If I Never Met You: A Novel

They went to Trof, an artfully scruffy bar for hipster youth and middle youth in the Northern Quarter, barmen in beanies with beards, on the basis the usual pub nearby would be overrun with their own.

What if anyone saw them? Laurie wasn’t worried, despite being recently uncoupled. When she asked herself why, it was because the idea she and Jamie Carter would have a dalliance was such a leap, the speculation wouldn’t get off the starting blocks. She’d explain and guffaw and everyone would concede, Yeah, we were reaching, there. Laurie didn’t know whether to feel reassured or saddened by this.

In some sort of devilishly brilliant coincidence, “You’re So Vain” was playing at volume as they entered, as if they knew Jamie Carter walked into bars like he was walking onto a yacht.

Laurie loved the interior’s golden glow and heaving warmth, compared to the violet-black cold of Manchester outside. She did like being around people, she realized, just not people she knew and was required to talk to.

“What’re you having?”

“Big red wine please,” Laurie said.

“Right you are.”

What was his accent? It wasn’t straight-up northern but it definitely wasn’t southern either.

Jamie pushed his way into the scrum at the bar. He had a sort of natural swagger she’d admittedly probably loathe in a member of her own sex. Watching women watch Jamie, Laurie allowed herself a split second of feeling relevant and hip by being with him, even though she wasn’t with him. She threw her scarf down and hummed along:

You gave away the things you loved

And one of them was me

Laurie wondered if this song was in fact about Dan, and her dreams had been clouds in her coffee. Dan would’ve been jealous of her being out with some handsome interloper, once upon a time. You’re where? What about your dinner? Why’s he asked you out, might I ask?

She’d lost Dan’s interest, she didn’t know when. She needed to identify the week, the day, the moment. The habits she’d gotten into that must’ve snuffed out his interest bit by bit.

Now, Dan neither knew nor cared where she was. It was funny being in a raucous barn like this, not psychically tethered to him. Her soul concaved and she forced herself not to think about him, or his evening dispensing foot rubs and leafing through the JoJo Maman Bébé catalogue.

“Has Gina been in touch?” Laurie said, after Jamie returned with the drinks, and she saw him surreptitiously glance at his iPhone.

“Yeah, I explained my predicament and she thinks I’m making it up, so that’s that. To be fair, it does sound a bit made up. What about you? Not ‘back out there’ yet?”

“Ah. No. I’m scheduled to get ‘back out there’ in about 2030, I think.”

“Quitters’ talk! Was it a bad breakup?” He put his lips to his pint. “Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”

“You didn’t hear?”

“No. People don’t tell me much and I don’t really ask. Only he’s with someone else and no one saw it coming. Typical of our place that they’d expect to— What’s it got to do with them?”

Laurie gave Jamie a précis. She shared more than she intended. Once she’d started speaking to a neutral party, it was like staring into the unjudgmental face of a counselor.

Except he did judge it. At least Jamie Carter, man of the world, doing an authentic jaw drop at these details confirmed it was a shocking ordeal, even to a soulless womanizer.

“Fuck! Knocked up already? Oh, Laurie. That sounds torrid. Having to still share an office, beyond grim. Can’t you make him find another job?”

She knew sympathy and liberal use of her name was part of Jamie Carter’s repertoire, his deliberate charm, but she let herself be charmed by it anyway. Also, he was probably emphasizing he knew her name now.

“Nope. He’s got a kid to support soon.” Laurie said these words quickly, before she could care about them. “I can’t imagine he’ll be willing to move. She’s got a good job here. And I don’t want to lose my house; my mortgage has gotten much bigger. I don’t want to commute. I won’t let him make me leave. I’m trapped!”

Jamie shook his head.

Laurie concluded, “I’m probably going to spend the rest of my life figuring out what the hell happened.”

“He’s not worth that much of your time,” Jamie said, knocking his glass to hers, and Laurie appreciated it, while thinking, from the man who’d never give anyone much of his.

