If I Never Met You(105)
‘I wish I was as interested in your life as you are in mine.’
‘So do I,’ Michael said, as a very sudden, spiky way of declaring himself, a No Score Draw sensation. Laurie said nothing, marching past, leaving him standing, startled, by himself.
‘Bharat, Di,’ Laurie said, back at her desk, ‘I’m so sorry I lied to you. It had to be a strict policy of telling no one or it wouldn’t have worked. I was telling the truth later on; Jamie and I did end up together for real.’
‘Oh darling, I don’t care, I think it’s genius!’ Bharat said. ‘So bloody cool. You’re my wife from another life. And that Jerry Maguire shit you just pulled was BALLSY AS FUCK.’
Laurie flopped into her chair. At least she only had Monday and the morning of Christmas Eve to get through before the office closed at lunchtime for ten days for Christmas, and she’d not have to see any of the rest of her colleagues until the new year.
She hadn’t begun to mentally pick through the wreckage of what happened with Jamie.
How had it all gone wrong, so fast?
Bharat leaned over and patted her hand. ‘Don’t sweat it, Lozza. Some days you’re the dog, and other days you’re the bone.’
43
‘Lobster tacos,’ Emily said, studying the menu and speaking over a remix of Ed Sheeran: ‘Lobster tacos. Sometimes you feel we’ve strayed far from God’s light, don’t you? Why would you put lobster in a taco?’ She glanced around her. ‘Also making club versions of Ed Sheeran is like putting my dad in cargo shorts.’
They were in a bar-nightclub-restaurant that as per, Emily had nominated. There was neon squiggly writing above them declaring If The Music Is Too Loud You Are Too Old and bright leather banquettes and a framed Marilyn Monroe Warhol, and the kind of ‘graffiti is a valid artform’ murals that looked as if they’d let troubled teenagers design as part of a community rehabilitation project. Emily had proposed a last meet-up, to celebrate Monday being Christmas-Eve-Eve, with the caveat: ‘No fucking walking involved like last time, don’t even try.’
‘I am more upset at “Lil Chick Burgers” and “Lil Hot Links”, Laurie said. ‘I would rather forego sausages than ask for “Lil Hot Links”, and I don’t forego sausage lightly.’
‘We’re on to the Jamie situation already!’ Emily said.
‘Har har,’ Laurie said, rolling her eyes, with the tense, clenched up feeling she got when thinking about him.
He’d not contacted her since the fight, so that was clearly that. It confirmed her suspicions that he would now laser focus on re-employment, probably in the capital. She’d not contacted him, either, of course, so this was hypocritical. But what would she say?
She hadn’t thought she’d be another scorned woman left in Jamie Carter’s wake, but equally, no scorned women left in his wake thought that was who they’d become. That was how it happened.
Who was he, in the end? Had he been totally himself in the dark, when they were alone? The man who wore glasses and didn’t need glasses, who could be so generous and open and then so cold and hard, in that moment outside the office.
But mostly, Laurie had been studiously not thinking about Jamie. Doubt lingered, but doubt only caused more trauma. Better to forcibly banish doubt, and get on with the rest of her life.
Laurie explained the situation with Jamie, as much as she could. Referring back to Liverpool, and to her doubts over Eve. ‘I was at the quacks like a duck, walks like a duck point,’ Laurie said, sipping her wine. ‘He’s a duck. I’m OK, though. It’s OK.’
She wasn’t OK, obviously, but Emily was a good enough friend to know that it meant Laurie wanted to be treated as OK.
‘You think he did sleep with this boss’s niece? I mean she was clearly pissed at being used by him, to do what she did?’ Emily said and Laurie winced anew.
‘… I don’t know. Maybe?’ She played it as not caring much, while it turned her intestines into a reef knot.
‘Mmm,’ Emily tapped her paper straw against her mouth thoughtfully. ‘Although, although …’
‘Oh God, what!’ Laurie said.
‘No, I think you did the right thing. One strike, out. It’s just …’
‘What?’
‘It’s not mutually exclusive, is it? He could have been a person who did those things, and then fallen for you for real, later? I don’t know.’
Laurie shook her head.
‘It’s like you said. This isn’t what I need. Also no one can change anyone’s character. No love of a good woman can fix a bad man. It’s you who told me this!’
Despite saying this, Laurie couldn’t accept Jamie was a bad man, not yet. But that was due to attachment hormones still swirling through the body. She imagined that final realisation would arrive with a jolt, when a tale of his misdeeds got filtered back to her via the usual channels at Salter’s. Like reconciling herself to Dan and his affair: your mind has to start the process, and your heart will follow.
‘I know, I know. It’s a shame but at least you got a sensational rumping out of it. By the way, warning, Nadia may be what I believe she calls “ornery”,’ Emily said, ‘She’s been thrown out of her sister’s book group. Ah, here she is now.’