Call Me, Maybe Read online

  Great. That’s good to know. I’m pleased to hear it. Nice to meet you. I’ll leave you alone now if you like.

  I don’t like this one bit. I don’t know how to talk to him, so perhaps this is for the best. I’m fully expecting him to agree that my leaving him alone is a good idea, but he doesn’t and I’m surprised.

  Hold up, after all that trouble you went to find me, you don’t even want me to prove it…? I could send you a picture if you like?

  Oh my god. Be cool, Cassie.

  If you like, yeah. That’d be nice, thanks. Only if you feel like it.

  LOL right…

  It all goes quiet, and with each passing second I feel more and more ridiculous. And what if this is actually quite dodgy and he’s trying to reel me in under false pretences? What if the picture he sends is nothing more than a scan from Teen Beat circa 1999 and doesn’t prove anything? What will I do then? But on the flip, what if it does prove once and for all that I am sitting in bed, laptop glaring up at me through the darkness, talking to none other than my teenage crush?

  The chat window lights up again and suddenly I’m so nervous I can hardly stand it and I look at the screen through squinty eyes. The photo is unmistakably Jesse Franklin, sitting on a dark blue sofa, in front of a bright white wall, and shelves stacked with stuff. Books, a plant, a lamp, piles of CDs. Sunshine streams in from his left. He’s holding up a notebook in one hand, and pointing to it with the other, and Jesus, his hands are beautiful. He’s smiling into the camera and one eyebrow is slightly raised. My stomach flips. I deeply fancy him all over again. I enlarge the image and read the bit of paper. Hello Cassie Banks, from Jesse Franklin.

  I stare at the photo for a second or two. I’m slightly slack-jawed. Genuinely, I can’t believe it.

  Now you go.

  Huh?

  It’s your turn. Fair’s fair. How do I know I’M not getting catfished? You could be anyone.

  I reach for my light, and scan my room for some paper. All I can find is the back of an envelope that once contained a bank statement. I reach for a pen and scrawl, Hi Jesse Franklin, from Cassie Banks, and I’m immediately ashamed of my chicken scratch handwriting. His is much nicer than mine. But not that curly American-style cursive handwriting you always see in movies. Just nice, considered, neatly printed letters. I position my computer at the end of my bed and switch on the camera. I lie on my front, pile my hair over to one side and try to look cute. If I’m doing this, I’m going all in. I tip my head, and flash what I hope is a winning smile as I take the photo, clutching my scrawled on envelope. My computer makes a noise like the aperture on a lens closing and opening and I like the result, all come-to-bed eyes and swooshy hair. No double chin either. Not bad. I definitely know how to work my angles at two in the morning. Off it goes. And then I wait.

  Well, hello there Cassie Banks.

  Bit flirty. My my, how quickly the tide turns. Who cares, I’m going with it.

  You already said that ;-)

  I feel like I can ease up a bit now we’ve both checked each other out. If we were in a bar, I’d be flicking my hair and batting my lashes and getting him to buy me a drink.

  I did… so what’s keeping you up so late?

  You are!

  Does that sound a bit creepy? Could that be misconstrued?

  Well, I mean, NOW you are. But in all honesty, it’s more likely I just had a bit too much to drink.

  Oh really? Cassie the party girl, huh?

  Megalols! Not really, just went out for civilised drinks with my best friend.

  Silence for a while, and then:

  Sounds fun. But hey, I have to get going. Going for my own civilized drinks. But maybe we’ll chat another time.

  Ah, shit! No, don’t go. Stay and talk to me all night. Please? I’d put money on us never talking again after tonight given the way this has gone, what with my horrible choice of words and general weirdness. Megalols? I’m too old for that. I deserve a slap.

  OK. I’d like that. Enjoy your evening out!

  Thanks. Well, bye then, Cassie.

