Patterson's used to have the best oysters in East London, but they shut down the day before Ryan lost his job, which depending on how he looked at it, was most likely a good thing financially. Ever since discovering the place, he'd easily spent a hundred pounds there per week. His mates had called him peculiar, suggesting that if he didn't love oysters so much, he'd probably have a girlfriend by now. Apparently, they gave him chronic halitosis, but of course he didn't mind; he was never the victim of it.
It's a Thursday when Ryan receives his severance package. He's at home, lying on the sofa with a book, reading the same sentence over and over again. His phone pings, a notification from his banking app that a lump sum of four-thousand-two-hundred-twenty pounds has been deposited into his current account. A minor surge of pleasure passes through him, but something else is on his mind - the last night he'd spent at Patterson's, unaware of its impending closure, with London slipping headfirst into a heatwave.
Sweaty and sunburned, all Ryan had wanted that afternoon was to sit at his usual bar seat under the air-con and slurp down the chilled, oceanic slime of sea mollusks. It was one of the few simple joys in which he allowed himself to indulge almost daily. Still employed then, he'd cheerfully ordered a dozen oysters on ice and, given it was the Friday before the August bank holiday weekend, a tall pint of Guinness.
A few moments after he split the G and let out a satisfied exhale, the young woman a couple seats away twisted around in her chair, eyeing him narrowly like a child.
"Just a dozen?" she mocked, feigning disgust. "Amateur."
Ryan's already crimson face flushed uncontrollably. Often he was embarrassed by his tendency to blush, which to his dismay only compounded the effect. He'd once been told by a secondary school teacher that it meant he was a humble person, but also that she wished he raised his hand more often.
"Well," he said, "I like to start off slow."
The woman wore a navy blazer that was almost comically large, causing her shoulders to appear wide and pointy, like she'd plucked it off the men's rack at a charity shop. She shifted to place her elbows on the bar and tipped her head forward slightly.
"You'd better catch up then," she said, gesturing to her plate, two dozen shells face down on the melting ice.
Ryan laughed politely, his lips pulling back to reveal a grin. His entire set of teeth showed whenever he smiled - incisors, molars, everything.
"You know," she continued, "the shells are quite good for you actually."
"Is that so?" he replied, furrowing his brow theatrically. Somehow he knew this fact, though, from his first year of uni when he naively wanted to study marine biology, not long before giving it up for the more realistic option of international economics and trade.
"Yeah. People will grind them up to this white powder and put them in smoothies," she said. He sensed she was proud of this knowledge, and that "people" actually meant herself.
"Really," he said, worrying his incredulity came off a bit exaggerated. “White powder, huh.”
She nodded. "Yeah, my uncle feeds it to his chickens out in Somerset. Good source of calcium."
"And does he deal some of it to you on the side?" Ryan said over the rim of his glass, surprised at how naturally the joke came to him.
"Yeah, in those tiny plastic pouches, actually," she replied. Her laugh echoed throughout the cavernous pub. "I know, it's strange, but I swear to you it really works wonders. I'm strong as an ox." She mimed a bicep flex under the jacket's wide sleeves. "You just can't tell."
Ryan studied the tips of her fringe, how the brown hairs tickled her eyebrows, the slow and purposeful way she blinked, the emerging crinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her wonky, uneven smile reminded him of a small wooden bridge he'd spent his childhood crossing over with his mates. He felt a warmth in his cheeks spread to his chest and fingers, glittering with that soreness you get when you smile a bit too long.
In front of him, a server placed an oblong dish of glistening oysters resting on a bed of ice cubes. He counted them by twos habitually until he reached the last one, an outlier.
"They've given me thirteen," he mock-whispered to the woman, and without thinking asked if she'd like the extra.
"Course I do, thanks!" She reached over, dancing her fingers above the plate in a playful display of choosiness, drawing out a long hmm. "Wonder which one's the lucky thirteen."
She selected her pick, a circular one she cradled delicately in her palm. Pinching it between her thumb and forefinger she tilted her head back, gulping down the oyster's contents before he could even ask if she wanted any toppings on it. She shut her eyes and smacked her lips, then settled back in her chair for a moment before leaning onto the counter and waving to the barman, chin stuck out like an eager puppy.
Ryan found her curiously alluring and wondered whether her unpredictability was authentic or simply a strange attempt at flirting. Regardless, it was working.
After ordering two-dozen more and a double gin and tonic, she turned back to him animatedly. "So what do you do, then?"
Ryan blinked and swallowed his second oyster, tasting the acidic bite of mignonette on the back of his throat. He had devised a precise method of working through the oysters, alternating between plain, mignonette, lemon juice, and salt and pepper as he downed them, so that he got three servings of each type. He did not have a favorite and cherished each topping equally for the variation of flavors it provided him with. "I work for a textile company."
