by Lindsey Kelk
Slipping the photos back in the diary, I threw it as far as I could. About four feet. The shed really wasn’t very big. I pulled the sheets up to my chin and let out a loud huff. Probably not the best idea right before bed, I thought as I threw my hot and bothered body around, my legs tangling themselves up in the bed clothes as I went.
Grunting, I reached for my phone and opened my messages.
There it was, bold as brass, clear as day.
Hello stranger.
I placed the phone back on the nightstand and draped one arm over my face, covering my eyes. Maybe if I lay there long enough, stayed still enough, I would forget about the text and fall asleep.
I lasted ten seconds.
With a loud sigh, I reached for my phone again.
Hello stranger.
It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Tell me you didn’t text him back.’
‘I did not text him back.’
It was the truth. I had not replied to Patrick’s text. I’d slept for what felt like fifteen minutes, taken two cold showers, listened to the foxes living and loving in my parents’ back garden, eaten half a tub of Nutella straight out the jar, read several chapters of Starting Over, chosen my least-worst New Job outfit from my limited wardrobe and hunted for my ex up and down the internet to no avail but I had not replied to Patrick’s text.
Striding down the street, on my way to my first morning at work, I lifted my chin to feel the sun on my face.
‘I didn’t text him,’ I said. ‘But I really want to.’
A short, exasperated sigh whistled down the line.
‘I know you do,’ Sumi said kindly after collecting herself. ‘But you can’t, Ros. Honestly, I don’t know why you even still have his number in your phone.’
‘I didn’t have his number in my phone, it was in the cloud!’ I protested. ‘When the girl in the shop downloaded all my information to the new one, she used a back-up from the cloud. She said it would be quicker than doing a phone-to-phone transfer.’
‘You never save anything to the cloud!’ Sumi admonished me. ‘You don’t really want all your personal information flying around out there in cyberspace, do you?’
I shrugged. If it meant I didn’t have to remember my passwords or credit card numbers when I wanted to order a pizza, I was happy to be part of the problem.
‘Please don’t text him, Ros,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s such a bad idea.’
‘Is it?’ I wondered out loud. ‘Because I was thinking about it last night and I think closure might be a good idea.’
‘I’ll give you closure, we’ll role-play.’ She cleared her throat and deepened her voice. ‘Hello, Ros, I’m Patrick. I think I’m really clever because I’ve read a lot of books and written one or two but I’ve actually got the emotional maturity of a shoe and not a very nice one.’
I shook my head and smiled as I walked past a coffee shop, remembering the coffees and pastries he’d brought back to his flat the first morning after the first night before.
‘Do you think he misses me?’ I asked. ‘Do you think that’s why he sent the text?’
‘I don’t know what he’s thinking,’ Sumi admitted. ‘But I do know he broke your heart and I’m not down for you to give him a chance to do it again.’
‘Probably just being nice,’ I reasoned. ‘Replying out of politeness. I did send him the first text, after all.’
Sumi burst out laughing. ‘Ros. When was Patrick ever nice? Or polite?’
It was a fair point. He was a lot of things but nice wasn’t one of them. But who wanted nice? Nice was just a polite word for boring. Patrick was adventurous and passionate and bold and even though I tried so hard not to, now he was back in my head, I missed him so much I could taste it.
‘It has been a while, what if he’s changed?’
‘He could have been turned into a unicorn that’s been tasked with protecting the Holy Grail and I still wouldn’t think it was a good idea to text him,’ she replied, blunt as ever. ‘You were together six months and it’s taken you three years to get over him. Don’t do this to yourself.’
‘It was nine months,’ I corrected. ‘Almost ten.’
Nine months, twenty-two days and twenty-three hours if we were being precise. Accuracy was important to me.
‘You were together nine months, almost ten,’ Sumi repeated. ‘Then you were offered an amazing job opportunity that didn’t mean you had to break up but he knocked the whole thing on the head without giving it a second thought.’
