After being yanked out of yet another episode of deep contemplation by a snap of Chrissie’s fingers, I eventually answered, “I have no idea and I don’t care. It’s nobody’s business who he sleeps with.”
“Need an ice pack? For that nerve I touched?”
Huffing, I rolled my eyes so hard I think I saw my brain. “The wine’s catching up with me, that’s all. Wasn’t such a great idea two nights on the bounce.”
What looked like guilt tugged on her perfectly plucked brows. Shuffling to the edge of the settee, she started gathering the photos and pieces of paper and stuffed them back into the shoebox. “Come ‘ere,” she said, arms out, inviting me into a hug. “Fuck Hugo. Fuck men. Grab the blanket, we’ll get back to shite TV and real friends. Deal?”
My lips curled effortlessly into a smile as I walked over, collapsed onto her knee and hugged the crap out of her. It felt like a milestone in our friendship, in my own development. I’d reserved myself for a friend I’d lost for too long. Time to move on. Make my own dreams come true.
“Chrissie?” I whispered into her shoulder, half hoping I hadn’t crushed her tiny frame to death.
“Mmhmm?”
“I’m gonna quit my job.”
She pushed me forwards, almost tossing me onto the floor. “What?”
Saving myself on the arm of the settee, I hitched myself off her knee and onto the cushions. “I want to design full time. Sell my clothes. Break into the industry, properly. It’s what I studied for, what I’ve dreamed of since I was a child. I didn’t spend all that time at university, not to mention the debt it put me in, so I could knock up the odd piece in my spare time to sell on Etsy.”
“Wow. You sound like you’ve really thought about this.”
“I have. Literally two minutes ago. Since my mum died, I’ve got all this money sitting in the bank doing nothing while I work for a boss I hate, selling goddamn insurance. I could use that money for start-up. I could open premises somewhere. Fuck it, I’m gonna quit. Right now.” I stood up, started scanning the room, fishing through the settee cushions. “Where’s my phone?”
Chrissie stood up with me. “Now? Helen, no. This is the drink talking. I can’t let you do-”
“Got it!” I said, retrieving the phone from beneath the blanket. My face unlocked the screen and I opened my emails. There was one from my boss sitting right at the top, so I just replied to that one.
“Hel, stop. Seriously,” Chrissie pleaded. It was hard to take her seriously when her demands were wrapped in laughter. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. What am I gonna say when I walk in there on Monday?”
I shrugged, carried on typing. “Pretend you don’t know me, or I was your pity friend.”
Dear Steve,
I’m writing to offer my resignation. Please accept this email as my two weeks notice, effective immediately.
“Regards?” I queried. “Yours Sincerely? Fuck you very much?”
Chrissie snorted. “I’d go with the first one.”
Regards, Helen Jenkins
“Message sent.”
Lowering the phone, I looked up, let out a long breath. I nodded confidently, paced in a circle a couple of times. Then, my stomach began to tingle. My gaze flitted to Chrissie and, as it did, I felt the colour drain from my face. “I think…Oh, shit I’m gonna throw up.”
She was on my tail faster than a whippet on acid. “Operation Bathroom: go, go go.”
I woke up the next day on the settee, my feet pressed into Chrissie’s shoulder, toes frozen as they poked out of the blanket. I felt stiffness in my neck and pain in my head, and I had aches in muscles I didn’t know existed in the human body. The worst had yet to come, however, as a moment later, I remembered…
I was unem-fucking-ployed.
“Oh, shit.”
Four
Hugo
Before I entered the house, I took a minute to face the sky and inhale the scents of nature swirling through the fresh air. It always calmed me, the damp soil from the sprinklers, the sweetness from the flowers. Here, safely beyond the locked gates at the end of my estate, it almost felt like I was free.
Inside, I keyed in the alarm code and tossed my phone and keys on the glass table nestled beneath a six-foot oil-on-canvas portrait of the legendary Freddie Mercury. It felt good to be back, alone at last. I loved what I did, being in the studio, creating music, expressing myself, but I needed my own space. Always had. I couldn’t ‘people’ for long, couldn’t handle expectations, process others’ wants and needs. It was a strange thing, my brain. It didn’t cope well around others, and yet, people fascinated me. I found their lives and stories intriguing. I studied their interactions, tried to learn from them, watched the way they moved and responded to one another.