Gemma takes shelter in the nearest corner shop while waiting for Peter Rabbit to arrive. She likes the smell of corner shops, the smell of safety that emanates from ageing vegetables and sweaty fridges. She's picking out random middle eastern biscuits to donate to the coffee room at the office when Isabella calls. Gemma pays and steps outside to talk to her.
"Hey, Gemma, you OK, darling?"
Isabella seldom calls in the evenings, and only darlings people she's worried about. Why is Isabella worried? What does she know?
"Sure, yes, fine. You?"
"Dad just called."
"Oh dear, is he OK?"
"Yeah yeah, he's fine, it's you I'm worried about. What's this about Dylan ghosting you?"
"Oh, Isa, it's late, do we have to? It's fine, really."
"You bet we have to: Dad's learnt the word ghosting and the person ghosting you is Dylan? All Dad gave me was some gibberish about some fight about Hari and some random guys. Now that may be enough for our benignly racist old father to write Dylan off but, you, Sis, are going to have to give me a better reason."
Gemma sighs, as one sighs when one's sibling has one cornered in the way only siblings can corner each other.
"Come on, Gemma, spill, it's getting late and I start a trauma shift at seven in the morning."
"OK, look, it's my fault. I messed up, it's all a horrible misunderstanding. Where do I even start?"
"I'm guessing you start in Paris with that young venture capitalist of yours?"
How does she know?
"Dad's already making plans for the two of you, so I assume he's good and Caucasian?" Isabella adds matter of factly.
"Well funnily enough… and to cut a long story short Frank, that's his name, took a picture of himself kissing me in Paris. Mind my wording here, OK? He kissed me, very briefly, and took a picture of it, and sent it to his ex-girlfriend, who wasn't leaving him alone. She's quite deranged, to be fair to him, anyway she also happens to be the investigator they hired to do background checks on Agnes and I, and so… well she went berserk. And since Frank had literally paid her to find out about all about our personal lives, she sent the picture to Agnes, and to Dylan. She was rightly assuming that Agnes would be angry with me because I'm not supposed to be mixing business with pleasure, and that Dylan would be mad too and, well, she wasn't wrong about that either."
Isabella takes a moment, only a short one, to take it all in:
"OK, so you cleared things up with Agnes, right?"
" 'course."
"…and you also told Dylan that this was non-consensual and all a horrible set up? By the way, this Frank guy sounds like a bit of an asshole if you'll forgive my French. Are you sure you want to do business with him?"
"I wish I had a choice, believe me."
"OK so, what? Dylan doesn't believe you?"
"It's more that I didn't get a chance to explain because, well, why should I have thought he'd have that picture? So we argued about Hari and Vikas and Martin – and I was definitely in the wrong about that, in hindsight. Very much so, but see, he didn't tell me what else he really was pissed off about so… why would I have told him about Frank kissing me in Paris? So now he thinks I'm a sneak and a liar and…"
"And technically, he's not wrong."
"That's also what Agnes said. Thank you, both of you. Look, I didn't kiss Frank, OK? I did not, and if we want to be technical about things I'm the one who was assaulted here."
And not just in Paris, she could add, but now's not the time to go into that. Dear no.
"That's true, Gemma, I'm sorry. Gosh, what a tosser! Just how good looking is this guy, to think he can get away with that?"
"Think all the Hemsworth brothers put together, then add some Ryan Gosling for cuteness."
"Shit."
"And he works out. But yes, he's a really bad person."
"OK, well, whatever: this isn't right. I know you like to keep pretending Dylan's your friend and everything. But the guy's been in love with you for years so maybe it's about time you started either treating him properly, or else letting him go. What's it going to be?"
The problem with Isabella is she has five children, and a difficult job, so she doesn't have a lot of time to beat around the bush of an evening.
"Of course I don't want to lose Dylan."
"OK then: don't. Grovel, call him, I don't know…"
"I tried, Isa, but I can't get through. That's kind of the point of ghosting."
"Hmm, well you think of something. But I'm afraid this one's definitely on you to fix, Gemma, OK? Think you can do that?"
"I will… I'll think of something."
"Everything OK for the rest? You been working late on that big deal of yours?"
"Aha, yes, that," Gemma says, despairing of her life.
"Cool. Well look, shit, what's Toby doing out of bed now? Sorry, Sis, gotta go. Talk to Dylan, OK? Find a way."
"OK, night night."
Isabella's already hung up
x
"What the hell were you thinking, Gemma!" Agnes is screaming just after eleven o'clock the next morning.
You won't like her when she's angry. Gemma's already finding it really hard not to dissolve into a big sobbing mess because for one thing, she's exhausted. She had to have three showers before bed last night and even so, it doesn't feel like she slept a wink. She definitely didn't have the energy to get out of bed until her alarm went, so she can't have been wide awake either. But either way, it didn't feel like she stopped worrying for a minute until she did wake up - if you can call it waking up after you don't think you actually slept. It did feel just as disorienting as if it had been the middle of the night, and now she's sitting in front of an email from Dylan which doesn't have a content, just this subject line in all-cap:
WHAT PART OF FUCK OFF OUT OF MY LIFE ISN'T CLEAR TO YOU
No question mark: funny how you notice these things, when you're about to dissolve into a sobbing mess. But Gemma can't even do that, because she has a feeling that would make Agnes even angrier.
"What the fuck were you thinking, partner?"
"I… I wasn't thinking straight, sorry, I've had a really bad night, Agnes, I'm sorry."
"You lied to me!"
