Thursday Tale: Skipping Generations

 

"Oh, I am so happy; I just want to hug the whole world!"

She watched the cursor blink, as though goading her to reply to the message with something supportive, kind or encouraging. The truth is that she didn't bloody feel like it.

 

"Let me tell you though, something I have learnt in the past four days... Don't go looking for love. DON'T. It will find you when you least expect it."

The best reply she could muster by way of reply was a smiling emoji. She didn't have the strength for more. Besides, Jackie was on such a high that she kept telling everyone that she was on Cloud 7. Rachel knew she meant either Seventh Heaven or Cloud Nine, but she couldn't be bothered to figure out which. She turned her phone over so that it was facing the table, not that that would stop the buzzing of Jackie's messages as they arrived, dripping with the faux wisdom of the punch-drunk, and tried to get back to editing her article on transparency in the fashion industry. The client seemed hellbent on pretending that clothing manufacturers in Vietnam were worth modelling the world over (they aren't), and then she had to fight with another client who seemed to think that words spelled with -ise rather than -ize were of American origin, causing him to send a haughty email in which he told her to refrain from inserting "god-awefull Americanizms" into his copy. She was about to write a scathing reply to the third client, who she suspected was Donald Trump's understudy, in which she declined his request (demand) that she remove all prepositions and articles from the copy. So, a typical sentence like "The cat sat on the mat" became "cat sat mat". It made her want to run away.

Rachel glanced at the clock. Only another three hours before she could log off. She was about to finish off her umpteenth email explaining why prepositions and articles are the foundations of English grammar to Donald from another mother, but she feared he would only reply with a variation of "WHY YOU NO DO THIS???"

An hour later, her phone rang. It was her editor, Bill. 

"I'm just checking in," he said, which Rachel knew was code for "we have a problem". 

"How have I been incompetent this time?" She continued scrolling through the "Americanizm" paper, double-checking that she hadn’t missed any errant commas.

"Oh, it's not your work," said Bill. "I'm calling about your time off."

"The answer is no."

"You don't know what I'm asking for yet."

"I think you're going to tell me that one or more of our colleagues who are supposed to cover the week before Christmas have children and families and that I should take one for the team. Then I'll remind you that I've taken one for the team for the past five years. Then you'll chuckle and say that you promise this will be the last one, but little Timmy or Johnny or Sarah only have this time of their lives to be young, and they deserve to spend this time with their mummies and daddies. Is that about it?"

"More or less."

"The answer is still no, Bill. I'm sick of having to take a backseat for people who have partners or children. It's not my fault that happiness skipped a generation in my family."

"Rachel, I..."

"Am not listening, Bill. Call me when Donald's double finds a justifiable reason to remove prepositions from the English language. By-yee." She dared to check her messages. Another eleven or so from Jackie, swooning about how Joe brought her drinking yoghurt that she loved as a child and how this gesture hit her "right in the feels". She scrunched up her face to avoid typing back, "What are 'the feels'?"

She moved on to a proofreading round of another article about the history of the sugar industry. The author was surprisingly eloquent as he dropped bombshell after bombshell exposing the blood-soaked origins of the sugar barons (she thought sugar daddies would have been better, but, alas, academics don't have a sense of humour). She was almost tempted to forego the single cube she had with her coffee but decided that she needed the sweetness. 

By the time she shut down her computer, Rachel had spent nearly a quarter of her time responding to emails from dumber-than-Donald. She was exhausted. When her phone rang again, she thought it might be Bill swooping in for a second attempt at Operation Manipulate Rachel, but it was her mother.

"Oh my god," she sighed down the phone, "have you seen the news about 'Plan V'?"

"Please tell me you haven't spent the better part of your day watching videos about conspiracy theories."

"This one was really shocking. How do I send you the link again? You need to hear what they said about the Clintons and Obama."

"I really don't, Mother. Was there something else? I'm about to head out."

"Sometimes I think you don't have time for me, Rachel. You should be so glad that I am still alive, you know? Most people don't have their parents anymore."

"By most people you mean you, right? Mom, you're seventy. I should think it would be weird if your parents were still alive."

"You are twisting my words!"

"I am saying goodbye. Love you." She clasped the phone to her chest and leant against the frame of the door. She was caught between letting out wracking sobs, screaming or sliding down to the ground and crawling into a ball. Deciding that none of these options were to her liking, she opted to make another cup of tea. She archived all of Jackie's texts while she waited for the water to boil and decided to block the number of her four-night stand from a few weeks back who had left snot on her shower curtain. He was still trying to get her to respond to booty calls.

