Then he stopped. His face froze with embarrassment and surprise, and then he grinned.
‘Am I interrupting something?’ he asked.
‘Er, no, not at all,’ I said.
‘We were just getting up,’ Josh said easily, with no trace of awkwardness. ‘Want some breakfast?’
‘Yes, sure, thanks.’ Adam put the flowers down on the floor just inside the door and stepped away like they might bite him. Then he smiled again and said, ‘So much for the fake boyfriend.’
As the door closed behind Adam, Josh and I turned to look at each other. I didn’t know what to do with my face; my features felt all stiff and strange, like I’d put on one of my peel-off masks and left it too long. He’d gone all still, too; it was weird to see him not smiling.
‘Fake boyfriend?’
‘I… it was just a stupid thing. Because I wanted to… I thought I could…’
‘I see where this is going.’ Josh hadn’t raised his voice, but it still felt like he was shouting at me. I pulled the duvet higher and shrank away to the very edge of the bed. ‘You thought you could make your ex jealous. You used me to try and get him back. Even though he’s dating your mate.’
‘It’s not like that,’ I protested. ‘Well, okay, it kind of was. But not any more. Not after last night. And even before that. I…’
‘You led me on,’ he said. ‘You let me think there was something between us, that you had feelings for me. And last night – you let that happen, knowing none of it was real?’
‘It was real,’ I said in a small voice. ‘It is real. It is now.’
Josh looked hard at me. ‘I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against casual sex, but I don’t appreciate being lied to.’
I felt anger flare inside me, overwhelming the shame and panic. ‘So, what I did isn’t okay, but you watching those girls bully me at school, and that prank you played on me with them, and that vile text you sent, and then trying to trick me into going to the dance with you so you could make a fool of me somehow, in front of everyone, or have sex with me because you thought I was the town bike like everyone else did, that was absolutely fine, was it?’
He looked bemused. ‘What the fuck are you even talking about?’
‘You remember,’ I said. ‘Stop pretending you don’t.’
‘I remember I liked you. I had the most massive crush on you. I wanted to ask you out for ages, but you were seeing that creep Connor. And then when I found out me and Mum were moving to Australia, I thought I’d have one last chance to tell you how I felt. But you didn’t feel the same.’
‘But the things Anoushka and Kylie said about me, the way everyone treated me – you knew. And you did nothing.’
‘So that’s what this was all about, was it? Something some stupid, spiteful girls did to you back in high school years ago makes it okay to play mind games with me to try and take someone else’s bloke off her? I don’t even know what text you’re on about. What prank? I never texted you. I didn’t even have your number. I wished I’d had the guts to ask you for it but I never did. If that’s the way your mind works, I feel sorry for you.’ He pushed back the duvet and stood up. ‘Guess a hangover wasn’t the only bullet I dodged. I’m going for a run, and tonight I’m flying to Belfast for work.’
He picked up his clothes and walked out, closing the door hard behind him. I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged them, my whole body feeling numb with shock. Looking at what had happened through his eyes made it all seem different. Maybe he hadn’t been aware of what had gone on back then. Maybe he’d forgotten, or maybe he just hadn’t known. Maybe he had liked me, and I’d been too isolated, scared and ashamed to realise it.
I waited until I heard the front door crash behind him and then I went to the bathroom. It felt like all my thoughts, the version of reality I’d held onto for so long, had been wiped away, and there was nothing new to replace it: my mind was completely blank.
On my way back to my room, I almost tripped over the flowers. Even though less than half an hour had passed since Adam brought them to me, I’d forgotten they were there.
A huge bunch of pale pink rosebuds and peonies, blowsy and delicate as a wedding dress. And a note with them that said, I’m sorry. Can we talk? Love Renzo.
They were the words I’d waited months and months for – words that I’d imagined reading, or hearing him say, and my heart soaring with hope and joy. So why wasn’t it?
Twenty-Three
That Monday morning at work, Felicity completely blanked me. She didn’t mention the party, or Renzo, or Josh, or anything at all. She just sat, staring at her screen, and occasionally she blew her nose.
