“I told you you’d changed, but…it’s hard to marry the person that you were with this guy in front of me. I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, but that band meant so much to you and now…”
“I don’t know,” I reply. “I’ll miss it for sure, but we’ve achieved things I never thought we would. If you love something, set it free, right?”
She turns pensive at this. Inward. I wish I knew what was going on in her head but now is not the time to push. We share another comfortable silence until I see her nose start to wrinkle and she stops herself.
“Go on,” I say with a smile.
“It’s about the podcast?”
I fear she’s going to bring up my grandad and that’ll be me gone until they clear our plates away. I’m relieved when she says it’s about the band name.
“The Friedmann Equation?” I say.
“Yeah. Even though it was me that didn’t let you answer, I’ve always wanted to know.” She takes out her mobile and pretends it’s a Dictaphone, affecting the voice of a prime-time interviewer. “What’s the story there, then, Mr. Delaney?”
“Well,” I start. “I won’t pretend to understand it fully. But the general gist is this guy Friedmann came up with a theory that the universe is expanding. Before that, most scientists thought of everything as static.”
“And you like this theory?”
“I do. Very much.”
“I sense there’s more. Like you have a theory on top of this theory.”
I laugh. “You’re a pretty perceptive person, Jess.”
She leans back in her seat. “So…”
“So,” I begin again, having waited for this moment since I first came up with the name. “There’s a theory that, yes, the universe is constantly expanding, but eventually it’ll reach a point in which it’ll stop and contract again. Falling back into the Big Bang to start all over again.”
“Like a balloon inflating and deflating over and over again.”
“Exactly!” The pitch of my voice isn’t very impressive, but I’m on a roll. “Now, if this single point of creation that we know as the Big Bang was no larger than a golf ball, if it were to start again, what’s to say anything would change at all? If the universe returns to the singularity that started everything—and this is a pretty massive if—what’s to say we, the humans that live thirteen point eight billion years after time began, won’t just continually live out our stories again and again and again? Lives infinitely on repeat.”
I watch as she takes a moment to get her head around it.
“And so, in your theory, we’d end up doing the exact same things each time?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t we? We’d all start from the same place, so why would anything, including our circumstances, thoughts, and feelings, ever change?”
She grabs a chip from my plate and holds it up as if to make a point with it. “I think I like it. But what does Mr. Friedmann have to say about your theory on his theory?”
“He’s long dead. Died from typhoid after eating an unwashed pear on his honeymoon.”
“Shiiiiitt.”
“Yeah.”
“And if your theory holds up…”
I remind her how implausible it is. “Again, big if…”
“…Friedmann will eat that unwashed pear an infinite number of times.”
I take another sip of drink and tell Jess, “I never said it was a happy theory.”
This time she turns from sad to happy on a dime, leaning forward as if she has breaking news. “But then again, he’ll also have his miraculous discovery and his honeymoon—pre-pear—an infinite number of times too.”
She smiles broadly at this crazy hypothetical that holds no weight in the real world, happy that this Soviet scientist—someone she didn’t know existed until a few minutes ago—might get to experience innumerable post-nuptial vacations with the woman he loved.
“I like your theory, Mr. Delaney. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel less angry at the world. Like there is a plan.”
Knowing she’s taken comfort in my words, I remind her of the ones she gave me.
“And. That’s. OK.”
Her lips press together and her eyes start to water.
“And. That’s. OK,” she repeats as I watch today and all the days before wash over her.
“You know you have every right to be angry,” I say.
She turns it back to me again. “I can’t see you angry.”
“What, about the podcast?” I remind her, missing the mark of playful and instead reminding her of one of the bad times we shared, slap-bang in the middle of what is turning out to be one of the better. She rolls with it.
“You were pushed. You had every right to be a little vexy. I’m the one that erupts for no reason.” She holds up the bandaged hand she’s been hiding underneath the table.
“That,” I remind her, “was totally justified.”
She contemplates it. “Maybe.” The weight of her actions and their consequences is starting to play out again. “But,” she continues, “I’ve been carrying this anger for a while now.”
“Anger doesn’t have to be a bad thing,” I say.
“It depends where you point it, I suppose,” she concedes. “If it pushes people away who you care about…” The sentence hangs.
It was early when we entered the diner. It’s late now. There’s plenty more to be said, but with full bellies and drained emotions from earlier events, talk slows to a crawl. She doesn’t appear to mind. I certainly don’t.
“Where are you staying tonight?” I ask. I mean it innocently but, as ever, it comes out weird.
“I’m not,” she replies, lacking the energy to make a joke out of my question. “I have a show tomorrow night. I fly back to the UK in the early hours. Bit whistle-stop, eh?”
The waiter arrives with the bill and I wish he hadn’t. It’s a marker that this evening is coming to an end. All things do, but I was happy to trick myself into thinking this wouldn’t. I pay. She doesn’t argue. I don’t have anything to grab before we leave. All my stuff is back at the studio, bar my wallet. As we make our way out onto the street, I ask her what time her flight is.
