The Note: An uplifting, life-affirming romance about finding love in an unexpected place

by Zoë Folbigg

  ‘Why did you meet me if you’re not willing to extend the contract?’ snaps Tiffanie, feeling that her time is being wasted. ‘We could have just done this by email.’

  Her shiny black fringe, shorter and more severe than the last time they met, sits atop her head like the tiny peak of a cap.

  ‘Because I have a suggestion.’

  ‘If it’s about money, we can talk about it. My editor doesn’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose you. You were the most shared story from our online edition all week.’

  ‘It’s not about money, Tiffanie, I have to get out.’

  Thin red lips make a small circle as she thinks.

  ‘Why would you do that? You’re snowballing, your star is rising.’

  ‘I’m drowning. It doesn’t feel right. It’s not me. It’s unkind.’

  ‘Strange time to get a conscience, Fifi, er, I mean Maya. Look, this could go far. They were talking about you on Question Time.’

  ‘It’s too dangerous. At work they’re pointing the finger at the wrong person, a person who needs her job more than I need mine right now. Anyway, I’m leaving FASH, I wouldn’t be able to write anything sharable about my new life.’

  ‘Well is there anyone else there who would be willing to take over the mantel? A talented writer you’re close to? She could be Fifi and no one would ever know.’ Tiffanie frantically rummages in her bag for her vape.

  ‘No, I need to kill it, I’m afraid. I’m not very proud of Fifi and I want to leave FASH to do something I am proud of.’

  Tiffanie Doyle looks at Maya with the same wince she made when she sipped the carrot, beet and ginger juice the last time they met. Today, good intentions have gone out of the window and she’s having a black coffee, but the disdainful expression loiters.

  ‘What I’m suggesting is: why not do the exclusive in your paper? A big reveal of who Fifi Fashion Insider really is.’

  ‘Ahhh I see what this is about, you want notoriety. Your career won’t last more than a day, Maya. It’s Fifi and the access she has inside FASH HQ that everyone wants. Not you I’m afraid, dear.’

  ‘I don’t want to be famous, I just want it over, otherwise people will be harassing me on social media or pointing the finger at the wrong person until someone else outs me, which would be much worse. Do the reveal in the Standard or I’ll go to another paper to do it.’

  *

  James walks cumbersomely down Carnaby Street, under a sky of multicoloured tubular Christmas lights, illuminated even though it’s not yet dark. He turns left onto a small side street of cafes and clothes shops. At the end of the cobbles he sees a stone and glass façade with Kaleidoscope written sleekly above the door, under a big number 11. He looks at the scrunched-up pink Post-it scribbled with an address in his left hand and pushes the door with his right arm as he stumbles and almost falls in to the reception area, slumping his camera case, tripod, lighting and backpack down in front of him.

  A tiny receptionist in leopard-print trousers and gold brogues rushes around her desk, switching on answer phones and straightening out magazines on the coffee table.

  ‘You’re Kaye-French? I was waiting for you! Come in.’

  James has to check himself, he isn’t used to being called by his agent’s name.

  ‘Yes, James Miller from the Kaye-French picture agency. You have a studio for me, right?’

  ‘Yes, but you’re the last booking today and I want to get off Christmas shopping. Have you shot here before? I don’t recognise you,’ says the receptionist, stopping for a second to look James up and down, as if to say she would have recognised him had they met.

  James puts his equipment down on the cream sofa. ‘Never.’

  ‘Well I’ll give you a quick tour, it’s all straightforward.’ The receptionist doesn’t lift a foot as she pivots from her spot in the centre of the stark white reception area, indicating his limitations. ‘The studio you’ll be using is there, the kitchen is there, the toilets are there. Help yourself to tea and toast but tidy up after yourself. Are you shooting lots of people, because if so I don’t want them all in the kitchen. The cleaner came early so I could get off.’

  ‘One profile. No hair and make-up.’

