Perfect Timing

by Owen Nicholls

  I smile and laugh and she mirrors both. We talk about her acting and my music and being on the road, and for the first time since Jess, I manage to jettison my hang-ups for long enough to present not too intolerable a picture of myself.

  One huge problem, however, is the furtive glances from my parents. I know that if they come over I’ll turn into teenage Tom, and that’s the worst first impression I could leave anyone with. I decide to quit while I’m ahead and make my excuses.

  “Shame on you,” she says. “Leaving me here with these stiffs. And you didn’t even ask my name.” Her smile suggests she’s aiming for friendly tease, but the dropped ball of it spirals my gut.

  “I am so sorry.”

  “It’s Cara.”

  “It was really nice to meet you, Cara. When you’re in London…”

  “I’ll be there next week. For New Year’s, in fact.”

  “Any plans?” I ask, trying not to fish, trying to judge the mood.

  “Still waiting for someone to ask me out.”

  And then, in another “first since Jess” moment, I make actual plans to meet up with someone of the opposite sex.

  26

  Not-of-This-Planet Beautiful

  Jess

  Brynmaer Road, London

  January 1, 2017

  Be honest with yourself, Jess. If you can’t with anyone else, at least be truthful with yourself. You liked him the day you met him, and even when you hated him (wrongly, might we add) you still liked him.

  Tom’s ridiculously nice gesture blew the roof off a few of my assumptions. That he remembered something as boring as a conversation about planning permission from a drunken night means something. That the week I left for Australia he was making plans to help my mum out of a tight spot, it means something.

  The couch in our London flat moves and grunts, causing me to jump twenty feet in the air.

  “Don’t do that!” I yell at the mass of pillows—and Julia, who I hadn’t noticed was there for the last ten minutes. She’d clearly passed out after our late-night “tequila and talking” and hadn’t managed to drag herself to bed.

  Last night Julia and I had a heart-to-heart like we haven’t had in years. I told her how I was having reservations about Chris and then I discovered how Tom had done this amazing thing for my mum and how she seemed to loathe Chris and how I couldn’t stop thinking about Tom and then she told me to stop talking at a hundred words a minute and to breathe and so I did and then I started to talk about Tom more and what he said at the airport and she almost burst into tears. It might have been the tequila, but she was saying that she’d ruined my life because she, yes, she may have, actually no, she definitely did, strongly suggest to Tom that if he had feelings for me pre-Australia, they’d wait until I returned. And while I’m not blaming her for his car crash of a performance at the airport, there’s no way he wouldn’t have thought her best friend’s advice might be worth taking.

  I talked her off the ledge by telling her it was just bad timing and I plan on rectifying all the mess right away. Starting with some very deserved apologies. Just before I leave, she tells me that she’s rooting for me. “Like I said,” she clarifies, “he seems like a good egg.”

  Before my epic plan could take full effect, I needed two things. The first was Mr. Tom Delaney’s home address. Luckily for me, Julia is a stickler for details. When she was booking him on the podcast she asked for all his contact details, including his London address. I kissed her when she told me.

  The second item on my “Let’s Begin Again” checklist was harder to track down. I’m not sure that without Tom’s initial gesture I’d have come up with something quite so heartwarming, but he seems to be having that effect on me. I thought back to that first night we had, replayed every line I could, and found the perfect belated Christmas present.

  It wasn’t cheap. The person I bought it from wanted a small fortune for it. If it wasn’t for me earning a bit with some nice TV spots, I’d be turning up with just a box of chocolates. But this, this belongs with Tom.

  * * *

  —

  It’s a wildly romantic gesture to just turn up at someone’s door on the first day of a new year, but that’s exactly how I’m feeling. No texts to be misinterpreted. No awkward phone call. I want to make an effort to make up for the clusterfrig of the podcast and what is, in hindsight, turning out to be a pretty badly interpreted airport conversation. He’s a crap communicator. I knew this from the moment I met him. But that’s OK, right? The stupidly inarticulate and the problematically defensive. That can work. That can be a thing.

  Ringing the doorbell, I get a taste of what his life must be like. The knot in my gut. The way my stomach is trying to escape through my mouth. I have sweaty palms and it’s zero freaking degrees. Then I see his face. He looks more than a little surprised to see me. But that’s OK. I have my speech ready.

  “Jess?” he says, as much a question as an address.

  “Tom. Right, first I need to offer you a massive apology. Two, actually. One for the podcast and one for the airport. Then I can get on with telling you why I’m really here. So first the airport. I should have cut you some slack, instead of biting your head off. Maybe I was nervous about the flight? Still on edge over your made-up girlfriend? I don’t know. Anyway, I’m not blaming you, it was my mess-up. As was the podcast. Please know that I had no idea about your grandad. Please. So, I came here today to—”

  “Tom!” a soft Canadian voice calls. “Do you want to jump in with me?”

  “Just a minute,” he calls back.

  I feel like I’m in an episode of Looney Tunes. I’m Wile E. Coyote and a grand piano has just landed on my head. She comes tiptoeing around the corner in just a towel. She is beautiful. I mean, movie-star beautiful. Not-of-this-planet beautiful.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “This is Cara,” he says.

