The Meet Cute Method, page 22
‘She was,’ Albi tells him. ‘We hung out the other day while you were working.’
‘You said you were going snorkelling,’ Eva points out.
‘So that’s what the kids are calling it,’ Paige joins in smugly, laughing to herself.
‘All right, you’re one to talk,’ I reply, but then I remember that Max said he didn’t want anyone to know, so I try to get things back on track. ‘Albi asked if I wanted to see his yacht, I said yes, it’s not a big deal, is it?’
‘Except you didn’t tell me,’ Max points out.
‘I am genuinely quite concerned,’ Eva joins in. ‘Frankie, have you really spent this entire holiday on the pull behind my son’s back with… well, with everyone?’
I sigh. It’s time to come clean. I can’t let Max’s family think his fiancée is on a mission to cheat on him. That really would make him look bad, especially after what happened before. I need to own up about my job, maybe I can style out that I lied to Max about that, because I guess I did, but the lies are so messy now.
‘Look, okay, no, I haven’t been on the pull,’ I tell them. ‘I’m a journalist. I’m not a doctor. I’m currently working on an article about meeting men the old-fashioned way so I’m basically just setting up ridiculous scenarios and seeing how they play out. Yes, I think it’s dumb too, but that’s another story.’
‘You’re not a real doctor?’ Eva says, stunned, then relieved. ‘Thank God I never asked you for advice on… that thing I was going to ask you for advice on.’
My goodness, I am so, so glad she didn’t ask.
‘You couldn’t take a week off for a holiday?’ Ronnie asks in disbelief. ‘Why ruin our holiday with it? Why not just be honest?’
‘My bloody editor made me come on this holiday,’ I blurt, because I really don’t like being cornered. ‘She made it pretty clear that, if I didn’t come, I was going to lose my job, in fact I probably still will, because she isn’t interested in all my failed meetings, she wants me to write about Max.’
‘Wait, I’m a work project?’ Max asks me. ‘You’re here messing with me for some kind of social experiment for your magazine?’
‘No, not exactly,’ I insist. ‘I can explain better under less weird circumstances.’
‘Why did you tell us you were marrying a doctor?’ Lee asks. ‘If she’s saying she’s a journalist? Did you know?’
‘Yes, I knew,’ Max says. He puffs air from his cheeks. ‘She’s not the real Fran.’
Oh, God, it’s all coming out now. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to admit this part yet, but Max is clearly so upset that I didn’t tell him about my project, and I’m not surprised. I’ll try and explain it to him when we’re alone so he knows that there is no way in hell I am using him for an article.
‘She’s just some girl I invited on holiday with me who, it turns out, is using me for an article,’ he continues. ‘Telling me all sorts, getting me to open up, to write about, take the piss out of me, all for strangers to read.’
‘Okay, wait a second, that’s not true,’ I insist.
‘I’m not doing this now,’ Max says before he storms off.
I go to follow him, but Eva takes my arm and pulls me in the other direction.
‘A word,’ she says. ‘Just before you go.’
‘Eva, I promise you, all of this sounds bad, but it isn’t,’ I say. ‘What may have started as Max inviting me on this holiday with him has turned into something so much more.’
‘Max has been hurt before,’ she tells me.
‘I know, he told me,’ I reply. ‘That’s not what’s happening here. Honestly, I have such strong feelings for him, as soon as we got together, I forgot about my stupid article, and I was never going to write about him. I don’t care if I lose my job.’
‘This family is already a mess,’ Eva tells me. ‘We screw up and we hurt each other. Max isn’t like the rest of us. He’s made different. Do you know what you look like right now? You look like a Ray.’
I suppose she’s right. Max liked me because I wasn’t like his family. All of this must make me seem like an absolute nightmare, someone who uses people to get where she wants. Someone like Paige.
‘I’ll go and find him and apologise,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll explain, and I’ll make everything right.’
‘He isn’t quick to forgive,’ Eva says. ‘Not after everything that’s happened. Max needs space to heal, real space – the last time he was hurt, he moved thousands of miles to London.’
I nod in acknowledgement before making my way out of the marquee and hurrying back to the suite. I deeply regret the sky-high heels, now that I’m trying to get from A to B through the various textures of the gardens.
Finally back at the suite, I kick off my shoes. There’s no sign of Max downstairs. He isn’t upstairs either. I try to call him, but he doesn’t answer. I look around again. Some bits of his are still here but his case isn’t. Shit. I open the drawer under the TV, where he leaves his valet pass for safekeeping, along with our passports and, shit, the pass and his passport are missing too. He’s gone – gone home, I think.
Well, that’s what I need to do too. I’ll call Addison when I’m certain she’s awake, because, to be honest, the time difference still has me all messed up, explain, see if she’ll book me an earlier flight home. God knows when that will be, but I doubt it will be today. It’s the least she can do for me, seeing as though she gave me this assignment. If she thinks I’ll write about it, she’ll certainly agree.
I cannot believe I’ve messed this up. I managed happiness for, what, twenty-four hours? It’s a personal best in recent times, sure, but it’s not great, is it? He’s got a head start on me but I’m not giving up. I just can’t believe it’s going to take me so long to catch him up.
