Twitterpated
By S. Faith, © 2013
Words: 25,251 (in five chapters)
Rating: T / PG-13
Summary: What if Twitter had existed during the first film?
Disclaimer: So very much not mine.
Notes: Have used actual official Twitter account names for Bridget and Mark. And yes, the tweets are all fewer than 140 characters. I checked. ;)
Chapter 1.
Just after the New Year
He was beginning to think he'd live to regret joining this particular club.
It made sense, it really did, for all of the partners in chambers to establish their own presence in the social media arena. It was something they had all endeavoured to do over the Christmas holiday; a terrific way to broaden their visibility, both as individual barristers and as a group, and equally terrific to keep abreast of the latest activities for worthy organisations such as Amnesty International. Some of the barristers, however, took to social media more easily and comfortably than others… and not strictly for work purposes.
"Did you see that thing I just retweeted?"
This was Jeremy at his shoulder. He had to laugh at Jeremy's enthusiasm. "No, Jeremy, I have not," he said. "We're not all as obsessed as you are with this."
"It's really funny. You should read it."
"I should be reviewing my briefs for this afternoon."
Jeremy chortled. "It's a hundred and forty characters' worth of funny, Darcy. It's not going to take you all bloody day."
He sighed in an overdramatic manner, then tapped on a few places on his mobile's screen, bringing the Twitter application to the forefront. The page auto-refreshed and displayed the tweet that Jeremy had shared.
Why can't marrieds get that 'How's your love life?' is not polite question to ask? Don't rush to THEM roaring, 'Still having sex?', do we?
"Funny, isn't it, eh?" said Jeremy.
He had to admit the message had made him chuckle, this missive from Jeremy's Twitter friend, which was made even funnier because the tirade could easily have been addressed directly to the married man. "Yes, quite."
Jeremy rolled his eyes. "You are really the stiff to end all stiffs," he said with a laugh. "So how was your holiday, hm?"
He would have preferred not to think about it: embarrassing family responsibility, an outing with his parents, and face to face with a woman in whom he'd had little interest and with whom he'd had little patience. "It was fine," he said tersely. "Now, to those briefs."
Jeremy chuckled again. "Still not got lucky, have ya?"
He pretended not to hear.
He did have every intention of reading his briefs for the afternoon as he ate his lunch at his desk, but the tiny image that accompanied the shared tweet—the retweet—kept causing him to look to the mobile. Struck by curiosity, he moved through the screens, then tapped on her tweet a few times to get directly to her page.
Her name also caught his attention. It was not a common name, and was coincidentally one shared with the woman he'd faced on New Year's Day. Coincidence, that was all it was, but certainly a curious one.
As he watched, her timeline refreshed itself again.
Hols over. Am now supposed to snap back into racing form like lean teenaged greyhound when only crave telly, chocolate & wine. Unfair!
The mental image of this made him laugh again, but a knock on his door prompted him to switch off the mobile lest he be caught viewing a personal page. Not that he would have gotten in trouble, but it was a matter of pride.
After all, Mark Darcy had to remain above perusing social media websites for personal enjoyment, and his visitor got his undivided attention as they conversed on a case.
As soon as he was alone, though, he was struck with the impulse to look once more. This time he opened a window on his laptop, navigated to his timeline (which wasn't that busy) and then clicked on Jeremy's retweet.
There was her name. Bridget. And, he realised, her photo, which popped up just as he opened the page as a new message. A new tweet, he corrected himself. It took him a moment to fully comprehend what he was seeing, though: the woman in the photo was familiar. New Year's Day familiar. The name was no mere coincidence.
Her appearance in the photo compared to how she'd looked on the holiday was as different as night was from day. He had thought that there had been something attractive about her features, but it had all been overwhelmed by her attire, a rather horrible, stiff dress seemingly made of tapestry fabric. In this photograph, however, she was looking at the camera with a challenge in her eye and smiling in an unguarded, unrehearsed manner. As best as he could tell, she was dressed in a casual knit top that clung to her shoulders—probably more, he thought, but the photo only showed so much.
His astonishment was unmatched, as was his curiosity to see if she had mentioned the details of her New Year's holiday at all. He did not have to scroll far back at all. The tweet that talked about her New Year's was right there, near the top:
Pretty funny to be called Darcy & stand alone & snooty at a party. Might as well be called Heathcliff, stand in garden & yell for Cathy!