  The green circle turns to grey and he’s gone. I like the way he went to the effort of typing out my name. Not many people would bother. I imagine him saying it and decide it definitely has a nice ring to it in an American accent. Kind of drawly with the accentuated A. I close down my computer and curl up under my duvet, trying to digest what has just happened. I can still feel the warmth where my computer was, and I can’t quite believe it. Inside I’m all fluttery and silly, and one thing’s for sure, even if that didn’t go quite the way I’d hoped, my mammoth crush on Jesse Franklin is back.

  Chapter Five

  Jesse

  Travis calls shortly after I’ve traded photos with Cassie.

  ‘Duuude,’ he hollers. He’s in a bar. He’s doing that shouty talking people do when they can’t hear you very well. ‘I’m in Los Alamitos with Seth. Come on down!’

  I’m eighty-five percent down for hanging out; it is, after all, Friday night, but fifteen percent of me would be more than happy to stick around here and see whether I’ll get any more glamour shots.

  ‘You’ve been let out for the evening then?’ I say, pushing the computer away. It’s not a secret that Holly keeps him on a tight leash.

  ‘Yeah, you’re real funny, you know that? Invitation withdrawn. Bye.’

  ‘I’m kidding,’ I say, suddenly feeling like a beer. ‘Don’t be like that. Where exactly are you in Los Alamitos? I’ll be there in half an hour.’

  ‘That long?’

  ‘Twenty minutes then. I’m just in the middle of something, but I’ll wrap it up. I have an early start tomorrow so it’s not going to be a late one, though, okay?’

  ‘Well aren’t you a bundle of fun?’ he laughs, and reels off the name of the bar they’re at, and I tell Cassie I have to go, lock up the house, and grab my car keys.

  On the drive I consider how out of all the Jesse Franklins there are in the world, I was the one she was looking for, and how that makes me feel. A little uneasy, honestly. I worked so hard to put it all behind me after what happened on that day in Berlin, and it’s been so long since Franko has been mentioned that I’d been lulled into a false sense of security that it would never happen again. I don’t want to talk about it, and especially not with a random British woman from the internet, however pretty she is, and yet, I stuck around, traded photos, didn’t unfriend and block immediately. Didn’t unfriend and block at all.

  And that photo. Jesus. Mine was a zero-effort snap from the camera on my laptop, but hers… well. She was trying, she was really trying. Lying on her bed with her hair flipped over and that eye smile thing like something off America’s Next Top Model. And she’s hot, too. Definitely the exotic European from the profile pictures. She knew exactly what she was sending. And it worked. Well played, hot British Cassie, well played. I saved that photo. Drag and drop.

  I park my car on a side street and head inside. It’s a sports bar. The three of us have been here before. It’s loud and boisterous when there’s a game on the giant screens, but today there isn’t, and the whole place has more of a meat market feel to it. I bet Seth picked it.

  ‘Hey, you gonna try and pick someone up tonight?’ he asks. ‘We gotta live vicariously through you now, dude.’

  Called it.

  ‘Uh… no? Why?’

  ‘Just looking out for you, man. It’s been how long since Nicole ran for the hills?’

  ‘Just about five months actually, and thank you for bringing that up.’

  ‘Eeesh,’ Seth winces. ‘Your balls must be blue as fuck, bro. ’Bout time you got back in the saddle.’ He mimes sex with someone from behind. Travis laughs. A group of women standing close by look disgusted and shuffle away from us. Seth’s an unintentional cock-blocker.

  ‘Alright. Yep,’ I say. ‘Not tonight though. I have shit to do early tomorrow.’

  ‘You thought about going online?’ Travis says and for the briefest of moments I almost say something
about the earlier part of my evening. But Seth would be Seth about it, and Travis would want to see the photo, and showing him would be a dick move. So I leave it.

  ‘I don’t need to go on the internet to meet someone, thanks. I’m good,’ I say instead. And anyway, it’s not a lie.

