Page 133 of Jessica Beam is a Hot Mess
Chapter Thirty-Four
Disappointment is inevitable in this life. But a Good Woman can overcome most things by weathering the storm with patience and good grace.
Matilda Beam’s Good Woman Guide, 1959
It’s weird, this crying business. It’s like Pringles – once you pop you can’t stop. And I literally cannot stop.
The taxi driver is polite enough to pretend that he doesn’t notice as I cry and snot and wail in the back seat. I don’t even have a tissue, so the sleeve of my dressing gown is now in a pretty gross state.
Eyes blurred with this onslaught of tears, I get out of the taxi at Edward Street, Bayswater, where Jamie is waiting outside his front door, huddled up in a blue towelling bathrobe. He looks at me in horror as I, in my dressing gown and trainers, hobble towards him, barely able to stand up because I’m crying so hard.
‘Jess? Are you hurt?’ he asks, leading me inside. ‘Are you in pain?’
Yes. And yes.
‘S-s-s-orry,’ I get out through shaky breaths. ‘I had a really bad n-night and haven’t cried in t-t-t-ten yeeeears, so there’s quite a l-lot of iiiiiit and it’s freaking me o-o-out.’
We enter a clean, plainly decorated living room, darkened by closed curtains.
‘Sit down,’ Jamie says, pointing to a floppy, comfy-looking couch. ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on.’
I plop onto the sofa, noticing a box of tissues on the low coffee table in front of me. I grab the entire box of tissues, plonk them on my lap, pull a load of them out and press them all over my wet face to dry the tears. I repeat this, as needed, until soon enough all the tissues are used up. ‘Bring some bog roll,’ I call to Jamie in the kitchen.
Jamie comes back from the kitchen holding two steaming mugs of tea and a loo roll under his arm. He stumbles slightly on the edge of the rug and a bit of tea falls onto his bare foot.
‘Ouch.’
I accept one of the mugs from him and take a big slurp. The tears are falling so fast that they plop, one after the other, into the tea. Putting the mug down onto the coffee table, I grab the loo roll from Jamie and use it for more face-mopping.
‘I’m sorry,’ I sigh shakily, ‘to wake you. I didn’t know who else to phone.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he shrugs, sitting down next to me, hands cupped around his mug, stifling a yawn. ‘So you want to tell me what’s happened?’
I nod and take a deep breath. Then I tell Jamie the whole sorry story.
* * *
An entire roll of toilet tissue, three more cups of tea and an hour and a half later, I’ve told Jamie everything: about Mum, and my dad who I’ve just found out is called Thomas Truman and might not even know I exist, about Grandma lying to us. And then I tell him about the ball, about Leo finding out about the project, how he told me he loved me. I leave out the bit that I think I might love him too. When I’m finished, my face is almost red raw from the tears and my nose is full-on blocked.
‘What should I do?’ I ask him. ‘I don’t want to feel like this. I’ve spent my whole life protecting myself from feeling like this. How do I make it stop? I need to make this crying stop. I hate it! I’m Gwyneth Paltrow!’
‘You just have to let it happen. You’ll stop crying when you’re ready.’
‘What?’ I say in horror, a fresh round of tears squeezing their way out. ‘That’s it? I just have to wait for it to stop on its own? I’m going to get dehydrated!’
Jamie smiles slightly, stands up and holds out his hand. ‘Come on.’
‘What? Where?’
‘Let’s go to bed.’
I goggle at him. I knew he was randy, but wanting a shag now, after everything I just told him?
‘To sleep,’ he adds, noticing my irritation. He yawns and I catch it, my mouth stretching sleepily.
‘Ugh.’
‘You can’t sort any of this out until you’ve got some sleep,’ he says kindly.
