marigolds

4 years, 4 months before

There is a coffee shop in Edgecastle town, nestled between a record store and a key cutter's. The giant glass window at the shopfront is frosted over completely with ice and condensation, and they're playing Dean Martin's Christmas Classics on repeat inside.

Bundled into a corner booth upstairs, Dev says, "It's bloody early to be bringing out Dean Martin." He fiddles idly with the plastic marigold perched sadly on the middle of the table.

"Stop trying to change the subject," says Alice, whacking him on the arm with the back of her gloved hand. "You said her last name was Monroe?"

"Yeah, Monroe."

She hits enter on her phone, and a long list of Clara Monroes flash up. "I take it she's the arty girl in the bob?"

"Stop stalking her!" hisses Dev, glancing at the time printed in tiny digits above the collection of Claras. He's an idiot for even mentioning her to his friends.

Alice ignores him and taps on the pixels that form Clara's face. "No mutual friends," she reads aloud.

"We've been texting," he says hurriedly. "I don't want her to know I've been Facebook stalking her."

"You haven't," assures Alice breezily. "I have. It's fine. Anyway, I can tell you like this girl."

"I don't! I mean, I do. It's platonic. It's a friend thing," he says, and he means it.

Alice snorts. "Okay..."

"No, really," he insists. "I really like her. Just because she doesn't want to date me, doesn't mean I don't still like her as a person."

"That's very Dev of you." Then her eyes widen as she swipes through Clara's pictures. "That is a lot of plaid."

Dev rolls his eyes. "Not this again."

She fixes him with a sage gaze. "You know what plaid shirts mean," says Alice who is currently wearing one.

"Plaid doesn't mean lesbians! If anything it means lumberjacks, or werewolves in young adults supernatural romance dramas." He sighs. "Anyway, that's a stereotype. Therefore you are a gaycist."

"Brushing over 'gaycist'..." she says slowly. "The plaid thing is a real deal. It's like the lesbian Bat-Signal."

Dev fixes her with a deadpan stare. "So when you see plaid, you know that a crime has just been committed in Gotham City?"

"Please, hetero. It's how we know a girl's one of us. And all I'm saying is that your Clara's a vagitarian."

He retches. "Can we just right now agree to never use that word again? And by 'agree' I mean swear an actual blood oath?"

But Alice's attention has been distracted again. "Holy shit, Dev!" She thrusts the phone in front of his face, so close that it's hard to focus his eyes on it. "She likes Tegan and Sara."

"Alice," he says. "She has a boyfriend."

She rolls her eyes. "Then she's bi. Or pan. Whatever she is, I just want it to be known that I called it."

Dev ignores her.

Then suddenly Alice's eyes grow wide and she whacks him on the arm. Following her gaze, Dev peers over at the staircase.

Clara has emerged, bundled up in a winter coat and a beanie hat. Next to her is a boy. He is tall and white, with slim glasses perched on his nose, and half of his hair has been pulled up into a bun.

"Shit," mutters Alice, stuffing her phone into her pocket hastily.

Dev agrees.

A million different things shoot through his head at once. It's like a thousand tiny little Devs in his brain have all switched onto red alert and are responding to his sudden stress by dropping to the ground to have a synchronised seizure. What if she doesn't see him – or worse, what if she does see him? What are you even supposed to say in this situation? Is that soft-lumberjack-looking boy her boyfriend? Is soft lumberjack even a thing?

"Just...be platonic," he hisses to Alice.

"Beanie hat though," she replies. "Lesbian."

"Okay now you're just making these up."

Alice and Dev quickly slap on their best friendly smiles as if they hadn't just been having a heated debate about Clara's potential sexuality.

"Hi!" Clara's face lights up, and she drags her boyfriend over to the table. He doesn't seem as enthusiastic as she does to be there. "Dev! I can't believe... This is so strange," she says.

To be honest, it's not really. Edgecastle is a tiny town, and this is the only coffee shop. Still, Dev says, "I know! Totally...outlandish."