  ‘Well that shouldn’t take long. Here’s the key. If you leave before I get back – I will come back to check everything – just lock up with these and put them through the box. I’ll come back by five to check everything and set the alarm. You will be done by five, won’t you?’ The receptionist holds an array of keys up to James like a very small and not terribly imposing jailer.

  James looks at the numbered blocks splayed in seeming disarray on the wall behind the desk. A block with hands on it sits in the middle, bringing it all into focus and indicating that the time is just before 3 p.m.

  ‘Yep, five should be fine,’ he says.

  The girl’s rush to get to Oxford Street is calmed by James’s smile for just a second before he walks into the studio to prepare for the shoot. He sets up a stool, unrolls the simple backdrop the booker at Kaye-French requested, and looks outside at the ray of sunlight shooting down Newburgh Street and into his workspace. James likes the peace and quiet of prepping a shoot, before the chaos commences.

  *

  All the way down Baker Street, Maya prepared her notice letter in her head.

  What’s the point of a notice letter? If I don’t turn up to work they’ll know precisely why I’ve left by lunchtime.

  She thought about the wording. She wondered whether to even mention Fifi Fashion Insider in her letter to Lucy. And then she settled on it. She will stick to a polite resignation letter saying she is leaving FASH ‘to pursue new opportunities’. She will offer one month’s notice, which she knows won’t extend beyond the publication of her big unveiling as Fifi Fashion Insider tomorrow. Tiffanie assured Maya that the legal team at the paper had gone over the article and said she wasn’t in breach of the law, just her contract of employment, which Rich Robinson would be foolish to punish her for given it would create more bad press for FASH, and Fifi Fashion Insider has become something of an anti-hero.

  I don’t even care, I just want out.

  As Maya stops in the toilets of Café Liberty to touch up her make-up, she examines her reflection. She thinks about Christopher Diamond’s big strong arm around her. She thinks about making Velma proud. She thinks about spending the money wisely. One hundred thousand dollars is almost as much as Maya’s salary for two whole years, but she doesn’t want to become lazy or spoiled. She wants to make this gift count. First, she wants to get rid of the shine on her face caused by rushing out of the office early with a thinly veiled excuse about a doctor’s appointment. She wants to look a bit better than she does right now, flushed and frizzy-haired.

  These pictures are going to be everywhere and I look awful.

  *

  Maya looks from the scrunched-up yellow Post-it in her right hand to the number above the door in front of her.

  Eleven. That’s it.

  A tiny woman in leopard-print trousers bumps into Maya in the doorway, looking backwards to check if she’d left anything on her desk.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ the woman huffs, almost annoyed at Maya for being in her way when she was the one not looking where she was going. ‘He’s in there.’ A small face nods towards the photographer flashing a lightbulb in the light of an open studio.

  Maya walks into the airy white room and sees a man. Bending down. The waistband of his underwear rises above slim grey jeans, chasing his green cashmere jumper up his back as he leans into a camera bag, revealing smooth olive skin even in winter. Maya’s eyes dart across the studio to the sight of a familiar grey backpack in a far corner, sullied by sitting on the floor of a train carriage. A lightbulb flashes, startling mesmerised eyes and making Maya feel dizzy. He stands and turns around. It is him. Train Man. James Miller. The man Maya loved at first sight last year; who broke her heart this year, now standing in front of her looking baffled and beautiful.

 
James looks towards the open door at the entrance of the studio. Maya Flowers. The brave and radiant girl who gets his train, whose elegant collarbone he can’t see right now.

  ‘It’s you. You’ve come to be shot?’

  Maya blushes and laughs nervously.

  He’s here. This is home.

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘For the paper I mean, for the Evening Standard.’

  ‘Yep, that’s me,’ Maya shrugs stiffly.

  ‘Wow, small world,’ says James, pushing his glasses up his nose and trying not to look flustered. ‘Sit down, sit down. Make yourself comfortable.’ He scratches his head looking for somewhere more comfortable than the stool in front of the roll-down screen, but there isn’t anywhere in the exposed stark brightness of the studio. ‘You want a drink or something first?’ James asks, wearing the role of photographer as a blanket of confidence. If this wasn’t work, he would have choked. Lost for words.

