The Dr Pepper Prophecies

by Jennifer Gilby Roberts

  Beth starts to laugh. 'Actually,' she says, 'this is all rather good.'

  And laughs harder. She starts to gasp for breath.

  Oh my God, she’s going hysterical. I’ll have to slap her. Get her to breathe into a paper bag. Do we have any paper bags? Will a plastic one work?

  'Some of them even sound quite nice,' Beth says, as the laughter dies down. 'I might actually like to meet one or two.'

  Does this mean I didn’t screw up as bad as I thought?

  'Am I forgiven?' I ask, cautiously.

  'You’re forgiven,' Beth agrees. 'Just don’t do this again.'

  'I won’t,' I say.

  Crossing my fingers behind my back.

  Chapter 11

  Will looks up from the paper. 'I’m amazed,' he says.

  'That they printed it?' I ask, putting my feet up on the stylish-but-ugly coffee table that Natalie picked out and blowing on my hot chocolate.

  Will's apartment is a weird mix of his stuff (old, practical, comfortable) and Natalie's additions (new, fashionable, sharp edges). They clash horribly. How can he live here and not notice that?

  'No,' Will says, setting the paper down by my feet, 'that Beth hasn’t gone psycho on you and stabbed you in the shower. What were you thinking?'

  'I told you, it was an accident,' I protest. 'And it's really mine I messed up, not hers.'

  'How did you even come up with that?' Will asks, dropping miniature marshmallows into his coffee.

  I shrug. 'I don’t know. Spending all day dealing with insurance tends to make you a bit twisted. Besides, I need some outlet for my creativity.'

  I take the bag of marshmallows from Will and start chain-eating them.

  'Matt still not asked you out?' Will asks.

  'No,' I say gloomily.

  'Why don’t you ask him?' Will says, sipping his coffee and grimacing as it burns his tongue. He never waits for it to cool down properly.

  I pause briefly between marshmallows. 'I asked him to the picnic, he can’t not realise that I like him. I’ve done my bit, now it’s his turn.'

  'The picnic didn’t go so well,' Will points out. 'Maybe he thinks that was because of him.'

  Maybe it was, that little voice says again.

  I’m beginning to question my sanity. Just the tiniest bit.

  'Of course it wasn’t,' I say, partly to myself.

  Will shrugs. 'Maybe he doesn’t know that. It’s not only women who second-guess other people’s feelings.'

  'The first guess is hard enough.'

  'Indeed.'

  We lapse into comfortable silence.

  'Beth liked the sound of a couple of the guys who left messages,' I say, taking another sip of hot chocolate. 'But she wants to double date for security. Will you come with me?'

  Will takes another marshmallow. 'Why aren’t you asking Matt?'

  Yes, why aren’t I asking Matt?

  That little voice again. I need psychiatric help.

  'Well, Beth knows you,' I justify myself. 'She’ll feel more secure if she’s surrounded by friends. Besides, double dates aren’t always the greatest start to a romance.' I frown. 'Other than in this case, obviously,' I amend.

  One time when I was at university, I agreed to go on a blind double date. It was with my housemate's boyfriend's cousin's friend's brother, who had – and I quote – "a really nice personality". You'd assume that meant he was ugly. You'd be right. He also collected tarantulas and belonged to Bug Lovers Anonymous.

  Never again.

  'True,' Will says.

  Good, he’s not going to say anything else.

  Will’s computer beeps at him. I turn to look on reflex. New message. From Matt March.

  I turn back to Will. 'Why is Matt sending you e-mails?' I ask.

  'Web designing, remember?' Will replies. 'We’re working together on my site. He came up with some good ideas when I gave him a lift home on Sunday.'

  I follow him to the computer and stand behind his chair. He opens a new window and types in an address. A website flashes up.

  'I’ve been working on this one for a while now,' Will says, relinquishing control of the mouse to me. 'It’s an emoticon database – those little faces who grin and wink at you – although I’m trying to go further than that. I've thought of creating ones specific to TV shows. There are massive fan communities on the web who would love them and it’s non-profit so I can do it without getting sued. I’m aiming to have the biggest collection there is, standard and original, and get outside contributions. With Matt’s help, I can work a lot faster, especially since he knows a couple of really talented creators.'

