The exhibition. I asked if you might be up for it?
Shit. We did talk about it, on our train journey home from Cambridge. I’ve just forgotten because I didn’t go on this date in the original timeline. I was stuck at work until 10:00 p.m., entering my campaign failure into a spreadsheet and using up all the toilet roll.
“Sophie?” I look up abruptly. “Do you think we’re doing okay?”
“Oh, yes,” she confirms calmly, studying her screen and rotating her nose stud. “Should all be good. Campaign’s going to be fine. I wouldn’t worry.”
She says this as if public relations is both easy and quite a lot of fun, which is frankly bewildering.
Relieved, I type:
Of course! Your friend’s exhibition!
Can’t wait! Confirm location?
Then I glance at my watch, stand up and grab my green velvet jacket.
I’m suddenly really excited.
Admittedly, I’d ideally prefer a lot more time to mentally prepare and do the necessary research, but this also means I get to see Will again a whole two days early. We might be able to squeeze in two dates before the weekend, where previously there was only one. I’ve also recovered from my moral and ethical dilemma now: I was exhausted and postcoital, it was the middle of the night, and everyone knows epiphanies when you’ve just orgasmed don’t count.
My phone beeps with an attached location.
Great! See you in a bit! X
Beaming, I grab my bag and charge toward the door.
“Hey, Cassie?” Sophie looks up with her phone propped under her chin and puts her hand over the receiver. “There’s a call for you. Do you want to take it?”
I hesitate, stomach flipping, before remembering our genius plan. This is possibly the best PR career move of my entire life. I may never have to actually talk to a journalist ever again.
“No, thank you.” I wink. “Take a message and I’ll email them back tomorrow.”
“Sure thing.” Sophie smiles. “Going somewhere nice?”
“Just some animal photography exhibition in Shoreditch,” I say, straightening my jumpsuit collar, and I can literally hear the coupled-up smugness in my voice. I’ve heard it before in others, so many times, but never before in me. It’s delicious. No wonder people seem to enjoy rolling around in the smugness quite so much. “Then maybe out to dinner, I don’t know.”
Okay, now I’m just showing off. Strange how much easier it is to “open up” and “share” when the answer isn’t Going home to rearrange my books into chromatic order and then maybe sitting on my bed on my own, looking at paint chips.
“Sounds lovely.” Sophie beams. “You can tell me all about it tomorrow!”
I glance at Ronald’s rubber plant, suddenly triumphant: I no longer feel quite as replaceable as I once did.
“Yes.” I nod. “I think maybe I will.”
25
I’m early for our brand-new date, so I invest my time wisely.
This mainly consists of walking up and down the pavement outside, googling photographs of what it might look like inside and also trying to see through the window so I can prepare myself, mentally. When that doesn’t work, I resort to lingering by the front door and popping my head round every time anyone walks in or out, like a giant game of Mole Attack.
There’s still no sign of Will—he appears to be late, and thus it begins—so at six o’clock to the second, I venture inside.
If I were a god, this is close to what Olympus would look like. The room is a large, perfect square, and everything is spotless; the walls are white, the wood floors gleam, the lights are dim. From the ceiling beams hang hundreds of tiny fairy lights, giving the room the magical quality of a Christmas bauble, and real plants are scattered everywhere. Piano music plays, soft seats lie waiting, and there are four enormous white Greek-style pillars to make me feel even more at home.
Honestly, the only thing that ruins it is the fact that there are other humans in here, enjoying it all too.
On the upside, at least there are no small children.
Increasingly curious, I approach one of the photographs. It’s a gazelle, kicking a lioness in the stomach: the lioness is suspended in the air, shocked by the sheer audacity. Frowning, I move to the left. The second photo is a polar bear, peering at an iceberg through an abandoned camera lens. The third is a small gray owl, slipping off a branch. I peer a little more closely and my nostrils flare. I recognize that expression: it’s exactly how I look every time I fall off a ball in the middle of a meeting.