"Oh that's nice," the woman said, half-focused on him, stirring the ice cubes around in her empty drink. "What exactly do you do there?"
"It's not very interesting," he replied apologetically. "I'm in trade and logistics. But basically all I do is sit in meetings with other people and keep my mouth shut."
She was silent for a moment. "Do you enjoy it though?"
"Well, it's quite dull," he said, picking up his fifth or sixth oyster and forgetting which topping was meant to go on it, "but hey it's a job."
"Right, yeah." As though absorbing his words, she mechanically slid her eyes toward the new glass in front of her. Sweat was already blooming on its exterior. She removed the wedge of lime from the rim and squeezed it between her fingertips, its juices leaking out and clouding the top of her drink. "You wanna know what I like about my job?"
"What?"
She released the crushed lime, watching it sink beneath the surface of ice cubes. "The gossip. People really think you can't hear them over the printer, it's brilliant. I sort of keep track of all the shit people talk just in case I need ammunition."
"Ha, I didn't think people really used printers anymore."
"Course they do," she said smiling, lips pressed against her straw, "especially at a copy and print shop."
"To be fair I didn't think those still existed either."
"Oh they do," she said, perhaps a little dispirited. Her oysters arrived and he noticed her counting them in hushed breaths, seemingly by threes. For a few minutes they shared an awkward silence, eating their seafood and taking sips of their drinks in between.
Her voice hung suspended in his head. It was the familiar pivotal moment, Ryan observed, that often occurs when speaking to a stranger. The necessary point in time when small talk peters out and one must decide between piercing the subsequent social membrane and continuing to talk, or willing the interaction to fade into its mutually agreed upon yet unspoken end. Ryan's dilemma was that he could never discern which choice fit which situation. Sure, this time he knew which one he preferred. But what if he kept on talking and didn't pick up on the subtle cues that she didn't want to? Or what if he remained quiet, but for the rest of the night she wished that he hadn't, too afraid to continue the conversation herself?
A mellow dusk had appeared and Ryan had switched to gin and tonic for his second round. The taste filled his mouth with the bittersweet memories of late nights in his early twenties, nights he wished he could return to for that long-gone feeling of having all the time in the world. Watching him drink, the woman seemed to be searching for something. Out of the corner of his eye he could sense her quietly mulling over a question in her head. All of a sudden he felt naked, like she could see through him.
"What," he said, perhaps too accusatory.
Wrinkling her forehead, she exhaled wistfully. "I dunno, have we met before?" "Er, I don't think so."
"Really," she said, a hint of insecurity in her voice. "Maybe I've seen you somewhere."
"Hmm," he shrugged, trying to rack his brain. But he knew he'd never seen her before, at least as far as he could tell. He'd have remembered.
Besides, his mind was too busy imagining a future with her. The girl who works at the copy and print shop. It rang well. Cinematic, sort of like a character in a French film. They'd rent a warehouse studio in Hackney together, watch the overground trains weave their way above the streets, behind buildings and around council estates. They'd read opposite one another at coffee shops, stealing knowing glances over the page. She'd be soft and steadfast and dynamic, a partner for the modern world. Someone to come home to instead of a dismally empty flat.
The innards of her remaining oyster had slipped out onto a neighboring ice cube and she was attempting to scoop it back inside. Then she spoke, stirring him out of his fantasy. "It's literally on the tip of my tongue."
It seemed to really bother her, the inability to remember when or where she'd encountered him, like walking into a room and forgetting what you'd come there to do. Secretly, Ryan loved the way it felt to be pondered over, analyzed. There was an air of importance attached to it, and in his life he'd rarely felt important to anybody. But he wondered why she had only recognized him after his uncomfortable silence.
"I've got it!" she shrieked. "You and my dad, you work at the same company!" "Do we?"
"It's that Japanese one, right?"
"Yeah, but-"
"I've seen you once," she revealed, excited but slightly embarrassed, "on his computer screen."
"You're joking."
"I'm not," she exclaimed, apparently trying to recall the details. "I was home in Bath for my brother's graduation earlier this summer and my dad was on a work call in the kitchen and I saw your little square in the corner."
"No way."
"Yes way. I mean, you stayed muted the whole time, but I dunno, I sort of just kept watching you. You looked exactly like you do now except you were wearing glasses and you looked distracted. But also like you were afraid someone would speak to you and you wouldn't know what to say."
He snickered in reluctant agreement.
"But I sort of liked the way you looked so scared or something. God, I might've had a crush on you."
Ryan was astonished, unsure of what to say. His body pulsed and he chewed his lower lip. Of course the one time somebody liked him back, it was a coworker’s daughter.
