Perfect Timing Read online

  Perfect Timing is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Owen Nicholls

  Book club guide copyright © 2021 by Penguin Random House LLC

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Dell, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Dell and the House colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Random House Book Club and colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Published in the United Kingdom by Headline Review, a member of the Headline Publishing Group, London.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Nicholls, Owen, author.

  Title: Perfect timing / Owen Nicholls.

  Description: New York : Dell, 2021

  Identifiers: LCCN 2021016172 (print) | LCCN 2021016173 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9781984826893 | ISBN 9781984826909 (ebook)

  Classification: LCC PR6114.I274 P47 2021 (print) |

  LCC PR6114.I274 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2021016172

  Ebook ISBN 9781984826909

  randomhousebooks.com

  randomhousebookclub.com

  Book design by Dana Leigh Blanchette, adapted for ebook

  Cover design and illustration: Sarah Horgan

  ep_prh_5.7.1_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Part One: Beginnings

  Chapter 1: “A Nice Dream”

  Chapter 2: Little Wiener Men

  Chapter 3: Clean Teeth

  Chapter 4: Exposure

  Chapter 5: Mr. Pitiful

  Chapter 6: Free Shoes

  Chapter 7: One of Those Mystical Things

  Chapter 8: Kill or Cure

  Chapter 9: Quantum Leap

  Chapter 10: 2 Become 1

  Part Two: Opportunities

  Chapter 11: Justin Fucking Bieber

  Chapter 12: Truth to Power

  Chapter 13: Columbo

  Chapter 14: Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

  Chapter 15: Everything to Tell

  Chapter 16: Distractions

  Chapter 17: Macho Bullshit

  Chapter 18: A Little Fun

  Part Three: Changes

  Chapter 19: Bulldust

  Chapter 20: No Biggie

  Chapter 21: Puppy Dog Eyes

  Chapter 22: Funny Stuff

  Chapter 23: Happy Christmas

  Chapter 24: Red Flag Number One

  Chapter 25: Quite a Bash

  Chapter 26: Not-of-This-Planet Beautiful

  Chapter 27: Old Friends

  Part Four: Revelations

  Chapter 28: Mostly Perpendicular

  Chapter 29: A Pavlovian Response

  Chapter 30: Not Bad Company

  Chapter 31: Fangirl

  Chapter 32: At Ease

  Chapter 33: Better and Better

  Part Five: Endings

  Chapter 34: Phoebe Cates

  Chapter 35: Jelly and Ice Cream

  Chapter 36: Someone Special

  Chapter 37: Little Miss Poo Fingers

  Chapter 38: The Full Friedmann Experience

  Chapter 39: Encores

  Chapter 40: Hold On

  Chapter 41: And Yet

  Chapter 42: What If

  Part Six: Beginnings (II)

  Chapter 43: I’m Trying

  Chapter 44: A Miniature Drum Kit

  Chapter 45: Happiness

  Chapter 46: Trust

  Chapter 47: And. That’s. OK.

  Chapter 48: Miles Davis

  Chapter 49: Perfect Timing

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  A Book Club Guide

  By Owen Nicholls

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Be still, he tells it. Be still, my beating heart. As this poetic refrain rattles around his mind, Tom berates himself for meaning it so literally. There is no romance in the situation. The panic in his blood. The pit in his stomach. The fight-or-flight response of a long-gone relative who chose not to face his fate. The worst part of it all? That this chain reaction of physical agony, this panic attack, is all because someone smiled at him from across a coffee shop.

  Or maybe she didn’t. After all, the “someone” in question is waiting for the man she’s with to bring their drinks over. Tom saw them walk in together and asked himself, “What if I could be someone like him?” His answers offered nothing positive. When eye contact was made between Tom and the stranger for the second time, Tom left for the freedom of fresh air and solitude.

  The truth was, Jess was smiling at him. In the short walk from their meeting place to the coffee shop, Jess had made up her mind about her quasi-blind date. She knew he was looking for a submissive type, and Jess was anything but. That he’d already decided and dictated their plans for the entire evening was enough for Jess to start looking elsewhere. Her eyes found Tom.

  As Tom stood and left, Jess felt a compulsion to go after him. It was an impulse she couldn’t dismiss. Outside the café she looked left and right and left again, like a child crossing a road alone for the first time. The figure she’d been inexplicably drawn to was no longer in sight. Baffled by her own response, she returned to her date.

  Tomorrow, there would be two hundred and fifty miles between Tom and Jess.

  That distance, however, would not be there for long.

