PROLOGUE

I sit and wait for her, my feet swinging under the bench. She’ll come soon, and she’ll know where.

Adrenaline. I squeeze my own arms. Tap my toes. God, I hate waiting. Is that what I’ve been doing all these years? Waiting, for her? Maybe all those therapists were right. Maybe therapy isn’t just a bad one-woman fringe show you don’t have the balls to take on  the road. I look around, at the other people chatting and posing and repositioning themselves, whiling away this cold Friday. It’s a few weeks before Christmas and the city is all lit up. People are smiling too much, drinking too much, wanting too much, wearing too much tinsel. Nothing points to the ephemeral nature of life quite like tinsel.

I look toward the north gate of the square and it’s then that I see her. Disheveled, pulling on her coat. She scans the benches, spots me, and freezes. I wave. She tilts her head to one side and bats her eyes, as though appealing to some ancient understanding between us; as though this has all been a scripted episode, some kind of brilliant shared joke. I stare at her emotionlessly. I am not playing. She stares back. It’s checkmate with the old queen.

She starts to walk over. I almost don’t recognize her with her clothes on. Which is a strange thing to say about your mother.

A FEW MONTHS EARLIER
 
It is 10:05 a.m. and I am queuing at the breakfast counter of my coworking space in East London. The weather outside is autumnal but muggy and I have overlayered. I am damp at my armpits and wondering whether to nip out and buy a fresh T-shirt at lunch. I made dal for dinner last night from a budget vegetarian cookbook I picked up in a charity shop, and let me tell you it was astonishing. I am creating  a social media post about a croissant that I am pretty sure will define me as a human.

I stare at my phone. I am happy enough with the photo. I have applied the Clarendon filter to accentuate the photo’s ridges and depths, making the light bits lighter and the darker bits darker. I added a white frame for art. The picture looks—as much as a croissant can— transcendental. However, the text is proving troublesome. I’ve tweaked it so many times that I can’t work out whether it makes sense anymore. This often happens. I ponder the words so long, thinking how they might be received, wondering if they could be better, that they lose all their original momentum. I get stage fright. The rest of the world has fallen away around this small square of existence. It’s like that bit in Alien 3 where Ripley says to the alien: You’ve been in my life so long, I can’t remember anything else. I used to think it was about motherhood. Now I know it’s about social media.

I stare at the screen.

CROISSANT, WOO! #CROISSANT

Is this the absolute best depiction of my present experience?

I cross out the WOO, and the comma.

CROISSANT! #CROISSANT

I stare at it again. I try to recall the original inspiration, to be guided by that. It’s the least I can do. I interrogate myself. That’s what the midthirties should be about, after all: constant self-interrogation. Acquiring the courage to change what you can, and the therapist to accept what you can’t. What is it I really want to say about the croissant? How do croissants truly make me feel? Why is it important right now that I share this?

I delete the exclamation mark and stare at the remaining two words. They are the same word. The only difference is one is hashtagged. Do they mean the same, or something different? Is there added value in the repetition? Is it worth leaving one unhashtagged, so that the original sentiment exists, unfettered by digital accoutrements? It’s so important to get all this right. I want people to know instantly, at a glance, that this post is about pastry in its purest form. This is Platonic

Pastry.

I delete the hashtag so that the post simply says:

CROISSANT.

Full stop or no full stop? A full stop always looks decisive and commanding, but it can also look more cool and casual if you just leave the sentence hanging there, like oh I’m so busy in my dazzling life I don’t even have time to punctuate. The squalid truth is I overpunctuate when I’m stressed/excited. I can go four exclamation marks on a good/bad day. Exclamation marks are the people-pleaser’s punctuation of choice. It makes us seem eager and pliable. Excited to talk to you! You!!!! I always notice other people’s punctuation. When some- one sends me a message with no exclamation marks or kisses, I respect them. I also think: Are they depressed? Did I do something to offend them?

Sometimes I see people using whole rows of emojis, and I just want to hold them.

CROISSANT

Perfect.

Yes, I think that probably says it all. Hm.

Is it enough, though, really? Oh God. I just. Don’t. Know. “Can I help you?”

I look up in fright. It is my turn at the counter. “Uh . . .”

I look at the croissants on the rough stone plinth. I see now that there is a problem. I’m pretty sure—and I am very observant—that one of them is from yesterday. It looks stiffer than the rest, the way it’s hunched at the front, like it’s all uptight. It is a decidedly different texture and color to the rest. I don’t know whether this suggests age, or some kind of bacterial contamination, or what. How did I miss this? I know that I am definitely going to get that croissant if I ask for a croissant.