More surprising to him, however, was that it had garnered—
"A hundred-forty retweets?" he asked aloud to no one. Including one from the Jane Austen Centre in Bath! He then noticed her number of followers: 1,995. Far from a tragic, lonely spinster. He only had a small percentage of that; he tried to console himself with the fact that he hadn't been on long, and to date had only used it professionally.
He read on.
Rude bloody bastard with mad hair beyond any opera freak have ever known, plus #ReindeerJumper #noreally
Without conscious thought he reached up to smooth down his hair; he realised he had been insufferably unkind to her and for no other reason that his mother had put him up to talking to her. Let's be honest, he thought. Mother pressured me into talking to her.
New Year's Eve. Wahoo! #buggeroffsadFM
After a moment's hesitation he clicked on the attached image. He could not stop the low "Hm" that burbled up in his throat.
She wore a short dress of shiny black fabric, heeled black shoes, her blonde hair down and loose; like the other person in the photo—a man, though unknown if friend or date—she was in mid-jump (clearly heading up, given the position of the dress' hem) with her arms over her head. They both had broad smiles in place and empty wine glasses in hand as if waiting for a top-up.
He sat back, processing the new information he had just gathered. Even if the man wasn't a boyfriend—and subsequent photos showed him hugging her in a most possessive way, so it was not easy to dismiss—she clearly had a vibrant social life. Her tweets suggested she had been as equally compelled to attend the New Year's Day party as he had, had been just as pressured into a meeting with him… but she at least had not been unspeakably rude about it like he had.
The guilt he felt over his boorish behaviour, however, was offset by his pique that she would mock him publicly for her enjoyment… and the world's. She clearly thought he was an idiot, and she was not shy about broadcasting this opinion.
He moved the mouse to hover over the Follow button, but after a moment of thought, he decided not to; he thought it best not to alert her to the fact that he'd found her online. Instead, he would continue to watch her timeline through the web page.
God, he thought with a chuckle, I sound like an obsessed lunatic.
…
A day or two later, he realised he was beginning to act like an obsessed lunatic; he was bringing the page up for a read at every given opportunity. Reluctantly he admitted that her writing was very witty; her observations from her meetings, conversations with friends, and musings in general often caused him to chuckle. He did notice her tendency during the weekday to apparently flirt more than work, a habit of which he disapproved. He wondered if her boss knew she was spending so much time blathering on Twitter, and guessed probably not.
On Friday night, he made the grave error of opening the page while eating his supper. As the night went on, it became increasingly clear that she was imbibing more and more alcohol and getting quite pissed.
OBOY. T bought drinks. Tequila = spirits of Satan! Yet drink anyway, wheeee.
He could not help but think with amusement that Saturday's tweets would either be few and far between, or would be packed with groans, moans and other hung-over lamentations.
One thing became abundantly clear: he was growing to like her very much, based on little more than what she'd written online. There was also the smile, he thought, which he had been considering frequently. But the words were definitely what continued to draw him back to her page.
…
This casual follow on his part continued for some days; he didn't know whether it stemmed from his pride or his embarrassment from New Year's, but he didn't want to actually follow her, did not want her to know he was reading her words. He noticed more and more that Jeremy retweeted her missives, sometimes with commentary, and he wondered how exactly Jeremy knew Bridget… and how well, given his colleague's wandering eye.
"So," Mark asked nonchalantly as they lunched together one sunny Wednesday, "does your wife know you spend a good portion of your day chirping to pretty blondes?"
"Chirping?" he asked, bringing his brows together for a moment before laughing. "Oh, you mean tweeting."
"Yes."
"And you mean… to Bridge?" Jeremy asked then laughed again. "Bridget's one of Magda's best friends!"
"Ah," Mark said. Small world.
Jeremy chewed his food, giving Mark a sidelong glance, then swallowed and asked, "Think she's pretty, do you?"
"I think anyone would be mad not to think so," Mark retorted stiffly.
"An opinion apparently not shared by all," said Jeremy, tapping the table with his fork's handle. "I mean, there was that poor deluded fellow on New Year's…"
Mark groaned inwardly, though he was honestly a bit grateful that Jeremy had assumed the reference to "Darcy" had been some kind of literary code and not literal.
