Forever Geek

by Holly Smale

  The Australian doctor laughs heartily.

  “We’ll keep an eye on you but it looks like basic exhaustion to me. Have you been physically exerting yourself more than normal recently?”

  I glance at Bunty, standing behind Nat with her arm wrapped round Nat’s shoulder.

  There’s no way I can risk her overhearing about the shoot, in case she tells my parents, so I shake my head vigorously.

  “Of course not,” I say indignantly.

  “Well,” the doctor says with a smile. “Get some sleep, eat some food and you’ll be right as rain in a day or two.”

  “Actually,” I say, lying back on my pillow. “That saying doesn’t really mean much. In 1400 it was originally right as an adamant, which is a magnet, and it was slowly corrupted to right as a gun in 1622, then right as my leg. Right as rain stuck just because it’s alliterative.”

  “Hmm,” Nat says drily from the doorway. “She’s definitely getting better now.”

  I stick my tongue out at her.

  “We’ll take care of Harriet,” my grandmother smiles warmly. “Thank you, doctor.”

  Then she gives a little nod and Moonstone walks in with a tray packed with sandwiches, croissants, cakes and biscuits that for some bizarre reason don’t look appealing at all.

  I nestle under my duvet again.

  “You stay there as long as you want to, darling,” Bunty says gently. “We’re here when you’re ready.”

  By six am of the fourth morning, my mysterious illness has passed.

  On waking up, I suddenly feel an urge to pick at a biscuit and sip a glass of strawberry milkshake. Then – bored of being horizontal – I swing my legs out and start to wobble around the apartment, looking for a book to read.

  And also – frankly – for an excuse to get out of my room.

  After three days of refusing to open the curtains and using the en suite bathroom, it’s starting to smell like the cage of an incredibly lazy hamster.

  With the lights still off, I give a big yawn and tiptoe to the kitchen for a glass of water. I’ve just finished draining it when I hear chatter coming from the cupboard on my left.

  Frowning, I shuffle over and hold my empty glass up to the wooden door. This action focuses the audio waves into a smaller area, thus making it easier to hear and also making you look a bit like a spy.

  Because either the cupboard is actually talking to me or I’m having a flu-addled hallucination.

  Regardless, I should probably listen.

  “No, darling,” it says in a whisper. “Not yet.” Pause. “The doctor’s been and she’s just a little under the weather. I promise I’m taking care of her, sweetheart, don’t worry. But this definitely isn’t the right time.”

  I blink sleepily. Is that Bunty?

  And, for your information, “under the weather” is another inaccurately used idiom. It comes from sailors who had seasickness and were sent below deck so that the rocking of the boat would be less pronounced.

  Although after Queensland maybe it’s not that far off.

  “Don’t worry about that,” my grandmother continues warmly. “I’m as strong as an ox, darling. You know me. But I still think we should wait a little while longer.”

  There’s another silence, and I suddenly realise Bunty must be talking on the phone. My brain is so muddled, for a second I thought my grandmother was conversing with the furniture.

  “But I keep thinking about Yuka, sweetheart. It’s so sad that we haven’t spoken properly for a decade. We were so close once upon a time.” Bunty’s voice gets lower. “The argument we had was so ridiculous. Burning a hole in a ceiling is not that big a deal.”

  She must be speaking to Annabel. There’s an intimacy in her voice, the kind you reserve for a daughter.

  The kind Annabel always reserves for me.

  “OK, yes, the roof fell down,” Bunty sighs reluctantly. “OK, maybe the whole house went up in flames with it and the cat disappeared. But I did offer her a lovely bed in my caravan and it had fairy lights and whatnot.”

  Knowing Yuka, that would not have gone down well.

  “Also,” Bunty continues, “it’s not good karma to leave things on bad terms, darling. The universe doesn’t like it.”

  I blink. Huh?

  Leave things? Is Yuka going somewhere?

  “We’ll tell Harriet soon,” Bunty says more gently. “But I’d like to see my old friend first. We’re in the same city, and it feels like fate is trying to bring us together at the … Well, the end is a bit melodramatic, isn’t it? At a temporary parting of ways.”

