Very Nearly Normal

by Hannah Sunderland

  The green monster inside my brain began to scream and tie a noose for itself.

  ‘There’s just a lot to think about isn’t there?’ I tried in vain to talk her out of it, just so I could cease to be friends with someone so perfect and accomplished. ‘What about Callum and your parents?’

  Kate scoffed. ‘My parents? Honey, I’m late twenties.’ I felt the blow of Kate’s words hit me directly in the gut. She may well have escaped the purgatory of living in the family home, but I was very much still there. ‘And as for Callum …’ Kate paused and I instantly knew what was coming. If the intonation of her voice hadn’t given it away, then the sickeningly self-gratified grin had.

  I knew what she wanted me to do, but I refused to do it. I would not look at her hand.

  It was my one small act of defiance.

  When I didn’t look down, Kate brought her left hand up into the air and that’s when I saw it, the oval-cut diamond that sat on her perfectly polished ring finger. ‘… he proposed.’ The diamond reflected the neon green light of the exit sign behind me and all I wanted to do was turn around and use it.

  ‘I’m so happy for you,’ I lied. What else could I have said?

  ‘I knew you would be. Of course, you will have to be part of the day,’ Kate cooed. The idea of being stuffed into a powder blue bridesmaid’s dress and forced to pretend to be happy for an entire day made my toes curl. And if spending an entire day with Kate wasn’t bad enough, I knew that Eloise ‘Fucking’ Kempshore would be there too. ‘Eloise has already agreed to be my maid of honour—’ boom, there it is ‘—and I already have eight bridesmaids, but we’ll find a place for you somewhere.’

  A place for me somewhere.

  I replayed the words in my head. If that sentence didn’t sum me up completely, then no sentence ever would. She would shoehorn me into her special day like that time I tried on a pair of size eight jeans and had to ask the attendant to hold the ankles while I lay on the floor and tried to wriggle free of them.

  How stupid I’d been to think that I even warranted the nightmare task of being one of Kate’s bridesmaids, when there were already so many volunteers.

  ‘That would be amazing, thank you.’ The words fell from my mouth like dry turds during a bout of constipation.

  ‘Enough about me,’ Kate said, picking up her phone and staring back down at the screen. ‘What’s new with you?’

  ‘New with me?’ I repeated as I tried desperately to think of something that had happened in the two months since our last unbearable coffee date. Kate’s French-tipped nails click-clacked across the screen furiously as she typed out a text and frowned with concentration. I tried desperately to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. Kate wasn’t listening anyway so, in the end, I just said, ‘Mum got a new kettle last week.’ That wasn’t even true.

  Kate didn’t reply, react or even listen as she continued to tap away at the screen, her nails sounding like tiny hooves as my words hit her solitary bubble and bounced away into the atmosphere.

  I felt my nostrils flare as I took a sip of my latte. I guessed that the barista had given me the bitter option because it tasted like battery acid.

  I had planned on telling Kate that I had a date tonight with some guy I’d met on Tinder; but Kate wasn’t listening.

  Kate never listened.

  Almost two full minutes of silence passed as I continued to force down the coffee I’d wasted four quid on and Kate giggled at a group chat message that I wasn’t allowed to join in with.

  The argument was brewing inside my mind. It had marinated itself in years of bitterness and subtle betrayals and by the end of those two minutes my words were fully oiled and ready to hit the scalding frying pan. I waited for myself to do it, to slam my mug down hard on the lid of the ‘table’ and say everything I’d always wanted to tell her, but the truth was that I would never say the words that filled my mouth like bile. I’d never been able to do it before, what made me think I could do it now?

  I looked down at the illuminated phone in Kate’s hand and noted the time. We’d spent the grand total of twenty-seven minutes ‘catching up’ – that was record time, even for us.

  ‘It was great to see you again, Eff,’ Kate said as she pulled me into a hug that felt both unnecessary and intrusive.

  Fuck, she even smelled amazing.

  ‘It was great to see you too,’ I lied, almost hearing the thud of more heavy, dry word turds as they hit the frosted pavement.

