The List That Changed My Life

by Olivia Beirne

  ‘I know.’

  She runs her fingers through her hair. ‘It could only happen to you, though.’

  I puff at her. ‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’

  Amy pulls the list out of my bag and I flop down next to her.

  Amy grins. ‘Well done,’ she says, smiling down at the list, ‘one down.’

  I nestle into her shoulder. ‘I know.’

  Amy fingers the list, where a circular coffee stain is smeared into the top corner.

  ‘What did you do?’ she asks. ‘Did you spill coffee on it? You don’t drink coffee, do you?’

  I scowl at the corner. My body tingles as if tiny spiders are crawling up my spine, and anxiety pulls at my throat.

  ‘No,’ I say, touching the stain myself. ‘Not very often.’

  I frown.

  Jack must have read it.

  ‘Right,’ Amy says suddenly, ‘you need to hurry up and go on this run. Doctor Foster starts in half an hour.’

  I jump to my feet and point a foot at her like a ballerina. ‘How do I look?’

  Amy folds her legs under her and smiles. ‘Like a pro,’ she says, ‘like you were born to run.’

  I snort and pick up my water bottle.

  ‘I wish you could come with me,’ I say. ‘I hate running, I’m so rubbish at it.’

  Amy pulls open her book and raises her eyebrows. ‘Mind over matter,’ she says knowingly. ‘You’re better than you think.’

  I roll my eyes and walk out of the living room.

  ‘Mind over matter’ is Amy’s favourite expression. I, on the other hand, think it’s a load of codswallop. Amy always says it works in every situation, which I have several issues with. What about if you have your leg chopped off by accident under surgery? Or you’re teleported back to the Stone Age and are being chased by a T-Rex? Or you accidentally develop thrush? How will mind over matter help with any of that?

  It won’t. Repeatedly thinking ‘I don’t have thrush’ will not free you from thrush. Take it from me.

  I push my way out of the back door and gasp as the cool air whips around my ears. I crick my neck and kick the door shut behind me. Right, a run. A simple run. If I do the run around the park then I can warrant cracking open that cheesecake I bought for Amy. I bounce on the balls of my feet and begin to lightly jog up the street.

  I have to admit, I do look pretty cool in all my running gear. This would be a great time to bump into someone I went to school with – or my old PE teacher, who laughed when I got stuck on the gymnastics horse. Or, like, Jack.

  God, it would be great to glide past Jack now. Head to toe in sports gear, in new trainers, casually running. Although it would mean that I would have to speak to him again. And I do not want that.

  I shake my head as I dodge a street light.

  Stop thinking about Jack. He’s gone now. Thankfully.

  I turn another corner and will myself to keep running as the familiar ripple of anxiety creeps through me.

  He must have read my list. He must have done. I feel as if he’s read a private conversation between me and Amy. I would never allow just anyone to read that list. It’s private.

  I suck in a great gulp of air.

  Don’t think about Jack.

  I glance at a stray cat, eyeballing me whilst perched on a parked car, and try to ignore the aggressive pounding in my chest. My eyes flick down to my flouncing breasts in alarm.

  What? What are they doing? How are they doing that?

  I glance away and then back down at my chest in alarm.

  Okay, I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but my sports bra is certainly not working. Is it supposed to feel like this? I feel like my breasts have transformed into violent pots of uncoordinated jelly.

  Without quite meaning to, my hands grip my boobs to clasp them in place.

  Okay, ouch. This really hurts. Surely it’s not supposed to hurt.

  I can’t have this! What if I stop running and the force of the run has permanently dislodged my breasts, and one is suddenly much higher than the other? I can’t have one boob up by my chin and the other perched on my hip bone.

  I turn a corner, my angled elbows jabbing forward as I run.

  It really is quite difficult to run when you don’t have any arms.

  This is ridiculous! How long can I run whilst holding on to my boobs? I don’t think I can run any more like this! What if some youths see me, take a picture and turn me into a meme, and I go viral? All for the sake of a bloody run.

  Argh! I knew I hated running for a reason! This is a disaster!

  How is mind over matter supposed to help me here? What am I expected to do now – simply will my boobs to stay in place? If I had the mental power to command every aspect of my body to change then I would make some serious edits. Starting with my nipples.

