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‘Sounds smart,’ I get out.
‘But more than anything,’ she knocks me with her shoulder, a rare moment of physical contact, and my skin tingles where hers touched it, ‘I want to keep spending time with the people I actually care about. My family, my friends.’
There it is, that word. Friends. Because I’m leaving. And as much as I think she also feels that littlesomethingpulling us together, maybe it looks different for her than it does for me.
‘Chums,’ I say at last, harking back to one of our first conversations on the day we made our weird, tenuous agreement to be friends. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever said that word in my life.’
I don’t know if she remembers. The innocuous conversations that mean so much to me probably don’t mean anything to her.
‘There’s a reason for that,’ she says with a grin, just like that first day, and my heart expands in my chest.
Without warning, she pushes me in the pool, and I grab her arms at the last second to drag her in too, and we both emerge from the water a spluttering, laughing mess.
‘This is fucking freezing,’ she says through a shiver. Goosebumps peppering her skin, half her hair fallen out of her ponytail and her teeth chattering like some kind of deranged marionette, I realise with terrifying certainty that no one could ever come close to her. She calls back to me as she starts to swim away, ‘Race you to the others?’
I let her win. I want her to win.
Wefloat in a loose circle for a while—Josie and Alina holding the pool’s edge while Julien, Ava and I tread water—until Julien says what we’re all thinking and suggests we grab some food. The pool’s busier now, which means Ava’s hands keep brushing against my skin under the water by accident and I have to consciously try to not react.
‘Another bucket list item crossed off,’ she says, hair floating around her on the surface of the water as Alina climbs the ladder first.
‘Is there a deadline?’ Josie asks, hand sliding along the wall before getting out too.
‘Whenever I leave,’ I reply, and Ava shoots me a look I don’t understand, and then, almost imperceptibly, shakes her head. I change tack, ‘The list is never-ending though, so who knows if I’ll ever finish it. I might do something with my dad when he comes to visit.’
Ava’s head snaps towards mine. ‘Your dad’s coming?’
Finally, after tons of rescheduling and endless chats with his assistant, we’ve decided on a date. I’d been stuck to my phone for weeks waiting for updates, so the moment I received the text saying it had all been confirmed, a weight was lifted.
‘Yeah, didn’t I tell you? It took forever, but we’ve finally planned something for a few weeks’ time.’ I look up at Alina and Josie at the side of the pool to explain, ‘He’s great, but he lives in the US so I don’t get to see him very often.’
For weeks now, San Francisco’s held complicated feelings. I can’t wait to get to know a whole new city, to try the food, see my dad more regularly and find out all his recommendations. Usually by this point in the process I’d have already researched restaurants and activities for my first few weeks, but I haven’t planned anything yet. Maybe it’s the fact I don’t know for sure yet if I’m going, so I’mreluctant to get too enthusiastic in case it doesn’t work out.
But in the meantime, the excitement I have to show London to my dad bubbles through me, and my nerves are simmering to near-boiling at the prospect of telling him I might be joining him in San Francisco soon. But that’s normal, isn’t it? Everyone wants to impress their dad, wants him to tell his friends about you, to tell you he’s proud.
‘What are your plans?’ Ava asks, playing with the hair tie at her wrist as Julien ascends the ladder next.
‘We’re gonna be together for the whole day, which we never do, so I’ve got a few options depending on what he’s up for. I’m gonna meet him at his hotel in Knightsbridge in the morning, then we’ll go somewhere bougie for brunch—he has expensive tastes—and then, because he’s really into this very specific type of antique, I was thinking of taking him to a few shops and dealerships.’
By now it’s just Ava and me left in the pool, and she nods towards the ladder to tell me to go first. I don’t trust myself to be a normal human with her climbing the ladder in front of me, so I heave myself up the rungs ahead of her.
I continue while Ava pulls herself up, ‘I’ve made a reservation at this steak restaurant in Soho that he mentioned. I mean, I’m not a massive fan of steak but I’m sure there’ll be something on the menu I’ll enjoy. His assistant told me he was here a couple of months ago and tried to go but it was fully booked.’
‘Did you know he’d been in London recently?’ Julien asks quietly.
When I shake my head, the exact same expression flashes across his and Ava’s faces, and I can’t tell if it’s pity or annoyance. They’ve misunderstood, so I scramble to explain, ‘No, it’s fine, I was busy anyway. But it’s why I’ve been trying so hard to get this visit sorted.’
Ava clears her throat and says, ‘Sounds like fun.’
It will be, and hopefully, with Ava’s feedback on my presentation, my interview will go smoothly next week, and by the time I see my dad I’ll have positive news for him. My chest hums from the anticipation of following in his footsteps.
26
wish me luck, and some sanity would be nice too
F I N N
I’m barely inside theshop, still holding the door open for another customer when I hear, ‘Finn, I need your expertise.’
