Thank You, Next: A perfect, uplifting and funny romantic comedy Page 6

  ‘Excuse me,’ a voice said, just before I reached the door.

  ‘What?’ I snapped, as unlike a nonchalant, independent haver of fascinating friends as it was possible to get.

  Spinning around so fast I practically put my back out, I found myself face to face with a man who definitely wasn’t Dominic. He was tall and lanky; my should-have-been-date had been sturdy and shortish. He was fair; Dominic’s photos had shown a man so dark-haired and olive-skinned he looked almost Mediterranean.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t mean to intrude. It’s just, I was meant to be meeting a Tinder date here, and she hasn’t shown up. I may have this totally wrong, but I was watching you and I kind of wondered if that was what was going on with you too.’

  For a second, I thought about drawing myself up to my full height, giving him a haughty stare and telling him not to be absurd, who would have the gall to stand me up? But five foot three isn’t much full height to speak of, and my dignity was so tattered by that point that I simply didn’t have enough of it to cloak myself in.

  ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘it is. You’ve got me bang to rights.’

  He smiled ruefully. ‘I’m sorry. It sucks, right? However many times it happens. But – and I know this is kind of left field – maybe we could have a drink together? A kind of un-date?’

  I looked at him. His eyes behind his thick glasses looked kind. He was smiling in a cautious, self-effacing sort of way, and the smile showed clean, even teeth. His denim shirt looked freshly ironed, and he smelled of some kind of mildly floral, slightly earthy cologne.

  I’d have scored him a high seven and a half, maybe even eight if I was feeling generous. But I had different standards to uphold.

  ‘Just one thing,’ I said. ‘Do you mind me asking what your star sign is?’

  ‘My what? I’m sorry, I don’t really follow all of that.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter. Just tell me when your birthday is.’

  ‘Ninth of September – 1992, if that matters. And my name’s Justin.’

  ‘Zoë,’ I replied, frantically trying to remember whether that date fell within the sign of Virgo, and realising that it did. ‘And you’re on. What can I get you?’

  Six

  Following your dreams doesn’t always mean getting what you desire. But you’re not going to give up that easily – are you?

  ‘Oh my God!’ Dani lowered her barbell, its ends loaded with metal plates, back onto the squat rack. ‘Fuck me, that hurt. But that’s so romantic! I can’t believe it! That’s a meet-cute straight out of a movie. It’s almost as good as if he’d rescued your cat from a tree or you’d met each other’s eyes in a Tube station going in different directions and he’d run down the up escalator to find you and get your number. You’ll be able to tell your grandchildren! I’ll use it in my speech at your wedding!’

  ‘Steady on! It was only the one date.’

  ‘So what happened next?’

  I moved some of her weights off the bar and positioned myself underneath it. I hadn’t needed her to tell me – this was going to hurt. But it would be worth it; already, I could feel my hangover receding a bit, and I was pretty sure I was sweating pure sauvignon blanc. After this, I promised myself, I’d head for the local café that did vegan breakfasts and have a massive stack of pancakes with blueberries and coconut yoghurt, and then I’d feel as good as new.

  I hoped so, anyway, because after that I needed to go to work, and there was no prospect of the long nap I so badly needed.

  ‘So, after that,’ I stepped carefully back from the rack, the weight on my shoulders, lowered myself into a squat, then straightened up again, my thighs already burning, ‘I bought us a drink – white wine for me, red for him – and he managed to find us a table, which was pretty impressive because the place was totally rammed by then and the one I’d been sitting at got nabbed as soon as I stood up.’

  I did a couple more squats, by the end of which I was too out of breath to talk.

  ‘Go on, you’ve got this,’ Dani said. ‘Two more, then you can carry on with the story, right?’

  ‘Right.’ I finished my set, replaced the weight and stood there for a moment, breathing hard, my eyes stinging with perspiration.

  ‘So you bought a drink and you sat down,’ Dani prompted, wide-eyed. ‘And then?’