  I turn another corner of our street and, to my horror, spot a crowd of teenagers lurking around a parked car. Before I can stop myself, I spin round on the spot and jog in the opposite direction.

  That’s it. I am going back home. I will not run past a group of youths whilst clasping my breasts in fear of one of them falling off. That is not going to be how I go viral. I just won’t allow it.

  *

  I cross my legs and attempt to defuse the panic bubbling in my chest. I fix my eyes on the back of Jack’s brown, curly hair as he takes a sip of his coffee.

  He’s back.

  He was here when I came in this morning and he hasn’t left. He is still here, drinking coffee and chatting to Bianca like everything is completely normal and fine. Whereas I am hovering at the back of the meeting room trying not to develop an instant hernia every time he opens his mouth.

  What is he doing here? Why is he here? He left! He came for the tour, and then he left. What good reason could he possibly have for coming back?

  Sally marches through the door, her bulging Filofax stuffed under her arm, and I turn to face her.

  Thankfully, Jack has barely looked at me all day. Maybe he doesn’t recognise me. He sure is acting as if he doesn’t recognise me.

  ‘Right . . .’ Bianca flips open her notebook and snaps her eyes around the room, her back poker-straight, ‘so the wedding is now in about three months, okay? Sally,’ she locks her eyes on to Sally, who blinks back at her as if she is about to receive missionary orders. ‘I need to see a new draft of the schedule.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Sally barks.

  I fight the urge to roll my eyes. For goodness’ sake.

  ‘Jack,’ Bianca says, ‘how are you getting on with your speech?’

  I look at Jack. He’s doing a speech?

  ‘Fine,’ Jack says idly.

  I hide a smile as Sally jolts forward in alarm. There isn’t a brother’s speech in the schedule.

  ‘How long is the speech?’ she almost shouts. ‘How many minutes?’

  Jack angles his shoulder backwards as a smile plays with the corners of his mouth, and his eyes flit towards me.

  ‘Are you Sally?’ he says.

  My stomach drops. Why did he look at me before asking that?

  ‘Yes,’ Sally says, her head dropping into a neat nod.

  Jack grins and he looks back down at his notepad. Everyone stares at him.

  ‘Jack!’ Bianca bursts out, thwacking his arm with her pen. ‘Sally asked you an important question. How many minutes will your speech be?’

  ‘Oh,’ Jack says, his eyes flicking towards me again, ‘I’m not sure. An hour?’

  ‘An hour!’ Sally squawks, leaping from her seat as if she has just sat on a hedgehog. ‘I mean,’ she quickly composes herself, her face glowing, ‘we just . . . it’s just . . . the schedule,’ she trails off weakly.

  Jack’s grinning. He’s winding her up.

  ‘An hour?’ Bianca repeats, twisting her body towards Jack. ‘You want to make a speech for an hour? Oh!’ she coos, clutching her chest. ‘Are you going to re-enact moments from our childhood?’

  Sally flicks her hair out of her eyes a
s she scribbles viciously in her notepad.

  ‘Maybe,’ Jack says, shrugging.

  ‘Oh, Jack!’ Bianca cries. ‘That is so touching! Sally, can we add this to the schedule?’

  Sally whips her head up from her notepad and blinks at Bianca, aghast.

  ‘I think we can.’ Jack’s eyes flit back towards me, the sides of his mouth curling. ‘Right, Georgie?’

  I jolt involuntarily at the sound of my name being spoken by Jack’s voice.

  Why is he calling me Georgie? He can’t call me Georgie here! Nobody at work calls me Georgie apart from Natalie.

  (And Bianca, because I am too scared to correct her.)

  Bianca peers round at me expectantly.

  ‘Sure,’ I say weakly.

  At my words, Sally almost collapses into her chair.

  I stand up. ‘Shall I make some coffee?’ I say, desperate to end this conversation before anyone works out that we know each other.

  Bianca flicks one leg over the other and nods. ‘Yes please, darling.’

  ‘I’ll bring some in,’ I say, and carefully duck out of the door and into the kitchen, my pulse thumping in my ears.

  ‘Want a hand?’