  “I’m Jess,” I say.

  Kill me now, I think.

  “I know you!” I madly shriek, my voice no longer one I recognize as human. “Long Term Parking!”

  She nods, humbly. Even though nothing about her needs to be humble.

  “I’ve seen your stuff. You’re good, man.” I poke her on her bare arm as I say this. Actual finger on her actual naked skin, jabbing away. She looks to Tom for support that this is weird. I try to lighten the moment with a joke.

  “You know he’s a drummer, right?”

  Tom doesn’t correct me, lets the punch land and smiles through it.

  “Sorry. Couldn’t resist.” Keep it together, Jess. “Anyway. Forgiveness? Yeah?”

  He nods. “Sure. Do you want to come in for a drink? I mean…”

  Both me and Cara look at him like he’s off his rocker, but this is Tom, the king of saying the wrong thing.

  “No. I think it would be weird if I came in and had a drink while you’re both showering. Together.”

  He looks at the floor. “Right.”

  Realizing she doesn’t need to be here for any of this, Cara pretends it was nice to meet me and heads off back into what I can only assume is his bedroom. Tom spots the carefully wrapped present in my hands.

  “Is that…”

  “For you? No. No, definitely not. No, God no. It would be weird if I bought you a present. It’s not your birthday, is it? See, I don’t even know when your birthday is. I’ve a one-in-three-hundred-and-sixty-five shot of getting it right, right? But no.”

  I can actually feel the sweat crawling over me as I blather on like the gold-medal-winning idiot I am. Populating the end of each sentence with an odd bark of a laugh.

  He asks, although I really wish he hadn’t, “You said there was a real reason why you were here?” and I have to rack my brain for an alibi. The emotion of everything means I come up short.

  “Di
d I? I did. Yes. But no, it was just that. Just sorry. I am really sorry, man. I keep calling everyone ‘man’ today. I don’t know why. Anyway. The apologies have been delivered. A load is off my chest.”

  He nods and points back inside the house. “I should probably go.”

  “Of course!” I squeal. Then, before he can shut the door on me, I call out his name one last time. The door opens again.

  “Happy New Year, Tom.”

  “Yeah. You too.”

  Before I walk home and put Tom’s grandfather’s diary on my shelf to gather dust and be a constant reminder of my cowardice, there’s just enough time for me to hear her ask who I was. The way he said “No one.”

  Ooof. I’ll replay that reply until the day I die.

  27

  Old Friends

  Tom

  D’Arblay Street, London

  January 2, 2017

  Things were fine yesterday. Until she showed up unannounced and apologetic. Now I feel anxious again. My old friends have returned: Regret. Fear. Doubt. They’re lined up, present and correct.

  I’ve got about five minutes to get my shit together before meeting Cara for lunch. What are these signs? Are they signs? Are they here to tell me Cara’s the wrong person for me? That the right one is out there, making podcasts, doing stand-up, and blathering nonsense unannounced on my doorstep on New Year’s Day?

  Surely it means something that she came to my front door yesterday? Maybe she wanted to tell me something more, and didn’t get the chance. Maybe, one side of me answers, or maybe not. The evidence suggests the latter. After all, if there’s one thing we know about Jessica Henson, it’s that she speaks her mind. If she had something to say, she would have said it. But then again…

  Let it go, the other voice tells me. You have to let it go.

  But I don’t want to, I reply.

  Then a softer, familiar voice interjects. And. That’s. OK. Her words of comfort come back to me for the first time in a long while.

  “I want to be with Jess,” I whisper.

  And. That’s. OK.

  It’s OK to want things you can’t have. You had a moment. Two of them, in fact, but it didn’t work out. It happens. And. That’s. OK.

  But it’s time to move on. A week ago, you met someone cool, funny, very into you. Last night she made no mistake in letting you know that. You’ve done it, Tom. You’ve got to that place where you don’t have to feel nervous anymore. The “you” that you are is good enough.

  It’s time to put the idea of me and Jess to rest.

  Part Four

  REVELATIONS

  28

  Mostly Perpendicular

  Tom

  South Virgil Avenue, Los Angeles

  February 28, 2018

  LA is hot as hell and Edinburgh’s about to freeze. We’ve been out here four months now, even though the band’s hiatus was only supposed to last two. I get messages from Scott weekly now, asking when I’ll be back in the UK so we can start to talk about album number three.

  The truth is, I like it here. Even if I’m not sure the feeling is mutual.

  If I had a time machine I’d go back to secondary school and tell every boy in my class that there are several downsides to dating a movie star. I’d mostly be doing this to brag that I’m dating a movie star, but I’d also want to educate their teenage minds on how a poisoned chalice actually works.

  The downsides I’m struggling with today are intrinsically linked. Cara has been offered a job in Mexico. For three months. Her costar is the unquestionably handsome and terribly behaved Bradley Worth, a British actor who’s broken up more Hollywood marriages than Lana Turner and Jerry Lee Lewis combined.

  If she was just going away for three months, I’d be unhappy. If she was just on set with this guy for a day, I’d be worried. Add them together and I’ve found new levels of unhappiness and worry. She appears to be drifting away from me, and the tide is getting stronger.

