Page 23 of If We Were Young

Staring at my home screen I clicked onto Messenger and stared at Matthew’s Hi.

Without thinking, blocking my head from all rational thought, I let the Prosecco do the typing for me.

Hi.

Then I threw my phone into the deep recesses of my bag and staggered from my seat.

“I've gotta go and make planets,” I announced.

Everyone waved their hands. No one would manage any work tomorrow. I knew that already.

I sighed and said. “Office shut until ten tomorrow. Don’t forget I’ve got brunch with Supersaver at ten-thirty.” I glanced at Fred. Should I ask him to come with me, or maybe I should go to the first meeting by myself? Show them I plan to take ownership.

I walked out the bar to a round of applause and found a cab; the whole way home resolutely refusing to check my phone to see if he’d messaged me back.

Jupiter

No message.

Not that I spent all night watching my phone, just in case.

“Oh God, what happened to my hands?” I charged my way into the kitchen where Ma sat at the table sipping from her china cup. At the other side of the table Hannah crammed polystyrene balls into a cardboard box.

“You fell asleep during Jupiter.” Ma didn’t look up from her crossword.

I leant down and waved the bright yellow under Ma’s nose. Baby sick yellow.

Ma wrinkled her nose and pointed me towards the sink. As I walked across the kitchen, she swept the yellow flecks flaking from my skin off her paper.

“This can’t be happening.” I rubbed my hands, showering more yellow. “I’ve got brunch at half ten. Help me get it off.” Yanking at the tap, I turned the handle to hot and began scrubbing at the bright paint. “Did we finish the planets at least?”

“We finished the planets, Veronica.” Ma’s finger wagged despite her not looking up. “I told you not to drink on a school night.”

“I didn’t even have that much,” I answered the finger. “Yesterday was a big day.”

Hannah’s lips curved at the edges. Sweet shit. Had I made her smile? “We know. You told us.”

“Sorry, but it’s a big thing for us getting the rebrand job. I had to take the staff out for a drink.” Turning my hands, I stared in dismay at the yellow paint that seeped into the fine lines and cracks of my skin, the pores on the back of each held swampy ponds of yellow brown gunk. “This is terrible. What can I use?”

“Washing-up liquid,” Hannah and Ma said at the same time.

I eyed them with suspicion. When did they become members of a secret team who spoke in time with one another? And where was my membership?

“Han, are you ready to go? I want to make sure I get to the meeting on time.”

“Yep, I just need to get…” she forced a green sphere into the box, “Venus in there.”

“Just make sure it’s not too close to Mars.”

Neither of them cracked a smile. They wasted all my good jokes.

“Oh forget it. Come on, let’s go. I’m gonna have to get the Tube after I’ve dropped you off.”

“What about your fingers?” Ma looked over her glasses, her lips as tight as a rosebud.

“I’ll try to pick it off on the Tube.”

Hannah laughed; a sound so alien it took a moment for me to understand that the loud giggle came from inside her. “You will look like one of those crazy homeless people if you sit there picking paint off of your hands on the train.”