The Rom-Com Collection: The Plus One, Something for the Weekend, A Marriage of Connivance

by Natasha West

  ‘That’s alright. I was being overly sensitive.’

  Jess was relieved. The tiff had been bothering her all weekend. It had been like a rash that she couldn’t ignore, making her brain itchy.

  ‘We seem to spend a lot of time apologising to each other, don’t we?’ Jess said.

  ‘I suppose we do.’

  ‘Maybe we should stop saying sorry to each other. Think of another word for it.’

  Chloe liked the idea.

  ‘How about ‘Pineapple?’ she asked.

  ‘Perfect. So, everyone is very pineapple and there’s nothing more to say about it’ Jess exclaimed as the waiter brought Chloe’s breakfast over. She looked at it with envy, cursing her sensible marathon diet.

  ‘Bloody hell. What I wouldn’t give for a sausage right now’ she said as Chloe began to eat.

  ‘Why did you order that then?’

  ‘I really don’t know anymore’ she said, and reached over, snatching one of the two sausages from Chloe’s plate.

  If anyone else had done it, Chloe would have been shocked. But Jess had a sausage-snatcher way about her.

  ‘Hey, get your own!’

  But Jess was already eating it.

  ‘I’m sorry, my body hasn’t had grease in a month. You’ve only yourself to blame for putting fried food in a five-foot radius of me.’

  Chloe sighed and went back to her plate.

  ‘I guess I did have a spare.’

  Jess smiled and kept eating.

  Later, everyone was filing out. Jess and Chloe stood near the exit, saying their goodbyes.

  ‘OK, so you have my number now, just in case you’re not here next year. Which I hope you are, by the way’ Jess said.

  Chloe shrugged and said ‘I guess we’ll see. Maybe ‘The Look’ will change everything and my kids will start to fear me.’

  ‘Wouldn’t that be nice?’

  They stood for an awkward second. Was this a hug moment? Neither was sure. But true to form, Jess decided to go for it. She put her arms out. Chloe hesitated for a split second and then leaned forward to accept the embrace.

  They held onto each other for a moment and then released. As they let go, Jess went to kiss Chloe on the cheek. As Jess’s lips neared Chloe’s face, something like a madness gripped her and she made a sharp detour. She pushed her lips onto Chloe’s.

  Chloe felt the kiss happening and the part of her brain that should have stopped it stayed quiet.

  Before either of them knew what was happening, they were making out pretty intensely in the lobby of the crappy hotel as people walked past, pretending not to notice.

  Chloe suddenly broke the kiss and stepped back sharply.

  ‘We shouldn’t… I can’t… erm…’ Chloe spluttered. And then she simply grabbed her bag and ran from the hotel without a backward glance.

  Jess watched her go, thinking ‘Why the hell does this keep happening?’

  Year Three

  July 2008 – Sleep Tight Hotel (Liverpool)

  Jess sighed as she pulled the car up to the hotel. Another year, another shitty hotel.

  She wondered if she’d see Chloe this year. She kind of hoped not. When she thought of Chloe, all she felt was shame. Because the kiss that had happened last year had been cheating. And Jess wasn’t a cheat. Or at least, she didn’t think she was. But she’d been weak.

  So she’d gone home and given some serious thought to the situation with Elly. She concluded that the relationship obviously wasn’t enough for her if she could slip like that.

  So she broke up with her. Again.

  Elly had wanted a reason but Jess didn’t want to tell her about the errant kiss. It felt like insult to injury. It was bad enough that she was leaving again. So she didn’t tell her. She’d stuck to the usual clichés. It’s not you. I just don’t think I can be with somebody right now. Etc, etc.

  And she’d been single since then.

  She’d dated a bit, but she’d found that her job was taking up more and more of her time. One of the other teachers in her department had quit and was not permanently replaced. So at the times that a supply teacher wasn’t available, she found herself juggling more classes than normal. She’d have the first years up one end of the football pitch and the fourth years up the other. It was ridiculous and wearing. Added to the union work that seemed to keep piling up, Jess’s scheduled was slammed. And romance fell off her radar.

  Jess was knackered from it all. And now one of her precious free weekends was taken up by this bloody conference again. Jess just prayed that Chloe wouldn’t be here this time. She didn’t need the drama.

  But Chloe was indeed attending. And for once, she was pleased to be going. She wanted to see Jess.

  Chloe had had quite a year. Firstly, work was going better. At the beginning of the last school year, Chloe had tentatively begun work on her own version of ‘The Look.’ It was different from Jess’s. It had less of the black void that Jess put into hers and more of a seething rage edge to it. At its premier unveiling, it had stopped a fourteen year old girl mid-sentence. And after that, Chloe felt less scared of the classroom.

