‘Anyway, enough about me. What’s up, sis?’ She came and sat beside me in the Jacuzzi, and I told her everything. We’d got as far as Scotland when I noticed she was smiling as I talked.
‘Oh my God, you love him.’ She clapped her hand to her mouth.
‘What? No!’
‘But all I’ve heard is how sweet Scott is, how good-looking Scott is, how funny Scott is and that you can “tell Scott anything”.’ The last part was in a mock-Mel voice.
‘So? It doesn’t mean I love him.’ I’d not quite admitted it to myself yet, so Lizzie wouldn’t be getting in there first.
‘Oh come on, Mel. I’m glad you saw sense with the posh bloke – Joseph, is it? Sounds like Scott must have feelings for you too, going after Joseph like that.’ She laid her head back on the edge of the Jacuzzi and looked up at the ceiling. ‘It’s so romantic.’ She added wistfully.
‘I’ve not even finished the bloody story yet. Then you can go all love-guru on me.’
So I did.
‘Well, what the bloody hell are you doing here?’ she demanded once I’d finished. ‘Come on, we’re leaving.’
‘What? No, Lizzie, we don’t have to do that. If he was going to come round he’d have done it by now. This is your one day to relax. I don’t want to spoil it.’
‘Oh, Mel, I love nothing more than a good romance. And besides, I can’t wait to see your face when Mum reacts to the news.’ She was already half out of the Jacuzzi when she turned and looked at me. ‘Well, come on. He won’t find you in there!’ She could be quite persistent when she wanted to be, probably a skill acquired from managing little people.
‘Okay, okay. I’m coming.’ I ran after her to the changing room.
***
‘At least we smell nice,’ Lizzie said hopefully. She was sitting on my sofa with a glass of wine, sipping it slowly. I wondered if she was drawing out the length of her stay.
‘Yes,’ was all I could manage with the huge knot in my stomach. I was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, my own glass of wine disappearing much more quickly.
‘It was a lovely spa.’
‘Yes, it’s Amanda’s favourite.’
There was a knock at the door. Lizzie gasped and jumped to her feet.
‘Sorry. It’s your door.’ She smiled sheepishly and sat back down as I went to answer.
‘Thought you might want these.’ Stoner Dan presented me with a plate of chocolate brownies. ‘I was doing some baking and thought I’d try and cheer you up. You seemed pretty stressed out yesterday. Lucy from upstairs lent me some flour and stuff.’ My face relaxed into a smile. It was incredibly sweet after I’d yelled at him yesterday. I wondered if he was sorry he’d insinuated I was a prostitute. Chances were he didn’t even realise he had.
‘Thank you, Dan, that’s really kind. Wait, are these—’ I lowered my voice. ‘Y’know, special brownies?’ I didn’t have strong morals regarding marijuana use, but I did have work the next day.
‘These are just regular brownies. Enjoy.’ And with that he was off. Lizzie appeared from behind me and took one.
‘Neighbourly neighbour?’ I wasn’t sure about that. ‘I’m sorry, Mel,’ she said through a mouthful of cake. ‘I got your hopes up. I shouldn’t have got involved. What do I know about meeting guys? I married my college sweetheart.’
‘It’s fine.’ I shrugged, cramming my mouth with brownie.
‘Want me to stay over and keep you company?’ The offer was sweet, but I just wanted to be alone. The irony.
‘Thanks, sis, but I’m okay. I’ve got work to catch up on.’
‘Oh, okay.’ Her face dropped a little. I think she’d enjoyed being child-free for the day. ‘Oh, I almost forgot.’ She rummaged in her bag and pulled out a pink envelope.
‘What’s this?’ I frowned.
‘Just open it. It’s from Mum and Dad.’
I opened the envelope and pulled out a card. ‘Congratulations’ it read in white lettering centred on a glittery gold star. Inside, the message read:
Dear Melissa,
We read your article and saw the discussion about it on TV too!
We’re so proud of you.
