“Fucking hell. She’s gorgeous.”
“I know, right? It’s so weird. I can’t decide if I should make her a child model, or an actress who plays haunted Victorian ghost kids.”
“Both. She’ll make a fortune doing both. Those eyes!”
Two green orbs blazed at me from Jessica’s iPhone, attached to a tiny, angular porcelain head, framed by a long sheet of dark hair. “Her eyes are her dad’s,” she said, taking the phone away momentarily so she could pick another image. “I suppose he’s been good for some things.”
“Oh, you guys...?”
“We’re divorced,” she confirmed, holding up another photo. “Here, see this one? She wanted to dress up as Frozen for Halloween. Most generic thing ever, but look how cute she is as Elsa.”
“That is cute, but, Jessica. Divorced? A mum? I feel like we are very behind on each other’s life stories.”
Jessica laughed and glugged down some wine. “You’re right. Sorry. Here I am, launching into all my dramas. You’re going to be like, Just like old times, why have you randomly showed up again?”
I shook my head. “Not at all,” I lied, when all I could think was Why are you here? and What do you want? “But let’s try and fill each other in on the last decade so I stop getting emotional whiplash.”
“Right, you are so right. As always. Jesus Christ, this wine is terrible. I take it back. Green rooms are not that impressive.”
It was not like Jessica to criticize any alcohol, especially free alcohol, but it had been a long time. We winced our way through our glasses, picked at the various fruit platters, and picked up where we left off. Coloring in the last twelve years of one another’s personal development, like an entire series catch-up before the last ever episode of a television show. Jessica drained her glass and told me the whole story. She’d met Brendan when she was twenty-two, at some party in London. Love at first sight, which, as I recalled, was the only way Jessica knew how to fall in love. Then, within six months of dating, he’d been offered a transfer to America, thought “what an adventure,” got married in Gretna Green before they flew out to California, and along came Bridget a few years after.
“It’s weird, you don’t have an American accent at all.”
Jessica laughed, lubricated by the rancid wine. “It’s my proudest achievement—clinging onto my British accent. I swear it was the only reason I had any friends over there. The other US housewives didn’t particularly like me, but they did love having a British friend. Wait ’til you hear Bridget’s accent though. It’s disgusting. The shrillness,” she shuddered while I let out a snort, remembering how I’d missed her piss-taking sense of humor.
Gwen jogged in, turbocharged, muttering, “Stacy needs fruit,” hardly waving as she piled a plate with pineapple before running out again. Jessica’s eyes followed her as she left, then turned back to me, impressed. “I still can’t believe this is your life, Fern. Hobnobbing in the green room. I’ve not asked you one thing about you yet. Like, what the hell? This is so amazing!”
My cheeks got hot and I kept trying to iron out the bump in my clothes, before realizing it was my stomach. “It looks more impressive than it is.”
“Don’t put it down! You always used to do yourself down. I command you to grow out of it.”
I laughed with a sharp ha, and a warmth trickled into my stomach, lighting a long-dormant fire. The fire of how it felt to have Jessica there, believing in me, and urging me to believe in myself.
Be careful, I reminded myself. This is Jessica.
“Honestly, your blog post about suicide, it was amazing.”
“You read it?” I took another deep sip of wine. I wasn’t feeling generous enough to acknowledge her part in all of that. I wondered if she even remembered...
“Of course I read it. The whole world read it! It was going viral for days, with everyone adding in stuff. Actually,” Jessica put her glass down and glanced down at her winding hands, “I tried getting in touch when I saw it.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I sent you an email, saying how proud I was, telling you all my news, wanting to catch up.” She looked up again. “You never replied though.”
“I never got that email!”
“I was worried about coming tonight actually, after that. I thought maybe...” There it was. The unspoken, being danced around for the first time.
I shook my head, the awkwardness too much to bear. “Oh my God, Jessica, if I’d seen the email, I definitely would’ve replied. I promise! That time with the blog post, it was so insane, it must’ve got lost in my in-box or something.”
I sounded like such a dick, saying that, despite it being the truth. It was such a whirlwind year of my life—my niche article about suicide going viral. I remembered, when the blog post hit a million views, collapsing onto the rug of my shitty flat-share carpet and sobbing, praying for God to take all the attention away. The endless radio and TV appearances, the bombardment of emails from people sharing their own reasons to hold on for tomorrow, or their own suicide stories. Within a week, I’d gone from total obscurity as a not very successful journalist to being the face of suicide awareness. Each morning, getting picked up in a car and taken to a studio somewhere, then smothered in makeup, so I could then sit on a squashy sofa, and tell two TV presenters about the day I wanted to die. Each show created more emails, and more entries. Reflecting on it now, it seemed almost unsurvivable. And, yet, it’s how I got my job at Gah! That job had led to so many good things, and now had led to Jessica being back in my life after all this time. Was that a good thing?
Jessica waved her hand with a piece of cake in it. “Honestly, don’t worry about it, Fern. It was years ago. I’m just relieved you don’t think I’m a single white female for turning up tonight.” She stuck her pinkie in the icing and licked it off. “I just saw online you were doing this, and I only moved home a few weeks ago... And, well, I’ve missed you.”
I met her gaze. “I’ve missed you too.”
We were still a moment, drinking in its importance. It was all so long ago, wasn’t it? “So, tell me about you,” she said. “What’s the goss? No kids? Husband? Boyfriend?”
“No kids, no. No husband.” A smug grin involuntarily crossed my face. “But, a boyfriend. A really lovely boyfriend.”
“Oh, Fern, that’s great. What’s he like? Picture please.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Yeah, Ben’s great. He’s really kind, and funny, and nice. He’s a psychology teacher, which I think is so cool. I’ve started to train to be a counselor too, so he’s useful to have about the place to help me with my essays.”