  He stands, looking expectantly at Maya, forlorn in the middle of the room, exposed even though she is cocooned in a grey sweater dress that swamps her frame. Pink woollen flowers creep up grey tights, softening the runner’s muscle of her shin. Suede black pixie boots ground her.

  ‘Sorry?’ she says, unable to say much more. Disbelief that after all the time she spent unable to pluck up the courage to talk to him among the commuters and the crowds on the train, they are finally together, alone, in a studio in Soho. Her heart soars, and then sinks a little when she remembers.

  ‘There are some manky old teabags in the kitchen but there’s a coffee shop just out there. I’m going to grab an espresso. Do you want me to get you anything?’

  ‘No thanks,’ says Maya. Confused. Dumbfounded. Embarrassed.

  Photographer? I thought he worked in advertising?

  ‘Back in a sec. Make yourself at home. That’s where you’ll be sitting.’ James motions to the stool, stating the obvious, before walking out of the studio and onto the cobbles to a cafe a few doors down. He steadies himself on the other side of the door and leans back against a stone wall before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Maya looks around the room before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

  *

  James waits for his coffee and kicks himself for leaving so soon.

  I was totally thrown.

  But the fledgling photographer has learned that the first thing he must do to get the best picture possible is to make his subject feel comfortable, and Maya Flowers looked pretty uncomfortable to him.

  *

  Be cool.

  Fighting an urge to run away, Maya puts her bag on the floor next to James’s grey backpack and realises her hands are shaking. She smooths down a wayward wave to calm herself and her hair as he walks back in.

  ‘Right, I got you a hot chocolate anyway in case you changed your mind. It’s sunny but it’s biting out there,’ James says, smiling shyly as he hands Maya a cardboard cup.

  Maya sees his dimple and is reassured.

  ‘Actually hot chocolate is perfect. Thank you.’

  The warm cup gets to work thawing Maya’s nerves.

  ‘If you can just sit there and be yourself, I need to get the lighting right…’ James says as he fusses about the studio setting up the shot. ‘There will be a few flashes while I sort the positioning, but have a seat and try to relax.’

  Maya already has. Despite her embarrassment about what she did last spring, there is something so calming about James’s face. Dimples, warmth, kindness. She inhales steam from the sweet syrupy chocolate.

  They sit in comfortable silence while James dances around Maya with stands and a silver umbrella.

  Maya fidgets a little to straighten her soft wool dress.

  They speak at the same time.

  ‘So what’s this story…?’

  ‘I didn’t know you were a photographer.’

  Freckles play peekaboo under a flash of light. ‘Oh, you go first.’

  James bumbles. ‘What’s your story then? Why have I been commissioned to photograph you?’

  Thick sheepish lashes fall down.

  ‘Fifi Fashion Insider. Have you heard of her?’

  James laughs. Dimples get deeper.

  ‘Yeah, she keeps popping up on my Twitter feed.’

  ‘Well I am she. I’m killing her off tomorrow, committing professional suicide too by revealing myself as her in the paper, with your pictures, so I’d better hand in my notice while I’m at it.’

  James looks up from where he’s positioning the base of the tripod on the floor, mouth open in wonder.

  ‘Wow, that’s brave. You’re being talked about everywhere. Something of a trailblazer is how I read it.’

  Maya’s heart races.

  ‘It was stupid really. I should have just left with dignity. Lots of people don’t like their job or their boss, they don’t create a circus about it. But I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘I knew you did something at FASH from your email address when, you know…’

  James raises the tripod, stops fussing, and stands still behind his camera facing Maya.

  ‘The note. Yeah I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to make life awkward for you. It was really rude and presumptuous of me. And ridiculous to think I could fall for someone I didn’t know.’

  Hearts tighten.