  ‘Then we chatted a bit, like you do. It was weird because I kept wanting to ask him all the questions I’d planned to ask Dominic.’

  ‘What happened to him, anyway? Did he get in touch with a grovelling apology?’

  ‘Nope. Nothing. And he’s blocked me. I’ve got absolutely no idea what that was all about.’

  ‘Bastard,’ she said. ‘He probably got a booty call – some girl he’s shagged before and knew was a certainty – and he couldn’t be bothered to think of an excuse. He should be ashamed of himself.’

  ‘Maybe, but I bet he isn’t. Anyway, so I had to keep reminding myself not to say something like, “How is a luffing crane different from a normal crane anyway?” to Justin, like I’d been planning to say to Dominic. So I asked him what he did for work and he told me he was an accountant, so of course I couldn’t think of anything even slightly interesting to ask him about that.’

  ‘“What is double entry anyway, I’ve always wondered?”’ Dani suggested, and we both giggled childishly.

  ‘“Do you have an asset or a liability?”’ I suggested.

  ‘“Are you single and ready to commingle?”’

  I stepped under the bar and did another set of squats, racking my brain and then racking the weight.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, when I’d finished. ‘That’s it. No more accountancy puns. I’ve got nothing else.’

  ‘Just as well,’ she admitted. ‘I’m all out too. It’s not exactly a field that has many opportunities for lolz, is it?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Anyway, never mind about that,’ she went on. ‘Back to Justin. So you had your drink and you talked about what he gets up to between the spreadsheets.’

  I groaned. ‘Badoom-tish.’

  ‘Thank you, I’m here all week.’

  ‘Anyway, yeah, so he actually did talk about being an accountant. Like, a lot. He talked about how it requires integrity, precision, attention to detail and stuff like that. And he talked about how it’s given him this great grounding in managing his own personal finances, and how he was able to put down a deposit on his first flat when he was twenty-three, because he’d always saved between ten and fifteen per cent of his income – net, not gross, whatever that means – since he got his first summer job when he was sixteen, and invested it across a spread of short- and long-term instruments, carefully selected to manage risk and maximise growth whilst offering a steady rate of return.’

  I paused for breath, and Dani said, ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘And he said he’d started paying into a pension as soon as he got his first job, so that he’d be able to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle in retirement, thanks to his prudent financial planning.’

  ‘Right,’ Dani said again. ‘So by this point you must have been practically whipping your knickers off and waving them round your head?’

  ‘Exactly. Nothing turns me on like a good chat about fiscal responsibility.’

  ‘So I guess he isn’t The One, then? No story to tell your grandchildren?’

  I shook my head. ‘Sorry about that. I did try, honestly. I thought maybe I could drink him interesting, so we had, like, three more glasses of wine and I swear to God, he just kept getting more and more boring. I’m sure he’ll be an amazing husband and father one day, but…’

  ‘Not for you?’

  ‘Not for me. And there was another thing.’

  ‘Don’t tell me it gets worse?’

  ‘I’m afraid it does. So when I bought the first round, I left my card behind the bar to start a tab, like you do. I mean, everyone does it at work. It saves the staff having to put through a payment every time. And when eventually I just couldn�
��t try to fancy him any more, and I said I was going to call it a night because I was knackered and I had an early shift the next day – not true, obviously – he was like, “Why don’t I get our drinks next time and you pick up the tab tonight?”’

  ‘What? The tight fucker! No wonder he’s looking forward to a comfortable retirement if he never buys his own bloody drinks!’

  ‘I know, right. And my card was behind the bar and I couldn’t exactly force him to get his wallet out of his extremely deep pocket with his extremely short arm, could I?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘So there we go. A date with the dullest man in the world ended up costing me the best part of eighty quid.’

  We stripped our weights off the bar and moved over to the mat. I got down into a plank and Dani put a weight on my back. As I always did, I started off thinking this was really quite easy, and wondering if I would try a heavier one next time. And as always, after about thirty seconds, I felt my arms and legs start to tremble and my mind begin to tell me insistently that this was a really terrible idea and I should stop right now.

