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Three Years Before I Do
Audrey felt stuck. Everyone else was going places, and she was going nowhere. Clara had just been promoted at work and was planning her wedding. Paul had a new job at an American bank. He was working longer hours and spending all his free time at Miranda’s. Audrey was working three jobs and spending her free time mindlessly bingeing boxsets.
She had grown tired of all the early starts working in the café, so she’d got herself a job as a receptionist in an art gallery. She’d also signed up for few weekend shifts at the local pub, then fitted her freelance photography gigs around the edges. Friends sometimes asked her when she was going to ‘get a proper job’, but she had no idea what kind of ‘proper job’ she might do. Her CV felt like a catalogue of false starts. After school, she’d done a year of Anthropology, changed to Geography, dropped out, failed to get onto the Astronomy course, and had then given up the idea of a degree altogether. Some days she loved the variety of her life – she was in no rush to be settled and didn’t feel the need to commit to any one thing. But on other days she felt as though everyone else was on this life train that she’d forgotten to buy a ticket for.
One Saturday in February, Audrey was in Covent Garden, taking photos of cobbled streets for a stock image company. She moved her lens up from the ground and there, in the viewfinder, she found Josh. She hadn’t seen him since the Sausage Fandango dinner several months before.
‘Amy,’ he said, and she looked up.
‘James,’ she replied, grinning.
He was wearing a pale blue shirt and jeans, his brown hair ruffled, as though he’d just got out of bed. He had a day of stubble on his chin and a slight tan, both of which suited him. As he walked towards her, she was reminded just how tall he was, how broad his shoulders were, how nice it might feel to be wrapped in those firm arms. These were inappropriate thoughts to be having about Bad Jeans Josh.
‘Are you working?’ He indicated her camera. The smile in his eyes told her he was pleased to see her.
‘Taking arty photos of cobbles and fire hydrants – living the dream,’ she said, raising her lens to snap a photograph of him.
‘Have you—’ He paused, dropping his gaze to the ground. ‘Have you got time to help me with something? Just for ten minutes, and I’ll buy you a coffee.’
Her heart leapt in her chest. Why was the image of him shirtless, digging holes to plant trees in, so fresh and vivid in her internal fantasy image library? She shrugged, trying to hide this giddy feeling with nonchalance.
‘Sure,’ she said, and they fell into step walking down Long Acre.
‘Paul once told me you had this nickname for me,’ he said. Audrey frowned in an overblown show of confusion. ‘Bad Jeans Josh.’ He narrowed his eyes at her, but there was a spark of mischief in his tone. Audrey opened her mouth to deny it but then found she could not, so laughed instead.
‘That was mean of him. They really aren’t that bad—’
‘No, you’ve put it out there now, you can’t take it back,’ Josh said, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. ‘It’s not just you, Kelly mentioned my wardrobe could do with an update. I’m supposed to be here clothes shopping and then I run into you and...’
Audrey felt slightly annoyed with Kelly for trying to change Josh; she had grown fond of his dorky jeans.
‘Sure.’ Audrey smiled. ‘Though I’m sorry I ever said that.’
‘I forgive you. The nickname I used to have for you was far worse.’
‘Oh really. What was that?’
‘You won’t like it. It’s not complimentary,’ he said, swinging his arms as he walked.
‘Well, I won’t help you unless you tell me.’
‘Fine. Up Herself Audrey.’ He said it with a sigh, glancing at her sideways. ‘Sorry.’
‘Up Herself Audrey, wow, that is worse than Bad Jeans Josh. What made you think I was so up myself?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said as they walked, avoiding other pedestrians on the pavement. ‘You always acted like you didn’t want to talk to me, like I was too irrelevant even to remember.’
‘I can’t think what gave you that idea, James.’
‘It was my issue. I liked you back then, and you wouldn’t give me the time of day...’ He trailed off, but then turned his head and made a face, as though to illustrate this was a funny story from the past, rather than anything still relevant today.
‘I would have given you the time of day,’ Audrey said, the giddy feeling building inside her. ‘Though I do have a strict policy on the number of new names I will remember per day. I think I’d hit my daily quota when we met.’
He tilted his head, biting his lip, an acknowledgement that he liked her joke. ‘If you’re going to be nice to me, I’ll have to think of a new name for you.’
‘And if we’re going to buy you new jeans, I’ll have to think of something else to call you.’
‘Then we’ll just have to be Amy and James.’