"Nice use of 'outlandish'."

"Why, thank you," he smiles. He can see Alice's smug little face from the corner of his eye, and he chooses to spend a lot of energy on ignoring it.

Suddenly Clara's eyes light up like she's just remembered something. "This is Sean."

"Hi Sean," chorus Dev and Alice like an AA meeting.

"Uh," says Dev quickly. "This is Alice. My friend."

The two of them nod their hellos.

"Um," says Clara very slowly, "is it weird if we...maybe join you?"

"Not at all," Alice insists before Dev can ruin this for himself. "Sit, sit!"

Clara and Sean scooch onto the bench opposite Dev and Alice, setting their respective drinks in front of themselves. The warmth from their coffees wafts up with the steam, and Dev is certain he can taste the cinnamon of Sean's potent drink through his nose. He is unhappy about it.

"So," says Clara brightly. "Dev. How's the gall bladder?"

Alice and Sean look equally upset.

"The, er, what?" asks Dev, raising his eyebrows politely.

"The cholrineocystitis," she explains quickly, catching everyone's grimaces. "You...mentioned it when we met? It's like a contamination of the gall bladder, you said you had it?"

"Inflammation," he corrects. "And no."

The silence after that is more perplexed than awkward.

"So, Clara," Dev says conversationally. "You and Sean are very cute." It sounds like the sort of thing you say to couples, but in this situation it just feels weird to proclaim.

"Thanks," grins Clara, and Sean says, "I resent that."

A little taken aback by whatever Sean's problem was, Dev says slowly, "Okay. I'm...sorry?"

Before Dev even gets a chance to finish that sentence completely Sean is saying, "Yeah, I just dislike being labelled as a joint unit instead of an individual being, you know?" His mellow drawl is accompanied by some hand dawdling hand gestures. "It's like, why is society so keen to bundle us up into such neat package?"

"Wow, Sean," Alice says dryly. "You're so deep."

He nods slowly, a smirk pulling his thin lips. "Hey, thanks man."

Clara slips out of her coat, and she stuffs it behind her in the booth's bench. "Alice, it's so good to finally meet you," she smiles. "Dev's been telling me all about your band."

"Oh yeah?" Alice smiles. "Do you like our music? We've got a gig next week at Pro Goldstein's pub."

"Pro Goldstein as opposed to anti-Goldstein...?" asks Clara.

"Nah," Alice chuckles. "My old guitar teacher. Professor Goldstein. He's got a pub somewhere in town."

"What's it called?" asks Sean.

"I don't know," she says. "Something pretty generic, I think. Probably either The White Horse or The Red Lion."

"King's Arms," suggests Clara. "That's a popular one."

"Royal Oak," adds Dev with a nod. "Nag's Head. Rose and Crown."

"Yeah," says Alice. "Rose and Crown, that's the one. You should pop by?"

Clara smiles widely and says, "I'd love to! I think Sean and I are going to see a film before that. The one with The Rock in – I love that man."

"It's the arms," grins Sean. "Who can resist those arms?"

This pulls a loud laugh out of Clara, and her eyes crease up from smiling. Dev is (almost) entirely sure that he's satisfied being her friend, but in that moment he can't help being a little bit jealous. He flashes a tight smile, and tells himself not to be an idiot. Even Alice looks like she's enjoying herself.

The laughter settles into a contented silence, and Dev decides that this is a great time to pry into their personal lives.

"Sean," he pipes up amicably. "What uni are you thinking of going to?"

"Apprenticeship," Sean replies, and Dev is honestly impressed that his answer hadn't been 'University of Life'.

"Clara, you?"

She pulls a face. "No idea yet. I have an offer from Plymouth but..." she trails off.

"It's okay, babe," says Sean. "Uni's overrated anyway. You can't get a degree in being a human being."

Alice looks delighted at this titbit of pretentiousness, and immediately wants more.