  I pull up a chair, then take the mouse and click on the link that says ‘flowers’. Eight pages of cartoon flowers come up, blinking, dancing and changing colour. One’s telling me to go drink weed killer.

  'Will, this is amazing,' I say, as I flick through pages of alien ones of varying degrees of weirdness. I spot a link that says ‘adult’ and click on it. Then I stare.

  'Are these yours?' I say, tilting my head sideways in an attempt to decide if what those cartoon pigs are doing is actually possible.

  Will goes a little pink and rubs the back of his neck. 'Not all of them,' he says.

  'But most of them?'

  'Kind of, yeah.'

  'Have you actually tried all these?' I ask, before I question if I really want to know the answer.

  'A lot of them just came out of The Karma Sutra,' Will admits, going pinker.

  Will owns a copy of The Karma Sutra?

  'Well…they’re really good,' I tell him.

  Which they are. Especially the…uh…live action ones.

  This is weird. Not weird like your parents having sex, more like your brother. I’ve just never pictured Will in this…context.

  Except for this weird dream I had about him once where we were having sex on his balcony and the whole town was watching. Which I’ve tried really, really hard to forget about. And I’ve never mentioned to anyone.

  'You should be doing this professionally,' I tell him for the thousandth time. Then I blush stupidly. 'Web designing, I mean. No one with real talent should be an accountant.'

  Will shakes his head. 'There’s nothing wrong with being an accountant. There’s steady work, promotion opportunities, a good salary…'

  'That’s your father talking,' I interrupt. 'You hate the work, you hate the office politics, you don’t want to be promoted because it would mean even longer hours and you don’t need anywhere near the amount you earn because all you buy is computer software. You have a gift and you should be using it in your work, instead of calculating how much money some corporate madhouse is wasting running the heating and the air conditioning at the same time.'

  'It’s not that easy,' Will says, running a hand through his hair. 'I’m not qualified for this stuff, I’m just an amateur.'

  'Half the professional websites I’ve used suck,' I say matter-of-factly. 'If you showed any of your sites to an employer, they’d hire you on the spot.'

  'Thanks for the vote of confidence,' Will says, smiling slightly.

  'I mean it,' I say passionately. 'It’s alright for me to have a dull job, I don’t have any talent. But you…you’re doing the world a disservice by not using yours.'

  'You have talent,' Will says, putting an arm around me and letting my head rest against his shoulder. He doesn’t seem to have heard the last thing I said. 'You just haven’t found exactly how to use it yet. You will. I have just as much faith in you as you’ve always had in me.'

  'I’m a screw-up, Will,' I say, suddenly feeling very low. 'I keep bouncing around and making bad choices. I can't even find something half-decent. I don’t think I’ll ever find anything I love as much as you love this.'

  Will holds me tighter. 'Maybe you just haven’t looked in the right place for it yet.'

  'When will I?' I ask, turning my head against his shoulder to look up at him.

  Will smiles. 'I don’t know,' he says, 'but I know I’ll be ther
e when you do.'

  Will looks down at me and I look up at him.

  If he leant his head down just a tiny bit, he could kiss me.

  Did I really think that?

  The doorbell rings and saves me from having to decide. I have to sit up again properly so Will can get up and answer it, which somehow feels wrong. I change the page on his website and look at little flying reindeer in the Christmas section.

  'Mel. How nice to see you,' Natalie says, as she swishes in. I correctly translate this as ‘Get out of here and leave us alone, you ensemble-challenged cow.'.

  'Good evening,' I say, with considerable effort. 'I think that’s my cue to leave.'

  There’s always a sort of internal struggle when Natalie turns up unexpectedly, between the part of me that wants to stay on principle (and because it will annoy her) and the part of me that can’t stand watching her with Will. She ruffles his hair and touches his arm and kisses him – all of which makes me want to throw her off the balcony. Today, however, thanks to the website, I’ve got a far more disturbing image in my head. One that makes me physically ill.

  'I’ll just use the bathroom before I go,' I say, getting up.

