Our Stop

by Laura Jane Williams

  ‘Earth to Daniel?’ Sam said. ‘Hello?’

  Daniel turned and looked at him.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Those snacks, dude. It’s two popcorns, four pulled pork burgers and some beers.’

  ‘And something sweet too!’ added Rashida. ‘If they’ve got Revels or Buttons or something.’

  Jeremy stood up from where he’d been nestled into a spot on their picnic blanket. ‘I’ll come with you, mate. You can’t carry all that.’

  As they walked to the concession stands, Daniel threw a glance back over his shoulder. I’m sure that’s him, he thought.

  39

  Nadia

  Nadia wandered arm-in-arm with Naomi, her old colleague from a job years ago who had since left the world of STEM to become a professional Instagrammer with almost three hundred thousand followers. She was the one in the picture-perfect relationship with Callum, who was now officially her ‘Instagram Husband’, snapping her for uploads that she could command up to eight thousand pounds for. Nadia reflected on her hundred and thirty-three followers on her own account and wondered what she could charge. About thirty pence, maybe? She couldn’t be too envious, though – it was Naomi’s followers that meant she got offered free tickets to an event like tonight, something Nadia would have paid for anyway, but it was so much sweeter to be comp’d as a VIP.

  All around them, people dressed as Montagues and Capulets meandered around, the actors placed amongst them reciting lines and having rap battles and generally adding to the atmosphere. It was like an immersive theatre event, with anything able to happen next. Nadia was thrilled to be there. She’d kept a low profile since breaking up with Eddie, heading to work and going to her classes at the gym and reading a lot at home on the sofa. She wasn’t too saddened by the break-up – they’d been dating only a few weeks, after all. But it was the loneliness she was struggling with.

  Not only did she no longer have Eddie, but after seeing Gaby and Emma together Nadia had made the decision to wait it out – to wait for them to come to her with her news. Except, so far, they hadn’t. Nadia didn’t reach out to them, and save for a cursory and distant text from Emma once a week, she didn’t really hear from them. Gaby always seemed to be in a rush somewhere at work too, and that’s why Nadia had forced herself to reach out to the old work friend she hadn’t seen in a while. She figured Emma and Gaby had to hash out what was going on between them in their own time, and Nadia would just have to wait, patiently. On the sofa. At home. Alone.

  Naomi and Nadia caught up on each other’s lives as they walked: Naomi’s brand deals and business and the difficulties of working with her husband.

  ‘He drives me nuts!’ she said. ‘We’re together almost all day, every day. But then, he takes the afternoon off to go to the health club or drives down to the coast to see his brother, and I miss him horribly.’ She laughed at the predicament. ‘I don’t think it’s healthy to spend so much time together, but I’m as obsessed with him as I ever was!’

  Nadia smiled. She was envious, really, of how easily Naomi talked about her love for Callum. But also, it was more than that: there was a respect. A really deep respect for both him, and what they had.

  ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ Naomi said, following up with, ‘I know that’s the worst question in the world.’

  Nadia smiled. ‘It is, but also you’re allowed to ask. And the answer is no. I was seeing somebody, a guy – we met in a bar, when I was actually stood up by another date, woe is me.’ She rolled her eyes, pseudo-dramatically. ‘And he was so great. But …’

  ‘But not the one?’ Naomi supposed.

  ‘But not the one,’ Nadia said. She sighed. ‘Do you think I’m too picky?’

  Naomi pointed in the direction of the VIP area and distractedly said, ‘Let’s go grab a spot over there.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Nadia.

  ‘And do I think you’re too picky? Oh, I don’t know. Only you know that. I know that a lot of women – and, you know, probably a lot of men – fall in love even after they’re married. For some people there’s a lightning bolt that strikes when you meet, and for others it’s more work.’

  Nadia nodded along as they let a concierge hand them bean bags and blankets and gift bags.

  ‘I don’t think one is more right than the other,’ Naomi said. ‘It’s just what works for you.’

  They sat down and Nadia peered in the goodie bag: there was some coconut water and a handful of Lindt chocolate balls.

