The stick sat in a little bowl on the desk while they talked. Nick sat to Ellie’s left, participating only by listening. The quick-fire Q&A was as fast as what had gone before.
“When was your last period?”
“From the start or the end?”
“Whichever you can remember.”
“I think it ended around about the eighteenth of May?”
Both Nick and Ellie silently worked out the mathematics, and neither was particularly pleased to put the figure at around six weeks.
“Any soreness? Tenderness?”
Ellie shook her head as Dr. Swift took a quick glance at the test. She did a double take at the results and then looked back at Ellie.
“Is there something wrong?”
“No,” the doctor replied as she rooted around in a nearby drawer for a second stick and a second opinion.
“Would you mind giving it another go? Just to be sure.”
As Ellie stood to find the toilet, Nick handed her a bottle of water and she thanked him. It was the first exchange they’d had in over half an hour.
“Should I?” he said, motioning to the door Ellie had just walked out of.
“No, it’s fine. You can stay. She’ll only be a couple of minutes.”
Nick rested his head between his hands and surveyed the posters on the wall. As a man prone to differing degrees of hypochondria, he let himself imagine he was afflicted with each and every disease and illness the wall was warning him about. The possibility of a new life had left him contemplating his own. Not that these were new thoughts. The closer he got to ending his twenties, the more time he spent on his own mortality and what, if any, his purpose here was. He never got close to a conclusion.
“It’s not planned,” he suddenly blurted out, to the surprise of both himself and the doctor. “This. It’s…it’s all a bit of a shock.”
She turned from her computer and gave him her full attention.
“It’s my experience that these things rarely are.”
“Except for the ones who are trying…”
“Isn’t that how life works?”
“When you least expect it.”
Ellie returned with the third piece of plastic she’d urinated on that day and handed it to Dr. Swift, who studied it with skepticism before asking, “Do you have the box for the test you did earlier?”
Nick found the cardboard packaging from his bag—it was his plan to add it to their shoebox memories—and handed it over.
Within seconds Dr. Swift made her assessment. “You’re not pregnant, Ms. Brown.”
Ellie’s entire body inflated, her shoulders lost their hunch, and she let out an audible gasp of relief. For the first time that day her frown was banished. It took Nick seconds to let the frown back in the room.
“Those things are ninety-nine percent accurate. What happened?”
Dr. Swift held up the box and read from the side. “ ‘Use before 22 April 2010.’ It’s only a couple of months out of date, but sometimes that’s all it takes. Over-the-counter tests work by using a chemical to pick up the hCG level in your bloodstream, but in an out-of-date test the chemical may be faulty.”
If Ellie grew in size at the sudden reversal, Nick shrank. This thing that hadn’t really crossed his mind before was now all he could think of. The injustice of it all. What if they’d been really trying for a baby? What damage could this false information bring? As so often, he was focusing on the wrong thing.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Ellie said, standing.
Nick, usually a courteous young man, slunk out of the room after her, not saying a word.
* * *
—
THE BABY ELEPHANT in the room lasted until the following Sunday evening, when Nick rode upon it like Tarzan.
He and Ellie were nestled on the sofa, a blanket over their knees, watching a BBC nature documentary, when he turned to her and said, as emphatically as his hesitant nature would allow, “I think we should try for a baby.”
Despite the fact that she was very much enjoying the sights and sounds of David Attenborough’s dulcet tones over footage of elephants, Ellie picked up the remote control and pushed the red button. The screen went blank and she turned to him.
“Nick.”
“Just hear me out. I’m not saying we should start hanging up ovulation charts and texting each other whenever you get a twinge…”
“What the hell is a twinge?”
“I’m just saying maybe we put the pills in the cupboard and wait for the chips to fall where they may.”
Having known this was coming at some point over the last seven days—and truth be told, she was impressed he’d held out this long—Ellie was well prepared for the following conversation.
She joked about him “just wanting more sex” in as light-hearted a way as she could to put him at ease. She maintained physical contact and kept her body pointed toward him, predicting he’d interpret any hostile nonverbal communication as an attack on the foundation of their relationship. And she made it abundantly clear, in no uncertain terms, that no, she was not ready for a child.
It wasn’t long before he acquiesced.
“Okay. I understand. Last week was just a roller coaster of stuff I hadn’t even considered, and then when it started to look like…”
She offered a sympathetic nod.
“I just couldn’t think of anything better than me and you having our own family. And I’m twenty-eight now—”
“If you say ‘and you’re almost thirty,’ I may make it impossible for you to ever have children.” To back up her statement, she put her hand between his legs and grinned menacingly.
“I was going to say, I’m twenty-eight and finally starting to think about this sort of stuff. Don’t you?”
She took her hand from his groin and placed it on the side of his face.
“I don’t see a life to come in which I don’t have a family,” she said. “And I don’t see a life to come without you.”
