Page 7 of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
Tristan had been everyone’s friend. At school he’d fallen into the role of peacemaker; there were some big characters in the group and some even bigger egos, but Tristan had a way of calming down heated situations. It was no surprise to anyone that he aspired to be a doctor; his mum was a surgeon, and his dad was a fertility specialist, so it was in his DNA.
He had his ups and downs, but that just seemed to be the way he ticked; he’d have months of being okay and then the cloud would fall, and it would take a while for him to come back out from underneath it. None of them had ever expected that one day he wouldn’t be able to.
Tristan used to say he was his therapist’s favorite client because he was a guaranteed repeat customer. He’d not long come back from a stint working in a hospital in Nairobi when Nory had last seen him. They’d bumped into each other quite by chance in Soho when they’d both wandered into a vinyl record shop. They went for coffee, which became lunch, which ended with both canceling their evening plans and going to dinner together near Leicester Square. Tristan seemed okay—better than okay; he’d said the therapy was really helping.
In fact, he’d been more worried abouther. She’d been struggling since moving to London. School and university had felt like a safety net; in those places, she’d always been surrounded by people. Now her friends had scattered, busy building their careers, and the big wide world was lonelier than she’d expected. She felt like she was failing at adulthood while, through the lens of social media, her old friends were adulting like bosses.
Nory had landed a good job with an advertising company,and she was constantly out of her depth. There was a lot of schmoozing involved, a lot of afternoon and evening drinking with clients, and Nory found it easier to be the person she was expected to be after a couple of drinks. It gave her the confidence she needed to close the deals; it took the edge off. Shy, nervous, sober Nory was less efficient than Nory after three glasses of wine. But this only conspired to make her feel even more of a fraud: If she was only good at her job after a dose of Pinot Grigio, did it even count?
“What’s going on with you? Where’s the old Nory?” Tristan had asked, after she’d necked another shot. “This isn’t you.”
“I’m trying to be more dynamic.”
“I liked you as you were before.”
“I just needed a change, you know? I’ve always been so small-town country bumpkin compared to the rest of you.”
“Why are you comparing yourself to anybody else? It was never a competition.”
“Not to you lot, no, but you didn’t have anything to compete with, you already had it all!”
“There were plenty of things that you had that we didn’t.”
“Are you giving me the ‘more to life than money’ speech?”
Tristan had laughed. “I think I am, yes.”
“Okay, that’s fair. But it isn’t a money thing. Which is just as well, as I still don’t have any. You’ve all got your shit together and I’m still doing the doggy paddle.”
Tristan laughed again. “Is that what it looks like to you? I’ll let you into a secret: We’re all just making it up as we go along. We’re just better at faking it.”
“But you were born to it.”
“What?”
“Success!” said Nory. “It’s in your genes. You’re all childrenof super-high achievers, trained from birth to one day yourselves become high achievers. I’m just not up to it.”
She downed another shot.
“We just had a head start, that’s all. Nory, are you happy?” He was looking at her in that earnest way he had, which instantly dissolved all bullshit. Tristan had these big brown eyes that saw everything, even the stuff you didn’t want him to, and a smile so reassuring you would trust him with your life. That probably made him a good doctor. He had thick brown hair that looked as though it had been cut with a knife and fork, and a frame so long and gangly he rarely found shirtsleeves that reached his wrists. But somehow these things added to his easy charm.
“I hate my job, and my job hates me,” Nory said, and laughed mirthlessly. “It takes a lot of Dutch courage for me to be the person they think they hired.”
“Are you drinking on the job?”
“Not in the office.”
“If you need to be hammered to make a sale, you’re in the wrong career.”
“Tell me about it! So, what about you, what’s next?”
“I’ve got a job at St. Thomas’s. I’ll spend a couple of years getting more experience, save some money, and then I’ll head back out to Africa. I feel like I’m really needed there.”
Nory smiled. “You always were the best of us,” she said, meaning it.
“You need to give yourself a break,” said Tristan. “Seriously. You’re better than you know.”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about me. I am on a voyage of self-discovery!” She laughed.