  ‘I’ll be in touch before I leave for Toronto. Love ya, bye.’ She blew a kiss over her shoulder and walked away, her ponytail swaying behind her like a silken pendulum.

  I stood for a moment and watched as Kate walked away. The memory of our school prom photo leapt into my mind and brought slight warmth to my chest. Our mums had paid in advance and forced us to have it done because, just like us, they’d still refused to let our friendship die the quick death it so truly deserved. The image in my brain was of two sixteen-year-old girls, hugging each other like the years of history would prevent us from ever truly drifting apart. Of two beaming smiles that held years of secrets, shared joys and shared pains; of love.

  I had loved her once, there was no denying that, but that time and that love was now nothing more than an image in my brain; a memory.

  Chapter Two

  I’d never found it easy to make friends and so replacing what I’d lost with Kate had been a struggle. Everyone said that the friendships you make at school and university are the ones that will last a lifetime.

  Well, I’m officially calling bullshit on that over-sentimental statement.

  I’d made absolutely no friends at university.

  Zero. Nil. Nada.

  The people on my course had all seemed so childish, annoying or utterly humourless, content only with getting shitfaced and bragging about who they’d slept with the night before.

  I’d spent what should have been my carefree years of drunken frolics, nights of regret and getting into awkward situations – stories of which would appear at every dinner party for the rest of my life – studying and working hard. I wouldn’t even have felt so pissed off about that, had I not barely scraped by with a third and managed to come out of that failure with a crippling debt, the likes of which I could never hope to repay. All of my friendly ties from school had ended with the final bell and uni had been nothing more than three bloated years of persistent carb consumption and bitter disappointment.

  I’d spent a year after that on Jobseeker’s Allowance, which had all but stuck the final rusty nail into the coffin lid of my own self-worth. But one good thing that had come from the hours of sitting in itchy corporate chairs under harsh fluorescent lighting was Arthur.

  Arthur Dale, owner of Dog Ears Bookshop, had come in to the job centre to talk to me and twenty other hapless, joyless, jobless fuck-ups about owning our own businesses.

  Truth be told, I was the only person who got anything from Arthur’s talk and when he’d finished rambling on about tax returns and marketing, I’d gone up to speak with him. He was mid-forties with a shaggy wilderness of untamed black curls and a pair of extremely well-worn Birkenstocks that looked as if the leather was hanging on to the sole for dear life. After that, I latched on to Arthur like a parasite and we swiftly became, what I liked to think of as, unlikely friends; whether Arthur liked it or not.

  My mother, Joy – ironically named as she rarely found joy in anything – had worried about Arthur’s intentions towards her lost and insecure daughter, but I’d soon put her mind to rest when I’d informed her that Arthur had eyes for only one person and that was his accountant, Toby.

  Arthur was the opposite of me in every way. He was successful, with an established business that continued to win the battle between book and Kindle, a nice flat above the shop and an unwavering sense of sarcasm that I could only ever dream of reaching. He wasn’t self-conscious and was persistent when it came to getting what he wanted, a trait best illustrated by the epic pursuit of T
oby that had been going on for at least six years.

  He wasn’t afraid to put his mind to something and nine times out of ten he ended up achieving what he’d set out to.

  I made my way to the bookshop, the anger from the coffee date still swilling around with my stomach acid. I pushed the cold brass handle of the door with a little more force than necessary, catching the bell by surprise. The loud clanging caused everyone in the shop to turn and stare at me with startled expressions on their faces. Everyone, that is, except Arthur who was used to me by now and remained undisturbed. He stood at the top of a stepladder, rearranging travel guides into the order of the countries he wanted to visit next.

  ‘Afternoon, oh ray of golden sunshine,’ he droned as I threw my bag over the counter, its contents spilling out and clattering across the floor. ‘Don’t be shy, come in and destroy the tranquillity by all means.’

  ‘Sorry. I had a shitty morning,’ I said as I hoisted myself onto the counter, pulling my feet up and crossing my legs.