Jeremy continued, "…and boy, did she ever give him a right savaging online, and in our dining room, too! Well-deserved, I thought. She had us howling. Poor bugger's ears—and his bloody ugly jumper—were probably ringing."
This rankled him. He may have said unkind things to his mother in a vent of frustrated anger, but he had never intended for her to hear his words. She, on the other hand, had been deliberately ridiculing him, which in many ways was worse than a direct insult.
"Mark? Are you okay? The tips of your ears are going all red."
Mark pursed his lips and had another bite of his sandwich. "I'm fine."
He continued to think about it—stew on it, more like, he thought—but refrained from writing all of the tweets he composed in his head. As satisfying as that may have been, he did not want to tip his hand.
The self-control he thought he had, however, shattered that evening at the sight of an innocent remark meant as a reply to someone he presumed was one of her friends:
Right? Almost as bad as having a reindeer-jumper wearer criticising your dress! #harhar
Before he could think better of it, he had opened a reply message and responded.
May want to consider that wearing the jumper was to please the person who gave it.
Adrenalin surged through him; there was no escaping her notice now, not with his name and photo on the account.
After a few seconds, a reply came in, though not what he expected, from Jeremy.
OMG that was u? A ha ha ha.
This was followed shortly by something from Bridget herself.
AHA, the man himself! Do you think I wore a carpet because I get off on that sort of thing? #tapestryfetish
The quickness and sharpness of her reply took him aback. Immediately this was followed by another:
Will completely own up to smoking like chimney and drinking like fish, though. Only way to survive party. Your excuse?
He felt as if he'd been buffeted with a one-two punch, and was gauging his reply when one came up to both himself and Bridget from someone he didn't know called Tom, who bore a striking resemblance to the man in Bridget's New Year photo: A fight! A REAL FIGHT! :-D
A second came up from Jeremy: Hold on there, let me make popcorn lol
Mark immediately replied to tell Jeremy to be quiet, and was amused that she did the same, then she asked of Jeremy:
So how do you know ol' reindeer jumper anyway?
Jeremy's response made Mark want to drop down into a hole: We work together. He's a good guy, Bee, & now he thinks ur v pretty.
He braced himself for the response he was sure to get, but none came. That was almost worse. In frustration he exhaled roughly, then closed the application.
Not before clicking the Follow button, however.
…
Mid-January
There had been no further conversations with her on Twitter, and as the days passed, he noticed that she had not followed back. It seemed to be courtesy to do so, but he supposed he hadn't really endeared himself much to her, and admittedly, he wasn't a particularly compelling tweeter.
At least, not nearly as compelling as she was. She turned the most mundane things into nuggets of amusement—usually with a healthy dose of self-deprecation—and he found he looked forward to seeing her messages every day.
Almost two weeks had passed since the ill-fated New Year's Day when Jeremy invited him to a dinner party he and his wife were throwing. He had been invited to dinner many times before, had always had a pleasant enough time, so he accepted, never giving it a second thought.
He realised that he should have been a bit suspicious of the timing.
Jeremy's wife greeted him at the door. "Hello, Mark!" she said brightly, taking the bottle of wine he'd picked up; it was an almost maniacal brightness, he realised. "So very glad you could make it. We have a full house tonight!"
"That's… nice," he said, feeling slightly perplexed.
"You know where to put your coat," she went on, examining the bottle. "I'll take this to the kitchen to let it breathe; oh, fantastic vintage, Mark, as always."
As she walked away, he slipped out of his coat and hung it on the rack with several others, then walked to the sitting room, where he heard the murmur of voices in conversation. The room did indeed seem to be filled; there were men and women alike, and he scanned the crowd. Many were acquaintances he had seen at past dinners. One he knew from other circumstances.
Bridget.
He felt ambushed, knew in an instant that Jeremy and his wife had colluded to arrange this. Just as his gaze lit upon her, Bridget looked up, and their eyes met. Her surprise was obvious in the way her brows lifted ever so slightly, but she looked smoothly back to the person with whom she was talking, as if completely unaffected.
