by Alice Oseman
He laughs sadly. Has he been genuinely upset about what happened yesterday? I’ve barely thought about it at all.
He walks over to a urinal, unzips his jeans, and starts peeing.
‘I’m surprised you’re not angry at me about that,’ he says, mid-pee.
‘I’m not angry,’ I say. ‘I know it was a mistake.’
He pauses. ‘Mm.’
He zips up his jeans and then goes to wash his hands. He glances at me. He’s all dressed up and made up for the recording – his hair’s been straightened and hairsprayed, he’s wearing an expensive denim jacket, and if you look closely, you can see the face powder on his skin. But I know him too well. He’s tired. There are shadows under his eyes, still visible through the make-up. His eyes are a bit bloodshot too.
He turns the tap off and looks at me.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asks. He knows.
‘The contract,’ I say. ‘It’s … I don’t like it.’
He nods. ‘Yeah. It’s got some dodgy bits.’
‘Do we …’ I dare myself to ask. ‘Do we really have to … go ahead with it?’
Lister raises his eyebrows. ‘Er … I guess I never thought about that.’
‘Never mind,’ I say, turning round to walk towards the door. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘No, hang on.’ He grabs my arm, pulling me back. ‘Are you okay? I mean …’ He shakes his head a little. ‘You seem … kind of …’ He makes a weird gesture above his head. ‘Out of it.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say immediately.
‘Are you … still thinking about that Jowan photo?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Okay, well … what are you doing in here?’
‘In … the bathroom?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I was just … peeing.’
He nods and steps back a little. ‘Sorry. I’m just … being weird.’
Then he chucks a crumpled paper towel at me. I dodge it, laughing.
‘You’ve got a wet face,’ he says. He walks up to me and starts dabbing my face with another paper towel. ‘You haven’t been crying, have you?’
‘I just … I just splashed some cold water on my face.’
‘Why?’
‘Because … I was … I don’t know.’ I start laughing. ‘I don’t know.’
He finishes drying my face, throws the paper towel into the bin, and then before I know what’s happening, he wraps me into a warm hug. He squeezes his arms round my shoulders and brushes his temple against my head.
‘You know I love you, right?’ he says, his voice sounding different, low, right next to my ear. ‘I know you and Rowan have always been a team, but … I love you too … okay?’
‘O-okay—’
‘Please don’t hate me.’
I run my hands over his back. ‘Why would I hate –’
But he steps away before I finish my question. He’s smiling. I can’t read it. I can’t read him at all.
He might be a mess, but he is good. How can someone as good as Lister like someone as terrible as me?
‘What are we talking about?’ he says, and laughs, and then moves to perch on the edge of the sink. What are we talking about? Is he drunk again? There wasn’t any alcohol in the dressing room, though.
I lean against the wall next to the dryer. There’s a big window opposite us, wedged open a little bit. It’s raining again, but it’s sunny too. There might be a rainbow out there, but the window is frosted, so we can’t see the sky.
‘Do you ever imagine what would happen if we just … ran away?’ asks Lister, suddenly. I glance at him. He’s looking at the window too.
‘What d’you mean by ran away?’ I ask.
Lister points at the window. ‘I mean, if we just climbed out of that window right now and left. Got in a taxi, went to the train station, and disappeared.’
Everyone would freak the fuck out. They’d probably get the police looking for us. And people would find us, anyway. People on the street, cashiers, taxi drivers, train guards. Everyone knows who we are.
Celebrities can’t disappear.
‘I think about it all the time,’ I say.
God, I want to try it.
‘Do you?’
‘Yeah.’
God, I just want to go.
‘I should try it,’ I say, intending to say ‘one day’ as well, but I don’t get that far.
Lister laughs. He thinks I’m joking. ‘I think Cecily would hunt you down and kill you.’
