Don't Stop Me Now: The perfect laugh out loud romantic comedy

by Colleen Coleman

  I start to run. I can get there; I really want to get there. And not just in light of Dr Burley’s news. I had fun this morning. And the callers didn’t seem to think I was ‘uninspiring’. I enjoyed offering my two cents’ worth and hope it made a difference to someone, somewhere. One thing is for sure: I made more of an impact in an hour this morning than I did with my precious thesis. I felt I belonged on the radio. I felt comfortable and excited and like I had something to offer. And that felt great.

  I dart along the gravel path that winds through the park. Every time my foot hits the ground, I know I am one step closer. I am going to get to the 105 FM studio. Jake Jackson, do not give up on me just yet! It feels like the wind is lifting me, like two little winged angels are carrying me through a Disney clearing; the birds are singing, the squirrels are squirrelling, the sun might just succeed in elbowing that big black cloud out of the way and send some much-needed rays down to shine upon us.

  It’s time to take a new direction, discover a new path. Eventually it might be something even better. That’s exciting. I think it is, anyway. I know this isn’t exactly the kind of news that my dad wants to hear – that I’ve cut my ties with Banbridge and I’m going for something totally different – but that’s what it was all for, right? To find something meaningful. To do something that makes me happy.

  It’s off-piste for me. But I feel it’s worth my best shot. What’s the harm in trying?

  Striding forward, one sure foot in front of the other, I race through the park, flushed with the fresh autumnal breeze. I feel weightless as I pass the benches, the buggies, the squatted dogs pooing on the manicured grass. Things are going to work out; I’ve got the world at my feet. As long as I’m hopeful and confident and keep moving forward, everything will be okay.

  Although I feel a drop of rain, I keep pounding on, unfazed. I’ve got some new stuff coming through. I’ve got great parents and a roof over my head. I’ve got Leanne and Tom and I’m on my way to meet with Jake Jackson. And I don’t care what the people at Banbridge think about me any more. I’m here and I’m open to whatever life throws at me.

  But then, quite suddenly, dark clouds swell to fill the sky. As if someone has turned the dimmer switch, the air gets a little greyer, chillier; a bleak kind of shade descending. It blocks out the sun so completely that it feels as if the whole world has just been shoved into a forgotten drawer. Another drop, a fitful, spitting kind of wetness at first, until it starts to teem. I try to weave through the thousands of fat, unrelenting raindrops pelting down on top of me, but they just get thicker and faster and more forceful every second until a merciless wind-driven downpour forces me to slow down, to fall back into a walk and eventually surrender to a standstill altogether.

  I slick my soaking wet hair away from my eyes; inky black ‘waterproof’ mascara comes away on my fingers. I stand by the park gates and watch the bus fail to stop at the empty bus shelter and realise that I am too late. Seconds too late to catch the bus, minutes too late to escape the rain, hours too late to catch Jake or the producer at the studio by the time I get there, and years too late to remedy being in this jobless, purposeless, sopping wet, panda-eyed life that I find myself in right now.

  Even if another bus pulled up this instant and sliced through the inner-city traffic and sped past every stop along the way to drop me off directly outside the studio door, what would be the point? Who would even be there? It’s Friday afternoon. It’s already switch-off time for real, grown-up people who set alarms and keep bank statements and have IKEA store cards and all that stuff that makes my head feel tight. Grown-ups who are my age but who are not like me. They are real; they are doing things like it’s supposed to happen.

  I spot the bright amber light of an oncoming taxi in the distance. That could work. I could flag down this taxi right now and climb in out of the rain, and he could drop me at the studio so that I could salvage my only chance to live like a real person of my age, to get up in the morning with a purpose, to put my make-up on because I’m actually going to be seen by people, to eat Pret salads at my desk, to have conversations about new places to go and what’s on sale in River Island. I wave my hand to hail the taxi. The driver has stopped at the lights and gives me an acknowledging nod and a wink. I run towards him, grabbing my crossover purse to stop it bouncing.

  Ah.

  A-ha.

  I have no money.

