Emma Unsworth: Adults

I delete the hashtag so that the post simply says:

PASTRIES.

Full stop or no full stop? A full stop always looks decisive and commanding, but it can also look more cool and casual if you just leave the sentence hanging there, like, Oh I’m so busy in my dazzling life I don’t even have time to punctuate. The squalid truth is I over-punctuate when I’m stressed/excited. I can go four exclamation marks on a good/bad day. Exclamation marks are the people-pleaser’s punctuation of choice. It makes us seem eager and pliable. Excited to talk to you! You!!!! I always notice other people’s punctuation. When someone sends me a message with no exclamation marks or kisses, I respect them. I also think: are they depressed? Did I do something to offend them?

Sometimes, I see people using whole rows of emojis, and I just want to hold them.

PASTRIES

Perfect.

Yes, I think that probably says it all.

Hm.

Is it enough, though, really?

Oh god. I just. Don’t. Know.

‘Can I help you?’

I look up in fright. It is my turn at the counter.

‘Uh …’

I look at the croissants on the rough stone plinth. I see now that there is a problem. I’m pretty sure – and I am very observant – that one of them is from yesterday. It looks stiffer than the rest, the way it’s hunched at the front, like it’s all uptight. It is a decidedly different texture and colour to the rest. I don’t know whether this suggests age, or some kind of bacterial contamination, or what. How did I miss this? I know that I am definitely going to get that croissant if I ask for a croissant.

I am paralysed. I do not know what to do. I do not feel able to ask for a specific croissant, although I certainly feel I deserve one. I do a quick calculation. There are eight croissants there and the defective one is on my side rather than the server’s, so really it’s unlikely I’ll get lumped with it. I exhale. I decide to go for it. I need this experience, to fulfil my … planned experience.

I speak. ‘One croissant, please.’

The server nods, but then for some reason known only to herself, goes to take the CROISSANT OF CALAMITY from the front. I shout: ‘Oh, hey! Excuse me! Could I please not have that croissant?’

I say it with fear and also with absolute rectitude.

The server’s tongs twitch. She says, slowly: ‘They’re … all the same.’

I say: ‘Could I just have one from the back please? Thank you!’

Everyone is looking at me.

She speaks slower still, as though I am an idiot. ‘But … they are all the same.’

‘That one is a slightly different hue, I believe,’ I say, quieter.

She peers at the croissants. The person behind me in the queue comes forward for a look, too. The barista abandons the Gaggia and comes over. The cashier. They all look, and then they all stare at me.

‘It was a preference really,’ I whisper. ‘Please, just put any croissant in a bag.’

She puts the croissant in a paper bag. It hits the bottom with a ding. I press my card on the reader and will it to bleep. Bleep for Chrissakes, bleep fucking fuckbud fucker.

It bleeps. I pelt.

I run into the Ladies, sling the croissant in the bin and have a short cry. It’s fine, though. People cry in WerkHaus all the time. They have these little soundproofed booths near reception for private calls, but mostly people just use them for crying in.

When I’m done crying I take a piss. As I wipe, I check for blood, as always.

I look at my phone.

PASTRIES

The sentiment remains the same, even if the truth has turned out differently. And it’s the sentiment that counts.

PASTRIES

In a way, it’s perfect. Factual. But I’m still not 100 per cent. I recall something Suzy Brambles once said in her ‘Incontrovertible Gram Tips’. She said: ‘Go with your first draft.’

I change the words back to:

PASTRIES, WOO! #PASTRIES

Right. I feel almost ready to go on this. As a final check, I text Kelly.

Kelly is my oldest friend and most trusted social media editor.

Pls will you check one thing for me before I post

No no I said no more of this

Please

No, you’re driving me mad with this daily bombardment

It’s not every day!

Mate, it’s most days

Please I’m having the worst day already!!!! I was just served a defective pastry

No

I beg of you

I am not endorsing this behaviour

What behaviour???

This lunacy. I don’t think it’s healthy. Or authentic

Authentic???

You said that we ‘grew up together’ in a post the other day. We were 22 when we met

It made a better story! Anyway we almost did, in that we both grew up in the North!

WTF

Charlie Chaplin once lost a Charlie Chaplin lookalike competition

DOUBLE WTF

Well we inevitably put a filter on ourselves, don’t we? Even as honest people moving through society

Stop intellectualising your problem. Life is not a lookalike competition

Just sent you the post, pls review and feed back

FFS

She’ll read it. I know she will. She doesn’t do much while she’s waiting for her receptionist shift to start – other than watching blackhead-removal videos, which I think somehow give her a sense of universal equilibrium being restored.

She replies after a few seconds:

It’s fine. Really don’t know what you were concerned about

Thank you x

I bestow a kiss! I hope she really feels that ‘thank you’. My politeness-verging-on-grace. Then after a few seconds I send:

I hope you took time to really consider it and didn’t just rush off an answer?

She doesn’t reply.

She does that sometimes, Kelly. Shuts down. She did a much bigger version when I was getting together with my ex, Art – back in those heady days of hard wooing – and I asked her to check the things I was sending him. Sometimes you just need a second opinion, you know? What are friends for?

Kelly’s from the North, too. She’s Yorkshire. The white rose to my red. She’s an angel in my lifetime but she has started to publicly undermine me and to be honest it’s starting to grate. Example: last week I posted a photo of a leaf-covered bench in the park with the words:

Autumn, you’ve always been my favourite

and she commented:

Do you think liking autumn makes you a more complex person?

A few days later I posted a charming vista of a field and she wrote,

Mate, there’s nothing in this picture

It’s not the kind of thing you expect from a beloved friend. BUT – if you had to ask me who knew me best, who loved me best, who I loved best – well, I do know what the answer would be. Kelly thrills me, it’s as simple as that. She thrills me. We might have drifted apart a bit of late, but we have the kind of friendship that can weather emotional distance. It’s very easy-come, easy-go. Like an open marriage.

Kelly has a son, Sonny. I’ve known them twelve years, although technically I met Sonny first. He’s fourteen now. Kelly got pregnant with her university ex, whom she told me she swiftly outgrew. He now has a baby with another woman and is a proper truck-blocking activist. He and Kelly once stayed up a tree for six weeks, while she was pregnant, and I think it was during that time she realised the relationship was really over. It’s going to be a make-or-break holiday when you’re crapping in a carrier bag and arguing about who has more snacks left because there’s no electronic entertainment. Kelly still has a star tattoo on her wrist from when she used to be an anarchist. (She never turned down a cheeseboard, though. I think you often find that with anarchists – they still like the small comforts.)