The Way It Never Was (21 page)

CHAPTER 27 -
WHY NOT?

After an awkward half hour sitting there persevering with a sandwich bigger than his head, from behind the cake stand I spy Wayne lean over to give Claire a long kiss. This gesture surely proves that they are in the early throws of courtship – not that they are giving away much, mind, with Claire just saying he’s a ‘friend with potential’, which has to be one of the most pointless expressions ever invented. Wayne, clearly delighted that Claire is much nicer to him than she was at school is going with it. The long overdue romance is finally underway.

As I leave the cafe to have a change of scene for my lunch break, my phone vibrates with a text from Stan. ‘Good to see you the other day.
’
God I miss those days when we weren’t just ‘doing’ friendship on screen and were reliant on picking up the phone. I could see clearly how relationships worked, as in if a friend liked you, they’d hang out with you at lunch, where as if boy liked you he asked you out. Nowadays, trigger-happy communication equates to fewer characters but so much stress. The amount of times I texted Joe when I was out in Sydney, only to text again to check he got previous message, then text again with something light-hearted to try and kid myself I wasn’t bothered about not getting another text back, then text one more time a few hours later to check we were indeed still good. I’d then look like a stalker when all I really I wanted was some straightforward behaviour. See what I mean? I read into text too much. I text Stan back; ‘
U
OK
?’ to which I then get another text. ‘Am coming down later, will u be around?’

Later on that day, I’m halfway through the afternoon shift when my phone starts ringing a really annoying tune that tells me it’s my brother.

‘Dan, I can’t talk.’ I whisper into the phone, for fear of looking unprofessional.

‘Why? You having a coffee?’ comes the reply.

‘No I’m not you arse,’ I hiss, prompting a disapproving look off Paolo. ‘Remember, I work now.’

‘Only at the café, that doesn’t count. You need a two hour commute,’ says Dan and just as I’m about to bite his head off, I realise he’s winding me up. ‘Anyhow, dossing aside, need to tell you about Joe. I didn’t get to tell you at the party. Are you in later? I’ve got to come down anyway.’ I have no idea what Dan is talking about. What can be so interesting that I’ve not already uncovered?

‘It’s probably not the best night to come down,’ I say. ‘The café has started opening in the evenings and Sam has organised a cooking party which I know you will hate. And you won’t get a sofa bed until everyone has gone.’

‘A what party?’ Dan sounds bemused.

‘An Inspired Cook party! You know, when someone tries to sell you cookery equipment while cooking up a feast,’ I say crouching down onto the floor to hide from PJ who insists on playing Peek-a-boo while I’m on the phone.

Dan laughs. ‘You’re right. Sounds hideous. God, is this how you spend your days?’ I then look up and there’s a customer with a bemused expression looking over the counter at me.

I may be imagining it, but Dan has never been bothered about making spontaneous visits before now, unless it’s a special occasion. He’s always made a point of saying how he hates coming down here now as all his friends have moved away. Call me intuitive, but I’m clearly not the main reason for the change in attitude. It’s the little things that are starting to give it away – the drunken babblings at the work party, arriving five hours later than he said because he had ‘dropped in on a friend’, the daily phone calls to me for no apparent reason, the spa break, oh and the rather big matter of putting his flat up for sale as he ‘wants to figure out’ his next move. Dan fancies the pants off Liv, plain and simple.

I give the customer a ‘one second’ gesture and stand up. ‘Listen, I have to go,’ I say to my brother and hang up. ‘Grande, Iced, Sugar-Free, Vanilla Latte With Soy Milk coming right up,’ I quip to the customer who’s just asked for a white instant coffee.

Paolo, with his new and improved attitude, has agreed to open up the café in the evening on the sole provision that he doesn’t have to stay and work. Being the fool I am, I’ve agreed to increase my hours, partly because I have little else going on my life right now, but mainly because on seeing the amount of evening bookings we are getting for the space, this might be the answer to all their problems. Not only is the extra money coming in now taking the pressure off the daytime takings, word is getting round. The Globe is becoming quite the destination. I’m no longer polishing the glassware trying to look busy, I’m generally swamped most days and can’t remember when I last found time to go to the loo.

What I hadn’t factored into my commitment to the Globe is that being nice to people all day is actually harder than it looks. By the time the evening shift starts, such is the shortness of my fuse, I get these overwhelming urges to pour drinks over people’s heads or shove cakes into their faces. Then somehow, I talk myself down and the rest of the evening goes by uneventfully.