‘Do you think this window opens far enough?’ I walk over to the window. It’s got two frames, one on top of the other, so I undo the latches at the top, and sure enough, the whole bottom half of the window slides upwards. The rain starts to fall into the room, pattering on the tiled floor.
Lister is silent. I glance back at him.
‘Well … that’s definitely big enough,’ he says cautiously.
I could go and see Grandad. We could celebrate my birthday and he could make me hot chocolate and we could play Scrabble.
‘I might just go,’ I say.
Lister laughs again but it’s shorter, smaller. ‘Don’t joke.’
I stick my head out of the window. We’re on the ground floor. Outside is a pavement, then a big car park with only a few cars dotted here and there. I can’t see any people.
‘Jimmy …’
I pull myself back inside.
Lister has moved forward from the sink. He looks worried. ‘You’ve … you’re all wet again, now!’
‘It’s fine,’ I say.
And then I stick one leg out of the window and step down on the other side. I duck my body under the window frame and move myself outside into the rain. Then I lift my other leg and bring it outside too.
And then all of me is outside.
Lister walks right up to the window.
He’s grinning but he’s scared. I know him. I can tell.
‘Jimmy, don’t – Tash won’t like you getting that hoodie wet …’
I step backwards, away from him, away from the window.
‘I think I’m gonna go,’ I say.
His grin drops. ‘Jimmy … are you joking?’
I step back a little more, dropping down from the pavement. My heart is beating so fast. It feels so fucking good.
‘No,’ I say.
Lister grabs the window frame and sticks his head outside. ‘Jimmy, don’t! I was only joking about running away! I’m serious! This isn’t funny any more—’
I could go and find Angel. I could go and get Grandad’s knife back.
‘What about the contract?! And the recording?!’ Lister calls. He has to shout for me to hear him now. ‘We need to go back!’
I turn round and look at the near-empty car park. It’s silent apart from the pattering of the rain.
‘Where are you going?!’ he shouts at me.
Oh God, I could go anywhere.
Here’s a weird thing I think about in situations like this:
What Would Jimmy Do?
Obviously I pray and stuff, like, to actual God, but often I find thinking about Jimmy is a bit more useful, because I can visualise his personality and imagine how exactly he might deal with this precise situation. Asking for help from Allah is all very well and usually does make me feel better but it doesn’t usually help me make any immediate decisions.
What would Jimmy do in this situation?
Would he go back and apologise to Juliet and be there for a friend who is clearly going through a rough time?
Or would he focus on the task at hand – returning Jimmy’s knife?
Except … the Jimmy in my head isn’t Jimmy, is it?
I don’t know what Jimmy would do at all because I don’t know anything about him.
God.
This isn’t helping, is it?
I keep thinking that maybe I imagined what happened yesterday.
Wouldn’t surprise me.
Maybe I’ve lost my mind a bit.
Maybe the mon
otony of my life has been getting to me.
‘So … are you coming back?’ Mac asks after I’ve been sitting there for a few minutes, going over both the options.
Juliet or Jimmy.
My best friend or The Ark.
‘I … don’t know,’ I say, my voice hoarse. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.
Mac sighs. He takes this as a no.
‘I’ll leave you to decide, then,’ he says. ‘I’m going back to Juliet.’
And he gets up and leaves.
As soon as he’s gone, I shine my phone torch into my rucksack so I can take another proper look at Jimmy’s knife.
I mean, it’s a good thing I took it. It would have got lost forever if I’d just left it. Someone would have found it and thrown it away, or sold it, or whatever. And it looks precious. It looks important to him. It’s got ‘Angelo L. Ricci’ engraved on the side.
Angelo. Sounds almost like Angel. Kind of funny, isn’t it?
It must have belonged to his grandad or great-grandad, or something. His Italian side is on his mum’s side, so it can’t have been his father’s. It looks older than that, anyway. It looks pretty antique.
I wonder how much it’s worth. Probably a lot, if it’s old.
I need to give it back to him. I’ll message him. I’ll tell him I have it.