‘I know,’ I said softly. ‘I was there, I remember.’
‘I just don’t want you to get hurt again,’ Sumi groaned. ‘This is so like him, so casual, so vague. What if you reply, get your hopes up, and then he tells you he’s married with kids?’
The thought of Patrick being legally tied to someone else hit me like a wet haddock. I slowed down in the street, suddenly sick to my stomach.
‘And you already know it’s a bad idea,’ she added, her voice softening slightly. ‘If you’d wanted someone to tell you to text him, you’d have called the soft-touch, not me.’
She meant Lucy. Lucy was, in fairness, very persuadable.
‘Enough about that Twat-Faced Wank Chops,’ Sumi said, invoking her favourite nickname for him, before I could add fuel to the Patrick Parker conversation fire. ‘Are you excited for your first day at work?’
‘Nervously optimistic?’ I replied. Patrick’s message had worn the edges off my giddiness but I was still a bundle of happy nerves when I thought about it. ‘I’ve got loads of ideas, I think it’s going to be good.’
‘It’s going to be brilliant,’ she corrected. ‘Have fun, be amazing and do not spend the entire day thinking about Patrick “I’ve got a PhD and not in the dirty way” Parker.’
‘But also in the dirty way,’ I reminded her.
‘Thinking about his knob is not going to improve matters, so stop it,’ Sumi warned. ‘No thinking about him, no looking at photos of him and definitely no texting him. These are my commandments, Ros, I command thee. Thou hast been commanded.’
‘I’m sure I’ll be far too busy for him to even cross my mind,’ I assured her even though we both knew I could be put in charge of air traffic control at Heathrow and I’d still manage somehow. ‘I’ll talk to you later. Love you.’
‘Love you,’ Sumi replied. ‘Don’t text him!’
‘Sorry for all the smoke and mirrors yesterday,’ Ted said, leading me out of the bright and colourful PodPad HR office and down a markedly less bright and colourful staircase I hadn’t seen the day before. ‘But we’ve signed a million NDAs for this show and I couldn’t tell you anything until you’d signed a contract.’
‘No problem,’ I answered without hesitation, jogging closely behind him. Why were we leaving the Cool Office? Why was he leading me into the basement? ‘My curiosity is officially piqued. What’s the show about?’
Ted stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gave me a grin. ‘What was your last show about?’ he asked.
Someone enjoyed exercising power wherever he could find it.
‘The Book Report?’ I replied. ‘It was a culture show, book-based, obviously, clue’s in the name. The host interviewed a different author every week, asked them about their favourite books, you know, from different stages of their life. I developed it from scratch, got to work with the authors, the publishers, everything.’
He fumbled with an enormous ring full of keys and opened a heavy security door. ‘You like books?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘A lot. You?’
‘Eh,’ he grimaced as he pulled open the door in a pantomime of chivalry. ‘Not really a book man.’
Not really a book man.
‘Is the new show book-related?’ I asked as we walked down a dimly lit corridor, a prickle of excitement running up my spine as fluorescent lights clicked into life one by one above us. ‘Because it’s a great format, super easy to put together. If we find the right host
, it could be up and running in a few weeks.’
‘Here’s the thing,’ Ted stopped short in front of one of six identical plywood doors. ‘We’ve already got a show for you. PodPad signed an incredibly talented person and they have the potential to be massive but they need the right producer to help them. Someone creative, someone who isn’t afraid to take risks, someone who can get a brilliant show out of a brilliant mind.’
‘And I’m that producer?’ I asked, a little surprised but pleasantly flattered.
He clicked his tongue and shot at me with double-finger guns.
‘So,’ I said, bracing myself against the sudden drop in temperature. Downstairs was much colder than upstairs. ‘Who is the incredibly talented person and why are we in the basement?’