“Another?” she said, making to get up, as they’d drained the first round fast. Laurie was liking being out and hoped when he said one drink he’d meant three to four, as was British tradition.

“No,” Jamie said, and Laurie concealed her pang of dismay. He gestured at Laurie rising in her seat, to sit down.

“I mean yes, but let me. You deserve table service, and I want some peanuts. Or wasabi cashews or whatever it’ll be here.”

Laurie beamed.

With the second round, and then a third, Laurie must’ve had pretty much a bottle of red wine on an empty stomach and she was being a level of candid with Jamie she was going to regret in the morning. Yet she couldn’t stop herself.

“I’ve never been a vengeful person, but I have fantasies of bringing Dan to his knees. I want him sobbing and begging for me to take him back, even though I know it’ll never happen. It runs through my veins like lava—I can physically feel it.”

“Yeah, I get that. I’ve been that angry at the world in my time. How would you do it?”

She shrugged, grinned. “Haven’t figured that out yet, have I?”

“It’ll come to you. You’ve got a look in your eye that clearly states you’re not to be fucked with.”

Laurie nodded, pleased. If there was one thing she’d learned tonight, Jamie was easy company. She wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, but he was a good crack. Craic, whatever. Ooh, inebriation felt nice. An escape from herself. Laurie rolled a beer mat on its edge, caught it in her other hand.

“Can I ask you something? Was the rumor true that Salter told you not to touch his niece? What did he say? I can’t imagine how he phrased it.”

Jamie laughed. “Oh, that did the rounds, did it? I swear Kerry listens at the door—I can’t believe he’s stupid enough to tell her as much she knows.”

“I’m sure she does. Or she’s bugged the room. She’s our own WikiLeaks.”

“It’s both true and not the whole truth. Am I speaking in confidence here?”

Laurie held up her hand and did a Scout’s honor sign. “I’ve been relying on that since halfway through my first wine, to be honest.”

“It was warning me off Eve, but more than that, a whole ‘get your life together if you want to get on’ gruff paternal lecture.”

“Wow, seriously? Bit much?”

“I’ve applied to be made partner.”

Laurie did a double take. “Like, third wheel? Aren’t you . . . quite young for that?”

“I went to see them both and said I am young, but I’m completely committed and definitely ready.”

Here was the white-hot ambition that put backs up and noses out of joint.

“Yeah. I want to take on tons more work for a stake. I pretty much pitched them my vision for the future of the firm, for half an hour. They said they’d think about it.”

Laurie swirled her wine in her glass.

“What was the life coaching about?”

“When Eve arrived, Salter had me in to say, she is off-limits, but also a major sticking point in promoting me is my”—Jamie made air quotes—“‘lifestyle.’ ‘You’re someone we can’t trust around the wives and girlfriends at the Christmas party.’” He did a baritone imitation voice: “‘That matters, young man, whether you like it or not.’”

“Hahaha. Bloody hell.”

“Yeah, I mean, they’re old-fashioned and conventional, aren’t they. They only understand long-term partners, marriage. Two by two onto the Ark.”

“It’s a bit much to say they can’t promote a single person! Jesus Christ, is it 1950?” Laurie would’ve thought this unfair anyway, but in her current predicament she wondered if a spinster would also be ruled out, and her blood heated.

“It’s not single per se, it’s my kind of single. Being seen out with someone different every weekend. Playing the field. It could, and I quote this word for word, ‘leave the company vulnerable to blackmail.’ No, I have no idea what that means either.”

“Oh no,” Laurie said. Then, indiscreet in drink: “Dick pics. They mean dick pics and revenge porn and sex tapes, surely?”

“Oh, jeez . . . yeah, you might be right.”

Jamie looked slightly uncomfortable and Laurie realized she’d been a trifle direct and crude. She’d indirectly referred to his . . . king and privy council, as Dan’s dad called it. His junk. Argh. She’d not congratulate herself on this moment when she awoke blearily tomorrow.