  And then Chloe had broken up with Jo. Not right away. They’d lasted another four months after she’d kissed Jess, a fact she’d felt very bad about but decided to pretend hadn’t happened. After all, she wasn’t going to do it again.

  But after she’d moved past it, allowing things to get more serious, she began to understand what Jess had meant by the ‘nice’ comment. The more time Chloe spent with Jo, the more she realised there was something kind of blank about her. All she ever wanted to do was what Chloe wanted to do. She liked whatever Chloe liked. In the fifth month of their relationship, she began to realise that she had no clue who Jo actually was. It took two months after that to pluck up the courage to end it.

  Jo had been devastated. And Chloe had hated being the dumper. She just wasn’t used to it. She’d always been the dumpee in the past. It was uncomfortable to see things from the other end.

  ‘Why? What have I done wrong?’ Jo had cried.

  And Chloe didn’t have a good answer for her. Because the real answer was ‘Because you don’t have your own personality’ but there was no way that Chloe was going to say that. It was far too cruel. So, remembering Laura’s breakup speech, she simply said ‘I’ve just felt this distance developing between us. I think we’ve outgrown each other.’

  It was a crock of shit. And Jo knew it. But there it was.

  Chloe was single again. That made her freak out. She felt she was better with someone than without. So she’d decided to hit the dating apps.

  At first it had been nerve wracking. She wasn’t really a social person and she felt a horrible pressure on the first few dates. She’d found herself clamming up, tongue tied by the anxiety of meeting a new person.

  And then she’d noticed something very interesting. The people she was meeting were interpreting her silence as disinterest. And they loved it.

  The less she talked, the more interested her date got. They loved to talk about themselves anyway and the mute sitting across from them became a great place to project whatever they were after. She’d get a lot of calls and texts from her dates after the fact. The less she answered them, the more they came.

  Being socially awkward was working for her. And she was starting to have fun with it. She thought that maybe there wasn’t any rush to find someone right. Maybe she could just see what happened.

  So Chloe had looked forward to this conference, and to seeing Jess again. She hoped that she could tell her about how her life felt like it was beginning to open up, possibly even thank her. After all, she owed Jess a lot. Her advice had made a real difference in Chloe’s life.

  Jess was still sat in the car park. She couldn’t seem to get out of the car. Suddenly, there was a tap at the window. Jess jumped.

  ‘Hi’ Chloe said, peering in at her with a cheeky smile.

  Jess wound the window down.

  ‘Hello’ Jess said, a little
uncertainly.

  ‘I just parked up over there and I saw you.’

  ‘Yeah, I was just, err, taking a second to…’ Jess tailed off. She didn’t know why was sitting here.

  ‘Are you alright?’ Chloe asked hesitantly.

  ‘I’m fine’ Jess said quickly. She opened her door and climbed out while Chloe watched.

  Chloe was a little thrown. Jess seemed different than she remembered. She seemed tense.

  Jess slammed the car door and went to the boot. She started to pull out a small wheelie case, asking ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Oh, you know, swings and roundabouts.’

  ‘Great, good’ Jess said as she shut the boot. ‘You going in?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK, let’s go’ and she began to move away from the car.

  ‘Hey, you forgetting something?’

  Jess looked around, confused.

  ‘You left your window wound down.’

  Jess looked round to see her car window was indeed wide open. Thank god Chloe had noticed, Jess thought. That’s all she needed now, for her newish car to get nicked.

  ‘Christ. I don’t know where my head’s at at the moment’ Jess said and went back to the car, unlocking it and shutting the window.

  Jess began to pace quickly toward the hotel, Chloe following, wondering what kind of year Jess had had.

  They sat next to each for the opening speech. It was running late. Chloe leaned into Jess.

  ‘I didn’t get a chance to find out how you’re doing these days?’

  Jess turned and whispered one word.

  ‘Busy.’

  Chloe had tried an ice breaker, but Jess hadn’t really gone for it. The ice remained uncracked.

  She began to wonder if Jess simply didn’t want to speak to her. The last two conferences had gotten a bit dramatic between them. Chloe had considered texting Jess to apologise for running off again after the kiss. But she didn’t know how to say it. So she said nothing. She thought Jess would understand, possibly even be grateful that she’d let the situation cool. She no doubt had her own relationship to think about.

  But Jess was being so jittery with her, maybe she’d gotten it wrong. Chloe was perplexed.

  ‘How’s Elly?’ she asked tentatively.

  ‘No idea. Haven’t heard from her in months’ Jess said, really not wanting to get into it.

  Chloe was horrified. Was their kiss responsible for Jess’s relationship breakdown? Had Jess gone home last year and confessed all? And then gotten her marching orders?

  Chloe wondered how she could find out.

  ‘Oh dear’ was all she could come up with.

  ‘Yeah’ said Jess with an enigmatic sigh.

  Chloe was none the wiser. Then the speaker finally stepped onto the make-shift stage.

