If I Never Met You: A Novel

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Hi!

As discussed, here’s how I thought the arrangement might work. Obviously feel very free to say either no, these are the ravings of a lunatic, or suggest any guidelines of your own.

As said, we’d start next weekend (how you fixed to take a photo in a bar, early Saturday?) and then run it up until Christmas. We can work out the breakup details in the New Year. God this is civilized compared to actual relationships, huh? ☺

1. Not that I’m saying this is our professional speciality, but—the way to make a lie work is to mix in as much truth as possible. In terms of origins story, let’s say we got trapped in a lift and hit it off during a drink afterward. Mick can verify. And hey, that’s essentially true, right?! (Right? ☹)
2. We’ll bung up Instagrams and Facebooks on a roughly weekly basis and generally make it clear we’re having a better time and are more smitten than anyone has been since Taylor and Burton. Without the fights, drinking, giant rocks, and remarriages. OK, maybe with the drinking. We’ll try to keep it as tasteful as possible obviously, and no public mucky talk or anything too ripe. Neither of us want to return to the smoking wreckage of where respect for us once stood, once it’s over. All posts to be preapproved by both parties. (Oh, and none of that “Snuggling up, hashtag blissville” stuff! Brings me out in a rash.)
3. No seeing anyone else during the period of the “relationship.” No public wooing. No PDAs. Being cucked is very much not the look either of us are going for here. I’ll delete my Tinder. No, no need to thank me for this extraordinary sacrifice. <3
4. This might be the sticking point, but, for this to work for me, I kind of need us to go to the Christmas party as a couple. Misters Salter’s and Rowson’s beady eyes will be firmly on that event & it’s the one major on-premises showcase for our Coupled Upness. I know you’re not much of a one for the company do (Michael told me that too) (think you may have a fan there, FY to your I) (no bagging off with him until you’ve finished fake dating me, thanks ☺) but it’s the prime opportunity to make sure this gets results—for both of us.
5. Oh, last point, but vital. The way secrets get round in good faith is everyone thinks they can tell someone they trust, and that one person trusts someone else, and so on. I propose we tell absolutely no one, not a soul, that this is fake. Zero risk of exposure, peace of mind for both participants. Consider this a Nondisclosure Agreement for afterward too. We never talk about this not being real.

Whaddya think?

Jx

Hi, Jamie,

All sounds good, except the CHRISTMAS PARTY?? Oh GOD, I’d rather tour the Helmand Province in a day-glo unitard. ☹

Lx

L,

Haaah, I did think you’d object. It is quite a harrowing experience.

I don’t mean, you know, making out while you sit in my lap. Just arrive at the same time, sit next to each other, leave at the same time.

Jx

Argh. OK, we have a deal. NO KARAOKE THOUGH.

Lx

A deal, but Laurie had already decided to break the rules.

“Look at us in a garden center on a Sunday; we’re officially wholesome, middle-aged, and deeply heteronormative,” Emily said.

“Don’t nonhetero-conforming people go to garden centers on Sunday?” Laurie said, unclicking her seat belt.

“The cool ones don’t.”

Emily had announced she wanted to do things with Laurie that weren’t pubs, bars, and restaurants.

“Otherwise I will have helped you out of a broken heart and into cirrhosis. What could you not do, when you were with Dan, that you wanted to do? Ring the changes. Enjoy your freedoms!”

“Erm . . . he was funny about indoor plants. And especially flowers. He said they were amputated dying things merely giving the illusion of life. Little did I know they were a metaphor for our relationship, har har. I had to fight for the potted palm in the front room. And he was heavily allergic to anything with fur obviously, so that ruled pets out.”

“OK well, pick something Dan made difficult, and do it. Or get it.”

“I’m not sure I want a dog; I’m not ready. Maybe a cat. But then I’m the single-cat-woman cliché.”

“Plants and flowers it is then. Aim for ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Elton John!’ kind of levels of foliage.”

Inside they got a shallow trolley and Laurie filled it with bright flowers in pots and kitchen garden herbs.

“This is very therapeutic actually,” she said. “Can we look at the Farrow and Ball tester pots now? I love them.”

“Knew it. You are a natural homemaker. I am a natural home-wrecker.”

This was the perfect conversational opening to outline the Jamie Carter Indecent Proposal to Emily. When Jamie said “one person” was always the leak, he surely didn’t mean loyal female best friends unconnected to their workplace. But no need to spook him by querying it.

Laurie paused, expectant for the delighted cackle.

“You’re not going to do it, are you?” Emily said, pulling them to a halt in the Paints and Painting Accessories aisle.

