"Hello? Hello?"
I looked at the tiny screen on the phone. Lola had been trying to figure out if anyone was there for precisely one minute, thirty nine seconds now and I, on the other side of the phone, was trying to bring up the courage to speak.
"Hello? Is anybody there? Hello?"
I opened my mouth again, and then closed it. Why was this so hard? Why did I suddenly feel so randomly shy?
"Hello," I murmured.
"Hello?"
"Hello."
My voice was a little louder now, a smidgen more confident.
"Hi! Who is it?" Lola's voice was sunny and natural; I wished I could apply the same tone, not the almost inaudible squeaks that I was currently substituting for a voice.
"It's Claudine," I almost whispered.
I moved the phone slightly away from my ear as Lola screamed.
"OMG Claudine! I haven't heard from you since, like, forever! Well I kinda have heard you because, like, I have your albums and I've seen you on, like, magazines and stuff but…"
"Lola, hey. Deep breaths, babe," I said. Now that she was acting even more like herself, I felt able to relax around her. "I need to talk to you. Something really huge has happened."
"Tell me!" Lola replied, eagerly.
I sighed, preparing myself. Explaining this to a normal person would have been hard enough, but this was Lola Jonze. Not exactly the smartest of cookies.
"Ok, a few weeks ago I was in a car accident…" I began.
"OMG, a car accident? Like, an accident with cars? Are you ok, are you hurt? Is…"
"I'm fine Lola. Please, stay with me here."
"Sorry," she mumbled, in an unusually quiet tone for her.
"When I woke up in hospital, it turns out I have amnesia."
I waited.
"Lola, you do know what amnesia is, don't you?"
"No," she whispered, slowly.
I sighed. "Amnesia is like memory loss. In my head, I only remember up to our last day at Britannia High. The last two years I don't have any idea what happened."
"That's so weird… It's ok, though! I forget stuff all the time. Like, the other day I accidentally left the kitchen door closed at night, and the cats got shut in! And then in the morning they were meowing, and Stefan got woken up but I didn't because I'd been, like, super tired and it's sort of weird because I usually sleep a lot less, but it was, like, the other way round…"
"Lola!" I rolled my eyes. "It isn't like that. It isn't like forgetting to leave the door open. The last two years of my life I don't have any memory of. Before waking up in hospital, the last memory I have is walking home from the end of year show with Lauren."
"OMG! So, like, it's like you don't remember anything at all that happened since then?"
"Exactly," I said, happy that she finally understood. "And now it feels like I'm completely missing out on the last two years. Everything's changing and I miss the way things were. I've released three albums, Lola. I'm with this guy named Lewis who seems perfect for me. We've been together since June last year but it feels like I met him two days ago. And I hardly know him at all."
Since I'd come home from hospital, he was at my apartment most of the time. Lewis left just before I went to bed at night, arriving about an hour after I woke up, bringing breakfast and flowers. He'd promised to help me through regaining my memory, but I knew that there were parts of it even he didn't understand.
"Well, dur! Everyone knows Lewis Scott!"
I remembered he also was famous.
"Lola, do still talk to anyone from Britannia High?" I asked, suddenly.
"Like, all the time!" Lola said, eagerly. "When I'm in London, I usually go see Jez in whatever musical he's in at the moment, and I talk to Lauren and Danny, like, all the time and BB's working as a DJ now…"
Lola chattered on happily about our friends, and I wondered if it wasn't for the amnesia if I knew all these things anyway.
I stopped suddenly, catching my breath at something I thought I'd heard Lola say.
"At Danny and Lauren's wedding?"
"OMG, I totally forgot, you don't know! It was, like, last August and it was a really small ceremony and then there was, like, a chinormous party afterwards! And I got to be a bridesmaid, and there was cake, and…"
"Lauren and Danny got married?" I stumbled.
"Like, yeah! They got together around this time last year, at the school reunion party."
"There was a school reunion party?" I asked, pleased than I'd seen my friends at some point.
"Yeah, it was totally cool, everyone came! You weren't there, though."
"Why?" I asked, shocked suddenly.
I sensed Lola shrug. "You were busy, I guess. You always were since you got a record deal."
I wilted a little inside. It seemed in the last two years I'd distanced myself from my friends. It wasn't as I'd thought, and we all just drifted apart. It was me.
"So how've you been… since Britannia High?" I asked, distracting myself.
"Like, totally fantabulous! I live in Sydney, now, like, with Stefan and we have this beautiful apartment and its so preedyful, and I'm a professional dancer now!" she gushed. "And Stefan and I are engaged! We're planning on getting married in August, or maybe, like, around Christmas but I'm not sure if I'll be able to wait until Christmas because it's, like, a super long time away. Well it kind of isn't, it's only… April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December… seven months away!"
I smiled to myself, letting Lola's chatter melt into a sort of music in the background.
Though the streets of London and the style of clothes in 2010 hadn't changed much, the people certainly had. Lauren and Danny were married.
I wondered why this upset me so much. I wasn't jealous; not really, it was just the kind of disappointment about the fact that Lauren had betrayed me.
But after all, why should I be bothered? After all, I had Lewis now, and I hadn't spoken to either of them for almost two years, couldn't they be happy?
Only I didn't feel like this girl that was a famous singer, rich and dating a movie star, living in a huge white apartment overlooking the Thames. I felt like a performing arts college student, living of her grandparents' money and struggling, though happy at school and with her best friends.
And I couldn't decide which one of the two I wanted to be.
I couldn't get the second girl back. She was behind me now, in the past. But I could try to bring back the things that mattered, and I was going to.
I rested the phone between my shoulder and my ear, and opened a blank notebook from the end table by the sofa, clicking a biro.
"Lola, could you help me?" I asked, interrupting her blubbery chatter again.
"Sure!" she said, happily. "Like, why?"
I grinned. "Because we're going to arrange a party."
