Page 35 of So Thrilled For You

‘It’s a Tuesday.’

‘We’ve already established that too.’ She clinked her shot glasses and threw the aniseed liquid down her delicate throat. The muscle memory of peer pressure kicked in and I found myself copying and wincing. I coughed as she laughed and offered me a sip of her water.

‘Where did everyone go?’ I asked, wiping my mouth.

‘Home. Losers. Not us. Come on. Down the hatch.’

‘Phoebe, I can’t.’

Yet down the hatch it went. And there was laughter, and more gossip, and telling Matt,sorry I’m leaving now, and then,whoops,how is it half midnight already, shit I’ve missed the last tube. Then there wasoh wells, we may as well go dancing.Phoebe was, of course, one of those peoplewhoknew a great place, not very far away, which had great music and friendly people and killer cocktails, not that I couldtaste anything by that point anyway. We danced, the music thudding through my white work plimsols, paired with a midi skirt and pressed white silk blouse. Compared to what everyone else was wearing in that club, I may’ve well been wearing a toe-length petticoat and a fucking . . . ruff. I wondered if we’d bump into Steffi. This was her sort of place, her sort of life. I’d always thought it was mildly pathetic but it was undeniably enjoyable. My face hurt from laughing. My body ached from dancing. Matt’s message on my phone, saying he was going to sleep now, have a good night, are you sure you’re OK to stay at this Phoebe’s house?Yes, yes, sorry for keeping you up.

I’d only known Phoebe for a month. I was marketing manager for this ethical gemstones company and she’d joined as ‘young blood’ to help get our brand to appeal to GenerationWhateverTheHellTheyAre. The ones on TikTok who only eat viral salads while diagnosing themselves with ADHD. I’d initially been intimidated by her, as you only can be when you used to be the young cool one in the office, but now, somehow, you look at the generation below with judgemental bafflement and panic your career’s over. Phoebe and I were paired to ‘learn from each other’, and, despite my fear she’d make me feel ancient, we’d really clicked. I was amazed to learn she was 29, not 24. ‘I have three younger sisters from when my dad remarried,’ she confided in me when I marvelled at her ability to understand Gen Z. ‘Once they grow up, my career is ruined. But I’m happy to milk them until then.’

‘Do they want to post an Instagram of themselves wearing our new Rose Quartz charm bracelet on their grid?’

She laughed so hard her freckles scrunched together to form one giant freckle. ‘They’re not even on there, Nicki. Oh bless you.’

I’d taken her out to lunch on the first day, to show her the nearby street food market and explain which stalls were the best. We’d sat with salads perched on our laps, cross-legged on a tiny stretch of grass, knees scrunched up to make room for the other London office workers. She apparently had no first-day nerves, or first-day levels of appropriateness. By the end of lunch, she’d already mentioned taking weed gummies, how much money she had currently in her bank account (‘less than two hundred pounds and you guys are paying me in arrears, fuck’) and given me entry-level information on the sexual politics involved in being a femme lesbian . . . a term I’d had to google afterwards. By the end of her first week, we’d had lunch every day and our company had launched its own TikTok channel. A month later, I was staggering from the night bus back into her house share in Dalston, my white trainers now grey, laughing as she shhed me in case I woke her housemates.

‘Be quiet. I don’t want to piss them off, it’s a Tuesday.’

‘OH, ONLY NOW YOU ADMIT GOING OUT ON TUESDAY IS FAR FROM THE NORM.’

‘Shh! Nicki! Hey. You don’t need to drink direct from the tap like that. I’ll get you a glass. Hang on.’

It was like walking through a portal to my youth, wandering around her house, borrowing her pyjamas, brushing my teeth with my finger in her filthy shared bathroom. I ached with nostalgia for how much this house, this night, reminded me of my Little Women days at university. The four toothbrushes in a cup on the side of the basin, the novelty posters lining thestaircase, an assigned shelf in the fridge and freezer, and a pot on the kitchen counter for milk and loo roll money. Phoebe and I passed out, head to toe, on a rickety rental bed, on a Tuesday night, with not a care for what that meant for the reality of Wednesday morning.

‘I’m not like this,’ I told Phoebe as we tried to get some sleep in the rising dawn. My life felt very far away down this portal. My husband, my sensible two-bed flat in a sensibly priced area of the city, the pitch I had to deliver at work in seven hours’ time, the practicalities of what the hell I was going to wear tomorrow. Instead, I just had aching feet from dancing, aching face from laughing, aching heart from how much life I might’ve been missing out on.

‘Not like what?’ Phoebe’s voice was heavy with almost-sleep.

‘A clubbing-on-Tuesday person.’

‘You talk like you’re so old,’ she said. I could feel her smile, even though her head was by my feet. ‘But you’re not. It’s funny.’

‘I am old.’

‘You’re only two years older than me.’

‘Yeah but you’re youthful. I’m . . . I’ve only ever seen two penises in my whole life. Two.’

She giggled and my toes shook on her pillow. ‘That’s two more than me.’

‘So you never?’

‘I always knew I was gay,’ she replied. ‘Didn’t see the point of experimenting with something as aesthetically displeasing as a cock, just to check.’

‘They are very strange, aren’t they? Like little cartoon characters.’

‘I’ll have to take your word for it.’

‘Still though. You must’ve slept with more than two people.’

‘This month? Yeah. But that doesn’t make me young. Youthfulness is a feeling. A lightness. An openness. An optimism.’

Was I not those things?I asked myself, as heavy weights tugged my eyelids shut. I had every reason to be grateful, to beoptimistic. I knew that. I’d sat there smugly coupled up with Matt throughout my twenties as the Little Women had cried on my sofa about their dating woes, the stakes getting higher as the years passed.Why won’t he call me his girlfriend? Why won’t he say I love you? Why has he decided to go travelling? Why won’t he move in with me? Why won’t he marry me? Why won’t he have children with me?The hunt, and the chase, and the insecurities, and theis this ever going to happen, andwhat’s wrong with me, oris itwhat’s wrong with men, andam I going to die alone. . . and there I have sat, passing tissues to Lauren and saying ‘you don’t deserve this’,going to see a psychic with Charlotte, taking hot photos of Steffi for her dating profiles . . . smugly, smugly with lovely Matt. Matt who has loved me, unwaveringly, since he was 20 years old. I’ve never been dumped. I’ve never been ghosted. Never had to deal with commitment-phobia or covert narcissism or feminist fuck bois. I should feel light, and open, and youthful. And yet, as my eyes fluttered shut on an unfamiliar pillow, with an unfamiliar body in bed with me, even if it was just a colleague who’d let me crash . . . I felt stale, closed, cynical.

Old.

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