The Note: An uplifting, life-affirming romance about finding love in an unexpected place

by Zoë Folbigg

James releases himself from her grasp and runs his hands through his hair. His chest expands and contracts with a puff and a sigh.

  ‘You haven’t told me how you feel now, Kitty. Not about us. You’ve just told me how shit it was with Simon, and you just chanced upon me in Soho. That’s not a reason to get back together. That’s default. Give me something, give me a reason why.’

  Kitty pauses, then takes James’s hands again, weaving her long fingers into his like ivy creeping along guttering.

  ‘We spent eleven Christmases together, let’s not spend this one apart.’

  ‘That’s not a reason, that’s just laziness.’

  James untangles his fingers and frees himself. ‘I have to get back to work. Happy Christmas, Kitty. Give your parents my love.’

  He walks out of the kitchen. Kitty follows and turns her heel on a scowl, heading out of the door and back to her Christmas shopping.

  James rushes back into the studio, desperate to get back to the girl from his train, the girl who gave him the note, the girl he was commissioned to photograph, who he just saw through his lens and wants to know so much more about. The stool in the middle of the studio sits vacant.

  *

  Tears roll down Maya’s cheeks as she jumps off the number 73 bus and into a puddle. Clouds came with the dark and from nowhere a biblical storm dampened the spirits of commuters and Christmas shoppers. Maya dashes into the shelter of the station and the reverse waterfall suddenly feels like warm comfort in contrast to Euston Road. Waves get wavier. Her boots are ruined.

  Maya looks down at the empty hot chocolate cup she’s still clutching in her hand. ‘James’ is scrawled on it in royal blue marker. Holding something he held. Maya suddenly remembers winning the raffle and the trip to Paris with Clara.

  I am the unluckiest lucky girl I know.

  Her sodden feet squelch through to platform 8. An earlier train home full of optimistic early finishers, excited about getting back to people they love. Maya boards the train and looks left and right and sees a space on a luggage shelf at the back of the Superior Train carriage.

  Maya had happily fallen out of the habit of looking for James, but an hour ago he tricked her with a spark of hope. A connection. Flattery. And now she’s looking up the carriage for him from the sanctuary of the luggage shelf, even though she knows there is no possible way he could be on this train when he has to pack up the studio. And then probably have dinner in town with his skinny blonde girlfriend. And then probably go home and have amazing sex with her.

  Maya wipes spidery mascara from under each eye with the fingertips of both hands. She examines the black mess smudging across whirls, loops and arches, as proof of what just happened.

  But I knew he had a girlfriend. I just didn’t realise he had two.

  *

  By the light of a light box in the attic room of the Victorian terrace, James examines the edit he just sent to the picture desk at the paper. He held one back. The picture he’s blown up to have a closer look at. The one where Maya Flowers looks out of the window. A dark brow arches above a long lid where a single freckle leaps gaily away from her nose. Wide glassy pupils are caught in the process of shrinking, adjusting to the changing light, and James can almost hear the sigh of sadness float away from those beautiful lips and into the eaves of the dark room he is standing in. As James pushes his glasses back up his nose and strokes the outline of her lip with his forefinger, he wonders why Maya ran away. She seemed to regret writing the note but they got past that.

  She has a boyfriend now.

  Why would she run away?

  I have to tell her how I feel.

  James jumps down the stairs three at a time. Tomorrow Maya will hand in her notice and walk out of her job; he has to find that email address and get a message to her first. Or spend all morning at Hazelworth station waiting for her to pass through for what might be the last time.

  Where’s she going to when she leaves?

  James finds his phone in the pocket of his peacoat, slumped over the sofa in the front room, and sees a missed call from his mum. Which reminds him about Kitty and how this afternoon she managed to wipe away any possible lingering feeling of love and abandonment he might have harboured for her. And then he realises.

  She thinks Kitty and I are still together.

  Maya Flowers. There she is. There’s that email.

