The Art of Keeping Faith

by Anna Bloom

  “Bar.”

  Very informative.

  “No, really?”

  Beth pulled a face and then delightfully showed me the food she was chewing in her mouth.

  “Froebel, we are going to Fez next but we came to get you on the way.”

  “Um, there is no way in hell I am going to Fez tonight!” I stated firmly.

  “Name me one good reason?” challenged Beth.

  “I am in my pyjamas and it is nine o’clock!”

  “Oh my God. You are such a fucking granny.”

  “I am not!”

  “You are.”

  “I’m bloody not. Give me my wine back, you cow.”

  “Come to Fez then, Granny,” she taunted.

  Meredith and I sat and stared at each other.

  “It is Friday,” I said to her after a while.

  “It is only nine o’ clock,” she agreed.

  “Okay let’s do it, but girls I have one condition.”

  “What’s that?” asked Beth

  “You need to help me stand up first. I am stuck in this chair.”

  Meredith gave a little giggle and helped pull me up. “It’ll do me good to have some fun, won’t it, Lil?” she whispered. I didn’t have time to wonder at the underlying message beneath her words because Beth interrupted us.

  “Yes it sodding will if you get a bloody move on. Come on. You can’t go in your pyjama’s. No matter how sexy they are.”

  It was fun. In fact it was probably the best fun I’ve had in a ridiculously long time. However it may have been fun for a lot of the wrong reasons and I do not want to think about that right now. Or perhaps ever.

  Shit. I’ve got to get up for work—it’s going to be a very long, very painful day.

  7.45 a.m.

  Oh, it’s painful. I cannot bend my legs at all, so I have just walked to the bathroom and back like I’ve shit myself while trying not to get tripped up by Kit who was weaving in between my ankles.

  It’s only as I mince my way back into my room I notice the yellow Post-it wrapped around his collar.

  Tristan the shit.

  Ben called … again.

  Whoosh.

  My stomach gives a little lurch.

  All week I’ve been waiting for him to call and he does so the night I am out shit-faced, doing who knows what.

  Excellent.

  9.30 a.m.

  Work

  I’m late. Half an hour late.

  Baz glares at me as I shuffle into the shop. I can’t move my legs or my head—it has been an interesting trip into work.

  “Blimey! Are you all right, Lovey?” Baz takes a step toward me as if he is going to grab me and keep me upright, but then changes his mind when he sees me taking off my sunglasses and gauges the green colour I am underneath.

  Yeah the puking started right about when my stomach did the whole whoosh thing in the hallway.

  I think it was the wine.

  I am going to kill Meredith when I see her.

  “What happened?” asks Big Baz as he hands me a lukewarm over-stewed black coffee, which I gulp down gratefully.

  First I point to my legs. “Jogging with a fit person,” I explain to Baz who nods understandingly.

  “Meredith and white wine,” I add pointing to my head.

  Baz gives me another understanding nod. “Figured as much.”

  “Yeah, I hope she is suffering as well.”

  “I’d guess so.”

  I shrug out of my jacket and prop myself against the counter.

  “Wake me up when it’s time to go home.”

  “You really are the crappiest Saturday girl in history.”

  I raise my head. “Are you going to sack me?”

  “No,” he says. Nor does he sound overly-thrilled at the prospect of keeping me on.

  “I’m sorry.” And I really am.

  “Yeah, I know. So have you spoken to Ben while you’ve been lording about in full student mode this week? I bet he is tired, home sick and missing you.”

  Whoosh.

  There goes my stomach again. “I’m going to be sick,” I announce very loudly just as a mum walks in with her teenage son.

  “Don’t ever drink too much alcohol,” I hear Baz tell the boy gruffly. I just about make it to the room out back, which has a sink in it, before I see the lukewarm over-brewed coffee again.

  10.30 a.m.

  The door chimes and I look up from the make-shift pillow I have made out of my jacket and a spare hoodie of Ben’s I found under the counter. I may have been drooling; the jumper smells of Ben’s unique scent of smoke and fabric softener and it has taken me to a very happy place.

  It’s Meredith. She is shuffling toward me affecting the same Neanderthal walk I came in with an hour ago. “You, too?” she says as she sees me lifting my head off the counter.

  I don’t bother with a greeting, I just put my head back down.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake. Now I have two of you?” Baz exclaims before wandering off.

  “So you’re alive then?” Meredith asks as she lowers her head down next to mine on the counter.

