There is a hint of good news in all of this though… You don’t have to be a detective (or an investigative journalist) to realise that, given what it said on the card that accompanied the flowers, while all of them may have dumped me, at least one of them regrets it. But which one? That’s the question. It’s definitely giving me pause, that’s for sure. It’s making me wonder… could my future be hiding somewhere in my past?
My past is definitely my future today, as I walk up the driveway to my parents’ front door. A beautiful suburban detached down a cute little cul-de-sac. I reach for the perfectly polished handle, but it’s a waste of energy. My mum bursts through the door to greet me.
‘Rosie, Rosie, Rosie,’ she says. ‘Oh, Rosie.’
‘Hello, Mum,’ I say as she squeezes the life out of me.
‘Oh, Rosie.’
She starts crying.
‘Are you crying because I’m home, because I got dumped, or because I was embarrassing on TV?’ I ask.
‘I think it’s all of them,’ she mumbles into my body.
My mum is adorably petite. Sneaking in at just over 5ft, she’s small and skinny. I’m a bit more like my dad, who is broad-shouldered and towers over my mum at 5’10. I’m 5’8, so I dwarf my mum too.
I’m starting to regret telling them the full extent of what happened when I called them earlier to say I was on my way over for a few nights. Thankfully they missed it, and can’t work their TV to get it on demand. I’d rather they didn’t see it.
‘Hello,’ my dad says with a nod of acknowledgement.
I wiggle free from my mum’s grip to give him a hug.
‘Oh… love…’
‘Mum, let’s not talk about it,’ I insist. ‘Tell me how you guys are doing.’
‘Oh, we’re fine, we’re just cleaning out the shed,’ she replies.
‘Oh, God, I’m not sleeping in it, am I?’
‘Course not,’ my dad says. ‘I’m making room for tomato plants.’
‘Fab,’ I reply.
‘And you’re helping,’ he adds.
‘What?’
‘Did you think you could just hide in our living room, watching TV all day?’
I absolutely did, without a moment’s hesitation. I even looked into what constitutes daytime TV now because it’s changed so much since the last time I was knocking around during the day. I couldn’t think of anything better. It sounds like they’ve got other plans for me though.
Outside, it doesn’t look like they’ve been working on the shed for long, so I guess I’ve got my work cut out: shifting tools, moving boxes of God knows what, sweeping, trying to ignore the spiders…
I thought coming here was going to be a nice break… I was absolutely wrong.
5
After hours of dragging dusty boxes around, dodging creepy-crawlies, and listening to my dad’s views on who should be the next prime minister, I finally find a moment to sneak into the kitchen for a breather and a glass of lemonade.
I can’t decide how right my parents were when they said that a bit of hard work was just what I needed right now, in my ‘situation’ as they’re calling it… I sincerely don’t think their reaction would’ve been different if I were a pregnant fourteen-year-old, like maybe they think I’ve got myself into this mess that has potentially ruined my life as I know it… maybe I have.
The hard graft in the shed is certainly keeping me busy, but my mind is all over the place. I’ll forget about recent events for a moment, distracted by the discovery of potential antiques or magazines that, at a quick glance looked like weird porn but upon closer inspection are just really graphic angling magazines of my dad’s. But despite the pictures of dead fish, my mind goes back to my life and, well, what I’m going to do with it.
‘Rosie,’ my mum cries out. ‘Rosie, where are you?’
I put down my lemonade and leg it outside, convinced my mum’s screams spell out disaster, but rather than finding my dad on the ground with a pair of secateurs sticking out of his temple – either through a ridiculous accident of his own, or via the hands of my mother when she inevitably snaps –they’re both just standing there, absolutely fine, with green bin bags full of rubbish in their hands.
‘I thought it was an emergency,’ I say, just a little annoyed.
‘It is, we can’t move for rubbish. You’re supposed to be putting it in the gardening bin for us,’ she replies.
