My Great Ex-Scape

by MacIntosh, Portia

  ‘Thanks, everyone, thank you,’ Josh tells his applauding audience in that faux-Canadian accent I have missed more than I ever thought I would. ‘I can see a few faces I think I might have seen before, a few of my favourite fans sitting in the audience who I think know that I’m about to see if anyone wants to dance with me… but what none of you will know, and I’m sad to tell you, is that this is my last voyage singing on the ship.’

  A few gasps echo around the room.

  ‘I know, you’re all gonna miss me, but I’m sure someone even better will be taking my place and, tonight, the show must go on, so…’

  Josh takes a moment to compose himself.

  ‘So, this next song is called “Save The Last Dance For Me”. For the instrumental, I like to select a lovely lady from the audience for a twirl on the dance floor. So, for the last time, if you fancy a dance…’

  As always, the regulars (different regulars to last time, I suppose) and lots of other eager women make their way to the dance floor, some bring their husbands – I imagine to dance with, rather than to swap for the next best thing to the real Michael Bublé.

  Josh reaches that point in the song where he hops down from the stage, ready to find a lucky lady to dance with him.

  ‘Ready to take the leap?’ Eli asks me.

  ‘Shove me like you love me,’ I demand.

  I feel that force behind me again, that well-intentioned shove by my best friend, sending me flying into the arms of the man I’m supposed to be with.

  The last time this happened, ever the professional, Josh barely acknowledged that he recognised me, so much so that I did wonder if there was a chance he might not have. This time though… this time he catches me in his arms, but instead of dancing with me he just stares at me. This is not how I wanted this to go at all.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper to him.

  After a few seconds of staring at me, Josh snaps back into action, being his usually bubble Bublé self, dancing with me like he’s supposed to. He’s so professional, almost too professional. I don’t feel like he’s connecting with me, I just feel like a part of his set. He lets go of me as soon as he can before hopping back onto the stage to finish the song.

  I slink back over to Eli.

  ‘I’m not sure that went well,’ I tell him.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Eli says. ‘You know how professional he is, he’s probably just playing things by the book, sticking to the script.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Josh tells the crowd. ‘Now it’s time for “It’s a Beautiful Day” – actually, no, just a second.’

  Josh turns to his backing band before stepping back up to his microphone.

  ‘Tell you what, we’re going to do something a little different, this is “Cry Me a River”,’ he says.

  ‘You were saying…’ I say to Eli. ‘That isn’t just going off script, that has to be a blatant dig at me, right?’

  ‘I mean…’

  ‘Oh, come on, Eli, you don’t have to sugarcoat it – “Cry Me a River”? Just listen to the lyrics. This is the song you sing to a grovelling ex who comes crawling back into your life after fucking you over. It’s the song that tells them to take a hike.’

  ‘Who knew Michael Bublé music could do so much?’ Eli marvels. ‘Amazing.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, he’s a modern-day Sinatra,’ I reply. ‘Can we just get out of here please?’

  ‘Sure,’ he replies.

  We leave just as shiftily as we arrived, only this time failure follows me out the door.

  ‘I really thought that was going to work,’ Eli says. ‘Like a fresh start.’

  ‘Me too,’ I say. ‘At least that was the plan. How many chances do people get though?’

  ‘Two,’ Eli tells me. ‘Everyone gets a second chance. You’ve given us all a second chance. Me, Josh, even that tool Simon, who isn’t actually that sexy now you’ve shown me him with that stupid hair.’

  ‘Thanks, buddy,’ I say. ‘You always say the right things.’

  What Eli is saying might sound good, but I’m not sure he’s right about this one. Well, he’s right about Simon’s hair – now that I’ve had time to process it, I can confirm that only Chris Hemsworth should have hair like Chris Hemsworth – but not about Josh. There’s no way he’s going to give me a second chance, and now I have to spend seven days at sea with him. So much for taking a leap, all I want to do is leap off the side of the ship and head back to New York.

  35

  ‘That screen is the single most depressing thing on this ship,’ Eli says. ‘And I ate dinner next to a chair intended for a man who died.’