  I spin round and spot Jack, leaning on the door frame. My face flames and I hover uncertainly. He’s asking me a question. He’s talking to me. Why is he talking to me? What does he want? What is his motive? Why can’t he just leave me alone?

  I blink back at him.

  Damn. I’m going to have to speak to him. Unless I just shake my head. I could pretend I’ve lost my voice. Or that, since we met, I’ve taken up a new life as a full-time mime artist. I’m pretty good at that ‘trapped in a box’ shtick.

  I turn my back to him, trying to ignore the heat licking my ears.

  ‘No, thank you,’ I say calmly, reaching and pulling down mugs.

  If I engage in minimal social contact then perhaps he will leave.

  ‘I’ll help you carry it,’ Jack says.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say tightly.

  How patronising. I can perfectly well manage carrying a tray of coffee down a corridor. I am a strong, independent woman. Thank you very much.

  ‘Okay,’ Jack says mildly.

  I’m hoping at this he may leave. But, to my annoyance, he is still leaning on the door frame.

  ‘So,’ Jack says, ‘you were right about Sally. She’s a real character.’

  I spoon instant coffee into the identical mugs and feel a wave of indignation rise inside my chest. I’m the only one who is allowed to moan about Sally. He doesn’t even know her. Who is he to judge her?

  ‘That was really mean,’ I say quietly, ‘what you did to her back there. That will have really stressed her out.’

  I glance back at him and see his eyebrows rise in amusement. I turn back to the coffee.

  ‘Coming from the girl,’ he says lightly, ‘who swapped her Pro Plus for Tic Tacs?’

  I freeze.

  How does he know that? Nobody knows that!

  (Apart from Natalie.)

  ‘That’s different,’ I say coldly, refusing to turn my body to meet him.

  Jack laughs. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I know how much she winds you up. I just wanted to get her back for you.’

  ‘I don’t need,’ I snap, spinning round to face him, ‘anything from you. We don’t have anything.’ I wave my arms in front of me. ‘We are not anything. There is nothing here. This is my place of work—’

  I break off, my face burning. Jack looks back at me, his face blank.

  I turn back as the kettle clicks off behind me and try to avoid the great puffs of steam wafting around my face.

  I can’t believe he is here. Why is he here? Why is he talking to me?

  I stack the steaming mugs on the tray and turn. To my irritation, Jack is still standing by the door.

  ‘Do you want me to carry it?’ he asks.

  ‘No,’ I say stubbornly, even as my arms burn under the weight of the tray. ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’

  *

  ‘He’s read my diary,’ I hiss to Natalie, as she twirls pasta on her fork. I glance around the work canteen to check Jack or Bianca aren’t lurking at a nearby table. They should rename the canteen Fifty Shades of Grey, and not because of its overwhelming sex appeal.

  Natalie looks up, her manicured hand touching her high, purple neckline and her glasses slipping slightly down her nose.

  ‘He’s read your diary?’ she repeats. ‘Your notebook, you mean? That’s weird. How do you know that?’

  I lean in and wrap my hand around my mug of soup. ‘Because he keeps dropping in things about me that he shouldn’t know.’

  Natalie looks at me. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like, how I don’t think I can pull off pink and that Sally annoys me.’

  ‘Sally annoys everybody,’ Natalie notes.

  ‘Yes, but . . .’ I eye her, ‘he knows about the time I swapped her Pro Plus for Tic Tacs.’

  Natalie chews another mouthful and blinks at me.

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t just tell him that on your date?’ she says mildly. ‘You were pretty drunk, weren’t you?’

  I shake my head, irritated at her bringing up the date.

  ‘No,’ I say firmly, ‘I didn’t. I wouldn’t have.’

  Natalie shrugs and goes back to her pasta. ‘Why is he here?’ she asks. ‘Does he, like, work here now?’

  I shrug. The thought of Jack permanently working here causes my stomach to grind.

  ‘No idea,’ I say. ‘Hopefully, he will go soon.’

  Natalie looks up. ‘Do you still fancy him?’

  ‘No!’ I retort instantly. ‘I’ve never fancied him. I never would.’

  Natalie grins. ‘You fancied him enough to kiss him on the first date.’