I am paralyzed. I do not know what to do. I do not feel able to ask for a specific croissant, although I certainly feel I deserve one. I do a quick calculation. There are eight croissants there and the defective one is on my side rather than the server’s, so really it’s unlikely I’ll get lumped with it. I exhale. I decide to go for it. I need this experience, to fulfill my . . . planned experience.

I speak. “One croissant, please.”

The server nods, but then, for some reason known only to her- self, goes to take the CROISSANT OF CATASTROPHE from the front. I shout: “Oh, hey! Excuse me! Could I please not have that croissant?”

I say it with fear and also with absolute rectitude.

The server’s tongs twitch. She says slowly: “They’re . . . all the same.”

I say: “Could I just have one from the back, please? Thank you!” Everyone is looking at me.

She speaks slower still, as though I am an idiot. “But . . . they are all the same.”

“That one is a slightly different hue, I believe,” I say, quieter.

She peers at the croissants. The person behind me in  the queue comes forward for a look too. The barista abandons the Gaggia and comes over. The cashier. They all look, and then they all stare at me.

“It was a preference, really,” I whisper. “Please, just put any croissant in a bag.”

She puts the dreaded croissant in a paper bag. It hits the bottom with a ding. I press my card on the reader and will it to bleep. Bleep, for Chrissakes; bleep, fucking fuckbud fucker.

It bleeps. I pelt.

I run into the Ladies, sling the croissant in the bin, and have a short cry. It’s fine, though. People cry in WerkHaus all the time. They have these little soundproofed booths near reception for private calls, but mostly people just use them for crying in.

When I’m done crying, I take a piss. As I wipe, I check for blood, as always.

I look at my phone.

CROISSANT

The sentiment remains the same, even if the truth has turned out differently. And it’s the sentiment that counts.

CROISSANT

In a way, it’s perfect. Factual. But I’m still not 100 percent. I recall something Suzy Brambles once said in her “Incontrovertible Gram Tips.” She said: “Go with your first draft.”

I change the words back to:

CROISSANT, WOO! #CROISSANT

Right. I feel almost ready to go on this. As a final check, I text Kelly.

Kelly is my oldest friend and most trusted social media editor.

Pls will you check one thing for me before I post No no I said no more of this

Please No, you’re driving me mad with this daily bombardment It’s not every day!

Mate, it’s most days

Please I’m having the worst day already!!!! I was just served a defective croissant

No

I beg of you

I am not endorsing this behavior What behavior???

This lunacy. I don’t think it’s healthy. Or authentic Authentic???

You said that we “grew up together” in a post the other day. We were 22 when we met

It made a better story! Anyway we almost did, in that we both grew up in the North! WTF

Charlie Chaplin once lost a Charlie Chaplin look-alike competition DOUBLE WTF

Well we inevitably put a filter on ourselves, don’t we? Even as hon- est people moving through society

Stop intellectualizing your problem. Life is not a look-alike competition

Just sent you the post, pls review and feedback FFS

She’ll read it. I know she will. She doesn’t do much while she’s waiting for her receptionist shift to start—other than watching black- head-removal videos, which I think somehow give her a sense of universal equilibrium being restored.

She replies after a few seconds:

It’s fine. Really don’t know what you were concerned about Thank you x

I bestow a kiss! I hope she really feels that thank-you. My politeness-verging-on-grace. Then after a few seconds I send:

I hope you took time to really consider it and didn’t just rush off an answer?

She doesn’t reply.

She does that sometimes, Kelly. Shuts down. She did a much big- ger version when I was getting together with Art, my ex—back in those heady days of hard wooing—and I asked her to check the things I was sending him. Sometimes you just need a second opinion, you know? What are friends for?

Kelly’s from the North too. She’s Yorkshire. The white rose to my red. She’s an angel in my lifetime, but she has started publicly under- mining me, and to be honest it’s starting to grate.

Example: last week  I posted a photo of a leaf-covered bench in the park with the words:

Autumn, you’ve always been my favorite and she commented:

Do you think liking autumn makes you a more complex person?

A few days later I posted a charming vista of a field and she wrote:

Mate, there’s nothing in this picture

It’s not the kind of thing you expect from a beloved friend. BUT— if you had to ask me who knew me best, who loved me best, who I loved best—well, I do know what the answer would be. We might have drifted apart a bit of late, but we have the kind of friendship that can weather emotional distance. It’s very easy-come, easy-go. Like an open marriage.