  I take a huge step back, eyes wide.

  There are approximately five and a half litres of blood in the human body, and it suddenly feels like the majority of mine have just evaporated.

  The end? Parting of ways?

  Is Yuka Ito … sick?

  And I’m hit by a wave of memories.

  Of Yuka: sitting on the chair in the dark of the Infinity agency, ordering me to turn round in my pinstripe suit. Yuka: standing in the snow in Moscow, glaring at me struggling to control a kitten.

  Dictating to me through the earpiece during that television show; sitting in the back of the taxi in Tokyo; walking away from the shoot by the lake; firing me on the train platform when I got back.

  Standing in front of me in the Paris Catacombs.

  Always, always, the same: in a long black dress, a tiny black net hat, long black hair, snow-white skin, brightly coloured lips, a freezing expression.

  And always, always immortal.

  As if there has always been a Yuka Ito and there will always be a Yuka Ito: as if the world needed a Yuka Ito, so here she was.

  But she’s not immortal at all.

  And I can feel pain and sadness and shame starting to ripple through my chest in a three-coloured swirl: like some kind of emotional Neapolitan ice cream. Yuka is sick, and I’ve been demanding things from her.

  Oh God, I emailed her seven times in a row.

  Never mind that she’s already changed my life and I never actually said a proper thank-you. Never mind that I didn’t even think to ask how she was.

  Hello, this is Harriet Manners and I want more.

  Flushing hot, I put the glass back in its original spot as quietly as I can, and tiptoe silently into my bedroom. Then I crawl back into bed, shut my eyes and try to regulate my breathing.

  By the time Bunty pokes her head in and whispers: “Harriet, sweetheart, did I hear the door? Are you feeling better?” I’m pretending to be unconscious, complete with tiny snores.

  Gently, my grandmother walks up to the bed and brushes a few strands of hair off my face. “Little girl,” she murmurs softly. “What happened in Queensland?”

  Then she leans down and kisses my forehead.

  But as she creeps back out again – flowery flip-flops clacking against the wood floor – the final drop of blood in my head evaporates.

  It’s replaced with a realisation so sharp and vivid I suddenly sit bolt upright in bed.

  Nick.

  Yuka is his aunt.

  That must be why he was so sad and distracted. Why I couldn’t read him. This is what broke the string between us.

  And my heart aches: for Yuka, for Nick, for everything they must now be going through. For finding out too late.

  I sit up a bit straighter, staring blankly at the wall.

  Except … it’s not too late, is it?

  From the moment we met, Nick has been there for me.

  When I cowered under a table in Birmingham; when I hyperventilated on the pavement outside my first agency meeting; when I panicked on my first-ever photo shoot and didn’t know what to say on breakfast TV.

  He was there, skating with me on my first-ever date.

  Kissing me under the Christmas tree; standing on my doorstep in Tokyo; helping me through the sumo shoot; guiding me into the lake by Mount Fuji; sitting with me by the crossing in Shibuya.

  He turned up at my house when I had a cold.
/>   Winked at me from the catwalk in London.

  Came to New York with sixteen purple balloons and sixteen cupcakes on my birthday; turned up at the Gotham Ball with a gift for me; let go when I asked him to on Brooklyn Bridge.

  Watched me model in Paris, hidden and smiling in a crowd.

  Nick has always been there: whether I knew I needed him or not.

  Another wave of intense shame sweeps over me.

  But what did I do for him?

  I sat around: waiting to be saved. Hoping my prince would come and find me, over and over again. That he would climb the tower, fight the dragon, slay the witch, break open the glass box and get me out.

  So isn’t it his turn now?

  I should help. Not as his girlfriend – not even as his ex – but as his friend.

  Jumping out of bed, I rummage through the secret pocket in my satchel, get my planets necklace out and put it on for the biggest dose of good luck I’ve ever wished for.

