The Strangers We Know

by Pip Drysdale

  ‘Morning,’ she said, all sing-song and cheerful as she moved over to her desk and sat down, laying the newspaper she was carrying out in front of her.

  ‘Morning,’ I said, flashing her a smile and opening up my emails.

  ‘Have we heard back from the Oliver Goldsmith people?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Hmm?’ I replied, her words taking a moment to register. When I heard the word ‘Oliver’ I immediately thought of my husband and the app and how many times I’d logistically have to swipe ‘No’ before I got a definite answer. But she wasn’t talking about him. She was talking about ‘Oliver Goldsmith’, an iconic sunglasses house in Notting Hill. They’d designed all the sunglasses for a load of movies in the sixties and seventies – think Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. And they were doing a new campaign.

  Organising rentals to stylists and brands was one of the many hats I wore in that job. It was the one I liked most because (a) it was fun and (b) I got half the fee we charged them. My other hats included sorting out our Instagram page, keeping the website updated, hoovering and sending out orders as they came in.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, opening an email from their marketing department and quickly scanning it. ‘They want to come in tomorrow.’

  ‘Great,’ she replied, her blue eyes twinkling before she started flicking through the paper.

  I glared at my phone. What was I going to do if I actually bloody found him?

  ‘Right, I think we need a coffee,’ I said, standing up and grabbing my phone and bag. I didn’t really feel like coffee at all; my mouth was still sour from the third cup of Nespresso I’d thrown back before leaving the house. But I needed to swipe my way through the rest of that app so I could prove to myself that Oliver was exactly who I thought he was and I was just crazy. Seriously, I wanted to be crazy right then.

  ‘Please make sure mine’s properly hot this time,’ Grace said. ‘Last time it was lukewarm.’

  ‘Sure,’ I replied, and headed out the door. The sky was close to charcoal now and the air smelled of soil. It would rain in a bit. I crossed the street to our local café. It was small and brown brick, with a blue neon ‘Open’ sign hanging in the far left window that flickered as though it had some sort of electrical fault. It reminded me of a Tarantino movie. I pulled open the door and was hit by a gust of warm air and the sounds of a jazz record – brushes, brass – and coffee beans being poured into the grinder.

  I was third in line: just me, a man with a shiny, balding head and a box of cigarettes poking out of his back pocket – I would have killed for a cigarette right then – and a woman in Louboutins at the front. As I waited, I took a deep breath, stared down at my phone, opened the app and started to swipe. No (ninety-eight). No (ninety-nine). No (one hundred). No (one hundred and one). No (one hundred and—

  ‘What can I get you today, Charlie?’ asked the girl behind the counter. I think her name might have been Meg; she’d told me ages ago and I’d promptly forgotten it but she made my coffee every damned morning so asking again seemed rude at this point. Especially since she remembered mine.

  ‘Latte and a long black,’ I said, with a smile. ‘Can we make them extra-hot?’

  ‘Sure.’

  I paid with my card and moved over to the collection point, staring back down at my phone: No (Where was I? One hundred and three?). No (One hundred and four).

  There were so many men on there. So many half-naked mirror shots and should-you-be-advertising-that dick pics. So many questionable profile names like: @rodeoman, @bemyqueen898 and @lustyboy22.

  I stood there frowning down at my screen. Surely Oliver wasn’t there among them? He wasn’t like that, was he?

  ‘Charlie,’ came a voice. ‘Meg.’ I glanced up. Our coffees were ready and she was holding them out for me. But seeing them sitting there on the counter gave me an idea.

  Because what I needed was a clear sign.

  One final chance for the gods to show me this was all in my mind.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, picking them up and moving over to the window; it had started to drizzle and small raindrops glistened from the glass. I placed them down, took out my phone, angled the lens towards them and snapped a pic. Nothing special, just two coffee cups by a window. Nothing worth looking at, folks. Then I uploaded it to my Instagram stories. Maybe @lover7 wouldn’t look. Maybe I could just relax and stop with this madness. Then I dropped my phone in my bag and ran back to the shop through a mist of light rain.