My parents, Timothy and Evelyn Jones, are the caricature couple you see in cartoons about relationships – usually the ones that accompany agony aunt pages. Timothy – or Tim, to his equally blunt friends – is your classic northern bloke. Firm but fair, stoically silent until you find a topic he’ll talk your ear off about, like fishing for example.
Evelyn – or Evie as she’s more warmly known – is the exact opposite. She is outgoing, chatty, friendly… she’s so warm, it starts to burn a little. All up in your space, all up in your business, but always with the best of intentions. She and my dad are both recently retired (my mum was a teacher and my dad was a builder) and I’m pretty sure she spends her day chasing my dad around with a rolling pin because he keeps drinking milk from the bottle every time he passes the fridge.
His latest thing, which, since arriving back home, I have only recently learned he has been doing, is pinching sugar from the jar – just to eat. I saw him do it earlier, just dip his hand in, grab a pinch of sugar and pop it in his mouth. He says it satisfies his sweet tooth (he’s on a diet, apparently, and missing eating cakes and biscuits and the like, so he’s taken to having a cheeky dip in the sugar to stop him breaking his diet), but I just think it makes him look like Manchester’s answer to Scarface.
My parents do drive each other mad, but you can’t deny that they’re still head over heels in love.
Since I moved out, I’m not sure I could live with either of them. Even just staying with them for a few days is probably going to drive me mad, but it’s better than hiding out in my flat.
I grab a couple of bin bags and head for the front garden, where the bin store lives.
‘Green bin,’ my mum calls after me.
‘Got it, Mum,’ I call back.
This isn’t my first trip to the bins with bags full of shed crap. I know that the green bin is for the garden stuff. Then there’s the black and the brown and blah, blah, blah. I suppose that’s one good thing about living in a tiny apartment, I don’t have a million different bins with a million different rules for each.
I toss the bags in an attempt to squash them down in anticipation of the bags that will follow. I try with my hands, but I’m not exactly Abbye ‘Pudgy’ Stockton (she was a bodybuilding strongwoman – I learned this watching repeats of The Chase with my dad over our lunch break earlier), so I hop up onto the bin next to it and swing my legs into the gardening rubbish bin, using my body weight to jump up and down on it, squashing it down into the bottom.
‘Are you OK?’ I hear a man’s voice ask.
I jolt my gaze from my feet to next-door’s garden, staring like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
At first I’m embarrassed to be caught, you know, in the bin (although it’s hardly my most embarrassing moment in the last twenty-four hours), but as I realise it is a familiar face I’m looking at, I cock my head curiously.
‘Kevin?’
‘Hello, Rosie,’ he replies.
Kevin tosses a bag into his parents’ wheelie bin, like a normal person, rather than getting in it, before making his way over to the fence that separates the gardens. I clamber out of the wheelie bin and meet him there.
‘Oh my gosh, it’s been years,’ I say as I hug him over the fence. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m great,’ he says. ‘How are you? Were you… were you trying to get in the bin?’
‘Oh, no, no, no,’ I insist. ‘No. I’m helping my parents clean out their shed, I was just trying to make room in the bin for all the junk they’re throwing away.’
‘That makes more sense,’ he says with a laugh.
‘I’m just here for dinner with my parents.’
I look my first boyfriend from secondary school up and down. He looks great. Older, but I haven’t seen him in like fifteen years and time will do that to you. So he’s looking a bit crinkly around his eyes and his hairline is creeping back – I’ve got a few wiry grey hairs hiding in my blonde locks and I need to wear two bras when I exercise now.
‘How are they?’ I ask him.
‘Yeah, they’re great. How are yours?’
‘Probably dead in the shed after some kind of weird standoff with gardening tools used as projectiles,’ I reply, very matter-of-factly. ‘But otherwise fine.’
‘Oh, I’ll bet,’ he laughs. ‘Well, how about I let you get back to them, but, if you’re around tomorrow we could go for lunch? Have a proper catch-up. It’s wild, that we never see each other.’
I am taken aback by his invitation. So much so I just stare at him.
‘Don’t worry if you’re busy,’ he backtracks.