Love you lots
Mum and Dad
xxx
A tear pricked my eye. I couldn’t remember ever being told they were proud of me. ‘Wait, how did they even know?’ I looked at Lizzie accusingly.
‘Hey, it wasn’t me! Amanda sent them a copy of the magazine and told them to watch the show on catch-up. Have you ever thought that maybe Mum takes no notice of your achievements because you never actually tell her about them?’ Lizzie may have had a point. Perhaps I’d become so hung up on Amanda’s achievements being celebrated that I hadn’t even shared my own. Perhaps I was a little bit to blame.
‘I’ll thank Mum for the card. It’s a lovely gesture.’ I smiled. Lizzie raised an eyebrow, clearly wanting more of an explanation, but she wasn’t getting one.
Once she’d gone, I climbed into bed with my wine and the rest of the brownies, batting away the crusty, snotty tissues that had amassed the night before. At some point, racing through the endless questions and ‘what ifs’ turned out to have a similar effect to counting sheep, and I fell into a black, dreamless sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Four
‘Have a good weekend?’ Simon asked chirpily.
‘I don’t really know.’ I sighed. Remembering the small great part was hard after everything that had come after.
‘Ah, you need my advice again?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said.
‘Let’s start with some simple questions. What did you do on Friday? I noticed you’d left early.’ He stirred his coffee with fake nonchalance.
‘I went out with the girls. It was a great night.’
‘Sounds good. Saturday?
‘Saturday, Scott came round and . . .’ I paused, not wanting to disclose too much straight away. ‘We bonded, and we thought we might give “us” a go but . . .’ I felt really awkward talking about it, but a male perspective had proven useful in the past. Maybe it was just what I needed. ‘But he’s a bit hung up on his ex. It turns out she left him for a woman.’ As soon as I said that, Simon’s interest was piqued. Typical!
‘Well, at least he knows he didn’t do anything wrong. Surely now he can move on.’ Simon shrugged. I was surprised by his out-of-character, mature response.
‘I thought that too, but still, it was a massive shock for him. Imagine being with someone for years and finding out that after all that time they’d lied about who they really are.’ I still felt annoyed with myself for telling Scott. ‘There’s something else . . . The girl she left him for is my friend Gemma.’
‘Gemma is a lesbian?’ he blurted, almost spraying his coffee at me.
‘She’s with a woman, so I guess so. She likes men too so I supposed she’s actually bisexual. Does it even matter these days what label you have?’
‘I suppose not. I just always quite fancied my chances with her – she is a beauty.’
‘She is, but unfortunately for you, the guys – and now lady – who she’s dated have all been stunners, and you’re in a long-term relationship anyway.’ I winked and patted him on the back before heading back to my desk.
In my absence, something had been left on it: a pink and gold polka-dotted gift box, secured with a wide gold ribbon tied in a bow. I looked at it for a moment, puzzled. There was no accompanying note or anything to indicate who it was to or from. I carefully untied the bow, not wanting to cause any damage in case it was left by mistake and needed to be repackaged. I slid off the lid to peep inside. There was a note on top of a pile of pink shredded paper. I slowly opened the note:
Dear Melissa,
You have done really well these last 4 weeks – now it’s time to rejoin us in the modern world. You’re reconnected!
Happy Monday
Dee
Peering back into the box, I saw my
phone. My heart sank a little. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. Perhaps subconsciously I’d been hoping for something from Scott – a gift of some sort, or a letter – to apologise for running off on Saturday, to explain how bad he felt afterwards, but not my phone. I’d stopped counting down the days and had actually pretty much forgotten about my lack of technology.
Getting my phone and internet back was quite the personal revelation. When it was gone I’d missed it, until I forgot about it. Then it was back and I wasn’t sure what to do – if I switched it back on, I’d fall back into my old habits, my addicted trance, ignoring the real world in favour of cyberspace and strangers.
I thought about it over my coffee break, wondering if it even mattered. So what if I shared a love of witty tweets with some UCLA freshman I’d never met? Did it matter if I enjoyed looking at holiday pics of celebrities or old school friends to pass the time? Was this new version of communication any worse than real, face-to-face human interaction?