  Dani’s voice distracted me from the growing urge to give up. ‘I’m so sorry you went through that. Honestly, what a wanker. That really sucks. What kind of dick expects a girl to pay on the first date? I bet he hadn’t even been stood up, I bet he was just on the scrounge to be bought a few drinks and wang on about interest rates. Loser. Time’s up, you can stop.’

  I dropped to my knees and we swapped over.

  ‘No, but the thing is,’ I said, ‘I actually don’t mind at all. I didn’t want to meet Mr Right on my first go. Well, I did, obviously, but Robbie says I won’t know who Mr Right is until I’ve been out with loads of Mr Wrongs, so that’s what I’m doing.’

  ‘But isn’t that – surely I’m done now?’

  ‘Ten more seconds. Isn’t it what?’

  ‘It all sounds a bit… I don’t know. If it was me, I’d want a bit more romance. Like, your eyes meet across a crowded room and suddenly your heart skips a beat and you know that he’s The One.’

  I sighed. ‘That’s what happened with me and Joe, and look where it got me. Back at university we were in the same queue for beers at a festival, we got talking and bam – I thought we’d be together forever. Then three months later I got an attack of commitment-phobia and ended it, and I spent six years regretting it. This time, I’m all about the scientific approach.’

  I didn’t mention that the science I was basing my approach on was what lots of people would regard as next-level woo. I did too, quite a lot of the time – except when my phone buzzed with one of the app’s spookily accurate messages. And besides, I’d accepted Robbie’s dare and taken on this challenge – project, whatever it was – so I might as well see it through.

  My turn in the plank was over and I lay on the mat for a bit, waiting for my arms to stop feeling like they were about to fall off. Then I rolled over and sat up. To my surprise, Dani wasn’t standing next to me, waiting for me to start her timer. She was in her plank already, the metal plate on her back. I could see drips of sweat from her nose landing on the mat.

  And there next to her, looking intently at his watch as he counted down a minute for her, was Fabian Flatley.

  I had no idea how long he’d been there, listening to us.

  Challenge or no challenge, project or no project, it was hard not to let my first date make me doubt my decision to leap into the murky waters of online dating, which, if they were infested with men like no-show Dominic and dull Justin, no doubt contained far worse, too. And it made me doubt myself, too. If I wasn’t good enough for Dominic to even turn up and meet for a drink, what hope did I have of finding an actual, proper relationship? And what right did I have to decide that Justin – who was, after all, perfectly normal and pleasant and some would consider quite the catch – wasn’t good enough for me?

  Was I going to have to lower my standards? Were there men out there who’d have to lower theirs to consider me good enough?

  It wasn’t devastating, exactly, but the whole experience had been enough of a let-down that I approached my phone in the mornings to check Tinder with far less enthusiasm than previously, and far more trepidation.

  ‘How do you do it?’ I asked Robbie, as we made sandwiches one lunchtime.

  ‘I just slice the bread, butter it, spread on the filling, top with another bit of bread and cut it in half,’ he said. ‘Voila.’

  ‘Not this, you doughnut! The dating thing. Like, without it totally destroying your self-confidence?’

  ‘Oh, Zoë,’ he said, with a sigh that seemed to come all the way from the AirWear soles of his Doc Marten boots. ‘You poor love. It’s tough at first, isn’t it? You’re going to have to develop a thicker skin, stat.’

  ‘But how do you do that? I mean, surely getting knocked back hurts every time? Or do you get used to it?’

  He paused, biting his lower lip reflectively, and spread mustard onto a slice of ham. ‘You don’t have to get used to it. It might always smart a bit. But why not tell yourself there’s a reason for it? If someone’s a dick, or flaky and doesn’t turn up, or ghosts you after you’ve shagged or whatever, then actually you’ve dodged a bullet. Because if someone does that after one date, how badly could they break your heart after a year? And how much of your life would you have spaffed away if you ended up marrying them or something, and only realised they were a dick after that?’