‘Are you okay?’ I murmured at last, when the silence became too oppressive to endure any longer.
‘I’ve got a cold,’ she said.
To be totally honest, it didn’t look like a cold to me. But there was nothing else I could say, and it wasn’t like I didn’t have my own problems to preoccupy me, so I worked on in silence. Well, when I say worked – I was mostly polishing my CV, getting it ready to send to the shortlist of potential new jobs I’d identified.
With Chelsea’s dresses nearly finished and another order on its way to the lovely ladies at Stitch Together, Chelsea’s business looked like it was getting on an even keel. Soon, she wouldn’t need my mentorship any more – and if she did, I could offer it as a friend.
At lunchtime, desperate to escape the atmosphere in the office, which was almost as toxic as the time Kris came in wearing Poison Girl perfume, I got up and reached for my bag. Felicity asked if I was going out, and I was tempted to reply sarcastically that I was just going to do a spot of mindful meditation under my desk, but I refrained.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely out. No point festering in here.’
‘Mind if I join you?’
I was torn between relief that she had apparently thawed, and annoyance that my chance to get some longed-for time alone to clear my head had been snatched away.
‘Of course not.’
‘Shall we grab some food somewhere?’
‘Sure,’ I said, although I was mentally rolling my eyes at the prospect of her demanding to know how many grams of carbs there were in everything and texting photos of her food to Fidel on her phone.
But she said, ‘Let’s go to Patty and Bun.’
‘Patty and Bun?’ I parroted, stopping in my tracks. But she was already striding off towards the lift, so I followed obediently. It was just as well I was close on her heels, because even though said heels were five-inch platforms, Felicity power-walked all the way to Old Compton Street like she’d been told the Selfridges sale was about to start and she was going to be first in line if it killed her, apparently not noticing the blazing heat. Even if I’d known what to say to her, I wouldn’t have been able to speak; I just panted along in her wake, sweat snaking down my back.
‘Table for two, please,’ she said, fixing the waiter with a stare that quite clearly conveyed that if one wasn’t provided immediately, there would be hell to pay.
‘Let me just check what we have available.’
‘That one right there will do,’ Felicity said, gesturing towards a booth for four. Magically, like a conjuring trick, a twenty-pound note appeared and passed with amazing sleight of hand from her to him. She smiled dazzlingly.
‘Of course, madam.’
Seconds later, a waitress appeared, presumably alerted by her colleague to the prospect of untold riches – or at least a larger than usual tip – if she did what the slightly demented woman in the lilac suede dungarees wanted.
‘What can I get for you ladies?’
‘I’ll have a cheeseburger, please,’ I said. ‘And a Diet Coke.’
‘Same, with a double patty and extra bacon,’ Felicity said. ‘And we’ll share pickle fries and cheese balls, and I’ll have a triple chocolate malt. And a carafe of tap water, please.’
She smiled again at the waitress, who scurried away, notepad
in hand.
Then she looked at me and said, ‘So.’
‘I take it you and Fidel are on a break,’ I said cautiously.
‘Break, shmeak. I dumped the fucker.’
‘Really? But you were so committed.’
‘Yeah, I was committed to Renzo, too. But I dumped him as well, this morning, right after I told Fidel where he could shove his ketogenic omelettes and power burpees.’
I had absolutely no idea how to respond to this, but I was momentarily saved by the arrival of my Diet Coke and Felicity’s milkshake. She stuck the straw deep into the glass – with some difficulty, triple-thick being exactly what it said on the tin – and sucked hard, her cheeks hollowing.
‘He’s still in love with you, you know.’
Just a few days before, that revelation would have made me feel giddy with ecstasy. Now, the knowledge of what I’d done to Josh and what I’d been prepared to do to Felicity herself meant that my relief was soured, tainted by guilt.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘He never stopped being,’ Felicity said. ‘It was pretty fucking obvious from the start, if only I’d been able to see past my own nose. When he first asked me out, I should have realised that he was doing it to keep tabs on you.’
‘To keep…?’