‘No, no, I’m not busy at all. Never busy,’ I add, although I probably shouldn’t have.
Kevin just laughs at me. ‘OK, well, meet you at Sally’s in town tomorrow – midday?’
‘Sounds great,’ I reply. ‘See you then.’
‘See you then,’ he says. ‘Don’t wear the gardening waste bin.’
‘The black is more my colour,’ I joke after him.
Gosh, is that weird, him asking me to lunch? I haven’t seen the guy in years. Our parents live next door to each other and suddenly he’s right here in front of me, asking me for a catch up.
Could it be Kevin who sent me the flowers? I suppose I’ll have to have lunch with him tomorrow and find out.
6
I’ve claimed a table by the window in Sally’s Tearoom. It’s an impossibly cute place – older than I am. I’ve been coming here since I was a kid.
It’s 12:04 now (I’ve been here for about twenty minutes because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t late) and there’s no sign of Kevin… he did say midday-ish though, didn’t he? Or did he just say midday? Either way, I’m not going to worry.
I felt bad, hogging a table in such a busy tearoom, so I ordered myself a cup of tea and one of their signature white chocolate blondies. Remembering my manners, I haven’t touched either yet, although the blondie is practically screaming my name.
‘Hello,’ a young woman standing at my table says.
‘Hi,’ I reply.
She’s a twenty-something brunette who I’ve never seen before in my life. She doesn’t work here; I can tell that by her lack of the cute little uniform they wear here with the adorable white pinny.
I purse my lips and raise my eyebrows expectantly, waiting for her to say something.
‘I saw you on TV,’ she says.
Oh God.
‘Me?’ I reply, hoping she’ll think she’s made a mistake.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘You got dumped on the quiz show.’
Christ, is this how it’s going to be from now on? When I walked in here today, Jon Bon shitting Jovi could’ve been sitting at one of the tables and I wouldn’t have said a word to him, I would’ve let him enjoy his coffee and his cake in peace, and he’s a real celebrity, not a viral epic fail like I am.
‘Erm, yeah,’ I reply.
‘OK, bye,’ she says before wandering off.
Oh, brilliant, she just came over to point it out – to remind me, in case I forgot.
‘Who was that?’ Kevin asks. I hadn’t realised he’d walked in.
‘Oh, no one,’ I say.
‘OK, well I’ll grab a coffee and join you,’ he says.
I watch Kevin as he orders his drink. He’s looking really good, in a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt. He’s still in great shape – he was always really sporty at school. I was never all that sporty, but he played for the school rugby team and I loved to watch his games, even if I didn’t really know what was going on. It was just nice to go along and support him, cheer for him on the sidelines, be proud of him when he won.
Our very first date – and our first interaction outside the food-tech room – was at a McDonald’s. We had cheeseburgers and milkshakes while we chatted about school and Blink-182. We shared our first kiss in a McDonald’s booth (the old-style cream plastic ones, before they all got funky new makeovers) while Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ blared out of the speaker above it. It was like something out of a corny movie.
Coincidentally, we also broke up in a McDonald’s, just after he left school. After a high tackle that saw Kevin break his jaw – although supposedly this happened because I was distracting him by watching him play, according to his dad – Kevin decided that it had to be me or rugby, and rugby won. That time we didn’t stay long, and I definitely don’t remember what music was playing. He dumped me over ice cream – I’m pretty sure it was one of those hot fudge sundaes they used to sell, or did they discontinue them sooner than that? Either way, the fact that they don’t sell them any more is the only real tragic takeaway. I’m only now, for the first time in years, recalling just how angry I was, to be dumped for a sport. Oh, I was great (that’s what he told me), but not as great as bloody rugby, it turns out.
I left McDonald’s that day wishing I had dumped my ice cream on his head and I swore to myself that, if I ever saw him again, I would launch the nearest dairy product at him. As he sits down next to me, suddenly nothing on the table seems worth sacrificing. I’d rather drink my tea and eat my blondie and, anyway, we’re both adults now. It would be crazy to be mad at him some fifteen years later.
