by Natasha West
Chloe was ashamed. Part of her truly wished she were adult enough to have just said ‘Thanks for last night. See you around’ and left it at that. But that wasn’t Chloe. She’d never had that kind of casual cool. It wouldn’t have been like that. She’d have gone into nervous sputtering and no doubt said more than one stupid thing. And embarrassment was Chloe’s mortal fear. She’d do anything to avoid it. That meant avoiding Jess all weekend if it was possible.
Chloe was an experienced avoider. She’d have to be creative, stay in her room as much as she could, Sue be damned. But if she put her mind to it, she could dodge Jess for the remainder of the conference. And Dan, too, while she was at it.
It had been a long two days for Jess. The boring discussions were bad enough, but feeling constantly aware of someone trying not to run into her was somehow very exhausting.
But it was over now. She’d could take her bruised pride and go home.
But as she was leaving, she spotted Chloe at the check-out desk, standing with a middle-aged woman who was burbling away next to her. Luckily, Jess had already checked out, so she would be saved the awfulness of having to stand next to her while the hotel staff dealt with them both.
But as she walked past, Chloe happened to turn. Jess and Chloe caught each other’s eyes. Chloe hadn’t been expecting to see Jess and she was caught off guard, her eyes widening with fear. But Jess wasn’t about to give Chloe the satisfaction of seeing any emotion at all. She simply looked away and kept walking.
Year Two
August 2007 - The Spectrum Hotel (Nottingham)
Chloe stepped through the doors of the dumpy city hotel, her phone in her hand.
‘That sounds nice, when do you think we should do it?’ she was saying to her girlfriend of three months, Jo.
‘Err, maybe the weekend after next? We could go up Friday night and stay until Sunday?’
‘Yes, possibly.’
Jo, on the other end of the line, smelled Chloe’s hesitation.
‘Would you rather just stay one night?’
Chloe was relieved. She was meeting Jo’s parents for the first time and she wasn’t sure if two nights was a bit much. What if it went badly? What if they didn’t like her?
‘That might be better.’
Jo laughed and Chloe joined in. At that moment, someone walked past her. It was Jess.
‘I’ll call you later’ she said quickly and stepped back out of the hotel, keeping watch through the window while she watched Jess check in. She’d gotten lucky, Jess didn’t seem to have noticed her.
Once she was gone, Chloe walked back in. She’d been hoping that maybe Jess wasn’t going to be here this year. It had been a fantasy, she realised now. A way not to feel so scared about the prospect of seeing her.
It was silly, Chloe realised. She wasn’t going be like that. She could be cordial with Jess. What would that really cost her? She was an adult, for crying out loud. It wasn’t going to be like last time, her scuttling about the hotel like a terrified mouse. She wasn’t the mess she’d been last year, a person whose life had just collapsed on her. She’d managed to climb out of the rubble since then and dusted herself off. She had found Jo, a laid back chef who was sweet and treated her right. Someone who didn’t walk all over her.
Chloe didn’t want to be someone who crept through life like she was scared of her own shadow. The next time she saw Jess, she’d say hello, Chloe swore to herself.
Just as she made that promise, she saw Jess coming away from the ID table with her delegate identification. Chloe ran behind a potted plant.
Jess walked into the hotel bar for the opening night buffet. She was starving. She’d just been working out in what the hotel laughingly called a gym. It was basically a tiny room with a treadmill and a spin bike. But Jess was in training for a marathon that was coming up in six weeks and she couldn’t afford to slack off.
She heard her phone beep and checked her messages. She had one from Elly.
‘Miss you already xxx’
Jess smiled at the text.
When Jess had come back from the conference, she’d decided to ask Elly if they could try again. However indecisive Jess had been feeling last year, the events of the conference had pushed her straight back to Elly. If being single involved feeling that used, Jess didn’t want it. It wasn’t that she thought having sex with Chloe had to mean anything huge. It was that Chloe had so little respect for her, behaving as though she wasn’t even worth speaking to once the deed was done. It had made Jess feel pretty crappy. So back she’d crawled to her ex.
And things had been better with Elly since. Not perfect, certainly. It was still difficult to get her full attention. But Elly was trying, Jess thought. And that was better than nothing.
As Jess walked by the food, checking out the sandwiches, she saw a familiar face at the other end of the long table. It was Chloe. She didn’t seem to have noticed Jess yet. Jess observed her unseen for a second while she had the chance. Chloe looked good, better than last year, happier perhaps.
Jess was not prepared to spend the next few days feeling weird. She was just going to have to bite the bullet and say hi to her, be normal. Then they could both go their separate ways, knowing they could be in the same room without Chloe doing the hundred-yard dash.
