Order of importance: I texted the group chat to tell the girls, then I called Rowan. He was supportive and delighted – ‘Jesus, Edi, that’s amazing!’ – but not enough to immediately take me out to celebrate – ‘I’m shit, I know, but I’ve got stuff tonight that I can’t get out of. This weekend though?’ – which I tried to be understanding of. In fact, I tried so hard to be understanding that I managed to convince myself it really was fine (even though it really wasn’t) and instead of doing anything to mark this drastic change in my career (super drastic, some might say), I just got myself together and went home. Alone. I landed heavy on the sofa that evening with a sigh and decided the least I could do was order myself a takeaway. I was a click away from Just Eat when the phone hummed alive in my hand: Fred.
‘Hi,’ I answered, ‘this is a nice surprise.’
‘Got a second to talk?’ She sounded light, happy. It was infectious. ‘I wasn’t sure if …’
‘Not at all. I’m alone and all ears. What’s going on?’
‘I had good news and I wanted to share it.’ A heat spread across my abdomen and I found myself smiling like a desperate teenager; it was a look Fred brought out in me quite often. ‘I’ve had confirmation of an exhibit, Edi. Like, of my work in an actual gallery.’ Her excitement mounted the more she added – ‘They’re confirming details, and then, Christ then …’. I felt a shared excitement for her. I was on the edge of my seat by the time she’d finished. ‘Isn’t that bloody brilliant?’
‘Yes, God, absolutely. Congratulations.’ I decided to tell her, then. ‘This is serendipity.’
‘You have news?’
‘Promotion.’ My smile inched a little wider when I heard her gasp. ‘Training courses, pick of managerial modules, head of multiple teams.’
‘Okay, how are we celebrating?’ she asked, her voice full of happy jitters. But then she sank a little and said, ‘I’m an idiot. You’ll be with people.’
I assumed she meant Rowan. I’d done my utmost not to be the woman-moaning-about-her-partner-while-having-an-affair. It was a tired role. But from Fred’s facial shifts whenever he came up in conversation, I knew she had thoughts on it all. In the interest of holding everything together as it was for a little while longer, I used my best breezy voice and said, ‘He’s actually working tonight.’
There was a long pause. ‘I’ll be downstairs in thirty minutes.’
*
The bar was heaving with people. It had taken Fred so long to order two glasses of wine that by the time she’d elbowed her way to the front of the queue for the bar, I’d seen her change tactic and order a bottle instead. I’d been perched in a dimly lit corner on a high stool, leaning awkwardly on the table next to me and trying to pretend that this atmosphere, on a date night, felt normal. Mine and Rowan’s date nights had long ago devolved into dinners at home and films on Netflix; the girls were more likely to take me to a bar. But Fred had suggested celebratory drinks, and I was too excited in her company not to go along with the idea.
She bumped her way through the swaying bodies, set two glasses on the table and leaned in to kiss my cheek before sitting down herself.
‘To us,’ she said, when our glasses were half-full. ‘For being beautiful and successful.’
I laughed. ‘I’ll toast to successful.’
‘Edi …’ She paused to take a mouthful. ‘Why do you do that?’
‘Do what?’
‘Put your appearance down all the time.’
I’d never been called out on it by a love interest before. I’d never had a love interest before, apart from Rowan, I thought but then I shook the idea away. The girls had always told me I was beautiful. But that’s literally in the job description of being a good friend. Molly could arrive pockmarked with a PMS break-out and her hair half-curled from three days ago and I would have told her she looked beautiful; I would have done the same for any of them.
I shrugged. ‘I just don’t think I’m all that special.’
‘So …’ She lingered, looked at her glass. ‘Why should I have sex with you, if you aren’t all that special?’ My eyes stretched and she laughed. ‘I’m not asking you to actually explain why I should have sex with you. I already know why I should have sex with you. But why do you think it?’
‘My quick wit and sparkly personality.’ I used the flattest tone I could manage. ‘I’m a fucking delight to be around.’
