‘It’ll take someonereallyspecial to get Carly to settle down, to tick all the boxes on her list,’ one friend said after Paul and I broke up.
Only Jude knows that my lack of commitment anddesire for perfection in a partner is rooted in something deeper, ‘in fear’, as she once said, and I never forgot.
‘Carly?’ Jude’s voice calling up the stairs pulls me out of the thought-spiral I’d fallen into.
‘Hi,’ I say when Jude arrives in the living room. She sits on the couch next to me, her blond, neck-length curls as bouncy as she is. I push away a memory of Ben: confident, creative, emotionally intelligent and loyal. Ben was the full package, but even he didn’t make the grade. ‘Too laid-back,’ I’d told Jude, the day after I’d broken up with him. She’d looked at me in despair, and though I wasn’t going to admit it, I knew I’d made a mistake but had no idea how to fix it.
‘What’s up? You look a bit glum,’ Jude says, taking the remains of the juice she knows I won’t drink and finishing it for me.
I shrug. ‘I bumped into Paul,’ I say, not sure whether my gloom is because of Paul, job-hunting, or being more of a hindrance than a help to Dad, or all three.
Jude pulls a face of ‘eugh’ and I laugh. ‘Let me guess: still at the law firm, married, one kid.’
‘How did you know that?’ I ask, expecting her to say that she’s heard through the grapevine.
‘Mr Conventional doesn’t deviate from hislife plan.’
I laugh at how well Jude knows me, the strict ban I now have on conventional men, and how we always gently mock people with life plans. ‘Trouble is, at the moment I can’t help wishing I had a plan of my own.’
‘What’s so great about knowing every step of yourlife in advance?’ she asks, perplexed at my sudden desire to be like everyone else.
‘I’d be happy just knowing one of them,’ I say, opening the jobs page on my phone.
Jude takes the phone from me and shoves it down the side of the sofa.
‘We should figure out what to do for your birthday instead,’ she says. My thirtieth birthday party is the last thing on my mind. ‘What do you fancy?’
Having run through the usual options of dinner party at Jude’s, cinema and drinks, or pyjama party, I reply wryly, ‘How about a “Carly Finds Herself” party?’
I stare out of the window, wishing Jude and Adam weren’t about to leave for America to start their new jobs at some big political thinktank. It still blows my mind that the girl I’ve known since nursery school, whom I used to protect from underbed monsters, demon ballet teachers, and a bogey-flicking boy named Fergus, is now married and heading to America to influence global politics.
‘You just need to be a bit braver, try some new things, that’s how you’ll find your passion. Maybe try something beyond Edinburgh,’ says Jude, and I wish, not for the first time, that I was more like her – someone who jumps in and sees what sticks rather than watching life from the sidelines. ‘Once you’ve found it, the rest will slot into place, I promise.’
I know ‘the rest’ she’s referring to is a soulmate and home, but how will I ever find anyone when I’m stuck in my fear, and how will I ever find anywhere I love as much as my family home?
‘You sound just like Dad,’ I sigh, recalling how, when I was a student, he’d warn me off getting too comfortable in Edinburgh and the shop.You need to go into the world, travel, pursue your dreams, he’d said.The bookshop is a stopgap for you, nothing more.Be free, Carly. Don’t allow yourself to be tied.‘But what if I never find it? What if I never find the thing that I love and can monetise?’
‘You will.’
I shrug, unconvinced. ‘Book jobs are scarce, and every English Lit student in the land applies for them when they come up. Photography doesn’t pay. I don’t want to teach yoga. What else is there?’
‘Perhaps now is the time to search elsewhere, like your dad said, stretch your wings a bit.’
‘But how do I do that when I have to work to help pay my share towards rent and bills? I can’t afford to take time off, or spend time away, even if I wanted to.’
‘I’m sure your folks won’t mind if you don’t contribute for a while.’
I sink into the sofa, wanting – but unable – to tell Jude about Dad’s finances.
‘That’s not the point. I’m almost thirty, I should be paying my way,’ I say, wishing I could be more like Jude and Adam, Paul and Liv – who live perfectly happily climbing their career ladders during the week and enjoying life at the weekend – but knowing deep inside that I can’t, that I need a creative vocation. ‘Maybe I should ask for a crystal ball for my birthday!’
‘You need a sign,’ she says, all wide-eyed and excited.
‘A sign?’
‘From the universe!’ She gestures theatrically outside.
‘Sure, Jude, a sign,’ I laugh, feeling as if we’re teenagers again on a Saturday night, chatting about whether boys fancy us and if they’d ever make a move.