‘Chloe?’
Chloe looked up startled, dropping a Wotsit crisp in the process.
‘Jess, hi’ Chloe warbled tremulously. And then she seemed to shake something off. She conjured a smile. ‘It’s nice to see you again’ she said. It sounded like it might even be genuine.
‘Yeah, you too.’
They stood there awkwardly for a second and then Jess decided they’d had their greeting. It was time to go.
But as she turned, Chloe had a strange fluttering in her stomach. She felt something rise up her throat. She assumed it was vomit. But it wasn’t.
‘I’m sorry!’ she spat at Jess’s back.
Jess turned back to face her.
‘What?’
‘I wanted to say that I’m sorry for last year. You were really nice to me and I behaved dreadfully.’
Jess sniggered softly to herself. Chloe wasn’t sure what that meant. She was afraid Jess was about to tell her where to stick her apology.
‘Don’t worry about it’ Jess said with a shrug.
‘So you’re not angry with me?’
Jess heaved a sigh.
‘I didn’t love that you fled my room like it was on fire, but… It doesn’t matter now. Apology accepted.’
‘Great’ Chloe said with relief. This adult stuff was a lot easier than she’d thought. ‘Can I buy you a drink, maybe?’
Jess raised an eyebrow.
‘No, no, not like that! I’ve got a girlfriend now’ Chloe said quickly.
Jess laughed at Chloe’s embarrassment.
‘Me too. So now that’s settled, you can get me a vodka and orange.’
Jess and Chloe sat down at the table, and began to nibble their bad food. On the next table, some other teachers were talking heatedly. They were tired looking people having arduous political debates, the same ones they’d had the year before.
‘Do you ever worry you’re going to end up like them?’ Jess asked Chloe.
Chloe was surprised by the question. It was apropos of nothing. But she vaguely remembered that Jess was like that. She just launched into things.
‘Well, I don’t know. It depends, I guess.’
‘On what?’
‘On whether I keep teaching’ Chloe admitted.
Jess was shocked.
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘I think so. I mean, I really love it at times. But some of the kids…’ she shook her head, thinking about how much shit she had to take from some of the more entitled fourteen year olds in her literature class, who treated her like a serf.
‘I know what you mean. I’ve got some right little fuckers in my class. But you just have to learn how to keep ‘em in line.’
Chloe wo
uld have loved to know how to put a kid in in his place when he was telling you that his father had explained to him that Shakespeare ‘didn’t even write his own stuff and that we should just read Christopher Marlowe because he was probably the real author.’ But she’d yet to figure it out. She tended to simply ignore comments that were ill-mannered, in the hopes they’d back off. So far, the tactic was varied in its success. But what bothered her the most was that Chloe had a horrible feeling that when she didn’t respond, the kids were somehow beating her.
‘You teach PE, don’t you?’
Jess nodded.
‘You see, there’s supposed to be loads of yelling in PE. But literature… I don’t know, I wouldn’t feel comfortable raising my voice in class.’
Jess laughed.
‘It’s not about shouting. It’s ‘The Look’ you give them, that’s what stops them in their tracks.’
‘The Look?’
Jess put down her drink. She looked at Chloe and something dark began to drift across her face. She fixed Chloe with a shadowy glare, completely different to Jess’s usual relaxed expression. It was almost devoid of humanity. And once that look was in place, she said, very softly ‘Chloe, if I catch you with gum in your mouth again, you’re going straight to detention.’
Chloe felt a chill go down her spine. Jess was right. It was effective.
‘You’ll have to teach me that one.’
Jess’s face dropped back into its usual resting position. There was no trace of ‘The Look’ left.
‘Nothing to it. Just picture someone you hate. Imagine you’re trying to channel all that hatred in one expression.’
Laura sprang immediately to Chloe’s mind before she pushed her quickly away. But Jess noticed the anger flit across Chloe’s face.
‘I can see that wasn’t too hard’ Jess said.
‘Oh, no, no, I don’t hate anyone’ Chloe said quickly.
‘Liar. Who were you thinking about just then?’
Chloe groaned.
‘Well, I may have thought about my ex. Do you remember? The one that proposed and then left me for someone else?’
‘Of course I remember. That’s how you ended up in my bed, as I recall’ Jess said without thinking.
Chloe immediately began to blush.
‘Whoops’ Jess said apologetically. ‘I guess I’m not supposed to bring that up, am I?’
Chloe was still uneasy from the sudden mention of the elephant at the conference, but she didn’t want to seem prudish. After all, they had had sex with one another. It was bound to come up.
‘You can say whatever you like’ Chloe said, quietly.