‘This is where the studios are, soundproofing, yeah?’ He opened the door to a tiny, dark, dingy room and suddenly I was very nostalgic for the home comforts of my shed. ‘And you’re not going to believe it when I tell you. It’s insane that we’ve been able to get him, totally mad. Even I can’t believe we got him and I’m the one who signed the massive cheque for the bastard. He’s a genius. And not a book genius, like, a proper genius normal people have heard of.’
My heart began to pound and not just because I was incredibly claustrophobic. Here it was at last, my opportunity to put myself on the map, show everyone what I could do, working with a non-book genius. Who could it be? Lin-Manuel Miranda? The Rock? Anyone but Kanye.
‘OK, the anticipation is killing me,’ I said, watching Ted flick six switches on at the wall only to see half as many bulbs light up. ‘Who is it?’
He sat down in a beaten-up leather office chair that had been patched up with duct tape one too many times and grinned. ‘He’s an athlete.’
‘David Beckham?’ I guessed, heart pounding. I couldn’t do it to Posh and the kids obviously but a feverish flirtation would probably be morally acceptable.
‘Bigger,’ Ted grinned.
‘Roger Federer?’
‘Even bigger,’ he replied, eyes closed and hands up in the air, ready to conduct an invisible orchestra. ‘It’s Snazzlechuff.’
It was at that precise moment I realized I had followed a man I did not know into a soundproofed basement with no idea about his mental state and, to make matters worse, I was wearing shitty kitten heels that would never in a million years be able to penetrate his skull if I needed to use them as a weapon.
‘Excuse me?’ I said, very politely.
‘It’s Snazzlechuff,’ Ted repeated. ‘Snazzle. Chuff.’
‘Are you having a seizure? Should I get help?’ I asked, looking around for signs of human life besides the two of us. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to Murdered to Death on the train to work.
‘You’ve never heard of Snazzlechuff?’
I shook my head as I calculated my best possible route of escape. Probably bash him in the head with my backpack, bolt back upstairs, grab one of the free beers and launch myself through the plate-glass window.
‘He’s literally the most famous person in the entire world,’ Ted said, not even trying to hide the disdain on his face. ‘He’s got the most successful gaming channel in history, more than 15 million followers across all platforms and you’ve never even heard of him?’
He shoved his phone in my face, waving it around until I grabbed it out of his hands.
‘This is him?’
Ted nodded.
‘Why’s he got a dog’s head?’
The picture in front of me showed a skinny body, clothed head to toe in a bright red tracksuit, with an enormous Wes-Anderson-looking Dalmatian’s head on its shoulders.
‘He always wears a mask,’ Ted explained. ‘It’s part of his mystique.’
‘What’s his real name?’
‘No one knows,’ he replied, waving his fingers around and making spooky noises. ‘He’s an enigma.’
‘You said you signed his cheque?’ I said as I swiped through the photos. ‘Surely that had his name on it?’
‘Cheque went to his agent.’
‘I thought you said he was an athlete?’ I said, deflating by the second. Bye-bye David Beckham, farewell Roger Federer, see you in my dreams. Both at the same time, hopefully.
‘He’s an e-sports athlete,’ he explained. ‘He’s a god on YouTube.’
‘Then that explains it,’ I replied, folding up my dreams of a workplace romance and storing them neatly next to my Ted-might-be-a-serial-killer anxieties. ‘I’m not really a YouTube woman.’
He sat forward and peered at my forehead.
‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-two but very dehydrated,’ I said, tossing my hair to cover as much of my face as possible. ‘So, when am I meeting this superstar? Is he here?’
‘Course not,’ he answered. ‘It’s Wednesday, he’s at school.’
It just got better and better.
‘How old is he, Ted?’ I asked.
My new boss scratched his stubble thoughtfully. ‘I want to say fifteen but he could be a tall twelve. It’s very hard to tell with kids these days, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ I agreed readily, wondering whether or not I could drive the heel of my shoe through my own temple if I was truly dedicated to the act.