  ‘Which by default means that I am going to have a shitty afternoon,’ he replied, clutching the ladder with one hand and swinging around to face me. ‘So, what happened?’

  ‘Kate.’ I sighed.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ he replied, his lanky frame looming over me from above.

  ‘She’s been promoted and she’s engaged.’

  ‘Ouch.’ He winced. ‘I bet that stung.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say stung. It was more like a creeping flesh disease, leprosy maybe?’ I picked up a complimentary mint imperial from the wooden bowl beside the till and placed it in my mouth.

  ‘Those aren’t for you!’ Arthur snapped with annoyance, quickly descending the ladder and placing the bowl out of reach.

  I still wasn’t one hundred per cent sure that Arthur liked me, but he tolerated me and that was why he quickly became one of my favourite people. I’d pushed my way into his life with as much subtlety as a baby pushing itself from its mother’s womb – desperately attaching myself to him and refusing to let go. In the weeks following his talk at the job centre, I would sit and read at his shop and eventually I began to serve customers when Arthur was busy. After a while he decided that he’d better start paying me and so not only had I forced my way into his life, but into his business as well. In all fairness it was the best job I’d ever had, with no official shift times, no dress code and basically no rules; except to keep my hands off the complimentary mint imperials.

  There were a few people milling around the shelves, their eyes searching the spines for their next bedside read. I turned away from them, not caring if they overheard, and looked to Arthur, my very own agony aunt.

  ‘I just don’t get it,’ I began as Arthur leaned against the counter, making himself comfortable for what he knew would be a long one. ‘I try so hard and achieve nothing, yet Kate puts in the bare minimum and people just seem to fling opportunities at her. Should I stop trying so hard to sort my life out? If I just give up completely, will someone come to me with a sexy new boyfriend and a six-figure salary? Tell me, Arthur, tell me to give up.’

  ‘What? You mean you haven’t totally given up already?’ He smirked.

  ‘Can you be serious for just one minute? I need your wisdom right now.’

  ‘All right, listen, some people just get all the luck and others don’t. That’s just the shitty way that life works. You are one of the latter, whereas Kate is part of the former. She may get everything she ever wanted, and she’ll never have to work for it, but when you finally get where you’re going, it will mean all the more because of how hard you worked to get there.’

  I frowned. ‘So, you’re saying I’ll try twice as hard to fail at something as everyone else?’ I asked.

  ‘Precisely!’ He grinned, his tone upbeat.

  ‘Wow, thanks.’ I sighed as a customer approached the till. He looked at us sheepishly and held a book out in front of him.

  ‘Can I buy this?’ he asked, as if he was worried he’d interrupted our counselling session.

  I sighed and pasted on my ‘of course I don’t hate the customers’ face. I took the book from him, glanced at the front cover and felt the familiar jealousy. Each and every book that I sold was clouded with the thought that that could have been my name on the cover with my words inside, but alas, the countless agents and publishers I’d sent my manuscript to had deemed me unworthy of such a feat and so, I had stashed that ninety-thousand-word dream in a box beneath my bed and resigned myself to forever being a bookseller rather than a writer.

  I charged the man and he left with the book cradled under his arm.

  ‘You’ll get there one day,’ Arthur said with a sympathetic smile curling his lips.

  ‘Will I?’ I asked, almost to myself.

  Seven thirty hit and I found myself crammed into a sticky vinyl booth at the mock-American diner in the centre of town. I’d never liked this place but, Daz – my Tinder date – had suggested it and so I’d decided to give it another shot. The Fifties doo-wop music blared angrily from crackling speakers and the smell of sickly-sweet milkshakes and chip fat filled the air. The place was basically empty except for me, a family of four in the far corner and a lone diner behind me, who munched noisily on his fries.

  I wasn’t kidding myself, I didn’t anticipate much from this date with a guy whose name sounded like a cleaning product, but what did I have to lose?

  If all went well, then it would be an evening of flirting, followed by a kiss or two and then we would probably part forever. It was sad really, but all I really wanted was to feel desired for one evening.