  James runs back up two flights of stairs, to the attic room, to find his laptop so he can write his message with the composed honesty it deserves after all this time.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Maya walks through the imposing façade of FASH HQ for the final time. She got the 7.21 a.m. today, to come in early in the hope of catching Sam and telling him privately first, then clearing her emails and handing in her letter of resignation to Lucy before the paper drops mid-morning. Yesterday’s encounter with James is no longer the most important thing on her mind, not while she deals with extracting herself from FASH anyway.

  Needles spike through her belly button but she savours each of the lasts she will be doing on this, her shortest day at work. Her last walk through the columns. Her last nod at the receptionist. Her last pain au chocolat. Her last goodbye to Sam, who she still feels the need to clear the air with.

  The receptionist with the headpiece that curls around her ear refuses to answer the phone until she puts down her coffee, even though she doesn’t need her hands. A private stand-off only Maya is party to as she climbs the stairs to the canteen, nodding a hello as she disappears out of the receptionist’s sight. Maya drinks in the images projected on the giant screen that runs from the ground all the way up to the top of the building for one last time. A model with wild hair and killer red lips to match her killer red stilettos. A blonde wrapped up in a khaki parka that Rich Robinson hopes will keep the yacht and its staff running for another year.

  Maya stops to pick up a two-day-old pain au chocolat and looks around at the few early risers in the canteen. How many times did Maya sit at those wooden tables next to the glass balustrade that overlooks reception way down below and counsel her teammates? How many times did she and Emma eat falafel and tabbouleh or Asian noodles piled high from the best salad bar in London? How many times did she see young interns climb the stairs wearing the Marnie or the Swift or the Woodstock dress, excited and proud to be working at FASH? That seems so long ago now that getting out feels right.

  Maya walks through the glass double doors and is surprised to see Lucy and Cressida both standing at Cressida’s desk, talking conspiratorially.

  ‘Speak of the devil,’ says Cressida with an arched eyebrow, chewing gum clumsily in a way not befitting a Chelsea girl.

  This isn’t good.

  The rest of the office is empty, apart from the background chatter of two tech guys getting watery coffee from a machine with plastic cups in the breakout kitchen further down the quad.

  Lucy looks up and gives a measured smile.

  ‘Morning, Maya, you’re in early. Can we have a word please?’

  Maya nods.

  ‘I think it’s best we go to the meeting room. For privacy.’ Lucy is clutching a box file, a pen, and her phone.

  Maya looks at the empty office around her, they don’t need privacy. She has a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  This isn’t how it was meant to be.

  ‘Sure.’

  Before Maya has a chance to remove her coat, she is walking back to the meeting room next to the glass double doors.

  Cressida marches with triumph, smiling to herself because she’s just handed a mighty juicy apple to the teacher.

  ‘Gorgeous pants, Lucy. Are they Stella?’

  Lucy doesn’t feel the need to pepper the silence with chit-chat so she just doesn’t answer. Instead she stands in the doorway with authority and ushers in Cressida and Maya, closing the door behind her with a seal of doom as Maya sits down, knowing what is coming. She unbelts her coat but doesn’t take it off.

  ‘We know it’s you, Ma
ya,’ says Lucy, in an almost conciliatory tone. A harsh blonde fringe over dark, disappointed eyes.

  Before Maya has the chance to ask how, Cressida sits up in her seat like head girl.

  ‘Penelope from Walk In Wardrobe is now fashion assistant at the Standard. She saw the layout last night and called me. We need your passwords and login for everything, and you need to clear your desk and go.’ A pout projects. ‘I just knew it was you,’ Cressida adds with a hiss.

  ‘You thought it was Olivia.’

  Lucy raises her palms to signal silence. ‘That doesn’t matter. What matters is you have let me down, Maya. You bit the hand that fed you and went behind our backs to spill all those FASH secrets. That’s highly sensitive intel.’

  ‘Not to mention highly illegal,’ adds Cressida with a shake of her head.

  Maya’s shoulders shrink into her chair. She feels ridiculous. To have been caught out; that it isn’t going to end the way she planned.

  What would Velma do?

  ‘But FASH was never mentioned up to now. And I didn’t say anything libellous, lawyers went over everything. Names were changed…’

  ‘It’s pretty bloody obvious who you’re talking about, Maya,’ shouts Lucy.

