Love Is for Losers by Wibke Brueggemann (ebook pc reader .txt) 📗

Emma, and then I pulled that disgusting donated quilt with the cigarette burns from the donations pile and threw it over Emma, and she squealed so loudly that Pat was just like: “What are you doing?”

At that point I was like: OMG, what am I doing?

I feel like my brain is melting.

PS: Richard had his balls twisted off today, and he seems depressed about it. What have I done?

Tuesday, July 3 #PATHETIC

I should write to NASA and ask to apply to the space program early.

Imagine it.

NASA: What makes you the ideal candidate for the manned mission to Mars?

Me: I’m basically in love, and I need to not be, so I have to leave Earth.

Wednesday, July 4 #JesusMaryAndJoseph

Apparently the Bible sold.

The score is now 1–1.

I was like: “Nooooooo, who buys a Bible in the middle of summer?” and Kate told me it was someone who is going to use it for their creative writing lessons by cutting it up into words and phrases to then make poetry.

Totally pretentious.

Also sacrilege.

Thursday, July 5 #TheGameIsOnAgain

Emma picked a cow onesie for grown-ups, featuring rubber udders, as her donation of the week, and I went for the two-thousand-piece Ed Sheeran jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t look anything like Ed Sheeran but more like Ron Weasley in double denim.

We fought for the best window display place for them, and Emma ended up falling backwards out of the window and into the shop, and on top of the mannequin she tried to put the stupid cow onesie on.

We were absolutely dying laughing, and Alex looked at Kate like: Well, they’ve proper lost it now.

Also, turns out Alex knows everything but says nothing. Which interestingly makes him the polar opposite of Miriam Patel, who knows nothing, but says everything.

He knew about Bradley and never said anything, never slipped up, nothing. I’m not saying this because he’s got Down syndrome. I just mean, people normally blurt out secrets like that all the time, because they want to feel important.

I asked him to come to my birthday party, but he said he’d have to ask his mum and dad, and I was just like: “They can come, too.”

I think I’m going to have to start writing things down, because it’s in ten days.

Friday, July 6 #Vinaigrette

I did nothing today apart from watch Love Island and cut up a page of The Woman’s Guide to Cookery and Household Management to make a poem for Emma:

Basic Vinaigrette Dressing Poem

1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil.

Your beauty is

Basic

Simple

Vary as you wish

I shall always

Add

Take

I follow

At the end

Or

Maybe

Since always

I think it’s rather profound. LOL.

PS: Obviously I’m never showing this to Emma. Or anyone.

PPS: I reckon the hardest thing about being an actual poet is having to share shit like this with real people and not die of complete shame and embarrassment at the same time.

Saturday, July 7 #ChaosAndKisses

Today at the thrift shop we had a crisis meeting regarding Bill.

Emma: I went to see him yesterday, and he wouldn’t even come to the door.

Kate: Bad, bad sign. That man adores you.

Emma: He seems to have fallen into himself. Physically.

Pat: He sits in front of the telly all day, and it’s not even on. Melanie always said that he was driving her potty, because he was usually reading up to ten books at a time and always left them lying around all over the house. I haven’t seen him read at all.

Emma: Maybe we should get him a gift certificate. Then he has to get out of the house and browse a bookshop.

Pat: But he doesn’t want to do anything. Oh, this isn’t at all like him.

Emma: Dad was like that after Bradley died.

(Room goes quiet, everyone looks at her.)

Emma: It’s weird, because at first there’s loads to do with all the paperwork and telling everyone and organizing the funeral. And then you have to send cards thanking everyone for their kind words, and then suddenly it all stops and goes so quiet, and you just want to drown in it.

Pat (weeping):…

Kate (taking Emma’s hand): But you didn’t drown.

Emma: But I had my mum and dad to think about.

Everyone:…

Emma: I know that Bradley felt guilty for dying and making them sad, and I thought the least I could do was to keep going.

Pat (weeping hysterically now, snotty nose, tears):…

Kate: Oh, Pat, I know you’ve been trying so hard with Bill. And you’re still coming to terms with your own loss.

Pat: I don’t know what more I can do, Kate. I want to shake him.

Emma: Maybe we should do that.

Everyone:?

Emma: Not physically, obviously. But what about we give him something to do that he can’t say no to?

Everyone:…

Emma: We could say customers have been asking about him. Or we could say that Melanie would be so disappointed if she knew he was neglecting his duties.

Everyone:…

Me: Or we could give him a kitten.

Everyone (except Kate): Oooooooooooh!!!

Kate: Phoebe, you need to stop giving those bloody kittens away for free.

Emma: Why? Who’s gone already?

Me: No one, she’s joking.

Kate:…

Pat: He wouldn’t want a kitten.

Emma: Who doesn’t love kittens?

Me: It’ll be like a therapy cat.

Pat: He did enjoy going on safari. I suppose it’s worth a try.

(Everyone just looks at Kate.)

Kate: Oh, all right, ye total fuckwits. We’ll take a kitten across to him when we shut tonight. But ye’re all coming, and if this goes tits up, Pat’s having the bloody kitten.

Pat: Kate, no, really, I’m not a c—

Kate: I have spoken.

In the afternoon Kate made me go to the pet shop and get a kitten starter pack. You don’t need much, really, only kitten food, a litter tray, and cat litter, which weighs, like, a ton and took me ten minutes to carry fifty yards to the shop.

We all piled into Kate’s car, and I got the giggles, because if you’d told me I’d ever end up in a bashed-up Mazda with Kate, Emma, and Pat on a Saturday night, taking a kitten to an old guy’s home in Putney so that he