The Last Word

by A. L. Michael

  ‘Try and have a goodnight, Tabitha!’ Harry grinned as he wandered off down a side road, hands in pockets, looking as if he’d wondered out of a magazine and into a stroll through the streets of an Italian city.

  Tabby briefly wondered what the boy who became Harry was like, back before the money and the designers. She imagined he wore Converse everywhere. Maybe, he was even sullen and irritable and awkward, wearing black clothes and silently mocking everyone. Or maybe, he still had that easy grin and ability to get under your skin. But he would happily drink cheap cider and wear second-hand clothes, maybe. Whoever he had been, Tabby thought she might have liked him.

  Chapter Eight

  Tabby was beginning to be convinced that everything was going to be excellent. She had gainful employment doing something she loved, she had amazing friends, the boiler hadn’t broken and her mother hadn’t called. Everything was wonderful.

  Which of course meant that it was time for things to go to shit. Otherwise, as Rhi quite rightly said, life got boring.

  Tabby had realised, after some frantic back-and-forth emailing with Harry, that she really liked her editor. She especially liked him when he wasn’t in the same room as her, being all charming and putting her on edge. So Harry’s insights into her writing style, and excellent use of smiley faces had put The Writer Tabitha Riley (as she had started referring to herself) in a pretty good mood.

  ‘What are you grinning about?’ Rhi perched on the other end of the sofa, as Tabby’s fingers stilled on her laptop.

  ‘I have an excellent idea for a story. It’s good, Rhi, it’s really good. It’s the first time I’ve felt like I am actually really good at this, and doing what I’m meant to be doing and…ah! I’m just happy!’

  ‘And without booze or chocolate or running up a credit card bill. You may have reached enlightenment.’ Rhi slumped back and closed her eyes. ‘Let me know what the food’s like there. I bet it tastes awesome.’

  Tabby looked at her housemate, noted the darker circles under her eyes and how the blue tint at the end of her dreadlocks was faded. Her clothes seemed to hang a lot looser than usual too.

  ‘Are you OK, sweets? I’ve been really self-absorbed, I’m sorry.’ Tabby reached across to stroke Rhi’s hair.

  Rhi smiled, eyes still closed. It was times like that, when she wasn’t raging against the machine, or being rightly indignant about all the things socially responsible people should be indignant about, that Rhi looked sweet. She looked like a cat, sleeping in the sunshine. And if Tabby ever told her that, she’d claw her eyes out.

  ‘I’m good. It’s just surprising how exhausting spending your day in silence can be. Library people are weird.’

  ‘Uhuh?’

  ‘Everything seems worse because you have to whisper about it, so these little things become big dramatic sagas. The Case of the Missing Cheese Sandwich has been going on all week. Apparently it’s a tale of Homeric importance. I offered to share my pasta salad, but apparently my generosity is incriminating.’ Rhi sighed.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘People suck. I prefer books. Books make sense.’ Rhi wriggled a bit to get comfortable.

  ‘Do you want a blanket?’

  ‘Nope, I’m getting up now. Have dissertation to work on.’ She paused. ‘I just got up and went to do my work, right?’ Her eyes were still closed.

  ‘Yes, yes you did. In one of the multiverses, there is a version of you who got up and fell asleep on her laptop instead of her bed, and possibly caused an electrical shortage by drooling onto the keyboard. Luckily, we’ll never know.’ Tabby assumed what she hoped was an authoritative voice. ‘Rhiannon! Go. To. Bed.’

  ‘Need to do another five hundred words, at least,’ Rhi mumbled.

  ‘Rhi. Get up. Walk upstairs. Get into bed. I’ll wake you up for dinner. I’m not kidding. Go.’

  ‘But – ’

  ‘NOW.’

  Rhi’s lips formed a pout before her eyes opened and she frowned. ‘Jeez, is that what I sound like when I’m taking responsibility for your wellbeing?’

  ‘Irritating and overprotective? Yes. But you’re always right.’

  Rhi smiled sleepily. ‘I like being right. I’ll be right again when I wake up. Night.’ She clumped upstairs, and Tabby heard the very distinctive click of Rhi’s bedroom door, the squeak of her floorboards, and a soft bounce as she apparently collapsed on her bed.