“It’s a red-eye. Two a.m.”
I look at my watch and see that we still have a few hours left.
I scratch my neck and ask, “Do you want to catch a movie or somethi—”
She says my name. Once. Short and sharp.
I stare at the ground in front of me again, as she scans the road for a taxi she hasn’t ordered yet. We both look up. We both take an infinitesimal step toward each other. It’s Edinburgh three years ago. Until it isn’t. Unable to stay silent any longer, I finally answer.
“I’m seeing someone.”
She nods. And smiles. She seems strangely happy with the answer.
“Yes. Yes, you are.”
She reaches out a hand and I shake it.
“Until next time,” Jess says, matter-of-fact. She flags a yellow cab and climbs in. The whole thing happens in a blink. It’s a moment I’d rather not relive, even once. But I know it’s preferable to the pain caused by any alternative.
* * *
—
It’s almost 2 a.m. Jess will be in the air any minute now. By the time I wake up she’ll be five thousand, three hundred, and nine miles away. Even though I’ve been staring at my phone since she left, it hasn’t made a sound. I put it on charge and climb into bed. The second I’m under the covers, I hear it beep. For all of five seconds, I manage to convince myself I can wait until the morning before I check the message. I throw the covers back, cross the room, and the screen lights up my face. Her name is there followed by a question.
What’s the secret to good comedy, good music and good relationships?
I reply with, That’s a good question. The
n I say I hope she has a safe flight and gets home OK, and that I hope to see her soon at one of our Farewell to Friedmann gigs. There’s a lot of hope in the message I send to Jess. There’s very little in the one I send to Cara minutes later, asking for her to give me a call whenever she can.
33
Better and Better
Jess
Heathrow, Arrivals
March 7, 2018
Julia’s waiting for me at the airport holding a sign that says Queen Jessica—Slayer of A***holes. It perks me up more than a million morning coffees. She throws her arms around me and takes my bag.
“What do you need?” she asks.
“Food. Sleep. To absolutely bollock my agent to see if he knew about this.”
She hands me a muffin and rather than wonder the answer, I ask her outright. “What did I do to deserve a friend like you, Julia?”
She stops and puts my bag down, looking me directly in the eye. “You made me laugh when I was sad.” She says it with such sincerity, she might as well have been saying You saved my life. “Now, we’ve a taxi outside and your bed is made up. You want some company to tear Dean a new one?” I do. But I decline it. This is my fight and I’m ready for it.
In the cab, I start to mull over my twenty-four hours in America. My mind keeps coming back to Tom. There was a lot we didn’t say when I left. The thing that’s troubling me the most, however, is how he’s going to cope with the band splitting up. I know how much it all means to him. I hope he’s got someone he can talk to about it all. For people like Tom, bottling it up is like setting a timer for when you’ll explode. It might not be for a while, but it will happen. Maybe it’s the same for all of us. I know that right now, I’m a powder keg in the middle of a forest fire.
Lexington Street, London
March 8, 2018
He doesn’t come out of his office to greet me today. When I enter, he offers the best impression of sympathy he can muster. It’s not good. There’s still a little grin hidden behind it, a grin that says Your misery is gonna make me money.
“Jess. How was the flight? You like that first-class?”
I don’t say a word. Patience is my virtue. I can wait all day to find out if he had anything to do with it, if he masterminded the whole sorry mess. I am a Zen master, I can bide my time…no…wait…I can’t.
“DID YOU KNOW?” I scream at Dean across his desk.
He holds his hands up like I’m brandishing a weapon and threatening to take his wallet.
“No. Of course not!” he says unconvincingly. “They told me they had this big surprise lined up, but I swear to God, I didn’t know what it was. Cross my heart.” He mimes it for added effect, unaware that I’m convinced there’s nothing but a very expensive piece of black coal where his fingers just traced. He waits for what I assume he thinks is long enough.
“It’s not such a bad thing, is it?”
I shake my head and mutter, “Unbelievable.”
“Look at it this way. You walked out. You stood up to him. People are writing it up as a win for the underdog.”
I know full well that he’s blowing smoke up my hole. I’ve read the comments, the think-pieces. “Bitch can’t take a joke” seems to be the consensus. Closely followed by “She got what she deserves” in second place.
Dean strolls around his desk and sits on the edge of it closest to me. “Look,” he says. “I have your dad’s number. If you want it. The producer of The Clive Charles Show forwarded it to me after you bailed.”
My look to Dean could sink ships and burn them under the waves. He holds out a piece of paper with the number on it and continues, “It doesn’t have to be on TV or anything. You get to choose the place and time. I think it’d be good for you.”
I snatch the number out of his hand, with the purpose of screwing it up and throwing it back in his face. But something stays my hand. It’s Tom. Tom and his stupid idea that we’ve lived our lives before. I picture myself in a surreal case of déjà vu, looking at this number, calling it, and finding myself face-to-face with Frank Cartwright. The man who walked out on our family before my fifth birthday.