35
It’s true what they say, jet lag really is worse when you get back home. I know there’s science involved, when it comes to travelling east but, to be honest, I think it’s also to do with that fact that when your plane finally touches down on UK land, you come back down to earth in more ways than one. Back to reality, back to the grind, back to the mess you left before you went. But I haven’t come back to unwashed mugs and clothes all over the floor (well, I have, because: my housemates) I’ve come back to what I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic in calling the ruins of my life.
Max isn’t answering his phone. I started trying to call him the second I realised he had gone. Then for the rest of the day, and then all day today before my flight, but he isn’t picking up. I have no idea where he lives and, with it being a bloody weekend when I did get back, it wasn’t even like I could try to collar him at work. So I’ve had to wait until now, Monday morning, to head into the office and try to find him. I’ve spent the whole time thinking about what I’ll do when I see him, running scenarios in my head, fantasising about it going well, panicking when I think about how badly things could turn out. From tearful grovelling at his desk to accidentally bumping into him in the lift and hitting the emergency stop, trapping us in there together like we were on the day we met… except I just took the lift to the ByteBanter floor completely alone, without a hitch, so grovelling might have to be the one.
‘Hello,’ I say brightly to the receptionist. ‘Can I see Max Ray please?’
‘Max isn’t here,’ she tells me.
‘Do you know when he’ll be in?’ I ask.
‘Just a sec,’ she says, before looking over my shoulder. ‘Hey, Timmy.’
Timmy stops in his tracks.
‘Where’s Max today?’ she asks him.
‘Oh, he’s gone,’ he replies, raising his eyebrows, as though it’s some juicy piece of gossip.
‘Gone?’ I say. ‘Gone where?’
‘Erm, he quit,’ he tells me, kind of nervously. I suppose he doesn’t know whether he should be telling me or not.
‘He’ll be working his notice, right?’ I say.
‘Nope. He’s gone back to work for his dad,’ he explains. ‘The Ray family are basically our royals, so the bosses agreed to let him go without working his notice period. How the other half live, eh?’
‘Oh,’ is all I can say. ‘Well, er, thanks.’
I head back to the lift before making my way upstairs to my desk. It’s weird, sitting down, looking over at the empty space where Cora used to sit. I messaged her, telling her I was home. She replied saying she had managed to use her unused holiday to basically cancel out her notice period, so we made a plan for later, so I could tell her about everything that has happened.
I glance at Addison’s office door. She isn’t in yet. When she does get in, I’m sure she’ll be grilling me about everything that has happened, asking me about the article, probably telling me what I have to write about if I want to keep my job. I already know what she’s going to say. She’s going to tell me to write about Max, about lying for him, pretending to be his fiancée, and how badly it went. It won’t be an informative article, it will be pure entertainment, and Max will be the punchline.
Well, if an article about my holiday is what Addison wants, then that’s what she’s going to get. I’m going to write her an article right now. I’m not sure she’s going to like it, though…
36
I sit in the swivel chair opposite Addison’s desk, twirling from side to side, my hands sweating because, boy, am I nervous. I try to wipe away the little smudge marks on the piece of paper I’m holding but I only seem to make them worse. Come on, Addison, where are you?
Eventually she walks in, dumping bags of shopping on the floor before taking a seat at her desk. It’s only then that she even notices me.
‘Frankie, look at you,’ she says. ‘Love the tan, it really suits you.’
‘Thanks,’ I reply.
‘So, it all went a bit tits to the sky?’ she says in a sympathetic tone that couldn’t sound less sincere if she tried. She pokes out her bottom lip for effect. ‘I want to hear all about it.’
I didn’t tell Addison much to get her to book my return flight, just that Max had left, it had all gone wrong, and that I needed to get home ASAP. I told her I would give her the gory details in person, to be honest, because I wasn’t sure how motivated she would be to have work fund my probably expensive early return if I gave her the goods up front.
‘Well, I’ve written the article,’ I tell her. ‘It’s all in there.’
Addison is unloading a Pret bag on her desk.
‘I’ve got meetings all afternoon,’ she tells me. ‘If you want me to read it now, you’re going to have to read it to me.’
I hate reading my own work to people.
‘Read it later, it’s okay,’ I say, standing up.
‘No, come on,’ she insists. ‘I want to hear all about it now, it will make my lunch break more fun.’
I sigh, sit back down, slump back a little and cross my legs like the kid who doesn’t want to read out loud to the class and begin.
‘My name is Frankie George, Love & Dating writer, and I owe the men of London (and, more recently, a few others in various locations in Maui) a huge apology. A large part of this job has always been trying out different methods of finding love and, with each one I’ve tried, I’ve done everything in my power to make sure I never found it. Only swiping right on people I wasn’t instantly attracted to, mentioning marriage in the first message, only using pictures on my profile that I didn’t look remotely attractive in – I became the poster child for a hopeless millennial, trapped inside a dating app, laughing at everyone around me, pretending I was there for more worthy reasons.
