The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights

by Sarah Lefebve

  “But it might help. It might make you feel better.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I tell her, pulling the duvet back over my head.

  Will I be fine?

  Do you get two goes at Mr Right, do you think?

  I found James, who I love more than I loved Alex. Will there be someone else I can love more than I love James? Or at least as much?

  I’m not sure it works like that.

  What if I was right? What if there really is just one person out there for each of us? Just one person that we are meant to find and spend the rest of our lives with?

  I must eventually fall asleep for real, because at some point later on I wake up to the sound of the telephone ringing again.

  I look at the clock. It’s half past six. I must have been asleep for hours.

  I hear Fiona answer. Poor girl. She’s been like my secretary today. But I can’t answer it. If I hear James’ voice I’ll start crying again. And I’ve run out of tissues. Tesco’s have probably run out of tissues with the amount I’m getting through.

  She knows the drill by now. After a brief conversation I hear the phone beep. And then her footsteps.

  “James again,” she sighs.

  I bury my head under the pillow. I don’t want to see the anguish on her face. It’s James’ anguish. She’s just the messenger. And I can’t bear to see how much he’s hurting.

  “Why don’t you stay at home tomorrow?,” she says, sitting on my bed and gently prising the pillow out of my hands. “I’ll cover your shift at the café.”

  I probably stink. I’ve been in my pyjamas all day. She probably thinks I’ll scare the kids.

  “Thanks.”

  “But do something for me, will you?”

  I look at her, waiting for her to tell me what.

  “Get out of those pyjamas. Take a shower. It’ll make you feel better. And stop listening to this depressing music,” she says, grabbing the remote control for my stereo and hitting the ‘off’ button.

  “I like Leona Lewis,” I protest.

  “Well, if you will insist on listening to Bleeding Love then that’s your choice, obviously, but not while you’re upset, hey Becks?”

  I smile at this and she smiles back – relieved I’m still capable.

  Why do we do that? Why do we listen to the most depressing music in our CD collection when we are at our absolute lowest?

  Because, however much we might wish we did, no-one ever actually does feel like listening to the Locomotion or Girls Just Wanna Have Fun when all they really just wanna do is lie in bed all day and not shower. That’s why.

  Not that I’m considering slitting my wrists or anything.

  “Okay,” I concede. I’ll just turn it back on when she leaves the room.

  “And Fi…”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t be daft. What are friends for?” she says, and plants a kiss on my forehead.

  Before she leaves the room, she marches over to my stereo, hits eject and removes my Leona Lewis CD.

  “I think I’ll keep this for a while,” she says.

  She’s wrong.

  I don’t feel better after a shower.

  I feel cleaner. But I don’t feel better.

  And now I’ve not even got any Leona to listen to. Fi has stripped my CD collection bare, leaving me with only Wham and my Back to the 80’s School Disco compilation to choose from. Is that really the extent of my cheerful music? Now that is depressing.

  I’m pulling on a t-shirt when I hear the doorbell ring, followed by the sound of Fiona opening the door. Muffled voices.

  In spite of myself I open the bedroom door.

  It’s Mr Right.

  It’s James.

  And as soon as he looks at me I know. Whatever I tell myself, whatever I try to convince myself, however I try to reason it all – he’s still the one. He’s still my Mr Right.

  And the moment I realise that, there’s only one thing I can do.

  Cry. Again.

  And as the tears roll down my cheeks and drip off the end of my chin onto my clean t-shirt, he holds me in his arms and promises never to let me go.

  “I’ll leave you two to it,” Fiona says.

  I am only vaguely aware of her coming over to us and kissing me on the head before she quietly opens the door and does just that.

  CHAPTER SIXTY THREE

  I shouldn’t have slept with him, obviously. But it just happened. I couldn’t stop myself. One minute I’m sobbing in his arms and the next…

  I’ve never had sex like it either. It was urgent. It was raw. It was needy. I needed to feel him inside me. To remember what it felt like when everything was perfect, when everything was right.

  Nothing’s changed. He’s still Mr Right. But he’s still my best friend’s ex too.

  “Jim?” I ask him, afterwards.

  “She called me it one day and it just stuck,” he says.

  “What happened?” I say.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why did you split up?”

  “I didn’t love her. And I knew I never would. It wasn’t right. We had a lot of fun together. But that was all it was for me. I knew she wasn’t the one. But I had the feeling that it was becoming more for her. So I did what I felt was the right thing and ended it. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I would have hurt her a lot more in the long run if I had stayed with her any longer. After a while she phoned me and asked me to give it another go. I was tempted, because I was single, and because we had had fun together, but I knew it would be giving her false hope, so I said no.”

  I suddenly remember the photograph that Katie gave me when I moved out of the flat. The one of her and me – and Emma.

  “I showed you a photograph,” I tell him. “You must have recognised her.”

  "I know. And I thought I did,” he says, pulling his jeans on. I’ve asked him to leave. I’m a terrible person. I’ve slept with him and now I’m asking him to leave.