  Grace, who’d watched me cross the road, opened the door for me. ‘Here she is,’ she said. ‘Which is mine?’

  I nodded towards the cup on the left and she took it. ‘Your friend is here,’ she said. And my first thought was Fuck.

  Have you ever noticed that? That people always pop by on the very days you want to be lying alone in a darkened room with only a spinning ceiling fan as company?

  ‘Hey,’ came a voice from behind Grace.

  I looked up and faked a smile. There were three people milling around in the shop by then, all browsing through things and it took a moment for me to figure out who was talking. But then I saw her: tall and slender, with curly hair the colour of 85% dark chocolate that rested on her shoulders and big brown eyes made bigger with winged, 60s-style black eyeliner. She was standing by my desk and my shoulders relaxed.

  Thank god. It was just Brooke.

  ‘Brooke,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you working today?’

  Like most creatives in London, Brooke had two jobs: her day job as a temp at a financial services firm in the city and her every-other-moment job as a personal stylist.

  Making new friends as a grown-up is a complicated business. Most people seem to just give up in their early thirties, trading their dreams for a house they can’t afford in a commuter town they hate, the sparkle slowly fading from their eyes until all that remains is a cadaver running through the routine aspects of living for another fifty years or so. That can make it hard to relate. But Brooke wasn’t like that. She had sparkle-in-spades and similar interests, and she’d moved to London all alone at the age of 31 with hardly any money because she had a dream. I respected that. I understood it.

  ‘They think I’m at a doctor’s appointment.’ She winked, nodding down to her arm. There was a piece of cotton wool secured over a vein with a bit of that opaque white medical tape you get at hospitals (or chemists). ‘Blood tests. But really I have a client meeting.’ She smiled mischievously, the pair of black velvet pants she was wearing catching the light as she walked towards me. She smelled like Moroccan hair oil and vanilla perfume.

  ‘Hilarious,’ I said. If you haven’t caught on, the blood test thing was bullshit. ‘But you should have texted to say you were coming. I would have bought you a coffee.’

  ‘Waaaay too caffeinated already,’ she said in her soft Scottish accent, rolling her eyes on the word ‘way’ for emphasis. ‘Some of us have been up since five-thirty, you know. Some of us are disciplined and turn up to our Pilates classes …’

  That’s how I’d met Brooke – at Pilates a couple of months before. Ironically, I hadn’t liked her much at first. She seemed grumpy and a bit too earnest. The sort that paid a lot of attention to the teacher when they bleated on about pelvic floor instead of checking the clock to see how much time we had left. But then we’d struck up a conversation in the change room afterwards and I’d learnt that (a) she was new to London, (b) she was only there at that Battersea studio because she’d bought a Groupon and (being new to London) didn’t realise it was so far from home (she lived in Bow, East London, a lengthy commute that explained her bad mood) and (c) she was a dreamer. She’d just started a small business, Brooke Thompson Personal Styling, which meant she was always either (a) taking pictures for Instagram or (b) complaining about having to take so many pictures for Instagram.

  It was that last point, the personal styling, that had me tell her all about Boulevard and ask her to come and take a look around sometime. We’d become fast friends after that – coffees, a French
movie, cocktails – but this was the first time she’d popped into the shop so even though my insides ached and my mind was plagued by the swiping still to come, I needed to make a show of being happy to see her. Because I really liked Brooke.

  She was the sort of friend you could have deep and meaningful chats with about almost everything. I could do that with Tess too, but Tess knew me too well. She’d been there for so much of my history. She’d remind me of things and I could never fake anything with Tess. With Brooke, it was different. I got to only show her what I wanted to and it was fun. Like playing a part. Being my best me.

  But hang on, she was looking at me now, like she was expecting me to say something. What were we talking about? Oh yes, Pilates.

  ‘Shit, sorry,’ I said. ‘I should have texted you to tell you I wouldn’t be there. Oliver got home last night. He wouldn’t let me get up.’

  This is what I meant when I said I only showed her what I wanted to.

