Thank You, Next: A perfect, uplifting and funny romantic comedy Page 8

  ‘How? What did he say?’

  ‘He said he wasn’t going to kiss me, because he wanted the first kiss to be special, and something we’d always remember, and we should wait until the perfect moment. And he started talking about how he’d always thought solitaire diamonds were the best for engagement rings.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Oh, yes. And seriously, that was the moment when I finally got the guts to get up and say it had been a lovely afternoon, but I had to get back because I had an early start for work the next day. And he said, “Every moment with you is special, and longing to see you again will be special too.”’

  ‘And you must’ve been like, “Glad you’ll enjoy that, because you’ll be doing it for a long time.”’

  ‘I was. But I couldn’t actually say that to him. I got home and I texted him and thanked him for the date, but said I wasn’t sure we were right for each other.’

  ‘Good for you. What did he say?’

  I sighed. ‘He called me an ungrateful bitch and said I’d never meet anyone as good as him and if I stayed single it would serve me right, and he wouldn’t be surprised because I’m an ugly cow.’

  ‘Oh. Oh shit. What a bastard.’

  ‘Yup. So you know the drill.’

  ‘Delete.’

  ‘Block.’

  ‘Ignore.’

  ‘Move on.’

  Eight

  Unrealistic expectations can lead to disappointment, and promises made too hastily are easily broken. Your head may be in the clouds, Aquarius, but keep your feet on the ground.

  After that, I found my thoughts returning quite frequently to my date with Paul. When I was doing some mindless task in the kitchen like chopping onions or rubbing butter into flour for scones; when I was in the shower, Frazzle watching me with an expression that quite clearly said, ‘What on earth are you doing in there, human? It’s wet, you know’; when I was lying in bed at night, staring at my phone and scrolling left over and over again.

  Clearly, he thought he was a nice bloke. A true romantic. A guy who was prepared to go to an enormous amount of thought and trouble for one first date with someone he’d only been messaging for a few days. A man who, he claimed, wanted to treat a woman like a princess.

  And yet, when I told him quite gently that he wasn’t right for me, he’d turned into someone else entirely, sending that nasty, abusive message that had actually made me feel a bit sick for a second, like he’d punched me in the stomach.

  What the hell was that about? I found myself asking the question over and over as I stared at my phone, or my knife, or Frazzle’s judgy ginger face. And, in the end, I found myself seeking advice from someone who I reckoned knew a hell of a lot more about men and relationships than I did, given she’d managed to sustain a pretty functional and healthy one for more than two years.

  ‘Alice,’ I said, one afternoon when the pub was quiet and we’d finished going through the budget for the next week’s food order, ‘can I ask you something?’

  ‘Sure.’ She pushed back her chair, twisted her silky blonde hair into a knot at the back of her head and secured it with a pencil, her expression neutral and curious, then suddenly doubtful. ‘Is it about the D&D game?’

  ‘No,’ I said, feeling a twinge of guilt and anxiety because, with the inaugural game drawing nearer and nearer, I was no closer to achieving what she’d asked me to do. ‘It’s about a date I went on. It got kind of weird.’

  And I spilled out the whole story.

  Unlike Dani, Alice didn’t piss herself laughing. But, unlike when I’d told Dani about my date with Paul, I didn’t play it for laughs. I tried to explain how deeply uncomfortable I’d felt, how embarrassed, how much the focus of attention I hadn’t expected and didn’t want.

  ‘And then,’ I said, ‘after he’d been so romantic and lovely the whole way through, when I said I didn’t want to see him again, he got all shitty with me. Like, really shitty.’

  In spite of myself, I felt a lump forming in my throat. I mean, it’s not like I cared what Paul thought of me really, but I’d tried to be nice and he’d called me an ugly cow. It wasn’t the words that hurt, because I knew deep down that they weren’t true, so much as the fact he’d needed to say them.

  I tried to explain that to Alice, but I don’t think I did a great job of it.

  ‘There’s something you’re missing, though, Zoë,’ Alice said, pulling the pencil out of her hair again and chewing the end of it a bit.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked, thinking for the millionth time how amazing it would be to have hair that fell into a smooth, glossy curtain like that every time.

  ‘There were red flags all over the place, right from the beginning.’

  ‘Really? I thought it was so sweet and romantic – although totally mortifying, of course – and that’s why I couldn’t just walk away.’

  ‘Yep. That’s what he was counting on. And that’s manipulative, quite frankly. You can’t go love-bombing someone like that, not on a first date. It’s meant to be about getting to know each other first. I mean, Joe’s a big one for the grand romantic gesture but not unless he’s sure it’s appropriate, right?’

  ‘Right,’ I said hastily. ‘Okay. I get that. He was counting on me being too wrong-footed and too embarrassed and too flattered – which I guess I was, in a way – to tell him he had to be having a laugh and I wasn’t going to play along.’

  ‘Exactly! And all that stuff about being treated like a princess – really?’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong with that? Isn’t it just one of those things people say?’

  ‘It is and it isn’t. Think about it for a second. What do princesses do? Do they have opinions, or do they sit around looking pretty?’

  The only princess that sprang to mind wasn’t actually one, but the Duchess of Cambridge was married to a prince, so she’d have to do. She probably did lots of stuff, I thought. Looking after her kids and being involved with charities and maybe a bit of gardening or photography or whatever. But Alice was right – she spent an awful lot of time, in the public eye at least, sitting around looking pretty.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ I said slowly.

  ‘Right. And when you were caught off guard, he showed his true colours. That there is a guy who basically doesn’t like women.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I mean, the things he said to me afterwards, those were pretty nasty and misogynistic. But surely he wouldn’t want to go to all that trouble on a date if he didn’t want to have a relationship?’