  ‘It’s supposed to make the room seem bigger or better or less claustrophobic or something,’ I say.

  I’m lying on a double bed with Eli next to me, staring at our virtual balcony.

  ‘I hate it too,’ I tell him.

  ‘Oh, how the mighty have fallen,’ Eli says. ‘Suite today, gone tomorrow. I hope I’m never poor again.’

  ‘Easy come, easy go,’ I say. ‘My prize money wasn’t much; I need to be careful with what is left.’

  ‘I would have booked us a suite,’ he says.

  ‘I know, that’s why I didn’t tell you I was booking this,’ I tell him.

  Eli lies flat on his back.

  ‘I feel like I’m in the ocean,’ he points out. ‘Like I’m Rose, on that door, floating on the water. I can feel every movement.’

  ‘That’s because we’re in the cheap seats, buddy. God, you’ve changed.’

  ‘I haven’t changed, I’ve just… upgraded,’ he reasons. ‘I’d sleep in the boiler room for you.’

  ‘Are you making Titanic references to cheer me up?’ I ask him with a smile.

  ‘Maybe,’ he replies. ‘Reckon we could watch it on that screen instead of staring at a black wall? It wasn’t so bad during the day, but, God, at night, it’s just nothing.’

  ‘So was our actual balcony,’ I remind him.

  ‘But it was real, in a big room’ he counters.

  ‘And how would we watch movies on a vertical screen?’

  ‘We can lie on our sides?’ he suggests. ‘Or just wait for this thing to go full Poseidon Adventure like Colin warned.’

  ‘I’m not sure Colin knew what he was talking about,’ I point out. ‘I’d probably just watch something on your laptop.’

  Eli snatches it up from next to the bed and fires up Netflix.

  ‘Have you been watching weird stuff on my Netflix account?’ he asks me accusingly.

  ‘You said I could use it,’ I remind him.

  ‘I did, but not for weird stuff. If I ever make a mistake or I’m wrongly accused of a crime, someone at The Daily Scoop is going to publish a list of all the weird shit I supposedly watched on Netflix and it’s going to make me look guilty.’

  ‘I reckon you will be guilty,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve been to your apartment; it couldn’t be more Patrick Bateman unless you had newspaper on the floor and an axe in your hand.’

  ‘Why do I take that as a compliment?’ he asks me with a smile.

  ‘Because… I rest my case.’

  There’s a knock at the door.

  ‘Fuck, that’s it, they’ve come to tell us we’re sinking,’ Eli jokes – at least I think he’s joking.

  ‘I imagine they would have a more modern system than knocking on the door,’ I tell him as I hop up to answer it. ‘Oh, hi,’ I say.

  ‘Who is it?’ Eli calls.

  ‘Come in,’ I say, stepping to one side for André.

  Eli is lying flat on the bed, his laptop on his tummy. He looks up without moving anything but his eyeballs. As soon as he sees that it is André he jumps to his feet.

  ‘Oh, hey, hi, hello,’ he babbles. ‘I was going to come and find you tomorrow – I’m not stalking you, she’s stalking Josh.’

  ‘You’re always so quick to throw me under the bus when men are involved,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll leave you guys to chat.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Eli says. ‘You stay here, w
e’ll go.’

  ‘Actually, there’s someone waiting outside who wants a word with you,’ André says to me, nodding towards the door.

  ‘Oh, OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll head out then. Eli, you can stay here, look out of the balcony.’

  ‘I should have Rock, Paper, Scissors’d you for it,’ he calls after me. ‘Have fun, you’ll be fine.’

  Outside in the corridor, Josh is waiting for me, still in his fake Bublé get-up.

  ‘You want to go and get a cup of tea?’ he asks me.

  ‘Sure,’ I reply.

  We walk in awkward silence for a few steps before both clumsily trying to break it at the same time.

  ‘Sorry, you go first,’ he insists.

