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‘Hi, I’m Audrey. Whose birthday is it?’
Miranda looked in confusion at the balloons she was holding, then her eyes grew wide in horror.
‘Shit! Back in a sec!’ Miranda yelled, dropping the camping chair on the doorstep and running off down the street, balloons flailing behind her.
Audrey and Josh looked at each other and laughed. As they stood side by side in the hallway, waiting to see if Miranda and her balloons would return, their eyes lingered on one another for slightly longer than might have been appropriate.
‘Well, I’m glad to see you’re not wearing a suit today,’ she said. Oh jeez, why was she being weird with Bad Jeans Josh? Just because she’d noticed he had nice eyes and good hair and smelled really, really, really good?
‘I took it off especially for you. I usually sleep in it,’ he said, a glint of mischief in his eyes.
‘Oh, James, you’re such a kidder,’ she sighed.
They heard the tap of heels running up the street, and Miranda reappeared on the doorstep.
‘Sorry,’ she said, bending over to catch her breath, ‘I told this woman in the corner shop I’d hold her balloons while she went to the loo and then I just clean walked off with them. She was pretty pissed off.’
Audrey had a feeling she was going to like Miranda.
As they were sitting down to eat, Kelly arrived and squeezed in next to Josh. She was nearly six-foot tall and had luminous skin and chestnut-coloured hair with incredible volume. It didn’t even go flat over the course of the evening; in Audrey’s experience, even the biggest hair always went flat by the end of the night. Josh looked genuinely relaxed in her company, his body language confident and self-assured. He was thoughtful, getting her drinks, introducing her to everyone, keeping her included in the conversation. Audrey had purposely seated herself at the other end of the table from them but kept finding her gaze drawn in their direction. She noticed Kelly didn’t eat the Sausage Fandango – she’d brought an edamame salad in her bag.
Audrey was sitting between Jay and some guitarist friend of Clara’s. She heard herself laughing louder than usual at everything Jay said, then glancing to see if anyone at the other end of the table had noticed what a great time she was having. They all looked too busy having their own great time to notice. She couldn’t stop herself from having this ‘performative good time’ and hated herself for being such a loser. Why was she acting like this?
When she saw Kelly stand up to go outside for a cigarette, Audrey leapt up to follow her.
‘Hey, Kelly, right?’ she asked, joining her in the garden, pulling a jacket around her shoulders against the cold November evening.
‘Yeah, you’re Audrey? Thanks for inviting me. Cute party.’
She pronounced it ‘par-dee’ and Audrey couldn’t keep herself from staring. Kelly was beautiful in a way you didn’t often see outside an Instagram filter.
‘You’re here with Josh then?’ Audrey asked, as though she couldn’t quite remember.
Kelly grinned like someone newly in love. ‘Yeah, he’s so great. In Canada, we have this idea of what your classic English gentleman is like, your Kit Haringtons or your Eddie Redmaynes. I didn’t think guys like Josh existed in real life.’ Kelly laughed to herself and lifted a thin menthol cigarette to her lips before offering one to Audrey.
‘In what way?’ Audrey asked, taking one on a whim.
‘I don’t know, he’s old fashioned, so polite and proper.’ Kelly said ‘proper’ in a poor attempt at an English accent. ‘He has manners, he’s kind.’
Kind. Audrey had not been attracted to anyone she would describe as kind before. Had Fred been kind? Maybe, but she didn’t know if you could tell that about someone from one afternoon. The back door opened, and Josh appeared on the garden steps. He was carrying a thick grey woollen coat, which he draped around Kelly’s shoulders.
‘I thought you might be cold,’ he said.
‘What did I just say?’ Kelly laughed and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.
‘Are you talking about me?’ he asked, and Audrey noticed the timbre of his voice, how deep and delicious it was.
‘Apparently, you’re a very good boyfriend, James,’ she said, tilting her head and taking a drag of her cigarette. She’d stopped smoking years ago, and it tasted stale and unpleasant in her mouth. Kelly looked confused.
‘Why do you call him James?’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. You City guys all look the same,’ Audrey said.
‘A little joke we have. Audrey never remembers my name,’ Josh explained.
Why hadn’t she noticed how hot Josh was at Paul’s birthday, or at the Hallowe’en party? He had liked her then, she could tell.
‘That pear tree isn’t going to thrive there,’ Josh said unexpectedly, pointing to a small tree at the back of the garden. ‘There’s too much shade from those cedars next door. You should move it over here by the fence, where there’s more light.’