"Wait, wait. What's your dad's name?"
She opened her mouth but hesitated. "Not telling," she chirped amusedly. "Okay, then what's your name?"
"I'm Elena," she extended her hand and he took it. "Pleasure."
"Ryan," he said, quietly sifting through an avalanche of emotions.
"You look like a Ryan."
"Thanks," he laughed hesitantly. "I think."
Elena was beaming, her deep brown eyes aglow. The warmth spread again intensely from Ryan's face down to his torso, through his groin and all the way down his legs. Nobody had ever looked at him quite this way. Sure, women had looked at him, he wasn't completely hideous, so there had been the occasional passing glance at a pub or on the Tube. Even his ex-girlfriend gave him butterflies for the two months they dated, until one day she refused to look him in the eyes anymore. Elena's gaze was different. Perhaps for once, somebody saw something in him that no one else could.
He thought of his mates, all of whom had either found girlfriends or were at least deft at getting women to laugh at their jokes. They tolerated his strangeness, took the piss out of him for a laugh, but he'd always privately longed to be like them: sly and gregarious, always sure of what to say. This buoyant feeling of being somebody's object of interest was unfamiliar to Ryan. What with his increasingly pudgy midsection and pink complexion, he'd nearly accepted that his window for finding someone was coming to a close. But with Elena, a newfound confidence had been unearthed in him. Tread lightly, he thought, this could be your last chance.
"So then, er…do you come here often?" he asked, half-jokingly.
"Every so often," she said, "whenever I'm craving oysters."
"Me too, except I'm almost always craving oysters."
Elena shrugged. "Whenever I do, I seriously end up eating something like five dozen of them. Then I feel dreadful and I don't want to be near them for weeks on end, and suddenly bam, one day I'll wake up and want nothing but oysters again. Sort of the same with men, now that I think about it."
"Ha, well please don't eat me," Ryan teased, his smile broadening at her laughter. "My oyster approach is sort of different though. It's like a dozen a day, five days a week. So I probably end up eating more than you, don't I?"
"I dunno," she said, "I just had a protein shake before this. You haven't seen me on an empty stomach."
"We should have a contest," he proposed. "See who can eat the most in an hour." She made a little O with her mouth, intrigued.
Further enchanted he continued, laughing, "with your method though, I bet you'd win." "Fun fact, I actually won my town's pasty-eating contest in Year 11, so…"
"Blimey," he exclaimed. "You're not secretly like two-hundred pounds under that jacket, are you?"
Immediately, Elena's mirthful smile disappeared as Ryan became aware of what had escaped his lips. Registering the blunder he froze, turning pale. Their shared dome of joy collapsed on his head.
"Er, well I was, actually. I've lost nearly four stone this year," she said. She straightened in her seat, eyes averted to the liquor bottles on the shelves.
"No, that's, that's really good honestly, I didn't mean-"
"No it's all right," she interrupted, still not looking at him, "I'm sure you didn't mean it that way." She flagged the barman and made the universal sign asking for the bill.
Ryan was at a loss. Surely he couldn't bounce back from this. "Elena, I'm sorry, I really am, I-"
Sighing she said, "honestly, it's whatever. I'm just not sure why men have always got to mention a woman's weight. Happens when I'm fat, happens when I'm not. It's no use."
"But I think you're beautiful."
"You would say that," she quipped, her voice etched with derision, taking the POS machine from the barman, "now that you're in the doghouse."
"Please, I'm really sorry, just let me-"
"It's fine." She tapped her card and shimmied the chair back, shooting him a perfunctory glance. "It's been nice."
Ryan's mouth hung half open. "Elena, I-"
"See you later."
Crushed, he watched her departure, one swift, intentional beeline toward the door, where she swung left and disappeared down the road. He swiveled around uneasily to see if anybody was looking. It'd all happened so fast.
A burning guilt began to gnaw at his insides, crusted with a growing indignation. Where the warmth had spread previously, a rotten chill now settled. As he blankly swallowed the last two oysters, uncaring to top them with anything, his head swarmed with possible explanations for her overreaction. But eventually what he decided was that he deserved it. Not only did she have valid reason to hate him, Ryan thought, but what he'd said was quite possibly the worst thing anyone could say to a woman, and he held the vague fear that sooner or later, he'd pay for it.
September began as humid as August had ended. After leaving Patterson's, Ryan spent the entire bank holiday weekend indoors, upset and ruminating over what he'd said, how everything had gone wrong so quickly. Shame consumed him. When he logged into his computer Tuesday, there was a virtual meeting invite for ten in the morning from his supervisor Eric, including Dan, the department head, and Genevieve from HR.
