Truly Madly Awkward

by Beth Garrod

  But the mental scarring was worth it, as I managed to get us back to the car without another sighting. And as we headed home, I relaxed into buzzing so much about my potential date I found myself singing along to Mum’s Christmas pan-pipe album (the tape had got stuck – our car is so old it brings a whole new meaning to Antiques Roadshow).

  “Successful trip, huh?” Mum gave me a double thumbs-up leaving zero hands on the wheel. But unlike her, it wasn’t the excellent yellow discount label on a butternut squash that had me so happy. I replied with a non-committal “uh-huh”.

  “What a week it’s been. I can’t wait for you to see the shop! It’s really beginning to look quite something.”

  She did an excited teeth-together nervous grin. I hadn’t seen her giddy like this over anything before (except that one yoga teacher whose wife had run off).

  “I can’t wait to see it either.” I meant it, but she didn’t want me there till it was nearer being finished. “How long till the big day?”

  “Only nine days now?! You’ll be there, won’t you? Official launch-party photographer?”

  “Try and stop me.” Although if things didn’t go well with the Helicans comp, I may have emigrated/been brutally murdered by then. But she didn’t need those kinds of details.

  For the rest of the journey she nattered away about freezer units, the signs and boxes that had filled up our house, and how her friends were all doing positive energy rituals to help her “little radio star”. Turns out Mum being proud of you is actually quite exhausting – that’s probably why I’ve left it to Jo all these years.

  When we pulled up outside our house, I was relieved to see Shay’s car on the driveway (it was basically the great-granddaughter of ours. Yes, they were both Minis, but ours was old, brown, and contained over thirty-two million types of bacteria from all the crumbs we’d dropped in it over the years. Hers was red, shiny and looked like it was only ever used to get to VIP parking at festivals).

  I was even happier when I headed in and discovered Shay was busy baking, an excellent playlist blaring out. And she paid us to live here.

  She gave us a welcome-home shimmy. “Hey, rockstar.” Shay’d called me that ever since the comp. No big deal. She nodded at the tray of green-ish biscuits on the side. “Want one?”

  I gave a “hell, yes” and took a pic of them to send Jo, alongside the caption “Better come back from uni with some serious skills, or Shay will be replacing you on a permanent basis”.

  Jo replied with a potato emoji – her way of telling me to get lost (without the effort of typing it). I didn’t bother then telling her the biscuits were rank – and Shay’s special ingredient was courgette.

  When Shay and her perfect red lipstick (who bakes wearing lipstick?! Is she a vlogger?) joined me at the kitchen table, I turned my phone so she couldn’t see my fan-girling.

  “Is this playlist one of yours?”

  She nodded, pleased. “Sure is. You want? It’s called…” She scrolled through. “Oh, yeah. Bands I Have Met.”

  Sorry, what?! Was I seriously sharing a table with someone who had shared personal space with these bands?

  Shay laughed. “Oi, pick that mouth up. They’re just people with jobs, like the rest of us.”

  She clearly hadn’t seen Zayn Malik recently. He was not made of human.

  But this revelation was the perfect opportunity to do some proper Shay digging. She’d dropped clues about her London life, and Rach, Tegan and I had spent hours wondering just how glam it really was.

  “Soooo, er…” I tried to use my best “this isn’t a question I’ve been wanting to ask for ages” voice. “What is it that you actually do?” All I knew was it had something to do with TV and she was here for a couple of months.

  “TV production. Head office sent me up here to try and help out on something at Midlands TV. Bring some of my creative know-how to the project.”

  Oooh. She must be a pretty big cheese. I bet TMH would love her/try and stack her. “What kind of TV do you make?”

  “Oh y’know.”

  I didn’t. “I don’t.”

  She blinked, taken aback at my lack of conversation skills.

  “Music, mainly. Some of the live ents shows.” She noticed my confused face. “Sorry, entertainment.”

  WOAH.

  “Isn’t that an amazing job?”

  She took an incredibly large sip of wine. “I lucked out, yeah.”

