One Day in December

by Josie Silver

  “So…Oscar.” She leans in and lowers her voice, her eyes lingering on his profile as he bends to catch something Jack said. “How serious is it?”

  “Well, it’s early days still,” I say, because although it feels like longer, we’ve only been together for five months. “But I like him a whole lot, Sar. I wouldn’t have thought he’d be my type, but somehow we just seem to work.”

  She nods, watching him with Jack. “Will they have much in common?” she asks. “Besides you?”

  I’m momentarily blindsided by the thought that she knows about the kiss. She starts to laugh.

  “Do I take that as a no?”

  I smile, faltering. “No, of course not. I mean, they’re pretty different, but I can’t imagine how anyone wouldn’t get on with Oscar. He’s…well, he’s pretty easy to like.”

  Sarah’s smile widens, and she sneaks her arm around my shoulders and squeezes me, her cuff bracelet cool against my skin. “I’m so happy for you, Lu! You just need your dream job now and then you can move back to the city, where you belong.” Her eyes shine. “You are coming back, right? Because now there’s the four of us we can do all that double-dating shit.” She laughs and rolls her eyes, but I know she’d love it.

  “I’m not sure. I hope so,” I say. “But you know…” I shrug. “Rent and all that. It’s just so expensive. I need to stay at home until I get a proper job, not waste my time earning money in a crappy job which leaves me no time to get a new one.”

  I think again about Oscar’s much-repeated suggestion that I move in with him, even if it’s just as a practical stop-gap while I find something else. He lives in a flat owned by his mother, rent free of course. But something makes me want to do it myself. Not depend on anyone too much. Mum and Dad always impressed on us the importance of making our own way in life.

  “Imagine if we could go back to Delancey Street,” she says wistfully. “I’m sharing with a woman from work now, and she’s a real bitch-bag. Fanatical about keeping everything separate, even our toilet paper. She’s drawn up a schedule for when we get to use the lounge. Can you believe that? Says she doesn’t like to feel I’m watching her watch the TV.”

  It’s my turn to slide a supportive arm around Sarah’s shoulders. “What about you and Jack? Will you look for somewhere together soon, do you think?”

  Sarah flicks her eyes sideways, the tiniest of eye-rolls, but I don’t miss it. “It’s not on the cards yet. He’s super-busy at work and he house-shares with Billy and Phil, one of the guys he works with.”

  “Snake-hips Billy?” It’s been his unofficial nickname since the day he revealed his “Greased Lightning” dancing skills. Though just the thought of it reminds me sharply of the awful way the day ended.

  She nods. “I’m not sure Jack enjoys it all that much, but it’s the right side of town for the station and affordable, so he’s kind of stuck there for a while.”

  She watches Jack lean in to look at something on Oscar’s cell phone. “I’m starting to worry about him, Lu. He hasn’t seemed himself lately.”

  My stomach turns over with dread. “In what way?”

  Sarah folds her arm across her slender, leather-clad midriff and stands closer to me so we can’t be overheard. “I can’t put my finger on it. He’s…distant?” It comes out as a question, as if she’s asking herself rather than telling me, and she lifts one shoulder, biting her bottom lip. “Or maybe it’s me. I don’t know, Lu, I’ve asked him if he’s happy and he just brushes me off as if I’m going crazy or something.” She half laughs, sounding anything but amused. “Just busy, I guess.”

  I nod, wishing I had something useful to say. I’m massively unsettled by the idea of trouble in their paradise. In the early days of their relationship I selfishly hoped their romance would be short-lived, but over time their love has become an integral part of the map of my life; a massive island I’ve had to reroute my own path around, yet rely on to locate myself all the same.

  “Did you show Sarah these, Laurie?” Oscar says, turning to us with his cell in his hand. He tilts the screen our way as he steps closer and scrolls through images of our perfect ramshackle beach shack, the endless blue ocean and the pink-and-purple-streaked Thai dawn that I know so well.