‘Sure.’ The waitress brought greaseproof-paper-lined baskets of deep-fried things to our table and Felicity sprinkled salt liberally over everything without asking me if I minded. ‘And he kept talking about you. Tansy this, Tansy that. “When I was in Paris with Tansy…” Made me feel just fabulous, that did.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, picking up a deep-fried cheese ball and biting into it. Felicity hadn’t been wrong about the salt.
‘Yeah, well, it serves me right, I suppose. I should never have gone after your bloke, even if he was your ex. It was a vile thing to do.’
I ate the rest of my cheese ball.
‘It wasn’t, though, because I wasn’t straight with you about how things ended between us,’ I said. ‘I told you it was mutual, but it wasn’t really.’
‘No, I figured that out,’ Felicity said. ‘And I should have kicked him to the kerb when I did. But, you know, Renzo is Renzo. Hard to resist, even when he’s calling you someone else’s name right when he shoots his load.’
‘Oh, no.’ I put a pickle fry back in the basket, untasted. ‘He didn’t.’
‘He did,’ Felicity confirmed, dipping a cheese ball in mayonnaise and eating it. ‘And then there were the other things he said, that weren’t in the heat of passion. “Tansy had a dress a bit like that, but it looked different on her.” “Going out to restaurants with you is different. Tansy never enjoyed her food so much.” “Sorry, I forgot to put milk in your coffee. Tansy has hers black.”’
The waitress brought our burgers. Cheese was oozing out of the sides of them both, but Felicity’s was twice the height of mine and had shards of crispy bacon sticking out of its edges. I cut mine in half and then cut one bit in half again, took a bite and put it back down. Felicity picked hers up with both hands and started to devour it with relish – or with extra mayo and ketchup, at any rate.
‘And then he mentioned Fidel to me,’ she went on, swallowing. ‘He said all the women at work use him, and they’ve had “amazing results”.’
‘Charlotte didn’t,’ I said, remembering how comfortable my ex-housemate had been in her own skin, how casually she’d suggested ordering a pizza or a curry, because that was what you did when you were hungry. How ashamed I’d felt when she walked in on me eating Pringles out of the tin, as if she’d caught me having a wank or something. ‘She just got on with it. Ate what she wanted, and looked fabulous. Like you.’
Felicity put her half-eaten burger down, sucked a bit more of her milkshake and ate a pickle fry.
‘You know what?’ she said. ‘I’m no feminist. I wax my minge and everything. But I’ve always said there’s no fucking way I’m buying into body fascism, and starving myself to be a shape that’s not the way I naturally am.’
‘But why would you, anyway?’ I asked. ‘You’re stunning. You’re totally knock-out gorgeous just the way you are. No wonder Renzo fancied you.’
She took another bite of her burger, and I picked up one of the bits of mine and finished it.
‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘I mean, I don’t want to sound vain or anything, but I know I scrub up okay. And when Pru and I go out, neither of us cares that she’s a size eight and I’m a size fourteen – it’s just how we are. But dating Renzo changed that. I felt like I was heading somewhere I didn’t want to be. He made me feel differently about myself.’
‘If that was because of me, I’m genuinely sorry,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t know. I thought he hated me, even though I’m – I was – still in love with him.’
‘I could feel it creeping up on me,’ she said thoughtfully, almost as if I wasn’t there at all. ‘It was horrible. Sending my weight every day to Fidel, and feeling as if he was judging me. Well, of course he fucking was, that’s what I was paying him to do. But suddenly I wasn’t feeling okay about myself any more. I was feeling downright shitty. And it wasn’t Fidel making me feel that way. It was Renzo. So, even if he wasn’t still hung up on you, he’d have had to go. No man is worth that. If things don’t work out with your musician fellow, who I have to say is extremely tasty, you’re welcome to Renzo. Assuming you still want him.’
I sipped my Diet Coke. I’ve wanted him for months! Of course I still do! I do, right?
