Right Girl

by Ellie O'Neill

  We agreed that, first and foremost, I was to stay under the radar. Which meant that I had to avoid any suspicion from BBest and take all first-option choices. I had to do what I was told. Which explained how, the following evening, I was sitting on a cushion on the floor in a Moroccan restaurant. It felt completely unnatural and weird. Why would anyone sit on the floor when there were chairs, you know, with legs? My ankles were digging into my thighs and my neck had somehow come to rest on my elbow. This was all wrong. There was a low wooden table in front of me filled with metal jars of oils and breads for dipping, but I couldn’t reach them without falling on my face. The music playing sounded like a woman wailing into a xylophone, there was a spicy aroma in the air that was making me sneeze. I didn’t even like Moroccan food, but BBest told me that tonight I would, and that I would have an eighty-nine per cent chance of enjoyment. So, like the diligent BBest robot that I was, I was here. In a way, I was happy that BBest had it so terribly wrong. It didn’t know me. It didn’t know what was really going on in my head. In terms of worst nights of my life, this one might be up there with my ninth birthday, when I ate two knickerbocker glories and threw up all over my unopened birthday presents.

  Cat had organised dinner. Apparently we hadn’t caught up in forever. I’d been avoiding her, she’d been avoiding me. We did need to meet up, the only problem was that somehow Mason got wind of our plans and decided to tag along. It was so incredibly awkward I genuinely didn’t know where to look. Cat was poring over the menu, gushing, pointing out some hummus dish that we had to share, that I would love.

  She sat directly in my eyeline, flicking her brown hair and, squeezing her perfectly made-up lips together; she was bubbly and happy, assuming that everything was okay. She checked her phone every thirty seconds, and when she was not looking at it, her perfectly manicured hand shielded it protectively.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I just want to keep an eye on the Leinster–Munster rugby game.’

  Mason’s eyes lit up. ‘Keep me informed.’

  ‘Of course.’ She grinned at him.

  Mason was wearing a denim shirt, his head was newly shaved and he looked incredibly handsome. He and I hadn’t spoken since I’d lunged for him three days ago at BBest. I’d missed a call from him – on purpose; I didn’t know what to say.

  I plastered a smile onto my face and said how excited I was about dinner. I was becoming a better actress than I thought I could ever be. Mason had rubbed my back a number of times, and attempted to stroke my hair. With every touch, I flinched uncomfortably; I tried to make myself bend into him, but I couldn’t. My acting skills only went so far. The wine was helping, though, and I started to relax a little.

  I ordered a lamb tagine. I was tempted to ask for a straw because I didn’t know how I would actually reach the table to eat it.

  ‘So, how was the meeting with RealTime, Cat? I mean, that must have been something else?’ I asked.

  ‘Incredible.’ She paused dramatically. ‘He is just so insightful. The man is a genius.’ She raised a fork toppling over with couscous to her mouth. ‘I was probably only in the meeting for, like, fifteen minutes, but still just to get to sit in a room with that mind was an unbelievable opportunity for me. You too, Mason, right?’

  Mason nodded, and I noticed that his cheeks had gone pink. The Moroccan spices?

  ‘I didn’t realise you met him too, Mason?’ My voice sounded strange and not at all like it normally did.

  Mason’s eyebrows creased, his shoulders hunched towards me, and he whispered, ‘Are you okay? You seem a bit off. We should probably talk.’

  I drained my wine glass and swung it suggestively at Cat for a refill. ‘Do I? I can’t think why,’ I said sarcastically.

  ‘Come on, Freya, don’t be like that . . .’ Mason was whispering into my ear. Cat hadn’t noticed that she wasn’t part of the conversation, as she continued to talk enthusiastically.

  ‘Well, it was incredible. RealTime, I mean, he’s pretty amazing.’ Her face glossed over with a fangirl type of expression.

  I bit the inside of my cheek to try to remain calm. I whispered to Mason, ‘I’m sorry, it’s fine.’

  ‘It was just such an opportunity to meet that mind,’ Mason said to Cat and I noticed an excited glint in his eye.

