“And now?” She prompts me gently.
“And now I’ve told my Adam how I feel, that I want him back and he’s thinking about it. But you know the strangest thing? I was a total Passion Junkie until Adam, just like you, and then it became incredibly comfortable but now, now that I’m waiting for him to come back, I feel like I’m back on that damned rollercoaster.”
“I know,” she says. “I remember that happening to me when I fell in love with my Adam, but it does settle down. If friendship is the most important part of your relationship, the rollercoaster starts to even out, trust me.”
“I always wanted to thank you, you know,” I say, suddenly knowing that this is true. “I used to think about you all the time when I first started having a relationship with Adam, I used to wish I was like you.”
“What a nice thing to say! And now you are,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice.
“Not yet, not quite, but I hope I’m getting there.”
“And how does it feel right now?”
“Like hell!” And we both laugh. I thank her for calling, and just before she puts the phone down she says, “Don’t forget to invite me to the wedding.”
For the first time in four days I feel calm. A short phone call and I feel that everything’s going to be OK.
And isn’t it just always the bloody same? The minute you stop worrying about something, the minute you stop thinking about it, it happens. When you least expect it.
Tonight I’m staying in again, and yes, I still dialed 1471, but tonight the phone seems to have become a little less threatening, a little less menacing, a little bit more of a friend.
I pick up the phone to dial the Chinese takeout—nothing like spare ribs, lemon chicken, and egg fried rice to take away the misery of being on your own—and as I’m ordering, giving them my address, call waiting starts bleeping.
Do I finish ordering, or do I take this call? “Hang on a sec,” I say to the man on the other end of the line, while I press recall 2, praying that it works, that this time I don’t, as I usually do, say a tentative hello to the person I’ve just been speaking to.
“Hello?”
“Hello.” It’s not the Chinese man, it’s Adam. Thank God, it’s finally Adam. “What are you up to?” he says, casually, as if I’m just a mate, an old friend.
Whatever it is I’ll cancel it for you, Adam, I’ll go wherever you want me to go.
“Nothing much. Why?”
“No reason. Look, are you free tomorrow night?”
Tomorrow night, tonight, any night. I’m free.
“Would you like to go out for dinner?”
“I’d love to.”
“OK. How about if I pick you up at eight-thirty?”
“Fine. I’ll see you then.”
“Great. Oh, and Tash?”
“Yes?”
“Dress up.”
I put the phone down and it rings instantly, the Chinese man waiting patiently for me to come back to him, but you know what? I’m suddenly not hungry anymore.
I have been out with Adam, I have slept with Adam, I have laughed with Adam, I know all his secrets and he knows most of mine, but I am so nervous I can’t think straight.
Dress up, he said. Dress up how? Does he mean long chiffon, or does he mean black jacket and little black skirt? Which is the most flattering, which is his favorite, which is guaranteed to win back his heart?
Ah ha! A camel-coloured trouser suit. Smart, sophisticated, sexy, but not too obvious. A whisper of cleavage, the swish of the trousers as I walk. Shoes in white and camel, exactly the same shade, tiny pearl earrings. I hang the clothes on the closet door and stand back to survey. Perfect.
And soaking in the bath, even submerged underwater to wash my hair, I can’t stop smiling. And putting on my makeup, blow-drying my hair, I can’t stop smiling.
Mel phones early evening.
“Hi sweetie, I’m just ringing to say good luck.”
“Oh Mel, I’m so excited, but I feel so sick, what if he’s just taking me out to tell me it’s all over?”
“I don’t think that’s the case,” she smiles, “and there’s no reason to be nervous. It’s only Adam.”
“So why do I feel like a teenager, like this is my first ever date?”
“Because it is a first date. It’s you and Adam getting to know each other again.”
She is, as always, right, and I’m pacing the flat when the doorbell rings, on the dot of 8:30.
Calm, calm, calm, I tell myself, checking my reflection, taking long, slow, measured steps down the corridor. Standing by the front door, with one hand on the handle, taking deep breaths. Composing my features into a smile of welcome, a smile of anticipation, a smile of hope.
I open the door and we stand there, Adam and I, facing one another and grinning, neither saying a word. In one hand Adam is holding a large bunch of white roses, my favorite flowers, and he hands them to me, still grinning, and comes in.
“Thank you, thank you!” I run to the kitchen to cut the stems, put them in water. “You didn’t have to! And they’re my favorite!’ Tasha, shut up. Stop behaving like an overexcited schoolgirl. But I am overexcited. I can’t help myself. Adam’s back, he’s in my flat.
I turn around and see Adam hovering in the doorway, looking uncomfortable, and I think of how he used to be when he was here. How he would plant himself in the kitchen, feet on the table to read the paper, and how he always looked so at home here.
But now he doesn’t, and in a flash I’m not so sure. I’m not so sure that everything is going to work out.
“Shall we go?” he says softly, when the flowers are perfectly arranged and the vase has been put on the hall table, and I am still babbling away about absolutely nothing, desperate to fill any silence that might exist between us.
We walk out, and as we cross the road Adam puts his arm around me, so lightly that I can hardly feel it, just to steer me over, to make sure I’m protected, that nothing can happen to me.
And we reach the car and as he opens the door for me, as I climb into his car, I look up at him and he smiles, and suddenly I know that everything is going to be OK.
Also by Jane Green
Jemima J
Mr. Maybe
Bookends
Babyville
Spellbound
STRAIGHT TALKING. Copyright © 2003 by Jane Green. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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eISBN: 978-0-7679-1711-7
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Jane Green, Straight Talking
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