  ‘I was just saying, I have a virtual balcony this time,’ I tell him. It seems like a stupid thing to say now. ‘You were right, they’re kind of dumb, nothing like the real thing.’

  ‘The real thing is always better,’ he says. ‘That’s another reason I wanted to give up this gig. I’ll only ever be the virtual balcony equivalent of the real Michael Bublé. It’s one of a bunch of reasons I wanted to give it up… I’m sorry that you weren’t one of them, but you kind of were. I knew that I didn’t want this life any more, I missed having someone, I missed having you, but I didn’t think I’d ever get to see you again…’

  I don’t think Josh was expecting to get into it with me so quickly, but it’s just pouring out of him.

  ‘It was stupid of me to expect anything from you,’ I tell him. ‘You’d already given up your job, how were you supposed to go back in time and give it up for me? And I would never ask you to.’

  ‘I know,’ he says. ‘Leaving you was one of the hardest things I have ever done because, the more you encouraged me to leave, the more I wanted to stay with you.’

  ‘Let’s not get caught up in the past,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve spent a lot of time down memory lane recently and I don’t like it.’

  ‘OK,’ he says as we approach the ship’s twenty-four-hour cafe. ‘But I just want you to know that when I came to see you the other night, I had no intentions. I didn’t even consider anything happening between us, and when it did, it didn’t even cross my mind that we would pick up where we left off.’

  ‘I realise that now,’ I say. ‘At the time, I think it just made me so mad, to think that was what you were thinking; it just made me want a bit of space.’

  ‘Tea?’ Josh asks.

  ‘Yes please,’ I say.

  I find us a seat in a cosy corner while Josh gets our drinks. He soon catches up with me, with two teacups in hand.

  ‘How was New York?’ he asks curiously.

  ‘Well, I understand what a “New York minute” is now,’ I tell him. ‘I wasn’t there for very long, before I realised I needed to chase after you. And I know that we’re heading in the same direction, I was just supposed to be a few days behind you, but I couldn’t wait. I needed to take a leap, make a big gesture. And look how well that went.’

  Josh smiles.

  ‘“Cry Me a River”? Seriously?’ I say.

  ‘I was just playing hard to get,’ he replies. ‘But, seriously, I think I was upset that you bailed on me when things were seeming great again, I was hurt, then you were back and I suppose, like you, I was just being stubborn.’

  ‘Can we just forget the past, please? It doesn’t matter what happened years ago and who should have said or done what. Lord knows, I replay the past in my mind all the time – wondering how I could have said things differently or acted differently in certain situations. I’m here now because I didn’t want you to be the thing I kick myself over in five years’ time, every time I close my eyes to try and sleep.’

  ‘I appreciate the big gesture,’ he replies. ‘Did you see Simon?’

  ‘I did. He’s still a major douchebag – perhaps an even bigger one. He finally confessed to cheating on me though. Do you know what? I feel lighter for hearing it.’

  ‘Well that’s good,’ he says.

  ‘Yep,’ I reply.

  Things go a little quiet again.

  ‘I know you were saying that you didn’t expect things to go back to how they were, but you know you said you were moving back in with your mum? Well, I’m moving back in with my parents too, so it really will be like old times.’

  ‘Wow, that is weird,’ he says. ‘It’s like we’re both going back to square one.’

  ‘Sometimes I think you need to,’ I reply. ‘Eli has got me a new job, so I’m excited to start that.’

  ‘We swapped details before you guys left the first time, he said he would help me find a new singing gig – better than the job I’ve lined up for myself singing at a hotel in Manchester a few nights a week. He told me he had dated someone from Universal Music who he could get to listen to my original stuff, but I don’t know if that was just a ploy to keep us in touch via him?’

  ‘Or just so that he could have your number,’ I joke. ‘But, no, that sounds like my Eli. It would be so like him to date a record exec, and he’s so, so generous. He just wants to help the people he cares about.’

  ‘I don’t know him all that well, but I suppose it does sound just like him,’ Josh says with a smile.

  I sigh. ‘What a mess, huh?’

  ‘We’re cleaning it up,’ he points out. ‘So… what now?’