  Part One

  BEGINNINGS

  1

  “A Nice Dream”

  Tom

  Cemetery Road, Sheffield

  July 15, 2015

  I don’t talk out loud to my grandad. It feels unnatural when I see other people do it. Like they’ve seen it in a movie and thought it worth copying. I do still talk to him, though. Just in my head. I tell him about what’s happened over the last month. I tell him about my band and the music and how things are going pretty well. And today, I tell him about the girl in the coffee shop, because, why not?

  “It would be handy,” I confess through the power of thought, “if I didn’t instantly fall in love with anyone who threw a smidgen of attention my way. I mean, all she did was, maybe, smile at me and I was fantasizing about us owning a cat, a cot, and a cottage by the sea.”

  I conjure up a response from him. “That sounds like a nice dream.”

  The cemetery is deserted. The sun high enough in the sky to cast only tiny shadows on the rows and rows of headstones taking the form of crooked teeth in the ground.

  Grandad reminds me, “Back to this girl in the café?” His invented interruption takes me back to drinking coffee an hour before. I couldn’t describe what she looked like now. For any would-be criminal, me doing an e-fit of them would be the equivalent of a get-out-of-jail-free card. I do rem
ember her brown hair and brown eyes. I have a type, after all. But as time and distance grow between us, her face fades.

  “What would Sarah think of all this?” Grandad replies with his bark of a laugh.

  Sarah is my girlfriend. Sort of. She, rather coincidentally, also lives in Sheffield, so when I take the trip from Edinburgh I can kill two birds with one stone. Visit my grandfather’s final resting place and see my fictitious other half. I made Sarah up after the boys in the band started questioning why I wouldn’t talk to any girls after our gigs. Instead of confessing that I have crippling anxiety—that seems to be worse around the opposite sex—I thought it slightly more manly to just pretend I had a girlfriend who lives far enough away that they’ll never have to see her. “Sarah” is a junior doctor and so she works a lot. She’s also incredibly intolerant of all forms of social media. Handy, that.

  Sarah’s been “alive” for over a year now and, to date, her invention has had no negative consequences. When people ask when they’ll meet her, I offer loose plans about soon or maybe at such and such, then when the day comes “Her work is a bit busy” or “She has some family stuff going on.” It’s a lie that will eventually be caught out, but for now it works wonders.

  It’s a long way to come to Sheffield from Edinburgh, but it’s a journey I’m always glad I’ve taken. Grandad is the one family member I get on with. And while, true, he’s been dead for five years, in many ways I still prefer his company. He was the reason I got into music.

  Patrick Delaney, while never a household name, had a following of some pretty devout fans. He left behind three studio albums and one live record, as well as lending his skills to a number of other albums by better-known bands. His death, and the circumstances surrounding it, only added to his mystique. But to me, his only grandchild, he was a hero before I knew he’d toured the world. Before I knew he’d been praised by everyone from Dylan to Bowie. Thus began my journey to what is undeniably an all-encompassing obsession with music. It’s why I’m so resolute that we will make it. I am driven by an absolute certitude that our music will one day take us to places we could only dream of.

  Who cares if, right now, I’m rendered unable to speak to anyone I deem remotely attractive? Because in a few years’ time, when me and the rest of our band are gracing the covers of every music magazine still in publication, then, well then I’ll have confidence. I want that so-called normal life, and ironically, my best hope for getting there is through unbridled success. And with that success, in my own way, I’ll keep my grandad’s legacy alive. When they ask me what my biggest inspiration is, I’ll say, Patrick Delaney.

  I’m suddenly motivated, for the first time ever, to say this last bit out loud.

  “Love you, Grandad. See you next month.”

  2

  Little Wiener Men

  Jess

  Matilda Street, Sheffield

  July 15, 2015

  The messages from Matt start off nice. Lots of checking if I’m OK. Concerned but respectful. About five minutes after my weird manic moment of running after a complete stranger, I decided our first-date setup really wasn’t going anywhere and so I let him down gently. Actually, I didn’t do that. I said I wasn’t feeling well and asked if we could rain-check, knowing full well that no matter how sunny the next day, there was no way I’d be seeing Matt again.

  Within the first few minutes he’d wittered on about TV and films I just had to be watching and explained to me the virtues of the beans we were drinking and why they were so special. He was undeniably handsome. But I prefer a face with a little character. I’m not saying I’d love a partner with a gigantic nose or a mug with tattoos, just something unique so I won’t get bored gazing at it if we end up together for the next several decades.