  Will doesn’t say I should stay. I prefer to believe that he’s staying out of it, rather than that he’s siding with her.

  I hope to God I’m not wrong.

  **

  When I come out of Will’s too fancy and too feminine bathroom – recently re-designed by Natalie – I very nearly walk into her. Because the vulture is perched right outside the door.

  'Could we just get one thing clear?' Natalie says sweetly, smiling lethally at me.

  'By all means,' I say, a little off guard since I’m not used to having verbal cat fights right after I’ve pulled my trousers up.

  'One,' she says, 'I am Will’s girlfriend, not you. Two, I am not letting him waste himself designing silly little websites for middle-aged men who wear diamond sweaters and still live with their parents, when he has such potential where he is. Three, I am working very hard to help him advance in his career and I do not appreciate your efforts to drag him down by encouraging him in his more embarrassing hobbies, social leprosy and poorly-developed dress sense.'

  She takes a breath.

  'When I marry Will, things are going to be different. If I were you, I would stop treating this apartment as a glorified secret club house and realise that Will has moved on and you are no longer the woman in his life.'

  One eye becomes a laser beam that penetrates my skull and starts systematically targeting the pain centre of my brain.

  'Have I made my position quite clear?'

  I nod. 'Perfectly,' I say.

  'Good,' Natalie says. 'Now, get out and seriously re-consider yours.'

  And then she pushes past me into the bathroom and shuts the door.

  Well, I certainly have clarified my position.

  If she marries Will, I will kill myself.

  Chapter 12

  One dull, and yet disturbing, week later, during which Cynthia appeared to have thrown away her watch and I half expected Natalie to send me poison pen letters in the mail, Beth is going on her first blind date. She’s nervous as a kitten, although I’ve always found that a rather strange expression since all the kittens I’ve come across have been the feline equivalent of professional skydivers. So, she’s nervous as…I don’t know. Maybe an owl who’s afraid of the dark.

  'Do you like this one?' Beth says, coming out of her room in the tenth new outfit she appears to have acquired since yesterday. Which is really confusing me, because I thought she was…well, broke. Although I suppose all those thrilling weekends with the Jane Austen Appreciation Society aren't much of a strain on the bank balance.

  'It looks great,' I say, which is precisely what I’ve said about the other nine. Beth has surprisingly good taste for someone whose usual wardrobe could be described in two words – Sloane Ranger.

  'I don’t know,' Beth says worriedly. 'Maybe I look too plain next to you.'

  'Well, why don’t you wear my outfit and I’ll wear something else,' I say. It's not like I'm trying to impress anyone.

  Beth shakes her head. 'It looks much better on you anyway. I think I’ll just try on something else.'

  Forget Narnia, I'm beginning to suspect that her wardrobe leads to Oxford Street.

  'Will will be here in ten minutes,' I call after her, as she darts back into her bedroom. 'We don’t want this guy thinking you've stood him up.'

  Beth returns a few minutes later wearing a compromise between outfits three and six, with eight's accessories.

  'Perfect,' I say. 'Now, you’ve got five minutes to do your hair before…'

  The doorbell rings.

  '…Will gets here,' I finish.

  Beth vanishes again as I get up from the table to answer the door.

  It's Will. He's wearing a fancy suit. He owns a fancy suit?

  'I see Natalie’s been playing dress up Ken again,' I say, as I let him in. He’s even got gel in his hair. It’s all spiky and weird and not nice.

  'One of my networking outfits,' Will says, looking down at himself. 'And yes, she did choose it. Do you like it?'

  I study him.

  'It’s quite nice,' I say eventually, 'in that it’s an attractive suit. But you look like Niles Crane.'

  Will nods in resignation. 'I did get a certain Frasier vibe when I first saw myself in it,' he says. 'I sudden felt like I should be reading Proust and tweezing a muffin.'

  'Why do you let her do this?' I ask, stepping forward and starting to undo Will’s yellow silk tie. He raises an eyebrow at me.

  'What?' I say, carrying on. 'I can’t look at you dressed like this all evening. You don’t look like yourself. And don’t avoid the question. Why do you let her do this?'