Mark quickly learned that, sparked by the recent news of a highly publicised adoption by a male celebrity who was single, the overarching topic of the evening centred around parenting and then inevitably to so-called traditional gender roles. It came as no surprise to him that the women present, Bridget excepted, did not work outside of the home, and they seemed to unanimously (and vociferously) think it was a bad idea for anyone to try to go it alone. This conversation dominated drinks, dinner and even into dessert.
"As long as there's the support of a network of friends and even family," she countered, "that child will feel loved. It doesn't matter if there's only one parent—if that parent is giving it all they've got."
"But what about support inside the home?" said one of the women, Fiona.
"Do you feel supported inside the home?" Bridget countered. "Or do you work your arse off while your husband comes home, eats dinner, cracks open a beer and watches the football?"
This, within earshot of said husband, Cosmo, who said, "Hey!"
"I agree," said Mark.
"Thank you," said Bridget.
"No, I mean I agree that support is needed within the home," he said. "You're overgeneralising wildly."
"Am I?" asked Bridget. "Have you noticed that not one of the men present has gotten off of his bottom tonight to help in either making, serving, or cleaning up after dinner? For all the talk we've had of equality of household tasks, there sure has not been evidence of it tonight."
Mark felt momentarily stunned and embarrassed, because what she said was absolutely and unequivocally true. "You are wilfully misinterpreting what I'm saying. And what you're saying is still an overgeneralisation," he said. "One night is not a fair data sample."
"This happens every single time," said Bridget. She then narrowed her eyes, and crossed her arms over her chest. "How long have you known Magda and Jeremy?"
"Six years."
"And you've been here for dinner many times before?"
"Yes."
"So if I were to ask you to go into their kitchen right now and find the gravy boat, you could walk right in and find it, could you?"
He snorted dismissively. "That's ridiculous. Of course not."
"Mark doesn't even know where his own gravy boat is," Jeremy said with a laugh.
Bridget's head snapped to look back at her friend Fiona. "Woney," she said. "Where does the gravy boat get kept?"
Without hesitation, Fiona answered, "Cupboard over the vent fan, left side." Magda nodded.
Bridget tilted her head, raising a brow, challenging him without words.
Clearing his throat, Mark said, "This hardly seems to have anything to do with single parenting."
She blew air out through her lips. "No cogent argument, so change the subject. Fine. I'll spell it out for you. We women are perfectly capable of raising children on our own," she said, "because most of us in so-called 'partnerships' are already doing so. Their partners, their husbands, are in many ways just like having another child to tend to."
"Ah. So by your own logic, your own reasoning," Mark countered, "that single fellow who adopted should have that child removed from the house for possible endangerment."
Bridget's face flushed red-hot, and she said, "Clearly some men have evolved and learnt to take care of themselves and children. It does show there's hope for the rest of you."
He chuckled low under his breath. "You have no idea how incredibly sexist you sound," he said, sipping his coffee.
At this her mouth dropped open. "Sexist?!" she exclaimed. "This coming from a man who refers to unmarried women as 'spinsters'?"
The entire room had gone dead silent, he realised, except for the two of them; when he glanced to the side, he realised the rest of the crowd were hanging on their every word.
"That is the literal definition of the word," he said, "though I apologise for my use of it and for any negative connotations that might have inadvertently been attached. That doesn't negate the fact that, yes, to make generalisations about all men based on stereotypes is indeed sexist."
She stared, then laughed. "Jesus, you are such a bloody lawyer." Instead of a conciliatory counter-apology, however, she added, "It's not a generalisation when it has, time and again, been proven as fact. Now, if you'll excuse me, my poor little spinster self requires a fag, because as you are very much aware, I'm practically a chimney." She grabbed her purse and strode past him for the French windows.
Maddening, he thought as he watched her walk away, his eyes settling in a most unfortunate manner on her backside, which was clad in a snug miniskirt—
He took a step forward to follow her in order to continue the argument, but was stopped by a hand clapping him hard on the shoulder. Jeremy. "That was bloody brilliant," his friend said. "To be honest, half-expected you two to start shagging at the end there."
"You're out of your mind," he said, though he could not deny the palpable tension that had built between them. "Besides, she finds me repulsive."
Jeremy laughed again. "Now that I doubt," he said. "Your taste in clothing, maybe, but…"
Mark rolled his eyes. "I am never going to live down that bloody jumper."
