The Other Us: the RONA winning perfect second chance romance to curl up with. Fiona Harper
‘Oh, God,’ Becca mutters. ‘I think I’m gonna puke.’
I can’t take my eyes off him as he walks past the plate-glass window at the front of the cafe, grinning because he’s spotted us, and then opens the door and walks in. He leans down to kiss me softly, lingering in a way he hasn’t done in years, then sits down beside Becca so he can keep looking at me. My heart is going again, but it hasn’t yet resumed a normal rhythm.
I am honestly struck dumb in his presence, part of me shocked at how young, how good-looking, how energetic this version of Dan seems to be, and part of me wanting to reach across the table and slap him hard for making me feel this way when Future Dan is quite possibly having it away with Miss Perky Gym Teacher.
Becca finishes her breakfast as mine goes cold on the plate in front of me, then she pushes back her chair and gives the pair of us an indulgent look. ‘Right, I’m clearing off back to the flat to leave you two alone for a bit.’ She turns a sharp eye on me. ‘But I’m meeting you there after lunch to go shopping – don’t blow me out!’
Things don’t get any better when it’s just me and Dan left alone at the table. He reaches over, takes my hand in his, then turns it over and gently kisses the back of it. I stare at him.
‘What?’ he says, grinning at me. ‘Can’t a guy get a little romantic now and then? I thought you girls liked that stuff.’
I nod. Again. And then tears fill my eyes and start to spill over my lashes. Dan immediately jumps up and comes round to my side of the table to put his arm round me. He perches on the edge of the adjacent chair and takes my hands in his, his face full of concern. ‘Maggie? What is it? Tell me?’
I shake my head and swallow. I can’t tell him. But this just makes me cry all the harder.
I hate this dream. I want it to stop. I want to wake up. Now.
I squeeze my eyes shut and will it to happen, but I know it hasn’t worked, because I can still feel Dan’s fingers wrapped around mine, hear his soft breath as he waits for me to tell him what’s wrong.
But how do I tell him I’m crying because I know one day he will stop looking at me this way? That one day he will stop thinking I’m creative and wonderful and clever, and not very long after that so will I?
I haul in a breath and open my eyes. He’s looking at me as if he would gladly rip his heart out of his chest and give it to me if it would make me feel better. It almost starts me off again, but I manage to hold back.
‘I’m just being silly …’ Just for a moment I let myself forget I’m supposed to be feeling angry and wronged and heartbroken because of him. I reach out and trace my fingertips across the fine blond stubble on his cheek – he’s a bit lazy about shaving, is Dan, especially in his early twenties, when he doesn’t think the grey patches make him look old and grizzled before his time. ‘It’s just …’ My throat closes again and I have to swallow a lump down to continue. ‘It’s just that I really love you.’
The temporary dam on the tears gives up and they start to flow again as Dan takes my face in his hands and kisses me so sweetly that the heart I’ve hardened against him begins to soften. Tiny painful splits appear, like those in a dry lip that’s been stretched too far.
‘That’s nothing to cry about,’ he whispers as he pulls back and smiles at me.
I nod but the tears don’t stop, even though I’m doing everything I can to make them. It is, I whisper silently inside my head. Because right at this moment, I know I’m telling the truth.
Becca and I do indeed go shopping. We wander round the giant Top Shop in Oxford Circus for at least an hour. I have no idea how much I have in my student bank account and I really don’t care. I usually hate clothes shopping in my real life, but I have ten hangers full of cool stuff in my changing cubicle and I can’t stop smiling.
‘How’s the dress?’ Becca yells from the cubicle next door.
I pull the curtain back dramatically and step outside. ‘See for yourself.’
She pokes her head out. ‘Wow! Dan is going to have a heart attack when he sees you in that!’
It occurs to me as I admire my reflection in the full-length mirror that I hadn’t even thought about how Dan might react. The dress is black, Lycra, and it hugs my bottom in an almost-indecent fashion. I would never have had the guts to wear this when I was twenty-one, believing myself fat and lumpy. Not the sort of girl who could get away with it. But compared to my forty-something self, this Maggie is svelte. Not perfect – there’s a slight curve to my belly and the top of my hips look a little boxy – but good enough. I can’t believe how great it looks on me.
‘I’m getting it,’ I tell Becca.
She makes me turn around and checks the price tag hanging down my back. ‘It’s over forty quid!’
I shrug. ‘You’re only young once, right?’
OK, maybe, in my case, twice, but I have the feeling I didn’t do it right the first go around. While this strange hallucination lasts, I’m going to make up for lost time.
I buy the dress then change into it in the toilets of a pub down Argyll Street, even though it’s more evening than daywear. When I walk out across the bar to where Becca is waiting for me, heads turn. The knowledge gives my walk a little extra swing.
We buy a cheap bottle of wine and head for St James’s Park, where we sit in deckchairs we don’t pay for. After two hours we’re very giggly, slightly sunburned and more than a little squiffy. We decide to paddle in the lake to help us cool off, taking it in turns to sip the last of the wine from the neck of the bottle as we stand there, but then a portly park warden comes along and starts shouting at us and we end up grabbing our bags and running away down the path in our bare feet, shoes hooked from our fingers, until we’ve finally outrun him, and then we collapse under a tree and laugh until we cry.
‘What next?’ I ask Becca. We’ve been taking it turns to come up with ideas and the paddling was mine.
‘I’m hungry,’ Becca moans, so after we’ve shoved our shoes back on our slightly damp feet we head in the direction of China Town. My purse is feeling considerably lighter than it was when I left Oaklands this morning and it’s the best place we can think of to stuff our faces on a budget.
We trail through Piccadilly and end up at Wong Kei’s, a student favourite because of its mountainous plates of food for low prices. We have to share a table with some American tourists who obviously have stumbled in here without knowing its reputation. Instead of understanding that the rude service is what brings people to this cult tourist attraction, they’re outraged. They don’t understand when the waiter barks instructions at them or brings them dishes he’s decided they should have instead of what they actually ordered. Becca and I just sit back, eat our chow mein full of unidentified seafood and enjoy the show.
After that we wander through Leicester Square and Covent Garden arm in arm. The wine is still having a pleasant effect (twenty-one-year-old me is such a lightweight!) and I keep telling Becca how much I love her. She’s been a true partner in crime and hasn’t blinked once at my mad suggestions, even though I know I’m acting totally out of character. Not many women have best friends like this, ones they can trust with their lives. I keep telling her that too, which only makes her tease me harder about my state of inebriation.
After scraping together our last pennies to share a pint of cider in an overpriced pub, we get talking to some guys who buy us more drinks and then we end up getting a cab with them to a club somewhere near Kings Cross that turns out to be an abandoned warehouse with huge rooms sprawling over multiple floors. I never went to anything like this when I was young the first time – the whole rave scene of the early nineties passed me by – and I launch myself onto the dance floor as if I’m planning to make up for that.