Nell: No Better Version

I nearly brought notes.

That was the first thing I had to stop myself doing. I had made a list on the back of an envelope: what happened, what I chose, what I had corrected, what I couldn't expect. It looked less like an apology than the minutes of a meeting nobody wanted to attend.

I left it at home.

The project meeting ended early because Jo had another appointment and Celia's reply about the vouchers had not yet arrived. Kit put away the print samples. I stacked the chairs slowly, giving her a chance to say she had changed her mind about talking.

She didn't.

“Outside?” she asked.

We went to the small square behind the library. There were three benches, a tree planted in a metal grate and a statue of a local industrialist whose expression suggested permanent disappointment in the parking arrangements. We sat where we could see the library door without being directly in the path of everyone using it.

I folded my hands, unfolded them and put them on my knees.

“I wrote something,” I said. “Then I didn't bring it.”

“Okay.”

“I'm not going to tell you that I was confused or that Celia made me do it. I knew the version we approved didn't give you the right part in the story. I liked the part it gave me.”

Kit looked at the paving stones.

“The worst bit is that I had just said I understood why the old map mattered. I did understand. It wasn't information I didn't have.”

“No.”

“I wanted to be the person in the headline. Then I found ways to make that seem less selfish. I told myself you were busy, and the guide had your name, and a feature needed a main character. I didn't ask you because I knew you might say no.”

A bus went past at the end of the street. I waited until the engine noise had faded. Not for dramatic effect. I could barely keep my voice steady as it was.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “For doing it. For making you explain the same thing twice. And for calling you as though you could make me feel better about having done it.”

Kit was quiet for a long time.

I did not fill the silence with evidence that I was usually good.

“I don't think you only care about attention,” she said eventually.

I looked at her.

“That would be easier, actually. I'd know what to do. But you listen to me about sound for ages. You remember things. You notice when people are uncomfortable. And then sometimes somebody offers you a nicer picture of yourself and everyone else gets pushed towards the edge.”

The statue watched us without assistance.

“Yes,” I said.

“I don't want to spend a relationship pulling myself back into the frame.”

“I don't want you to have to.”

She rubbed her thumb along the seam of her bag.

“What changes?”

I had an answer prepared despite leaving the notes at home. I stopped before I recited it.

“The approval system for the work, obviously. But that isn't everything. I need to notice when I'm making a story easier by making somebody smaller. And I need to ask before I decide that my version of helping is what somebody wants.”

“Taz?”

“Yes. She also has relevant complaints.”

Kit almost smiled.

“I don't know how to prove it in one conversation,” I said.

“You can't.”

“I know.”

A little boy came out of the library carrying a book so large he had to hold it with both arms. His grandmother offered to take it. He refused, adjusted his grip and continued across the square with fierce concentration.

“I still want the guide to be good,” Kit said.

“So do I.”

“Even if we don't get back together.”

I felt the words land. I had known she might say them. Knowing did not make them less painful.

“Yes,” I said. “Even then.”

She looked at me for the first time since I'd begun.

I meant it. I wanted her back badly enough that the wanting occupied most of my chest, but the work couldn't be a price she had to pay to keep me kind.

We sat for another minute. Then Kit asked whether I'd seen Asha's second model, and I said I hadn't. She showed me a photograph of a staircase that folded into a wall. We talked about how you would light it. I had no useful expertise, only questions. She answered them.

At the bus stop, she touched my sleeve.

“Thank you for saying it properly.”

I nodded because answering too quickly would have made me cry.

She left on her bicycle. I watched until she turned the corner, then sat on the bench and missed my first bus because I needed a little longer to become someone who could go home and answer ordinary questions.

That night, I opened the envelope with my notes. Under what I couldn't expect, I had written forgiveness, a deadline, a kiss.

I crossed out the heading and wrote things that are not mine to schedule.

Then I put it in a drawer. It wasn't a lesson I needed to publish.