"If I can be serious, Mark," he said, "she's too nice to truly think ill of anyone. She may have strong opinions and defend them loudly—especially under the influence of wine—but underneath it all she's one of the more kind-hearted people I've ever known."
He glanced outside, where he saw her in profile, the lit end of her cigarette flaring as she took in a deep breath.
As the dinner party wound down and started to break up, Mark approached her as she slipped on her coat, hoping to offer something of an olive branch. "If you need a lift home," he said, "I'd be happy to give you one."
"I'm fine, thanks," she said, buttoning the coat.
"Oh, don't be stupid, Bee," said Magda. "You'll never get a minicab at this hour."
"I'll walk," she declared.
"Don't be—" he began.
She narrowed her eyes. "Ridiculous? Foolish? Childish?"
"Stubborn," he finished. "There's no logical reason for you not to accept, and every reason for you to accept."
"Except you might be a serial murderer."
He laughed; he couldn't help it. So did Magda. "Now that is ridiculous," said Magda.
She had no further argument to brook; she pursed her lips, shot a glare at Magda, then conceded. "Thank you, then," she said.
In silence and in the relative darkness of a moonless night, they set out in Mark's car from Magda's house. Finally he asked, "You're going to have to give me some idea where I'm going."
"Head towards your own place," she said coolly. "After all, I only live 'round the corner from you."
He drew up to a light, stopped as it changed. "Look, I'm really sorry about lashing out at the Turkey Curry Buffet," he said, turning to look at her, at the red glow of the traffic light washing over her face. She met his gaze. "I was frustrated at my mother's constant pushing me at you, I was… well, I never meant you to hear or for it to hurt your feelings."
She blinked then looked away, directly forward again, as the cast on her face turned to green. "Go."
He exhaled, feeling equally frustrated at his inability to communicate now, as he pulled forward and continued on their way.
"Why didn't you say something at the time?" she asked quietly.
"I don't know," he said. "I should have. Maybe I was just grateful that my mother would think that was the end of it, that she'd stop pestering me. Then I come to find out… well, I might have liked talking to you, after all."
She scoffed. "Even though you'd disagree with me if I said the sky was blue."
He grinned. "Right now, it rather isn't."
This made her laugh. "Fair point."
They were getting nearer to his house, so he asked again where to take her. This time she told him her proper address, and they pulled to the kerb within a few minutes. As was his habit he got out, opened her door, and walked with her to the front of her building.
"Thank you for the driving home," she said as she turned to face him. "It would have been silly to walk home after all."
"I know."
"Though I could have made it from the car and into my front door unscathed."
"One never knows."
She smiled, then fished into her bag for her keys. Shaking them, she said, "Well. Good night."
"Good night."
As she got inside, he returned to his car, and engaged the engine to head to his house. He wore a grin the entire time; it felt very nice to have mended fences with her.
Or so he thought.
The next morning he fired up his Twitter application, half-expecting a notification that Bridget had followed him in return. Instead, he saw an extension/continuation of their argument, with several tweets in the following vein:
Dinner party included delusional convo w/ markdarcylegal, re: men pulling equal weight in raising kids, helping 'round house, etc.
Illuminating/illustrative that none of the men present took it upon themselves to help the entire night. Left it to women.
Note to men: twiddling fork under the tap does not equal doing the washing up.
He felt his temper flare up (justifiably so, he thought), and he had to respond: Delusional? You miss the point again, deliberately and wilfully.
After a pause, she replied: Your point seemed to be there's only one way to have a family. That is #delusional…
He exhaled roughly. Not what I said at all; parenting IS easier when task is shared. How can anyone dispute that? After a moment he added: I made no claims abt superiority of one type of family over another. Was wholly your assumption. And at last: But if it makes you feel better to call me names, then by all means, continue to do so.
He sat back feeling smug about the interaction—clearly he had emerged victorious—but then she replied again.
As a matter of fact, it DOES make me feel better ;)
This left him utterly perplexed until he realised she had ended the sentence with an emoticon, a wink, which suggested she was joking around. This was further clarified when got a notification that she had retweeted his three messages of explanation, then immediately followed it up with: I stand corrected #sorry
A few minutes later he got a notification that she had followed him back. He smiled and replied again, getting the hang of twitter form: It's quite all right—we all make mistakes. #reindeerjumper
She responded one more time before apparently signing off for the moment:
Truce, then ;)