Page 48 of Close to You
‘Good luck.’
Since we’ve been living together I’ve realised David can’t close a door quietly. It’s never simply clicked into place, it’s always banged shut, as if he’s an airport worker hurling suitcases marked ‘fragile’ onto a conveyor belt.
David has a meeting with someone in Newcastle that could mean ‘big money’. That’s more or less all I know, because he said he doesn’t want to jinx the deal by talking about it. I hear his car start and then he’s off and away into the November darkness.
Despite the hour, there seems little point in trying to go back to sleep. It’s like a day trip to Bolton. No one wants to end up in that situation, but, once there, a person might as well make the best of it.
I get up and make coffee, then potter around the flat, waiting for the sun to come up. It’s barely an hour until I’m bored out of my mind. Morning television ‘personalities’ have similar appeal and charisma as an aggressive STI and there’s only so long I can spend looking through other people’s Facebook updates until it dawns that nobody I know ever seems to do anything worthwhile. That includes myself.
I have no classes this morning, so spend a bit of time organising my receipts. It is, perhaps, the most boring thing I have to do. The most boring thinganyonehas to do. Shows likeDragon’s Denalways promote entrepreneurial skills and ideas. That’s all well and good, but what theydon’tshow is a self-employed person hunched over a desk, trying to hunt down the scrap of paper related to a sports bra that was bought on sale six months previously.
It takes a text message from David to make me realise that it’s already past midday.
Just got in. Roads not too bad. Fingers crossed. X
He has attached a photo of what I assume is the Tyne Bridge. There is a curved semicircle of metal, like an upside-down school protractor.
I send him a quick message back to say good luck and then remember I’m supposed to be meeting Jane.
Time travel exists – it involves a load of a receipts and a spreadsheet to make six hours pass in a click of the fingers.
It’s a rush to get out the door and into the centre of Gradingham and I’m only five minutes’ late by the time I arrive at the new juice bar. Jane has commandeered a pair of stools near the counter and is scrolling away on her phone. Aside from the two of us and the man behind the counter, the place is empty. The walls and floor are bright white and the menu is on the wall behind the counter, written in neat, minimalist black type, as if Apple have launched iJuice.
The man serving is wearing an outfit that’s half national service, half trying to seem young enough to get into an indie club. It suits him, though, and he smiles somewhat sheepishly at me as I stop at Jane’s table.
‘Have you ordered?’ I ask.
‘I was waiting for you,’ she replies.
‘Do you know what you want?’
She scans the menu briefly and then shrugs, before calling across ‘What’s good?’ to the man behind the counter.
‘Everything’s good!’
‘That’s not helpful,’ I reply with a smile.
‘I like the acai bowl,’ he offers.
‘I have no idea what that is.’
‘Kind of like a yoghurt trifle.’
I turn to Jane, who raises an eyebrow.
‘You had me at the word “trifle”,’ I say. ‘We’ll have two.’
As he gets on with making our ‘yoghurt trifles’, I perch myself on the stool next to Jane. ‘How’s Ben?’ I ask. Jane and I haven’t been seeing each other anywhere near as often since David moved in with me.
‘I think he’s getting promoted at the bank. He had a second interview yesterday and his manager said it’s all but his. We’re waiting for confirmation.’
‘That’s great!’
‘It means I’ll be able to take the career gap I’ve been thinking about.’
‘Is Ben on board with that?’
‘He will be.’