  ‘Good afternoon all. Welcome to the National Teachers’ Union 2008 conference.’

  Chloe and Jess clapped respectfully.

  Later, it was the usual crap buffet.

  Chloe and Jess had walked out together after commencement and then Jess said something about going to the whizz palace and vanished. Chloe hadn’t seen her since. She hoped she’d catch up with her later.

  When she went into the buffet, Jess was already there. She was talking to an older teacher, Brenda, according to her name tag. Chloe vaguely remembered that she was a drama teacher.

  ‘People can talk all they like, if they don’t have the support of department heads, management’s never going to take it seriously’ Jess was telling Brenda.

  ‘Hi’ said Chloe.

  Jess turned, said ‘Hi’ and then turned back to Brenda, saying ‘Heads need to stop worrying about keeping their jobs and start standing up for their staff.’

  Brenda shook her head.

  ‘Are you saying that teachers en masse have less power than a few individuals? Because that’s actually the larger problem’ Brenda said irritably.

  ‘I’m not saying their voices don’t matter…’

  Chloe listened for a few more seconds before realising that Jess was not interested in talking to her. She obviously blamed her for splitting her and Elly up. Which was completely unfair. Jess had kissed her, she thought angrily. Maybe Chloe hadn’t exactly pushed her off, but that didn’t mean she was to blame.

  Chloe decided to go back to her room. She’d bought a stack of marking with her anyway. Sue was sick this year and she had the room to herself so she could just be alone. And if Jess didn’t want to talk to her, she didn’t want to try and find someone else to talk to. What was the point?

  Chloe had been looking forward to seeing Jess. But clearly, the reverse was not true.

  By Sunday, Chloe and Jess had not exchanged any further words. They weren’t avoiding each other as such. But they never acknowledged each other beyond a brief smile or polite wave.

  By checkout, Chloe knew that Jess had zero interest in being her friend. They’d just become people that had slept together once.

  Jess was more grateful than usual to be able to leave. Seeing Chloe was like being confronted with her own shortcomings, a reminder that she’d been a shit to Elly. It was unfortunate, Chloe had seemed cool when they’d met. And if they hadn’t slept together, maybe they’d be friends now. But they had. So they couldn’t.

  Year Four

  June 2009 - Piffington Hotel and Conference Centre (Croydon)

  It was the second day of the conference. Jess had voted on numerous issues, gotten into several pretty intense rows and was absolutely sick to the back teeth of everyone.

  She could scarcely believe she was here for a fourth year. She’d had enough of repping for her school. It felt as though she’d just become an ear for complaints that she couldn’t actually do anything to fix.

  A few months ago, she’d talked to her regional organiser about the possibility of stepping down. But he’d told her in no uncertain terms that if she did, her school would have no union representation unless she could find a replacement. And by god, she’d tried. But no one wanted the thankless task. She couldn’t really blame them.

  Technically, she could still leave if she wanted. But some prideful part of her couldn’t walk away. Because she wasn’t sure how much difference she was making with the administration, but she worried that the skinny line of defense she represented still mattered. Even if she couldn’t make things better, how much worse might things get if she wasn’t there?

  She didn’t know. So here she was again.

  Would she see Chloe this year? Maybe. But she was over the drama of the last few years. It all started to seem a bit silly. So they’d slept together. So what?

  She saw the woman who usually accompanied Chloe to the conference, Sue, but she seemed to be alone. Jess wondered what had become of Chloe. She had yet to see her. Maybe she’d quit the union? Or maybe even teaching? She’d mentioned the possibility once, Jess recalled.

  If that was the case, it was kind of sad. Jess would probably never see her again. It was weird to imagine. She’d become a sort of fixed annual point to Jess, for better or worse.

  Oh well, she thought. I guess that’s that. And she carried on with her day.

  Later, on a session break, Jess was having a cup of tea when she spilled some of the hot liquid down her front, dropping a loud ‘Fuck sakes!’ in the quiet room. She ignored the looks she was getting and went to the bathroom to clean herself up.

  She splashed water onto herself and then held her top under the dryer. And then, quite without warning, the vivid memory of that first year flashed in her mind. Chloe in the bathroom, drying herself off because some fool had spilled beer down her. And then the kiss. It was a sexy memory, if Jess was honest with herself.

  And that decided it. Jess still had her phone number from the second year. Instead of wondering where she was, she was just going to ask. She sent Chloe a text.

  ‘Hey Chloe, it’s Jess. Remember me? It conference time and you’re absent. I hope you’ve got a note from your mother, young lady.’
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br />   Twenty minutes later, Jess’s phone beeped, mid vote. A few people shot Jess a disapproving look. After the looks began to vanish, Jess subtly got her phone out.

  ‘Hi Jess, of course I remember you. We went on that rollercoaster, didn’t we?’