  The picture I’d painted of my marriage for Brooke was one of closeness, one where we told each other absolutely everything, where I was his go-to person when something went wrong at work, his sounding board, his problem solver. Where we knew everything about each other and he was so sure I was ‘The One’ when we met that he’d left his girlfriend at the time – Alyssa – for me. Of course, the moment I said that, I realised I sounded like a man-stealing-bitch, so I’d quickly backtracked, adding that Alyssa was highly unstable. Poor Oliver. That I’d met her once in a supermarket and it was quite scary. But then all I could see was Alyssa’s ashen face as she gracefully laid down her shopping basket. Guilt. It spiralled quickly.

  Tess knew about my insecurities, about that night I followed him to a hotel, and she’d been there last night when I thought I saw him on that dating app, but to Brooke we were just a big, movieworthy love story. Partners in crime. And I know it makes me sound superficial (maybe I was) but I loved that Brooke saw me that way. Because that was the truth I wanted. That while she was relatively newly single and struggling to date in London, Oliver and I had these comfortable married-couple-routines and inside jokes. It gave me a sense of wholeness being viewed like that by someone.

  So no, I didn’t want to have to admit the potential truth. Not to her – what if I was wrong and it wasn’t even him on the app? Then when she met Oliver she’d have that dodgy version of him etched into her mind, a version that would never truly be erased – and no, not to myself either.

  Because I needed to be wrong about this.

  ‘Oh, right,’ she said. Wink. ‘No mind, my fucking Groupon has almost run out so I can find a studio closer to home soon. Anyway, so where should I start?’ she asked, looking around.

  ‘Well, as you can see, everything is arranged by colour,’ I said. ‘Is there anything specific you’re looking for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, moving over the reds and fiddling with a few of the sleeves. ‘It’s one of those I’ll-know-it-when-I-see-it-situations.’ I really liked her accent. It was soft and natural, and as she spoke I could feel my mouth forming in a way that I might mimic her. Actress-y occupational hazard.

  ‘Oooohhhh,’ she said, holding out a short, brick-red, Mary Quant style dress with a cream collar and matching cuffs.

  ‘You should try it on,’ I said, taking a sip of coffee. Brooke was from a little town not far from Edinburgh – I couldn’t remember the name – but as I watched her hold the dress up against herself in the mirror, I wondered whether (in the event that Oliver was cheating on me) we might be able to escape there for a girls’ mini-break. Maybe we could find a castle on Airbnb to rent out. Maybe I’d just stay there.

  ‘No, I’d better not,’ Brooke replied, fiddling around with her phone then taking a picture of the dress. ‘Can’t buy anything until I get more clients. London is so fucking expensive.’ She put it back on the rack. ‘Still, Instagram doesn’t need to know that.’ She winked, posting the picture. I glanced over at my own phone, charging face down on my desk, and thought again of that dating app. My heart flinched.

  The door opened at that moment – bzzzzz – I glanced over at it and a man walked in. He had dark brown hair, was wearing a green t-shirt and looked uncomfortable, like he wasn’t sure what to do in a dress shop but was there because someone he loved wanted him to be. Like maybe he was buying a gift.

  If you’re not paying attention right now, snap out of it. Because I know he seems extraneous, but I noticed him, and I need you to remember him later when I’m trying to figure out what the hell happened.

  ‘So,’ Brooke said, drawing my attention back to her. ‘There’s this new cocktail bar I read about. It’s Shoreditch way. Keen?’

  ‘Sure,’ I replied, still watching Grace and the man. ‘What about next week? Thursday or Friday when I’m all on my lonesome again?’ Grace was happily chatting to the man, sipping her coffee and showing him to the scarves. I managed to pick up a couple of stray words: ‘timeless’, ‘autumn colours’. And then Brooke was speaking again. I looked back to her.

  ‘Sounds good,’ she said, glancing down at her phone. ‘Shit, I’m late for a client meeting. This one better hire me or I’m going to become a dog-walker.’

  ‘Good luck,’ I said, secretly happy that she was leaving so I could get back to my covert operation of swiping through the app.

