I hover around the door outside my flat until my cheeseburger is destroyed, just like my hopes and dreams. It’s late, way past Nick and Heather’s bedtime, but I’m scared to go up. I don’t want to see them. I don’t want them to nosily ask how my date went when they don’t really care, they just want to hear me say bad things about the dating game so that they can feel all smug and superior with themselves because they coupled-up. Still, it is pretty late and I’m very cold – I'm sure I can sneak in undetected.
I creep up the stairs slowly, placing my key in our flat door with the steady hand of a bomb disposal expert – well, one who spent the night in a bar chain-drinking strawberry bellinis. The key is turned, but – as always – the door is stuck. Stupid door, stupid cheap flat that’s all I can only just afford, that there’s no way I can leave without moving back out of the city. I give it a firm push, but nothing happens. I press my foot against it and push a little harder, still nothing. Finally, I shoulder-barge it as quietly as possible, causing the door to fly open. I reach out and grab the handle, stopping it just in time before it slams into the sideboard, preventing everything from falling off like the last time I had to force it open. Phew, that was close. Holding my bunch of keys by squeezing my Adventure Time key ring between my index finger and my thumb, I very carefully lower them into the key bowl, taking my time, lying them in the bowl as quietly as possible. I don’t make a single sound. Not even as I creep across the flat towards my bedroom. I get to my bedroom door, and as much as I need to pee, and as much as I really want to brush my teeth which feel super gross from all the sugary drinks and then the cheeseburger that didn’t actually take me that long to eat, I’m scared that the flush of the toilet and the running water of the tap will wake them, so I don’t do it. Once in the safety of my room, I pull my dress over my head and lie back on my bed quietly. I grab the packet of mints that is sitting on my bedside table and eat one – although I’d imagine eating a mint is actually the opposite of brushing my teeth, because it’s essentially just sugar, right? Still, tonight I’d rather have a filling than own up to a bad date, so I’ll just have to take my chances.
Another failed date. I'm surprised I ever expect anything different these days, even tonight, when I went on the date with an ulterior motive. I know that I didn’t go out with Deano looking for romance, but I at least had high hopes that things were going to go my way and that never happened either. So however you look at it, it’s another failure.
I guess I’ll have to go back to the drawing board tomorrow, assemble the troops and think about what I can do instead of what I’ve been doing. Or I could just give up. It was so stupid of me to think I could win Nick over. Until I had the dreams, I hated him, and if you’d told me I’d be feeling like this today I would’ve asked you if you were high. So unless I can go all Inception on his ass and get inside his dreams and convince him that he should fall in love with me, then I imagine nothing is going to happen. So that’s that. Time to give up. I’ll tell the troops that we failed tomorrow, for now I need to try and sleep, not only so that I forget about what a failure tonight was, but also so that I forget just how much I need to pee.
Chapter 18
I’m awoken by a knock on my bedroom door, which jolts me suddenly from my sleep. I think I was dreaming, although I’m not sure what about. To be honest, after my recent dreams, I could happily never dream again. I used to love my dreams, even my nightmares. For me they were like an escape from real life, an adventure where I could do anything and go anywhere and no one could hurt me. It was like living in a movie with no consequences and I loved that so much. Turns out I was wrong, my dreams could hurt me, by showing me an awesome life that I’m never going to be able to have.
‘Ruby, you awake?’ I hear Nick call through my bedroom door.
‘Erm, just a sec,’ I call back. I search around my messy room for something – anything – that I can put on over my underwear, but in a room that is messy with so many clothes, I can’t find anything that will do the trick. I rummage around for what feels like forever, although I’m sure it’s probably only thirty seconds, and eventually find a sarong that my mum bought me before we went on holiday to Italy when I was thirteen. No, I don’t know why I’ve kept it either, but that’s all that is to hand right now. I wrap it around my body, quickly, before replying: ‘come in.’
Nick walks into my bedroom, holding a steaming mug.
‘Morning,’ he says as he takes in my surroundings, his expression quickly changing. ‘Oh, you’re alone.’
