“Yes,” I said.
“Yes to the macaroni pie?”
“Sorry. Yes,” I said. “Oh, and a latte. Please.”
The woman nodded. “I’ll bring it to your table.”
I paid and escaped the rest of the interaction unscathed. Avoiding the round painted tables, I made for the bar at the window with its single stools and—more importantly—plug sockets. I tucked myself into the corner of the window, plugging in my laptop and my phone, hoping no one would question me taking up both sockets.
The bright familiar screen of my laptop immediately anchored me. There were a few freelance opportunities I’d hoped had got back to me by now—old clients I’d contacted before I’d left Edinburgh. I’d never had the entrepreneurial spirit of my colleagues when it came to side gigs. Technically, it went against our contracts, but everyone did it, from the designers to the developers. Everyone except me, that was. I was always convinced I’d be caught the first time I took work on the side. I’d have to catch up quick, though I’d never been comfortable selling myself, which was ironic given my line of work.
Back at the office I’d been a writer for their eCRM Services. CRM meant Customer Relationship Management. The ‘e’ bit meant electronic. In reality, this all just meant email marketing. My job was to create emails that no one really wants to read, only I’m not supposed to say that. A brand needs just zero point zero five per cent of recipients to click through to their website to consider the email a success, so I spent my career writing to the five in one thousand. It had often felt like screaming into the void.
I flinched at a sudden noise outside. A gaggle of teenagers walked past the window, excitedly gathered around one of their phones. Probably some prank video or whatever the kids were into these days. Definitely not one of my promotional emails.
Still, I happened to be pretty good at it. I could mimic brand voices with ease. I just had to pretend to be them. Holidays, clothing, banks, nappies, I’d written emails for them all, shifting between serious conversations about insurance to quirky puff-pieces about fruit-flavoured yoghurts. It was a lucky line of work to fall into in my twenties. The job market had been poor at the time, and I couldn’t go home, so I’d held on to the position as if it were a life raft.
A group of young women wearing rucksacks came into the café and grabbed a table behind me. Their happy conversation, along with the general bustle of the other customers, disrupted my thoughts more than I’d like to admit.
I’d struggled with the office environment too, with its constant chatter and coded culture that I could never get my head around. That and the expectation that a single email might perform some black art of persuasion. And the impression that most of my clients didn’t seem to care about their customers or their products even, just some min-max calculation to increase their shares by a point.
And the audacity of trying to get strangers to like the brand you’re writing for when you can’t even get anyone to like you.
But now I was out of the office and away from all those problems. I’d be able to work in an environment that suited me, pick my clients, do work that mattered.
Do what you have to do to survive.
The group of women behind me laughed.
So what if sometimes I hated it? So what if there were mornings where I’d sit on the end of my bed just willing myself to get up and go to the office? Everyone hates their job. There’s nothing unusual about that. We all just have to pretend we don’t.
And I’m very good at pretending.
The same woman who’d taken my order delivered my pie and coffee. The pie was huge; golden crispy cheese and pasta spilled over the top of the high shortcrust sides. I was suddenly aware of how little I’d eaten lately.
The woman wiped her hands on her apron and left before I could say thanks. Probably too busy to start a conversation.
See, everyone’s just pretending. That’s what work is. Pretence.
I logged into the café internet and checked through my emails. My heart sank. No one had got back to me. I quickly calculated my finances in my head and eyed the gently steaming pie on the bench in front of me. I would be eating out a lot less over the coming weeks.
Maybe, now I was here, I could pretend myself into another job. New life, new job. Why not? Long before this move, I’d had the fantasy of disappearing to a rural town, where folk did honest land-based work and didn’t care for cities and CVs. I’d imagined the kind of person I’d be if I could just escape and start over.
Perhaps I would be a stoic gardener of a great house now fallen into dilapidation. That woman in the flannel shirt, wellies, and waxed coat that’s never been washed, hair pulled back in a sensible bun, flyaway hairs catching the autumn light and ringing my head with a fuzzy halo, carting barrow-loads of fallen leaves and dead wood to a fluttering bonfire, flames barely visible in the daylight, white smoke flying over the dew-laden grass. I’d wipe my forehead with the back of my arm, stand and stretch out my lower back, carry a rake over my shoulder, nod tersely to friendly greetings. That’s just how she is, they’d say—whoever they were—grounded, a mystery, full of hidden depths, trust her to the moon and back. Sure, invite her to the dance; if you’re lucky maybe she’ll come. She’s quiet at first, but stick with her; she’s worth it in the end.
Or maybe I would be the plucky fidget who resurrects the neglected community library being kept on life support by a small group of older folks who are running out of steam. That girl who brings new energy to old ideas, perhaps with a well-meaning folksy handmade decorating scheme to brighten up the shelves, or a scrappy marketing idea that draws new users—parents looking for children’s groups, teens looking for a place to study, older folks wanting to get online. That girl whose mix of boundless enthusiasm and verbal diarrhoea—off-putting and a little intense at first—casts a spell on those who meet her. She’s charming really. Humour her oddness; she’s worth it in the end.
Or maybe I’d be that enigmatic woman with the knowing smile who takes over an empty shop on the main street. I’d paper up the windows while I did up the store, setting all the neighbourhood gossips’ tongues wagging. Locals would try to peer between the sheets to see what I was up to, claiming glimpses of hand painted murals and incense smoke. Eventually I’d open my shop selling… handmade soaps? Handspun wool? No, flowers. Healing flowers. A magical florist. There’d be some disappointment at first amidst the curiosity—perhaps hoping for a phone shop or something. Get their laptops fixed without having to trek to Stirling or Glasgow. But over time I’d win them over with carefully selected blooms that make them feel inspired again, fall in love again, feel safe again, help them reach out to lost loved ones and find them again in the weeds of some old long blown over argument, the treasure lost now found. And I’d be skittish and damaged and react to loud noises in a way that seems unhinged at times but echoes some hidden trauma no one can see. But they’ll get the idea. Be gentle with her, they’ll say, she seems flighty but hold your nerve; she’s worth it in the end.
Choices ahead of me, I picked up my pie and went to bite.
There was a ding.
My eyes flicked back to the screen. I put down my lunch and searched through my tabs looking for the notification, before settling on a social media site I’d left open.
Floating up on a little friendly tile was a comment from an old school friend I hadn’t spoken to in years.
“Congrats on the move!” it said.