The song playing on the radio snagged her attention. It was Diana Krall's take on "Everybody's Talkin'". If that wasn't the soundtrack to her day.

"You're preaching to the choir, Diana." She clicked off the kettle and donned her jacket. Tea could wait. Instead, she would take advantage of the watery winter sun while it lasted. 

Despite the wind, the park was bustling with families, the elderly, couples and power walkers. After doing a few laps around the lake, she found a bench in a sunny spot away from the crowds and sat down. She could feel her cheeks stinging from the combination of exercise and cold air. Her phone vibrated in her pocket, notifying her that she'd met her step count for the day, that her delivery was scheduled to arrive the next day and that Jackie had found another reason to gush about her four-day-new beau.

"I don't think I could ever get used to those things."

Rachel started at the voice beside her.

"It's not as complicated as it looks. And you're better off, anyway. They are useful but mostly annoying." She pocketed her phone and stared across the lawns at passers-by.

"It's a terrible thing on someone as young as you."

"Pardon?"

"That cape of resolution you wear."

Rachel looked around, hoping to see someone in a nurse's uniform that she could flag down. "I don't follow."

"Why do you believe that happiness skipped a generation in your family?"

"Oh god, did Bill put you up to this? I'm not working over sodding Christmas for the sixth year in a row. Please tell him that from me, with cherries on top."

"I don't know anyone called Bill. I get plenty of them in the post, though."

She studied the woman next to her. "Do I know you?"

"Not exactly. But you will."

"And your name is?"

"Unimportant. Rather tell me the answer to my question."

Rachel scoffed. "You want to know why I think happiness has skipped a generation?"

She nodded.

"And you'll leave me alone if I tell you?"

Her movement was so slight that it almost passed for a shrug.

Rachel closed her eyes. "Let's see. It's hard not to think that when I am the only sibling in a family of five who isn't in a relationship, engaged or married. I am routinely ghosted or friend-zoned. Or, in my most extreme example, I'm the emotional support friend to a man who talks to me all night before going home to sleep with his girlfriend. Even ugly men with limps, baldness and body odour that would clear out the set of a jungle-based reality TV show aren't interested in me. And, yet, everyone I meet tells me how wonderful and amazing I am. They say I'm kind, nice, sweet and, my personal favourite, 'too good for this world'. It seems that being authentic or genuine is a shortcut to getting screwed, and the only man who is vying for my attention right now is autistic and therefore unable to ascertain that a rebuff from me is a polite but firm sign for him to back off." She stopped herself when she realised her voice was beginning to pitch. "So, forgive me if, in the face of this overwhelming evidence, I'm not exactly sold on this happiness malarkey. My boss seems to think that my being single means I don't have responsibilities because I'm a free agent, beholden to no one. But let me just say that many parents I know wear their decision to procreate like a badge of honour that makes them superior to the rest of us: they're more tired, more drained, have less time and less money but it is all worth it because it is so rewarding. They don't know my story, and I'm still judged for it. And please don't get me started on my family." She took a deep breath. 

"Feel better?"

"What?"

"You were wound so tightly a few moments ago that I thought you might snap."

"I'm just having one of those days." She glanced at the woman. "Look, are you lost? Should I call someone?"

"I'm exactly where I want to be, thank you. I just wanted to see if I could get you to take off that cape of yours long enough to get a fresh perspective."

Rachel was about to reply when she heard a child scream and a dog barking. She looked across the park to see that a toddler had fallen face-first into a puddle and the dog was splashing all over it. When she looked back at the woman, the bench was empty. 

"Great. Even strangers are ghosting me these days."

She decided to do another few laps around the park. It helped her stop thinking, which was a really good thing. She allowed herself to zone out, noticing only when she needed to alter the route of her walk but veering to the left or turning right. The sounds of the other people faded to white noise, and she became aware of the colours of the leaves, the way the light dappled on the road in front of her and the bobbing buttocks of ducks diving for their dinner. Maybe the woman had been right about the cape she wore. The truth was that she liked her life, most days her job was stimulating and she had friends she could count on. She reached the last stretch that would take her home and decided to celebrate snot-free shower curtains and the luxury of 100% ownership of the remote control.

It might have skipped her in a myriad other ways, but Rachel knew she would make her own happiness. She retrieved her phone and dialled. "Hey, it's Rachel. I'd like to order a bacon burger with sweet potato fries for delivery. Yes, and tell the delivery person not to freak out if he sees me in my pyjamas. I'm having a date with Tommy Shelby in Birmingham tonight..."