‘Of course I’m alone,’ I reply. ‘What were you expecting, half the Leeds Lions team to be snuggling up with me?’
‘No, but at least one thirteenth. What happened on your date? It not go well? I figured he’d be here with you, and that you’d have had a late night – that’s why I brought you this cuppa – and it’s real milk, not my coconut milk.’
‘Good, because that tastes like –’
‘I know,’ he interrupts me. ‘You’ve told me many a time as I ate my breakfast.’
Nick sets the mug down next to me with an expectant smile; he wants details. That’s when it occurs to me, oh my God, he’s jealous. My stupid plan actually worked. Nick never makes me tea and yet here he is this morning, barging into my bedroom when he thinks I’ve got a bloke in here, bringing me cups of tea, asking me loads of questions about how it went. He’s never done this before.
‘It went really well,’ I lie. ‘Really, really well, actually.’
Now, now, Ruby, don’t over-sell it.
‘If it went that well, I would’ve thought he’d be here with you now…’
‘He wants to wait,’ I tell him and, yes, it is hard to keep a straight face. ‘He said he really likes me, and he wants to prove it to me by not trying to sleep with me until the third date.’
‘Well, isn’t he traditional,’ Nick replies, sounding sceptical – as well he should, because I just said the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. ‘Although…do you think he might be playing you?’
‘What?’ I reply, feigning surprise. ‘No, of course not. How could you think such a thing?’
‘You’re not naive, Ruby. You’re pretty street-smart – although not very fashion-smart, what the hell are you wearing?’ Nick asks, finally clocking my sarong.
‘It’s a sarong,’ I tell him, as if that might clear things up, no explanation needed. ‘I grabbed it when you wanted to come in, to protect my modesty.’
‘Ruby, it’s transparent. Whatever modestly you’ve deluded yourself into thinking you have is in no way protected.’
Normally, Nick’s insulting little remarks make me cross, but not today. I can’t help but grin.
‘What are you smiling for?’ he asks, puzzled.
‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ I reply. But it’s not nothing, it’s definitely something, he’s jealous. He’s jealous, he’s jealous, he’s jealous. I do a little victory dance in my head before grabbing my cuppa and sipping it smugly. Oh, it’s a perfect cuppa too, super-strong, just the right amount of real milk.
‘Well, I need to get to work. I’m glad your date went well,’ he tells me, sounding like he isn’t even a little bit glad that my date went well. Yes!
‘Thank you,’ I call after him. ‘Have fun looking at front-butts all day.’
‘You’re so immature it’s embarrassing,’ he calls back.
But I’m not immature, I’m the smartest woman on earth, and Millsy is the smartest man – I’m not sure if I should tell him, it might go to his head. Ah, I don’t care, all that matters is that I’m making progress. Now I just need to figure out what my next step is, and unlucky for me, I think it’s going to involve a third date with Deano.
Chapter 19
As I walk through the doors of Has Beans, even though I am about to work a gruelling shift, I couldn’t be happier. There’s a spring in my step. I feel like cute little animals should be running around my feet as I perform an awesome musical number that everyone in the café will joi
n in with, all in perfect pitch. Nope, nothing can ruin my awesome mood today. Nothing except…
‘Ruby, you are late,’ Rita snaps.
I look at the time on my phone, that is already in my hand, because it’s almost always in my hand, or at least within grabbing distance.
‘Oh, come on, I’m three minutes late,’ I laugh. ‘That’s not late. You want late, you should’ve been here earlier this year when I slept through pretty much my whole shift. I got here at five to six – I was over nine hours late that day. That’s late.’
Millsy sniggers quietly.
I grab my apron from the hook and give Millsy a fist-bump, hoping that will be the end of it.
‘And you’re proud of that, I imagine?’ Rita asks me.
‘Not proud, per se,’ I reply, well aware that I’m annoying her, but she’s annoying me too. ‘Just trying to make you smile.’
‘You’ll make me smile by turning up to work on time and doing your job well,’ she snaps. ‘Two things you find impossible, it seems.’
