Weightless by Michele Gorman Page B

in the crowded pub nearby. ‘Oiling the
great wheels of Hollywood? Do you get to walk down the red carpet
and get papped falling out of nightclubs with your knickers
showing?’
    He looked uncomfortable as he sipped his
winter ale. ‘I’m not an actor, or Paris Hilton, despite the tiny
dog I like to carry around in my gym bag.’ He saw my face.
‘Joking,’ he said as I laughed. ‘I don’t go to the gym.’
    ‘You don’t really have a-’
    ‘Dog? No. And I’m just a lowly marketer. I’m
the cog inside the cog inside the cog inside the great
wheels of Hollywood.’
    ‘Do you like it?’
    ‘I love it! What’s not to love about getting
to see new releases before everyone else?’
    ‘Are you the one who hires the cheesy
voiceover man? One man, one banana, one unholy love story ,’
I intoned in my best radio announcer voice.
    ‘I wish I was, but they’re cheesed up before
I get my hands on them. We’re the ones who create the marketing for
Europe. It’s not glamorous but I work with a lot of nice people.
What about you? Did you stay in France after school?’
    Uh oh. There was really no way to answer his
question without fibbing. A guilty pang made my stomach lurch. Was
this where I had to tell Jack the truth, and watch that friendly,
open smile fade as he realized we didn’t really have a history
together? I knew what would happen then. The easy banter we’d
shared all evening would dry up. It wouldn’t matter that it had
nothing to do with who we’d been ten years before. Then he’d
quickly finish his ale and make some excuse to leave.
    I didn’t want that to happen. Not when we
were having so much fun.
    I could, however, tell him the truth about
me. At least then it was just one omission rather than a series of
lies that he’d hate me for.
    ‘I went to university here. In Leeds. I’ve
been in England all along. How about you?’
    He hesitated. Maybe when he said “school”,
he meant university. Christy probably kept in touch after she
moved, wrote him long letters that were definitely not postmarked
Leeds. I steeled myself for his next response.
    ‘I took a year out and then went to
Edinburgh,’ he said. ‘What a great city. Have you been?’
    Relief flooded through me. Then I remembered
that it was only a momentary stay of execution. ‘I’ve been up for
the Fringe a few times,’ I said. ‘It is a great city. Did you
travel the world on your year off, just you and your backpack and
your little dog?’
    ‘Something like that, minus the dog and the
backpack. What are you doing now?’
    I told him about my dietetics practice. Like
Jack, I loved my work. Unlike him, my job was about as far from
glamorous as you could get without cleaning motorway lavatories for
a living. ‘I’m really glad we ran into each other,’ I said as we
sipped our drinks. My tension was easing away with distance from
our old classmates. I was having a tremendous time, the kind of
time I’d dreamed of all through school. There was no harm in
carrying on the charade for a bit longer, just until I found a
natural way to introduce the fact that I was another person
altogether. No big deal.
    ‘I nearly didn’t go to the reunion,’ I said.
‘I didn’t-’
    ‘How could you even think about not going?
You were the most popular girl in school!’
    I clamped my mouth shut on my next words. I
was about to tell him about not wanting to see the girls who’d
bullied me. Girls like Christy. Must remember you are
Christy. Obviously I’d make an excellent secret agent. Lips as
secure as Fort Knox, that’s me.
    ‘It’s fate,’ he continued. ‘I mean really,
what are the chances?’ He was staring into my eyes with a look that
I’d begun to recognize in the past few years, since losing seventy
pounds and gaining a social life. It wasn’t fate on Jack’s
mind.
    ‘Well, it was a gathering of former
classmates,’ I said, not daring to believe what I was seeing. ‘It
would have been more fateful if we’d run into each