  “What do you mean? We came home together didn’t we?”

  I am sure we did. I walked home with someone. I distinctly remember re-enacting that “Singing in the Rain” scene and swinging around the lampposts and splashing in every puddle that I found while singing made-up lyrics at the top of my lungs.

  “Um, nope not me, I woke up at Jayne and Beth’s an hour ago. Seriously. Tristan is going to kill me.”

  ”Yes, yes. But who the hell did I walk home with?”

  “Richard probably …” Meredith trails off as she pops open one eye to cast a quick glance in my direction.

  Rubbish.

  “Well, shit, I don’t remember that at all.”

  “Do you remember dancing with him the whole night, slap-bang in the middle of the dance floor?”

  Yes, I do. Unfortunately.

  I have a bad feeling it may be contributing to the pukefest that is Saturday the 2nd November. “It’s not like we were doing a Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.”

  Meredith giggles into the counter.

  “Whatever,” I state with a heavy dose of teenage attitude.

  “So you remember the dancing, you just don’t remember getting home?”

  “No, I remember going home. I just thought I did the singing and dancing with you!”

  “You sang?”

  “Yep.”

  “You danced?”

  “Yep.”

  Actually, now that I think about it this explains why my legs are so ridiculously sore. It must have been where I was pole dancing all the street lamps the entire two-mile walk home.

  So kill me now.

  We lapse into a comfortable silence where I screw my eyes shut and try to erase the dancing/singing/pole dancing memories from my mind. The comfortable silence soon slips into a comfortable dose until the doorbell rings again and I have to physically peel myself off the counter and do some actual work.

  11.45 a.m.

  I can’t believe I sang the whole way home. That is just so ridiculously embarrassing. Meredith has gone home to grovel to Tristan and sleep off her hangover horizontally, as opposed to vertically with her head on a counter. She made sure to tell Baz about my musical theatre moment before she left. He has been chuckling sporadically ever since, every so often whistling, “Singing in the Rain,” as he passes me by.

  12.30 p.m.

  “I’m bored,” Baz states purposefully in a loud voice, ensuring to jolt me out of my dose.

  “You think?”

  Baz has tuned every guitar in the place and is now twitching next to me, which is really bloody annoying when I am trying to sleep. “Fancy a Bud and a game of guitar karaoke?”

  I pull a face. A Bud? Is this guy deranged, I only stopped throwing up an hour ago.

  Although saying that, hair of the dog would undoubtedly lift the headache. He knows my decision is a sure
thing and pings the till open with a chuckle before handing me a twenty. “You go grab, I’ll warm the old magic fingers up.”

  “Why do I always have to go? They think I am an alcoholic in Waitrose.”

  They do. I end up in there every week buying cases of beer. It’s normally always the same spotty teenager who serves me.

  “Lovie, that is not a new thing.” Baz winks.

  Ha bloody ha.

  Purchases made I am walking back up the high-street to the shop when my phone vibrates in my pocket.

  Ben.

  I put the two boxes of Budweiser down on the pavement regardless of the pedestrian traffic weaving around me and grab my phone.

  Not Ben.

  My chest tightens as I register the non-Ben text.

  Richard: How’s the head?

  Bugger.

  Me: Sore …

  I pick up the box and complete the remaining few yards to the shop.

  Baz is in full rock-mode as I walk in through the door. I have no idea what he is playing but it sounds heavy; very heavy.

  He stops playing and I hand him a bottle. We gave up a long time ago on waiting for them to chill—figured we may as well embrace our English heritage and consume room temperature beer.

  “Oooh, look what else I got,” I grin as I dip into the Waitrose bag and pull out two bumper size packs of Doritos.

  “Now ya thinking.” Baz grabs the spicy bag and rips it open before shovelling a huge fistful into his mouth.

  “That’s not very attractive.”

  “I’m fifty-five. I’m overweight. I drink too much. I really don’t think I need to be concerned about a few Doritos.”

  “True,” I confirm. “So what was that music?”

  “My old band.” He says this in a way which makes me feel that I should probably know this. Obviously I don’t.

  “You were in a band?” I shovel my own handful of crispy triangle goodness into my mouth.

  “That’s not very attractive you know.” He smirks and I stick my tongue out in response.

  “So?”

  “I used to be in a rock band in the seventies. You are probably far too sheltered to have ever heard of them.”

  “Probably,” I shrug.