It was all he needed to hear and to know. If he gave it the right length of thought, he’d come to the realization that what really worried him was the lack of a foreseeable future. Now that she had given him no doubt, he was content again.
He kissed her for it, warmly and deeply.
“We could have a little practice,” he said, “for when the time comes?”
The mischievous glint in his eye and the smirk at his own corny line was enough to melt her, and she climbed onto his lap. Because she loved him. She was in love with him. She was thankful she’d found someone who made her happy. Who she wanted to make happy.
And, she thought to herself, she could always catch Attenborough again on iPlayer.
The idea of a new life, a step into true adulthood, offered a lesson for the Boy to learn. But it was another one he missed. He still hadn’t yet understood that the Girl—however susceptible to the occasional bout of regression—was not a girl. She was a woman. While he was still, very much, a boy.
NOVEMBER 5, 2008—3:51 A.M. GMT
OBAMA 210
MCCAIN 130
270 NEEDED TO WIN
My confession was eating away at my self-belief.
Part of me wanted to step into a time-traveling fridge, go back ten minutes, and make up a story about how my first love was a beautiful tattooist who took off to Mexico with my cousin. And how after this loss, I’d been in love a thousand times before and knew exactly what I was doing when it came to relationships. I was just unlucky, that was all.
Not clueless.
Just unlucky.
The paranoia ran deep. Was she acting oddly because of my disclosure? Or was I acting strangely because I was worried about her acting oddly? It was a vicious circle, twenty-seven years in the making.
“Shall we?” she asked, opening the ga
te in a spirited way, allowing me a brief respite from the most nagging of doubts.
We’d spent the last few hours in the fortress of our own solitude, and so it was with an abrupt force that the reality of other people reentered our lives. I was lucky, in hindsight, that “Hunky Bob,” aka Nathaniel, was the first person we should have contact with.
As we walked up to the house, he was on his way out. He met our happy little dispositions with a sneer, and as he opened his mouth to speak, I hated him instantly.
“So there you are,” he offered by way of a snarl. “I’ve been waiting all night to speak to you.”
Ellie looked over his shoulder at the front door, so tantalizingly close.
“There’s really nothing left to say,” she replied.
I considered reaching for her hand, but I bottled it on the grounds that it might have come across like a possessive move.
“I really don’t like the way things have been left between us,” he went on.
She glanced over at me, hoping to subtly indicate to him that this was neither the time nor the place for a heart-to-heart.
The subtlety was lost on him.
“Hey, friend, do you mind?”
I put my hands up in mock surrender, hoping to win cool points for my nonchalance versus his intensity.
I said to Ellie, “I’ll just have a quick smoke,” and walked back down the path, positioning myself ten meters from their conversation, easily close enough to hear even their hushed whispers.
“A smoker? Really?” he asked in as condescending a manner as I’d ever come across.
I could almost hear her rolling her eyes.
“Are you drunk?” she asked.
“You know I don’t drink. And even more so given that tomorrow’s the CrossFit finals. I told you about them. I don’t think I’ll smash the planking if I get myself squiffy the night before.”
He snorted at his own joke and it was all I could do not to yell out, “You’re a bloody planker all right.” A planker to think this wonder woman had any concern for his earthly troubles. While he worried about the physical, she was on a higher plane. He could never entertain her with his triathlons and chin-ups.
The music inside the house kicked up a notch and my audio zone was suddenly compromised. I could just about make out something to do with “Tough Mother” and how he had already bought tickets for her. I took a sneaky glance over to discover she was not impressed by this information, and made a mental note not to ever listen to this band in her presence.
The next bit confused me further. “Tough Mudder’s the best. A real feat of human endurance.” Were they a hardcore metal outfit? Did he need to pronounce “mother” like that? Was Ellie into extreme music? Was he? I doubted the answer to any of these questions was yes.
It was in the searching of Nathaniel’s flaws that mine were highlighted. I didn’t care that he was taller and better-looking and—let’s be honest here—had the potential to be a much more “pin you up against the wall,” “throw you onto the bed” animalistic lover.
That didn’t bother me. Much.
What bothered me was how sure I was he was governed by the same petty shit I was. That he was probably defined by the thing he loved. In his case, sweating. That he was undoubtedly guided by his penis. That he was desperate to have someone “pretty” on his arm. That he was self-involved and anxious about how people viewed him. That he was man. And I was man. And neither of us would ever be as good as she deserved.
“And him?!” I heard him yell.
He pointed one of his bulging arms in my direction. I wondered if I could get close enough to put my cigarette out in his eye before he stomped on me.
“It’s got nothing to do with him. I only met him tonight.”
My heart sank a little. But then she continued.
“But if you must know, in the few hours I’ve been with him, he’s made me smile more and laugh more and feel better about myself than you did in two months.”
He scoffed and peered through the darkness at me.
“But…but look at his weedy little arms.”