  ‘Totally,’ Cat said.

  ‘It was like an out-of-body experience, meeting someone you respect and admire so much. I thought I’d had an idea of him but then to meet him in the flesh, it was just so much more magical.’ Mason was lost in the memory.

  ‘Magical, that’s exactly how I would describe it.’ Cat was leaning over the table towards Mason.

  I noticed that his body language was mirroring hers. He cracked some in-house BBest joke that I didn’t understand, and they both literally fell back on their cushions they were laughing so hard. I sipped more wine and sat watching, wondering if there was something unfolding before me, wondering if I had missed something that had been blatantly obvious all along.

  ‘I have to go to the loo.’ Cat rolled off her cushion and got up from her knees. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  Mason turned to me, looking dejected. ‘So, I looked up some counsellors . . .’

  I stopped him. ‘No, no, no. We are not going down this road, Mase, no way. We are broken up. We are finished.’

  ‘But the other day at BBest, you kissed me. I thought we were back on?’

  ‘No. I was just caught up in the excitement of meeting RealTime.’

  He nodded, understanding.

  ‘We are broken up.’

  Mason looked like he’d just caught the train to Bluesville. ‘Freya, we’ve been through this, please be reasonable.’

  Reasonable? Oh, please, Mr Open Marriage, give me a break.

  ‘Look, I can’t say anything just yet, but I’m working on something that might help us. I may have a plan, give me a couple of days.’

  He took a slurp of wine, looking at me slightly disbelievingly. ‘That’s a bit cryptic.’

  ‘I know, but we can’t do this, we can’t live like this.’

  He shrugged, completely defeated. Clearly, he had surrendered a while ago. ‘It is what it is.’

  ‘No, it’s not, and things are going to change. I’ve changed, Mason. Or really, I think I’ve changed back.’

  ‘I think you have too,’ he said with a hint of a tease in his tone.

  ‘We’re not together, Mason, not anymore,’ I replied, deadpan.

  He looked more than a little confused. ‘But we are officially still together, aren’t we? Tell me you haven’t done anything about that. I mean, we have to stay together for BBest.’

  ‘Yes, don’t worry, I understand that part of it. I get it. I am not going to do anything silly that might jeopardise our careers. We’ve both worked so hard.’ I heard my voice – it was stern, almost forceful. ‘You know, in a way, you can consider this an open relationship except for the fact that we don’t have a relationship, apart from on paper. On paper we’re perfect for each other.’

  He cracked a wry smile. ‘You have changed.’

  ‘Well, so have you. You’re a free agent, Mason.’

  ‘Okay, that’s a bit weird. It feels strange.’ He looked unsure, and his mouth was twitching slightly.

  ‘I know. This is all strange, but I’m going to do something about it. You’re going to have to trust me. Shh . . . here comes Cat.’

  She fell elegantly onto a puffed-up cushion and immediately continued to talk to Mason about BBest. They started chatting about some outreach charity program that BBest was involved in, and I saw it again, the mirrored body language, the open-mouthed smiles. Mason was chatting so freely and openly; in fact, he didn’t shut up.

  ‘It’s not quite as hands-on as your tree-planting moment, Freya,’ Cat brought me back into the conversation.

  ‘What? Sorry?’

  ‘The idea being floated at BBest to donate a cent from purchases over a hundred euro. It’s probably not mucky enough for you.’ Cat
grinned at me and I saw her skin was flushed.

  ‘What tree-planting thing?’ Mason asked, all bright-eyed and rosy.

  ‘The one on Rockford Estate in Wicklow, with that gorgeous guy,’ Cat said dramatically, and I wondered what her game was. Why was she bringing Patrick up now?

  Mason furrowed his eyebrows inquisitively.

  ‘Oh, it was just a friend of Granddad’s . . .’ I waved my hand in the air dismissively, as if it was nothing. But secretly, I lingered over the memory and felt so sad about the outcome. I eyeballed Cat. ‘That’s all finished now. All over,’ I said, deliberately slowly, so she’d get the message.