  ‘I suppose that’s true. But it’s kind of disheartening, putting all this time and effort into it on the off-chance that the right person could be out there, when your chances of finding them must be pretty microscopic really.’

  ‘It’s not about finding The One, though, is it? Not at first, anyway. You’ve got to play the long game. Kiss a few frogs, go for drinks in a few places you wouldn’t normally, build up some experience of what the world is like, learn a bit more about yourself. That kind of thing. Oh, and have masses and masses of sex, obviously.’

  He yawned hugely, stretching his arms high up over his head so the sleeves of his T-shirt slipped down over his lean biceps.

  ‘Isn’t it weird? The whole hook-up thing?’ I asked.

  ‘Weird? It’s like being a kid in a candy store. Actually, it’s not. It’s like being the candy in a candy store.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Zoë, I’m twenty-two. I won’t be forever. But for now, I can log on to Grindr and twenty minutes later be walking into a guy’s house for a fuck. I can take my pick, as well. I’m in high demand and I intend to make the most of it.’

  Often, I’d noticed that Robbie made me feel absolutely ancient, but now, he was making me feel like a mere child, still wet behind the ears.

  ‘You mean a guy you’ve never met before?’

  ‘Usually. Sometimes it’s a second bite of the cherry. But you know, so many men, so little time. I may as well work my way through them while I can.’

  ‘So what, you go online, someone sends you a message, and you go round to his and…’

  ‘Have sex. That’s right. Sometimes they’re quite sweet and want to romance me with a glass of wine and a chat. But usually it’s walk in the door, shoes off and upstairs we go. If it wasn’t for my housemates I wouldn’t have to leave my bedroom, but I can’t really have people turning up at all hours of the morning, so I go out mostly.’

  ‘What if you don’t fancy the guy?’

  ‘We exchange pics first, of course. I like to know what I’m getting. No old blokes, no hairy blokes, no blokes with tiny cocks. I make my standards clear.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t look like his picture?’

  ‘Then I turn right around and walk back out again. Or sometimes I can’t be arsed with that and I just go through it anyway. It’s just sex.’

  Just sex. I thought about that for a moment while I sliced a cucumber. I couldn’t imagine doing what Robbie was describing: walking out of my flat at three in the morning, getting on a night bus or into an Uber, turning up at a st
ranger’s house, going upstairs and having sex. I’d be terrified.

  But it didn’t seem to bother Robbie in the slightest. Part of me wanted to warn him to be careful, to give him a massive hug and tell him he was worth more than that. But it was his life and none of my business. And, also, that wasn’t what he was telling me to do, I reminded myself. All I had to do was exchange a few messages with people, delete a few dick pics, then go and meet someone for a glass of wine and see if it worked out well enough for a second date.

  ‘You’re right, I guess,’ I said. ‘Back on the horse. Or rather, back on the fish. It’s Pisces’ turn next.’

  ‘Ooooh,’ Robbie sighed. ‘I dated a Pisces boy a few months back. He was proper gorgeous. Just so needy. If I didn’t reply to a text in about five seconds he’d start freaking out and asking me why I was ignoring him. Far too high-maintenance for me, so unfortunately I had to tell him to sling his hook. See what I did there?’

  I laughed. ‘Did you draw a line under it?’

  ‘I did. He got a bit chippy with me, I can tell you.’

  ‘But the experience must’ve been worth it, since the sex was off the scale.’

  ‘I’m still a bit gutted about it, if I’m honest.’

  We hooted with laughter at our lame puns.

  ‘Robbie?’ I said. ‘Since you know everything, apparently, can you tell me how to find a Dungeon Master?’

  ‘What? Christ, Zoë, I don’t want to kink shame or anything, but I had no idea that’s what you were into.’

  ‘No! Not that kind of dungeon. Or that kind of master, either. Here, take these sandwiches through to the bar and I’ll explain.’

  Robbie picked up the platter of artfully arranged food, pushed the kitchen door open with a snake-like hip and disappeared into the bar. While I waited for him to return, I checked Tinder and updated my profile to say I was looking for a Pisces man to date.