  ‘Could you go in for a burger?’ she asked.

  Naomi smiled. ‘I could always go in for a burger.’

  They stood and looked across to the food area, where small lines had formed in front of each stand. ‘That way, I guess,’ Nadia said. And to close off the discussion of her love life: ‘And I see what you’re saying. I guess for now I am better alone, until I’m not. Self-contained, but ready for romance whenever the opportunity presents itself. Or something.’

  ‘Or something,’ smiled Naomi.

  They meandered over to the burger stand, admiring people’s outfits along the way, and almost being pulled into a battle of words in Shakespearean English, where a group had gathered around Romeo’s mother and Juliet’s nurse. The atmosphere was electric – it was a spectacular event.

  The women joined the queue behind two dark-haired men – one in a Hawaiian print shirt and another in a black leather waistcoat with nothing underneath, and waited to order their food. Naomi clocked the men before Nadia did, using her eyebrows to make a funny face that inferred she thought they were appealing. A kind of huh-huh-huh in their direction. Nadia crinkled her face up, puzzled, and then once she understood what Naomi meant, leant forward to get a better look.

  ‘And the thing is,’ the guy in the waistcoat was saying, ‘it’s more of a comment on performative gender, I think – the way it’s girls versus boys, even. That’s so heteronormative! So the girls start preening more and the guys start peacocking more and, just to observe, it’s fascinating.’

  Nadia leaned her head forward a little more. Was he talking about The Lust Villa? And what’s more, was he talking about The Lust Villa with high-brow gender analysis?

  His friend, the one in the shirt, replied, ‘I see what you mean, yeah. Like, well. You know. I don’t wanna sound gay or anything but you’ve just got to let people be people, haven’t you? Like, I’m really not or nothing – obviously I’m not.’ The guy held up his hands, as if to prove he wasn’t holding ‘gay’ in them. ‘But it’d be pretty cool to watch two men hit it off. Like, if they were emotional and that, you know.’

  ‘Exactly!’ the guy in the waistcoat was saying. ‘I mean like, I feel it, sometimes. When dad died in the summer and I felt like I had to be so brave because otherwise, you know, I was some massive poofter or weak or whatever. I like how it’s becoming more okay for blokes to have feelings. My flatmate’s a dick but I just made friends with this guy at my job, and he doesn’t take the piss out of everything like Lorenzo does. He’s just … nicer to be around.’

  ‘Yeah man, that’s rough,’ his friend said. ‘The Lorenzo thing. I never really liked him, and after what you told me …’

  ‘Yeah,’ the guy in the leather waistcoat said, craning his neck to see if the queue was going down at all.

  Nadia was hooked. Who were these two men talking so eloquently and beautifully about their feelings? And about the best show on television? The guy in the waistcoat turned, slightly, and reached out to his friend’s shoulder.

  ‘How you doing anyway?’ he said. ‘I am so, so sorry about your granddad. I know how close you were.’ The one in the shirt seemed caught off guard by that, suddenly welling up. Naomi was listening in intently too, and put a finger to each eye and ran them down her face, as if to say to Nadia, He’s crying. Nadia could see all the hairs rising at the back of his neck. Bless him.

  ‘It was his time,’ the guy said. ‘But fuck, I miss him, you know?’

  ‘If you ever want to talk …’ Waistcoat Guy said, an
d Nadia silently thought to herself, Of course he wants to talk! He’s asking to talk now! Do it now! He won’t come to you again!

  The queue for pulled-pork burgers moved slowly in front of them. The guy in the waistcoat said, after assessing they’d be in line for at least another five minutes, ‘What’s your favourite memory of him?’

  Nadia’s heart exploded. What a man this guy was. Beautiful arms, able to talk about his feelings, smart too …

  She realized Naomi was sort of nodding her head, as if to say, Talk to him! But Nadia couldn’t interrupt this tender moment. The guy had stopped crying and was saying something about how his granddad used to get really bad wind, but would always blame the dog, even after the dog had died. ‘I’d give anything to have him here. He was a right sound bastard.’

