Crazy Mad Life

Wednesday was the day of the big video launch. Unfortunately, Nutty was in the recording studio most of the week so we couldn’t watch it together. I arranged for Suki to come to my place straight after work, so we could watch it with Mum. The last hour at work crawled by. I was excited but also nervous. What if I looked ungainly in the video and Nutty decided he didn’t want me? Just after six o’clock, we rushed out of the building to find Mum waiting in the car. We hopped in and she drove us straight to the flat. She brewed coffees and opened a packet of fruit biscuits whilst I fetched the iPad and switched it on.

  We quickly turned on the TV, plugged in the iPad cable and found the video online. I took a deep breath and pressed play, then quickly joined Suki and Mum on the settee.

  We laughed as we saw ourselves clowning around behind the star of the video, who was certainly living up to the name Nutty Bonkers as he acted like an idiot for the camera.

  We smiled and gasped and giggled as we watched the video jumping back and forth from us clowning around with balloons, to jumping in the air, to Suki blowing a kiss to the camera, to Mum tripping and recovering herself, to me just looking like an idiot, which made me think it was just as well I was wearing a clown mask. It was all there - oh, apart from one thing - myself unmasked dancing with Nutty. It showed nice flashes of Mum’s and Suki’s smiling faces as he whizzed them around the room. It showed a disgusting flash of Eyebrow Bitch throwing her head back and laughing as they danced, his hand rather too close to her flat bottom for my liking. I had expected to see stills of Nutty and myself on the front of the next edition of The Daily Crap, telling the world I was his woman - not Miss Silky. I felt deeply sick.

  I tried not to look disappointed, but then Suki pointed it out. “Where’s Yazmin’s dance part?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m still in the video - albeit in a scary clown mask.”

  “They should have shown you, of all people,” Mum moaned.

  “Oh, it’s alright,” I said. “Perhaps I’ll have a starring role in his next video!”

  I knew they could tell I was just putting on a happy face. Inside, I was crying.

  “Run it back!” Suki said. “Perhaps we all got distracted and missed it.”

  “I doubt it,” I said, hoping Suki was right. I pressed play again.

  “There you are!” Suki beamed. “There was a flash!”

  “I must have blinked,” Mum said. “I didn’t see it.”

  “Neither did I,” I said, still trying to sound as though it didn’t matter one iota.

  Suki took the iPad and tried to pause it at the part my dance with Nutty was apparently shown. She must have had a sharper eye to brain connection than Mum and I, as we didn’t know what she was talking about. I wondered if she was making it up. After about seven attempts, I saw it - the flash of Nutty about to grab me for the dance, which must have taken up something like one tenth of a second of the video. She made repeated attempts to take a still of it, but the flash was so ridiculously quick there was little chance of capturing it.

  I was gutted. I kept up the brave face, although I don’t think I made a very good job of it.

  “Would you like to stay for tea Suki?” Mum offered.

  “That would be lovely,” Suki smiled. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Of course not,” Mum said. “Curried beans and rice?”

  “Nom nom!” Suki said.

  Mum went off to the kitchen to prepare tea.

  “Let’s take a look at the comments!” Suki said excitedly.

  “OK,” I sighed, my body stiffening with apprehension.

  The video had been out less than two hours and had been viewed almost three thousand times. It actually had more dislikes than likes, which was extremely unusual and very concerning.

  “Oh well,” Suki said, pressing the ‘like’ button on the iPad. “There’s another like for it.” She took out her mobile and pressed like from her own account. “And another like!” she beamed. “I suppose the dislikes are from jealous people!”

  Then she looked down the comments. A few people said they loved it, but most weren’t so complimentary. We laughed as we skimmed down the page, reading comments such as ‘Has Nutty finally gone bonkers?’ ‘Looks like he picked some random mingers off the street and asked them to be in his video,’ and ‘What the fuck is this shit?’ We read out some of the comments to Mum and had a great evening laughing and enjoying our meal. It was just a shame I wasn’t enjoying the video with Nutty. I just hoped he wasn’t watching it with Eyebrow Bitch or Miss Silky.

  Then I jumped as my phone rang. It was Nutty. “Hiya!” he said brightly.

  “Hi!” I replied. “Love the video!”

  “Great, isn’t it? Glad you like it.”

  “Shame we couldn’t have watched it together.”

  “I know - just one of dem tings!” he said in a comical voice.

  “How’s the recording going?”

  “Finished early today to give my voice a rest - I’m still not feeling too great.”

  “Oh,” I said slowly. “So, we could have watched it together after all.”

  Then I heard a young woman laughing in the background. My heart lurched.

  “Listen,” Nutty said. “Can I ring you back? I’m just in the middle of something.”

  “Sure,” I said, too shocked to confront him.

  He hung up. I looked up to find both Mum and Suki staring at me, concerned.

  “Are you OK?” Suki asked.

  “No,” I replied. “I’m not OK. Nutty isn’t in the recording studio - he’s claiming he finished early today because of his throat infection. I could hear a girl in the background then he said he was in the middle of something and hung up.”

  Suki slammed her coffee mug down on the table. “I’m glad people left nasty comments about his stupid video!”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Mum said, looking at me sympathetically. “Would you like me to call and speak to him?”

  “I don’t know!” I cried, picturing him with Eyebrow Bitch and Miss Silky alternately. “What do you think?”

  Suki and Mum looked at each other.

  “Perhaps we should give him a couple of minutes,” Suki said. “I guess there might be an innocent explanation for it.”

  “True,” said Mum. “You don’t want to go falling out with him again. We shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions.”

  I sat in silence wishing I’d placed a hidden camera in his flat, so I might have had some idea what was going on. I was desperate to know what was happening.

  Then he rang back. I seized my phone and pressed the answer button. “Hi,” I said nervously.

  “Sorry ‘bout that!” he said. “I was cooking pasta and the pan boiled dry!”

  “Oh,” I replied. “Just cooking for yourself?”

  “For the whole family!” he said. “I’m at my parents’ place - say hi to Mum!”

  “Hiya!” said a friendly, middle-aged female voice.

  “Hi!” I replied, much relieved.

  “Lovely to speak to you!” she said. “You’ll have to come for Sunday tea early in the new year - Daddy and I are dying to meet you.”

  “That would be lovely!” I answered excitedly. “I can’t wait to meet you both too.”

  “I’ll pass you back now - and we’ll arrange for you and your mum to come here in the next couple of weeks.”

  “Great!” I said, feeling ecstatic.

  She passed me back to Nutty and I arranged to see him the following evening at his place. I was dancing on air, pleased I hadn’t said anything hasty.