  Well, that was one more thing The Writer Tabitha Riley was good at, looking after people. Tabby allowed herself a brief moment of triumph, considering this was probably one of the ten times since she’d known Rhi that she’d actually forced her to do something. She was growing up.

  Now, onto this article.

  She started crafting an email to Harry, but the excitement seemed to make the words come out all jittery and confused. There were an alarming amount of exclamation marks. Surely, she could just call him? He was a colleague, a professional lifeline. She should get his feedback on this. It wouldn’t be weird. He wouldn’t think she was overstepping boundaries. Because she wasn’t. He’d asked her to keep in touch. He would be pleased. They were being friendly now. Right? He’d said to call day or night, and she didn’t think it was just innuendo. Richard had never said that. Probably because he was still sleeping with his ex-wife while he’d convinced her they were going to have a life together. If she called Richard, it had been hushed and cut off, that he didn’t want to hear from her, her ideas weren’t important and couldn’t she keep it within office hours? How on earth she’d managed to shag the man baffled her sometimes. But this was different, she was better now. If she wanted to call her editor and get his opinion, she could. It was only five o’clock.

  After five minutes considering something that didn’t need that much consideration at all, Tabby huffed at herself in frustration, and scrolled to Harry’s name. It rang four times before he answered.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Harry? It’s Tabs, listen I’ve got this idea – ’

  ‘Tabby, now’s not a good time.’ His voice sounded strange, tight.

  ‘Are you in a meeting?’

  ‘No, but – ’

  ‘Because – ’

  ‘Tabby, I just told you, I don’t have time right now.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You said I could call you – ’

  ‘When it was necessary, not when you suddenly decide you aren’t capable of doing your job by yourself. You’re the writer, it’s your job to come up with concepts and execute them, and right now I don’t have time to hold your hand.’

  ‘Sorry, I, uh – ’ Tabby stuttered, shocked to suddenly recognise that voice from her first interview, the one that had seemed above her, mocking and derisive.

  ‘I’m hanging up now.’ And he was gone.

  Tabby felt her bottom lip wobble, and let out a little squeak of surprise. Then she counted to thirty. Another advantage of Chandra’s Thirty Second Rule. Tabby knew that after an encounter that hurt her feelings it would take less than thirty seconds to go from upset to absolutely raging. She felt the anger and shame and irritation build up from her stomach like acid, allowing the words, ‘How dare he? How fucking dare he?’ roll around and around her head until she was inflated with anger.

  ‘That bastard!’

  Tabby started to wonder if it was him she was angry at for being obnoxious and talking down to her, or herself for getting sucked back in again. Nope, definitely him. Arsehole.

  Tabby was careful not to wake Rhi, and instead of doing what she’d normally do in such a situation, like moaning at her friends, writing an enraged blog post, or attacking the partially deflated punch bag in the back garden, she decided to act like an adult. So she wrote a letter of resignation. Actually, she wrote five. The first was polite and to the point version. The last was mostly just swearwords.

  Then she went to make dinner and tried to forget about it. She didn’t think about it while slicing tomatoes, and did not cut her hand because she was distracted. She didn’t roll his words around
her head and analyse different meanings, and she did not at all have trouble sleeping that night. She did, however, consider that this was a fateful response to her being so pleased with herself and believing she was talented. It was pride, and she was being punished. And then she reminded herself she didn’t believe in any of that bullshit and went to bed.

  At least, she consoled herself at two a.m., when she was tangled up in a bunch of blankets due to tossing and turning so much, she hadn’t weighed down Rhi. Lately, it seemed all she did with her friends was moan about her life. And that was not what best friends were for. At least, not all of the time. Lucky that Rhi was still dopey from sleep, or she would have guessed within five minutes that something was wrong.