  “But I looked away before I could be sure.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t want it to be true,” he says, sitting next to me on the bed and taking my hand. “Because I knew what it would mean if it was true. And I already loved you by then. I was already in too deep.”

  “I can’t do it to her, James. She’s my best friend.”

  “But you love me, I know you do.”

  “Yes, I do,” I whisper.

  “I want to marry you one day Becky. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I can’t bear the thought of not being with you. It’s unimaginable. You’re my whole life.”

  As he’s saying all of this, all I can think about is a park bench. I can see me. And I can see James. We’re sixty, or seventy – it makes no difference – we’re just older. And we’re together. And I’m holding his hand.

  But it just can’t be, so I look down and gently pull my hand out of his.

  And James knows then that he won’t change my mind. So he stands up and kisses me on the mouth – his lips barely touching mine, just like our first kiss. And then he leaves.

  CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR

  I wake in the morning to fourteen missed calls and a text from Katie, politely informing me that if I have not phoned her at work by 11 o’clock then she is taking the rest of the day off and coming round. When I say politely, I do mean in the loosest sense of the word, obviously.

  I look at the clock. It’s 10.52am.

  Bugger. She’s probably left already.

  I dial her work number.

  “Hello, Books! Yvonne speaking.”

  “Hi Yvonne. It’s Katie’s friend Becky. Is she there?”

  “Hi Becky. No, sorry, she just left. Doctor’s appointment.”

  Damn.

  “Okay, thanks, I’ll try her on her mobile.”

  Her mobile is switched off. She’s probably on the tube. If she’s just left, that means she’ll probably be here in less than an hour.

  I consider my
options.

  I could pretend I’m asleep when she rings the doorbell. I could pretend to be in the shower. I could pretend to be out. I could actually be out– though I have to admit this is my least favourite option since it does actually involve being out. Which means getting dressed. Which means getting out of bed.

  I’m still considering the best course of action when she arrives, forty five minutes later. As the doorbell rings, my phone lights up with a new message.

  I’m not leaving until you let me in so there’s no point hiding.

  Bollocks.

  Defeated, I get out of bed and put my dressing gown on. I begin a half-hearted attempt at making my bed, shaking the duvet which sends a mass of soggy tissues flying up in the air and cascading back down again – the remnants of another night’s sobbing. I gather them all up and drop them into the bin, on top of the empty Kleenex box.

  I go to fluff the pillows a bit before deciding not to bother. I’ll be getting back in as soon as I’ve got rid of her.

  The doorbell rings again.

  “I’m coming,” I shout.

  “You look awful,” she says, when I open the door.

  It’s true then. I do look as bad as I feel.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  The concerned look on her face is all it takes to set me off again and she instinctively wraps her arms around me.

  “Oh B,” she says. “What am I going to do with you?”

  We go into the kitchen and Katie puts the kettle on. Make tea – it’s always the first thing to do in a crisis isn’t it?

  “How’s Emma?” I ask, tearing off a piece of kitchen roll and blowing my nose. I’m officially all out of tissues. I’m almost out of kitchen roll too. I will have to stop crying or I may have to resort to newspaper before long.

  “She’s okay. I think I’ve managed to convince her that you didn’t know who James was.”

  “I can’t believe she could have thought I did.”

  “You know what she’s like, B. She’s impulsive. She doesn’t think things through. She just saw the two of you together and jumped to conclusions.”

  “I’ve tried phoning her, but she won’t answer my calls.”

  “Give her time. She’ll come round. She’s not stupid. You and her have been friends for a long time. She won’t want to lose that.”

  “I hope not.”

  She gets two mugs out of the cupboard and drops tea bags into them.

  “Have you spoken to James?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing.”

  “What happened?”

  “I slept with him,” I admit. “And then I asked him to leave. I am a terrible person.”

  “Don’t, B.” She pours in the water and stirs the teabags in the mugs. “Go sit down. I’ll bring the drinks through.”

  She puts the mugs down on the coffee table and sits next to me on the sofa, taking my hand in hers. I feel a speech coming on.

  “You love him, right?” she says.

  “Yes, but that’s not the point.”

  “It’s completely the point.”

  “And what about Emma?”

  “What about Emma?”

  “She’ll never speak to me again.”

  “Of course she will. She’ll come round eventually. She’s not stupid. She knows you haven’t done this to hurt her. She’s not about to throw away a friendship she’s had practically her whole life.”

  “She was crushed, Katie. You saw her. She loved James. Jim.”

  “Yes, and she’ll meet someone else she loves even more. And who loves her. You know what she’s like. She’s got men queuing up to date her. Look at Daniel. She met him at a bloody Spanish class, for heaven’s sake. And she really liked him too. You heard her say so herself. Though I’m not sure he’ll be calling her again in a hurry after Saturday night’s performance.

  “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, once she realises what you guys mean to each other, she’ll come round. I’m sure of it. It might take a bit of time, but she can’t expect you to give him up.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” I ask.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you and Matt split up and then I fell in love with him, wouldn’t you expect me to give him up? Wouldn’t you expect me to choose you over him?”