  “And have you, er …” I didn’t want to sound like a massive loser, but then remembered she’d seen me in my pyjamas that made me look like a life-sized burger, so had clearly passed that point “… met the Helicans?”

  “As in” – she flicked about on her phone – “these Helicans?”

  WHAT THE HELL-ICAN?!

  It was a pic of her and Lis lying on a floor.

  Yes. Thanks to Shay I was officially one selfie-degree of separation from Lis. Any chill I had instantly melted.

  “That’s SO awesome. Can you send it to me?”

  She nodded. “Course.” This was going STRAIGHT to Rach. And Jo.

  “What were they like?!”

  She swirled the wine round her glass. “Exactly what you’d imagine. Total babes. In fact, good point. Let me know how you get on with this radio thing, cos I could always drop them a line…”

  The room went dizzy without my chair moving. “What. You … you’d do that for me?”

  Shay laughed. “Course. Just like family, right? Isn’t that what your mum said?”

  “Said what?” Mum walked into the kitchen as if on cue, but lessened the smoothness by tripping over Shay’s shoes.

  Shay winced. “Sorry, I meant to shift them. Just didn’t want to ruin your floor. It’s solid oak, isn’t it?”

  Mum positively beamed. How amazing was this woman? Chatting to me about bands I love, and complimenting Mum on something weird like floors – which for normal people are really only there to be stepped on (bet ceilings are annoyed they get all the glory).

  “Oak, indeed. Couldn’t afford it for the shop though – had to go for lino.”

  Shay managed to look like this wasn’t the most boring sentence uttered this millennium and took another bite of her biscuit. She really was incredible. She should be a class in school.

  “How’s everything for the launch going? Not long now, right?”

  Mum pulled up a chair. “I know. Where does the time go! But it’s all coming together. Just need some more bits and bobs designed and printed, and it’ll almost be there.”

  Shay picked her phone back up and opened up a browser. “I can REALLY recommend these guys. They do all our stuff, and it’s always on point.”

  Mum’s eyes widened. “Wow. They look so professional.”

  I peered over and totally agreed. The pics were amazing. From huge billboards, to super-cool lanyards, everything looked like one of those design Instagram accounts that only posted in threes. They’d even done a Helicans launch party. “Bet they’re London prices, though.”

  “Totally worth every penny. Here, let me put you in touch.” Shay winked. “They might be able to do you a deal.”

  And just like that, she sent an email and fixed another problem.

  The three of us spent the rest of the evening chilling on the sofas and watching a documentary on the rise of crowdfunded filmmaking (Shay’s choice). I had to prod Mum whenever she snored too loudly over it (even though every single time she woke up, she’d immediately say “fascinating”, as if it covered up she’d just been fast asleep). In fairness, I also zoned out and used the time to construct a reply to Adam. And then a reply to his reply. By the end of the evening we’d confirmed all the details for Friday’s date (which worryingly was going to be like composing 7,500 messages back-to-back, but out loud).

  Waving night to the others (Mum woke up with a start and said, “Fascinatinggoodnightyes!”), I headed up to bed. But instead of sleeping, in a date-induced panic, I ended up revising Adam’s favourite show, as emergency convers
ation back-up. Annoyingly it was Game of Thrones, which turned out to be more complex than real-life history. I had to go full exam highlighters and coloured pens to make adequate notes. Which took ages to scrub off my face in the morning, when I woke up with them stuck to my head.

  If I couldn’t even sleep without getting it wrong, how on earth was I ever going to get through Friday?

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  I wasted 3,036 of precious getting-ready seconds recording a variety of “Hi, how are you”s to see what sounded casual-yet-excited enough to use for my actual Adam greeting. I wasted another twenty-nine seconds working out how many seconds I’d wasted doing it.

  And I was standing next to the Elgar statue, still practising silent hellos, doing tooth-checks in the reflection of my phone, when I felt a jab in the ribs.

  ARGH?! I span round.

  “You see, the difference between you and me is I make sure I actually know the person I’m prodding.” It was Adam.

  And he was teasing me.

  And he’d just made human-to-human contact with me.