  The joshing between the three of us continues into the evening. Holly keeps texting Travis, which no one is surprised about, and which he ignores until she starts to call, and whilst he’s speaking to her, I get a text from Brandon:

  I’ve just put your name forward for a project, nothing too exciting and it’s little more than a favor to someone. I’ll know more at the beginning of July. You down? Feel like coming up to visit around then? Your niece has been asking for you.

  A trip north would be nice, and I could certainly do with a change of scenery for a while after driving in and out of LA for days on end, so I text back right away:

  Well, if I’ve been summoned by Nancy I’d better clear my schedule. What’s the job? I actually have a free week at the beginning of July, would that work? Love to Lainey and of course little N!

  Fourth of July week then! Right on! I’ll tell you more when you’re here. Little N will be stoked! Party time!

  ‘Get off your phones, you antisocial pieces of shit,’ Seth grumbles.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, putting it back in the pocket of my jacket and pointing to his now empty beer bottle. ‘You want another one?’

  He nods and I head off towards the bar.

  ‘Get some wings, too, man,’ he calls after me. ‘I haven’t eaten anything proper tonight. Cindy served me up fucking salad. It tasted of sadness.’

  Back home, much later in the evening, I open up my laptop again and look at that photo Cassie sent me. It’s dim and cozy-looking in her room, and the picture is grainy, but behind her is a stack of books, a glass of water, an alarm clock on a nightstand, and photographs taped to the wall. Heaps of pillows, too. More than one person could ever need, assuming there isn’t anybody else sleeping next to her in that bed on nights other than this one. She’s wound string lights around her bed frame, and the bedding is white or cream, but it’s hard to tell on a photo that isn’t white balanced.

  She seems nice and she’s definitely gorgeous, but I’m still undecided about her. It’s something about her finding me all these years on. I don’t know if it’s kind of cool, or just a bit creepy.

  I’m not stupid enough to think this hasn’t happened before. I know people will have put my name into search engines in the past, and like Cassie, it will have been me they wanted to find. That’s just part of being in the public eye, but I wasn’t so readily accessible back in ninety-eight, and I’m not sure I really want to be now, and what’s happened here is the reason I try to steer clear of it all. I could cut her off in an instant, and yet, I don’t.

  Instead, I sift through her photos again. I am curious about why she doesn’t have anything better to do than stalk me on the internet. There are pictures of her hanging out with people, and she’d said she’d been out tonight, so she’s clearly a sociable being. The brunette in her profile picture features heavily. Her name, I learn, is Rachel. Wonder if she’s the ex friend who allegedly sent that first message. There’s another, Marie, who crops up often, and another, Lauren. Marie and Rachel have the same last name and look vaguely similar. Cassie and Rachel have been to Paris, and Amsterdam, and to a festival in Spain, where they both wore straw hats and necklaces made from glow sticks. They’ve been friends since they were kids. There’s a whole album devoted to New Years’ Eves through the years, as far back as the early nineties, and I think it’s cool to have a progression of photos taken on the same day every year like that. The photos are grainy. Their parents are in some of the earlier ones, but that stops at the year 2000. They’re by the river in London. The tips of both of their noses are red and they’re bundled up. Cassie’s wearing a green scarf and for a second there’s a flicker of… I’m not sure. Something vaguely familiar perhaps, or maybe it’s just the color. As soon as I try and place it, the feeling’s gone. I don’t try and recall it. It was probably nothing.

  There’s a stocky guy with short curly hair in the latest one. Looks like your typical frat boy. Boyfriend? He has his arm around her shoulders and looks very pleased about it, but she less so. Her entire posture in those photos is completely different from all the others. She’s more rigid, less comfortable-looking. She’s twisting her body away from him. Her smile doesn’t seem quite as natural. It definitely doesn’t reach her eyes. He’s tagged: Marcus Lewis. He’s not her boyfriend, though he definitely wants to be. Or maybe he just wants to fuck her. I open up the picture she sent me again and compare the two. Her eyes are definitely different in my one. Warmer. More receptive. It’s interesting.