  Like that guy in the corner of the coffee shop. He had something interesting going on. Heavyset, sure, but he wore it well. His Scandi-look of scarf and hat, even though it was inside and July, set him apart from anyone else I’d seen since the leaves turned green. I don’t know. Maybe I was just looking for a distraction from Matt’s disappointing introduction.

  The nail in the coffin for Matt was his reaction to me finally getting a word in edgeways and telling him about my comedy. His response? “I dunno. I just don’t find women that funny. Is that so wrong to say?” Yes, Matt. Yes, it bloody well is.

  My phone buzzes. Speak of the devil.

  I hope I didn’t say anything to upset you.

  I’ll reply when I get home. Let him know that we’re just incompatible. It’s fair that I’m honest rather than playing the game of “Let’s do this again sometime!” in the hope that he knows exactly what that means.

  Another buzz. I’m Captain Popular today. Oh, it’s Matt again.

  I just don’t understand what I did wrong. Please reply. Please.

  All right, Matt, bit needy. It’s only been ten minutes. If you’re acting like this between the time it takes for me to get to the next bus, I’d hate to think what you’re like if you couldn’t get ahold of me for…Buzz…Seriously?…Buzz.

  Why are you being like this?

  What’s wrong with you?

  Well, this is escalating quickly. To reply or not to reply? That is the question. Sort of intrigued as to where this is going if I don’t. Another two buzzes.

  I meet women like you all the time. You think your so special.

  It’s “you’re” not “your” and what does “women like me” mean? You spent approximately five minutes in my company. “Women like me.” Oh. Right. Yep. I can see where this is heading. He’s going to call me a bitch in the next one.

  Just wait.

  5, 4, 3, 2…

  Screw you. I wasn’t into you anyway. And you’ve got fat legs.

  Fat legs? I love my legs! I’m not always keen on the rest of me but, buddy, if you’re looking to draw blood you can do better than insult my legs. Well. At least he didn’t call me a…Buzz.

  Bitch.

  There it is.

  So bloody predictable. Self-entitled tool. Should I reply? Chastise him for his unacceptable behavior? I could, but my silence is clearly infuriating and I’m getting a cheap thrill out of him sitting in his chinos, sweating over what he may have done wrong. And really, what do you even say when someone is that thin-skinned? Why did I even hope for more?

  I’m done. Done. Done. Done done done. Comedy career first. Little Wiener Men a very distant second.

  * * *

  —

  “It’s good material for our next show,” Julia says, buzzing around our kitchen making herself a gargantuan sandwich.

  In the few years we’ve been housemates she’s really made an art form of turning negatives into positives. It’s why, whenever we bomb at an improv class, or one of our stand-up shows tanks, I always feel like it went better than it did. She’s the Queen of Optimism by Osmosis and has prevented me throwing in the towel on many occasions.

  “That’s one way to look at it, I suppose,” I offer, as she hacks into a loaf to make a doorstop that would hold open the gates to Fort Knox. I’d like to see the funny side of this but this Dark Side of the Man is becoming a little too commonplace of late.

  “Where was this one from?” she asks.

  “Birmingham. ‘This one’—you make it sound like I go on a million dates. I’m twenty-seven. People aged twenty-seven are allowed to go on a few dates. And this is only, like, my third in a year.”

  She affects a dodgy Brummie accent. “Birmingham, eh?” It’s not Julia’s strong suit. “We could do a series of sketches, call it ‘Date Britain.’ I’ll play the horror dates from across the UK, you play the poor unfortunate subject of their affections.”

  “Why do I have to play the sap?”

  “Because you have beautiful big brown eyes and thighs that make me very fucking jealous. Men love you within s
econds.”

  I throw a tea towel at her head because it’s hard to take a compliment, even from your best friend. Even if I do like my thighs very much, thank you, Matt. If I’m honest, I give the tea towel a little more force than needed, because if anyone in this duo gets men to fall in love with them in seconds it’s her. She has cool blond hair (that always falls the way she wants) and flawless porcelain skin (that would make a china doll weep).

  “If all men loved me within seconds,” I reason, “I think I’d be able to find someone that doesn’t make me want to scratch my eyes out with my own severed toes.”

  “Oooooh, dark.” Julia adds half a bag of lettuce to her sandwich, rendering the monstrosity half the size of her head. I gaze at it in wonderment. When she sees me, she radiates pride. She continues, “Maybe that’s where you need to go next. Dark and edgy. And sexy, with great thighs.”

  “Because that’s how we make it in the world of comedy?” I trowel on the sarcasm. “By having nice legs?”

  “They helped get us booked for the show tonight.”

  I’ve been working on my death stare and deliver it with aplomb. Jules retreats and changes the subject back to my latest car-crash date.