  The queue inched forward. Nadia pulled out her phone and typed into a blank note, I am in love with these men in front!!!!! OMG!!!

  She passed the phone to Naomi, who read it and typed back, More men like this please! Beautiful, open hearts. I’ve got a hard-on for it.

  Nadia burst out laughing as she read it, forcing the men in front to turn around, and the man in the waistcoat to hit his elbow on the corner of her iPhone, promptly knocking it to the floor. Without thinking, Nadia instinctively bent down to pick it up, but at the same moment the man in the waistcoat did too, muttering in a London twang, ‘Fucking hell, I’m so sorry. I’m such a clumsy idiot!’

  From where they both crouched down, him holding both her phone and the two food vouchers that had fluttered to the ground with it, their eyes met.

  Nadia had the thunderbolt. The jolt. The course of electricity pulsed through every cell in her body.

  ‘Hi,’ she said to him.

  ‘Hi,’ he replied, smiling.

  40

  Daniel

  Nadia broke out into a nervous giggle as they stood up.

  ‘I don’t know why I said hi,’ she said. ‘I felt for a minute that I knew you. Sorry.’

  Her friend stood beside her, watching the interaction unfold, amused.

  ‘Here,’ Daniel said, holding out the phone back to Nadia. ‘I hope I didn’t break it.’

  ‘It’s got a case,’ Nadia said, not even looking at it. ‘I’m clumsy. I drop it all the time. Don’t ever give me a baby to hold!’ she added, giggling again. And then, straight-faced: ‘That was a weird thing to say. Sorry. Again.’

  Daniel saw Nadia’s friend smile to the right of him, to where Jeremy was smiling back. It was as if they were agreeing to let the scene play out, content to both act as the audience.

  Daniel and Nadia looked at each other.

  Daniel repeated: ‘So, this is yours.’ He handed over the phone. He couldn’t help but notice it was open on notes. He wondered what she had been writing.

  Nadia took the phone, and grinned.

  Daniel’s heart raced. His breathing got faster. This was it – this was his chance. His opportunity to say something smart and charming and clever that would make it okay to then say: It’s me. I stood you up after writing to you in the paper. Can we try again?

  Don’t fuck this up, he told himself. Come on!

  41

  Nadia

  Nadia’s heart beat twice as fast as it had been. Had he read what they’d been typing? She took the phone off of him.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘And this,’ he said, giving her the meal vouchers she’d been holding too. She hadn’t realized she’d dropped them as well.

  ‘Ah. Cheers. It’s my meal voucher.’ What was wrong with her? Why was she being the most boring, ineloquent person on the planet? She needed to say something charming and disarming! This man was beautiful, with deep eyes that twinkled in mischief. He was just her type, physically, but more than that: from listening to him, even just for a minute, she knew he was emphatically A Good Man. A Good Man with good friends and a good moral compass and … oh god, he was so fucking sexy. Those arms!

  ‘VIP perk?’ he said, gesturing to the tickets.

  Nadia nodded. Were they really going to make small talk this way? She needed to pivot the conversation, to somehow open up the chit-chat to a little flirting. She was doing a god-awful job of giving him the right signals. And why wasn’t Naomi helping, for god’s sake? She was just stood there, watching, like somebody lost in a dogging spot.

  ‘Well – it’s Naomi’s VIP perk. She’s an Instagrammer.’

  Waistcoat Man smiled at her. ‘Nice,’ he said.

  Naomi was Nadia’s most Conventionally Beautiful friend. Emma and Gaby, her friends from back home, all the women Nadia knew – they were all beautiful in their own way. But the reason Naomi’s Instagram had taken off was because she was conventionally beautiful, with petite features arranged symmetrically and with straight, white teeth and skin that wasn’t just clear, but glowed. That Waistcoat Guy didn’t let his gaze rest on Naomi for longer than a millisecond – he’d barely noticed her at all in fact! – was unusual to Nadia, because as confident as she generally felt in her appearance – occasional acne issues aside – she was contentedly invisible when Naomi was around. Except – not to this man, she wasn’t. This man seemed as transfixed by her as she was by him. It was like there was an invisible piece of cotton from his wrist to hers, a connection that was bone-deep. That tugged. They continued to look at each other, Nadia mentally berating herself for not being able to say something to start a proper conversation.

