strong black brows, waves of dark hair. I’d fit right into the Albanian side of the family if I ever met them. Which will never happen. Mum did a bunk when I was little – since then it’s phone calls at Christmas and a birthday card that never arrives on time. If I didn’t friend her on Facebook I’d know nothing about her life at all.

  ‘You listening?’ Dad says.

  Obviously not. I’d been on the lookout for famous celebrity types. My friend Michela’s always talking about seeing famous people when she goes clubbing with her cousin – claimed she pulled a UKBabies presenter once, but everyone ripped it out of her for that, and two weeks later, Michela upgraded to giving someone from Hollyoaks a blowjob.

  Didn’t have the heart to tell her they don’t film that in Manchester.

  ‘It would be a lot quicker if you were able to take this lot over to that building there, while I offload the others.’ Dad’s questions always turn out as statements.

  ‘Do I need the machine thingy?’ I say, entirely unprepared for a solo delivery of this magnitude.

  ‘None of the ones I’ve given you require a signature. You’ll be fine.’ Dad pats the top of my arm and gives it a bit of a squeeze. ‘Get this done quickly and we might get to eat lu
nch somewhere nice – like Subway.’

  Sometimes my dad has a problem detecting irony. Or sarcasm. Or, you know, reality. ‘Subway’ and ‘nice’ don’t even belong in the same sentence. But he’s already over the other side of the courtyard – because why would he wait for a response when he knows I’m going to do whatever he tells me?

  It’s slow progress round to the back. Any time I try anything more than a cautious shuffle, the pile in my arms starts to slide gently to the side, but eventually I make it through the doors and all the way to the security desk. I have to rotate a bit so I can see the person sitting there.

  ‘Hi!’ I say.

  The man behind the desk doesn’t look up, just carries on playing Candy Crush on his phone. ‘Hi.’

  ‘I, er . . .’

  In that moment my arm cramps, and the whole pile slides off. The man lifts his phone up a bit as a box falls from the desk on to his lap.

  Now he looks up. The git. Or ‘Phil’ as it says on the lanyard round his neck.

  ‘You need to put those in the pigeonholes.’ Phil points just over my shoulder to what looks like an infinite wall of tiny little boxes with writing under each one.

  ‘I . . . What? Really?’ Is he winding me up? ‘Isn’t that your job?’

  A thin slice of a grin appears on his face as he says, ‘Not today.’

  I do not like ‘Phil’.

  Finding the right pigeonholes is a nightmare because the writing’s so tiny, and I realize after I’ve offloaded five packages that I’ve been putting them in the wrong place because the recipients’ names are at the top of each slot, not the bottom. Not everything fits properly, and sometimes there’s already something in there that I need to take out and re-stack . . .

  This is taking forever, and I can feel the minutes racing past, imagining Dad standing by the car and wondering where I’ve got to.

  So much for a Subway lunch.

  One package left: ‘A. Sharman’.

  I hurry back along the pigeonholes, scanning the names: K. R. Shapiro . . . C. Siren (. . . imagine: Sasha Siren. So much better than Sasha entirely-forgettable-Harris.)

  There’s no Sharman, A. or otherwise, and I’m starting to get sweaty and panicky, my breath coming in a little faster. Dad made a really big deal about how important speed is, and he’s not someone who exaggerates.

  ‘Er, excuse me?’ I say, but Phil pretends not to hear me, so I storm back to the stupid desk and thump the parcel down on top of it, hoping that whatever A. Sharman ordered isn’t fragile. ‘Hey! Hi? Help! I can’t find a hole for this.’

  You can see a ‘witty’ retort cross his mind the way a cloud scuds across the moon, but then he thinks better of baiting someone who looks like they might cry.

  I have a bit of a thing about letting people down – especially my dad.

  ‘Hang on.’ He reads the name off the label and taps in ‘Sharman’ one-fingered on to the system like he’s still in Candy Crush mode, then. ‘Doesn’t have a pigeonhole because they don’t work in this building.’

  I take a moment to breathe. I’m not going to cry; that would be ridiculous. I’ll just sweat lots instead. Much better.

  ‘Could you take . . . ?’ I start, but Phil’s already shaking his head – not unkindly.

  ‘I’m sorry, love – I’ve got to stay here.’

  He tells me to head back to the main entrance and they’ll sort me out at reception. As I run back the way I came, I message Dad about the delay.

  Be quick!!! comes his reply.

  Those three exclamation marks are a bit worrying – Dad thinks anything more extravagant than a full stop is the work of the devil – so I put on a bit of a spurt across to the main reception. There’s a glut of people trying to get in, and I hurry on past, yelling, ‘Special delivery!’ like that’s actually a reason people use to jump a queue.

  Turns out blind panic can override confidence issues. Who knew?

  The girl on the desk doesn’t look so impressed, but when I say, ‘I need to get this to A. Sharman,’ her eyes widen and she does a little gasp.

  ‘Give it to the receptionist on the ninth floor!’ The words come out as a panicked squeak as I hurry on past. I’m thinking that whoever this A. Sharman is, I’m glad I don’t actually have to hand the package over to them personally. I look down at the label again as I slide carefully around the edge of the crowd of people waiting to get in the lift and I see the words: ‘Signature required’.