"Morning, Ryan," Dan said, to which he replied an innocent morning, Dan. "Er, Ryan, I believe you're muted," Dan remarked, devoid of emotion. "Oh," he said sheepishly. "Sorry. Morning."
Ryan shifted in his chair, looking out over his laptop's camera and through the bay windows. Outside, it was a resplendent sunny day, sparrows making love on the windowsill, people passing by leisurely on the pavement, squirrels foraging for berries in the bushes. A good day for a picnic, he thought. Or a walk in the park. Or a pint.
Genevieve smiled and began, her voice tinny and Siri-esque. "Morning everyone, morning Ryan."
"Good morning," he said to her, remembering the distant, inscrutable expression of his that Elena had described with enthusiasm days earlier. Surely he wore it now.
"So," she began, "we've scheduled this meeting to inform you that there's been some restructuring within the Trade and Logistics department."
He braced in preparation for what he instinctively felt was coming.
"This shift unfortunately means that there are some employees whom we must let go, and your role is one of those that will be terminated, its responsibilities absorbed into a few other currently existing roles."
He nodded, remaining silent and scanning Eric and Dan's pixilated faces, both unflinching and vacant. Dan's background was blurred, but it seemed he was at home, the vague outline of a wooden china cabinet behind him.
"Of course it's never a pleasure to share news like this, however I can confirm you'll receive a proper severance package which we can discuss further during the off-boarding process. We truly do appreciate all of the hard work and dedication you've put in with Kuroshio."
Ryan nodded again. "Right. Okay. I understand."
"I know this is hard to hear. If you've got any questions about this change, you can direct them to myself. Have you got any for us right now?" Genevieve raised her thin, manicured brows. Ryan could tell she'd done this before and had become desensitized to it. She had the procedure down pat, slashing his income with a simple three-sentence script.
"Er, I don't think so," he replied, stopping himself from saying thanks. He wondered what Eric and Dan were thinking, but they probably weren't even paying attention. Dan's dark eyes cut to the left and his lips tightened into a subtle grin. Ryan watched him closely, noting his crow's feet wrinkles, his silvery-brown hair, his ever so slight tip of the head, eerily familiar. Could Dan really be…?…he wondered.
"Right well," Erin said, "I'll be sending you an email with this information and next steps, along with your off-boarding toolkit. Your final date of employment will be next Tuesday."
Ryan was barely listening anymore. He'd decided who Elena's father was, convinced himself why she didn't want to tell him. His gaze had fixated on Dan, who was nodding discreetly. He pictured her offscreen, across the table from her father wearing a smug expression and listening to the meeting, indulging in Ryan's demise. This was all her doing, he thought.
"All right, sounds good."
"Thanks Ryan," Genevieve said. "We'll be in touch." The meeting ended. Two minutes and fifty-nine seconds.
His heart raced in his chest and his leg had fallen asleep. Setting his feet on the floor he stood up dizzily and went back to bed in a stupor.
Still lying on the sofa poring over the events of the past two weeks, Ryan picks up his book again and returns to the same sentence. What would he do now, with four-thousand-two-hundred-twenty pounds and all this free time? Buy a new computer? Fly to Mallorca? Perhaps to Sicily? Italian girls are nice, he thinks, romantic. Could go somewhere with the lads this time, but then again, they're probably too busy with work or their girlfriends, the lucky bastards.
London's heatwave has yet to lose its steam and even on blast, the box fan in the window isn't helping. He reads the sentence for the eighth or ninth time, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. It's no use. He can't stop thinking about Elena. About the unjustness of it. The initial remorse he'd felt has calcified into a despicable breed of disdain. And yet still, in some twisted way he cannot understand, he desires her even more fiercely.
His empty stomach murmurs, having skipped lunch. Only the second day of unemployment and its malaise already seems to have plagued him, sucking the point out of nearly everything. He scoffs miserably, thrusting air out his nose.
But he can't just let all that severance money sit there. A familiar idea enters his mind. Of course, Patterson's has shut, but an alternative is out there undoubtedly. He palms his phone and types "oysters" into Google Maps, hitting "search nearby."
Entering the pub from the Thames side a half hour later, he scopes its interior: bright, open, and walled with eggshell tile, much posher than good old Patty's. But it'll do the trick. He passes a few white-collared businessmen outside, glances at the Wednesday specials chalkboard on the host's station, and heads straight for the bar seating, which is empty except for a slim, professional-looking woman with a blonde bob.
Ryan pauses for a moment, considering where to sit.
Slowly, he walks over and selects the bar stool one seat away from the woman, ordering two dozen oysters with a double gin and tonic to wash them down. She doesn't even notice him. When the oysters arrive, he stares at the plate, counting. Figures, he thinks to himself sourly.
There are only twenty-three.
