The Art of Keeping Faith

by Anna Bloom

  Shit.

  They are more than tight. I just had to lie down to get them done up. I am blaming Tristan, somehow he managed to convince me to go for a curry last night which obviously my candyfloss willpower could do little to resist. We devoured the Bengal Banquet and three bottles of wine between the two of us.

  Ben is going to be home in just eight days. EIGHT DAYS!!!! There is a very strong chance he will not recognise me the way things are going.

  It is time for desperate measures. It’s time for the Lilah detox plan to start in earnest.

  16th November

  Breakfast: Half a grapefruit and banana

  Lunch: Fresh air

  Dinner: Salad with a squeeze of Lemon

  Three pints of water.

  Baz decided not to comment on the lack of food and beer being consumed. But he did look a little concerned when I did a weird semi-blackout thing while standing on the shop stool that I use to get the guitars down from where they are suspended from the ceiling.

  Not as concerned as the customer who got hit on the head with it.

  Funnily enough, I did not make a sale.

  17th November

  Breakfast: Hot water and a squeeze of lemon

  Lunch: Carrot batons and a dollop of hummus

  Dinner: Steamed fish—I have never steamed anything before and I am very proud of this new life skill, however I am not sure the fish was supposed to taste quite like that. It resembled chalk, was kind of hard to swallow, and got stuck in my throat.

  18th November

  4.30 p.m.

  “How long are you going to keep this up for?” Meredith is leaning against the counter in the kitchen and guarding her ham sandwich, which I am eyeing with the zeal of a half-starved dog.

  “Eight more days.”

  “Is this all about Ben?”

  “No, it’s all about me being pudgy.”

  “You’re not pudgy!”

  “Well, I am compared to the girls in those photos.”

  There have been more photos. I am trying not to look, but it is not going very well. I don’t have any will power at the best of times; turns out I have none at all when it comes to restraining myself from stalking Ben and obsessing about skinny blonde chicks having their photo taken with him.

  It’s not just the photos; it is also the comments on Facebook.

  How hot is BC!

  Very and he is mine—back off.

  I love that guy’s accent … it makes me go all gooey and mushy.

  Yes, bitch, I am sure it does—I however do not need to know about your nether regions.

  There should be a campaign—a Ben Chambers take your top off campaign.

  He has a personality you shallow cow

  I wonder if Ben Chambers is single, I know bad things that I want to do to that boy!

  So do I, and I am going to do them in five days.

  Thing is, I haven’t got time to respond to all the comments personally, so I am just going to stop looking before it drives me crazy thinking just what all those ho’s want to do to my Ben.

  6.30 p.m.

  “Pretty, pretty, pretty please come with me,” I beg.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Oh, but whyyyyyyyyyy?”

  I just stamped my foot. I can’t remember the last time I did that. Maybe about twenty years ago, but I am getting very cross.

  I need someone to come to yoga with me. I don’t think I am asking much, but Tristan has actually walked out of the room to get away from my “incessant moaning,” as he called it. How rude.

  Meredith is flat on her back on the sofa, remote in hand, wearing her pyjamas. I am not sure how she has done it but somehow she has coerced Kit onto her side of the argument and he is sitting on her chest purring and she is using him as her excuse not to get up.

  One way to fix that problem.

  I walk into the kitchen and open a can of Whiskers. A split second later he is winding around my ankles staring at me with his big blues.

  “Kit, you turncoat,” Meredith hollers after the cat.

  “Ha! I don’t know why you are wearing your pyjamas anyway, it’s only half six.”

  I run back into the lounge to continue my yoga campaign. There is a dirt-cheap yoga class on campus tonight, which is great for students. I have heard great things about the effects of yoga on a flabby tummy. I am hoping for a miracle.

  “Pleeeeaaaase, come with me? Just once so I don’t have to go alone and I promise I will never ask again.”

  “What’s it worth?”

  “Dinner? On the way home?”

  She gives an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

  “Oh for goodness’ sake, okay!”

  “Yes! Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  “If I fart in public I am blaming you.”

  “Why on earth would you fart in public?”

  “That’s what happens in yoga, don’t you know that?”

  “No! Really?”

  “Yep, have you changed your mind?” She sounds excited that I may have done. She clearly does not understand the magnitude of the flabby tummy nightmare I am currently living.

