Page 51 of The Moon Also Rises
I give up. To say any more would be to say too much. It doesn’t matter anyway. I have the rest of the day free to finally do that spreadsheet I’ve been promising myself I’d make for months, no, wait, for years. I’ll do what other people have done and I’ll break down the total amount into smaller chunks and when I’ve paid one of them off I’ll colour in a square on a grid. I’ll use different colours so it all looks like a rainbow, very on-brand for me. When I’ve paid off a quarter of the debt, I’ll celebrate with my favourite take-away and a mini bottle of champagne for one. When I’ve paid off half of it, it will be dinner out with one of my friends. And when I’m three-quarters of the way down, I’ll go shopping and treat myself to that Mulberry man bag I’ve been eyeing up for the last few months. Of course, it will be dreadfully out of fashion by then, but that may mean it’s discounted. And when I’ve paid off all my debt…
I stop the daydreaming then because it’s gone from aspirational musing to outlandish fantasising. There is no way I’ll ever be debt free. There’s just too much. I don’t earn enough. I will never earn enough or work long enough to pay it off.
“Jake?” Jenna says and I can tell from her tone it’s not the first time she’s said my name.
“Sorry, just driving,” I say, even though I’ve not rolled more than fifty metres in the last ten minutes.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, of course.” I happen to think I sound very convincing, but apparently Jenna does not.
“Did something happen with you and Rami?” Jenna asks.
“No, what… why would you think that?”
“You said he’s not with you right now. And you sound kind of… distracted.”
“Jesus, nothing happened,” I say, and I don’t know how my fingertips land on my lips but they spend far too long there tracing where Rami’s mouth left all sorts of tingly feelings last night. “He just spends Sundays with his family up in Birmingham so he caught the train there early this morning.”
How refreshing it feels to say a whole sentence that doesn’t contain a lie. Of course, the context of me explaining it as if he’s my boyfriendisa big fat lie.
“That’s so sweet,” Jenna says. “I can tell I’m going to like him a lot.”
She probably would love him. What a shame they’ll never meet.
“You need to make sure he’s going to be there that weekend we come and stay,” Jenna continues.
“Oh, shit,” I say, and I realise what this means. She expects him to be there and to meet them, as my boyfriend. I quickly focus to cover up my curse at this realisation. “You know, I actually think he may be away for a work thing…”
“Are you serious? I would change the dates but I can’t. It’s the only weekend Marty can get off work for a good month or so.”
“I’ll have to check with him,” I mumble now feeling all kinds of bad for all kinds of reasons.
“If he can change it tell him we’ll be forever grateful and Marty will make his favourite meal for him and… actually, what is his favourite food?”
I freeze with a grimace on my face. Thank goodness this isn’t a video call. I think back to what he ordered at our meal out the other week. A salad. That won’t do. “I think he mostly likes whatever his mum cooks. Persian and Lebanese food.”
It’s an easy answer albeit possibly a tellingly vague response, but it does the trick.
“Ha, even Marty can’t compete with a mother’s home-cooked food.”
“Indeed. Listen, I’ve got to go. Coming off the M25 shortly and I need to concentrate and all that jazz.”
“Okay, Jakey. I’ll give you a call in a few days, okay?”
“Sounds good. Big hugs to Marty O’Martin.”
I hear Jenna call out this message to Marty and in the background, I hear his muffled reply.
“He says ‘Love you, Sweet Cheeks.’” Jenna’s smile is audible.
“Goodbye, you insufferable pair,” I say, performing my role as the bitter third wheel far too well, as I have been pretty much since they got together.
After ending the call, I very briefly swipe around to see if I have any messages, any notifications, anything from Rami.
I don’t. Nothing.
I sigh and focus my attention on the road ahead. I turn the radio volume back up but a second later when the song playing starts to hurt my ears, I begrudgingly switch it to Radio 2. Donna Summer is playing and I know every single word. I should be singing along. I should be smiling about how yesterday couldn’t have gone better. The air was cleared with Lionel. Rami went above and beyond to convince everybody that he is mad about me. And we shared one of the sweetest, longest and weirdly most preciously innocent kisses of my life.