  “We had a few hits, quite a few actually, but then I decided I wanted to take a different path.”

  “What, one that involved hanging out with alcoholic Saturday girls and eating too many Doritos?”

  “Yes, that path exactly.”

  “Does Ben know your band?”

  “Of course,” he gives a smirk. “We were pretty famous.

  “Cool, I work for a famous dude.” This is actually quite exciting. “That may have to be my claim to fame.”

  Baz looks at me like I am mad. “And having a famous boyfriend currently taking the States by storm isn’t?”

  “Is he?”

  “Of course. Lilah are you not following the band’s progress at all?”

  I squirm for a moment. “Yeah kind of, but you know it’s hard. I am just here doing all the boring student stuff and he is off doing all those amazing things with the band. It was different in the summer when I was at home and could talk to him, or stalk him. But now I am just having to live my life, too.”

  Baz appraises me for a moment, keen eyes reading mine. “I do understand, you know. More than you think.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a story for another day.”

  “Tell me now,” I insist. Patience is not one of my strongest suits.

  “Nah. We are going to play, aren’t we?”

  Nodding in agreement I settle on the counter for a round of our favourite game.

  Baz is three songs into guitar karaoke where I shout random song names and he magically knows how to play them when my phone vibrates again.

  Ben.

  Damn it.

  Richard: btw I had no idea you were such a big Lady Antebellum fan.

  Shit.

  Me: I have no idea what you are talking about.

  There is no reply, but I am sure he is off somewhere laughing about it with all his football buddies.

  Great. That’s all I need, not only am I the girl who won and lost a rock God, not once but twice, I am also now going to be known as the girl that likes musicals and country music.

  My street cred has always been painfully low—it may be about to get far worse.

  3rd November

  12.08 a.m.

  I am sleepy, I may have been in a coma; I could hear the phone ringing in my dream. It was a dream where Ben was being bombarded on stage by hundreds of girls only wearing black underwear.

  Finally I realise that the noise in my head was not the fire alarm going off and all the girls weren’t being showered in water from the fire-sprinklers overhead and that it was in fact the house phone ringing and if the house phone was ringing at just gone midnight it could only be one person.

  I dive down the hallway probably breaking the land speed record.

  “Lilah?”

  “Ben?”

  A silence settles on the line and I hear the spark of his lighter.

  Shit my cigarettes.

  “Hold on, I’ll be right back,” I shout and dash back down to my room grabbing my packet of fags and then skid back along the wooden floor boards to the phone.

  “Do you not think, Lilah, that we should invest in a cordless phone? That way you would always be able to answer even if you are in bed.” My stomach takes a dive at the way he says my name.

  “That is a good idea.” I agree although I know I will never bother to go and buy one.

  Ben also knows this and gives a little chuckle down the line. “I’ll get you one for your birthday.”

  I can think of better things for a birthday present, like sex. Or a diamond ring.

  What the fuck? Where did that come from?

  “Lilah? Are you there?”

  Yeah I am here, lost in some crazy daydream where you come home and propose to me and we can live happily forever after with me trailing your rock star arse all around the world.

  “Um, yep I’m here. How are you?”

  “Missing you.”

  “Really?”

  “Yep, are you not missing me?”

  “Of course I am.” I sigh a little. Oh, I so am. “So how’s it going?”

  “It’s manic, Lilah.” My stomach does another little dip at my name low in his throat. He must be cradling the phone very close to his mouth, he sounds so near I can almost feel his breath along my neck. “I’m sorry I have not been able to speak to you very much. I hate it, but it’s impossible to find ten minutes to even think for myself let alone make a call.”

  “Ben, it’s okay. I hear you guys are doing really well.”

  “Yeah we are. Better than I ever thought. Better than I think anyone ever thought.”

  “The others must be loving that?”

  Dave has been desperate for fame; it’s what drives him. Ben does not share his best friend’s enthusiasm. Well, he didn’t but then I guess that may change now he has had a taste for it.

  “So what have you been up to, probably a lot more fun than I’m actually having?” He takes a drag on his cigarette.

  “Oh God, you know. Last night the girls dragged me to The Fez. I was in my pyjamas and everything but they wouldn’t let up.”

  “Oh, I am sure you took a lot of persuading.”

  “Well, I was doing it for Meredith really. She is acting really odd.”

  “Odd? Meredith, never! That’s why you two are best friends. You are both as odd as each other.”

  “Whatever, Chambers.”