‘He’s not like a normal kid though,’ Ted assured me. ‘He’s clever. And funny! So it doesn’t matter that you’re not.’
I looked around the studio, such as it was. Cheaply painted dark grey walls covered in black soundproofing, like foam egg boxes that had been dipped in tar, flickering fluorescent overhead lights and a filthy sheet of glass that separated the producer’s bay from the recording booth. It was covered with so many handprints it looked as though it had recently been used to reenact that scene in the back of the car in Titanic. God forbid I ever turn a black light on the room, I thought to myself. The whole place was crying out for an anti-bac wipe. Or a nuclear blast. One or the other.
‘If I’m being totally honest with you, I haven’t really done anything like this before,’ I said, tugging at the sleeve of my smart white shirt. ‘Not that I’m not up for the challenge but it isn’t something I have a lot of experience in. You’re all right with me learning on the job?’
Ted waved away my concerns with an unmoved ‘pfft’.
‘Mate,’ he replied, even though we were not mates. ‘If you can make books sound interesting enough for people to tune into your show, think what you’ll be able to do with a genuinely fascinating subject like e-sports!’
‘You really mean that, don’t you?’ I asked, glancing around the studio-slash-dungeon one more time.
‘I most certainly do,’ he said with a grave nod. ‘You’re welcome.’
‘And this is only the studio? I don’t have to stay down here all the time?’ I asked, afraid I already knew the answer. ‘My desk’s upstairs, right?’
‘Thing is,’ Ted sucked the air in through his teeth like he was about to tell me my carburettor needed replacing. ‘We’re short on desks at the moment. But you can do a bit of decorating if you like? With your own money.’
He rapped his knuckles on the desk and its loosely attached drawer crashed to the floor.
‘We can probably get you a new one of those,’ he muttered, kicking it away as I held my breath.
Run, commanded the voice in my head. Run far and run fast. But I refused to listen, that was just fear talking, according to Starting Over. The fear of failure and the even more powerful fear of success. I would not stand in my own way, I would embrace this opportunity and succeed. I would also bring in my own cleaning products from home.
‘Just so I’m absolutely, one hundred percent clear about everything,’ I said, running a finger along the mixing desk and balking at the filth. ‘The job I just signed a contract for is to produce a podcast about e-sports with a YouTube child star?’
Ted gave a single, eyes-askance nod.
‘Didn’t you say you lived in a shed?’ he asked.
‘So,’ I said, taking a d
eep breath in and giving my new boss a bright and glittering smile. ‘When do I meet Mr Snazzlechuff?’
After Ted left me alone to wallow in my pit, I sat at the desk and stared at my reflection in the glass partition between the studio and the mixing desk. The look of despair on my face was altogether too clear since I’d gone at the bloody thing with a full bottle of Windolene I’d found in a cupboard, oddly enough unopened.
Ten years of working every hour god sent and suddenly my career depended on a teenage gaming addict who liked to cosplay as a mid-2000s Jay-Z from the neck down and the saddest Good Boy from the neck up. Where had it all gone wrong?
‘It’s going to be fine,’ I told my own face, even though I didn’t look as though I believed me. ‘You’re lucky to have this job. It’s different and new, that’s all. Everything was different and new once, you’ll be fine.’
But a very large part of me was completely over different and new.
Three years ago, I’d jumped at different and new, lost Patrick, left my friends and whole life behind and for what? To end up right back where I’d left off, only now I was alone and I lived in a shed. Everything was confusing and exhausting, I couldn’t get to grips with any of it: how to decide what to watch in the evening, which politicians were the most evil, who had been cancelled and why. What was I allowed to like, what was I allowed to dislike and where was indifference permitted? No, different and new were on my shitlist. I wanted old and familiar. I wanted easy and understandable. I wanted tried and tested, simple and straightforward, comfortable and known and, without thinking, I picked up my phone, opened Patrick’s text and tapped out a reply, hitting send before I could stop myself.