Kelly has a son, Sonny. I’ve known them twelve years, although technically I met Sonny first. He’s fourteen now. Kelly got pregnant with her university ex, whom she told me she swiftly outgrew. He now has a baby with another woman and is a proper truck-blocking activist. He and Kelly once stayed up a tree for six weeks, while she was pregnant, and I think it was during that time she realized the relationship was really over. It’s going to be a make-or-break holiday when you’re crapping in a carrier bag and arguing about who has more snacks left because there’s  no electronic entertainment. Kelly still has a star tattoo on her wrist from when she used to be an anarchist. (She never turned down a cheeseboard, though. I think you often find that with anarchists—they still like the small comforts.)

The last time I saw Sonny, a couple of months ago, I told him to stop looking at girls with long fake nails on Instagram because they were emulating porn stars. He said I was nail-shaming them. He told me his friend pressed the wrong button on a vending machine in America and got the morning-after pill instead of a drink, so what did I have to teach him? People are depressed about the totalitarian state we’re heading toward—a world where our Internet use will be restricted to viewing the shiny, hamlike faces of our unelected lead- ers—but at least it will save the kids from porn. Every cloud.

I’ve told Kelly that we have to respect social media more than   the younger generations because we’re not digital natives. We were raised in print. This shift has been a major cultural and psychological upheaval in our lifetimes. We didn’t get e-mail until we were at university. The Internet can throw some curveballs. I once ordered a bureau off eBay and when it arrived it was a miniature one, for a doll’s house. I’d thought it was a bargain at £1.99. Plus, we weren’t brought up natural broadcasters. We’ve had to catch up, and too quickly. I remember that move toward daily (hourly; constant) documentation. Years ago a friend drove me mad on a hike, stopping to take photos all the time for her Facebook. I was very frustrated, as I wanted to keep walking. It was like being in a constantly stalling car. Now I’d be the one scram- bling to the nearest cliff face for a signal.

Speaking of which.

It’s time to bite the bullet. I add a last-minute impulse hashtag.

Really going now!

#shameabouttheservice

I post the picture. The waiting begins. It’s like that conundrum of the tree falling in the empty forest. Does it make a sound if there’s no one there? If you put something on social media and no one likes it, do you even exist? I have calculated that with my number of followers I can measure a successful post on the basis of approximately ten likes per minute. Still, there’s no formula for it—I’ve tried everything. One time I even arranged a day trip to Heptonstall to photograph Sylvia Plath’s grave (literary, tragic, it ticked so many boxes!) and so many people lit their little hearts for it that it was worth the £100 train fare. I used to do things for their own sake, but now grammability is a defining factor.

We’re almost at a minute and no—

Yes! There’s one! And two! And three and four! Thank you. Now we’ve broken the seal, it all gets sexy. Someone comments Yumstrels. I dabble with the notion of liking the comment. It’s a commitment, liking comments, because once you start you really have to follow it through and like all of them. Really it’s best not to start, plus it looks less obsessive, less like you’re monitoring things. I just left this here and walked away! What, you think I have nothing better to do with my day than refresh this inanity?

I’m waiting for any likes, but really I’m waiting for the women I currently admire online. It’s been moving this way for a few years and recently it calcified. I want the women to want me more. I wait for a name that means something. I wait for a sign. There are certain people whose attention I am keen to attract. Margot Ripkin. Buzz-face Cruise. Wintering Marianne. Suzy Brambles. Suzy Brambles more than the rest, perhaps, because she just started following me back (two days ago!  I’ve  been  following  her  for  years), so  it  feels as though we are now connected. As we should be. Entwined, you might say.

Suzy Brambles. Oh, Suzy Brambles, with your hostile bob and black Citroën DS and kickboxing lessons and almond eyes and lips like you’ve been sucking on a frozen zeppelin. What’s not to like? And I like. I like and like and like. The first post that ensnared me was a charred corncob on a beach barbecue, with the caption: The adventure is already inside you. I was pretty lost on the adventure front at the time, so that corncob spoke to me on many levels. This morning, Suzy Brambles has been kicking up leaves in Dulwich. She is such a playful thing! I have watched the video five times already. Suzy Brambles only posts in black and white. This is because she has real integrity. I watch the video of her in the park again. Each time I watch it, I find something new to admire in her choice of composition, angle, and filter.