Later on that evening, the café is positively buzzing with eager women who want to drink prosecco while buying kitchen equipment they will never use. There are so many people in here that condensation has formed at the window and it’s all a bit of a squash and a squeeze. Claire has gone out of her way to promote the event for us, taking full advantage of her regular salon customers who were hardly going to say no to her invitation mid Brazilian wax.

Taking centre stage for a change is Hilarious Sam, who as it turns out is an Inspired Cook representative on the sly. Tonight, she is having a few microphone issues but nothing that can’t be distracted by that eternal smile of hers. What she lacks in technology, she makes up for in enthusiasm, although putting an upside bowl full of mixture over her head to demonstrate her point wasn’t the best idea – not when the whites hadn’t been whipped enough into soft peaks. The fruits of Sam’s labour have now been dished out into bowls no bigger than ramekins. That is fine by me as it’s a wet dessert and as I’ve said before, anything more than two mouthfuls is a trifle too much in my book.

‘I’m dieting,’ confesses Scary Linda who is clearly perplexed that these two measly mouthfuls of pudding might send her over the edge. ‘Can’t be complacent now I’ve got Dave.’ I look at her thinking she has more pressing matters such as learning to apply lipstick that makes the cupids bow but no, she’s back down that tired old ‘I want a gap between my legs’ route. No doubt, I’m going to see her jogging around town again with a tyre in tow.

‘If I put a pound on for every time you bang on about Dave, I would be the size of a house,’ reflects Claire mid-mouthful. ‘Luckily, I don’t. And that’s why I’m still thin.’ Claire then resumes what she was talking about before as though she never said it, remarking to Sam how tasty the food is, but could she just stick her spoon in the mixing bowl before it gets washed up. A few minutes later and everyone else is following suit and greedily licking the preparation bowls. ‘Talking of parties, you all geared up for Wayne’s?’ Claire asks me, sucking her spoon.

‘What party?’ I look puzzled, forcing myself to swallow the final mouthful without gagging.

‘You know! Wayne’s having a house party as his parents are away,’ she says as though Wayne was still fifteen years old and not in his late twenties. ‘We’re obviously inviting you.’ So she’s using the royal ‘we’ now is she?

‘So, things are going well hey? I saw you snogging his face off earlier,’ I say, to which she grins.

‘I don’t know what happened exactly. That night at the hospital, we sat there in that really crowded waiting room and just talked about everything. It was quite romantic actually – well as much as it can be in a hospital with loads of women all huffing and puffing around you.’

As order forms and kitchen implements go back and forth, dieting Linda with barely any food in her belly is officially very drunk. In her inebriated state, she tries to order absolutely everything off the menu, forcing me to intercept her form and cancel half of the items.
She’ll
thank
me
in
the
long
run
.

What with Claire’s general demeanour and Scary Linda tasking me with planning a surprise party for Dave at the Globe, I’m now feeling positively one of the gang. Such is the conviviality, for the first time since room seven days, I feel like I belong in a sisterhood, albeit not of my choosing. I think all these TV shows don’t do us all these favours do they? They make us all think we all have to fit a certain mould, or stick with just a few people through thick and then, or that we must possess a certain quality lacking in the rest of the group. In reality, life isn’t like that and we’re all just thrown together at random. You wind up hanging out with people you sort of reject on principle thinking you can do better, but then they start becoming the fabric of your social life. Worse still, you find yourself becoming rather fond of them.

Examining a ceramic baking tray as though it were a museum relic, Claire then voices what we’re all thinking.

‘Linda, who is texting you every minute - the beeps are doing my bloody head in!’

Linda looks up. ‘It’s Dave. I’ve just heard he’s got a new job. As a property evaluation consultant!’ Triumphantly, she then shoves her phone in our face, showing us a picture of Dave doing a thumbs-up gesture sitting on a long reception desk, with fridges of sparkling mineral water in the background, and a big plasma screen on the wall showing Sky News. He’s actually smiling – a sight almost as rare as a spotting a snow leopard in the wild.

‘An estate agent you mean?’ interrupts Claire.

‘Not an estate agent, no! A
property
evaluation
consultant,’ corrects Linda. ‘That’s his office would you believe!’

As the evening winds down and the guests start to disperse, Sam gets on with packing the equipment away, while I start sweeping the floor, inwardly berating myself for some impulsive cookware purchases. At the far end of the café, Claire and Linda have settled in for the night, on what must be their third bottle of booze. As I clear up around them, I find myself telling them about my disastrous afternoon at the Globe, which not only involved spilling that complicated coffee order over two customers but feeding the juicer a metal teaspoon by mistake. I’m not sure why I’m saying all this to them as I’m risking the usual ridicule.