  Will bows his head as I pull his tie off and undo his top button. 'She’s trying to help,' he explains. 'She wants me to be a success.'

  I put my hands on his shoulders. 'Yes, but her idea of success is you selling your soul to the Devil. Otherwise known as the Big Five. You'll be miserable.'

  'You’re not just saying that because you don’t like her?' Will says, covering my hands with his.

  'I freely admit that I don’t like her, but that's because I know she won’t make you happy,' I say.

  Okay, maybe that's not entirely why. But it's a big part of it.

  'You need someone who accepts you as you are, not whose grand ambition in life is to turn you into someone else,' I add.

  'And where do I find such a woman?' Will asks, bringing my hands down from his shoulders, but keeping hold of them.

  I sigh. 'I’m not exactly the dating expert,' I say wryly. 'I just want you to be happy and I know you won’t be if you marry someone like her.'

  Will half smiles. 'Now I’m getting married?' he asks, pulling a face of mock horror. 'Why on Earth would I want to do that when I can keep spreading my wild oats?'

  'You’re a romantic and you know it, stop pulling the macho crap,' I say, half-smiling back.

  'Okay, I’m ready,' Beth says, emerging from her room like a butterfly from a cocoon. 'Sorry, am I interrupting something?'

  Will drops my hands.

  'Of course not,' I say. 'What would you be interrupting? We need to get going or we’ll be late.'

  **

  Beth gets steadily more nervous all the way there. Five minutes more and I think me and Will would’ve had to take an arm each and drag her in. As it is, we merely flank her like bodyguards so she can’t turn and flee.

  'What name please, sir?' the Maître d’ asks Will, even though I’m nearest to him.

  'Knightley,' Will says automatically.

  I wait for the Maître d’ to check his list and pronounce that we’re not on it.

  'I’m sorry, sir, but we don’t appear to have your reservation.'

  There we go.

  'We’re actually part of the Carmichael party,' I say. 'Has Mr. Carmichael arrived yet?'

  The Maître d’ p
auses. If he replies to Will, I may have to slap him.

  'I’m afraid not, madam,' he says, fortunately for him. 'But I do have that name. Please come with me.'

  'Now I feel silly,' Will murmurs into my ear as we gently guide a rather pale Beth towards our table.

  'Didn’t Natalie’s finishing classes cover this?' I murmur back.

  Will looks a little sheepish. 'Probably. I may have daydreamed a little in that lesson.'

  'Best thing to do in school,' I whisper back and Will grins.

  We settle down. Beth starts playing with the drinks list.

  'Nice place,' Will says, looking around. Then he lowers his voice. 'Mel, I can’t remember, which fork do I use first?'

  I look at them all and shrug. 'Does it matter?' I ask, at my normal volume. 'The object of a fork is to transfer food from the plate to your mouth. It won’t affect the ultimate fate of the universe if you use the wrong one.'

  Will squeezes my hand under the table. 'I love going out to dinner with you,' he says and I smile.

  While Beth attempts to camouflage herself and Will scouts out the perimeter, I keep my eyes firmly on the door. Of us three, I think I’m the most curious to meet David Carmichael. Imagine, this absolutely stunning guy could walk through the door at any second and sweep Beth off her feet. Then they'll get married and at the wedding he'll thank me profusely and tell everyone 'It's all because of Mel.'.

  I knew this was a good idea.

  'Beth, it’s going to be fine,' I hear Will say comfortingly. 'You’ve got me and Mel here, so you don’t even have to carry the conversation on your own. And I’m sure this guy will be nice and normal and we’ll all have a great time.'

  Beth’s smile is less watery than it is flat, diluted lemonadery, given its usual sweetness.

  My heart’s jumping up and down like it’s trying to see through a high window, as every new possible comes through the door. I nearly have a crisis when I think a guy who looks old enough to be Beth’s grandfather is coming to join us, but his table is actually right behind ours.

  He’s not going to stand her up, is he? Of all the worst things he could do! Just casually abandon a sensitive, sweet young woman, perhaps permanently damaging her sense of self-worth? Men!