I nod and simper and coo and look all bashful. I repeat the phrase over and over. ‘Yes, we’re still together. We live together now.’
Oh, how that makes them happy. They gasp. They demand photographs. They swoon, they sigh. Their eyes grow bigger and wetter and they are so relieved. It makes my own eyes water and I blink like crazy to stop it. Because they make me remember Us. The Us we were. The Us that we were when the story they clutch finishes. I can remember it so clearly – maybe because I’ve been forced to talk about it non-stop for six years …
‘Are you OK?’
‘Huh?’
I blink and look up at the face of a woman standing over me. Her entire body jolts with nerves; her fingers tremble on her copy of my book, which has over one hundred Post-its glued in.
‘Sorry.’ I smile and take the book off her. ‘Now, what’s your name?’
‘Rosie.’
‘Oh, that’s a lovely name,’ I say. It’s what I always say.
‘Thank you.’
I sign her book with the message I always write:
Dear Rosie,
Live the life you fucking need to live.
Love,
Tori xx
She’s crying.
‘Oh wow, thank you,’ she stutters through her sobs. ‘Can I … can I take a photo?’
I hand her book back. ‘Of course, of course. Are you OK?’
She laughs a little and says, ‘I’m fine, it’s just so amazing to meet you.’
I hold out both arms warmly. ‘Come here for a hug and a photo.’
Rosie hands her phone over to my publicist and is so overcome with emotion she forgets to even ask if it’s OK for her to take the picture. Then she clatters around to my side of the table and quivers next to me. I pull her in, putting my arm around her. She’s hot and sweaty. Her dampness sinks into the crisp fabric of my dress, but this moment is worth more than my dress.
‘Smile!’ my publicist says, holding up the phone.
I smile with my good side facing towards the camera – chin down to give me better jaw definition, eyebrows relaxed so my forehead wrinkles don’t show. There’s a flash and Rosie giggles and steps back to her side of the table, retrieving her phone and checking the photo.
‘Thanks so much for coming.’ I hand her book over.
‘No, thank you. Thank you so much for writing it. You don’t understand. When I was twenty-three, I was such a mess … then I found your book and … it changed my life … it really did.’
I am tired of smiling, but I need to smile at this because it’s important to her. ‘Wow, I’m so touched to hear that. How old are you now?’
‘Twenty-five.’
She’s only twenty-freaking-five. They just keep getting … younger.
‘Well I’m so glad you enjoyed it.’
I’m looking past her now, to the next person. Because it’s gone ten and I’ve got the wedding tomorrow. But, just as I reach out to take the book off the next shaking fan, Rosie discovers the courage to say one more thing.
‘Hey, sorry. But, can I just ask? Rock man? The man from the book? You are still together, aren’t you?’
Rock man.
The man who found me on the rock. Who found me on top of a vortex in Sedona screaming ‘fuuuuuuuuuck’ and throwing my rosary beads off into the skyline, and somehow found that endearing.
Tom …
The man who could’ve been anywhere else in the world that day, but whom a thousand gusts of fate somehow blew to Arizona too. Sedona too. Climbing up to the vortex too.
My happily-ever-after.
The one you’re always rewarded with in stories where a character decides to be brave.
‘Yes,’ I confirm, feeling like my smile might snap. ‘We’re still together.’
She lets out a little squeal and a yelp, arms flailing in the air. Then she blushes. ‘Sorry. I’m fangirling.’
‘That’s fine.’
I’m looking past her again because, in the nicest possible way, she is taking too much time now. There are still at least fifty women waiting not-so patiently any more. Rosie doesn’t read my vibe. My response has only given her more confidence. She is conducting the conversation that she needs. In her head, we are friends now. Already great friends.
‘And you’re still blissfully happy?’
I close my eyes for a second longer than I should. When I open them, my smile is still there. It has to stay on. For the next fifty people it has to stay on. I give Rosie my dimples and my charm and my glowing, golden happiness. My wisdom. My serenity. Everything she expects. Everything she has paid for in her ticket price.
‘Of course,’ I tell her. ‘We’re still blissfully happy.’
*
The adrenaline starts to ooze out of me in the taxi home. I feel each muscle clenching and releasing. The cocktail of performance hormones steadily filtering out of my tight stomach, unravelling my intestines inch by inch. I lean my head against the blackened glass and watch London twinkle outside. This city just keeps getting taller, refusing to let anything stunt its growth – much like the people who live in its turrets.
My phone lights up and buzzes angrily in my hand.
Dee: HELP ME HE IS A CRAZY PERSON
I smile as the taxi passes the looming ostentatiousness of Big Ben and we drive over the black currents of the Thames. There will never be a time when I don’t want a mid-date message from Dee.
Tori: He can’t be as bad as last week’s surely?
Dee: He’s married, Tor. HE’S MARRIED!!
Tori: Then why is he on a date with you?!
Dee: He said he WOULD get a divorce but he CAN’T FIND HIS WIFE BECAUSE SHE VANISHED.
I tap out a few replies as the cab plunges through the murky depths of South London – where glittering lights are replaced by concrete slabs of sort-of-affordable housing as long as your parents can help you with the deposit to dodge inheritance tax. I try to find the right mix of sympathetic, concerned, and taking the piss.
Tori: Seriously, are you OK though? It would only happen to YOU. X
Dee: I’m safe! I’m home. I really want to drink Merlot with my spritely young housemates but we’ve got the wedding of doom tomorrow.
Tori: Don’t remind me. I’m still picking you up at 9, right? X
Dee: 9 it is.
Then five minutes later:
Dee: And, it’s not me. This is just what dating is, Tor. Everyone apart from me is either boring or totally insane.
I put my phone away as we slow down around the park. The pavements are clogged with smokers and drunk people spilling out of bars, ripping into boxes of fried chicken, laughing loud and shrill and leaning into each other, and putting their hands on each other’s chests. We pull up at a red light and the taxi throbs softly from the music blasting out of a flat above. London never rests. It doesn’t do bedtime or catnaps or even dozing. It’s so exhausting living somewhere this constantly awake.
The thought of coming home to Tom makes me feel safe. The thought that he will be there, and that he says he loves me; the thought that I don’t have to go back out there into a world of ghosting and dick pics and messages with two ticks but no replies. But the thought of no Tom … I shiver. The thought of the alternative. The thought of starting again. Thirty-one and alone. Thirty-one and putting that number on an online-dating profile. Knowing the assumptions people make about that number. The wilting pair of ovaries they see. The desperation they smell. The sand you leave behind on the chair as the hourglass pours from top to bottom …