  I stop running, drop my hand to my side and shake my head at the driver. He shrugs and drives on. No Good Samaritan here offering free lifts to wet girls. Whatever. Fine. Suit yourself, why should you help me, right?

  Fail, Poppy. Fail. Fail. Fail. Problem is, I only realised how much this was exactly what I needed, what I wanted, when it was too late. This is my fault. Nobody else’s. I had the chance and I blew it.

  I walk over to the bus stop on the other side of the street. The bus that will take me home. When did I fall so behind? When did everyone else get their TV-perfect lives together? Have they all been sneakily multitasking love and work and study and life generally while I’ve been doing my thesis and watching The Big Bang Theory on loop? I wrap my arms around my neck. Everyone else is just doing better than me … Harriet, Gregory, Leanne, all my mum’s friends’ kids. They’ve made stuff happen, they’ve got everything under control and they know where they are in life, and the more I think about it, the more frustrated and angry and sickened with myself I feel.

  My so-called satin ballerina pumps start to disintegrate, the thin cardboard soles softening to a grey mush underfoot and breaking off in pieces on the pavement. What was I thinking?

  I mean, really, what was I thinking about anything?

  The bus pulls in to the kerb. I get on.

  I scramble around in my purse for my Oyster card and it dawns on me that I will have to get off as I don’t have a clue where it is. Not being able to board public transport is the epitome of adding insult to injury. The driver sighs, drums his fingers against the steering wheel and looks ahead blankly at the rain lashing against the windscreen. Flustered, I try emptying the entire contents of my purse into the tray, a total of twelve silver and copper coins, a stray tampon and a half-sucked Werther’s. He looks through me with pale, unblinking eyes and tells me that he does not accept cash. I say some random stuff with a lisp, in a language I make up on the spot, just so that he might think I’m a foreign tourist and that I don’t understand how London buses work. He shakes his head and ushers me on with a sharp upward chin gesture.

  I climb the stairs and move towards my favourite seat – top deck, front right, so I can see the city streets sprawling out ahead of me. I spot a canoodling couple in the back seat, oblivious to my presence, oblivious to everything outside their merged love bubble. They are teenagers, but not gangly and pockmarked and greasy. These kids are beautiful, skin smooth and tanned, hair soft, shiny and tousled. The boy traces a finger over his girlfriend’s Cupid’s bow, causing her to smile and close her eyes like she’s sinking into a dream.

  I want to be cynical, to pull a face or tut or dismiss their young love as hormonal reflex or juvenile infatuation, but I can’t. They are so sweet. Could it be that they are actually in love? Are they ready for something as powerful and delicate and enduring and difficult and ordinary as that? And if it isn’t real love, is that because they are too young? Or conversely, is real love only possible for the young – is there a brief, unfiltered window where true love can blossom before it is cracked and clouded by expectation and competing dreams and unresolved injury? Does love need a window? What are the actual odds of two people’s windows being open at the same time? And what about my window? Did I close it? Was it ever really open? Was I far too concerned with other people’s windows, and as a result I shut it and sealed it tight? For ever?

  I stare ahead, through the enormous bus window. Right now, beyond the rain, there is nothing to see.

  A little old lady shuffles along the aisle and sidles in beside me. I budge up apologetically, despite the fact that s
he could choose any of the thirty vacant seats available and she’s lugged a wheelie shopper up here to the top deck.

  ‘My favourite seat.’ She nods her thanks.

  ‘Me too,’ I answer, and she tilts her head at me, squinting in vague recognition.

  ‘You look like somebody. Someone famous,’ she says, and she starts rummaging in her trolley.

  I sneak a peek inside and see that she has nothing in there except stacks of old cheap and glossy magazines. She pulls out a handful and flicks through them, finally settling on an outdated edition of Closer. Looks promising.

  She licks a finger and begins turning pages. ‘I know it’s in this one. I can’t place the name, but I’ll find it for you. Someone famous but not talented.’

  I’m quite intrigued now. Famous but not talented. Maybe I look like one of the royals? I continue to stare out of the window, thinking that I’ll humour her since I’m nearly home.