“I’ll do it,” I tell him. “My way.”
I put the piece of paper in my pocket and stand, looking into Dean’s soul as I do.
“You promise you didn’t know what they were planning?”
“Promise,” he says.
Curzon Street, London
March 13, 2018
Last night’s set was a disaster. I’ve tanked on stage before, but this was fresh-out-of-the-gate-student-with-delusions-of-grandeur-first-ever-show tanking. The audience started out on my side, but they turned as each minute ticked by. It wasn’t just that my mind wasn’t on it—distracted by what today would bring—it was more that I didn’t believe in what I was saying. Looking back on myself with anger, it’s hard to know if I ever did.
I told Dean I’d do this my way. I know he thinks there’s mileage in this. Either a story I can sell to the papers or a re-creation we can stage for the cameras, but neither of those things will ever, ever happen. I picked both the venue and the time. There’s a quiet café in Mayfair that’s even quieter at eleven in the morning, the time I told Frank to meet me there. I arrive fifteen minutes before and find a table in the corner.
As I wait to see if he’ll show, it dawns on me I don’t know what he looks like. We don’t have photos of him around the house, and what little memory I have of him from my childhood has thankfully disappeared over the years. I know he’s a white guy in his late fifties and nobody who’s turned up so far fits that description.
And then he does. He’s shorter than I imagined he’d be. Shorter than me for sure. He’s recently shaved, and I can tell from his irritated skin that it’s a rare occurrence. He holds his hat in his hand. A little on the nose, I suppose.
“Jess,” he says, as meekly as he can manage. It’s almost a whimper.
“Frank?”
He nods. I ask him what he wants to drink and he looks absolutely shocked at my civility. He asks for a Coke. I show him to his seat and head to the counter. As I wait for our order to be poured, I watch him from afar. His small frame is hunched over the table. I might be projecting, but he looks bent and broken. I return with our drinks and take a seat.
“How are you?” he asks.
“I’m good, thank you. You?”
Again, he looks baffled that I’d make an inquiry into his well-being.
“Erm. Yeah. I’m not too bad. Not too bad.”
The talk couldn’t be smaller. He asks if I got back OK from LA last week. Instead of making a lame joke that “No. I actually got caught in the Bermuda Triangle on the way,” I simply nod and say, “Yes. The trip was fine.” I ask him the same and he says he was never there, that The Clive Charles Show was supposed to be a video setup. He reveals that he’s not allowed to travel to America and I don’t ask the reason. I’m pretty sure I know it. After a gap, his revelations continue.
“I wanted to be a comic.”
“Yeah?” I reply. “Who’d you like?”
“Richard Pryor and George Carlin. You like them?”
“Yeah,” I agree softly. “Big fan of both.”
Another flashback to his youth comes in the form of a Rolling Stones track playing over the pub sound system. “This song,” he says, pointing to the sky. “One of my favorites. I saw them in ’71.”
“I saw them last year,” I divulge. “Probably not the same as in their prime, but they were good.” We both take a sip from our drinks at the same time. I can see the corners of my mouth in his.
With a smile, he says, “Turns out we have a lot in common.”
I let a short burst of air out of my nose.
“I’ve hated you for a very long time, Frank.”
He smiles again. “Then we have that in common too.”
I have to give him that. That’s a good line.
“I might have liked having you around when I grew up.”
He shrugs, gaining a little confidence from our rapport. “Well, it’s not too late.”
For the first time since he walked in, my blood is up. The rage I feel right now is akin to those mothers who can flip over cars when their child’s in danger. I’m seconds away from beating him to death with our drinks tray. But as quickly as the anger comes, it fades.
“Yes, Frank. It is too late.”
A memory of me and Mum and my brother flashes to mind. We’re watching a football match. Dom’s choice. And a man in the crowd gets hit in the crotch by an errant ball. The randomness of it. The way it took Dom by surprise. The number of replays the camera crew decided to show of it…It had each of us. Totally. Completely. That memory of the three of us holding on to one another, tears streaming, struggling for a lungful of air against the laughter, it gives me a much-needed inner peace.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Why are you apologizing?” he asks.
“Because I know how it feels to be let down. I’ll never forgive you for walking out on us. Ever. After today, I never want to see you again. I hold no ill-will towards you…”
“But…”
I place my open palm up as if I’m halting traffic.
“This is my turn to speak. You want to make amends, try sending Mum a check for eighteen years of child support. Actually, double that, thirty-six years. I forgot about Dom. But then he’s not on TV, so I’m guessing you did too. You will never be my dad, Frank. OK?”
Saying it makes me feel better and better. Then worse. And then better than ever. I expected myself to be so much angrier. But it’s clear that anger won’t do me any good here. I like the power I have from being calm. This man has no hold over me. I should no more waste my time and energy on him than I would on the guy who mixed up my coffee order three days ago. This man sitting across from me is a stranger and it was his choice to be one. But before I say my last goodbye, there is a bubble of anger. And two things I still need answers for. There may be a connection between them.
Perfect Timing Page 20