  ‘I thought we would have been a great match, you know, he has this big estate, I’ve always wanted to learn how to ride a horse and wear a tiara, but no. I’ll stay single,’ Cat continued. She laughed.

  Mason shifted on his cushion, visibly moving closer to her. ‘I don’t know how you’re single, you must be turning guys down left, right and centre.’

  Was this it? Was this the actual moment that I saw the sparks fly? Because these two were lit up. I hugged my knees to my chest and watched it all unfold. How had I been so blind? They were mad about each other. And then I started to remember things, things that at the time were inconsequential but when you put them together, illuminated the pathway to a starry, romantic love story. There was that time when Mason was struck down with the worst case of man flu the world had ever seen and after day three my patience at his snivelling had run out, so Cat offered to drop him around some soup and hot lemon drinks when I got a last-minute flower order in. I know the two of them ended up watching some game on Mason’s couch. That’s the thing, you see, Cat is a sports fanatic; her wardrobe is stuffed full of brightly coloured jerseys, she follows everything that involves a ball. She regularly has a hoarse voice from screaming at a player on the TV. I’d often felt like a third wheel in their company when the conversation switched to sport but I’d always been delighted that my boyfriend and my best friend got on so well. Mason always asked after her, told me when he’d seen her at work, and I thought he was just making conversation but now I wondered if he just wanted to talk about her. He’d start with, ‘Cat did the funniest thing today . . .’ and it wouldn’t be funny at all, and he’d finish it off with, ‘she’s really smart’. Or some compliment that came from left field. God, how did I not see it? I felt my eyes narrow suspiciously. I wondered what Cat and Mason might score, and then I stopped myself, because I knew that any number was the wrong number. You couldn’t put a number on instinct and chemistry and love. It was possible that these two had a real chance of love, much more than Mason and I ever had.

  I also realised that it was easy for me to appear to be the bigger person here, the gracious loser in defeat, because I bowed out of this game a long time ago. I had set my sights on someone else entirely, someone tall, and kind. Someone who would probably never speak to me again. But when I stopped to even think about Patrick’s soulful eyes, I became completely unstitched.

  I decided to give them some space.

  ‘Guys, I am so sorry, I don’t know if it’s the wine or what, but I have such a bad headache, I feel terrible. I think I’m going to go home.’

  Their faces dropped, which I thought was very kind of them, considering two’s company and all that.

  ‘I’ll just get a taxi.’ I tapped on my phone. ‘Easy peasy, it’ll be here in five. You’ll have more fun without me, honestly . . . my head.’ I held my hand to my forehead dramatically. I rolled over to try to stand up and wobbled slightly, but that was more the wine than my fake illness.

  ‘Poor you, I can come back with you?’ Cat said earnestly.

  ‘Me too,’ Mason offered.

  ‘No, no,’ the good Samaritan replied. ‘Enjoy the food, there’s loads of wine left.’

  ‘Okay, if you don’t mind.’ Cat looked at the table. ‘We could catch the end of the Leinster game in the pub next door if you fancied, Mason?’

  ‘That’s a great idea, go for it, you two.’

  They looked at me hopefully, and I smiled in the manner of Mother Teresa.

  ‘You have my blessing.’

  41

  In detective movies it’s always quite clear cut what the mission is. You are asked to do something and you agree to it. There is a definite pattern of yes, I’ll take on this job, or no, not this one, it’s not for me; I’m six months from retirement and I can’t risk not getting my hands on that gold retirement watch. But that definitely did not happen to me. Logistics weren’t even discussed. If I did agree to do this, which for the record I hadn’t, how was I even going to get close to RealTime’s phone?

  The flash drive was tiny, and sat in my wallet, shoved between two cards. I had examined it, held it up to the light and stared at it. I didn’t know what to do with it. There had been no invite to dinner with RealTime, or whatever it was that the speaker expected to happen. There had been nothing out of the ordinary in the last few days at all. I checked in with Granddad to tell him that I had no news, but that we were on track to whatever it was that we thought we were doing. Operation: The Two Idiots was still alive and kicking.

  I was going about my life but with a veil over it. I did not deviate from first preferences. I felt as if I was patiently waiting for something to happen. Biding my time.