‘So, how are you?’ he asks. ‘We can do more than scratch the surface today.’
‘Yeah, I’m doing good,’ I say, being mostly honest, but as for more than scratching the surface, I don’t know what to tell him, so instead I ask: ‘Still playing rugby?’
‘I am,’ he replies. ‘But only for fun. I’m actually an estate agent.’
‘Oh wow,’ I blurt. ‘That’s different.’
‘Yeah… I don’t know, after my injury, I started looking at things differently. I started to worry about hurting people, or getting hurt again. Having a broken jaw really sucked. The thought I might put someone else in that position… so… yeah, I sell houses now. What do you do?’
I smile. He always did seem a little too sensitive to play such a violent sport.
‘I’m a journalist,’ I say, semi-proudly.
‘Oh, cool, who do you write for?’ he asks, sipping his coffee.
‘I’m actually between jobs right now,’ I admit. ‘But only as of this week. I didn’t like the scruples of the paper I was writing for so I’m venturing out in search of something a little more rewarding.’
‘A journalist with scruples is about as useful as a rugby player who is too scared to hurt anyone, surely?’ he says with a chuckle.
‘Perhaps,’ I reply. ‘But I’m going to see what I can find, take a bit of a break…’
He nods thoughtfully.
‘That’s the thing with us,’ he starts. ‘We’re too pure. We don’t want to hurt people – whether it’s with a high tackle or a few careless words in the paper.’
I smile at him. He still seems like that awkward kid who silently measured flour with me in year 9, but it’s hidden deep down inside. He’s got that confidence that comes with nothing other than growing up and leaving school. He has no trouble talking to women or… or sending them flowers? Is that why he’s brought me here today? To try and get back with me after seeing me on TV and realising I’m his one that got away? Perhaps he is still a little shy after all, I mean, whoever sent the flowers didn’t put a name on the card – was that intentional? Has he invited me to lunch to test the water and see if I’m interested? Am I interested? Maybe I should show him that I am, just a little… Just interested in seeing what he has to say, and if he really is the person I wasn’t supposed to let go.
With the flowers coming from someone in my past, I am growing increasingly convinced that my future might be in
their hands. It’s just simple course correction. One of my ex-boyfriends has clearly realised he was not supposed to depart my life when he did, and I’m starting to think it might be Kevin.
‘I always thought we’d get married,’ I say. No, I’m not being too full-on, before you go all Dinosaur Dave on me, I was a teenager when we got together, remember. ‘I suppose, just because you were my first boyfriend, and you always think you’re in love with your first and that you’re going to stay together forever, don’t you?’
‘I know what you mean,’ he replies, pausing briefly to bite his Chorley cake – a choice that hasn’t impressed me, it has to be said. You can tell a lot about people by what kind of baked goods they eat. ‘But I really do think that, when you know, you know. I knew. You just know, deep down, in your heart of hearts, if you should marry someone.’
‘You knew?’
‘I did,’ he says. ‘I knew 100 per cent.’
Wow, and Dinosaur Dave thought I was full-on.
‘I, erm—’
‘I think that’s why I asked so soon into our relationship,’ he says as he rummages around in his pocket.
Wait, what? He can’t be talking about me…
Kevin pulls out his phone and taps the screen a few times before holding it up in front of me. It’s a photo of a stunning blonde woman sitting on the grass with two beautiful small blonde children.
I glance between the phone and his left hand. He’s been wearing a wedding ring this whole time. I really need to start looking for wedding rings now that I’m in my thirties.
‘Oh, wow,’ I blurt. ‘Is that your wife and kids?’
It clearly is, I don’t exactly need confirmation. I don’t know what else to say while my brain processes this new information.
‘Yep,’ he says proudly. ‘June, my wife, and those two little angles are Annie and Bethany.’
‘They’re all gorgeous,’ I say. They really are.
‘What about you, do you have any kids?’
My Great Ex-Scape Page 3