  “Some of them,” I say quietly, and Oscar’s eyes are tender when I look up at him. Can he see that I wish with all of my being that we were back there right now, sitting on the steps of the beach shack, burying our toes in the cool sand? They are my favorite memories, those shoulder-to-shoulder hours, those hushed conversations and languorous kisses. It’s unexpected, this stab of longing through the ribs, more so because I’m with Sarah and Jack, who I’ve never wanted to run from before.

  I’m surprised by the heat of my anger toward Jack. I want to yank him out of the bar by the sleeve of his cool leather jacket and tell him: Be happy, you stupid, stupid man. And let me be too.

  “God, it looks so amazing,” Sarah sighs. “I’d love to go there.”

  Jack drains his cocktail without disguising a mild shudder. “I’ll get the beers in.”

  Sarah looks as if she’s going to say something, then smiles tightly, catching Jack’s hand as she offers to help him. We watch them pick their way across the busy bar and Oscar slips his arm around my waist, his still half-full glass in his other hand.

  “Okay?” I ask, hoping he and Jack have hit it off.

  He nods. “Sarah’s just how I thought she’d be.”

  From this, I deduce that I’ve given him the impression that Jack is kind and easygoing, and that so far he’s coming across as guarded and uptight.

  “Did I get it wrong?” Oscar’s dark eyes cloud with consternation as he studies his drink. “We could have met them somewhere else; you only had to say.”

  I’m suddenly furious with Jack for being so unfriendly. What the hell is he trying to prove here, with his offensive T-shirt and lightly veiled disdain at the exclusivity of the bar and Oscar’s cocktail choice? That he wins at being cool, even if Oscar is wealthier?

  I put my empty glass down and slide my arms around him, relieved when the troubled look in his eyes clears. “You got it exactly right, Oscar. This is you,” I skim my eyes around the bar, “and you’re lovely, and I want them to know you just as you are. They’re going to love you, and you them when you get to know them better.” His hand rubs up and down my arm as I speak. “Just relax and enjoy the evening.”

  I spy Jack and Sarah coming back, two beers in his hand, more champagne cocktails in Sarah’s.

  “She definitely looks as if she belongs on TV,” Oscar observes. I try to see Sarah through his eyes as she heads our way, all golden tanned legs and Hollywood curls.

  “Are you sure you chose the right girl?” I joke. I hate it, but there’s always a part of me wondering why—why would this gorgeous man want to be with someone like me?

  He shows a mild flash of annoyance, and I wish I’d just kept my mouth shut. “You’re so wrong that I don’t know what to say.” He softens and his hand moves to cup the back of my neck. “You’re always the most spectacular woman to me, Laurie. In any room or any bar or on any beach.”

  He dips his head and kisses me, gentle but sure. I close my eyes and for those seconds I feel like the most spectacular woman.

  “Get a room, kids.” Sarah’s laughter spins light and bright, and I open my eyes again and smile.

  “Blame me.” Oscar grins. “I can’t keep my hands off her.” He runs his hand from my shoulder down to my hand and catches hold of my fingers.

  Behind Sarah, Jack manages to laugh while frowning at the same time, a feat of facial engineering. “A proper drink to cool you off, mate.”

  Oscar accepts the beer, laughing, good-natured despite Jack’s inference that Oscar’s cocktail hadn’t made the cut as a proper drink.

  Sarah hands me
a glass of champagne, her eyes giddy with delight about me and Oscar.

  Jack lounges against the wall, beer in hand. “So what do you do, Oscar? Besides bum around on Thai beaches picking up girls?” He softens his comment with a wink, but all the same it feels like he’s having a dig.

  “Living with Billy seems to be rubbing off on you, Jack,” I say, throwing in a none-too-friendly wink of my own. He shoots me a tiny “not bothered” shrug, then looks away.

  “Banking,” Oscar says with a self-deprecating smile. “I know. Typical posh wanker, right?”

  “Whatever floats your boat, mate.”

  Okay, now that was rude. Sarah looks at Jack sharply, and quite honestly, I could tip his beer right over his annoying head. Oscar, however, is very used to derision around banking, and it rolls off his back.

