Page 31 of Wish You Were Here
‘I can get you on the bill, Sas. I can get you in front of Fudge Cake, and I know they’re still on the lookout for another act to add to their tour!’
‘Really?’ I say, feeling shots of excitement and possibility firing through my veins. ‘You’re being serious? This isn’t a joke, right? You can actually get me on stage in front of Fudge Cake?’
‘Of course, Sas. What do you say? You in?’
Am I in? This is it. My chance to perform in front of important people, and if I could get on the tour with Fudge Cake, it would change everything. All my dreams might become a reality. It’s suddenly a possibility when for so long, it has felt like anything but.
‘Of course I’m in!’ I say, and then Joe grabs me, hugs me, then he pulls away and tries to kiss me. ‘For fuck’s sake, Joe. What are you doing?’
‘I just felt the moment, you know. You, me, Fudge Cake on tour for months, sleeping in hotels together. Things are going to happen. Plus, you’d owe me one.’
‘What do you mean, owe you one?’
‘For getting you the gig. Come on, you’d owe me something,’ says Joe, stepping a little closer to me. ‘What do ya reckon, Sas?’
Reading between the lines, and Joe doesn’t make it difficult, it seems that in return for getting me in front of Fudge Cake, Joe wants sex or at the least, he’d probably settle for a quick hand job in the toilets. Just the idea of it makes me sick to my stomach, but this is my career and it might be my last shot at the big time. If it takes keeping Joe onside to make it happen, I don’t think I have a choice. I slowly lean in towards Joe and whisper softly in his ear.
‘Make Fudge Cake happen, and I’ll make sure you get your reward.’ It kills me to say it, but when I step away, Joe has a huge smile on his face. ‘When is the gig?’
‘Umm,’ says Joe, who needs a second to compose himself. ‘November thirtieth.’
My birthday. I can’t believe it. The biggest gig of my life on my thirtieth birthday. Is it fate, destiny, or will it be my final gig before I have to give up and get myself a proper job? It feels like everything, one way or another, is coming to a head, and decisions will be made that might decide the next decade of my life. Perhaps one day I will look upon this day as the day that changed everything.
13
Ben
It is a chilly November morning, and I am standing next to Will on Clapham Common. We are going to run a 5k and meet women. This is what Will has told me is going to happen – I have my doubts on both fronts. To understand how I arrived at this point, jogging on the spot to keep warm, we have to go back a few days. It was Tuesday evening, and Will had popped over for pizza, a few beers, and he said this to me.
‘Parkruns are littered with fit women in tight Lycra, and I swear it’s the perfect place to meet because you immediately have something to talk about.’
‘He’s right,’ said Flatmate Simon, tucking into a slice of pepperoni pizza.
‘How would you know?’ I asked incredulously because in all the years I had lived with Flatmate Simon, I had never seen him actually run.
‘Because, Mr Cynical, I know a couple who met at the Brighton parkrun. They met running and still run together to this very day,’ said Flatmate Simon.
‘See,’ said Will. ‘The perfect place to meet women. So, are you in?’
‘I don’t know, I haven’t trained, I—’
‘You don’t need to train for a parkrun!’ said Will, laughing as though I had just suggested the most ridiculous thing in the entire world.
‘Training for a parkrun,’ scoffed Flatmate Simon.
‘Then why don’t you come too?’ I asked Flatmate Simon. ‘If it’s so easy.’
‘Oh, this Saturday? Yeah, I can’t. I have a shoot in North London.’
‘Right, a shoot,’ I said, and Flatmate Simon was suddenly quiet, while I had to go into the very back of my wardrobe to find my workout gear.
Fast-forward four days, and I am standing with Will in my best running outfit, doing some light stretching, while checking out the amount of attractive women in Lycra, and as it turns out, Will was right. There are a lot of very attractive women, all limbering up, stretching and maybe I might meet someone here. I am attempting to stretch too, but I really don't know what I am doing. Luckily, I’m with uber-fit Will, and so I just copy him, although even some of his stretches hurt and I have to stop before I injure myself. Nothing is as embarrassing as being injured in the warm-up. Instead, I do a bit of light jogging on the spot and a couple of star jumps – memories of PE with Mr Warburton flash through my mind.
‘Right, so what’s the plan?’ I ask Will.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What’s the plan? This was your idea, so obviously you’ve done it before. How do we actually meet these women?’