  And he smelt amazing.

  I laughed (a fake one, as even though it was funny, I was too nervous for my real reactions to work) and shuffled awkwardly, as if standing was a new concept my feet were getting used to.

  I opened my mouth to say something but no words came out. So I shut it. But it sprang back open again as the tall fitness of Adam hit my eyes (had to hope the number-one quality he wanted in a girl was badly timed goldfish impressions). But I couldn’t blame mouth. Adam was all music-vid in white T-shirt, black jeans and scruffed-up Converse (I see you, forearms, peeping out like the sexy limbs you are).

  Luckily, he filled the silence. “A person of few words today?”

  I tried to say “yes” but had one too few words to manage it.

  Adam looked nervous, like he thought something might be up with me.

  It was – being this close to him had mouth-frozen me (but I couldn’t explain due to the mouth-freeze).

  He put his hands in his pockets and swung his shoulders. “Sorry … is it my fault? Do I smell weird or something?” He scruffed his hands through his hair.

  PLEASE STOP. This is seriously not helping my brain get its act together.

  “Football went into extra time and I had to have the world’s quickest shower.”

  BRAIN, DO NOT PICTURE THIS.

  “I sprinted all the way here. It’s over a mile and a half?”

  OMG he physically exerted himself for me.

  “And this is the best I could do.”

  And it was tremendous.

  BUT I STILL HADN’T SAID ANYTHING.

  I took a deep breath and composed myself mentally, like my brain was about to do a gymnastic floor routine (but without the leotard).

  “No! Sorry. You don’t smell. Well, you do, but with your nose.”

  He laughed (even though I hadn’t meant it to be a joke). Still, at least I had convo lift-off. I sneaked a glance at my phone, where I’d set a screengrab of Tegan and Rach’s You Can Do This WhatsApp group as my home screen.

  Just read, Bella. Just read. You know you’ve got this. By being friends with Tegan, who has always got this.

  “Where does he want to get food?” Nooooo. THIS IS WHY I NEED TO STICK TO FEW WORDS. “I mean, we. Where does WE. Do we. Where do we want to get food? If we do? DO we?”

  Adam’s strokeable brow scrunched. Was he trying to figure out why he’d actively suggested spending an evening with me?

  “We do. Definitely do. If you do? Pizza? I know a good place…”

  Annoyingly all my normal reactions came back to life at that exact moment and I let out an overly loud “YAS”, which I tried to cover up by quickly saying Italian food was my fave, but got “fave” and “dream” mixed up and ended up saying, “Yes, it’s my Dave.”

  But Adam, who has a knack of making me feel both wildly out of control, and simultaneously like everything was the most fine it had ever been, didn’t even mention it (maybe he didn’t hear?).

  “Pasta La Vista it is then. Wanna head straight there?”

  I nodded and together we started to stroll down the high street at half speed, kicking a stone back and forth between us, chatting about what had happened since we last properly saw each other. (Technically I’d properly seen him purchasing peas, but he didn’t need to know this.)

  I was glad I had the stone to stare at, to hide my face which kept being invaded by unauthorized mega-smiles. It felt so amazing for it to be the two of us. Me, Bella Fisher, and Fadam. Aka a couple of people – which is only two words away from “a couple”.

  Sure, we did have a slight blip when I spotted Angela, a girl from school who had sent me over fifty DMs about her extreme love for the Helicans. In a panic to hide, I said, “Ooh, look,” and turned to intensely study the nearest shop window. Annoyingly it was a Greggs, so I just looked like I’d never seen a pasty before. But Adam joined in my staring and made the excellent point about what an amazing idea putting marshmallow in an ice-cream cone was, and soon we were ambling along again.

  “Sooo, what happened with the Helicans?” He said it gently, like he was apprehensive in case I didn’t have good news. I felt kind of shy admitting it had gone well.

  “We … we got through to the second round.”

  “Woah – that’s awesome!” He gave me his biggest smile yet, making his braces look extra cute. “You must have nailed it!”