  “Dull, I know. Not like you, from what I hear? Radio, isn’t it?”

  Crisis averted. Jack finally finds the grace to pick up the conversational baton that Oscar has passed him, entertaining us with stories about the radio station and telling us about a more high-profile job he’s ninety-five percent certain he’s in line for in the summer. He lights up like a flare when he talks about work, more himself, more relaxed, and I’m finally able to relax too. Perhaps the evening might not be a disaster after all.

  Jack

  Tonight’s all about making a point, isn’t it? Oscar posh-boy double-barreled twat face. Let me buy you expensive fucking cocktails in my private members’ club, let me drop that I’m a banker casually into conversation, let me stick my tongue down Laurie’s throat when I know you’re both watching. Well, I’m onto you, posh boy, with your floppy black hair and your deck shoes (because who knows when you might need to step aboard someone’s yacht at a moment’s notice).

  I think all of this with my cock in my hand at the urinal. I’ve been hiding out in here for the last five minutes, mostly because I know I’m acting like a dick and I don’t seem able to reel myself in. Sarah’s flashing me daggers; I won’t be peeling that dress off her anytime soon. She’s more likely to peel my scalp off, and I can’t say I blame her. I don’t know who’s winding me up more tonight, Oscar with his unshakable good nature and refusal to be needled, or Sarah for the way she’s practically jumping up and down begging to be his new best friend. I can’t help but wonder if she wants to force the same relationship with him that I have with Laurie, and I want to tell her that I’m sorry but you just can’t fake that kind of thing. It took me and Lu years. I pause to stare at myself in the mirror over the basins as I wash my hands and think about that for a second. Laurie and I hardly have much of a friendship left these days. I haven’t been alone with her since that night back in the kitchen at Delancey Street more than a year ago. Sarah accused me of acting like an overprotective big brother, but she’s wrong. I can’t claim to feel brotherly toward Laurie, I forfeited that when I— No, I’m not going to think about that now.

  I step out of the men’s room intent on winding my neck in and run smack bang into Laurie. She doesn’t waste any time.

  “What the hell are you doing, Jack?” I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this angry. Her cheeks are flushed pink and her shoulders are braced.

  I glance over my shoulder toward the door I’ve just come out of. “Pissing.”

  Her violet eyes spark with annoyance. “Pissing me off, more like.”

  “It’s good to see you too,” I say, flicking into defensive mode.

  “Don’t,” she hisses. “Don’t you dare do that, Jack O’Mara.” We’re in an upstairs corridor with people milling around us, and she leans in to make herself heard. “What point are you trying to make out there, exactly? That you’re cooler, better, funnier? Is it too much to ask that you just be happy for me?”

  I shrug. “I would be if he wasn’t a twat.”

  “He isn’t a twat. He’s good and he’s kind and I think he might even love me.”

  I hear a sound of derision, and I realize too late that it came from me.

  “What?” She shakes her head, her eyes over-bright with fury. “Is it so improbable that someone might actually love me, Jack?”

  “You barely know him.”

  She reels as if I’ve punched her.

  “Who made you the expert all of a sudden?” she comes back. “Who are you to tell me if I can fall in love in a minute or a month or a year?”

  We stare each other down, and I realize with a sideways jolt that she isn’t the girl from Delancey Street anymore. She’s a woman with a life that I’m by and large no longer a part of.

  “Do you love him?”

  She looks away, shaking her head because I have no right to ask her. Especially not like this.

  “He matters to me, Jack,” she says, softer now, and the vulnerability in her eyes makes me feel terrible.

  “Okay,” I say, and I mean it. I wish I could pull her into my arms and put our friendship back where it should be. But something in me knows that hugging Laurie isn’t the right move. Instead I grab her hand and look into her stormy eyes.

  “I’m sorry, really sorry, okay?” And I feel as if I’m apologizing to her not just for this evening, but for everything that’s gone before. For lying about not seeing her years ago on that damn bus, for kissing her in a snowstorm, for always getting it so fucking wrong.

