The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley

Author:Clare Pooley [Clare Pooley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-FIVE

Monica

Monica didn’t come down from her apartment until the evening of Boxing Day. The café looked like a theater set, abandoned midplay. There was the table, still set for pudding, glasses half full. There was the Christmas tree, with presents sitting underneath, unopened. And there, on the floor, like a giant, fruity cow pat, a sprig of holly still sticking jauntily out of its center, was the figgy pudding.

Monica filled a bucket with hot, soapy water, pulled on a pair of Marigolds, and got to work. She had always found cleaning therapeutic, too much so, if she was honest. Her five-star hygiene rating, prominently displayed in the café window, was one of her proudest achievements. Even the language around it helped. A clean sweep. A clean sheet of paper. Wash that man right out of my hair.

Now that she’d had some time to calm down, Monica realized that it was unlikely that Hazard and Riley had deliberately set her up. She believed Riley when he said that he’d genuinely liked her (she didn’t think those kisses could have been fake), but she still felt humiliated. She hated the fact that all this time Riley had been lying to her. She hated the idea of Hazard and Riley pitying her. She loathed the thought of them talking about her, planning how to rectify her sad old life. And she felt stupid. She wasn’t used to feeling stupid. She’d won the Keynes prize for A level Economics, for goodness’ sake.

She’d just started to believe that good things could happen, totally out of the blue, and that she was worthy of being loved by someone as amazing as Riley. Now it turned out it was all engineered. Her mother had always told her that if something looked too good to be true, it probably was. And Riley had definitely looked too good to be true.

Over the last few weeks, she’d felt herself unwinding. She’d started “going with the flow” and stopped the worst of her obsessive planning. She’d felt happier and more carefree. But look what a mess it got her into.

Monica had no idea what to think anymore.

What she did know is that she didn’t want to see any of them, at least not for a while. She wanted everything to go back to how it was before she found that stupid book in her café, before she’d written her story, and before she’d become unwittingly entangled in someone else’s master plan. That world was bland and featureless, but at least it was safe and predictable.

She realized, with a start, that she hadn’t canceled that week’s art class. She picked up her phone and went on to the class WhatsApp group she’d set up. No art classes until further notice, she typed. She didn’t feel the need to apologize or explain. Why should she?

Monica walked over to The Library. The beautiful portrait Julian had painted of her was lying, faceup, on the coffee table. A different Monica stared up at her—one who didn’t know her life was based on a lie.

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