I glance up at the departures board. I’ve got twelve minutes until my train home leaves.
Juliet or Jimmy?
It’s an obvious choice, right?
I need to talk to Juliet.
Jimmy will have to wait. I can message him on Twitter later. He’ll probably never see it anyway.
Juliet is the priority today.
I need to talk to her.
I need to repair the mess I’ve made.
I stand up, swinging my rucksack onto my back and taking my suitcase in one hand. I turn to start walking away to the door.
That’s when my phone buzzes in my pocket.
I fish it out and look at the Twitter direct message on the screen.
Jimmy Kaga-Ricci @jimmykagaricci
want my knife back. where can you meet me?
Jimmy Kaga-Ricci @jimmykagaricci
want my knife back. where can you meet me?
Wasn’t hard to find Angel on Twitter.
I typed ‘The Ark Angel’ into the Twitter search bar, and then scrolled through the results until I found her – various tweets about coming to the concert, and a selfie of her and a few other girls at a pub tweeted a couple of days ago. She’s got a photo of me as her own display picture. Why do they do that? Why don’t they use their own face as their display picture?
Even her Twitter handle is ‘jimmysangels’. That doesn’t even make any sense.
I send the message with shaking fingers.
I don’t even have the energy to feel embarrassed. I mean, I should be. Messaging a fan and asking for my knife back. What’s happening to me?
God, I could do anything right now.
I’ve walked all the way across the car park and am now walking down the pavement next to a road. Up ahead are various hotels, mostly for the people who come to the studio to work, and a big restaurant area. And there, just outside a Nandos, is a taxi bay. With several taxis waiting inside.
Oh my God, I’m doing this.
My phone starts ringing. Rowan.
I click the reject button.
I start running towards the taxi bay. There are only a few people walking around. They won’t notice me. It’s fine.
I pull my hood up and over my forehead.
I’m going.
Oh God.
I’m running and grinning too. Is this happiness?
‘Where to, lad?’ asks the taxi driver as I open the door and sit inside. He’s an older man, greying and large, with a thick northern accent.
‘Er …’
Fuck. Which bit of London would Angel live in? Does she even live in London? I check my phone again. She hasn’t messaged me back yet.
‘Just … just to King’s Cross.’ That’s safe. There’ll be more taxis there.
The man doesn’t reply, so I look up, wondering if he hasn’t heard me. He’s looking at me curiously in the rear-view mirror, squinting.
‘You’re from that boy band, aren’t you?’ he says. ‘The one that got famous on the internet.’
‘Er … yes.’
‘Haven’t you got your own taxi to take you places?’
‘Er … not right now, no.’
The man looks at me for one more second. For a moment, I feel a sudden fear. He’s big. I’m small. He’s a gruff, northern, older white man, and I’m a posh, transgender, mixed-race boy wearing very tight skinny jeans. But then he just shrugs and says, ‘Well, all right. You seemed nice enough when you did that X Factor performance last year. You’ve got a nice voice, I’ll tell you that. Well, better than the nob-heads they put on that show.’
‘… thanks.’
He pulls the taxi out of the bay.
‘You know, my wife is a big fan of The X Factor but I reckon if Simon Cowell and his crew want to find the real talent, the internet’s the place to go, ain’t it? That’s where the younger generation are, ain’t it?’
The taxi driver continues talking, without leaving room for me to reply. I glance down and look at my phone. The missed call count is up to fourteen. And Rowan’s started texting me. Can’t bear to read them.
Instead, I check my Twitter DMs. And there she is.
Angel Rahimi.
angel @jimmysangels
I have it!! Can you get to st pancras?
Btw I only took it because I thought someone would steal it if I left it
It looks really precious
Anyway yes I’m at st pancras!! Will happily return it to you if you can get here! Or I can come to you!
Whatever you want!!!
angel @jimmysangels
Whatever you want!!!