Laurie did a small reel back.

“What? I thought you would be SO into this. It’s like a public relations campaign on steroids. As a life experiment.”

“That’s why you should take me seriously when I say don’t do it.”

Laurie was so startled she could only blurt:

“Why not?”

“Because, for one, it’s lying. I know that sounds quite superstitious and I can’t be more specific. But it’s lying, and lying goes wrong. Lying is just bad karma.”

“Em, you old hippie! Can Mrs. I won’t travel anywhere where I get fewer than three bars on my phone or fewer than four stars on my hotel be talking like this?!” Laurie was a mixture of amusement, incredulity, and slight worry at this unexpected take. She took Emily’s advice seriously. Apart from the stuff about hench dipshits.

“I know, I know,” Emily said. “But I’ve got rid of anyone who’s ever worked for me who has lied, immediately, and I’ve never regretted it. You’re not a liar, which is why you shouldn’t get involved with a big bout of lying. It’s not you.”

She hit on something that bothered Laurie from the start of hatching the Jamie plan and still niggled her now. That everyone saw her as utterly status quo, conventional. It had never mattered before, this straitlaced identity, because she was that, and she was content. To discover no one would accept her as anything else? Unwelcome. Emily was paying her a compliment, and yet it was the first time she had made her feel worse.

“That’s what appeals to me. Being like me doesn’t feel good right now.”

Laurie fiddled with a tiny tin of Mole’s Breath and put it back again. Maybe she should repaint the whole house from top to bottom. “As for being fired, I can’t be fired for pretending to date a colleague. I mean, how could they ever prove I wasn’t dating him? The bosses have no say in what I do out of hours, if it’s not illegal.”

“Hmmm. Then, what if, when you’re feeling vulnerable, and this player is pretending to be into you, you start falling for him for real? A romance that is like a sugary high from cake icing calories and stardust and make believe is going to screw with you. If he doesn’t.”

A harried-looking couple joined them and Emily and Laurie moved away, a tacit agreement to save the rest of the conversation for the journey home, and went to pay for Laurie’s greenery.

Outside, Emily blipped the alarm on her Mini with the key fob, and threw the tiny boot open.

“All I’m saying, Loz, is I don’t think some man pretending to feel things he doesn’t feel and you pretending to feel those things back sounds like what you need right now. Are you sure he isn’t into you, and this isn’t some completely meta way of pulling you?”

Laurie hooted with laughter and Emily huffed, “Oh yes, that’s ridiculous, and what you’re suggesting is completely sane. I mean, of course.”

“It would be funny if you knew him. He’s practically fending them off with a poison-tipped umbrella, he’s no need for long game scams with sad older women. Meanwhile I’m about ten years away from being able to look at another man. And if I was ready, Jamie Carter would not be that man. He’s one of those preening egotists that only a twenty-four-year-old would crush on and think she’s going to marry. Which is probably why he dates twenty-four-year-olds.”

“Is being his date going to bother Dan that much, if he’s such a womanizing fool? I mean, maybe it would upset Dan if you picked up with his best friend, but not this guy? I am not suggesting you do that either.”

Emily had taken against this project wholly, instantly, and instinctively, and it seemed nothing was going to change her mind. But then, it was ridiculous, Emily was right. Launching a fictitious relationship for Dan’s benefit was nothing like healthy moving on. It had “end in tears” all over it. The thing was, it was starting in tears. Laurie was 98 percent tears. She suspected she’d always be part tears now. She had nothing to lose.

Laurie shrugged, as she fitted the penultimate plant into the boot. She’d have to hold the fern on her lap.

“I don’t know if Dan being bothered is achievable,” Laurie said, feeling drained and empty as she spoke. Jamie had been sure, but he hadn’t been through what Laurie had. “I don’t know if he cares enough anymore. But if anyone’s going to bother him, it’s Jamie Carter. Great nobsman of our age, and a professional competitor. Dan already can’t stand him because they all think he’s pushy at work; it’s perfect. If Jamie gets his promotion, he’ll be Dan’s boss. Oh God, now I think about it, please let him get the promotion. This is a single goal win for Jamie Carter and a double win for me.”

Laurie felt a little grimy at saying this and yet, she could hear a little more of her old self returning too. She could be irreverent, confident, and funny. Not simply some wet blanket who had smothered Dan.

“Mmm,” Emily said, mouth twisting at the word “win.” “Is he online? Show me a picture of this vainglorious idiot.”

Laurie pulled a glove off and swiped at her phone, stabbing at the Facebook app, searching through her friends. Jamie had added her after the lift night. It was to help the deception, though she suspected he’d smoothly send a request to any woman he’d marked interesting/useful. The twenty-first-century equivalent of flipping your business card into her hand.