  ‘A-ha!’ She folds the magazine open and shoves it under my nose. ‘Told you I’d find it!’

  I glance down at the headline: Fallen Child Stars: From Riches to Rags! There is a collage piece of five paparazzi shots; my new elderly friend points at the largest picture, in the centre of the page, showing a former child star, clearly startled by the camera, looking gaunt and lost and drug-addled as she takes out the bins. When I try to look away, she pushes it closer and nods excitedly. ‘I told you, didn’t I? Spitting image!’ I do not like my new geriatric magazine-hoarder bus buddy. She drops the magazine into my lap and starts rummaging again, this time inside the breast pocket of her coat.

  Next thing, from somewhere in her deeply layered bosom, she slides out an iPhone and hunkers in beside me, smelling like soggy digestives and holding her phone at arm’s length in front of us. ‘Let me take a selfie.’

  I excuse myself, get off the bus and walk the rest of the way home in the rain.

  My mum calls me into the living room as soon I arrive. I tentatively put my head around the door. She is lounging on the couch in her slippers and gown, painting her nails. ‘Good God, Poppy. Are you all right?’

  I open my mouth to tell her about the worst day of my life, but I don’t want to go through it all again. She holds out her arms and I let myself sink into them and unload all the sobs and tears and hiccups and sighs and wails that are hiding in every fold and crease of my body. And my mum absorbs them all. Every last one, as only mothers can.

  And then she whispers into my ear. ‘Don’t forget that I know what you’re made of, Poppy Bloom. I’ve not taken my eyes off you since the first moment you drew breath. You don’t remember all the times you tripped over and pulled yourself up again; you don’t remember all the hours you spent at that dining room table, your little tongue sticking out, learning your spellings, working out your times tables, translating God knows what. And I used to say to you, stop now, Poppy, you’ve done more than enough, off you go to bed. Do you remember?’

  I nod my head, bent into the crook of her neck.

  ‘And do you remember what you’d say?’

  I shake my head. I can’t remember; I just remember not wanting to leave it. Often I was only just getting started by bedtime.

  ‘You’d say, don’t stop me now! I’m close to the best bit!’

  I stifle a laugh, a wet, snotty laugh.

  ‘So don’t you tell me, Poppy Bloom, that you are not made of tough stuff, okay? Any time you doubt yourself or you can’t remember how much you have to offer this world, you just come back here, to this spot. Into your mother’s arms. Because I know all about you and I’m not going anywhere. Promise?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘You need a good rest, Poppy. Tomorrow is another day.’

  I press my palms into my eyes and walk towards the stairs. But just before I get there, I turn back to kiss my mum on the forehead and tell her something I haven’t told her since I moved out ten years ago.

  That I love her. Beyond any measure. And I’m so proud to be her daughter.

  And then it’s my turn to let her cry on my shoulder.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I wake up, it’s Saturday morning. Usually my favourite day of the week but after the rollercoaster day I had yesterday, I’m not feeling it. I can’t be arsed to get out of bed. I can’t muster the energy, or even the willpower required to muster the energy. My body aches, my face feels revolting. I can smell my own breath and it reminds me of cow dung. They won’t be making any Yankee Candles inspired by my scent any time soon.

  My mother has knocked a few times already, which must mean it’s late morning. She hates late risers even more than she hates women who come into the salon asking for dry cuts or free fringe trims. At first there was some gentle tapping on the door with an almost caring voice asking, ‘Anything I can get you, Poppy?’ Then the last time it was a very firm rapping with a shrill and impatient ‘Don’t think this is the way it’s going to be around here, do you hear me? If you’re sick, go to the doctor. If you’re well, get up. If you’re lying there slobbing around in self-pity, move out.’ I made some throaty coughing noises and ignored her until she huffed and puffed and went back downstairs.

  I hear some kind of van thing pull up in the street below my bedroom window. Then a sliding door opens and a commanding female voice shouts, ‘Give me five minutes, okay?’

  Footsteps to the front door. Our doorbell rings. I shoot up. Who is this? What the hell could they want here?