I’m dying. Dead. Deceased. Rest in peace, Angel.
Jimmy messaged me. Which means he must have remembered my name and literally searched for me on Twitter. Thought about me, decided to message me, typed out my name and clicked on my profile.
I mean, the circumstances are understandable.
And I know that the boy I’ve been fangirling about for the past five years isn’t exactly the real Jimmy Kaga-Ricci.
But, still.
I’m grinning uncontrollably.
And it won’t take long, will it? I just give him the knife, say goodbye, and then I can go back to Juliet, sort everything out, and make things right again.
I don’t have to choose between them. I can have both.
I head into the nearby Starbucks and buy another cup of tea. I almost get a cake as well but decide that I don’t want to accidentally have cake in my teeth when Jimmy shows up.
God, I’m not even wearing good clothes today. I’m wearing travel clothes. Just a pair of slim joggers and an oversized hoodie.
Shit.
Okay. Calm down. It doesn’t matter what I wear. Jimmy probably won’t care. He just wants his knife back.
I sit down at a table and open my rucksack again, looking at the knife inside. I’ve wrapped the blade in one of my jumpers. Now that I’ve had time to look at it properly, I can see that it’s pretty blunt. Still, it’s an antique and I don’t want to scratch or break it. Don’t want to do anything that might make Jimmy upset.
I take a sip of the tea and check my phone again. There’s a little tick underneath it – he’s read the message.
I know I shouldn’t feel happy but I do. Despite the fact that he clearly isn’t the Jimmy persona that I’ve loved for years and years and years. Despite everything, I feel so, so happy.
Which is kind of sad, really.
Jimmy Kaga-Ricci @jimmykagaricci
Okay will be there in about 30 mins
Jimmy Kaga-Ricci @jimmykagaricci
Okay will be there in about 30 mins
angel @jimmysangels
Okay!!! I’ll wait inside Starbucks!! Just message me when/where you want to meet!!!
Angel is very enthusiastic about this, for some reason. I thought she’d be annoyed at having to go out of her way to give me back the knife.
I didn’t think she’d still be a fan of me after seeing me have a meltdown yesterday.
They don’t like seeing you sad.
By the time we’re nearing St Pancras, Gary, the taxi driver, has just about told me his entire life story. It was pretty interesting to listen to, actually. Growing up in the outskirts of Durham, the story of his first wife and how she cheated on him with the man who came to fix the boiler, and how his twin daughters are both studying astrophysics and are definitely going to get to space someday. Sometimes I forget that there are people who have good, pure, normal lives, that don’t involve rather complex lying every single day.
There are a lot of people walking around in London. I duck down a little bit when we start getting into the pedestrian areas and pull my hoodie further over my face. It’d only take one person to glance into the taxi and spot me and tweet my location and that’d be it.
If I could have any superpower, it’d be invisibility.
‘Are you sure you want to stop here, lad?’ Gary asks. ‘It’s a bit busy, ain’t it? Won’t someone recognise you?’
He’s right. I’m not disguised at all. In fact, I look completely like myself, since I’m all made up for the recording – skinny jeans, hair done, under-eye shadows concealed, wearing a signature hoodie.
But I’m going.
I’m going to get my knife back.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I say.
Jimmy Kaga-Ricci @jimmykagaricci
Arrived. Coming to find you
angel @jimmysangels
Okay!! I’m in starbucks!! Or I can meet you somewhere else??
‘D’you want me to wait for you, lad?’ Gary asks.
‘No … no, I think I should be fine from here,’ I say. I can just get another taxi when I’ve got the knife. Don’t really want Gary asking any questions, to be honest.
I pay Gary what I owe him and then get out of the car.
Just before I shut the door, he says, ‘Whatever’s troubling you, it’ll go away.’
I look back at him and say, ‘What?’
He taps his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘I know it can’t be easy being someone like you. D’you have friends around you? People to support you?’