Jess started to laugh very loudly.
‘Are you laughing at me?’ Chloe asked with trepidation.
‘No, more at the situation. I mean, what is it about sleeping with someone that makes things this weird? If we’d been on a roller-coaster together a year ago, we wouldn’t care now, would we?’
Chloe cocked her head to the side cynically.
‘It’s a little bit different.’
‘Well, there’s a lot of screaming and sometimes you get wet, so I’d say it’s not without similarity.’
Chloe laughed. But the joke hadn’t deterred her from the point she wanted to make.
‘It’s intimate, though. In a way few things are.’
‘One time when I was twelve I wet myself on a rollercoaster and the pee got on my friend. And then about an hour later, she went to the toilet and caught some of her pee in her hand and wiped it on my hair. We spent the rest of the day stinking of each other’s urine. It doesn’t get more intimate than that,’ Jess retorted.
Chloe was revolted, although somewhat amused. But she realised they’d gotten off point yet again.
‘You’re good at that.’
‘Good at what.’
‘Distracting. Deflecting.’
Jess blew out a whistle. She was impressed.
‘People don’t usually catch that so quick. Kudos. But I guess we all have our ways of deflecting. I make a joke, you run screaming into the night.’
Chloe nodded with a small smile. She’d been caught out too. But she didn’t mind.
‘I guess that’s fair.’
There was a silence for a moment. Chloe felt she needed to break it.
‘So, tell me about this new girlfriend.’
‘Old girlfriend, technically. We got back together.’
‘Oh, the one from before?’
‘The very same.’
‘So you decided to give it another go.’
‘Yeah. I realised I’d been a bit hasty.’
Chloe would have liked to ask for more details, but she didn’t want to be rude. They were still kind of strangers, after all. Despite the fact they’d ‘knocked boots’ as her mother called it.
‘What about you? I hope your new girlfriend is an upgrade on the last one.’
Chloe smiled as she thought about Jo. She was nothing like Laura. In fact, she couldn’t think of two more dissimilar people. Laura had been extremely selfish and self-involved. Jo couldn’t do enough for her.
‘She’s definitely much nicer.’
Jess made a face.
‘What?’
‘She’s nice?’
‘What’s wrong with nice. I like nice’ Chloe said defensively.
Jess could see she’d wandered into a potential landmine. She’d have to keep her feet very still to avoid setting it off.
‘OK, good. If you like nice, then I’m glad you found it.’
Jess looked down at her food and began to eat again. Chloe considered pressing the issue. She felt like Jess had somehow criticised her new relationship, without actually saying it. Chloe didn’t want to create drama if there didn’t have to be any. She’d only just cleared up the trouble from last year.
But it was too late. Chloe felt the situation had soured. She didn’t know how to not feel angry at the comment and she didn’t have it in her to simply ask for an apology.
‘Well, I’m tired. I think I’m gonna turn in.’
Jess was not exactly surprised, although she had hoped that Chloe wasn’t going to do another one of her famous flits at the first sign of trouble. But it was clearly who she was.
‘Sleep well, then.’
And off Chloe went.
The next day, Jess spotted Chloe in the conference room, seated a few rows over. They waved hello. And that was it.
Sunday morning, everyone turned up to breakfast before they fled to various parts of the country, their duties done for another year.
Chloe spotted Jess eating a bowl of muesli and a fruit plate. She was sitting alone. Chloe thought about sitting with her, but she wasn’t sure if she should. They hadn’t spoken since the first night. Chloe thought that was probably her fault. She’d gotten a little defensive. And what had Jess said, really? In the analysis Chloe was now performing on the conversation, it didn’t amount to much. Not enough to leave things on bad terms, anyway.
She’d failed at being an adult the first time around. And the second. This was a chance to correct that.
‘Mind if I sit with you?’
Jess looked up from her ridiculously boring breakfast to see Chloe hovering nervously near her.
‘Go for it.’
Chloe sat down, pleased that Jess wasn’t holding her little strop against her.
The waiter came over and Chloe quickly ordered a fried breakfast. She wasn’t usually one to go big on breakfast but she had a long train ride ahead of her and she needed fortification if she was going to deal with the terrible public transport system.
Before the waiter had gotten four steps from the table, Jess spoke.
‘I’m sorry about what I said about your girlfriend. I don’t even know her. It was a stupid thing to say. Of course nice is good.’
Chloe began to laugh softly. She was starting to get used to Jess’s lack of segue ways. It wasn’t Chloe’s way of doing things at all, but that was what made it sort of fun. It was a b
reak from the politeness that was the usual ball and chain around her ankle.