“If only they’d asked, I could’ve told them of my strict ‘no making or sending grot’ policy and given them access to my iCloud to prove it. I’m not a lawyer for nothing.”

Laurie laughed.

“So, either I get myself a steady, respectable girlfriend by their end-of-year deadline, or no name above the door for me,” Jamie concluded.

“They were that prescriptive?”

“Oh, it was coded. You know. Unless something changes . . .”

“Is that likely?”

“Put it this way. I’m kind of a communist when it comes to relationships.”

“You think we should all be state owned?”

“I think whenever they fail, we focus on what specific people did wrong within the system, overlooking the fact that the whole institution’s rotten and dysfunctional. I don’t think it works—cohabiting, monogamy. I mean, I think it works, practically—halving the cost of living, getting a mortgage, raising kids. I can see why capitalist society wants us to organize ourselves that way. Then the government doesn’t have to find you full-time nursing care when you have the massive stroke, because someone stood up in a church and told a God they didn’t believe in, fifty years ago, they’d wipe your arse.”

“Wow,” Laurie said. “I wish someone would write their own vows and use those exact lines. ‘I pledge to keep your bum cleft clean.’ Certainly better than that ‘I will always make your favorite banana milkshake’ BS.”

Jamie laughed, a body-shaking laugh, and she could see he was taking to her, perhaps more than he expected to. She wanted nothing from him, and she was bright, his equal, and dry of humor. These things might be a novelty, given who he romanced.

“But works emotionally, makes you happy?” Jamie said, swirling his drink. “Not so much. It’s usually a fostered dependency on someone you slept with and felt briefly passionate feelings for in your twenties, and you feel guilty moving on once its time has passed. In fact, that guilt is often the trigger for putting the roots down, tying yourself into it, convincing yourself it’s as good as it gets. I’ve best manned a few weddings where that is the exact description of what’s going on. It’s the least romantic thing imaginable. Yoking yourself to someone you’ve been having the same disappointing missionary with since freshers’ week.”

Laurie twinged hard at the direct relevance.

“Great best man!”

“Hahaha. I left the part where I think marriage is a grotesque harmful sham out of the speech. No, I mean, I don’t push my controversial views on other people. Live and let live.”

“But you were in a relationship in Liverpool?”

“Ah. Nah. She wanted it to be that, and I thought a semiregular cop off was a semiregular cop off. I’m very . . . upfront about my priorities since that experience. Leaving any room for doubt can go badly.”

Laurie was equal parts fascinated and repelled by Jamie’s cynicism.

“I think long-term relationships are the most potent demonstration of the sunk cost fallacy you’ll ever see,” Jamie said.

Laurie picked up a small handful of dry roasted and threw them into her mouth. She only noticed, on chewing them, how wildly hungry she was. “Meaning?”

“The definition of sunk cost fallacy is a refusal to change something that makes you unhappy. You won’t, because look at the time and money and effort you’ll have wasted if you do. Which of course only means more waste.”

Had this been what Dan decided?

“Well. Happy weekend to me. You’re as much fun as falling into a barrel of tits, aren’t you!” Laurie said, and she and Jamie both burst into loud, alcohol-fueled laughter.

Jamie paused. “None of this is remotely personal by the way, not as if I knew you and Dan as a couple.”

“None taken.” Laurie waved her hand. “What about falling madly in love though? Don’t you make any allowances for that?”

“I do, I only hope it never happens to me. It looks from the outside to be a temporary heightened manic state during which you do yourself all kinds of damage and make reckless promises you can’t keep.”

“Hahaha. I guess it’s that too.”

“That’s all it is, I’m sure of it.”

Laurie had no comeback that didn’t seem pitiful, given her circumstances.

“Hey. I hope poor Gina, twenty-nine, from Sale, isn’t looking for a soul mate if she’s meeting guys like you?”

“Oh, I’m pretty confident that’s not the kind of mating she’s looking for,” Jamie said with a wolfish knowing glance, and Laurie said, “Blee.”