  ‘I could hit you with a line I heard somewhere… I love you, I should have never let you go; I want you back – did you send me those flowers?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he says. ‘Honestly, I didn’t.’

  ‘Damn, no one will own up to them,’ I reply. ‘Anyway… I could say that to you… but that would be such a movie ending, wouldn’t it? We’re not at the end, we’re right back at the beginning. Why don’t we hang out and just… see what happens? That way there is no pressure on anyone. If anyone wants to take any jobs on the other side of the world, no big deal, no one was expecting otherwise.’

  ‘If that’s what you want, that’s fine by me. I’m not taking any more jobs abroad, it’s not what I want. But I don’t need to tell you, I need to show you.’

  ‘OK,’ I say with a smile.

  ‘Now would be a really good time to sing “Home”,’ he points out.

  ‘Please don’t,’ I say with a laugh.

  ‘OK… can I kiss you then?’

  ‘Definitely,’ I reply.

  And just like that, we have our new first kiss, in the corner of an otherwise empty café on a cruise ship, somewhere in the Atlantic.

  ‘Listen, I don’t want to sound presumptuous,’ I start when we eventually pull apart. ‘But can I sleep with you tonight? I’m pretty sure Eli and André will be destroying my cabin. Honestly, without the threat of falling over a real balcony, I dread to think about what they’ll be doing.’

  ‘There’s an urban legend about someone falling over their balcony,’ Josh starts.

  ‘Oh, God, I’ve heard it.’

  ‘All the more reason I can’t wait to get back on dry land,’ he jokes. ‘And, yes, you can stay with me tonight.’

  Josh wraps an arm around me, so I cuddle up into him and rest my head on his chest.

  It was such a rush, to book a cabin to travel back in, but the second I did it, I started to feel anxious about another seven days at sea. Now that I’m with Josh, I don’t mind it at all. I get to spend a week properly enjoying the cruise, sort of like a do-over, and then Josh and I get to do the same once we’re back home, no expectations, no old scores to settle, just starting again and seeing what happens. And I can’t wait to find out what does.

  36

  People normally feel blue when they get back from holiday, don’t they? Transitioning from relaxing, fun, exciting days, back to the boring day-to-day of life. For me, I’m kind of glad that my holiday is over, because all I want to do is get on with my fresh start.

  I don’t mind that I’m heading back to my flat alone, because it’s only to pack my things. I know that I have a cool new job waiting for me, so I’m not worrying about
going back to work. I have Eli now, who is even better than the best friend I always dreamed of having. And then there’s Josh… Josh who I am just going to see how things go with, but who I cannot wait to spend more time with. We’re not picking up where we left off, we’re going back to where we started. Maybe we can get it right this time around? I really hope so.

  The first thing I notice as I approach my flat door is the dead bunch of flowers sitting on the doormat waiting for me. They were beautiful – I imagine. They’re all brown and dried up now. They must have been here since, well, maybe a day or two after the last bunch arrived.

  I pick them up and take them inside with me, placing them down next to the other bunch, which are also dead. They’re similar-looking bunches, which makes me think they came from the same place.

  I take out the card and see what it says.

  ‘Thanks for giving me a second chance. I love you.’

  My eyes widen as I read the words. These flowers obviously arrived weeks ago, so… they were never meant for me? It seems like someone has been sending flowers to the wrong address and whoever the first bunch was for took the sender back, so they sent a follow-up bunch, which also came to me in error…

  Have I been running around on a wild goose chase, stalking my exes, putting myself in excruciatingly embarrassing circumstances, all because of a bunch of flowers that I received by accident?

  I mean, it’s a good accident, I suppose. If they hadn’t come to me, I wouldn’t have looked up Josh, or Eli for that matter, and I wouldn’t be in the amazing situation I’m in now.

  Oh, no, don’t give me that, this isn’t fate, or the universe or any of that nonsense. These flowers weren’t sent to me in a magical act of course correction. And it isn’t me finally having good luck either. Just an incredible coincidence that got my life back on the right track.