  Eventually I got a phone call that proved that the Luddites were more connected than I thought – they did know what was going on. Anna phoned me. Her voice was shrill; for someone who was normally such a cool customer, she literally could not hide her excitement. Was this it? Was this the phone call?

  ‘RealTime is throwing a party at his Dublin residence.’

  ‘Hi, Anna, how are you? That’s great news.’

  ‘You must have made quite an impression, or rather your flowers did. He specifically requested that you do a number of floral displays for his party.’

  Bingo! ‘Gosh, wow. What a compliment.’

  And even though I knew that this was because of the Ananke project, even though I knew that the Luddites saw this coming and that this was probably nothing to do with my ability as a florist, I still felt flattered. Was that crazy? Obviously I was crazy, but I did think my flowers were great, I was proud of them.

  ‘I’ll zip the order through to you, it’s on Friday. Short notice, I know, but considering who it’s for I’m sure you can manage to pull out all the stops.’ She gave a high-pitched cackle and hung up.

  I was in Mam’s kitchen, and she and Colin had heard every word of the conversation. They rose from their seats and started high-fiving each other and me, and making large whooping noises. There were lots of ‘you kick arse’ and ‘yeah’ sounds coming from them. Mam did a little dance.

  ‘My daughter, RealTime’s florist. It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?’ She continued dancing.

  I joined in. It was so nice to celebrate something. And even though I knew it wasn’t a real celebration, it was tainted by Ananke and secrets and flash drives, I was still going to join in, because there had been such a dark cloud hanging over the family. Colin was beaming. He had just started to talk about Mardi when my phone rang.

  ‘Champagne? I think this calls for champagne.’ Mam stuck her head in the fridge and produced a bottle from Christmases or christenings long past. ‘Glasses, Colin, glasses.’

  He found some crystal, and we stood watching as Mam strained at the neck of the bottle and her face got redder and redder until finally, pop. The bottle poured over with glorious bubbles and we pushed our glasses underneath the fountain. We made clinking, laughing, happy noises.

  ‘Here’s cheers to my two wonderful children.’

  ‘One more wonderful than the other, what with one of us having a contract to do RealTime’s flowers,’ I said, and we all laughed, an ongoing joke between Colin and I about playing favourites.

  Mam laughed and sat back down at the kitchen table. ‘Both wonderful, both wonderful.’

  My eyes started to water with all the bubble
s fizzing up my nose.

  Colin looked at me excitedly. ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘I’ll do his flowers same as anyone else’s, I suppose. I’ll know more when the order comes in.’

  ‘Will he rate you? He might, you know. He rates people all the time, like a regular person. If you do a good job and he rates you, oh my God, Freya, the sky is the limit. Your business will literally rocket.’

  ‘You’re right, I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘You could have an empire in a year: a chain of stores, a fleet of trucks.’ I could see his mind wandering away.

  ‘I could, you know. I could.’ It was true. This one event could catapult me into the big league. I was standing on a virtual precipice of success. Was it bad to be a success when it wasn’t really your success? Would I be like one of those trust-fund kids who inherited millions and then snorted it up their nose to quell the feelings of unworthiness and guilt? And then I remembered what I had in my wallet, what this trip to RealTime’s house really meant, and how it just might turn me into an inmate.

  ‘Darling, back to Mardi.’ Mam reached across the table and patted Colin’s arm.

  He immediately looked crestfallen and his eyes seemed to shrink back into his head.

  ‘We’ll be okay, it will be okay.’

  ‘Dad?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s been great, but you know, it’s a big problem, it might even be beyond him.’

  ‘Is it the medication?’ I didn’t want to ask too much, I could see how devastated Colin was. I knew it was not my business to pry.

  ‘Yes, it’s only sort of helping. She feels like a failure that she’s put all this extra pressure on our family, and she’s not coping well with being a first-preference user, it’s suffocating her. She’s having a type of breakdown, no two ways about it.’ He poured the remainder of his glass of champagne down his throat. ‘Dad has recommended counselling. Having her talk this through with someone.’