‘Don’t worry,’ slurs Claire looking at me hazily through her glass. ‘Yesterday, I dyed my regular’s facial moustache brown by mistake. She wasn’t at all happy.’

Scary Linda nods in agreement. ‘Well, today I dealt with a customer that was so rude to me that afterwards I went into her flight details and booked her a low sodium meal. Eleven hours of bland food, that’ll teach her.’ They are already making me feel better.

With the café now immaculate and Sam having gone home with a massive smile on her face due to making a shed load of extra money, I’m now in the process of trying to usher the girls out.

‘We’re going for a drink to Hipsters if you fancy it? Wayne’s meeting us there,’ says Claire.

‘Give me five,’ I find myself saying and head to the loo to trowel on a little make up and shove some toothpaste in my mouth.

‘I’ll come too – need to tart myself up a bit,’ says Scary Linda, joining me in the bathroom and doing her own version of beautifying, which as far as I can see seems to just involve squeezing that yellow spot that has been talking at me all evening.

Slowly walking down the street towards the pub with a tottering Claire and stomping Linda, I stifle a yawn. In stark contrast to my time in London where every night was a potential wine night, café work has me teetotal most nights. Come evening, I’m drained from activity, conversation, Paolo and his family, Sam’s smile – all of it. While the last thing I feel like doing is having a drink, the prospect of trying to unwind in front of the telly is not that appealing either. No, it’ll do me some good to go out tonight, to let off some steam. The yawn doesn’t go unnoticed by Claire.

‘Are you sure you want to go?’ she asks me. ‘You don’t have to. I can do a load of beauty treatments tomorrow to perk myself up but I know you can’t.’

Claire’s right in that I may have done 14 hours at the Globe straight, but my need to become the ‘yes’ person once again far outweighs any fatigue I have.

‘I want to come,’ I insist. ‘I’ll perk up, promise!’

CHAPTER 28 -
THEN SOMETHING BENDS

Our progress towards the drinking establishment is painfully slow as Claire insists on stopping every five to talk. It would appear there is no bikini line or beard hair follicle she hasn’t seen in this town. Cutting through the main courtyard, we reach our old haunt – Hipsters the wine bar,
still
the coolest bar by a long shot, with its dim lighting and creaky wooden flooring and its clientele, most of whom are students and school leavers. Growing up, Hipsters played a big part in our social life. It taught me that lipstick alone didn’t make someone look eighteen (but your older sister’s ID did), that stilettos weren’t practical for standing in for hours – and that you never ever met a nice boy after four bottles of Smirnoff Ice. Looking back, I realise it was far more thrilling to try and get in to Hipsters than it was once you were in. And now we are well over the age limit and enjoy hanging out in there, the irony is that these days we are at risk of getting chucked out for being too old.

With Thursday night being band night, there’s a big queue that stretches all the way down the street towards the harbour wall. I spy Wayne waiting on the corner. Next to him stands a casually dressed Stan, whose face lights up upon seeing us. I practically whoop with joy, as the prospect of hanging out with Stan without managing Anna’s ownership restores some sense of order to my world. It simply feels right and as it should be. Sporting a faded blue t-shirt with jeans and a couple of days of facial hair growth, Stan has something of a hangdog impression about him. It overwhelms me with something I can only interpret as good, honest affection. I give him a big hug, thinking about Anna again, wondering how her two-week attempt to crack Hollywood is going. Last time I spoke to her was just before she flew out to Los Angeles and she was over the moon.

‘Major Kate, it’s so M.A.J.O.R. No word of a lie. Agent says the studio is begging me to come and audition in Hollywood for a couple of new sitcoms.’ This is coming from the same girl who told me that the reason why she would never go to America is that an average new sitcom stands a miniscule chance of being picked up. It seems that she has now had a change of heart and here she is, planning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Times are changing and how Stan is going to fit into the equation is anyone’s guess.
I’m
not
going
to
ask
.

At the sight of her new boyfriend who has been away from her for all of three hours, Claire lunges at Wayne and gives him a very wet kiss that lasts for a good minute longer than the captive audience would like. I sniff the air wondering who is wearing the cheap cologne and eavesdrop on Linda telling Stan about Dave’s new job.

‘He’s a property evaluation expert,’ she explains proudly, showing him that picture again of a smiling Dave.