  Then I grab my laptop, a notepad and a pen and start making a brand-new, life-grabbing plan. Because after all the kindness Nick has shown me over the last year and a half, I think it’s time for me to pay a little back.

  For me to be the hero who swoops in when they’re needed, without being asked to.

  It’s finally time for me to save Nick.

  ow there’s just the small problem of logistics.

  So I spend the next two hours making bullet points, checking and double-checking timetables, booking tickets and scanning maps.

  I know exactly what it is I have to do.

  I’m going to have to go Full Harriet.

  “Good morning, Nat!” I call at nine am, pulling the curtains abruptly open. “Good morning!” I shout to Bunty, who’s standing in the kitchen in a fluffy pink robe with her hands wrapped round a floral cup of coffee. “Good, uh … never mind,” I say to Moonstone as she glares at me silently from the corner armchair.

  Then I gesture at the table, laid perfectly outside.

  “If you could make your way to the poolside,” I say politely, “there is a lovely breakfast awaiting you, complete with green smoothies, avocados and bowls of buckwheat. To say thank you for looking after me when I was sick.”

  After all the planning was completed I only had seven minutes left and it turns out the cupboards in this apartment are packed with disgusting-looking health food.

  Nat must have eaten all the chocolate croissants.

  “Oh, delicious,” Bunty beams, taking a comfortable seat on a sunlounger. “I love a wonder grain. Are you feeling better now, darling? You certainly look much perkier.”

  Nat emerges from the bedroom, rubbing her eyes.

  “What’s happening?” she says, blinking in the sunlight. “Ew, what colour is that milkshake?”

  “It’s very good for you,” I say, pushing a sludge-coloured one towards her. There was some kind of mix in a packet so I just added water. “Drink up and behold!”

  Then I turn to the laptop and hit a button.

  Immediately, the enormous cinema screen lights up. I know I haven’t done one of these in quite some time, but I clearly haven’t lost my touch: this PowerPoint presentation might be my best yet.

  There are interactive spinning images and everything.

  “I’m confused,” Nat says, blinking at it. “Yesterday you were shuffling off this mortal coil or whatever you called it. When on earth did you prepare a school lesson?”

  “It was just a transient sickness,” I announce, pushing her firmly into a bean bag. “I’m better now, so if you’re settled I shall begin.”

  Then I gesture at the screen with one hand while clutching the remote control with the other. “Did you know that the coastline of Australia is 22,293 miles long?”

  I flick to a page filled with photos of beautiful white sand.

  “Oh God,” Nat groans. “It’s not even nine am yet.”

  “There are precisely 10,685 beaches in Australia,” I continue, pointing at the images. “That means you could go to a different beach every day for twenty-nine years and you still wouldn’t see them all.”

  Smiling broadly, I hit the next button.

  It pans out to a big map of the country, complete with tiny photos of koalas I pasted on for cuteness purposes.

  “More than eighty per cent of Australia’s population lives within a hundred kilometres of the coast, making it one of the world’s biggest urbanised coastal dwelling populations.”

  With a hand-wave, I click the button again.

  “Oh, this is delightful,” Bunty sighs happily, leaning back in her lounger and eating a spoonful of buckwheat soup. “What an unexpected treat.”

  Nat takes a sip of her sludge smoothie, then spits it on to the floor.

  “H,” she sighs. “Get to the point already.”

  OK: that was harsh.

  Where else does she think this is heading?

  “So,” I conclude, skipping to the final slide, “the point I’m making is that the Australian coastline is big. Eighty-five per cent of the population live within fifty kilometres of the sea. I think that we should be some of them!”

  Then I flick to a page with photos of Nat, Bunty and me, stuck on top of an Australian flag.

  “We are some of them, darling,” Bunty points out fondly. “We’re sitting in front of the sea right now.”

  Sugar cookies. I did not factor our current location in.

  “More of it,” I say hastily. “We should see more of it. Why stay in one place when there’s a whole world to explore?”

  Then I hold out my hands and spin in a circle.

  Bunty breaks into applause. “I couldn’t have said it better myself! That was fabulous! Shall we go today? I’ll get my bag.”