‘You’re each other’s type,’ Felicity carried on calmly. ‘Or at least, you’ve got what each other wants. You’re arm candy, Tans. I know there’s so much more to you, but if you want a bloke like him – not him, necessarily, there are loads of them out there – basically all you have to do is be there. I mean, come on.’
Feeling pathetically needy, I asked, ‘What do you mean?’
‘Tansy! For God’s sake. Have you looked in a mirror lately? You’re tall. You’re blonde. You’re slim as fuck. You’ve got blue eyes and perfect skin and legs up to here and you do it all without even trying. You’ve got the currency, honey. You can use it to get Renzo. Or a Renzo.’
I looked down at my burger, and suddenly it went all blurry. Two massive tears splashed down onto it, soaking into the glossy surface of the bun.
‘What? What did I say?’
‘I do try,’ I said, looking up at her and mopping my eyes on a wad of paper napkins. ‘Seriously. I get on the scales every fucking day, and every day, no matter what it says, I feel rubbish. If I’ve gained a pound, I panic about getting fat. If I lose a pound, I panic that I’m getting obsessive about restricting again, like I did when I was at school. I’m kind of okay now. I guess I’ve got used to it so it’s just background noise. But it’s there in my head, all the time. How many calories I’m eating – whether it’s Pringles or sliced fucking cucumber, I count them just the same – how many inches around my waist measures, how my bones feel. It’s bloody knackering. And I look at someone like you and I feel so jealous that you don’t have to care and think about it all the time. I lie awake at night, worrying about my body. It’s stupid, but I do. Some people worry about Brexit, or the war in Syria, or climate change or whatever. Big things that are actually important. I worry about whether the woman at the till in Sainsbury’s judged me because I bought a packet of biscuits.’
Felicity had listened intently to my whole speech – or rant, more like – while she finished her lunch. When I stopped talking, she wiped her lips and put her knife and fork carefully together on her plate, although she hadn’t used them.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I had no idea. I should have guessed – I was at boarding school, after all. Half the girls practically did GCSEs in how to have an eating disorder. I don’t know why I never thought that you were struggling.’
‘I guess I hide it well.’ I shrugged. ‘I’ve had lots of practice. And anyway, like I said, it’s not nearly so bad now.’
&
nbsp; ‘Still, though. That’s not cool, Tansy.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘It’s not cool at all. And it’s time I did something about it.’
We paid the bill – actually, I did, although Felicity tried to insist that she should – and we walked together back to the office, not hurrying and not talking, just elbow to elbow, companionably silent, thinking our own thoughts.
Twenty-Four
The next week, I took Monday and Tuesday off work. I had two job interviews, which I didn’t want Barri to get even a hint of; my financial situation was still so delicate that being pushed out of Luxeforless before I could jump in somewhere new would have been a disaster. And Barri, I knew, would have no qualms about sacking me if he got so much as a hint of disloyalty.
When I was leaving the house on Monday morning, dressed for the first of my interviews in my one and only suit, my hair in what I hoped was a professional-looking up-do, I almost literally bumped into Josh. Just as I was raising my hand to open the front door, I heard a key in the lock and stepped back, narrowly avoiding being smacked in the face by two inches of solid hardwood.
What was it about him, I thought, that he couldn’t go from place to place like a normal person, but had to crash about everywhere? Underneath my grumpiness, though, was a pang of sadness – almost a sense of loss. A feeling that all those things about Josh I’d got used to, come to know and like, I somehow had no business liking any more. He wasn’t wearing his shorts and trainers, to my surprise, but was in jeans and a checked shirt. His hair was sticking out at odd angles and he looked knackered, like he’d been up all night.
We stood facing each other in the doorway for a second, then I said, ‘Sorry,’ and stepped back into the hallway.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, and we edged past each other, leaving as much space as possible between us. There was none of the easy friendship that had begun to develop between us; none of the mild flirtation there’d been in the lead-up to our night together that had been so blissful and had ended so horribly. There was only awkwardness and coldness, and it made the distance between me and him feel much, much greater than the width of our narrow hallway.
It's Not You It's Him: An absolutely hilarious and feel-good romantic comedy Page 26