"What do you do for fun, Sean?" Alice asks, resting her chin in her hand. There's an odd tinge of malevolence to her words, like she's trying to bait him into saying something ridiculous. Again.

Sean nods slowly again. He looks like one of those toy dogs that go in the back of people's cars, only infinitely smugger. His bun wobbles. "Yeah, just...you know." He shrugs and slumps back in his chair.

"I really...don't."

He cocks his head dismissively. "Ah, just you know. The old...whatever. Just doing the usual this and that."

Dev has no idea what this boy is saying.

Alice frowns. "Is this how art school kids refer to weed?"

Sean looks martyred. He rolls back his eyes and closes them, then he says, "Alice – hey, can I call you that?"

"It is literally my name."

"Cool, cool. You need to be more open to this kind of thing," he sighs deeply. "I can't be having you right-wing anti-pot Tories judging my choices like this. First you're hating on the ethnics, then it's the homos, now it's the smokers. Can't you just accept us? Just...give up mate, you're on the wrong side of history," he smirks.

She stares at him, incredulous. For a second it seems as if she's about to contradict every single word that has somehow passed the filters in his brain and entered their conversation. Eventually, she just decides to humour him. "Okay. Okay Sean, you've convinced me – a racist, homophobic, pot-hatingTory – not to judge your weed habit. Well done Sean."

"The concert," Dev pushes, eager to keep the conversation light. "Have you prepared, Alice?"

She shrugs vaguely. "I mean, we rehearsed, but in an Almost Famous way."

"The band in Almost Famous are really popular," Clara points out, grinning supportively.

"Yeah," says Alice slowly. "I'm referring to the scene where they're singing Tiny Dancer in a bus." She sighs. "It's going to be shite, you should come along."

"You know, if my life were a movie it would be Half Baked," says Sean irrelevantly. "Because my life's diverse and wild."

Alice says, "Your reasoning is wrong but given the title your conclusion is most likely correct."

Dev kicks her under the table and she shoots him a cross little glare.

"So," Alice says with an oddly perky grin. "Clara. I like your beanie hat."

"Thank you," she smiles warmly. "I stole it from an ex. Sorry Sean," she adds jokingly, patting him on the arm.

Alice raises an inquisitive eyebrow. "Interesting, interesting. What was your ex called?"

"Christine," replies Clara, and Dev is forced to tolerate Alice's shit-eating grin for a full minute.

As the afternoon wears on and the sky wearily turns violet, Dev finds himself increasingly more interested in Clara. It's a platonic thing – at least, he's fairly certain it's a platonic thing – but everything she says just makes him want to find out more about her. Like an effective PR campaign.

He barely notices how quickly the hands of the clock have crept round until Alice nudges him and looks pointedly at it.

"We should probably be going," Alice says. "Dev said he'd help me put up some flyers up for the gig."

"Of course," Clara says quickly. "Yes, sorry for keeping you." She smiles warmly.

"This has been great," Sean nods in a self-satisfied kind of way. "It's so hard to find decent people these days. So hard."

"Is it?" Dev asks politely.

"Super hard. Like those mind-benders," he asserts.

"Do you mean spot-the-difference puzzles on cereal boxes?" asks Alice, who has broken her promise to be nice a deplorable number of times today.

"Nah, like online," he says. "Like 'name a city that doesn't have an A in it.' That shit."

"Oh," says Dev at the same time as Alice says, "London."

Sean raises his fuzzy eyebrows. "London! I never thought of that!"

"The capital city of the country we live in?" asks Alice who sounds close to death.

Dev stands and hoists Alice up with him. He doesn't love Sean, but at the same time he doesn't want to antagonise Clara's boyfriend. He grins. "So, we'll be off?"

"Yeah," Clara nods. "I'll see you round. Dev, keep me posted about that gig?"

"Will do," he promises. "Enjoy your coffee."

"Enjoy your flyers."

There is a short moment where time itself seems fuzzier than usual, then Alice nudges him again.

"Bye Sean," says Dev awkwardly. "Enjoy your...cannabis."