  She’d stand up for herself, that’s what.

  Maya hears Velma’s words ring in her ears.

  Just be yourself.

  ‘Only if you work here, and then maybe there’s a reason it resonated.’

  ‘Well it’s a good job for you that Rich, Rich and Andy are all on the exec board ski trip this week. Going quietly will be less messy and less embarrassing all round. Not that a bloody double-page spread in the Evening Standard is going quietly. I’m gutted, Maya.’

  Maya looks down and sees her fists clenched tightly on her lap. ‘I’m not the bully here, Lucy. And if it’s worth anything, I had my resignation letter in my bag, I was going to leave, I just wanted to clear my desk.’

  Lucy looks back with round, disappointed eyes as she slides a pendant from side to side on the chain around her neck. ‘It’s not worth anything, Maya.’

  ‘You don’t have the luxury of clearing your desk,’ snaps Cressida, sliding a notepad and pen across the table at Maya. ‘Passwords!’

  Maya scribbles, wanting to cry, but also wanting to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going anyway? A career in newspapers?’

  ‘I’m leaving to pursue new opportunities,’ Maya tries to smile, although her mouth feels too shaky to.

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Cressida retorts through a snort.

  ‘Actually, Cressida, I’m leaving to be anywhere but near you. Lucy, you built a brilliant and enthusiastic team, but somewhere in the past year it has turned sour, bitter and mean.’ Tiny beads of perspiration dance on faint freckles.

  Lucy studies Maya’s face and doesn’t say anything.

  Cressida looks between her and Maya, waiting for a reaction from their boss.

  ‘Oh puh-lease! This is sour grapes because I got the job you so wanted.’

  Maya stands and belts her coat again.

  ‘Ask anyone in the team if they’re happy, Lucy. Ask Rich if he thinks this FASHmas is as good as last year. Think about it in January when the sales figures are tallied up.’

  Lucy raises an eyebrow as if to say Maya has a point. FASHmas has been panned inside HQ this year. Cressida made it look like the pages of a society magazine. Jutting bones; the few high-end high-fashion pieces FASH stocks; unwearable looks; miserable-looking models. Rich Robinson slammed Lucy last Friday, just before he headed off skiing, because FASHmas this year didn’t look very, well, fun. But that’s another conversation Lucy will have with Cressida, who already looks aghast.

  ‘And if sales do go through the roof again, which I doubt, be sure to ask Rich to pay his staff their bonus before he upgrades his yacht.’

  Maya walks out of the room, closing the door behind her, leaving Lucy and Cressida to their bleak exchange.

  Back at her desk, Maya unsticks the photo of Henry, Jack and Oscar from the edge of her monitor, pulls a second coat from the coat stand that she’d discarded on a warm day way back whenever, picks up her notebook and favourite pen, and crawls under her desk to scoop out the three pairs of shoes that have been sitting there with the mice for so long.

  They’re my things, I’m taking them.

  Sam walks in whistling to the music in his ears. He sees Maya scramble out from under her desk.

  ‘My…’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ she says, standing, smoothing soft waves away from her face. ‘It was me.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I was Fifi Fashion Insider. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’

  ‘What?’

  Maya bursts into tears, crams her belongings into a spotty FASH delivery bag and walks out, through the glass double doors, as Sam watches her. She heads down the stairs and out of FASH HQ for the final time, without any intention of buying the newspaper on her way back to the train station. She doesn’t want to see how stupid she looks from James Miller’s point of view.

  *

  Cressida hammers letters and numbers at Maya’s keyboard under the guise of ratting out further treachery and spilt secrets.

  ‘Ah, here we go. Email.’

  As a gleeful finger scrolls down through the inbox, she reads out loud to no one in particular, unselfconscious that people are starting to trickle into work and don’t yet know Maya has been told to leave, that she was Fifi Fashion Insider. Tact and subtlety were never Cressida’s strong points.

  ‘Hmmm, OK. IT support, round robin from womenswear, work experience request, charity donation request, no-doubt dull email from her mum… Oh hang on. This looks interesting… Subject matter: The Guy From The Train.’