  “That’s completely different. You’ve known Matt for years. You’d never even met Jim. You had no idea it was the same person.”

  “Yes, but it was,” I argue.

  You don’t go out with your best friend’s ex. I thought that was the unwritten rule? Even if you didn’t know that’s who he was. Even if he is Mr Right.

  “Can you imagine your life without James?” Katie asks me.

  “No. But I’ll have to, won’t I?”

  “Well, it’s your choice, but for what it’s worth, I think you’re crazy.”

  Lecture over and tea drunk, Katie orders me into the bathroom and instructs me not to come back out until I have doused myself with some very large doses of smelly stuff. She says I smell…

  Judging by the person staring back at me in the bathroom mirror she’s probably right. I almost frighten myself, never mind anyone else. My hair is plastered to my head in greasy clumps, there are several black streaks down my cheeks where my two-day old mascara has made a run for freedom and the bags under my eyes are beginning to resemble suitcases – the large kind, the expandable kind with extra pockets and everything. I should invite James round right now. He’d soon come round to my way of thinking.

  I sit on the toilet watching the bubbles climb up the bath as it fills with water.

  When I was little Johnny and I used to share a bath. We’d cover our faces with bubbles and pretend they were beards. And when they’d all melted away we’d rub shampoo in our hair and give ourselves Mohicans and other weird and wonderful hairstyles until the water went cold and our fingers and toes had turned all wrinkly. And mum or dad would shout ‘first out of the bath is the winner.’

  Bath time was fun back then. Now it seems to be a time to soak away your aches and pains, your worries, your heartache. It seems to be a place to contemplate how you’ve monumentally messed your life up yet again.

  I miss him.

  I’ve only been without him for a day and a half and I miss him.

  Is that completely ridiculous? We were only together a few months.

  I can’t remember what my life was like without him.

  Yes I can. It was lonely. There was just me. On my own.

  But it’s not being alone than scares me. It’s being without James.

  “Is this your article?” Katie asks when I finally emerge from the bathroom half an hour later, prune-like, but considerably cleaner.

  I shrug. She knows it is.

  “It’s brilliant, Becky. It’s even better than I thought it would be. Why didn’t you tell me you’d finished it? Have you sent it to the magazine?”

  “No, and I’m not going to,” I say, snatching it from her hands. She looks at me crossly.

  “I don’t even know why I’ve still got it,” I tell her, tossing it into the bin.

  Katie stares at me, as if I’ve just grown an extra head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s rubbish.”

  “It’s not rubbish. It’s bloody brilliant. What are you doing, Becky? This is your big chance. This is what you wanted. You gave up everything to do this.”

  “I’ll write something else,” I say, tipping my head forward and rubbing my hair with the towel.

  She takes the article back out of the bin and smoothes out the pages.

  “Just because you and James have split up, that doesn’t mean every word of this isn’t true, Becky.”

  “Yes it does. What do I know about finding Mr Right? All I know about is finding someone else’s Mr Right. And hurting my best friend. And losing the best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t think anybody needs advice from me, do you?”

  “You didn
’t lose the best thing that ever happened to you. You threw it away.”

  She’s angry with me now.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” she snaps.

  “Well I’m not sending it and that’s that,” I say, stuffing the pages back in the bin along with the soggy tissues and the empty Kleenex box.

  CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE

  On Tuesday I manage to drag myself into work.

  Fiona probably wishes I hadn’t bothered. It’s only 10 o’clock and there have been four breakages already. Of course, when I say ‘there have been four breakages,’ what I actually mean is ‘I personally have broken four things.’ Fiona doesn’t break things. Fiona is not an emotional wreck. Thank god they weren’t painted. I think that would have finished me off.

  I cried for two hours this morning. Alarming, yes, but a significant improvement on yesterday’s six-and-a-half hours.

  “Why don’t you go home?” Fiona suggests, emptying the last fragments of plate from the dustpan into the bin. “I can cope without you.”

  What she really means is ‘I can’t cope with you,’ she’s just too nice to say so.

  “I’m fine, honestly,” I tell her. “I’m better off being at work.”

  The dishes aren’t though, she wants to say, but doesn’t. She takes a pile of plates from my arms instead and puts them safely onto the worktop before taking the top two and handing them to the twin boys who have come in with their grandma to make something for their mum’s birthday.

  “Okay. Why don’t you help me then,” Fiona says to me. “I want to make a gift for the guests at the opening.”

  “Sure. What have you got in mind?”

  Caroline is probably paying her to keep me away from the dishes.

  “Caroline said I could have some tiles at cost price so I thought if we put felt on the bottom we could make coasters. Paint them with the shop logo and the date of the opening, maybe?”

  “That sounds like a good idea.”

  If she’d told me she wanted to make something out of toilet rolls and aluminium foil, I’d probably have said that was a good idea too, to be honest.

  My mind isn’t really here. It’s with James. It’s in his flat, sharing a takeaway. It’s at my mum and dad’s watching him pull faces at Jacob. It’s in New York sitting on a park bench holding his hand.