Hang on. Are all these photos meant to be funny?
A waiter approaches. “Mini quiche?”
“Is this a comedy exhibition?” I glance around again: people are chuckling and shaking their heads. There’s a monkey smacking himself in the face, and a seal waving; a giraffe photobombing an antelope. Evidence is certainly mounting. “Are these photos supposed to be hilarious?”
“Oh.” The waiter laughs. “Yeah. Obviously. Have you seen the one with the squirrel playing a flower like a flute? Tiny burger?”
I blink at the non sequitur, then glance at the tray he’s holding. As a general rule, I do not eat food that has been perambulated in public for hours like a grubby child around a park. Although I’m enormously grateful to the waiter. Thank goodness I found out the tone of this exhibition before Will arrived and I tried to earnestly analyze them all: that could have been really embarrassing.
Focusing harder now, I reject the miniature junk food and move to carefully assess a large brown bear sitting in a hammock. I suppose it’s funny because it wasn’t built for him but he’s using it anyway? Because we’re projecting human behavior onto an animal? I mainly feel sorry for him: he’s just trying to enjoy his hammock, and next thing he knows, there’s a human taking a photo so other humans can stand around and laugh at him for it.
I’m just moving on to a chipmunk scaring an eagle—that’s not funny at all, I bet it doesn’t end well—when I hear a familiar chuckle.
Frowning, I spin round and search the huge room again.
There’s another loud laugh, and I narrow my eyes: from just behind one of the huge white pillars, I spot a shoulder that looks suspiciously like a shoulder I’ve recently seen naked. Its owner laughs again and confirms my suspicion. Will. Has he been here the entire time? How did I not sense it? Even more surprisingly, does that mean he actually got here earlier than me?
Blimey. Maybe I’m traveling through time purely so that Will can finally learn to actually keep to it.
With a rush of giddy turquoise sweetness, I stride toward him.
Beaming, I veer round the corner.
My brain buckles.
“Cassie!” Will turns to me with a wide smile, then leans forward and kisses my cheek. He smells oaky and fernlike; his color is pale moss. “There you are! When did you get here? You should have texted! Isn’t this exhibition brilliant? I was just chatting to—”
“Diana.”
“Diana! What an excellent name!” The waiter approaches Will with mini quiches and Will grabs six with—as usual—no consideration at all for hygiene or the bacteria of strangers. He crams two in his mouth. “I was just telling Diana here that my good friend Sam took the photo with the polar bear. That’s actually my camera he’s peering through. We were shooting in the Arctic last year and I left it out while I grabbed a sandwich from the tent. I think the bear might actually be better at my job than I am.”
I turn to “Diana,” or whatever the hell she’s calling herself these days.
A high-pitched-kettle scream fills my head.
“Cassandra.” She glances at Will, then back at me, looking very nearly as disoriented as I feel. “I didn’t realize that you and...” She hesitates. “We actually know each other already. From a long time ago.”
“No way!” Will laughs and eats another quiche. “Small world! How?”
She looks at me. “We lived together, didn’t we, Cass.”
Her cheeks are pink and she’s cautious and fine-boned, but her gray eyes are bright like twenty-pence coins and she looks very bloody pleased with herself for having finally hunted me down.
“Flatmates?” Will continues to chew, apparently oblivious to the prickly red rash spreading up my neck and across my chest. “In Walthamstow? That was your last flat before your current one, wasn’t it, Cassie?”
I open my mouth and promptly shut it again.
“No, that definitely wasn’t me. I’m not a Londoner.” She laughs. “I was her first ever flat-share, as it happens.” She is watching my face carefully, poised slightly on the balls of her ballet-pumped feet. “It’s really good to finally see you again, Cass. How are you?”
I’m about to say roughly the same as I was when I saw you a few days ago, you total psycho, and then suddenly remember that she didn’t see me, because I never went home. For me, it’s been three days: for her, it’s still been years.
Will’s watching my face, so I carefully unstick my tongue.