Belinda Missen - Lessons in Love

Reality had other plans.

I’d barely rounded the corner before I was on my knees in someone’s gutter, depositing my dinner and adding a whiff of lemon meringue martini into the local storm-water system. I had to wait for my stomach to stop heaving before I could pick gravel from tender kneecaps and limp home. My walk of shame was complemented by shoes dangling from fingers, and a sweaty sour mess of hair.

None of this was going down in my list of life achievements I was proud of.

I was relieved when I arrived home to find the house empty. It gave me just enough time to shower myself back into human form, and a modicum of privacy to freak out on my own. As my head hit the pillow, I hoped to wake up the next morning and find everything had been some multidimensional Marvel universe style dream.

It didn’t. It wasn’t. This was not Doctor Strange and his mirror dimension. Or, maybe it could be if I made sure not to tell anyone of my late-night escapades. Hiding from daylight the next morning, I made a very snap decision that I was not telling a soul about my night. What strange magic had been there was not being put up for public consumption. I pulled on some comfortable clothes and shuffled out into the kitchen, and the new morning.

I switched on the kettle and searched for a mug through barely open eyes.

‘And a very good morning to you,’ Penny said through burbled laughter. She had a frying pan in one hand and a fat old spatula in the other. ‘Are you of the genus grease this morning, or the genus carbo-starchy-coma?’

‘Both. Both is good.’ I slipped onto a stool by the counter and held my head in my hands. Even though I’d showered and double washed myself last night, I could still smell lemon meringue. My stomach lurched.

‘Big fat fluffy pancakes?’ Penny presented me with a plate stacked high. ‘We have not particularly authentic maple syrup, lemon and sugar, or whipped butter.’

‘Butter,’ I groaned. Something rose in my throat at the idea of going anywhere near lemon. ‘And maple syrup. All of it.’

‘Alrighty then.’

A leaning tower of pancakes appeared before me, along with butter and syrup, which I poured until I had a small moat on my plate. I shuffled across to the dining table and hugged my coffee cup. I’d have closed my eyes again if it weren’t for the fact I got a frame-by-frame replay of my not so best moments from the last twenty-four hours.

‘How are you feeling this morning?’ Penny stood back from the pan while bacon sizzled and spat at her.

‘I feel like I’m never drinking again.’ I held my face. While I felt like death, Penny looked like she was enjoying every minute of this. For once, it was me on the wrong end of the bar tab and not her.

‘And, where, pray tell, did you disappear to last night?’ she asked.

‘Uhhhh.’ I tucked my napkin under my plate and chewed ultra-slowly. Not even Penny was exempt from my decision not to tell anyone. ‘I went for a walk.’

Her brows disappeared beneath her fringe. ‘For a walk?’

‘I was so drunk,’ I tried, fingers fanning out from my temples. ‘And I thought the cold air would do me good. All I ended up doing was throwing up in the gutter.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘You?’

‘Me.’ I pouted. ‘What a waste of good martini, right?’

‘Jesus, Eleanor. If you’re not careful, you’ll be having random cheap sex.’

Pancake stuck in my throat. I coughed.

‘And herein, you are shooketh,’ she chuckled. ‘Ellie, you crack me up.’

I grinned. ‘Glad to help.’

After breakfast, I beat a hasty retreat to bed, where my only companion was going to be Harry Potter and his magic wand. He was going to be far less trouble. Plus, it was my tenth read through of the series, and he was at least a known quantity.

Still, there was only so many magic spells that would keep reality at bay. My hangover tapered off with a thumper of a headache, which was soon replaced by waves of embarrassed realisation. It arrived slowly at first, but then rushed in like a high tide in a monsoon. My life had an egg timer in the top right-hand corner. Less than forty-eight hours until I had to deal with Marcus again.

Penny suggested a day of shopping, but I couldn’t process the idea of perhaps running into him on the street. I didn’t want that awkward ‘How about that, huh?’ one-two shuffle on a street corner while neither of us knew what to say. So, I opted for a weekend inside. The couch and a DVD box set were calling my name. I needed to recharge, I argued, and disappeared into a pile of cushions with half the confectionary aisle and another set of What Ifs to be anxious about. I powered through a box of Lindt balls, balls , and broke apart a block of Cadbury Fruit and Nut … nuts .

Chocolate! Marcus was the chocolate bar I stole from the milk bar when I was fourteen. While the shopkeeper was busy stacking fruit and veg, I slipped a single-serve Cadbury Snack bar into my pocket and raced out the door. Only, this time, I’d been caught. And what did we learn from that episode? There was not thrill in getting away with the crime, and it wasn’t ever going to happen again. There, brain. Sorted. Illicit. Illegal. Not happening. Never again.

By the time my alarm went off on Monday morning, bright red and screaming like a banshee, I was well prepared. I’d been awake for hours, pondering what exactly it was I was going to say during the inevitable discussion. I’d rationalised how I was going to get my point across without sounding like a clingy girlfriend. To him, whatever may have only been a word. To me, it was a matter of respect. How the ever-perceptive Penny hadn’t picked up on my agitation was beyond me.

I kept my head down and thoughts to myself as I walked through the school gates. If I couldn’t see the looks in people’s eyes, then they didn’t know, and I could sleep easier. We slipped into the reception area together, where Penny opened the safe and booted her computer, and I checked my pigeonhole as per my shiny new routine.

My heart thumped in time with my footsteps and my stomach was stuck on spin cycle. They dropped it down a notch as I ventured into an empty tea room. It was one hurdle I’d cleared. It all felt a little like Mario trying to get to the castle to save Princess Peach, except I was the Princess trying to avoid Mario, so maybe that wasn’t the best analogy.

I shouldered my office door as it swung open.

‘And it’s a very good morning to Usain Bolt!’

As it turned out, I was not prepared.

Marcus sat, legs dangling from the desk, bearing coffee and a greasy bag that I took cautiously and with minimal eye contact. Inside the bag, a Florentine – only my favourite biscuit ever. With its sweet chocolate base, crunchy nuts and candied fruit, Penny and I would walk laps of town as teenagers, fuelled only by idle high school gossip and the sugar in these biscuits.

‘I thought, seeing as I didn’t get my morning after breakfast that I’d improvise,’ he continued.

‘How’d you know these were my favourite?’ I asked.

He shrugged and lifted his feet onto the seat of a chair. ‘A little bird told me.’

‘A little bird in a tiki dress?’ I asked.

‘Is that what it is today?’ He smirked. ‘I can never keep up.’

My gaze shifted from the contents of the bag to him. Panic drummed a beat in my ears.

‘Relax, I didn’t tell her,’ he assured me. ‘She certainly seemed completely oblivious to it when I rang for some insider information, so why feed the gossip train?’

‘What’d you tell her?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘I told her I wanted to do something nice for you for breakfast. Something about welcoming you into your first proper week on the job.’