by Liam Hurley
I’d set off to the restaurant in plenty of time and as such I had to sit in the bar for a while whilst I waited for the rest of the party to arrive. I was sending a constant stream of messages to Gemma asking where she was, how long she’d be, whether girls liked it if you ordered garlic-based food or not, you know just the normal queries.
I remained fairly well-disciplined at the bar. I stuck to one light beer and then had a glass of water to chase it with. Mainly because I’d be furious with myself if I put weight on due to a drink but also because the last time I’d allowed myself to be intoxicated in any manner it hadn’t ended well. I knew a clear head would be best for tonight.
As I drained the last of my water I spotted Gemma and Steve arrive. Steve was tall and dark-skinned, and walked with a slight hunch, probably due to the fact he was consistently having to stoop down to have conversations with people. I smiled and nodded at them both as they crossed the bar to me.
“Hi Jimmy, have you been waiting long?” asked Gemma.
“No not too long, You ok mate?” I said to Steve and stuck out my hand.
He grasped it firmly and shook it.
“Not bad thanks, you ready for tonight?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Oh, shut up Jimmy.” Said Gemma. “I’ve told you, it’s no big deal.”
“It’s only because I’ve not had a date in a while, now do you think she’d prefer a hug or a handshake when we meet?” I said.
“A hug Jimmy, just a quick hug?” she said.
“Okay. And do I whisper something in her ear? Or is it better just to smell her hair?”
Gemma laughed. Steve looked at me, his eyes were narrowed and his head tilted slightly to one side. Like a dog hearing a baby cry for the first time.
“No don’t do that mate, she’ll think it’s weird.”
“Well we can’t have that can we?” I said.
“Never mind that.” Gemma nodded towards the door. “They’re here.”
I turned my head and saw George walking towards us. Her pictures didn’t do her justice really. She was short with long wavy blonde hair. She had a nose which turned up ever so slightly, as if she was a resident of Whoville, and deep purple lipstick on. She wasn’t just out of my league she was playing a different sport all together.
“Hi George!” Gemma wrapped her arms around her.
I stood awkwardly behind Gemma waiting my turn.
“Jimmy.” Said Steve, patting me on the arm. “This is Wazza and Heather.”
He pointed to a couple next to George who I hadn’t even noticed. Wazza held his hand out to me.
“Alright mate, I’m Wazza, this is my bird, Heather.” He pointed at Heather.
“Hi.” I said and shook Wazza’s hand. “I’m Jimmy, I work with Gemma.”
“Me and Waz play five-a-side together.” Steve said.
“Cool.”
“Yeah well, I play football, Steve plays, ‘let’s wear a football kit and stand around a pitch for twenty minutes a week.’”
“Oh, fuck off Wazza, you’re having a laugh aren’t you.”
“You’re the one having a laugh. What was that pass to Damo all about last Tuesday?”
“I told you, he was supposed to run onto it!”
“It went over the changing rooms-“
“Jimmy.” Once again someone pulled my arm.
I turned around to see Gemma presenting George to me like a prize on a gameshow.
“Jimmy, this is George,”
“Hi.”
“Hello.”
“You okay?” she asked.
“I’m good thanks, are you?”
“Yes thanks.”
The three of us stood in silence for a moment. Somehow Steve and Wazza now had each other in headlocks. Heather was glowering at them both.
“Table for six, Lanier party?” came a call from the maître d’hôtel.
“That’s us guys.” Said Gemma.
“Come on Stevey you rat.” Said Wazza.
The two of them bounded ahead towards the dining area, Heather and George began to talk and followed behind them. I went to take a step in their direction but Gemma pulled me back.
“What was that?” she said.
“What was what?”
“That! ‘hello, I’m good thanks are you? Good good.’ Have a bit of fun with her!”
“You said she didn’t get jokes.”
“It doesn’t mean you can’t show some personality.”
“Why do you care, I thought you said we weren’t suited?”
“I don’t, I just can’t deal with that awkwardness all night.”
“Fine, I’ll try.”
We made our way through the first course with relative ease. I was sat across from Gemma, with George to my left. This meant I could speak to Gemma whilst also keeping George in the loop. I thought Gemma was being a bit harsh in her assessment of George, she seemed to be laughing fairly frequently at my jokes. To be fair, she seemed to laugh whenever I stopped speaking. It didn’t seem that she didn’t like jokes, more that she just laughed at everything. A pretty girl who laughs at everything I thought, God what a disaster.