I look over at Millsy, expecting a little back up, but he’s constantly telling me how Rita is the best boss he’s ever had. He’s just watching us talk, his eyes darting backwards and forwards between us, like a kid watching his parents argue at the dinner table.
Before I get the chance to defend myself, Rita storms back into her office.
‘Aw, it’s sweet that she pops out to see me when I arrive, she must love me,’ I say sarcastically, as I eat a croissant.
‘Well, you’re not exactly a model employee,’ Millsy replies. Such hypocrisy, I drop my croissant for dramatic effect.
‘This coming from a man who tried to argue that regular masturbation breaks were important for his mental wellbeing.’
‘It makes me a productive worker,’ he replies.
‘It makes you a productive wanker,’ I correct him. ‘You’ll go blind!’
‘I’ll stop when I need glasses,’ he laughs.
I laugh, shaking my head. Only Millsy can amuse and disgust me at the same time.
‘You’re just as bad an employee as I am,’ I remind him.
‘Not this week,’ he tells me. ‘This week I need to kiss-ass, to make sure I can get all the time off that I need for rehearsals.’
I’ve only just retrieved my croissant from the floor, and I drop it again.
‘Nope. No way. Nuh-uh. You can’t leave me here with this mo…rning,’ I say, turning to the customers who have just approached the counter, saving myself from saying a word that even I know I shouldn’t be saying in front of customers in the nick of time.
Standing in front of me are a couple of twenty-something girls, who order two skinny caramel lattes to go. I can see that little glimmer of something in Millsy’s eye, like he’s going to hit on them, he’s just waiting for a pause in their conversation. As I make their drinks, I can’t help but listen to their conversation, in fact, the best part of my job (other than the free coffee and food) is probably listening to other people’s conversations.
‘…and I thought we’d been broken up a long time, but then I realised that I’m still using the same tube of toothpaste he bought me. And I know it was a new tube, but I brush my teeth twice a day, and I still have half a tube left, so I guess it hasn’t been that long.’
I look over at Millsy, wondering what he’ll do. On the one hand he hates drama, but on the other, I know how he likes to pray on “wounded gazelles” as he so endearingly refers to them.
‘And I don’t think I’ve had a period since he left,’ she says quietly, but not only do Millsy and I both hear, it takes us by surprise, causing Millsy to choke on whatever he’s eating and me to mis-pour the hot milk, spilling it all over the counter. It drips off all over the girl’s shoes, much to her annoyance.
‘I am so sorry,’ I babble, grabbing a cloth to try to halt the waterfall of milk that is continuing to cascade over her heels. It’s not enough though, the girl looks absolutely furious. From the sound of her conversation that I couldn’t help but overhear, it sounds like she’s having a pretty rough time at the moment. I can’t imagine she has much patience for things like this but, seriously, she looks like her head is going to explode.
‘Cheer up, love,’ Millsy says, leaning over the counter to rub her shoulder tenderly. ‘Your calendar might be wrong.’
With this, the girl flips. She screams a furious scream that, by all rights, should shatter the latte glasses. Everyone in the café falls silent, stopping their eating, drinking, chatting and typing to spectate.
‘I want to see your manager – now,’ she says angrily.
‘Look, there’s no need for that,’ I start, but I’m wasting my breath. Rita has heard the noise and she’s storming over.
‘What’s the problem?’ Rita asks, cutting to the chase.
As the angry girl tells her everything, Rita’s expression doesn’t change. She gives the girl a sympathetic nod as she listens to her account of events before sending them to sit at a table.
‘Make these girls new drinks and then see me in my office,’ Rita instructs us firmly.
‘What, and leave the counter unattended?’ I ask.
‘No, Joe can watch the counter, you are to see me in my office. He needs to leave for his audition soon anyway, don’t you, my love?’
Millsy nods.
‘What, that’s not fair!’ I can’t help but squeak. ‘What I did was an accident, he was the one who made the period joke.’
‘It wasn’t a joke, it was a reassuring suggestion,’ he insists, but I know my friend, and he says that line to girls all the time. It’s his Millsy-fied version of: “cheer up, it might never happen”.