  Our current rented downtown apartment isn’t dissimilar to the London one we had at the start of last year. The kind of sub-minimal you could move out of in less than an hour. The majority of my stuff is in Edinburgh, hers in Toronto. We’ve been living out of suitcases and shopping bags for as long as we’ve been together.

  As she tears around the kitchen, making herself a smoothie before she heads to the gym, I try to corner her for a chat about “The Future.” Starting with her plans for the next few months.

  “Cara? Have you got a minute?”

  Distracted, she ignores my question and asks one of her own instead. “Have you seen the lid for this?” She holds up the clear plastic blender. “It can’t be hard to find—we have, like, four things in this entire flat.”

  “About that…” I say, grateful for the segue.

  “About what?”

  “The flat. Sorry, the apartment. It’s a bit bare, isn’t it? I mean, when are we going to make it a home?”

  She opens the cupboards, still hunting for her errant lid. “Errr. I don’t know, Tom. Maybe when I’m back from the shoot.”

  The inclusion of my name is shorthand for “I’m close to the edge.”

  “About that, also?”

  There’s impatience on her face and in her voice. “About what, also?”

  “I wondered if you wanted some company when you go?”

  She finally stops searching and looks at me with a mix of fear and confusion. Alarm bells start to ring at how much she doesn’t want me to join her on set. It’s a fight we’ve had before.

  “I thought you were going back to Scotland, to meet up with the band?”

  “I was, but I could not do that.”

  “Why, why would you not do that?”

  “To be with you.”

  Her tone is that of a mum reprimanding her child with logic rather than anger.

  “We talked about this. That’s my work. If I was, I don’t know, a graphic designer working in an office, you wouldn’t come and sit at the end of my desk like an emotional support animal.” She slams a cupboard door and raises her voice. “And where is that goddamn lid?!”

  Her shout is loud enough to instill fear in me, and she registers my flinch. She centers herself with her eyes shut, her middle finger and thumb pressed together. Years of yoga training in action.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just a little strung out at the moment. Can we talk about this later?”

  I nod, and I think I’ve got away with everything lightly. It was needy. She’d made it clear she’s going for work. I know some jealousy was creeping in on my part. That she’s not angrier is a minor miracle.

  But then she adds, “And we’ll talk about some other things, maybe, too?”

  She looks down at the floor as she leaves and I recognize that our next conversation is going to be longer, and a fair bit more painful.

  * * *

  —

  It’s good to see Scott’s face again. Even if it does occasionally pause and judder as the Wi-Fi struggles to keep up. We open with the “Can You Hear Me?” Skype ritual, repeated until both parties are convinced they can both hear and be heard in equal measure. It’s the video messaging equivalent of saying grace at the start of a meal.

  “I can hear you.”

  “Yep,” Scott replies. “I can hear you too. How’s the city of angles?”

  “Good. Mostly perpendicular.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ve no idea. I just thought it sounded clever.”

  He sniggers into the camera and I do the same. There are people you can spend months apart from and within ten seconds of being in their company again, it’s as if the time in between just up and vanished like a fart in the wind.

  “How’s Edinburgh?” I ask.

  “Same as always.”

  “That bad, huh?”
r />   “I see you’ve been enjoying the sunshine,” Scott notes. “You look good.”

  It’s true. For the first time in my life, there’s color in my cheeks. I’m trimmer too, but that’s probably not a permanent thing. Over here there’s hiking and self-hatred about your body to keep you thin. But there’s also food piled as high as a mountain and All-U-Can-Eat on every corner.

  “I’m feeling…” I pause, looking for the right word. Good probably isn’t it. But OK will do. “Not bad. How’re Holly and Hayley?”

  “They’re grand. Hayley’s walking now. Which makes the months where she was immobile seem like a doddle. Now it’s just a constant worry she’ll crack her head on anything harder than a pillow. Our house is like a sponge cake covered in bubble wrap.”

  I try to picture myself as a father. All the worry and tension. I attempt to see me and Cara with a baby and a future, but I can’t make the image come to life.

  Scott continues, “We have these little soft corners glued to everything that sticks out at an angle. It’ll be handy for if you ever come over and pass out again. You’ll just bounce straight back up.”

  His little joke reminds me that it’s been years now since I had anything close to an anxiety episode. Jess’s words “And. That’s. OK” still need to be brought out on occasion, if I start to feel the signs. Every time I use them, they do the job.

  “And how’s Cara?”

  My face does the talking for me.

  “What happened?”

  I tell him about how I’ve been a little clingy lately and it seems to be pushing her away. I tell him about the job she’s been offered and who’s on set with her. I tell him about the run-in we’ve just had.

  “She wasn’t angry,” I tell him. “Just…disappointed.”

  He winces and the screen freezes, trapping Scott in an expression that, if I’m reading it correctly, might spell certain doom for me and Cara. I look at the tiny square of myself in the corner of my screen and the usual self-loathing takes over. Who am I kidding? Why can’t I make this work? And the one that’s sounded louder as the months have worn on: Is this really what I want?