I heard Ellie’s exhalation of exasperation from my safety zone.
“Look,” she said, “you don’t like me. I don’t like you. Why is it so hard for you to accept that we should go our separate ways?”
As he contemplated the answer, a silence fell between them. I’d had my back to them for eavesdropping purposes, but now I turned, wanting to see his face. He looked lost. Her direct question and sympathetic tone had caught him off guard, and the truth came to him in a flash.
“I don’t like losing,” he managed.
Then I heard the last words he’d probably ever hear her say.
“Let’s just call it a draw then.”
She turned away and started to walk into the house. His mood seemed to thaw and I made my way up the path to join her.
He offered his hand and said, “Nathaniel.”
I took it and said, “Nick.”
Ellie glanced back to see what was going on, and so I held up my cigarette.
“I’ll meet you inside, if you like. I’ll just finish this.”
She smiled and nodded and left, and at that moment Nathaniel’s demeanor rapidly changed. In a second, he went from passive to snarling. He leaned close to my ear to whisper:
“You really think she likes you?”
I blew my smoke at him, knowing full well the move could get me pulverized.
“Who knows?”
He mock-laughed and then did a little unintended cough from the fumes.
“Fine. Waste your time. I’m just trying to be helpful. I’ve known her two months, and from what I’ve learned, you wouldn’t last a week.”
I fluttered my eyelashes.
“Okay,” I replied, my short answers designed to piss him off as much as possible.
I could see it was working, as he blustered, “I’m not even bothered.”
I offered one final “Okay” and turned to enter the house.
He hadn’t squashed me into a small cube.
But the damage from his opening gambit was still done.
Sack off your date and come with me.
Sack off your date and come with me.
Sack off your date and…
“You okay, Nick?” Paula asks, peering from behind her monitor.
“I’m tip-top, thanks, Paula,” I assure her, as I hit the delete key and expunge from existence the written ramblings of my inner Jack Torrance.
Jim plonks the fourth cup of tea he’s made me this morning down on my desk. I have a caffeine headache but don’t feel comfortable enough to turn down beverages yet.
My new workspace is almost as small as my old one. The closeness certainly has the familiarity of being unable to hide my current state of mind from my fellow workers. Four desks all banked together. One for Paula, one for Jim, one for me, and one for a potential future employee.
“Up to anything enjoyable this evening?” Jim inquires.
“I have a date, actually,” I say. I don’t know why I add the word “actually,” like people won’t believe it if I don’t.
“Ah, young love,” Jim says. “Dinner and a show?”
“Dinner, not sure about the show. We’ll see how dinner goes.”
My work phone rings for a callback and I’m grateful for the distraction. As lovely as Jim and Paula are, and they are quite lovely, I know that any in-depth discussion of this too-soon date could easily talk me out of it.
I launch into my script over the phone.
“Hi, my name’s Nick Marcet and I called earlier on behalf of Christian Aid.”
The rest of my conversation points are laid out in front of me on two sheets of A4 paper. The trick is to make it seem like each word is spontaneous, even though it’s
meticulously worded to tease the most money out of potential donors. It may be for a good cause, but there’s something sinister about the preprogrammed nature of it all. Something unbecoming about the trigger words designed to elicit sympathy.
Anyway. It works.
I hang up the phone.
“Another twenty pounds a month,” I tell Jim and Paula with a little pride, knowing they’ll clap like seals. I think they’re genuine in their love for this job and so I play along, becoming a caricature of a happy employee because I need the paycheck and there are worse jobs out there.
“Excellent work, Nick. You’re doing great,” Paula says.
She doesn’t realize this is the first thing I’ve excelled at in a while, and the realization of that is more than a little depressing.
“It’s your scripts, really,” I offer. “You should write me one for my date tonight!”
And we all laugh.
In a way that makes me die inside.
My Dinner with Mia
A one-act play by Nick Marcet
A young couple have just been seated at a trendy gastropub in south London. Drinks and food have been ordered. The place is expensive but not white-tablecloth expensive. The food, when it arrives, is served not on plates but on chopping boards, however impractical this may be.
NICK (30), curly brown hair and puppy-dog eyes, sits opposite her (possibly early twenties), jet-black hair in a Louise Brooks bob, the deep red lipstick a striking extra touch.
There should just be two people at their table, but they are joined in a few moments by an uninvited third.
NICK: I think one of us is supposed to say something like “This is a bit weird, isn’t it?”
MIA: What is?
NICK: Just, y’know, the whole internet dating thing.
Mia offers a tiny shake of the head and a shrug.
MIA: Online dating makes about a hundred and twenty million pounds a year, and that’s just in the UK, so…no, I don’t know if I’d call it weird, exactly.
NICK: Do you work in business, then?
MIA: No. I just read. I thought your ad was pretty clever, the little interjections about the truth.
Love, Unscripted Page 18