Page 3 of Try Hard
Eve Archer was his eldest daughter. She’d been in my year at school. We’d had quite a few classes together over the years, but Eve had been athletic and popular, and I had been… not. I’d been quiet and studious, and more than a little chubby. Still, despite the differences in our personalities, she’d been something of an awakening. One I’d never quite forgotten.
I’d been her younger sister’s peer mentor for a while. Sophie was two years younger and she’d been ‘struggling to focus in class’, so she’d been assigned a peer mentor. But, even that hadn’t put me on Eve’s radar. Nor should it have.I mentor your sisterwas hardly a pickup line.
Nor wasI watch planes with your dad…
Not that I thought this would bring us back into each other’s orbits. We’d barely been there to begin with. Being back in Kim’s was one thing, getting thrown into Eve’s was ridiculously unlikely to happen.
Eve Archer had left secondary school, gone on to play rugby for her university, made a name for herself, won the World Cup and an Olympic medal, and spent a decade out in the US playing professionally. I hadn’t beentryingto follow her career, but, well, I’d seen a few things. Even caught a match once when work had conveniently sent me to a city she was playing in. But I’d never told her I was there—why would I? She was just somebody that I used to know, and, given the opportunity, anyone would go see someone they went to school with play professional sports. It wasn’t weird.
“You know,” Dad said, and I could only imagine where he was going now, “Eve’s back these days.”
“In Eddlesworth?” I askedfartoo quickly.
“Oh, no, not as a general rule. She visits sometimes, but no, she’s living in London. I meant in the UK. You know she was in the US for a while?”
“I did hear that,” I said, keeping my voice measured.
“Yeah, she’s a bigshot interior designer now.”
“Is she?” I might have heard about that, too. I hadn’t beentryingto look her up, but I did tend to keep up with interior design trends. They were somewhat relevant to my job, what with assessing new hotels and commenting on every single aspect of them, interior design included.
Dad hummed. “Went into business with… I don’t remember her name, but Big Jezzer was showing off the proofs of a magazine article they have coming out soon just last week.” He shot me a look. “Maybe he’ll have some with him this week. Might be nice for you to see her again after how long it’s been.”
“Yeah…” Despite the fact that it hadn’t been nearly as long as he thought since I’d last seen her. “And how’s Sophie doing?”
He chuckled and shot me a loaded look. “I think she’s doing great.Shethinks she’s doing great. TBD on whether Jezzer thinks she is.”
I narrowed my eyes, watching the road as if I were the one driving. “What does that mean?”
“She’s a bit of a… free spirit, let’s say.”
“Well, yeah, that tracks. She always was a little… unhappy with authority.”
“She’s a tattoo artist these days. Actually has a really beautiful studio in town.”
“Dad, did you get a tattoo?”
“Nah. Your mum and I talked about it, you know, anniversary commemorative thing, but we haven’t decided.”
“But, you’d go to Sophie if you did?”
“Yeah, I think so. She’s one hell of an artist.”
It was hard to imagine him and my mum on the tattoo table. Or to imagine them with ink. They were both super cool about other people having tattoos, but they’d never gotten one themselves.
Perhaps it made sense as an anniversary gift, though. They had been together for almost forty years now. That probably deserved commemorating.
“Jezzer’s not thrilled about it, though,” he continued.
“Why?”
“Beats me. Maybe he was hoping both his daughters would jet off across the world. But two happy, successful kids? Seems like he did all right, if you ask me.”
“Interesting.”
As far as I could remember, Sophie had never said anything when we were at school about her parents wanting her to be more like Eve, but teachers had. I’m sure they’d thought it was inspirational, but constantly hearing that your sister was a star probably didn’t inspire the need to be just like her when you were a teenager and desperate to be yourself. Kind of weird that Jeremy had, apparently, gone that way.
Maybe I wasn’t going to enjoy seeing him.
