Page 14 of The Book Swap
I wanted to do other things too. I didn’t want a job that was my life, at first, so I signed up to the writing course. If I was going to sell my soul to the world of corporate training, I’d write on the side. That was the course where I wrote the chapter which got shortlisted. My tutor suggested a master’s. Or another course. He really got behind me and I started to consider it quite seriously. Then Dorothy made me a senior consultant. I was making more money than I’d ever thought possible. I was running out of spare time.
Now, here I am, taking another step up the ladder and looking for my very own flat. With that, all the dreams I once had for myself seem further behind than ever. I have to remind myself of the reasons I’m doing it. To help out Mum and Dad. To avoid any chance of being some one-hit wonder. To be financially stable for any future family I might have.
Picking up my phone, I message Dad.
James: All okay?
He replies almost immediately, despite the hour.
Dad: Great. Mum applying for part-time jobs. Look out Frome! Any idea how I download this Tick Tock thing? Apparently someone’s done something hilarious with my “Do You Know Me” video.
He follows up with a GIF of himself dancing. It’s one someone’s made from his music video. Did I mention that I wish I’d never taught him how to use his phone?
I open Facebook, my mind back at college. The place it so often goes to, even when I’d rather forget my time there. When I type in M the suggestion comes up immediately. Marky Backhouse. I click on it. He’s added a new profile picture since I last looked six months ago. In the films, the bullies always become overweight and bald in later life. They’re lowlives who go on to achieve nothing, giving the victim a sense of victory, and closure. Not Marky. He works in real estate. Lives in Dubai. His profile photo is him on a Jet Ski, six-pack rippling in the sunshine with a blonde woman behind him, arms wrapped around his neck.
Pulling the note toward me, I read it again.
His worst day becomes his best day when he looks up to see her standing over him, holding out her hand.
I can already see the story forming in my mind.
5
ERIN
All I’ve done since I quit my job last month is scan job adverts from bed, while eating peanut butter out of the jar and making several trips to the community library in the hope that my book might be returned. I’ve successfully avoided calls from Mum, Georgia and the office. The last one didn’t leave a voicemail, which makes me think it was Charlotte calling to ambush me.
Cassie messages every day, either to check in or to tell me something that’ll make me feel better.
Cassie: Reason number 806 it was a good idea to quit your job: Charlotte’s just introduced Meat Free Mondays for the entire team. Sara had to throw her steak subway in the bin.
Cassie: Reason number 1014 it was a good idea to quit your job. All but one toilet is currently blocked and we’re having to share the men’s. What do they DO in there? I’m on a total hunger and fluid strike to avoid ever having to go there again.
Cassie: Reason number 22,314,806 it was a good idea to quit your job. It’s Monday. MONDAY. And I’m at work.
I swipe out of my most recent message from her, and go onto Instagram, where my thumbs somehow lead me to the page of my most recent ex-boyfriend, Dylan. We went out for six months after I broke up with the security guard from my old flat, but we mutually ended it a few months before I quit my job. He kept whispering things like, “Let me in, Erin,” and “Where have you gone?” until that turned into angry accusations that I was “cold” and “guarded.” I said if that was how he felt, he deserved someone better than me, and he agreed—which I wasn’t expecting.
Before I know it I’m down a rabbit hole, clicking on people who’ve liked his photos and guessing at which attractive blonde might be his new girlfriend. I settle on Isabella Gordon, who has the most nauseating bio of all: “Model. Entrepreneur. My heart belongs to my dog. If you don’t love Before Sunset don’t talk to me.”
When my phone rings again I answer without thinking. Anything to take me away from the person Dylan has deemed better than me.
“Are you out of bed?” Georgia asks, as I pull the duvet off and spring up.
After Mum’s affair and everything that happened around it, I took to my bed at Dad’s house in a pair of tracksuit bottoms and didn’t leave for weeks. Couldn’t. No one, not even Bonnie or Georgia, could get me up.
“Very much so.”
“As of...?”
“How can I help you?”
“By telling me you have some sort of plan.”
I slump back down.
“I’m looking, but all the jobs I’m qualified for are ones I don’t want to do. I think I need a change of career.”
I can hear her heels clicking against the pavement. Georgia’s always on the move when she calls me.