  Tabby stared at the cracked white Artex on the ceiling and snuggled down further into her bed, trying to disentangle a vine-like bit of blanket that had wound around her neck. Perspective. Perspective and problem solving was what she needed. She could quit. Except she’d done that quite a bit already, and she liked this job. Plus, when her mum finally called, she could tell her she didn’t need the cheques any more, she was finally self-sufficient! So, what else? She could tell Harry to go fuck himself. Except that would result in being fired, which was the same as quitting, except without the sense of pride. Or, the most logical option: she could get the hell over it and move on with her life, realising that sometimes people sucked and it was not a big deal.

  So, that was what she would do. She would realise it was not a big deal. She would understand that Harry was not her friend, he was her editor, and nothing he’d said was essentially untrue. She would get on with her job. She wouldn’t complain. She wouldn’t write an article on how to crush a man’s windpipe. She would not spend an inordinate amount of time Googling ‘how to crush a man’s windpipe’. She would be a grown-up.

  Yes, Tabby thought smugly, she would be the grown-up in this scenario. Her phone buzzed, scaring her half to death. It was a text message. She tried not to lunge for it, imagining all the ways in which Harry might apologise via text. Except, he wouldn’t, obviously. If Harry were to apologise – and he wouldn’t, and even if he did, she wouldn’t cave – he would do it face to face so he could depend on his charm offensive and pretty eyes. The bastard. Instead, it was the one person who could possibly make things worse. Her mother. Claudia Riley was reminding her daughter that they were scheduled to meet for coffee, to discuss bridesmaid dresses. P.S., Tabby noted, No carbs!

  That was the exact moment Tabby decided to creep down to the kitchen and crack open the ice cream. After all, there were no carbs in ice cream, right?

  Chapter Nine

  When Tabby opened her front door to find Harry on her doorstep, she was less than pleased. Her night had been going to include a rejuvenating face mask, half a bottle of red wine and back to back episodes of Buffy, Season 6. A good night. All of that would clearly no longer be happening, as Harry stood there looking all gorgeous and apologetic, holding a much more expensive bottle of wine than the one she’d been planning on consuming.

  ‘What do you want?’ More than angry or irritated or defensive, Tabby felt weary.

  He looked up at her from under his lashes. ‘Kiss and make up?’

  Tabby rolled her eyes and went to close the door.

  ‘No wait! I’m sorry, OK? I’m sorry!’ He tried to lock her into eye contact, but she instead focused on his trainers. Ah, pink Converse, we’re starting to have a thing going on, Tabby thought, resolutely not looking up. ‘I know I’m a prick, and you didn’t deserve that, and it wasn’t about you at all, it was this big thing, and I just…urgh. I’m a massive dickhead and I’m really sorry, Tabs, honestly.’

  Of course, Tabby lost it as soon as she looked up. Because seeing Harry frazzled and nervous was almost better than seeing him angry. He kept running his fingers through his hair so it stood up at odd angles. He dragged his hand across his face, and then raised an eyebrow at her.

  ‘You’re enjoying this too much.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Tabby shrugged.

  ‘This is me grovelling. Honestly, do you think I do this often?’

  ‘Act like an arse or apologise for doing so?’

  ‘The latter, smart arse,’ Harry huffed. ‘So, are we friends again? Please?’

  Tabby twitched her lips thoughtfully. It was in that moment, watching Harry’s eyes dart back and forth across her face, that Tabby realised her greatest power with Harry was silence. He couldn’t stand it. Sadly, she couldn’t stand to be silent for very long either, so it’s not like it was much of a superpower.

  ‘Come on, Princess, give a guy a break.’ Harry tried his best to look extra appealing: wide innocent eyes, hopeful smile. Her lips quirked up, and he grinned in response.

  ‘Well, that was a good thirty seconds of being sincere Harry, well done, a new record. Better open the bottle and celebrate,’ Tabby said, with the exhaustion of an overly lenient parent. ‘Come in, then.’ She took a brief moment to imagine how Harry would react to her raggedy flat. Or Rhi.

  He closed the door behind him and followed her down the narrow hallway, edging around Rhi’s bike. She didn’t even look back to see his face as they entered the living room and saw Rhi sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by cardboard for signs and pots of paint, with the windows flung open to ventilate the room.

  ‘What’s the march tomorrow?’ Tabby asked as she hopped over one of the signs.

  ‘NHS.’ Rhi looked up and saw Harry hovering in the doorway, looking around the room curiously.