  I hear my mum, her voice sing-song ‘Yes, lovely, brilliant, exactly, absolutely … of course she’s available. She is always available these days. Upstairs, follow me.’

  The front door closes.

  Holy shit! What is this? They’re coming up the stairs. I look in the mirror. I am an absolute ghoul. More steps, getting closer and padding their way in the direction of my bedroom. They are coming for me. I start slathering foundation on my face, slapping it on just to cover up, no time to blend. I glance in the mirror; I still look horrific, but now horrific in matt beige. I try to finger-brush the knots in my hair. They are on the landing, my mum and my mystery visitor. Their footsteps turn towards my door. I fling back the duvet, open the window and spray perfume in my mouth. I grab the robe from the back of the door and wrap myself up so I look clean … well, cleaner. The doorknob turns. I wipe my sweaty palms down my robe. The door swings open.

  ‘Leanne?’

  Leanne screws up her face like she has walked into a sour toxic fug. My hands fly to my neck. This is so embarrassing. I see her eyes trail around my room. Is it the sight? The smell? Which is worse, me or my bedroom?

  ‘I was just sorting out—’

  My mother cuts in. ‘You were doing no such thing. Holing up feeling sorry for yourself, that was all. Well, Leanne is here now and she’s going to sort you out.’

  I watch Leanne survey the room, her eyes registering the blatant neglect, the outdated posters on the wall, the crowded vanity table, my wet clothes strewn in a heap on the floor. A horn honks outside. Leanne straightens up

  ‘Superleague quarter-final. Today. Now. We need you.’

  I nearly laugh. ‘Ah, cheers for thinking of me, but there’s really no way—’

  ‘We need you so I’m afraid you don’t have a choice on this one. I’m a player down – Tammy has decided to join the opposition; her nasty little way of sabotaging every little bit of what’s important to us – so, Poppy, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. Get your trainers on; we need to be on the road like twenty minutes ago.’

  Outside, the horn honks again, but this time the driver holds their hand down on it, making one long, uninterrupted racket. I look to my mum, eye-urging her to step in and say something along the lines of ‘Sorry, but Poppy’s not really feeling up to playing today, why don’t you call back another time?’ But she just throws my trainers at me and smiles.

  ‘Seize the day, Poppy.’ Like she knows what’s good for me and this is it.

  I can see by Leanne’s face that she is not messing around. �
��I mean it, Poppy, you stall any longer and those girls down there will come up here and eat you alive. This is precious warm-up time we’re losing.’

  I take a look outside my window down to the street below, where a hot-purple minivan with Gymbox Assassins written on the side idles by the kerb. Five faces are pressed against the glass, gesturing for us to hurry the hell up and get a move on. Leanne comes up behind me.

  ‘It’s my team, I’m the captain; our gym sponsors all the kit, the works. We have built ourselves up from nothing and we are not going to lose today, so get your ass in gear before I carry you out of this stinking cave kicking and screaming.’

  I slip my feet into my trainers. ‘I’ll be down in sixty seconds.’

  It looks like the day is seizing me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  We get on the bus. Leanne introduces me as ‘Bonecrusher Bloom’, which is met with approval by all five girls – well, women, about my age – seated in rows, dressed in hot purple Spandex vests and shorts and straining towards the radio at the front whilst biting their thumbnails and stretching their necks.

  ‘Defending champions South London Assassins will face Essex Vixens in the first of the Superleague quarter-finals today, live at the Copper Box Arena in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park,’ announces the sports reporter, the newly retired Sandra Skinner, the most fearsome netball captain the England national team has ever known. ‘Vixens overcame the disappointment of their semi-final defeat with a 53–46 victory over Liverpool Firebirds a few weeks back. However, the Assassins bounced back from seven goals down to take victory over their northern rivals, Harrogate Hotshots. So there’s a lot at stake for both teams. What we do know for sure is that somebody’s going to be going home a loser.’

  ‘So I guess we can expect the Vixens to be seeking redemption here today?’ asks a second presenter. I recognise the voice: Jake Jackson.