It feels, suddenly, like a lot is resting on what I say next. For one thing, I’m a little put out by the success of Jack’s introduction. He played it perfectly: a tough act to follow. For another, I need him to notice me again. That look he gave me: Something long dormant stirred. And that’s without even touching on the elephant in the room. His wife, dying on the exact same day as Freddie. I mean, really. What are the chances? It’s like it was meant to be.
So, obviously, what I say next is critical. I have just this one chance to impress him. To impressuponhim that I am someone worth more than a fleeting glance.
I start by leaning forward. It’s a good trick, one I’ll bank for future use if this is a success. I wait until the shuffling of feet has ceased, until all eyes in the room are fixed on me. I emit a deep, labored sigh. Just to remind everyone why we’re here.
“I’m Iris.” Nailed it. The perfect combination of sorrow and fortitude. “As I mentioned just now—sorry, Fiona—I lost my partner, Freddie, on the same date. Sixth of June.” A small, wary chuckle. As thoughI can’t believe the coincidence of it. Which, to be fair, I can’t. Jack sits up straighter. I’ve got him on the line; now I just need to land the finish. “What Ididn’tmention”—pause for another, shaky breath to emphasize the aforementioned fortitude—“is that Freddie wasn’t just my boyfriend. He was my fiancé. He’d asked me to marry him a few days before he died.”
Is there anything more tragic than a love cut short? It’s sad to lose your wife, sure, but by that point all those little idiosyncrasies that you found so adorable at the beginning have begun to grate. But an engagement ended by an untimely death? That’s peak tragedy. That’s the death of hope itself.
The others clearly think so, too. Rita’s hand is clamped over her mouth in shock. I think I see the glaze of tears in her eyes, though admittedly that’s not entirely unusual for her. Jack’s eyebrows have knitted together in sympathy. I take a risk then: I press my tongue hard to the roof of my mouth and give him my most winning smile. I haven’t used it in nearly six months, but it’s all coming back to me now. In response Jack gives me a small, uncertain smile, but at least he’s still looking at me.
Only Fiona does not look entirely convinced.
“But…you’re not wearing a ring?” she says. I don’t appreciate the challenge in her tone.
“A ring is a patriarchal construct, Fiona. It feeds into the idea that a man owns a woman.”
But there was a ring.
And I would have worn it.
Two
I try to keepthoughts of Freddie to a minimum. It’s not that I don’t care. I do. But it’s distressing to dwell on just how close I came to happiness. To companionship. That feeling of having someonethere. He always seemed to know when I’d had a long day, like we were connected by some invisible thread. He’d put a bracing hand on my shoulder, just to let me know he cared, or send a thoughtful message:You OK?
I’m painfully aware, however, that rehashing every peak and trough of the relationship is not conducive to moving on. That’s how you slip into bitterness. And, on the whole, I’m adept at keeping memories of Freddie at bay. I keep busy and work hard. I avoid silence. When things get really tough, I clean.
It may not surprise you to hear that the one place I struggle with thoughts of Freddie is the grief group, though not for the reasons you might think. It’s more of a pacing issue than any deep-buried emotion dredged up by someone else’s melancholic speech. The truth is that bereavement groups are really quite slow. So slow, there have beenoccasions when I have no doubt the corpse of those they’re mourning would get to the point faster.
And we are currently suffering through another painful silence from our least eloquent participant: Charlie. After my shock confession, it’s an abrupt return to the mundane, and—judging by the distant expressions—not a particularly welcome one.
Tonight, though, it’s not Freddie occupying my thoughts, but Jack. My little speech went down better than I could have predicted. Every so often, we catch each other’s eye. Jack always looks away quickly, but not before I’ve clocked it. We are an hour into the session, and he has looked at me twenty times already. That’s got to mean something.
The last time I felt excitement like this was at the start of my relationship with Freddie. I was languishing then, too, stuck in the hellish normality of daily life. Looking back, I think I was a bit lost. Floating through early adulthood without point or purpose. Freddie changed that. He changed everything.
It’s all coming back to me now, like a rusty cog slotting into place. The smile I gave Jack earlier was over-the-top. I won’t make that mistake again. It’s crucial I don’t come across as too keen.Take the game out of it, and they lose interest instantly.A little nugget of advice that my brain has kept tucked away all these months, as though it knew I might need it again. Yes, it’s all returning to me now.
I pretend not to notice Jack taking me in. I fight the urge to cover my hair. I haven’t washed it for three days. My roots are an abomination. I’ll have to deal with them before next week. I straighten my spine, square my shoulders, rest my hands softly in my lap. I cock my head, gaze fixed firmly on Charlie, and pretend to be absorbed in his prevailing silence, which is no easy feat.
It never ceases to amaze me, the effect male attention can have. I feel more alive tonight than I have in weeks, though I appreciate this is probably the wrong forum in which to boast about vitality. Don’t getme wrong, I don’t condone wrapping one’s entire sense of self around the male gaze, but we all know it feels good, even if it is taboo to admit it. It’s nice to be looked at again. Particularly when it’s by someone like Jack. By someone like Freddie.
I was new to this game when I met Freddie. Stuck in a dead-end job I was desperate to leave and still smarting from the labels I’d been branded with at university four years before: strange, intense, loner. That last one hurt the most, because it implied complicity on my part. I’d begun to wonder if I really was the issue, before Freddie showed an interest in me. Then I realized the issue was everyone else.
We met in a coffee shop. I spotted him instantly: He was the most attractive man in there, and I was not the only one to notice. The barista was giving him a strong side-eye, which, from what I’d observed, could work wonders on the unsuspecting male. I had to move fast, find a way to get his attention, and so, as I walked toward the counter, I stumbled slightly and grabbed for his arm to steady myself.
“Whoa,” he’d said. “Careful. Are you OK?”
I’d blushed prettily (not something I can generally do on command, but everyone in the shop was staring at me) and looked up at him through my lashes. “Yes. So sorry. I don’t know what happened there.”
He smiled, and, though it was wide and open and honest, I thought I recognized something beneath: something sad, which he’d gone to great lengths to conceal. It chimed with something inside me. “I’m always half asleep before I have my morning coffee, too,” he’d said.
He was kind like that. Willing to put himself in others’ shoes. It was one of the things I loved most about him. I didn’t tell him that I was only in the café to pass the time before a covert interview for a job that I hoped might raise my frightful prospects. That I thought coffee tasted like mud. “Exactly,” I said, mirroring his easy, casual stance.
Always the gentleman, he allowed me to go ahead of him. I knew he was listening, so I ordered a cappuccino, but when I went to pay heslipped round me, tapped his card on the machine, and winked. The rush of attraction was so strong, I can feel it even now.
“My good deed for the day,” he said. Men do love playing the hero.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I walked into the interview room—for a design job at a magazine publishing company—later that same morning, and he was sitting there. A coincidence too strange to be insignificant. I learned that—should I get the role—he would be my manager.