  ‘Um, Tabby, I think a man followed you in the front door.’ Rhi pointed.

  ‘Oh, that’s just Harry. He brought us wine.’ Tabby grinned, holding up the bottle.

  ‘Um…thank you?’

  Harry seemed to snap back to consciousness and his usual grin suddenly appeared. ‘I work with Tabby. I was a bit of an arse, so I came to apologise.’

  He had his ‘Oh, what am I like?’ face on, which seemed to lead people to wonder how on earth such a lovely young man could be an arse. Tabby suddenly realised her mum would love him. She winced, and went into the kitchen to look for a bottle opener.

  ‘Oh, you’re the posh editor,’ Rhi said without much interest, and went back to her slogans.

  ‘I’m not posh, I’m from Yorkshire!’ Harry said indignantly.

  ‘Harry, I hate to tell you this, darling, but you’re posh. Super posh. Verging on pretentious.’ Tabby returned from the kitchen, twitching her nose at him as she grinned.

  He pouted. ‘What are you doing to that wine?’

  ‘I…uh…It’s not my fault!’ She helplessly held up the bottle with the opener attached, the cork halfway out. ‘I have no upper body strength!’

  Harry inelegantly jumped across Rhi’s signs and took the bottle from Tabby. ‘Could the problem possibly be that you’re using a bottle opener shaped like Betty Boop?’

  It was Tabby’s turn to pout. ‘Don’t insult my bottle opener. Betty has been with me through the highs and lows. It’s your posh wine’s fault, obviously.’

  Harry nudged her, focusing on the cork. ‘I imagine Betty doesn’t get out an awful lot, what with Lidl’s own-brand being of the more screw top variety. That’s why she’s not up to the challenge.’

  ‘I will have you know – ’

  ‘JEEZ.’ Rhi stood up, then carefully piled her cardboard signs to the side, and huffily put the lids on her paint pots. ‘Banter is what makes me glad I work in a library. I’m going to the pub. Try not to screw this one.’

  And with that, Rhi was gone, and Tabby was left feeling pretty hurt. Until she had the good sense to scrabble after Rhi and chase her down the front path.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’ Tabby grabbed Rhi’s arm.

  ‘It means that I can see you heading down the same path you did three years ago: pretentious posh twat with money and power toys with you, uses you, and then fucks off again, leaving you in pieces. You’re doing the same bloody thing all over again!’

  Tabby t
ook a few deep breaths. ‘I know it looked…what I mean is…I’m a different person now…’

  ‘Yes, one who should know better!’ Rhi turned to start walking again.

  ‘I’m not sleeping with him!’

  ‘It’s only a matter of time. I’ve known you for ever, remember.’

  Tabby narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve known me seven years, and you’ve never let me forget one mistake.’

  ‘Well, maybe if you didn’t insist on repeating them – ’

  Tabby stilled, and tried to find the part of her brain that knew Rhi was doing this out of love, not because she was a mad cow who had a tendency to overdramatise.

  ‘Rhi. I appreciate you looking out for me. I’ll be careful.’

  Rhi looked at her, considering whether to continue in her hissy fit, or to back down. Eventually she just shrugged. ‘I’ll be there to pick up the pieces.’

  ‘There won’t be any pieces. Or any shagging of editors. Honest.’ Tabby grinned, and wiggled her eyebrows until Rhi smiled back, and reached out her hand to squeeze.

  ‘I still think you’re playing with fire.’

  ‘And I still think your NHS slogans are rubbish.’

  Rhi nodded towards their front door. ‘Shouldn’t you get back in there? In case the posh twat thing is an act and he steals all of our stuff?’

  ‘A VHS player, IKEA furniture and Primark furnishings? It’s probably his idea of hell.’

  ‘Good.’ Rhi snorted. ‘Let him stay forever then.’

  When Tabby returned, Harry did not seem to be in hell. He was lounging on her sofa drinking wine. He turned to look at her as she walked through the door, an amused grin twitching at his mouth.

  ‘Stop looking at me like that.’ Tabby grabbed her wine glass from the table and took a few healthy gulps.