Still, our movie night was exactly what I needed, and it’s calmed me down enough to keep my composure at work in the days that follow. I go through the motions as swiftly as ever, prepping Oliver with all the detail—and more—that he requested for the cost-savings implementation rollout, and civilly declining Harold’s unyielding invites to Annabel’s.
At least now there’s clarity with where things stand for the promotion. I’m confident in my decision to stay on and take the case over from Oliver, and I’m not going to let my injured emotions derail my path to the top. And the path is still there, just one year delayed.
The fact that I’ll be staying in London a few more months makes me less upset than I expect it to, despite being under Harold’s reign. I guess I’m just tired of moving around all the time, and now that I’m making friends, it’s not so lonely.
I tell myself that Rory and Jules’s faces appear in my thoughts at exactly the same time, in exactly the same order. But that’s not entirely true. Rory’s appears first, though that’s probably just because of some biological programming that conditions me tocling to someone from my hometown so that local clans can procreate and save the gene pool.
The wordprocreatecareens my thoughts down another rabbit hole, in which I’m trying hard not to picture this verb taking place between me and saidfriendRory.
Jules comes to the rescue with a welcome distraction, texting me to clear my calendar for Friday night because she’s booked us tickets for Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park.
The sun sets around fourPMthese days (assuming it ever rises, which it doesn’t seem to half the time), so by the time I meet up with her at seven, it feels like midnight. Nina has the night shift at the hospital, meaning it’s just Jules and me walking into the park together.
The grassy acres have been transformed by transportable carnival rides and ice rinks, market stalls and model trains, inflatable snowmen and circus acts, and an enormous Christmas tree that’s bedazzled with colored bulbs. A saxophone band is playing carols from a stage, and kids are running here and there, sloshing hot cocoa and popcorn as they race to the next roller coaster.
“You Americans might ’ave Thanksgiving, but no one does Christmas quite like the Brits,” Jules says, happily sponging up the scene. “This spot is proper touristy, but you’ve got ter do it. And besides. it gives me an excuse to be a dustbin lid again.”
“Does ‘dustbin lid’ mean kid?” I guess.
“There you are!” Jules says with the proud look of a tutor whose student has finally caught on. “Not that I need an excuse to act like a child, mind you. C’mon, let’s join the Dumbo queue.”
And so she yanks me along with her toward a flying elephant ride. I try to talk my way out of it, but Jules won’t hear of it. Inthe end, it’s worth the wait—not so much for the way the plastic elephant jostles me from side to side as it rises and dips, but for Jules’s reaction. She squeals with glee, frothing at the mouth with laughter, egging her elephant on as if it can hear her. “That’s a good lad,” she coos. “Just a bit ’igher now, got ter beat Kat down there.”
Next up, she leads us to a pendulum-style roller coaster, described as “sixty-five meters of pure adrenaline—guaranteed to turn your breath to ice.” I used to love these kinds of rides when I was little, but now I feel preemptively queasy, so I send Jules without me while I watch from the ground. She meets back up with me after, pure joy plastered on her face. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” she insists, then proceeds to detail the glorious sensation of how she thought her intestines were going to fall out of her mouth on the rocket-speed descent. “If I ’adn’t clamped my mouth shut, I surely would’ve vomited up my bowels,” she brags, as if she’s half wishing she’d kept her mouth open, just for the thrill of it.
“Sorry to have missed that,” I comment dryly.
Jules orders beer and a Cornish pasty from a food truck, and I opt for hot chocolate and chips. We sit down at a picnic table.
“So,” Jules says. “’Ow’s our Rory?”
“He’s fine, I think,” I say, bristling at her suggestive tone. “Haven’t seen him in a couple weeks.”
We’ve texted a bit after our movie night, but I haven’t wanted to suggest hanging out again. It would feel a bittoo much. Pushing the line of how much you can see a friend of the opposite gender without one or both of you thinking it might mean something more. Rory hasn’t suggested getting together either.
“Righ’o,” Jules says, eyebrows arching in that cartoon-character way.
“What?” I ask, because it’s clear she’s bursting to share her opinion. “Just spit it out.”
“Well, it’s not rocket science, is it?” Jules says. “Nina saw it too. You’re both bloody brilliant together, you are.”
In the brief moment before I remember to scowl, I want to smile. But I don’t. “We’re good as friends,” I say. “Justfriends.”
“I dunno ’ bout that,” Jules says in a tone that indicates that shedoesknow, and that she disagrees. “He thinks you’re the bee’s knees, ’e just doesn’t want to put ’imself out there when you’re not exactly giving much affirmation. Can’t say I blame the bloke.”
“False,” I say, as I catch myself wishing it might be true, just because my ego is greedy. “He’s still in love with his ex,” I remind Jules—and myself. “They’re getting back together over Christmas.”
The thought of Rory and Emily curled up together in front of the fireplace is enough to extinguish any feeble flame my own heart might be harboring (and feeble the flames are, if they exist at all, which they probably certainly do not).
“Breaking my heart, you both are,” Jules moans, going back to the beer stand to top up her cup.
As she sits back down, my phone chimes with a text. I check it reluctantly, expecting it to be a request from Oliver asking me to pull together a presentation over the weekend. Or a proposition from Harold.
Instead, it’s an invite from Rory.
Hi there! Any chance you want to come to the school Christmas party on Friday the 18th? Know it’s a work day, so no worries if not—just thought I’d check. Mala’s been asking about you!
Jules reads it over my shoulder, cackling triumphantly. “What I’d tell you?” she says, like this proves she should be a professional tarot card reader.