“Here.”

Laurie proffered her iPhone, waited for the hmmm, I don’t see why he thinks he’s so special sniff, disclaimer. No one could survive this buildup, especially with a cynical woman in protective mode.

Emily was silent for a second, swiping. She turned Laurie’s phone on its side, landscape mode, chewed her lip. “Oh. Oh.”

She handed the phone back.

“OK. Yes. You’ve convinced me. Do it.”

Laurie was momentarily stunned. “Are you joking?”

“No. No offense, but I didn’t think what passed for fit at Salters & Rowson would mean someone that fit. He’s got that sulky mouth, stubble, square-jaw thing I love. Brrrr.”

“He’s clean-shaven at work. He’s also got glasses that appear and disappear, now I think about it. He’s a Talented Mr. Ripley schmuck, isn’t he. He was probably known by another name, with a long story about being an orphan, at his last firm.”

“I dunno about that, but he looks like a GQ cover. He should be on a speedboat in Rimini. And, good God, he knows it. But then, would it be possible to not know it? We shouldn’t place unreasonable expectations on him.”

“I won’t ask what we should place on him.”

Emily pulled a one-eye-shut, tongue-loll face. Laurie started gurgling with laughter, drawing looks from a family nearby trying to cram panels of wooden trellises into the rear of a tiny car.

“Dan will be in a tatty heap,” Emily said—God, Laurie realized, the 180-degree swing was genuine, the Jamie Carter Effect was real—“I couldn’t pass that up. I can’t in all conscience tell you to pass it up. Have fun. Don’t fall for ideas of fixing any lost boy fuck boys, though. Don’t start to believe the love of the right woman could cure him. It’s bound to cross your mind at some point.”

Laurie blanched, but was very pleased to have Emily back on board.

After they got into the car and belted up, Emily said: “You know when you’re sick, if you get up, shower, dress, put your makeup on, and act human, you can feel much better?”

“Yes?”

“It has an impact on how you feel. If you playact being loved up with this man, you may well get happier. But sooner or later you’re going to get mixed up in it. You’re going to start wondering if you’ve started to mean it, or whether he has. I don’t want it to make you anxious, for you to get hurt.”

“I’m not some suggestible fifteen-year-old! Seriously! You think we’ll hold hands for two minutes and I’ll start humming Taylor Swift songs and browsing Elle Wedding? Looolll.”

“You may laugh at me, Watkinson, you often do. Doesn’t make me wrong.”

“Also, this man is a take-no-prisoners nihilist. It’s not a case of his heart needing to be in it. I don’t think he has one.”

“How will it work, the relationship?”

Laurie went over the MO again and Emily said: “You should be done up to the nines for the first date.”

“Oh thanks, instead of frumpy old Mrs. Miggins here shambling up.”

“No, you’re beautiful as you are but if this is Operation Mindfuck for Dan, no stops should be left unpulled out. You don’t show off, and this calls for showing off. I’ll get you a hair appointment at the salon I’ve started going to in town.”

“Does it cater for hair like mine?”

“Yes, I’m going to send you to my hairdresser; she’s done loads of courses in Afro hair and would love to get her hands on you.”

“You’re sure?” Laurie said, feeling apprehensive at being gotten. “White-people salons don’t often know what they’re doing. And even if she’s keen, I don’t really want to be her guinea pig.”

“Honestly, it’s her passion. She’s shown me photos of lots of her clients with hair like yours. Trust.”

Laurie didn’t trust, if she was honest, but she also wouldn’t have known where to start glamazoning without Emily’s help—she still used a hairdresser in Hebden who came to her mum’s house whenever she was back.

Laurie forced herself to relax into listening to Emily’s excited burblings about what she should wear with cheerful indifference. If only there was a way the Issa rack at Selfridges could similarly transform her ripped-up insides.

Plants deposited, front room looking pleasingly jungly, Laurie waved Emily off outside. After she started the engine, she gestured to Laurie she wanted to say something, lowering the window.

“Loz, if you do do this showmance. One thing. Consequences. The law of unintended consequences.”

Laurie frowned. “Uh?”

“This screams ‘consequences’ all over it. You won’t know what they are now but I promise you, they’ll arise. Be prepared for that.”

“Oh. Yes. You’re probably right. But I can’t think what they’d be.”

“No. They’ll happen though.”

“How do I prepare for the unknown?”

“You can’t. That’s my point.”

This seemed excessive caution to Laurie, and she was the queen of caution.

On paper, the crime was perfect.