‘Oh, you mean an estate agent?’ Stan says, before catching my eye. Clearly, not getting the desired response, Linda then turns her back on him and focuses her attention on Wayne. Seemingly oblivious to her employee having his ear nibbled on by Claire, she starts talking shop about the travel agency. For the outsider, it’s always weird to hear stories about other people’s office life, mundane stories that give everyone who works there such joy in the re-telling but bore the pants off the rest of us.

Finally, we find ourselves at the front of the queue and face-to-face with the six-pack of a bouncer with a definite ‘small man complex’ – and the owner of that pungent aftershave that’s as subtle as mosquito spray. Still stocky and pumped up, I immediately recognise him as the same bouncer I kissed the summer after I graduated.

‘Hello, what happened to you?’ he says, pinging his lanyard with authority. My eyes widen in shock.

‘Why didn’t you return my calls?’ he asks, and for a second I think he must be talking to someone else.

Looking around me I realise that no, he really does mean me. I can’t remember his name and on my part, I’m sure there was a good reason why we didn’t date, but I’m now obliged to come back with something –
anything
with everyone listening in.

‘Well, I err…’ I pause, desperately trying to think of an appropriate reply. ‘Look, it was years ago,’ I protest and resort to batting my eyelids.

‘I’m only kidding you! You are so gullible!’ he grins, opening the door. ‘Mind you, all your friends can come in for free but you can pay the entrance fee.’ He’s not joking either so I begrudgingly pay up, only to get inside and have Claire inform me that she too kissed him once.
Now
,
why
doesn’t
that
surprise
me
?

In all the years I’ve been coming here, what I love the most is that Hipsters hasn’t changed a bit. No matter how old I get, I am always transported back in time and it’s a good feeling. First to the bar, Wayne is chatting to someone while he gets the drinks in and I just stand there with Stan, who is not making much in the way of conversation and just keeps shifting his weight from foot-to-foot.

‘Do you remember attempting to moonwalk in this place? My feet wouldn’t budge,’ I shout to him over the din.

‘Yeah, I admit I used to watch you on the dance floor,’ Stan says, a confession that surprises me, given that every time we came here he was normally snogging some other girl. ‘Shocking dancer you were though,’ he grins and looks right into my eyes for a second longer than normal.

‘Oh,’ I say, a bit put out, as I actually thought I was pretty good – well apart from that one time my knee clicked out of its socket.

And there it is again. I’m not imagining it either. There’s this awkward silence. With this strange feeling fluttering away inside of me, my hands grow clammy and my stomach tightens into knots. Devoid of knowing what to say to Stan for fear he might see right through me, I just stand there nodding my head in time to the band that just crashed into action, waiting for Wayne to come back with drinks to quash whatever is going on between us tonight. I’m starting to panic at the situation we’re in and quietly wrack my brain as to how to go back to normal. This is not what we do! Surely, if I just revert back to my sarcastic self or talk about his girlfriend a bit then the atmosphere will change?
It
has
to
!

‘Good news about Anna,’ I say, opting to go onto tried and trusted territory, but when Stan just shrugs by way of response, I know I could be in for a long night. If only the other girls were here to chat to but Claire’s gone AWOL, no doubt spotting yet another client she’s done a back sack and crack for. Meanwhile, Scary Linda is going nuts by the stage, drowning out the lead singer with her squeals, as though we’ve got ‘One Direction’ in here. Then Stan puts his arm around me and gives me a reassuring squeeze in that matey way, and as quickly as this awkward atmosphere arrived it disappears. Things are back to normal again.
Phew
!
Clearly
,
I
must
have
been
imagining
it
all
.

As the song ends and the opening rifts of another one begins, from out of nowhere, Claire appears on stage. Amidst our gasps, she starts doing a star turn as backing singer to that really long Meatloaf song, prompting Wayne to spit out his drink in surprise – well, either that or embarrassment. I have to hand it to her; she is far better than I thought she would be. Okay, she’s still a little pitchy but such is her confidence, she’s holding a tune of sorts and seems oblivious to her front two crowns glowing neon in the light. Linda is now sulkily standing in the corner as she was screaming so much that the bouncer had to have a word. Quietly finishing the remainder of my drink, I nervously eye up a load of chocolate shots on the bar that have suddenly appeared.
Oh
dear
.

‘On me!’ Wayne hands me over one and I do a thumbs-up sign before grimacing at the taste, waiting for the inevitable curdling in the stomach.

‘You do know you’ve got lipstick all over your face,’ I say to Wayne, slamming down my shot on the bar. ‘You look like you’ve been attacked.’ He puts his hand on his cheek and then around the whole of his face, which has back-to-back kiss marks all over it.