  I took my phone from my bag while I waited and opened Facebook to complete my allotted self-torture time. The phone was old and battered and the edges of the screen were a spiderweb of cracks from the various abuses it had suffered at my hands.

  The first post that made my stomach acid boil in my gut was an overly sentimental inspirational quote about being kind to others. Ironically this was posted by a girl I had once witnessed kicking the shit out of another girl in the park before school started because said girl had looked at her funny. Next was a post about someone’s dad who’d died fourteen years ago. It was a long, arduous text, almost an essay, which was generous in its use of clichés. I wondered why people posted these. Was it a well-known fact that the afterlife had nothing better to do than monitor Facebook for remembrance statuses? I scoffed and scrolled further.

  A woman I’d met once at a job centre workshop had posted a picture. It was a shot of her legs, crossed at the ankles, a cocktail in her hand and a pool glinting in the distance. The caption read: ‘So, how’s your day?’

  Pretty shitty so far, Karen, thanks for asking.

  I hazarded a glance at Kate’s page. The latest post was a photo of her and her fiancé, Callum, their eyes squinting into the flash of the camera as they embraced and grinned like maniacs. I wish I’d someone I could grin about like that. Maybe, after this date, I would. Who knew, Daz could be The One.

  The more I thought about the date, the more I began to talk myself around to the idea. Life hadn’t found me my romcom leading man yet, but maybe Tinder would prevail where life had failed. But those hopes were dashed the moment he stepped through the door. He wore expensive-looking trainers, low-slung jeans and a T-shirt with a V-neck so deep it was basically a cardigan. He was laughable, with a pathetic attempt at a goatee sitting on his receding chin, and yet I knew that I would have to sit through a date with him out of pure politeness. I lifted my hand and waved to him. He lowered his Primani shades and cast me a disappointed glance.

  ‘You Effie?’ he barked.

  ‘Yes. You must be Daz.’ The lone diner behind me made a loud choking noise and then regained his composure.

  ‘Yeah, dat’s me.’ He slid into the booth and placed his phone face up on the table. He surveyed me for a second before saying, ‘You don’t look like your Tinder photo.’

  ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Well, it’s definitely me in the picture.’

&n
bsp; He tapped around on his phone before pulling up the image and holding it out to me. I caught a whiff of his aftershave, which was trying to be Boss for Men.

  ‘Who’s the other girl then?’ he asked.

  I leaned forward and looked at the picture, my heart sinking when I understood the confusion. I’d never been one to take selfies. I’d tried it a couple of times but I just ended up feeling like a knob, standing there pouting at the camera. Who was I taking them for? I certainly didn’t want them, so all of my photos were in groups, snapshots of nights out where I’d tried to breathe in and stand taller beside Kate. With an encroaching sense of nausea, I realised Daz had thought he was meeting her, instead of the disappointment sitting opposite him.

  ‘Oh, that’s my friend,’ I said quietly, the word friend feeling uncomfortable in my mouth.

  ‘She single?’ he asked without irony.

  I paused for a moment and wondered if he was being serious.

  ‘No. She’s engaged actually. Sorry to disappoint,’ I spat angrily.

  He tutted. ‘All the hot ones are.’

  His shoulders sagged and he pushed his shades back onto his nose. The awkward silence hung in the air like a stagnant fart until he finally stood and excused himself to go to the bathroom. My eyes stung as I felt the tears, but I’d be damned if I’d let him see me cry. Maybe I could just leave, slip out while he was gone and make a run for it? No. Effie Heaton would not run from a man-child who thought that an Ali G beard was still an acceptable form of facial hair.

  I ordered a Coke – full-fat not diet – and chugged on the straw hungrily as I waited for my disappointed date to return. I could feel the grease in the air, settling on my skin and laying foundations for the bulging spot that no doubt would begin to sprout before the end of the day.

  I looked around at the rest of the diner, trying to ignore the audible masticating of the person behind me. Why did some people have to make such a song and dance about eating? Surely he’d had enough practice.