  Joy shudder! Judder. Was this Hottest Man Human seriously complimenting me about being good at life? The ridiculousness of this caused me to trip over my own foot and almost face-plant. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Well, I would! When’s the next round? I’ll listen in.”

  “NO,” I snapped back, way more aggressively than I meant. As chuffed as I was that he offered, the last thing I needed was more pressure. “Please don’t… Thanks though.”

  Embarrassed by my outburst, I moved the conversation on by launching into a chat about Mum’s new business. I was careful to keep details vague (I may have called it a “pet friendly café”) as unleashing the full Fisher weird was definitely not on my list of “how not to make him run away” conversation topics. He said it sounded mega and we’d have to go one day. He then asked if Mumbles had recovered from eating that bee (he remembers details about my life/dog’s swollen face! Swoooon!!!), and I discovered he’d once made a pact with himself to pat every dog that walked past (which explained why we’d already made four stroke stops).

  I asked him how the drumming was going, and he told me he was still practising in his shed, but was now also teaching himself guitar. (Like, FOR REAL, what’s next? He’s a volunteer hedgehog-rescuer in his spare time?) I then tried to think of something equally as impressive, but the best I could do was talk about breaking my longest ever potato-peeling record. I showed him the pic of it and he said it was a “remarkable photo”, but I wasn’t sure if he meant in a good way, or remarkable that someone would take a photo of it. I replied, “It’s very a-peel-ing.” And then neither of knew what to say for approximately forty seconds. Thankfully we then arrived at Pasta La Vista, and a waitress rushed straight over and broke the silence.

  Adam reverted to his serious voice and asked for a “table for two” as if it wasn’t the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me. I’d never had a sit-down meal out with a boy before (or even a stand-up one), but Adam seemed totally at home anywhere. I wondered what he was like in his actual home? Did he morph into a sofa? He was only four months older than me, but those sixteen weeks must be crucial for picking up some serious adulting skills (note to self: find out where he learnt them and enrol Mum on a course).

  “So, what are you getting?” He put his menu down on the table and did whatever he did when his hands weren’t holding something – little mini-drummings with his fingers on any available surface. Before today I never knew “tapping things” could be so alluring.

  I picked my menu up to try and
look like I had very strong opinions about food. However, I only had twelve pounds for the whole evening so knew within one second what I was getting.

  “The spaghetti, I think.”

  He nodded, with a smile. “Gotta get your Dave.”

  I thought he hadn’t heard?! I managed to keep a straight face. “And what’s your Dave?”

  He did a dramatic finger-based drum roll. “Dave is totally Four Seasons pizza – can’t go wrong.” He rocked back in his chair, but panicked as it went too far back and had to grab the table.

  “Nice. Although I’m not really sure how ‘mushroom’ is a season, but who am I to argue with the inventor of pizza?”

  Adam smiled. “Who I really hope is called Peter.”

  I laughed so hard thinking about this that I think I felt my first ab forming.

  All too soon, our plates arrived. I thought I’d been an amazing budget-menu-item chooser, but it quickly became clear I was more of a terrible-public-eating planner. Despite trying my hardest, I kept flicking meat flecks everywhere. Adam politely ignored it (darn you and your easy-to-cut-and-chew season of ham), even when one flew into his water and bobbed about like a tiny brown meat beach ball (he didn’t say anything, but I couldn’t help but notice he never drank from it again). Forget calorie info, menus should really come with an “ease of eating in front of a fit significant other” rating instead.

  Give or take the constant panic about what I was saying/doing/chewing/flicking, I was having the kind of evening I’d only ever had with my friends. One where you laugh so much the waiter has to come back two times to ask if you want dessert. Except I was having it with a boy. Who I really, really liked.

  But despite us being able to chat so easily, I still had no idea what was going on inside his head – other than that he really enjoyed pizza. It was so hard to tell with him – he was the same warm, friendly guy with everyone, the disgustingly nice human he was. I definitely couldn’t spot him doing any of those signs that magazines tell you to look out for (although if he did mirror my body language he’d be wrestling invisible spaghetti on to a fork).

  ARGH.