  “No. Don’t be so lazy. I am sure we won’t fart, that would be ridiculous.”

  10.00 p.m.

  I farted.

  I am still laughing so much I can barely write.

  Hold on.

  10.30 p.m.

  It was a fanny fart.

  Yes that’s right, my vagina decided to make its own annoyance at the exercise class loud and clear. It happened about half an hour into the lesson. Meredith collapsed on the floor and spent the next hour suffering from compulsive giggling.

  Every time she stopped I started, which made her giggle even more.

  I can safely say that yoga is not for me.

  10.50 p.m.

  “I’m still laughing,” Meredith shouts through our bedroom walls.

  “Me, too,” I shout back.

  I fanny farted in public. That has got to be the single most embarrassing thing I have done to date.

  19th November

  Shit, my ribs, I think I may have broken them. I can hardly breathe.

  At breakfast I find Meredith in the kitchen with her head on the counter.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, although, nothing truly surprises me in this house.

  “My ribs ache so bad.”

  “Oooh, mine too. Do you think it was the yoga?”

  She turns her head to look at me. She has her hair in a ponytail, which I don’t think I have ever seen before.

  “No, Lilah, it was the laughing.”

  I didn’t think of that. “Shit.”

  “Shit,” she agrees before starting to snigger into the counter some more.

  “What’s with the pony?”

  “It hurt too much to put my hands above my head and Tristan wouldn’t straighten my hair for me.”

  “Well, at least we worked some muscles.”

  We both wince as we start to laugh some more.

  ”Lilah.” Tristan has walked in and found us bent over and clutching our middles. “I heard the only thing you exercised were the cobwebs gathering in your vagina. Sorry I meant exorcised.”

  Smart arse.

  Skype

  “Bloody hell, Lilah, are you sick? You look terrible.”

  “No, I am not sick.” How rude.

  “What’s wrong with your face then? Your cheekbones are all funny, have you been experimenting with make-up again?”

  “Well, what’s wrong with your cheekbones?” Ben looks even thinner than he did last week.

  So do I, it seems—Yippee!

  “Nothing.” He runs an embarrassed hand through his hair.

  “New watch?” I ask.

  I can’t help but notice. It is blinging away in the light and is so far from what I would expect him to wear I can’t stop myself from commenting.

  He looks embarrassed again as he glances at it. “Yeah, it was a present.”

  �
�Wow, that’s a pretty big present?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  He does not offer any explanation as to who the gift may have been from. I don’t push the subject even though the question is burrowing under my skin and I know I am going to obsess about it later. I bet it was that frickin’ bitch Mihraandah.

  “So what you been up to this week?”

  “Same shit as last week,” he tells me, rubbing his jaw with his right hand. I notice my ring is still in place where I put it. For some reason I find this oddly reassuring even though I didn’t even know it was something I was worried about.

  “Are you okay, Ben?”

  It’s quite obvious that he isn’t.

  “Yeah, sorry, Lilah, I am just tired and Dave and I’ve had a few words. I guess I am a bit distracted.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  For some silly reason this makes tears sting in my eyes. I don’t know if it is because he is distracted from me when I spend all damn week waiting to be able to speak to him properly. Or if it is the harsh fact that Ben is down and tired and bloody thousands of miles away so I cannot do anything to help. Whatever the reason is, my throat starts to tighten.

  Don’t cry.

  He shakes his head as if he is pushing unwanted thoughts away and then turns on his megawatt smile.

  “Sorry, my love. Right, I am with you.”

  “That’s okay,” I say with an element of hesitation.

  “So how’s the detox going?” he asks, the blues crinkling.

  “They are a bunch of fuckers—who was it? Meredith or Tristan?” I know one of them has dished my diet plan to Ben.

  He giggles a little and I watch the freckles crinkle, momentarily mesmerised. “Both of them,” he laughs.

  “They’re wankers.”

  They so are.

  “How’s Kit?” he asks.

  “Your Kit, is bloody demented. He has to sit on my chest or if I am trying to study he has to sit on the open book. It makes studying just that little bit harder.”

  ”So how’s the studying?”

  “Good. Really, really good. Did you know that once there were two popes?”

  Ben cracks up some more and I revel in the fact that I can still make him laugh, even though his life is so different from the small one he used to live with me back when we used to make each other laugh all the time.

  “So how are the big party plans going?”

  “Uh, what big party plans?”