  The man in front of her opened his mouth and took a big breath and seemed about to save them both from the lack of words between them. But then he closed his mouth again and simply broke out into a huge grin, that made Nadia grin, and there they were, two idiots, grinning.

  Where do I know him from? thought Nadia, wondering if feeling like you recognized somebody was all part of the feeling of unparalleled attraction.

  ‘I’m pretty excited about this movie,’ he said, eventually, and it made Nadia laugh. The simplicity of it. He used his thumb to gesticulate towards the big screen at the other end of the field. ‘I remember the first time I saw it. I’d never understood why Shakespeare was good before Leonardo DiCaprio.’

  ‘Is love a tender thing?’ Nadia quoted, ‘It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.’

  The man nodded, impressed. He got the reference, and countered with a quote of his own: ‘My bounty is as boundless as the sea.’

  ‘Oh. Shit. I don’t remember any more,’ Nadia laughed. This was it. They’d cracked it. This was the gateway she’d been grappling for. He was laughing too. Nadia could feel the rise and fall of her breath in her chest, and bit at her bottom lip anxiously.

  ‘Nadia?’

  It was a voice Nadia recognized. She turned around.

  ‘Eddie!’ she said, shocked but happy.

  ‘How are you?’ Eddie said, opening up his arms for a hug. He’d been like that from the night she’d met him: open, warm, loving, affectionate.

  Nadia turned to Naomi, ‘Naomi, this is the guy I was just telling you about. Eddie – this is my friend Naomi.’ She paused for a second, to where the guys in front had been stood not ten seconds ago. She may as well introduce them too. But they were ahead now, at the booth, ordering their food. Nadia hadn’t realized they’d made it to the front of the line.

  ‘How’ve you been?’ Eddie said. ‘This is Alya, my girlfriend. Alya, baby, this is Nadia.’

  Alya stuck out a hand. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘You have?’ Nadia said.

  Eddie laughed, ‘All good, Nadia, don’t worry.’ He turned to Naomi. ‘Your friend broke my heart a little,’ he said. ‘But then I met Alya, and realized why it had never worked out with anybody else.’

  Eddie smiled at his girlfriend and put his arm around her again, pulling her in close. He was reassuring her. Marking his territory. Making his allegiances clear. Nadia was genuinely thrilled he seemed so happy, and told him so. It was easier to see him with somebody else than to think
that in any way she’d hurt him and that he still hurt. It let her off the hook.

  ‘Thanks, Nadia,’ he said. And then: ‘Anyway, we should probably get going. I think the movie is about to start.’

  Nadia nodded.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ Naomi said. As Eddie and Alya walked away, she asked, ‘The not-quite-enough guy?’

  Nadia nodded. ‘Yup.’

  She turned to locate Waistcoat Guy again, but when she searched for him by the food stand, where he’d been seconds ago, he wasn’t there.

  ‘Ah!’ she said to Naomi. ‘That guy! Where did he go?’

  Naomi followed Nadia’s line of sight and shrugged. ‘Oh shit, I don’t know!’ she said. ‘He was so into you!’

  ‘I was so into him!’

  ‘I could tell. It was like you were having sex with him with your eyes.’

  Nadia hit her friend’s arm.

  ‘We’ll find him. It’s not that big here. Maybe he’ll come back.’

  Nadia looked around the area again.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said, and Naomi pulled on her arm so that she’d step forward to the food counter. ‘He was … wow.’

  42

  Daniel

  ‘Well,’ Romeo was saying. ‘You’ve got absolutely no choice. You’ve got to write to her again. You’ve used up your nine lives, man – if you were to see her by chance ever again, I’d be shocked. Like, seeing her last night was your last chance. You’ve got to write to her again! It’s not like another chance meeting will ever, ever happen.’