  Cressida reads silently, suspecting this might be juicy, licking her lips as she does.

  Maya,

  I’m so very sorry you left suddenly tonight, I thought the shoot was going well – luckily I got some great pictures, you photograph beautifully.

  Although it might not matter to you now, I have to let you know that the girl who came into the studio, she’s not my girlfriend – she was, but I hadn’t seen her for six months, and I don’t want to see her again.

  I want to see you, because I saw you properly for the first time today, so if you’re still free for that drink, let me know.

  If not, I’ll leave you in peace and wish you happy travels.

  James

  x

  Three sentences and a friendly sign-off. And a kiss.

  Cressida swings around in Maya’s chair.

  ‘Sam, do you have Maya’s personal email address?’ Cressida has no intention of forwarding the message on, but knowing that she could have fills her with smug satisfaction.

  ‘Yeah why?’

  ‘Urgh, check this out,’ she says, gesturing two fingers down her throat.

  Sam leans over Cressida’s shoulder and reads the email. He ponders for a second, thinking about the girl who was so blind about this idiot from the train, she couldn’t even see that Sam had fallen for her; and every time they went for a coffee Maya dug in the knife, throwing his feelings back in his face.

  ‘Fuck it Cressida, I think I lost her personal email the last time I lost my phone.’

  ‘Oh you are naughty!’ Cressida giggles, joyfully leaning into Sam’s arm as she glides a small black arrow to a dustbin icon and presses delete.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  December 2014

  Maya tiptoes carefully across a shiny marble floor towards a grand staircase in front of her, laid thick with patterned carpet in a shade of midnight blue. Her silver strappy heels aren’t that high, but carrying a conical tower of 148 circles of deliciousness that will bring smiles to 148 faces makes her feel nervous. One slip on the polished foyer floor could see Maya’s hard work for the past three days and nights come crashing down around her in a heap of cracked shells and colourful fragments.

  It
had already been a difficult journey from Hazelworth with a large hatbox packed tightly with macarons in a snail-like spiral. In the kitchen of the grand Westminster venue, while chefs barked at sous-chefs and wedding coordinators shouted at waitresses, Maya quietly threaded macarons onto toothpicks and stacked them two rows at a time in deep purple lavender, bright orange blossom, and fuchsia pink rose before doing it all again, twice over in decreasing circles to the peak. She lifted the light styrofoam cone covered in a sheet of newspaper from one of Felipe Oliveira’s vintage copies of O Globo and placed it delicately on top of the large, circular, flat lemon and lavender cake base, covered in crisp royal icing.

  Now Maya is flushed, relieved and pleased that her carnival confection is bigger, brighter and more uniform than the one attempt at a macaron tower she made before. They might not be the pretty pastels of Pierre Hermé but this is the best thing Maya has ever made. And it’s so Nena.

  I peaked! Maya thinks, before the ball of her right foot slides across marble, further than anticipated, and the entire tower wobbles seemingly in slow motion, first right, then left, in unsteady hands.

  ‘Here!’ says a man in a white tuxedo and a black bow tie, as he puts his arms around Maya’s, making a frame to prop her up. She steadies the cake, the tower stops leaning.

  ‘Oh god, my heart stopped. Thank you so much, that was so close!’ Maya’s voice is higher than usual.

  ‘It’s OK. It’s OK,’ the man with sandy blond hair reassures her. ‘It would have broken my heart to watch that fall. Let me help.’

  Steady hands take over as they head up the blue and gold carpet.

  ‘We’re late,’ winces Maya through gritted teeth.

  ‘My brother wouldn’t expect anything else of me.’

  Maya thought this guy looked familiar. Tall and dashing and reassuring and confident, although Tom’s brother has more hair, messy and blond.

  ‘Where am I taking this… this… pièce de résistance?’

  Maya blushes, but she knows it’s true. She is bursting with pride and knows Nena will love it.

  ‘Into the Grand Hall, they want it on display during the ceremony – but we’re cutting it fine.’