  “For your birthday, I thought something was being organised?”

  “Nope, that’s the first I have heard of it and the only plan I have is to spend some quality time with you.”

  “I like the sound of that,” he says. His voice a fraction lower.

  “I can’t wait.”

  “A few more days, Lilah, it will be worth it.” Voice even lower.

  I start to feel a little hot.

  “It better be.”

  “I’m not going to be home until late though. I’m sorry, it’s the only flight I could get, the band have got some stuff on and then I will be on my way home.”

  The word home hangs there between us and I flush with the pleasure of hearing it.

  “That’s fine, Ben. You being here at any point on my birthday will be the best gift I could ever receive.”

  “Well, let’s hope I manage slightly better than just turning up,” he chuckles.

  Well, let’s hope. And it had better involve sex and lots of it.

  We chitchat some more until my yawning starts to get out of control.

  “Go to sleep, Lilah.”

  “Sorry, I think I need to.”

  “See you on Saturday.”

  “See you on Saturday.”

  Four days to go and my Ben will be here. It’s going to be short, it is going to be sweet (hopefully the hotter side of sweet) and I am going to make sure that it is bloody amazing.

  21st November

  I ran to lectures. I turned up bright red, cheeks stinging with a nasty combination of over exertion and bitter cold air. Who cares?

  I will be thin in four days time, and that is all that matters. I can cope with looking like an idiot if it means I am going to look like super sexy in my some uber hot underwear next week.

  Oooh, underwear. I had better remember to get some new stuff. Ben does not need to see my old granny pants again. He should probably never have seen them in the first place.

  22nd November

  Work = Dull.

  I am too excited to do anything useful, not that I normally do. But today I am being even more useless than normal.

  I am working a Friday and ditching Uni this afternoon because tomorrow is Saturday—my birthday—and I have a plan that I need to follow. The plan does not involve being bored in a music shop all day.

  The B-Day Plan

  Now, in normal circumstances the B in B-Day plan would stand for Birthday—obviously.

  However, these circumstances are not normal. Therefore, the B shall now stand for Ben.

  The plan is:

  Breakfast with annoying twin (and maybe even more annoying parents—this is under debate).

  Lunch. I am sending everyone out, Meredith is going to take Tristan somewhere so I can have the place to myself and I shall spend a couple of hours beautifying myself. I plan to buff, scrub and polish every inch of myself in preparation for what will surely be the birthday shag fest. Sorry. I mean the loving return of my boyfriend.

  Dinner. Ben is not going to be home until about ten. His text this morning just said ETA 10pm with a smiley face next to it.

  My God. I love him.

  So. Because Ben is not going to be back until late, I have somehow been talked into having a small soiree to celebrate our birthday. Meredith wouldn’t take no for an answer (something to do with me making our birthday a disaster last year and that I owed it to Tristan to try harder this year). I gave in after hours of badgering so we are just going to have Beth, Jayne and Richard around for civilised drinks whilst I excitedly await the return of Ben.

  Richard very much seems to be part of the gang these days and I am okay with that. I just look at him as if he is one of the girls. A fact he took most offence to when I told him the other morning when we were out for a jog.

  Lunch time

  “I’m going to lunch,” I announce.

  “What, like going out for lunch? You never go out anywhere,” Baz says, looking surprised.

  “Well I would hate to be predictable. Anyway I have got to go and get some sexy underwear for tomorrow.”

  “Whoah. Okay, Lilah, and thank you. I don’t need to hear any more,” Baz tells me with his face scrunched up.

  “You do realise you are not actually my dad and I can talk to you about sex and stuff?”

  “Walk out the door now, and do not come back until you have a clean mouth.”

  Baz is laughing, but I do think he takes his adoptive parenting role too seriously.

  Marks & Spencer’s

  It’s depressing, I have been to two shops selling underwear but there is no way I would wear anything they sell, well not unless I wanted Ben to think I had turned our home into a brothel during his absence. So I have ended up at good old Marks and Sparks.

  “Can I help you?”

  I may have been staring at the bras a little too long.

  “Um, no not really I am just looking for a new underwear set.”

  “Well, my dear, I think you may want to go for something slightly sturdier.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Well, more substantial with a supportive uplift.”

  I am holding a bright purple scrap of slinky material.

  I give the sales lady a withering glance. “Well I am only a thirty-four B.”