  The clock on my laptop catches my eye. I have to be up in six hours. So much for getting an early night. Twelve twenty-seven a.m. here means it’s eight twenty-seven a.m. in London, right? I wonder if she’s awake. Whatever.

  Chapter Six

  Cassie

  I can’t bring myself to read back over my chat with Jesse until Sunday evening, and when I do, I cringe right into the centre of the Earth. I’d wonder what I was thinking, except it’s abundantly clear that I was not. And that photo. Eesh! Seemed such a good idea at the time as well, making my eyes all big and my mouth all pouty. But in the cold, sober light of day, I don’t look hot and nubile, I just look like I haven’t taken off my make-up properly. So you can imagine my surprise, and, okay yes, sheer unbridled joy, when I get home from work on Monday to a message. Clear as day.

  Hey!

  He’s not online but I send a reply and walk away from it because I will not be the sort of girl who waits around for a man. I haven’t told anyone. The only person who’d care would be Rachel and for now, something is stopping me from mentioning it. She’d want to take all the credit, and to see the messages and then she’d have an opinion I might not like. She’d critique my performance and I’ve done quite enough of that already, thanks.

  I can’t imagine Jon or Sara would know who Franko were, much less Franko’s bass player. So I say nothing during dinner, or whilst we watch TV, and when Jon asks why I keep scampering off upstairs (because checking sporadically throughout the evening is definitely fine) I tell him I’m in a heated bidding war on eBay for a designer handbag and watch as his eyes glaze over.

  Eventually, during an ad break, it’s there. Another message, and a greyed out circle. We’re playing a game of message tag and I’m it.

  How’s it going, party girl?

  Not too bad, thanks. You?

  A quick Google tells me it’s almost three p.m. in California. What’s he up to? Seems an odd time to be free. Maybe he can just hang around online all day if he feels like it. Maybe Franko made such an obscene amount of money he doesn’t have to work ever again, the jammy swine.

  As I head out of my room, I hear that familiar ping of a message received and I stop at the door and look back at my laptop. That’s the rest of my evening spoken for, then. Suddenly I’ve lost interest in the TV. I get ready for bed before going back to it. Don’t want to look too keen, after all.

  All good here.

  This is already going better than last time. This time he’s initiated it. He wants to talk to me. God knows why.

  I feel like I should apologise for the other night.

  What do you mean?

  Erm. My horrible drunk chat/inappropriate photo. I’m sort of amazed you wanted to talk to me again.

  I liked the photo, not gonna lie.

  Oh my god!

  Ha. Well. Hooray!

  So no apology necessary. Really. We’re all good.

  Did you hear that, world? We’re all good!

  Cool. OK! So, what do you do these days that means you can sit on the internet in the middle of the day? If you don’t mind me asking.

  I’m a session musician.

  Still bass?

  Still bass :) Bass forever.

 
; Snazzy! What does that involve?

  A lot of time in studios. A few gigs now and then. It keeps me out of trouble.

  Sounds like fun. How did you get into that?

  Seemed like the obvious thing to do. It has its moments. I couldn’t really see myself stuck in an office or something. What about you?

  I am stuck in an office or something. Five days a week.

  Oh, wow! Sorry!

  Don’t be. It’s not for everyone. I like it though.

  What do you do in your office?

  I work in the head office for a chain of department stores as a merchandiser in kitchenware.

  I don’t know what that is.

  Basically I make sure there’s enough stock, in the right stores at the right time at the correct price etc etc. I work with buyers and deal with suppliers. In a nutshell.

  Sounds cool. Any I’d have heard of? Have you always done that?

  Doubt it, unless you’re secretly an expert in British retail brands. Beauchamp & Taylor. We don’t have shops abroad. I suppose it would be the UK equivalent to Bloomingdales or maybe Nordstrom.