I did, Gemma thinks despondently, and if this is how you react when I borrow your phone under false pretences to send Dylan a text that he will actually read, then it's going to be all jolly Armageddon when I tell you about our warrants.
"I'm sorry I lied to you, Agnes. It wasn't cool, I panicked, but I need to try and explain and apologise to him, and he's blocking all my..."
"Well of course he is!"
"Agnes, I told you, that photo was not what it looked like."
"Oh really?"
Agnes has her arms crossed in front of her, and she's not shouting, she's reminding Gemma of Mrs Weston in the olden days when she was, you know, not mad, just disappointed.
"I just don't understand, Gemma. Why are you doing this? Haven't you hurt the guy enough already?"
"Well that's the point, Agnes. I have to make it better, I realise it's on me, but how can I do that if he won't even talk to me?"
Agnes sighs while recrossing her arms and shaking her head. Were she allowed to light up indoors, no doubt she would do that too:
"I just don't understand, Gemma!"
Agnes really dislikes not understanding.
"You're not making any sense! And you're lying! Usually you always make sense and you always tell me the truth, so what's going on?"
"I can't let Dylan ghost me, he's my friend and I miss him."
"Dylan's not your friend, OK? We went over that: maybe he used to be your friend, but he never wanted to be your friend. And now you're in love with Frank so you have to leave Dylan alone so he can get over you. It's very simple."
Put like this it is, yes, for Agnes. Except that:
"I'm not in love with Frank."
"Yes you are. I know you, you don't kiss people you're not in love with."
"I already told you I didn't kiss him, he kissed me."
"Why are you lying to me? See, you're doing it again! Just like you lied to Dylan! Why are you doing this, Gemma? I don't understand you anymore, and when I stop understanding people they scare me, and I'm getting scared of you right now. Why are you hiding this from me?"
Oh, holy crap, hiding what? What does she know? How?
"I saw you and Frank last night! I had to swing back in for some stuff and, for fuck's sake, you two were walking out of the gym arm in arm! And you," Agnes points a vengeful finger, "He had his arm all around you and everything. You went back to his, didn't you? And now you're knackered because 'you've had a bad night'. Yeah right!"
Oh crap. Now she can see why Agnes is mad at her, why she thinks she has no right to try and patch things up with Dylan, and certainly no right to borrow her phone to do so.
"Look, I'm sorry, I…"
"Why would you do this with Frank if you don't love him? I mean love him more than you love Dylan: it doesn't make any sense otherwise. If you loved Dylan more than Frank you'd stop seeing Frank and you'd do that with Dylan, it's very simple."
Oh, that it were!
"Plus, you must love Frank a lot, because you're such a square normally, you hate breaking the rules, you always have. Back at school your mattress sheet was the only one in the whole dorm that was always tucked in straight. No no, don't try and deny it, that's just who you are. But seeing Frank last night was breaking the rules so I'd say you're not just in love with him, you're in some sort of crazy lust as well or something."
Well, crazy it is, yes, but lust, not so much.
"But hey," Agnes continues, "I don't judge you for that, OK? He's a hot guy, and clearly he likes you too, a lot. So if you think you love him but you're fighting it for Queen Bees' sake, until Geoff's daughter is better and we sign with them, then don't, OK? Or at least don't insult me by pretending with me. I'd rather know and break the rules with you, by association, than be lied to."
"OK," Gemma says, not entirely sure what she's agreeing to, but Agnes looks a little calmer for it. She recrosses her arms and says, frowning:
"Maybe you just don't quite realise you love him because you've not really loved anyone before. I was kind of like that with Ade for a while, remember? I thought it was just a physical thing, but I was just fighting it."
Gemma nods and almost smiles. Yes, she does remember that early period in Agnes and Ade's romance, when Agnes vehemently denied they were in a relationship, whilst spending every night and free waking moment with her. How sweet they were.
How sweet they still are.
"But hey," Agnes starts again, "I guess of all people you'd definitely fight it the hardest, right? Little Miss I don't need no man. God! And especially if it was against the rules, right? Yes, that's probably it!"
Is it? Agnes does look very excited at the thought, while Gemma stares up at her with equal mixtures of despondency, exhaustion and cheek-burning shame. Where to start?
At the warrants, of course. Those frocking fracking warrants: she can't explain to Agnes without explaining about the warrants too, and that by countersigning that purchase order for that warehouse, she's gone and ruined everything that she and Agnes ever built together.
If she could only find a way to fix that then… then she could come clean to Agnes and, if she were very very lucky, it wouldn't be too late to get her to explain to Dylan as well.
"I'm so sorry," Gemma says, staring at her desk and holding back the tears.
"Hey, look, like I said I'm absolutely cool about you seeing Frank, OK? Don't sweat it: who gives a shit whether you guys start shagging now or after we sign? It's not his fault Geoff's daughter was hit by a jet ski."
Gemma smiles and lets out a bitter sort of snorty laugh because, of course, Geoff's daughter's accident was entirely of Frank's making. But Agnes hears her and thinks she's cheered up.
"Don't sweat it, OK? You and Frank are going to be fine. But you've got to leave Dyl alone. It's not fair to him, you can't rub it in his face, poor guy. He's trying to put himself back together and I realise it's hard for you not to have him around anymore, but it's never going to be as hard for you as it is for him, OK? You've got to give him space, that's all he's asking you for and it's fair enough, really, all right?"
Gemma nods. What choice does she have?
"OK, and don't nick my phone, and don't lie to me."
"OK, Mum."
"OK, now back to work. Hari and I are almost there with that new eye serum."
A Bee in her Bonnet is Copyright Mel Liffragh 2021, all rights reserved