The Waiter
By Joanne Done
1st place OPEN SHORT STORY COMPETITION £200
SHORT STORY COMPETITION WINNER
Joanne completed Faber’s ‘Starting a Novel’ course in 2016. The dystopian novel she began then has reached a tricky stage, so she distracted herself by writing short stories. She won recognition for her creative writing as a teenager, but was persuaded into a sensible career as a teacher. Writing has remained her passion and she intends to fulfil that early potential without further delay. Joanne lives in Oxfordshire with her husband, children and dogs.
‘I’ve just calculated how many miles away you’ll be. I feel sick,’ my internet lover writes. ‘I know,’ I write back, ‘I feel the same.’
The Lake District is miles away from anywhere. It is academic, though. We haven’t met. Yet. But he loves me. And I love him. We are voracious. Pavlovian responses to the ping of a text message. Carefully muted at 5pm sharp.
This trip is a bit of a do. Husband’s work thing; yawn-inducing and simultaneously terrifying. Conversation must be made; ends kept up; drink must be taken but not too much; no cutlery may accidentally be catapulted; on no account may breakfast be missed.
As each mile rolls under the wheels of the Alfa, I believe that my heart is stretching like mozzarella on an extra cheesy pizza.
At Keele services, I find solitude in a toilet stall.
‘I think my heart is breaking,’ my lover writes.
‘I know,’ I write back, ‘I feel the same.’
How did this happen? Sitting in a cubicle pretending to pee and saying lines like I am an understudy in the drama of my life? When was the last time I said what I felt instead of what someone wanted to hear? A person pretending to be a wife; a person pretending to be a mother; a person pretending to mean her vows, to like every single thing that everyone else suggested? How did I get to be so damn amenable?