Page 114 of Little Miss Fortune

About a month ago, I saw an advertisement on the community board about a short film screening in the park. All the residents were welcome to submit their films.

The issue is that none of my friends live around these bougie ends. But an old acquaintance of mine does. John.

It was as awkward a conversation as you can imagine. Luckily, Malik was there. We met up for coffee, had a big argument five minutes in, spent the next half an hour hashing out things as Malik, who now knows way too much about our old sex lives, mediated our points. We concluded that although John was scummy and not a good person, I shouldn’t have used him for emotional and physical support whenever things didn’t go my way. We also advised him to date outside of the East Asian ethnicity. We will see; pigs might fly.

Anyway, he let us use his post code to submit a film into the local film festival. Malik and I spent a couple of days getting actors, writing the script, shooting the scenes, and then fixing everything in post.

Fawzia’s friend leads him to the green where the screen is set up and asks him to look after her things so that she can change her baby. He smiles and stops his run on his watch. He really makes my wallet in the Tube run look like nothing impressive. He is kind. He always was. And I love this so much that this has to work.

A woman barks at him to sit down, his back is not transparent. So, he sits down in a chair that was meant for him to begin with.

Sophie’s community centre friends have volunteered to help out with ushering and will not check for Toby’s ticket.

Now here is where the element of luck comes in—I didn’t know whether our film would be accepted or what time the screening would be if it did. I got an e-mail last week that we were selected, so now all I can do is hope that the timing is going to work out.

The first two films are about the planet and the power of the community. The third is a short comedy sketch about a bossman’s chicken shop. Sashka snuck out to the front to steal the programme.

Fuck.

Our film is the penultimate on this list of twenty. Toby is also checking the list, but neither mine, nor Malik’s, nor even John’s name is listed. It’s John’s mother’s name. Toby doesn’t know my ex’s mother’s name—he won’t wait for that. Fawzia’s friend comes back after twenty minutes, apologising and telling him there was a queue and then an emergency, which there wasn’t. She and Fawzia were just catching up in the coffee shop until the baby actually needed changing.

Fuck, just a few more. Toby is talkative, maybe he will talk longer with her. Please talk with her.

Please just hang on.

Please don’t leave.

They talk for a few more moments, he laughs into his fist, waves goodbye to the baby, and leaves during film number seven.

CHAPTER 40

Great Spike!

I refuse to talk to anyone for the rest of the day. I put my phone on silent and just sit on the bench by the river in my local park. It would have been perfect. The film Malik and I so lovingly shot was a love story about people almost meeting. The costumes were selected by Sashka and Maahni. The actors auditioned at Sophie’s community centre. The art in the background was selected by Leon and his artsy friends.

One of the characters was fearful of hell, so a celestial creature takes him back to every spot where he could have almost met the other character. Confused, the character asks the being what is so bad about that. The creature responds that it must be difficult to see how much time they have wasted not being together—that is hell. The camera pans to the other character, soft lighting around her.

‘If hell is that beautiful, we should all be sinners.’ The character laughs.

Its narrative is a bit abstract, but some of the shots are stunning. And it would have been easily understood by Toby.

I shouldn’t beat myself up over something that was completely out of my hands. But I can’t help it. If only I were a little luckier. I’m consumed by what I could have done. I could have sent an e-mail to get my film into the first half. I could have named it something that would’ve caught Toby’s attention. I could have run after him and made him sit with me.

Why didn’t I? Why didn’t I shout and beg him to sit back down?

Because I didn’t think that would work. I told him I loved him, and he didn’t respond to my message. Toby needs to believe that fate is telling him to stay, not some girl he walked in on five months ago.

I blow air through my cheeks and imagine it rustling the crowns of the yellowing trees. They rustle—I can’t decipher whether it’s a mocking giggle or a sad whimper.

‘Is this seat taken?’ a voice, so painfully unexpected, asks above me.

It takes every ounce of my willpower to not jump into Toby’s arms. I blink and feel a weird tingling down my spine, warning me that I am seconds from crumbling.

‘Toby,’ I say his name, realising how long it’s been since I have said it to him. I have thought about him every day. Every moment has been filled with either my thoughts of him or a fight to suppress those thoughts. I remember the way he looked when I actually said his name in the lift; it’s the same way I’m looking at him now.

His eyes are soft, smile lines folded around them. A victorious smirk plays on his face from a successful startle.

‘Can I?’ He looks at the space beside me.