‘Ruby,’ Rita says my name slowly and quietly through gritted teeth. ‘Come to my office, now.’
I exhale deeply, following her like a naughty child on her way to the head teacher’s office. Once inside, I close the door behind me.
‘Look, I’m just going to come out with it, your issues with authority are not going to wash with me,’ she says, taking a seat at her desk, placing both of her hands flat on the table. What does that mean? It looks unnatural. Perhaps it’s something they taught her at a business management course, telling her it’s some body language move that will ultimately up productivity in the work place.
‘I don’t have issues with authority,’ I insist, calmly. Well, I don’t, I just have issues with her. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong, it was an accident.’
‘You’re proving my point, Ruby.’
‘I mean, I’m no narc,’ I start, fully prepared to grass on my mate. It’s not that there’s no loyalty there, we just display it differently to most people. I think it comes from being best friends since we were babies, we’ve developed this sort of sibling relationship where it just comes naturally to throw each other under the bus so we don’t get in trouble with “mum”, we can throw the harshest insults at one another and laugh them off, and we’re not above the occasional play fight where necessary, because that’s what siblings do, right? Granted we haven’t done the last one since we were teenagers, but that’s because there was an incident in the park where my nails drew blood from his face and an old lady called the police because she thought he was a rapist. The best bit of that ordeal was just how offended Millsy was because the old lady hadn’t figured “he was too handsome for girls to not want to sleep with” – sometimes, it’s hard to tell if comments like this are a product of his sense of humour, or his spectacular vanity. ‘It was Millsy who upset her, and yet, somehow, I’m in here getting told off, and he’s getting to finish early. You see my point, right?’
Rita massages her temples for a moment and lets out a long, deep sigh. It’s clear that I’m wasting my breath; Millsy is her golden boy. I’ll just have to take a deep breath and go back out there and do my job.
‘I’m giving you an official warning,’ Rita tells me, taking a pen from the coffee jar that sits on her desk.
‘What?’ I squeak. ‘For spilling milk?’
> I’m pretty sure there’s a pretty widely documented phrase about the spillage of milk and how it’s not a big deal.
‘For upsetting customers, using bad language, being late, having a problem with authority and for your attitude generally, Ruby. Is that enough reasoning for you, or would you like me to go on?’
I can officially say that Rita is a bitch. So I was a little late, so I spilled a little bit of milk. OK, I hold my hands up to those, but I don’t think I’ve done anything that deserves a formal warning. Still, two strikes and you’re out, so keeping my job is reliant on me keeping my mouth shut. I bite my tongue.
‘Shall I get back to work so that Millsy can get off to his rehearsal?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ she replies, her pen practically smoking as she makes notes about my behaviour. ‘And he’s Joe when we’re at work, not Millsy. We’re not teenage boys on a football pitch.’
We might not be on a football pitch, but she’s certainly talking balls. Still, I keep my mouth shut.
‘Sure,’ I reply, skulking out of the office like a ticked-off kid.
I return to my post just in time to see Millsy swapping numbers with the girl he upset ten minutes prior. She looks super-over it.
‘It’s not what it looks like,’ he assures me.
‘Really?’ I ask. ‘Because it looks like you just swapped numbers with the bird who landed me an official warning.’
‘Oh shit!’ Millsy, sorry, I mean Joe exclaims. ‘Well, first of all, OK, it’s exactly what it looks like, but we got talking and she’s a big Scottish play fan. Also, that’s rough, Rubes, you didn’t deserve a warning. You did nothing wrong.’
I shrug my shoulders.
‘Meh, what can you do.’ I think for a second. ‘Sorry, did you say that girl was a big Macbeth fan?’
I hate to judge a book by its cover, but I never would’ve had this bird pegged as someone who even knew who Shakespeare was, let alone consider herself a fan. And I’m not saying this because she’s a young, blonde female – because I am too – I’m saying this because she’s wearing a velour tracksuit and everyone knows they went out with the noughties.
Truth Or Date Page 13