After our plates were taken and we all ordered from the desert menu (I say desert, it was a black coffee for me), Steve banged on the table softly.
“Me and Waz have had an idea.”
“But Steve, the wheel’s already been invented.” I said.
Gemma laughed but also kicked me softly under the table. Steve smiled.
“What? No, we want to play a drinking game.”
“We’re not getting drunk Steven.” Said Gemma.
“No, we don’t even have to drink it’s just a good game.”
“What is it?” asked George.
“Well we all get a pen and a bit of paper. And you have to write down an embarrassing memory, then we each take it turns to read one out, and you have to guess whose it is.”
“But we’ve been together nine years Steven, I know all your stories.”
“Not all of them.” Said Wazza with a laugh.
“Come on let’s just play it, it’s a right laugh.” Said Steve.
He then began throwing napkins at each of us and acquired pens from the waiter. I looked around to see Wazza and Steve scribbling away, laughing under their breath. George was twiddling the pen in her fingers.
“I don’t know what to write.” She said.
“Just think of something funny.” I said.
“Nothing funny has happened to me though.”
“Nothing, nothing ever?” I said.
“Not that I can think of.”
“Well just make something up.”
She leant over her napkin and began to slowly move her pen back and forth. I looked down at my own blank napkin. I thought for a moment. I couldn’t recall anything massively embarrassing ever happening to me. I tried to let my memories flood my system. An image formed in my mind. I was holding my hand out for what I assumed was a cigarette, and Erin’s mum was prattling on about the view from the balcony. I smiled and began to frantically write down as much as I could remember about the party I’d had in my previous life.
An hour later, we found ourselves in a bar around the corner. Heather and Wazza had got into an argument because Wazza’s embarrassing story revolved around Heather becoming flatulent during sex. Steve found it hilarious. The rest of us sat in uncomfortable silence as Heather grabbed her bag and stormed from the restaurant, closely followed by Wazza, tears streaming down his face from his own silent laughter.
“How did you not know it was weed?” Gemma asked me as I returned from the bathroom in the bar.
“I don’t know, I just smoked it, next thing I knew I was on my back in the bathroom.”
She smirked at me.
“I didn’t think much of George’s story.” She said.
“No, well I told her to make it up, she couldn’t think of anything.”
“And that’s the best she could do? Stung by a bee? It’s
not even embarrassing. Only Steve found it funny.”
“Yeah well.” I shrugged. “Where are those two anyway?”
I looked around the bar, I’d left the three of them together at the table when I’d went to the bathroom.
“Steve went for a smoke, and George’s gone to get drinks.” Said Gemma.
“Okay cool.” I said.
“So, what do you think about George?”
“She’s nice yeah, fun.”
Gemma raised her eyebrows.
“I mean, I don’t see us moving in together or anything but she’s okay.”
“I should hope not! Who thinks about moving in with someone this early?”
“Yeah I know right.” I laughed and downed the remaining half of my drink.
“God, slow down Jimmy. So, it was your ex’s Mum who gave you the joint?”
I nodded.
“What happened with her?”
“It’s a long story, it didn’t work out.”
“Not right for each other?”
“Something like that.” I said. “We just decided we’d, you know, out-grown each other.”
I still wasn’t ready to tell people the truth, but Gemma didn’t seem to be listening, she was staring into the distance.
“Yeah, I know what you mean, I feel like that sometimes.”
She was looking at the door. Behind which I knew Steve was stood smoking.
“Do you mean Steve?” I said.
She smiled at me. She wobbled her head from side-to-side.
“Did you say you’d been together nine years?” I asked.
“Yep. It’ll be ten in two months,”
“It’s a long time.” I said.
“It is. We got together in school.”
“I bet you’re completely different people now.” I said.
“Well I am.” She smiled.
We looked at each other.
“What do you see in him?” I asked.
“What?”
“In Steve, don’t get me wrong he’s nice enough but, he’s… you know.”
“No, I don’t know, go on.”
Gemma’s tone had changed. Moments earlier she seemed wistful, but now I seemed to have awoken some anger in her.
“Erm, nothing never mind.” I said.
“No go on, say it.”
“Nothing. Just you’re different.”
“Different how?” she said.
“Just different.”