  I can feel satisfaction pulsing all over me.

  Ha. That was so much easier than trying to convince my parents of anything: they were an excellent if somewhat critical training ground. Now I just have to grab my suitcase, get us to the bus station and—

  “Wait a minute,” Nat says, leaning back in her bean bag with her eyes narrowed: looking at me carefully. “You want us to leave Sydney, right now, to go and see all the beaches in Australia?”

  “Yup,” I say, looking at the floor. “Basically.”

  “No beach in particular?”

  “N-ooo.” I shift my gaze to an interesting tree behind her. “Just … any of them. As they come. As we go up the coast.”

  “Sure.” Nat’s eyes have narrowed to slits. “And none of these random beaches would begin with a B, would they? Followed by another B?”

  Bat poop. She was paying way more attention to what I’ve been saying over the last year and a half than I thought she was.

  “Well, of course,” I say, quickly turning the presentation off before she sees the little red star I drew on the coastline. “There’s Bells Beach in Victoria. Burleigh Heads Beach on the Gold Coast …”

  “Byron Bay, fourteen hours’ bus-drive north.”

  We stare at each other as only lifelong best friends can: with all the words on the planet even though we’re not saying any of them.

  “Oh my God,” Nat finally shouts, jumping up and flinging her napkin on the table. “You spoke to Nick, didn’t you?! What happened? Did he ring again? Harriet, you didn’t ring him, did you?”

  She knows.

  I don’t know how, but somehow Nat saw straight through my PowerPoint presentation to the truth. There may be 10,685 beaches in Australia, but I’m only planning on heading to one of them.

  Byron Bay: Nick’s childhood home.

  “Umm,” I say, chewing my bottom lip. “Actually, I saw him.”

  There’s a long silence.

  Nat’s eyes are so round she looks like a cartoon character: as if they’re about to fall out of her head with a boing sound. “You saw him? WHEN, EXACTLY?”

  “He turned up on my shoot. And …” I glance at Bunty. Obviously I can’t expose what I know about Yuka, because then she’ll know I eavesdropped on
her private conversation. “I need to see him again. As soon as possible.”

  Nat closes her eyes for a second.

  The muscle between her eyebrows twitches briefly and her bottom lip tenses.

  Then she opens them again and looks straight at me.

  “No,” she says coldly. “Absolutely not.”

  inety-five per cent of the universe is unaccounted for.

  Astrophysicists have looked at all the stars, black holes and galaxies they can find in the sky, and they only make up five per cent of known mass: leaving a huge amount of “dark matter” which they dedicate their entire lives to hunting for but are still unable to find.

  What I’m trying to say is: we might think we know everything, but there are frequently mysteries right under our noses.

  The unknowable is always lurking.

  I’ve been best friends with Nat for over a decade, but I never, ever saw this dark matter coming.

  “No?” I say, sitting down abruptly on a sunlounger. “What do you mean no?”

  “I mean no,” Nat says, a familiar pink flush climbing up her throat. “No, you are not seeing Nick again. No, you don’t need to see him. And hell no, I’m not coming with you or backing this idea in any way, shape or form.”

  My mouth falls open.

  Nat has never failed to support me wholeheartedly: not even when my ideas are stupid, trouble or poorly thought through.

  In fact, she’s normally the first to join the front line.

  Like a kind of sacrificial soldier for bad ideas.

  “I don’t think you understand,” I start tentatively as Nat rips a red flower from a nearby bush and starts yanking the petals off, one by one. “This isn’t about me …”

  “No,” she hisses, throwing another petal on the floor. “Nu-uh. Not going to happen. Never. Over my dead body.”

  She throws the stalk on to the floor and steps on it.

  “Nat,” I say slowly, standing up and holding my hands out the way cowboys do when trying to calm a wild horse. “I understand if you don’t want to come or if you’re too busy but—”

  “That is not what I’m saying,” she snaps. “Oh my God, Harriet. How many times are you going to do this? What is wrong with you?”