At First Sight
Page 32
I looked down at the barista’s name tag; it read Bernard.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Bernard was his actual name or if, like Catholics, you got a new name when confirmed into the fold of Hipster.
‘Which of our coffees would you like today?’ Bernard asked.
I looked up confused.
He took this as an invitation to elaborate. ‘You could have our house coffee, which is a dark roasted bean with a bitter finish and hints of raspberry and chocolate or our guest coffee, which is a medium roast with a velvet finish and caramel undertones.’
I looked at him with confusion, wondering when ordering a coffee became like the general knowledge round of Mastermind.
‘Which would you recommend?’ I asked, trying to hide that I was out of my depth.
‘It depends entirely on your palate, madam,’ he replied, unhelpfully.
I flinched at his use of the word madam. It made me feel like an old biddy or the proprietor of a whorehouse.
‘Erm, the cheapest one.’ The rising intonation at the end of my sentence made me sound like I was asking a question.
He gave me a pitiful smile, as if he thought me a complete philistine, and took my money.
When I returned, Kate had a smile plastered over her sickeningly made-up face. I found it difficult to do the most basic of tasks, like draw matching eyeliner flicks for both eyes without making my entire face look lopsided, but somehow Kate had managed to become the Rembrandt of cosmetics.
‘So.’ Kate grinned and splayed her manicured hands out on the table. ‘I have massive news.’
‘Really? Do tell,’ I replied, as eager to hear her news as I was to have an unnecessary root canal.
‘I’ve been asked to go to Toronto for three months and broker a deal between my company and some fancy Canadian firm. If they approve the deal, then I can pretty much retire at thirty.’
‘Wow,’ I said, jealousy building inside me like Vesuvius, ‘are you taking it?’
‘Am I taking it?’ she scoffed. ‘What kind of question is that? They’re practically begging me to go. I mean, the flight, the hotel and every ounce of food and wine will be paid for. It’s basically a free holiday with a tiny bit of work thrown in.’
The green monster inside my brain began to scream and tie a noose for itself.
‘There’s just a lot to think about isn’t there?’ I tried in vain to talk her out of it, just so I could cease to be friends with someone so perfect and accomplished. ‘What about Callum and your parents?’
Kate scoffed. ‘My parents? Honey, I’m late twenties.’ I felt the blow of Kate’s words hit me directly in the gut. She may well have escaped the purgatory of living in the family home, but I was very much still there. ‘And as for Callum …’ Kate paused and I instantly knew what was coming. If the intonation of her voice hadn’t given it away, then the sickeningly self-gratified grin had.
I knew what she wanted me to do, but I refused to do it. I would not look at her hand.
It was my one small act of defiance.
When I didn’t look down, Kate brought her left hand up into the air and that’s when I saw it, the oval-cut diamond that sat on her perfectly polished ring finger. ‘… he proposed.’ The diamond reflected the neon green light of the exit sign behind me and all I wanted to do was turn around and use it.
‘I’m so happy for you,’ I lied. What else could I have said?
‘I knew you would be. Of course, you will have to be part of the day,’ Kate cooed. The idea of being stuffed into a powder blue bridesmaid’s dress and forced to pretend to be happy for an entire day made my toes curl. And if spending an entire day with Kate wasn’t bad enough, I knew that Eloise ‘Fucking’ Kempshore would be there too. ‘Eloise has already agreed to be my maid of honour—’ boom, there it is ‘—and I already have eight bridesmaids, but we’ll find a place for you somewhere.’
A place for me somewhere.
I replayed the words in my head. If that sentence didn’t sum me up completely, then no sentence ever would. She would shoehorn me into her special day like that time I tried on a pair of size eight jeans and had to ask the attendant to hold the ankles while I lay on the floor and tried to wriggle free of them.
How stupid I’d been to think that I even warranted the nightmare task of being one of Kate’s bridesmaids, when there were already so many volunteers.
‘That would be amazing, thank you.’ The words fell from my mouth like dry turds during a bout of constipation.
‘Enough about me,’ Kate said, picking up her phone and staring back down at the screen. ‘What’s new with you?’
‘New with me?’ I repeated as I tried desperately to think of something that had happened in the two months since our last unbearable coffee date. Kate’s French-tipped nails click-clacked across the screen furiously as she typed out a text and frowned with concentration. I tried desperately to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. Kate wasn’t listening anyway so, in the end, I just said, ‘Mum got a new kettle last week.’ That wasn’t even true.
Kate didn’t reply, react or even listen as she continued to tap away at the screen, her nails sounding like tiny hooves as my words hit her solitary bubble and bounced away into the atmosphere.
I felt my nostrils flare as I took a sip of my latte. I guessed that the barista had given me the bitter option because it tasted like battery acid.
I had planned on telling Kate that I had a date tonight with some guy I’d met on Tinder; but Kate wasn’t listening.
Kate never listened.
Almost two full minutes of silence passed as I continued to force down the coffee I’d wasted four quid on and Kate giggled at a group chat message that I wasn’t allowed to join in with.
The argument was brewing inside my mind. It had marinated itself in years of bitterness and subtle betrayals and by the end of those two minutes my words were fully oiled and ready to hit the scalding frying pan. I waited for myself to do it, to slam my mug down hard on the lid of the ‘table’ and say everything I’d always wanted to tell her, but the truth was that I would never say the words that filled my mouth like bile. I’d never been able to do it before, what made me think I could do it now?
I looked down at the illuminated phone in Kate’s hand and noted the time. We’d spent the grand total of twenty-seven minutes ‘catching up’ – that was record time, even for us.
‘It was great to see you again, Eff,’ Kate said as she pulled me into a hug that felt both unnecessary and intrusive.
Fuck, she even smelled amazing.
‘It was great to see you too,’ I lied, almost hearing the thud of more heavy, dry word turds as they hit the frosted pavement.
‘I’ll be in touch before I leave for Toronto. Love ya, bye.’ She blew a kiss over her shoulder and walked away, her ponytail swaying behind her like a silken pendulum.
I stood for a moment and watched as Kate walked away. The memory of our school prom photo leapt into my mind and brought slight warmth to my chest. Our mums had paid in advance and forced us to have it done because, just like us, they’d still refused to let our friendship die the quick death it so truly deserved. The image in my brain was of two sixteen-year-old girls, hugging each other like the years of history would prevent us from ever truly drifting apart. Of two beaming smiles that held years of secrets, shared joys and shared pains; of love.
I had loved her once, there was no denying that, but that time and that love was now nothing more than an image in my brain; a memory.
About the Author
Hannah Sunderland was born and bred in Sutton Coldfield, north of Birmingham, where she still lives with her partner, several thousand books and a Swiss cheese plant named Wallace. She has a BA Hons degree in Fine Art from the University of Derby and now runs her own business, a company that makes props for crime scene reconstruction. The writing bug set in when someone handed her a notebook and she realised that she could create a world within it. She was a debut author dur
ing the Covid-19 lockdown and during this time discovered that a writer’s life is not so different from self-isolation anyway. Her claim to fame is playing Tree #4 in her Year One school play.
You can follow @hjsunderland143 on Twitter.
Also by Hannah Sunderland:
Very Nearly Normal
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