  ‘It wasn’t rude. It was the kindest, bravest, boldest thing anyone has ever done for me.’ James removes his glasses and leans down to look through the lens before looking back up at Maya. ‘It also made me be a bit braver myself.’

  Maya stifles a smile.

  I made him braver?

  ‘How?’

  ‘When you gave me the note I was in a miserable place. In lots of ways. I hated my job…’

  Maya can tell he’s holding something back.

  ‘I worked in advertising,’

  Maya mentally checks her face so it doesn’t say ‘I know!’

  ‘I was partnered with my best mate and we were doing OK, but I just wasn’t excited about selling cat food or hair removal cream. I wanted to do something more creative.’

  ‘I know how you feel,’ Maya half sighs.

  ‘Well your note, it made me think “Fuck it, I’ll take a chance, give doing what I love a shot” – and I’m now doing this. Taking pictures for a living. And meeting some really interesting people. Like you. I’m earning half what I was and it’s not been easy, but I’m getting there. Thanks to you really…’

  Shoulders lower, eyes brighten and Maya relaxes on her perch.

  ‘That’s amazing,’ she whispers.

  James rises from behind the lens and they look at each other. Actual proper eye contact for the first time, without books or distance or commuters to hide behind. Well, the first eye contact since Maya pretended to drop her train ticket, but that didn’t count.

  James remembers the man with his arm around Maya and breaks away. ‘Anyway, I better get these shots of you, the picture desk wants the edit tonight ready to print in tomorrow’s first edition.’

  James lifts the camera from its anchor and puts his glasses back on his nose.

  Ah yes, short-sighted.

  I wish I’d worn contacts.

  Maya steals a look at James looking at her, the camera a protective shield for them both, and turns away for self-preservation, looking out of the window and up at the Christmas lights above the street outside.

  He has a girlfriend.

  Maya sighs. The last gasp of sunshine bounces off impressive illuminations outside and orange shards inside and James sees Maya. Click. Soft chestnut hair. The profile of her strong dappled nose facing the window to escape the sadness. Click. Still, full, statue-like lips. Click. He can see Maya throwing back her head and laughing from the depths of her core, even though she doesn’t move. Click. He sees her on a beach, wet sand matting her wavy hair into twists. Click. He sees the man at the terminal with his arm around Maya’s shoulder and a triumphant smile on his face. Click.

  ‘James?’

>   James and Maya turn in unison towards the door of the studio. A woman with a white-blonde pixie crop stands tall in a black button-down coat.

  ‘Kitty! What are you doing here?’

  Kitty? Isn’t that his girlfriend’s name?

  ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘I’m kind of working.’

  ‘Working?’ A familiar flash of puzzlement dashes across thin lips as Kitty’s long stiff body leans into the door frame, pleadingly.

  ‘Hang on a sec.’

  James removes the loop of the camera lead from his neck and repositions it onto the tripod. He looks at Maya observing him. He now feels as exposed as she did just minutes ago.

  ‘I’ll be one second,’ James says to Maya with wide, aching eyes.

  She doesn’t look like Kitty Jones from the train.

  The tall woman with the icy blonde hair takes James’s hand in hers and leads him out. He neither flinches nor resists.

  Maya sits alone on the stool. The sun has gone down. She feels silly and small and embarrassed, even though she already knew this was how the story ended.

  *

  In the small clean kitchen behind the reception area, Kitty shuts the door with a firm hand.

  ‘Did your mum tell you?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Did your mum tell you?’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘I’ve left Simon. It didn’t work out.’

  ‘Right. No. No, she didn’t.’

  ‘Well it was all wrong, he was such a shit. And I bust a gut for those kids. I’m not ready to be a mum. Those kids are a nightmare. I’ve been so so miserable, James. I made such a mistake. I’m so sorry.’

  James looks at Kitty as she holds both of his hands with each of hers. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was Christmas shopping on Carnaby Street and I saw you coming out of a cafe. I couldn’t believe it. I’d even been thinking about you today. I went in and sat there just waiting, getting the courage to come and tell you how I felt. I want us to be together.’