She laughed again and then hopped off her stool. Her stomach was close enough to brush against my knees when she stopped in front of me. ‘This okay?’ She gestured to the proximity and I nodded. ‘Good, so, walk me through this. Rowan, and yes, I’m going to talk about Rowan.’ I felt a flare of nerves but I also didn’t want to stop whatever was coming. ‘He’s never called you out for putting yourself down the way you do?’
I thought. ‘Well, yes. He tells me I shouldn’t.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘How does he tell you?’
He usually tuts and tells me to stop. I sighed. ‘Is there a right answer to this?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay, well, I have a weird feeling I’m going to say the wrong one.’
Fred smirked. Her head dipped slightly, and her hair fell forward, and the whole movement made me want to kiss her. But I didn’t have the time. She came to stand alongside me instead, draped an arm around my shoulders in a display that could have looked like friendship, and with her free arm she made a sweeping gesture in the direction of the room.
‘Pick someone.’
‘I’m sorry?’ I craned to look at her expression, but she was staring into the crowd.
‘Pick someone who you find attractive.’
It was hard to pick out anyone at all, between the mass (mess?) of people and the deliberately dim lighting that set the mood of the place. There was one man, though, who stepped aside to let a woman walk ahead of him. Manners, apparently that’s what I find attractive. But rather than admit that aloud to the outrageously beautiful woman who was still touching me, I kept looking. After an uncomfortable length of time, I finally pointed to someone: a man around my age, dark hair that was faded into a longer cut on top; he was wearing black jeans and a T-shirt under a blazer, smart but not too smart.
‘Him,’ I said, and then dropped my arm quickly in case he turned.
Fred tilted her head one side then the other. ‘Okay. Let’s say I buy it. Go and talk to him.’ She ushered me from my seat as she spoke. ‘Say hi, ask him to dance.’
‘Are you mad?’ I turned around to face her, then, my back to the crowd. ‘Why?’
‘Because you find him attractive, and we’re in a bar.’ She made it sound like the most obvious explanation in the world. ‘Why wouldn’t you talk to him?’
‘I mean, to start with he’s a solid eight and I’m definitely a four in the right ligh—’ She cut me off mid-word with a kiss. And I didn’t care who could see. When she pulled away my mouth stretched into a smile. ‘What was that for?’
‘I sensed you were about to say something you shouldn’t.’ She kissed me again, but only quickly. ‘You’re a goddamn ten, Edi, and, frankly, I don’t think you’ve made the most of this open relationship deal. If Rowan is out there doing …’ She waved the end of the sentence away. ‘Do you know what, arses to him. It genuinely does not matter what Rowan is out there doing. It matters what you’re doing, how you’re playing this.’ She turned me around with an urgency to face the crowd. When she spoke again, I could feel the heat of her breath just under my ear and it was doing terribly distracting things to me. ‘Now, pick a woman.’
I laughed. ‘Why a woman?’
‘Why not a woman, Edi?’ She reached across the table to grab her glass, but stayed behind me still. ‘Why not anyone at all in this room?’
‘Did you do this?’
‘What?’ she asked and took another sip.
‘Experiment.’
‘Once upon a time. But I’ve never been with a man if that’s where this is going.’
‘So, why should I be with a woman?’
‘Because you might want to be? Because you can be?’
‘Why do you think I need this, Fred?’ I felt myself getting defensive, as though this were a mangled rerun of the car-crash conversation with Rowan that started all of this. There was the same confused knot in my stomach, rising part-way to my throat. ‘Wait,’ I started, an uncomfortable worry rising, ‘are you trying to get rid of me?’
‘Oh …’ Another kiss, but this time on the cheek. ‘Make no mistake, Edi, I am taking you home tonight. But you don’t want me permanently.’
‘Why?’
‘Edi, come on. Who actually ends up with the first person they have sex with?’ She slammed her palm to her forehead as soon as the question was out. It was the first time across several dates that I’d seen Fred flush in the cheeks, with what I guessed was embarrassment. ‘That wasn’t … I didn’t …’
I kissed her, then, to ease her floundering. ‘It’s okay,’ I replied, and it was. Because even though the question should have hurt, somehow it didn’t. It only felt a little like being told something that I already knew.