“Tell me Jimmy, what were you going to say?”
“Just that, well, and it’s nothing against him, you’re just a bit smarter than he is that’s all.”
Gemma stood up and grabbed her bag.
“Jimmy, that’s my boyfriend you’re talking about.”
“But, but you just said, you feel like you’d out-grown him and that. That’s all I meant.”
“No, you’re saying he’s stupid. And you’re saying I shouldn’t be with him because you think he’s stupid.”
“What? No, I’m not, not at all.” I argued.
“Forget it, don’t think you can just tell me how to live my life.”
She turned to leave.
“What the f- Gemma wait.”
I stood up to follow her.
“No Jimmy, I’ll see you in work.”
And with that she stormed away. I watched her pull open the front door and saw her flame-red hair disappear into the night. I sat back down. What had just happened? I was only offering some advice? She’s the one who said she’d outgrown him. I shook my head. I’d text her in the morning and apologise I resolved. I was only trying to help.
“Erm, where’s everyone gone?”
George’s voice snapped me from my thoughts. I looked up to see that she was carrying a large tray of drinks. She placed them down on the table. I could see there was a drink for each one of the four of us, and a shot each too.
“Oh, Gemma had to go, she wasn’t feeling well.” I said.
“Aw that’s a shame.”
George sat down next to me. Her leg brushed up against me.
“What are we going to do with all this?” I said, with a sweeping motion at the cornucopia of drinks in front of us.
“Drink them?” she said.
“Good plan.”
I reached down for two shots and passed one to George. We clinked them together and threw them into our mouths. The Sambuca burnt as it slid down my throat. I shook my head and coughed.
“Another?” she asked.
“God, slow down.” I said.
I hadn’t drunk since I’d started dieting and the three drinks I’d already had that night were having a party in my head, now they were being joined by the harsh reality of Italian aniseed.
“Come on let’s finish them.” She held the next shot up for me.
“What’s the rush?”
“Well, I thought once we drink these we could get a bottle from the Co-op across the road and have it at mine? It’s cheaper.”
I gulped. This was a strange turn of events. We really hadn’t connected up to now, mainly because I’d spent most of the night speaking to Gemma. I looked at George with a hint of confusion. We definitely weren’t right for each other, Gemma was right, but now if I wasn’t mistaken we could be about to have sex. I hadn’t done it in a while but I was pretty sure going to hers was a good indication. But was that morally right? I had no future with this girl. I really couldn’t see us being a long-term thing, and she clearly had some relationship issues. She’d been begging Gemma to set her up and now she was trying to get me back to hers after a very average first date? She clearly had some issues. And I knew it wouldn’t be right of me to take advantage of them.
“Yeah well, the thing is.” I started.
I felt George wrap her fingers around my thigh and squeeze tight.
“The thing is.” I continued. “That sounds like a great idea.”
Fuck it, why not?
Part III- Us
Chapter Twenty-One – Closure
Four months later.
She was almost begging me. Tears were starting to form at the bottom of her eyes. Her heavy mascara was about to be ruined.
“Please Jimmy.”
Her voice was starting to break. I sighed. I was going to have to say something but I really couldn’t make up my mind.
“I… I don’t know,” I said.
I was being honest.
“You don’t know?” she said with a sneer.
“At least I’m being honest with you, unlike you ever were with me.” I spat.
“I’ve said sorry for that, get over it Jimmy.”
“It’s not that easy!” I said.
I turned and stormed away. I walked for a second, a minute and hour who knows. Eventually I found myself sat across from her again. We were playing chess this time.
“I want you back Jimmy.”
I squirmed. I grabbed my knight, I was trying to find the right move. She reached across the table and grasped my hand. I flinched at her touch and dropped the knight to the floor.
“But I really don’t know.”
“You need to make up your mind Jimmy. Please. You look great. I know I fucked up with you… please come on.”
“But. But. Last time.”
“I’ve changed Jimmy, so have you… come on.”
I stared down at the board. Fuck. I don’t know.
“Fine. Let’s do it.” I said.
“What?” she said.
“Let’s get back together… wait… why are you laughing?”
She was laughing deeply; her stomach was shaking up and down.
“God, Jimmy, obviously I wasn’t being serious.”
“But. But… you said.”
I was one the pleading now.
“And you believed me? Jimmy, haven’t you learnt anything?”