The year 2017 sees a world where people choose who and what they want to see or listen to. It’s efficient. We can mute or block people who annoy, offend or bore us. As individuals we’re constantly up-to-date with news that matters to us. How is that a bad thing? Is typing a message any worse than going to speak to someone?
Switching my phone back on meant that I could communicate with several people at once, which I couldn’t do if I went round to a friend’s place. All of those questions begged the larger question: was social media actually more sociable than real life?
It definitely could be – chatting online or wishing someone you haven’t seen in ten years a happy birthday was a lot more sociable than just being at home alone communicating with nobody at all. But ignoring someone in your company, to sit staring at a screen is plain rude. It’s about balance and knowing what and who is important to you – remembering to live real life first, complementing that with your online life.
If I hadn’t taken Dee’s challenge, I wouldn’t have met Joseph (because Dee wouldn’t have meddled, basically), I wouldn’t have met Doris, and I certainly wouldn’t have noticed Scott at my parents’ house. I’d have been sitting in a corner, staring at a screen whilst vaguely acknowledging an aunt or uncle now and again. What the past month had taught me was that we didn’t need technology, but it certainly made life easier. We just need to be careful it doesn’t consume us, that we don’t miss out on life around us.
There I had it – the end of my article pretty much summed up. I spent the rest of the day writing it up, adding in the notes I’d made on my trip to Scotland and the things I’d noticed and enjoyed that perhaps I wouldn’t have if I was ‘plugged in’. I also talked about the difficulties I’d encountered: not being able to read reviews of a film, not being able to book a restaurant online, order tickets or tweet my love of a new bar to my followers.
I’d started the month convinced I’d conclude that online communication was utter nonsense and that my life had improved without it, but in reality I still saw the relevance. I braced myself for a moment before turning my phone on, quickly muting the volume as the emails, notifications and messages started to roll in. I placed it back in the box and let it catch up.
I was getting ready to leave for lunch when Simon came back over. ‘So, I see you got your phone back?’ He nodded towards the box on the table.
‘I sure have,’ I replied without enthusiasm. ‘I’m not sure how I feel about it now. I’ve got quite used to my free time, my imagination and seeing my friends. I have missed it though.’
‘Haven’t you switched it on yet?’ He sounded surprised.
‘Yes, it’s on but I haven’t looked at it yet. Four weeks’ worth of messages, notifications and updates – I don’t know where to bloody well start. It’ll take ages to delete them all,’ I sighed. Simon reached over and picked up my phone.
‘Password?’ he demanded.
‘Er . . .’ I hesitated, wondering what he could be up to, before reaching over semi-reluctantly and pressing my thumb to the home button. I watched as he fiddled for a few moments, occasionally furrowing his brow.
‘Here, a new start.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘You’re on your own for the personal emails, but work is sorted.’ He handed me back the phone. My work emails had been completely deleted.
‘How did you delete them so quickly?’
‘Ah, that would be telling.’ He winked, clearly enjoying being in control. My personal account was listed just below my work account and showed four hundred and fifty-two new messages were awaiting my attention. I thought about it for a second. I had enough on my plate without getting bogged down in nonsense that, quite frankly, if I didn’t already know about, wouldn’t be worth knowing at all. I handed my phone back to Simon.
‘Can you do my personal account too?’ I pleaded. ‘And my text messages.’ He looked at me with surprise, confusion even. I understood – to him, this certainly was a new me. A version of me who could walk across town actually looking where she was going, a version of me making eye contact with the person I was talking to, a version of me who didn’t need to catch up on the idle gossip I’d missed.
‘Are you definitely sure? You had a fair bit of man stuff going on. Are you not curious to see if they tried to contact you?’
‘Do it!’
***
At lunchtime I went to the coffee shop around the corner. The coffee shop where it all begin on that rainy afternoon, when I thought I was so superior, judging people on their electronic devices ignoring the real world. Well, today I was going to rejoin them. I reached into my bag and slowly took out my phone. I had one new email in my work account. I could deal with that, so I opened it.