  ‘That was different,’ I say haughtily, leaning back in my seat. ‘That was only because I thought he was somebody else.’

  Natalie cocks her head. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘I guess you will just have to avoid him.’

  I shrug and glance around the canteen. ‘Yeah,’ I say, knowing full well that is near impossible.

  ‘Anyway,’ Natalie says, pushing her food around with her plastic fork, ‘how’s Amy doing?’

  My heart twinges at the mention of Amy, and I smile.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, ‘she’s okay. She’s still working. I think she’s finding it quite hard. She’s tired a lot.’

  Natalie puts her fork down. ‘I bet she’s happy you’re completing her list.’

  I nod, a familiar weight forming in my chest.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I just wish she would do it with me. I feel like she’s given me her dying orders. It’s her list.’

  Natalie smiles and pulls out her phone. ‘I need to get back,’ she says. ‘Do you fancy going for a drink after work?’

  I stand up. ‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘Sorry. I’ve got to be back to see Amy.’

  Natalie shrugs as we walk towards the doors. ‘No worries,’ she says. ‘Let me know when you can.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Amy’s smoothie recipe:

  100ml almond milk (only have semi-skimmed milk, sure it’s fine)

  50g blueberries (guessed, don’t own scales)

  1 banana (don’t have)

  1 handful kale (I have small hands)

  1 tsp goji berries (what)

  2 tbsp natural yogurt (only had strawberry mousse?!)

  50g strawberries (guessed)

  1 handful spinach (no)

  1 cup protein powder (refuse to buy)

  Dash of vanilla essence (don’t have, so used 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream instead)

  I push my way through the front door, my arms sagging under the weight of bulging carrier bags and my damp fringe smeared on to my forehead.

  ‘Amy?’ I shout. ‘It’s me.’

  I hear a muffled noise as I kick the front door shut. Mum has Zumba every Tuesday. Amy used to go too. I stagger into the kitchen and drop the bags, and then I spot Amy, curled up on th
e sofa. Her hair is scrunched up on top of her head and her eyes are sunken, the lids swollen and pink. My eyes flit down to her clothing and I realise, with a dull ache in my stomach, that she has spent a full day at work.

  She peels an eye open to look at me, but within moments it droops shut again.

  I kneel next to her and place my hand on her arm. ‘You okay?’ I say quietly.

  ‘Tired,’ Amy grunts, her lips barely parting.

  I nod and pull myself back to standing. ‘I’ll start dinner, okay?’ I say, walking back towards the kitchen. ‘That will make you feel better.’

  I walk back through the kitchen and flip over the ready-meal box I grabbed from Tesco on my way over here. We have tried telling Amy to cut her hours down, or at least try to get a different job where she could sit down more. She won’t listen. She never does. I don’t think the kids in her class even know how sick she is.

  I stab the plastic film with a fork and slot it into the microwave, when my phone vibrates. I pull it out of my pocket and my body lurches.

  It’s a message from Jack.

  I freeze. My eyes are glaring down at my phone.

  Why is he texting me? What does he want now? What could he possibly have to say to me? We had an accidental date, we realised he is actually related to my boss, and we’ve addressed the awkwardness of the awful coincidence. There is nothing more to be said!

  I had planned to ignore him, and volunteer to complete the pile of shredding in the basement until the wedding is over and he can scoot back to wherever he is actually from. Why is he texting me?

  I glance around, as if Bianca could be lurking behind the fridge, ready to jump out and unravel the whole mess. Hardly daring to breathe, I open the text.

  Hey Georgie, sorry about today. Hope you’re okay. Great coffee. Jack x

  I blink at the message as anger foams beneath my skin and my mind compiles the aggressive list of everything annoying about the text:

  Stop calling me Georgie. My name is Georgia. He does not have permission to call me Georgie.

  Of course I am okay. Why wouldn’t I be? Who is he to think that I would be affected by some man I barely know?

  Everyone knows I am terrible at making coffee, so that is another sly dig.

  Don’t put a kiss at the end of the message.

  The microwave zings, and before I can command myself otherwise, my finger swipes my screen flamboyantly and the message is deleted. As of tomorrow, I shall completely ignore him. I’ve got enough on my mind without him occupying even the tiniest corner of brain space.