Before I Do(69)
Over the course of the weekend, it became clear that Josh and Jay were never going to be great friends, a source of acute disappointment for Audrey and Clara. It was like trying to get Batman to be friends with the Joker, or Kim Kardashian with Taylor Swift. It just wasn’t going to happen.
On Sunday, as they were about to leave, the atmosphere grew taut as Jay announced he was going to abandon his tent in the field.
“You can’t just leave it here,” Josh said.
“Our tickets cover the cost of people collecting up rubbish at the end. They recycle everything,” said Jay, clearly too hungover to have this conversation, let alone pack up a tent.
“I don’t think that’s true, and you still shouldn’t leave your shit for other people to clear up.”
Josh was usually so polite and amenable; Audrey could see this was the culmination of a weekend of biting his tongue. Audrey and Clara ended up dismantling Jay’s tent as the two men argued.
On the car ride home, they stopped at a gas station and Audrey nipped into the garage to pay. Josh followed her in, venting as he paced back and forth in the deli aisle.
“He is just the worst kind of liberal bullshitter. He says he’s voting for the Greens, then in the same sentence complains about the cost of the airfare to get to Burning Man!”
Audrey tried to be sympathetic. She knew Jay had plenty of opinions that couldn’t be examined too closely, but he didn’t take himself too seriously, and his heart was usually in the right place.
“Look, that’s just Jay. Sure, he’s not always right, but he’s good fun and . . . and he’s married to my best friend.”
Josh sighed, rubbing his face with the palms of his hands. “I’m sorry, I know he’s your friend. It’s just that the world is full of people like him, people who think they have all the answers after scrolling through one article on their phone.”
“I know.” Audrey leaned in to kiss him. “Come on, it’s only two hours back to London, and then it will be just you and me again.”
Their relationship felt so easy when it was just the two of them, and Audrey relished the newfound joy of simply having someone to share her life with. She loved weekends spent at his place. They would cook together; Josh always followed a recipe, while she improvised with whatever ingredients she could find in the cupboard. She hung framed prints of her most colorful photos to brighten up his empty white walls. She loved evenings spent lying on the sofa watching rom-coms, while Josh rubbed her feet and pretended to read The Economist rather than watch the film. Together, they wallowed in their glorious little universe of two. But when they were out in the world together, around other people, Audrey sometimes wondered if they weren’t pieces from two different puzzles. Perhaps they didn’t quite fit.
* * *
And it was no easier for Audrey with Josh’s friends. One Saturday morning a few weeks after the disastrous music festival, Josh invited her to join him on one of his reforesting expeditions. Audrey had no idea what she should wear to plant trees. It was a damp day, and she knew she might get cold, so she wore the warmest things she owned—salopettes and a ski jacket.
“Are we reforesting the Alps?” Josh asked her with a quizzical smile.
“I didn’t want to be cold. Do I look ridiculous? Shall I change?”
“No, you look perfect,” he said, hugging her into him. “Just looking at you makes me want fondue.”
They met up with the other volunteers at a community park in Finchley. The plan was to plant out a whole bank of saplings. Everyone seemed friendly enough, but there wasn’t much opportunity for chitchat. It was hard work, really hard work, and Audrey only managed to dig one hole in the time it took everyone else to dig five. Her hands hurt, her toes were cold, and she concluded pretty quickly that this wasn’t her idea of fun.
When she finally had a hole big enough to plant a small tree, Josh took a photo of her standing next to it and wrote her name on the support stake. As soon as Josh was out of earshot, a woman called Sharla said under her breath, “Got the Instagram shot, then.”
Sharla clearly had no idea, because Audrey wasn’t even on Instagram, and if she had been, there was no way she would have been posting pictures of herself looking like a drowned rat, planting trees in a muddy field. After attempting a little more digging, Audrey offered to nip to a nearby coffee shop to buy everyone a coffee. She soon sensed this was not the thing to do, as everyone politely declined and pulled out their eco-friendly thermoses.
The lowest point of the day came when Audrey discovered the toilet facilities consisted of a Portaloo and some hand sanitizer. White salopettes and a muddy Portaloo were not a good combination. Maybe she would leave the tree planting to Josh. You didn’t need to enjoy the same hobbies as your boyfriend, did you?
* * *
Audrey didn’t gel with Josh’s Cambridge friends either. They all had impressive jobs—lawyers or doctors or CEOs for some tech start-up. They talked about politics and macroeconomics, and in truth, Audrey found their erudite conversations intimidating. There was always a pause when she said that she didn’t have a degree, or when she told them she was currently working in a gallery or a pub or as a dog walker. The pause was barely discernible, quickly plastered over with an overenthusiastic smile, but Audrey was keenly aware that it was there.