‘I have?’ He looks over at Claire who is busy doing some obscure dance moves to the instrumental bit of the song.

‘You certainly have had a big change of heart about Claire,’ I shout over.

‘I still like her. Always have done,’ Wayne shouts back. ‘This time though, she made the first move.’

When you’ve put yourself in the firing line of humiliation like Wayne has, I don’t blame him for not going there without a carrot being dangled in front of him. If I still have vivid flashbacks of Claire, egged on by her sycophantic friends to throw his flowers in the bin, you can bet he does. No, she really wasn’t very nice to him.

‘No chocolate bars required this time hey!’ I say and he grins, toasting me by way of response.

The song shows no sign of ending and Claire is now sweating so profusely that I might have to go over with a sponge, as though she were Mr Loaf himself. Surely, she must be thinking this pop star malarkey ain’t what it’s cracked up to be if it’s going to compromise her looks?

After the band has retired for the night, a few of us are attempting to move in time to some random music on the dance floor that makes us feel positively middle-aged next to the younger regulars. Wayne and Claire are doing dirty dancing, which seems a little out of sync with the
Black
Eyed
Peas
, while Linda has propped herself up at the bar and is pecking at her phone, no doubt texting ‘poor Dave’ as he is now known. Sometimes Stan and I try to talk, but most of the time we’re just keeping a respectable distance between us – me, half expecting Anna to emerge out of the shadows and hit me with her stiletto, him, looking like he hasn’t a care in the world.

If the wine and chocolate shots haven’t gone to my head up until this point, they are starting to now. Just as a slow song starts and I’m about to wander off in search of water, Stan pulls me towards him with enough purpose that it feels anything but accidental. Looking up at him at close range, that awkwardness is back. All we need is Madonna’s ‘Crazy for You’ playing in the background and we’d be in that perfect Coke advert I remember from my childhood. Looking at each other, we sway to the music and I can’t decide if I’m smiling because I’m finding it funny, or it’s just that I’m so damn happy I don’t want the song to end.

In our teenage years, I was always told how lucky I was to have the friendship I did with Stan. As a result, my role as ‘the female friend’ is one that I took seriously. In return, I got hear the male point of view, advise him on areas of the female psyche and on occasion, be a novelty lad on a drunken night out. Adolescence finished, college days came and went and then adult life started, yet still our friendship remained intact. Every now and again though, after a few beers, he would tell me he couldn’t do without me and look at me for a fraction of a second too long and I’d start to question what had gone before. Tonight is one of those nights.

Then Claire falls off the stage during a Katy Perry number and the dance floor moment is over. Drowned out by cries for a cold compress and a lot of whining thrown in for good measure, it’s time to go home. Walking slowly out with the limping Claire, we are all in good spirits and as people do when they’ve had a few drinks and one of their party is injured but anaesthetised by booze, we attempt to keep the momentum going and head to the beach.

With my hair caked in sweat stuck to my head and lip-gloss a distant memory, I know I’m not looking my best, but compared to Claire, who is one hair extension (and ankle) down, I’m positively a bombshell tonight. What I don’t bargain on is that instead of the usual vanity mirror being whipped out in a panic, Claire is just grinning from ear to ear and laughing at every single thing that comes out of Wayne’s mouth as he gives her a piggyback. Slowly down the steps we go, onto the beach where the sand is damp from the drizzle. It is so pitch black that I’m not entirely sure if the tide is going in or out, but right now, as my feet sink blissfully into the sand I feel like I’m walking on air. With shoes in hand, I simply concentrate on placing one foot in front of the other in the squishy sand and walking at the same pace as Stan so the hand that appeared around my waist stays there.

Suddenly Linda shrieks, the screen of her mobile lighting up her delighted face. ‘Dave has asked me to marry him!’ she squeals excitedly.

As we all make the obligatory congratulatory noises to mask our bewilderment at the sudden news, Claire whispers loudly in my ear. ‘Bloody hell, not the most romantic way to do it.’ She has got a point. Whatever happened to airplanes writing messages in the sky, or getting down on bended knee in front of mountain vistas?
Texting
?

‘He’s a busy man,’ snaps Linda who has overheard the exchange, choosing to put a positive spin on it. ‘He’s trying to become part of a property empire you know.’

As we all stumble on the beach and occasionally yelp to fish out the odd sharp stone from between our toes, I turn my back to the sea.

‘I had a snog up there,’ I say loudly and clearly, gesturing wildly in the direction of the cliff. In the bid to not sound drunk, I know I’m over articulating but right now, I don’t care.