The house was furnace hot. Julia slumped against the brown wallpaper in the hall, kicking off her stupid Superga Lexi-inspired trainers. The orange flowery carpet was scratchy under her bare feet.
She closed her eyes. This was a nightmare.
To think about it made her stomach clench. The look on Lexi’s face. Alicia’s. Hamish’s. It was all so humiliating. Not to mention the string of WhatsApps she’d read on Lexi’s phone.
She pulled her hair off her face and tied it up with an elastic band on the sideboard, yanking out the stupid white ribbon. Then she walked into the kitchen. The still air enveloping her like candy floss.
Charlie was sitting at the table.
‘Oh God, you gave me a shock!’ Julia said, hand on her heart, recovering her breath.
Charlie glanced up. ‘Me too,’ he said, flipping his phone over where all the messages were clear to see.
The room was boiling. Suffocating. Julia went over to the tap and poured herself a glass of water. ‘Charlie, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It was just stupid messages. They weren’t meant for the whole street.’ She looked at him with an expression that pleaded for camaraderie. For him to cringe at her humiliation rather than focus on the content of the WhatsApps.
But Charlie didn’t smile. His face was blank.
A big hairy bluebottle zigzagged around the kitchen.
Julia didn’t know what to say. She sipped her water.
Charlie was turning his phone over and over on its edges. Then he let it drop flat to the table. ‘So you want to have sex with Hamish Warrington down the playground alley?’
Julia rolled her eyes. ‘No I don’t. It was a dream!’
The fridge hummed in the background. The bluebottle thwacked against the window, the claustrophobic heat pulsed through the room.
Charlie scoffed. Then he shook his head, brown hair flopping over his forehead. He exhaled, deflated. ‘It’s so humiliating. Jesus.’
Julia came round to stand on his side of the counter. ‘I didn’t mean it, Charlie. The dream was just a metaphor.’
‘Oh right, yeah, for what?’ he asked, tipping his chair back from the table, leaning against the cracked plasterwork. ‘Your bored brain looking for excitement?’ he quoted Meryl. ‘Great metaphor, that makes it SO much better.’
Julia looked at the floor. At the dirt ingrained into the old linoleum.
Charlie scraped his hair back from his face, holding it there. They were both glistening with sweat. The bluebottle buzzed a circuit round the room.
Charlie flipped his chair upright so it landed on the floor with a whack. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m working in a job I hate. I have no money. I knew the house stuff was stressful. But I at least thought we were OK.’
‘We are OK,’ Julia said but it came out like her mouth was stuck with treacle. It wasn’t OK. She didn’t know what she wanted, but she wanted different to this: the seed catalogue that Charlie had finally unearthed from the clutter and was now going through with annoyed flicks, the bleakness of their house, the spreadsheet. She hated herself for wanting an extension like everyone else’s on the street, a jam-packed Instagram feed like Lexi’s, a job offer in Hong Kong. Anything. A taste of something new. Anything that would counter her low-level dissatisfaction with the normality of life.
Standing in the sweltering kitchen, she found herself almost begging, ‘Can you just put that seed catalogue away, Charlie, please!’
Charlie paused his flicking and frowned. He stared at her, incredulous that she had the audacity to be having a go at him right now. He slammed the catalogue shut and stood up. ‘I’m so sorry I’m not good enough for you,’ he said, pushing back his chair, then opening the back door added, ‘I need some air,’ and disappeared out into the garden where his tomatoes and man cave shed were waiting.
Julia stood where she was, feeling dreadful. She looked at her phone again, forced herself to face the WhatsApps. Across the street the party was still in full swing, music and BBQ smells infusing the hot air. How could Julia look anyone in the road in the eye ever again? Unsurprisingly the Cedar Lane group had no new messages. Disabling in its silence. There was nothing, not even a shocked face emoji from one of the other residents.
The fat bluebottle hit the bare overhead lightbulb and stunned itself, falling to the countertop.
Julia couldn’t stay in the house, the walls closing in on her, the thump of the party music shaking the floor, Charlie outside in his man cave. Grabbing her phone, keys and bag she pulled her trainers back on and jogged outside, out the front door into the oppressive, sweltering heat.