several years.’ She looked up at me. ‘Did he talk about her?’
‘Briefly, only when we discussed exes.’
‘Look, here’s a picture of them,’ said Jess, squinting at her screen. ‘She’s got quite a long nose. And a big forehead. I don’t think we have to worry about her.’
‘Show me.’
She held up her phone. Lady Primrose was pretty. Jess was exaggerating about the nose. And blonde and smiley. It was a picture of them taken at a party. Max had his arm around her waist, she was tanned and wearing a strapless top that showed her collarbones. She looked quite thin, irritatingly.
‘Mmm,’ I said, as Jess lowered her phone again. ‘He didn’t actually mention her by name but she must have been the one he was talking about. But then he said our date wasn’t a therapy session and we had to discuss something else.’
‘We need to compose that message right now,’ said Jess, firmly. ‘Clem, do the plates. Lil and I really need to think about this. Oh this is thrilling. Imagine how furious Jake would be if he knew.’
Jake. I hadn’t thought about him since the day before, which meant he hadn’t taken up any head space for nearly twenty-four hours. Practically a record.
Jess insisted that she take my phone back again and concentrated on the message while I sat at the table, still reeling from this discovery, and Clem wearily picked up our plates and slid them into the sink. The news shouldn’t change how I felt about Max, I knew, but part of me couldn’t help but feel even more impressed by him. Why was sleeping with someone even slightly famous such a thrill? Did that make me a bad person?
Jess was quiet for a few moments while tapping.
‘What are you saying? Jess?’
She ignored me.
‘JESS?’
She looked up. ‘Cool it. All I’ve said is “Gorgeous Max, what a night. Looking forward to the next one. Dot, dot, dot.” And then two kisses. Little ones. Bit more casual than one big kiss. Less premeditated.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not saying that, give it back. I can’t say “looking forward to the next one”. It makes me sound mad. Even more psycho than calling him “gorgeous Max”. I hate the word gorgeous. Come on, give it back.’
Jess sighed. ‘Here you go. But it’s too late. I’ve sent it.’
‘WHAT? Jess, you promised.’
‘I did no such thing. And come on, Lil, men need encouragement like that. They can be very slow otherwise.’
‘Oh, thank you very much,’ interjected Clem, from the sink.
I checked my phone. Two grey WhatsApp ticks. She had sent it.
‘Fuck. Jess. That isn’t cool. Clem, what do you think about that message?’
He turned his head to look at us. ‘Honestly, girls, Churchill wrote some of his greatest speeches with less fuss than this. I’m sure it’s fine.’
I winced with embarrassment and stared at my phone screen, willing the message to come back. Could I send another message to him, explaining the first to lessen this intense embarrassment? Or did that look even weirder? Was it even possible to sound weirder? I wasn’t sure.
‘I wish you hadn’t,’ I muttered. But I could never get cross at Jess.
‘What were you going to tell me about Walt anyway?’ I asked her, deciding to change the subject and remembering what Jess had said earlier.
She frowned at me.
‘You know. You said you’d tell me something. About Walt. About yesterday.’
‘Ohhhh.’ She nodded in recognition. ‘Yes. He said he’d bought us tickets for a weekend in Paris.’
‘That’s sweet of him. Isn’t it?’
‘Incredibly sweet, that’s the trouble.’ Jess bit her lip and looked guilty. ‘A man tells you he’s bought tickets for a romantic weekend in Paris and your heart should leap right out of your chest. I should be rushing off to buy sexy knickers and thinking about all the oysters and the shagging.’
‘And you’re not?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really. Not at all, in fact. My first thought was “Ooooh, Paris. I wonder if I’ll meet any hot men.”’
‘Not ideal,’ I agreed.
‘Anyway, it’s not for a few weeks. So I was sort of noncommittal about it. But I felt so guilty I said I’d go to this exhibition opening at his gallery on Friday. You free? Will you come with me? Then we can stand in a corner and get pissed and decide what I should do.’
‘Think so,’ I said, looking at my calendar on my phone. ‘Yup, I am.’ My week looked bare, but I was hoping that one of the nights might be a second date with Max. Or at least I’d been hoping that before Jess sent the world’s most embarrassing message.
I didn’t get home until about nineish and the ticks beside the message were still grey. I was trying to stay breezy but that clearly meant he was ignoring it. Who didn’t check their phone for seven hours? Even Mum looked at hers more often than that. Max had definitely seen it. I just had to hope that they’d go blue and he’d send something back later that evening. I imagined he would, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy to just ignore a message, however embarrassing it was. Good manners to reply, right?
I found Grace and Riley doing yoga in the living room on their mats, laid out in front of the TV.
‘Hi, guys,’ I said, dropping my bag on the kitchen counter.
‘What time d’you call this, missy?’ said Riley, remaining twisted in his pose, his head hanging down between his legs.
‘D’you shag him?’ added Grace, in the same position.
I paused and then laughed. ‘Yes.’
They both cheered from their mats.
‘Good work,’ said Riley, admiringly. ‘Grace only gave me a gobby on our first date.’
Grace reached out and smacked him on the leg. ‘You’re a pig.’
‘What’s a gob— actually, do you know what? Never mind,’ I said, knowing that I’d regret asking him.
‘It’s a blowie,’ clarified Riley.
‘Mmmm. I guessed,’ I said, opening the fridge to see if it had anything promising in it. I’d been eating biscuits all day at Jess and Clem’s but I still had a little gap for a snack. A piece of toast, maybe. My forty-seventh cup of sugary tea that day.
‘Oh, darl, you seen the Sky remote?’ said Grace, standing up on her mat and frowning. ‘We can’t find it anywhere.’
I felt a stab of guilt, knowing it was in my bedside drawer, lying next to my vibrator. But shook my head and reminded myself to smuggle it back into the living room.
‘Sorry,’ I said, trying to look innocent, before excusing myself for a bath, saying I was desperate for an early night.
I left my phone on the bath mat so I could see if it blinked with a message. It didn’t. But just after 10 p.m., I got an alarming email from my boss, Miss Montague, St Lancelot’s headmistress.
Dear Miss Bailey, started the email. There was a school rule that all staff call one another by their surnames, which most of us ignored so long as we weren’t within earshot of Miss Montague. Please could you come to my office at 7.30 a.m. tomorrow morning for a meeting.
I felt instantly guilty. One week into the school year and I’d already done something wrong. What could it be? Mothers were always