  The man who’d been talking to Grace left without buying anything and Brooke followed him to the door, caught it before it shut and stared up at the bruised sky: ‘What happened to summer, hey? I swear it’s greyer here than home.’

  A moment later she was gone and Grace was saying: ‘She seemed nice’.

  ‘Yep,’ I said. ‘She is. Stylist.’

  I sat down and stared at my computer. Scrolling through to the Oliver Goldsmith email I replied: Wonderful, see you then. Then I opened up Photoshop. That’s how we edited all our pictures for Instagram and the website. We needed to colour match them so the screen version of a garment matched the version in-store as closely as possible before uploading them to Instagram. Otherwise it just meant a load of returns.

  My phone pinged: a message from Oliver.

  Justin wants to do dinner tonight at the place downstairs? Keen? Xx

  And all I could think was Fuck.

  I’d never really liked hanging out with Justin, but now that I suspected he’d encouraged my husband to sign up to a dating app to oust me the way he had Alyssa, I liked him even less. You wouldn’t have liked him either if you’d met him. He was around six foot three with light blue Weimaraner eyes, thinning strawberry-blond hair, pink cheeks and a signet ring he fiddled with whenever he wanted to feel special. He belonged to a few private members’ clubs in London, always calling the ones he didn’t frequent ‘arriviste’ or other adjectives people then had to google. I’d tried to like him, really I had: I mean, he was the whole reason Oliver and I had met. I’d even naively hoped Tess and Justin would hit it off and we could do loads of double dates. But on the handful of occasions I’d put them in the same room (including a particularly awkward dinner at Tess’s flat), it was as if they were identical ends of a battery that repelled each other in a way I hadn’t expected. When I asked her about him later she crinkled her nose and said ‘I don’t trust him’. And as time ticked on I found that I didn’t trust him either. I could never tell if he was really on Oliver’s side or not. But what I did know was Oliver changed when he was around.

  I stared down at the message. He was acting so normal: he was probably doing nothing wrong. So I typed back: Sure, what time? Xx

  Beep: 7?

  Me: k

  So I was holding my phone – staring at it, actually – when it beeped a strange sound. It was a new sound. One I hadn’t heard before. It wasn’t a text, it wasn’t a Facebook alert. I stared down at it and a line of text graced the screen: @serialheartbreaker has sent you a gold coin.

  ‘You’re popular today,’ Grace said from her computer.

  ‘Just Tess,’ I lied. ‘Sorry.’ Then I turned my pho
ne to silent.

  It was from the dating app but it made no sense. I hadn’t swiped ‘Yes’ even once so how could @serialheartbreaker be sending me a message? That wasn’t my understanding of how these things worked. I thought it had to be mutual. I clicked through to the app and tried to figure it out. It seemed a gold coin was not a message, it was just a feature that allowed one member to get another member’s attention. Jump the queue, so to speak. Because I’d been given the choice of declining or accepting.

  Decline.

  But that was the first of many such notifications that day and so I turned them off before I went to meet with Oliver and Justin that night. The last thing I needed was for him to see a gold coin flash up on my screen and have to explain it. But the rest of the day passed calmly: the door buzzing when a customer came inside, me helping them find something to match their eyes or uploading things to Instagram when Grace was in the same room and swiping through the app whenever she went through to the back room to make a call or go to the loo. And then, when she left at around three like she always did, me running through lines for my audition the following day, and putting a reminder in my phone to take a spare headshot and a pencil.

  So no, as you can see: still no neon signs flashing at me, warning me of what was to come.

  6.56 pm

  The restaurant-slash-bar we were meeting in was a basement underneath Oliver’s building. We’d been there a few times before; it was one of those black walls, black ceilings, menus on chalkboards sort of establishments that finance guys always liked because it made them feel edgy. He and Justin were already at the table, already on their second drink – Scotch – by the time I got there.

  ‘Charlie,’ oozed Justin as they both stood up to meet me. Yes, for all his being a knob, he certainly didn’t lack manners and superficial charm when he wasn’t having a hissy fit. He grabbed me by the upper arms to keep me in place and then kissed me on each cheek. His grip released and I looked to Oliver.