Hi Mel,
Wondered how long it would take you – I’ve put a read-receipt on this so I know the exact time you caved.
Si x
That idiot thinks he’s so funny! Back on my home screen the blue beacon with the simple white ‘F’ caught my eye. I pressed it. I had over three hundred notifications, which, feeling overwhelmed, I chose to ignore for a moment. I also had two friend requests. Intrigued, I clicked to see who they were from.
The first was from Joseph. I hastily pressed Ignore. The second one was Emma. I wasn’t sure what to do – I needed to talk to Scott first and find out what was going on. I left the request and scanned my newsfeed. Gemma had posted some pictures of her and Emma and updated her relationship status. I clicked Like absent-mindedly, and then it dawned on me – did that mean Emma had spoken to Scott and cleared the air?
My heart leapt. Before I had a chance to think about what to do next, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Gemma:
You’re back online! Yay! Also, we need to talk about Scott ASAP! x
Shit. What was that supposed to mean? Was I in trouble, or did she just want the juicy details? Damn the written word!
I texted back:
Yes, back online. How did you know about Scott? X
It seemed to take an age before she replied:
GEMMA: Are you on your lunch?
ME: Yes.
GEMMA: Coffee shop near work?
ME: Yes
GEMMA: See you in 5 x
My heart pounded. I hoped I hadn’t caused a row. What if Scott had gone round to Emma’s to try and win her back? Gemma would be devastated.
It wasn’t long before a pretty, stylish vision floated into the coffee shop and headed towards me. I tensed with apprehension.
‘Hi, Mel.’ She leaned over and kissed my cheek. A cloud of jasmine wafted over me.
‘Hi. Can I get you a coffee?’
‘No thanks, hon. I haven’t got much time. I just wanted to let you know that I know about you and Scott, and who Scott is. I guess you’ve probably been worrying about that.’
‘I, er . . .’ I was stuck for words. Luckily Gemma held her hand up to stop me, so I let her continue.
‘Scott used the powers of social media to co
ntact Emma and asked if they could talk. I was worried, as you can imagine – I can’t compete with three years of marriage and a penis. Em assured me it would just be to sort of the final details of the divorce, and she felt she owed him an explanation – y’know, now that she’s sure I am the one she wanted. Anyway, she met him, and it seemed he already knew about her and me.’
She paused, her eyes searching mine. I squirmed, about to brave the storm and explain, but she beat me to it. ‘Why would you tell Scott about Emma before you told me about Scott?’ she demanded, folding her arms.
‘I’m sorry. I had to tell Scott first as I didn’t know how he’d react, knowing one of my best friends is with his wife. If he didn’t take it well, then what would be the point in telling you? I don’t even know how he has taken it. He left straight after I told him, and that was it. I don’t even know if there is a me and Scott. We’ve had more ups and downs than a kangaroo on a pogo stick!’ I huffed. ‘So how did the meet-up go? Did you go too?’
‘No, I left her to it. She said he just wanted to let her know she was forgiven and that he hoped they could be friends. Initially she had said he could keep the house and everything else they owned together, but he wants her to have her fair share.’ My heart melted at his kindness. ‘He said he’ll sell the house and they can divide the profits. There’s a fair amount of equity in it, from what I understand. Em’s talking about buying a flat.’
‘Do you think this means he has closure?’ I asked hopefully.
‘I’m guessing so. You need to find him – go and talk to him.’
‘If he wants to be with me, is it going to make things awkward for us?’ I asked uncomfortably.
‘I don’t think so. Emma is fine with it, so as long as he is. It shouldn’t be too bad, in the end’. She smiled and patted my hand. I breathed a sigh of relief – it felt much better to have everything out in the open. ‘Changing the subject . . . thank God you have your phone back!’ she said. ‘I’d had enough of all the visits. Much better talking to you when I don’t have to see your face!’
The Secret to Falling in Love Page 22