‘But in all of this, in my constant attempt to find love, all I have ever been doing is rejecting it. And so came my latest idea: meet cutes. Trying to meet people the old-fashioned way, like the weird, wonderful and clichéd ways you see on screen. When it came to setting up these meetings, I was hopeless – at home and away – but while I was so caught up in these meetings, there was one thing I neglected to realise: I was checking off every romance trope in the book with someone very special, and I can’t believe I missed it. I mean, for crying out loud, the first time I met him we were stuck in a lift together, how did I miss that?
‘The cliches that I was trying so desperately to force with everyone else were already there with him. Workplace romance, a zigzagging alternation between friends-to-lovers and enemies-to-lovers, the fake romance trope and, unbelievable, we even found ourselves in the good old “there’s only one bed” situation. It was all there, right under my nose, and I was doing my usual, ignoring it, doing everything I could to continue to prove to myself that love was never going to happen to me. Well, it did, and I missed it and, for what? To keep a job that can only be done by a single girl?
‘And so, with this article, I want to apologise to every man I’ve messed around, every man I never gave a genuine shot, but most of all I want to apologise to the most incredible man I’ve ever met. I blew it and I’m sorry. And, with that, all that’s left to say is that I do want to find love, and I can’t do that while I’m writing articles about how to stay single. This isn’t just an article, it’s my final article, and my resignation. I hope you’ve found my articles funny, at least, or that you found a way to take something from them. If ever there was a time to listen to me, then that time is now. Don’t reject love just because you’re scared of it. And finally, from one tragic romantic to another, I love you.’
I place the piece of paper down on Addison’s desk in front of her. She’s frozen in time with a chunk of sandwich in her mouth.
‘Obviously I’ve submitted the article through the usual portal,’ I say. ‘This one is for you. Let me know if you need something more formal for my resignation.’
Addison finally swallows.
‘You’re resigning?’ she exclaims. ‘But you’re the only person in this office who is willing to go that extra mile to create quality, genuine content.’
‘That’s the thing, though, it’s not genuine content, and I’m not willing to do it any more,’ I say. ‘So, yeah.’
‘I’m not going to change your mind, am I?’ she says.
I shake my head.
‘Bloody hell, it’s going to be just me and the cleaner left.’ She sighs. ‘Okay, well, yeah, I suppose we can print it, it will probably go viral, so that’s good. We’ll be replacing you, though. If you’re not willing to do this, someone else definitely will.’
‘That’s okay by me,’ I say.
‘Okay, get back to work, I suppose,’ she says. ‘While I can still tell you to do it.’
I head back to my desk and sit down, placing my head in my hands. It’s the right thing to do, of course it is, but right doesn’t pay the bills and it doesn’t get Max back either. But, for now, it’s all I have. At least there will be other jobs, other flats. I can’t imagine there will be another Max, but at least now I have the problem of potentially being made homeless to distract me, which is just great. I suppose I’ll have to move back in with my parents, get a job back in Surrey somewhere, try to start my life again. This is not how I imagined my life being at thirty-four. Not at all.
37
‘I can’t believe you did that,’ Cora blurts, her jaw practically in the overpriced espresso martini on the table below her. ‘I can’t believe you just quit like that.’
‘Oh my God, don’t,’ I insist with a smile. ‘I’m worried that, any minute, it’s going to sink in. I’m going to understand the gravity of quitting my job, without another one lined up, and realise that it not only means that I can’t afford my new apartment, but also that I probably can’t stay in my current home for too long, not without finding another job and… blah!’
I blurt that final noise dramatically, as though I’m clearing my throat of a horrible taste. The reality does leave a bad taste in my mouth, though, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, admitting what a mess I’m in. And the fact I’ve just paid seventeen pounds for a cocktail in a fancy bar isn’t lost on me, but it’s probably going to be my last expensive cocktail for a while, so just let me enjoy it.
‘Well, we got our jobs at the same time,’ Cora comments. ‘I suppose it’s sort of nice that we should lose them at the same time too.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ I reply, raising my glass, clinking it with hers.
I still have to work part of my notice, minus the holiday days I haven’t taken, but these after-work cocktails, having chats like this with Cora, are making me think about how much better life would be if I didn’t have to work.
‘This is the life,’ I say with a sigh. ‘My holiday with Max gave me a taste of the high life, I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to being skint.’
I’m joking but it’s true. We all know rich people exist but, now that I’ve spent so much time around them, pretending to be one of them, my sad little life really does seem bleak in comparison.
‘You should never have let him go,’ Cora tells me.
‘I know,’ I reply. ‘Although we weren’t actually getting married, so I wasn’t set to become a rich Ray, I was always just pretending.’
‘That’s not what I mean,’ she says.
Even though it’s a Monday night, the bar is busy enough to be on the noisy side. Cora gets up from her seat opposite me and takes the one next to me, leaning in so I can hear her clearly, without drinkers on tables either side of us listening in.
‘Frankie, you should never have let Max go,’ she clarifies. ‘All the pictures and texts you sent me while you were away, obviously you were having an amazing time, but the way you would talk about Max, come on, I’ve known you for years, you’ve never been like this about a boy before. You clearly love him.’
I take such a big gulp of my cocktail it hurts me all the way down.