  Caught in a moment of indecision, I turn back to look at the entrance, wondering whether I should run back and get the machine from Dad and risk taking even longer, or . . .

  Or what?

  Maybe I could just video someone signing for the package and use that as evidence? Is that how this works? Why is this happening to me on my first day as assistant courier during my dad’s important new round delivering to someone whose name had the same effect on that receptionist as ‘Voldemort’ has on Ron Weasley?

  Crap. The lift’s open and everyone’s piling in, and I’m getting jostled out of the way. As I try and squash in, I get a horrible flashback of that time I got stuck halfway down the wiggly slide in the local soft-play centre and loads of smaller kids piled in after me and started crying.

  ‘You’re blocking the doors, love!’ someone yells, and I give up. Whoever this A. Sharman is, they’re not worth triggering my claustrophobia for.

  I step away from the doors as another lift dings open and people surge around me. Clutching the parcel, I walk into it, quickly followed by a couple of others, and breathe.

  HUGO

  God, the North is ghastly.

  There should be some kind of law that prevents anyone from encountering it with a raging hangover. I look out the window of my first-class carriage and can’t help but wrinkle my nose as we blast past a giant collection of industrial chimneys. I mean, chimneys? Do they still have COAL up here or something? I have no idea how my mother stands to be up here five days a week. Although if it came down to a choice between Manchester and having to share a bed with my father, I can see why she’d choose Manchester.

  I rest my head against the cool glass and close my eyes for a second. I only got, like, a MINUTE’S SLEEP last night, and my body is caning me for it. But the moment I drift off, my phone goes.

  Saskia: I had a really good time last night x

  My nose wrinkles again, and I tap out a reply. I’d had higher hopes for this one.

  I had a good night too, but that’s all it was. Because I don’t date girls who have no self-respect.

  I smile and screenshot it to send to David. But I don’t actually send it to Saskia; I’m not a MONSTER. I’ll just not reply. She’ll get the hint.

  They always do.

  David and I share sordid details as the train wobbles its way up towards the shit part of the country. He pulled Octavia last night, lucky bastard. Though according to him, she’s got bad breath, so maybe I’m not so jealous after all. Anyway, Saskia was the big win. So of course I got her. God, I hope she’s not all CLINGY next week at school. You would think pretty girls wouldn’t be. And, at first, they pretend they’re not. They know they’re hot; they know you have to work for it. So you play the game, and you get there. But then – KABAM! – Psycho Central. Acting like the whole thing meant something.

  We’re just pulling out of some hellhole called ‘Crewe’ when my mother calls to check the train is on time.

  ‘Yes, Mother, it’s moving on the track and everything. That’s what trains do.’

  ‘You really can’t be late; it will make me look bad.’

  ‘Calm down, dear. I won’t be late.’

  ‘Good. The car will pick you up from the station.’

  ‘See you then.’

  She hangs up without saying goodbye, and I sigh and throw my head back. Why does she NEVER trust me to just function? I get that she’s pissed off I didn’t travel up last night and stay at her flat so we could bond or whatever, but there was no way I was missing David’s party. No
t when I’m doomed to a week of social oblivion, up here in the middle of nowhere. Oh well, think of the CV . . . think of the CV. Gotta tick the boxes and all that. Life is a game a game a game, and – man – am I good at playing it.

  I make the car wait for me while I pick up some coconut water at the station. The driver looks pissed off, but I’m afraid he will have to deal. My head is thumping and, if I’m going to kick ass at the UKB, I need to be fully hydrated and at my charming best. He mumbles something under his breath as I slide into the back of the black Merc.

  ‘What was that, mate?’

  He mumbles again. Followed by, ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Yeah, it better be fucking nothing.’

  Honestly – these people! We roar off through this dingy city, and I don’t feel guilty. Not for being late. Not for swearing at the guy. I don’t owe my dad a lot, but he did teach me one of the most important lessons in my life: Some people are better than other people.

  That’s not me being a jerk, or him being a Nazi. Nope. Sorry. It’s just simple economics. Law of the vital few. Eighty per cent of any work done, any money made, anything decent contributed to this world, is done by twenty per cent of people. The rest are just coasters. I am in that twenty per cent, and I’m sick and tired of the other eighty chucking rocks at my family just because they’re jealous. Hell, I don’t have TIME to throw rocks. I’m too busy CONTRIBUTING.

  We ride in awkward silence. Well, awkward on his end. I’m too busy using the mirrored window to sort out my suit. First impressions count, and all. I’m hungover as sin, but I can’t look it. I check the collar, and I’m glad I went through the arse of getting it made. I look at least nineteen, I reckon. And even with eye bags the size of a porn star’s penis, the fabric makes me look amazing.

  We roll up to MediaCity, and I do tip the guy – so he can’t get all arsey now, can he? He pulls out my wheelie suitcase, I say thanks, slam the door shut, and make my way up to the main entrance. I notice a few heads turn as I walk up to reception. There are girls my age EVERYWHERE, and I try to return the smiles of the fit ones. I reach the front desk and lean over, waiting for the receptionist. Her attention is taken up by this sweaty wobbling mess of a girl getting in a fluster about some stupid package. The receptionist catches my eye, and I grin conspiratorially. Then the girl waddles off, and I lean over.