  Finally, after what seems like ten minutes, but is probably about ten seconds, she nods and releases my hand.

  I smile. “Go back downstairs. I’ll be right behind you.”

  She nods again and walks away without glancing back.

  Laurie has grown up when I wasn’t looking. It’s time for me to do the same.

  MAY 14

  Laurie

  “Pick up, Oscar, pick up,” I murmur, reading and rereading the letter in my hand as I listen to his cell phone ringing out. This is the voicemail service for…Dammit! I hang up and try again, and once more I get that bloody annoying robot woman telling me that she’s terribly sorry but Oscar Ogilvy-Black can’t come to the phone right now. I stand in my parents’ quiet hallway, my fingers absently wrapped around my purple pendant. I wore it for the job interview last week and haven’t taken it off since in an attempt to summon good luck. And it worked! Desperate to tell someone my good news, I scroll through to Sarah’s number instead. I don’t try to call her, because she invariably can’t answer at work, so I compromise and send her a text.

  Guess who’s FINALLY got herself a proper job? Me! Brace yourself, Sar, I’m coming back to London!

  I press send, and it’s less than thirty seconds before my cell phone vibrates.

  HANG ON! Going to bathroom to call you. DON’T call anyone else!

  Right on cue, my phone starts to ring. It’s another thirty seconds before I can speak, because she’s shrieking and clapping; I can see her in my mind’s eye right now, locked in the cubicle doing her happy dance, bemused colleagues listening outside.

  “Come on, then, I want to know everything!” she says, and at last I can officially tell someone my news.

  “It’s that job I told you about, you know, the one on the teen magazine?”

  “You mean the online Agony Aunt job?”

  “Yes! That one! As of three weeks’ time, I’m going to be the woman that our nation’s teenagers turn to for advice on hair straighteners, zits, and dodgy dates!” I’m laughing, borderline hysterical at the prospect of working on a magazine at long last. It won’t be all of the nation’s teenagers, of course, just the small percentage who read the not-all-that-prolific magazine, but it’s something, isn’t it, it’s real. It’s my much-longed-for stepping-stone into the next part of my life. I wasn’t at all sure I’d be offered the position. The interview wasn’t particularly conventional, two women who couldn’t have been more than twenty-one firing make-believe problems at me to see what ans
wers I might give.

  “Emma has an awful pimple the night before her prom,” one had said, pointing at her own unblemished chin for emphasis. “What would you suggest?”

  Luckily, even at the interview stage, Sarah was my savior; our Delancey Street bathroom shelf came straight to mind. “Aspirin crushed in a teaspoon of warm water to make a paste. Twenty minutes on the pimple and then wash off. It reduces swelling and dries the area out.”

  They’d both written that down really fast; I got the distinct impression they’d be running out to the drugstore as soon as the interview was over.

  “A run in your tights on an important day?” the other interviewer asked me, her eyes narrowed.

  “Clear nail varnish to stop it from spreading,” I’d shot straight back. Standard junior year tip. “Or hairspray will do too. But better still, freeze new tights overnight, then defrost and store ready to wear as normal. A night in the freezer makes them much less prone to runs in the first place.” By the time they’d finished I felt as if I’d been grilled by the Stasi rather than for a prospective job with a magazine.

  “Christ, I hope no one asks you for advice about false eyelashes,” Sarah says. “You’ll get sued.”

  “Tell me about it. I’m relying on you to be my main research source.”

  “Well, you know me, I’m the font of all knowledge on all things false and glittery!” She sounds giddy. “I can’t believe you’re finally coming back, Lu, it’s the best news I’ve had all year. Wait till I tell Jack!”

  She hangs up, and I sit on the bottom step of the stairs and grin like a loon. Is ten in the morning too early to drink gin?

  JUNE 9

  Laurie

  Oscar reaches behind the sofa and pulls out a ribboned box. “I’ve got something for you.”

  He lays the large square gift on my knees and I shoot him a surprised look. “Oscar, I’ve only just had my birthday.”