“All right, Matty?” Phil says. This is another standard greeting, to be answered by a reciprocal “All right, mate?” It’s unclear if anyone ever is, in fact, all right.
Lachlan turns to me. “And this is Abby McIntyre. New social media maven and all-around great person, despite an unfortunate Americanness.”
I shake Matt’s outstretched hand. “Can’t help it. I just love guns and expensive healthcare so much.”
Matt lifts a brow in confusion, but Lachlan shakes his head and Matt smiles. “Ah, jokes. Can never be too sure with you lot.” He’s good-looking, but in a more pedestrian way than Lachlan. It’s almost boring, a flat, bland handsomeness, like I might forget what he looks like as soon as he’s out of my sight. But he does have a lovely deep voice and an English accent that’s fairly intelligible, unlike some of the ones I’ve heard from the locals. I try to remember his flashcard: “Matt Fletcher, team captain, defender, married to Evie, three kids, at Mersey for fifteen years, originally from…Sheffield,” I mumble, and it’s not until I see Matt’seyebrows inch up toward his hairline once more that I realize I’ve just said all that out loud.
“Oh,” Lachlan says. “That’s another thing you need to know about Abby: She’s obsessed with all of us on a molecular level.”
“Don’t suppose you’ve got my PIN code stored up there, do you?” Matt asks. “Because I’m locked out of my accounts for guessing wrong too many times.”
“I’ll search the memory banks and see what turns up.”
“Macca, have you got what you need from me?” Lachlan asks. “Matty and I were going to go get some food.”
Macca? Am I cool enough to have gotten a nickname? True, everyone at this place has one, but still, it’s an exciting development. So exciting that I forget to respond to his question.
“Macca?” he repeats.
“Sorry, yes. You’re free to go.” I watch them walk away, wishing desperately I could join, if only to further dig into the Claire question. But then Phil taps me on the shoulder, because our next player is here, and I shove all thoughts of Lachlan and his mysterious wife out of my mind.
Chapter Eight
One thing I’ve learned aboutthis country is that everything is smaller than it is in America. Okay, yes, that’s like World Facts 101, but it’s one thing to make jokes about how big American cars, houses, and meals are, and quite another to be faced with the reality in your actual life. It’s not that I miss the road-hogging, gas-guzzling SUVs of my homeland, but sometimes I walk by cars here that make me nervous to even brush against them, lest they crumple into tiny metal balls. And the portion sizes don’t even seem like they were designed by an insidious food lobby that’s dooming hundreds of millions of people to poor health—like, what’s that even about? What’s a girl gotta do to get diabetes around here?
(Okay, so it’s not all bad.)
Another thing that’s smaller: my new flat. Yes, I finally had enough of the Westlife boys taunting me every night with their deep, soulful gazes, and the sometimes-blissful disorientation caused by Amina’s twin bed wore off too, so I figured it was time to go. Being the saints they are, the Iqbals would have housed me for as long as I wanted, but I’m thirty—I can’t live with parents, even if they’re not mine. So to the internet I went, in a desperate attempt to find the stranger in Liverpool least likely to a) eat foodclearly labeled “Abby,” b) arrange their toenail clippings in geometric patterns on the kitchen counter, and/or c) murder me. Yes, I know, I have exacting demands of housemates. But finding this person proved to be a bit of a challenge, especially because the final thing that’s considerably smaller on this side of the pond? My salary. In fact, Charlotte literally laughed out loud when I told her what the Sox had been paying me. It was shocking for a number of reasons, mostly because I didn’t think amusement was an emotion in her arsenal—though I suppose it was more likeschadenfreude.
I’ve landed in a cramped but cozy two-bedroom furnished flat on the edge of the city with a girl called Fiona—or, as it sounds when she says it, “Fee-oh-ner.” She works in marketing for a chain of supermarkets and she’s nice enough. Most importantly, we’re more than a week in and there have been absolutely zero toenail-related incidentsorhomicides, so it’s pretty great on that front.
Fiona’s major downside is that she has a serious boyfriend, Oliver, who is at the flat All. The. Time. He’s fine, and I wouldn’t be bothered by his constant presence under normal circumstances, but seeing as I am still only weeks out of the most traumatic breakup of my life, it’s hard to have their love shoved in my face at all hours of the night and day, especially as I’m still actively reminding myself that I am no longer one-half of a couple. But what am I going to do, say something about it?
Amina, being the absolute legend she is, has driven me to Ikea today because two weeks of sleeping on the bedroom’s impossibly thin mattress has done atrocious things to my spine, and two weeks of emails responding to the news of the canceled wedding has done atrocious things to my mental health. I’m so grateful to have her here; it sounds so stupid, but I didn’t realize just how lonely I would be when moving to a place where I knew almostno one. Even if I had come to England under happier circumstances, rather than fleeing the scene of the crime of my relationship, I’m not sure I would have fully reckoned with the emotional toll of being alone in a foreign country. It’s one thing to have a few Saturday nights at home when you can’t be bothered to make plans; it’s quite another to have a few Saturday nights at home because you have no one to make plans with—especially after six years of having a default plus-one. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the “MOVE SOUL” column of Erica’s List for ideas on how to remedy this, and though I’m not yet desperate enough to go to a local open-mic night, some of the boxes are looking more and more tempting.
After a quick lunch of Swedish meatballs in the Ikea cafeteria, Amina and I ride the escalator up to the showroom floor. “So how are you finding the job?” she asks.
“Really good, to be honest. It’s been such a welcome distraction from, you know, the tire fire that is my life. Everyone is so nice, just really friendly and helpful and all that good stuff.” I pause. “Well, everyone except for the Mersey coach. He’s nice, but a bit intimidating.”
“It’s Torsten Vogler, yeah?”
“Yeah. Big, taciturn German dude. Doesn’t smile a whole lot. Phil—that’s one of my coworkers—Phil and I had to do an interview with him, just stupid questions for the Twitter feed, and I almost shit myself.”
“Tell me more about this Phil character. Do we have a rebound situation on our hands?”
I loop my arm through hers. “Oh, Amina. Never change.”
She laughs and steers us toward a display living room, fingering some curtains as she goes. “I know you’re probably not even thinking about it given that Captain von Fuckface is still visiblein the rearview mirror. But it never hurts to periodically scan the horizon.”
“Phil is great, but I don’t think it’s going to be like that. Work husband, not real husband.”
“So he’s a fuggo?”
“No, he’s actually pretty cute. I don’t know, I just don’t get the vibes.” I shrug.
“The vibes? Total nonsense, love. We’ll never find you a husband if we’re only chasing vibes.”
I laugh along and pretend she’s right, because the alternative is bringing up Lachlan and attempting to explain what I felt that first day he walked into my office. Not that I’m in love with Lachlan, but there are definitely vibes. Even I’m not deluded enough to miss those. And if I could find those vibes in someone who was single andnotan internationally recognizable footballer, I’d be living the dream.
