Twenties Girl 68

I can’t help sliding into a fantasy about Sadie coming across a poem scrawled on some cast-aside piece of paper. Something really simple and direct, just like Josh himself.

It Was All A Mistake

God, I miss you, Lara.

I love your-

I can’t think of anything to rhyme with Lara.

“Wake up! Lara?” I jump and open my eyes to see Sadie in front of me again.

“Did you find something?” I gasp.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I did!” Sadie looks triumphant. “Something rather interesting and extremely relevant.”

“Oh my God. What?” I can hardly breathe as tantalizing possibilities flash through my mind. A photo of me under his pillow… a diary entry resolving to get back in touch with me-

“He’s having lunch with another girl on Saturday.”

“What?” All my fantasies melt away. I stare at her, stricken. “What do you mean, he’s having lunch with another girl?”

“There was a memorandum pinned up in the kitchen: twelve-thirty lunch with Marie.”

I don’t know anyone called Marie. Josh doesn’t know anyone called Marie.

“Who’s Marie?” I can’t contain my agitation. “Who’s Marie?”

Sadie shrugs. “His new girlfriend?”

“Don’t say that!” I cry in horror. “He hasn’t got a new girlfriend! He wouldn’t have! He said there wasn’t anyone else! He said…”

I trail off, my heart thumping. It never even occurred to me that Josh might be seeing another girl already. It never even crossed my mind.

In his breakup email, he said he wasn’t going to rush into anything new. He said he had to take time out to think about his whole life . Well, he hasn’t thought for very long, has he? If I was going to think about my whole life, I’d take ages longer than six weeks. I’d take… a year! At least! Maybe two or three.

Boys treat thinking like sex. They think it takes twenty minutes and then you’re done and there’s no point talking about it. They have no idea .

“Did it say where they’re having lunch?”

Sadie nods. “Bistro Martin.”

“Bistro Martin?” I think I’m going to hyperventilate. “That’s where we had our first date! We always used to go there!”

Josh is taking a girl to Bistro Martin. A girl called Marie.

“Go in again.” I wave my hands agitatedly at the building. “Search around! Find out more!”

“I’m not going in again!” objects Sadie. “You’ve found out all you need to know.”

Actually, she has a point.

“You’re right.” Abruptly, I turn and start walking away from the flat, so preoccupied that I nearly bump into an old man. “Yes, you’re right. I know which restaurant they’re going to be at, and what time; I’ll just go along and see for myself-”

“No!” Sadie appears in front of me, and I stop in surprise. “That’s not what I meant! You can’t be intending to spy on them.”

“I have to.” I look at her, perplexed. “How else am I going to find out if Marie’s his new girlfriend or not?”

“You don’t find out. You say, ‘Good riddance,’ buy a new dress, and take another lover. Or several.”

“I don’t want several lovers,” I say mulishly. “I want Josh.”

“Well, you can’t have him! Give up!”

I’m so, so, so sick of people telling me to give up on Josh. My parents, Natalie, that old woman I got talking to on the bus once…

“Why should I give up?” My words fly out on a swell of protest. “Why does everyone keep telling me to give up? What’s wrong with sticking to one single goal? In every other area of life, perseverance is encouraged! It’s rewarded! I mean, they didn’t tell Edison to give up on lightbulbs, did they? They didn’t tell Scott to forget about the South Pole! They didn’t say, ‘Never mind, Scotty, there are plenty more snowy wastes out there.’ He kept trying. He refused to give up, however hard it got. And he made it!”

I feel quite stirred up as I finish, but Sadie is peering at me as though I’m an imbecile.

“Scott didn’t make it,” she says. “He froze to death.”

I glare at her resentfully. Some people are just so negative.

“Well, anyway.” I turn on my heel and start stumping along the street. “I’m going to that lunch.”

“The worst thing a girl can do is trail after a boy when a love affair is dead,” Sadie says disdainfully. I stump faster, but she has no problem keeping up with me. “There was a girl called Polly in my village -frightful trailer. She was convinced this chap Desmond was still in love with her and followed him around everywhere. So we played the most ripping joke on her. We told her that Desmond was in the garden, hiding behind a bush as he was too shy to talk to her directly. Then, when she came out, one of the boys read out a love letter, supposed to be from him. We’d written it ourselves, you know. Everyone was hiding behind the bushes, simply rocking.”