  ‘I expect he does. But only with someone who’s totally compliant and admiring and passive. Look what happened as soon as you stepped out of line. How do you reckon that would play out if you disagreed about him staying out late with his mates while you were left with the kids, or about politics, or about what colour to paint your front room, or whatever?’

  ‘It’s like what the app says about Pisces,’ I said. ‘Oversensitive, needy and inflexible.’

  Alice managed not to roll her eyes, but I could tell it was a struggle. ‘Maybe it’s a Pisces thing, maybe it’s just a character trait. But the point is, do you want to be treated like a princess or like a person?’

  I opened my mouth to tell her that what she’d said made perfect sense, and thank her, but the door of the Ginger Cat swung open and Maurice, Ray, Sadiq and Terry strolled in, ready to start today’s dominoes game, and Alice sprang to her feet, sliding through the hatch and behind the bar in one graceful movement.

  ‘Morning, gents. Your usual?’

  The pub suddenly got crazy busy after that, the way it sometimes did, with waves of people coming through the door for no discernible reason – other than the fact that the Ginger Cat was the best pub in South London, obviously – and I had no time to think more deeply about what Alice had said. I barely had time to slip to the gym in the middle of the afternoon, and I rushed through my workout.

  Dani wasn’t there, and when I asked Mike if he had heard from her he said she’d been in e
arlier. He said it in a way that seemed kind of evasive, like he wasn’t telling me the full story, but I didn’t have time to think about that much, either, only to send her a quick text saying I hoped she was okay, and we’d see each other soon.

  The evening got even busier, and it was eleven thirty before I made it back up to my flat. Frazzle launched immediately into a vocal campaign for second dinner and a series of detailed complaints about humans who stayed out until all hours and neglected their cats, before flopping down on my bed and asking for his tummy to be rubbed.

  I lay down next to him and took out my phone, tapping and scrolling with one hand while fussing Frazz with the other.

  Least compatible signs with Aquarius, I read. Virgo and Pisces – well, I’d tried those and as far as I was concerned the app had been bang on the money so far. Third on the list was Scorpio.

  Your Scorpio lover operates at a higher level of intensity than most men. His emotions run deep and he feels them keenly – but he will avoid showing what he perceives as weakness at all costs. To avoid getting hurt, he may close his heart and repel emotional intimacy – because he knows that when he falls he’ll fall hard. Prickly and intense, the sting in the scorpion’s tail will be felt if he is angered or wounded.

  Jesus, he sounded like an awful lot of hard work. Couldn’t I just skip him and move on to someone who was a bit less of a pain in the arse?

  Then I reminded myself that I’d set myself a challenge, and it would be pathetic to give up. I read on.

  The upside? Ruled by Mars and Pluto, Scorpio is the most primally passionate sign in the zodiac. Your Scorpio man brings all his emotional intensity into the bedroom – or the kitchen table, the shower, the bondage dungeon; when it comes to matters of intimacy, it’s no holds barred for your sexy Scorpio. As a lover, he is inventive, skilful, enthusiastic and often surprisingly tender. It’s in relationships where he is physically satisfied that Scorpio will reveal the loyal, compassionate and devoted side of his personality.

  Oh, right then, I thought. Why didn’t you mention that in the first place? If there was one thing that was lacking in my life, it was a good bit of inventive, passionate sex.

  ‘Come on then, Scorpio,’ I said, tweaking my profile. By the time I’d finished, my eyes were drooping with tiredness and my phone was slipping out of my hand, but I forced myself to get up, scoop out Frazzle’s litter tray, wash my face and brush my teeth before falling back into bed.

  Just as I was sinking blissfully into sleep, my phone flashed with a message from the dating app. Half awake, I fumbled it to life in the dark.

  Oh God. A dick pic.

  But this time, I smiled and looked at it properly. And, for the very first time, I didn’t ignore, block or delete.

  ‘Holy shit, Zoë, what have you been doing with yourself?’ Robbie demanded when I stumbled into the kitchen the next morning, my eyes half closed still. ‘You look like you’ve been on a massive bender. You look like me after a heavy night. Actually, you don’t – you look worse.’

  ‘Cheers for that,’ I said. ‘I can always count on you for an ego boost. I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep.’

  Robbie looked at me appraisingly. ‘Well, you’re going to have to tell me all about it. But first, you’re going to have to go back upstairs and put your T-shirt on the right side out. And I’ll get some coffee on.’

  I left the kitchen and walked back upstairs to the flat. Actually, it didn’t feel like walking – more like floating. As if my feet were somehow on a cushion of air, like when you’re wearing expensive brand-new trainers. For the first time in my life, I got what the phrase ‘on cloud nine’ meant – although it was entirely possible that I’d skipped that and gone directly to cloud ten.

  As I walked, I checked my phone, but there were no new messages from Seth, not since we’d signed off three hours before.

  ‘Now,’ my sous-chef thrust a triple espresso into my hand, ‘what’s all this about? Share it with the group.’

  ‘Nothing,’ I muttered, trying to keep the silly grin off my face and prevent a massive blush making its way up my neck. ‘I was just chatting to someone online, and I lost track of time.’

  ‘Chatting, you say? And what form exactly did this chat of yours take?’

  ‘It got… kind of flirty.’

  ‘Flirty, or filthy?’

  ‘Oh God. Both, I guess.’

  ‘Good girl! Up all night sexting a stranger, that’s what I like to see! Who is he?’

  ‘He’s a Scorpio,’ I said. ‘The app reckons they’re all passionate and stuff, so when he sent me a dick pic I didn’t delete it. I decided to kind of go with it.’

  Robbie gave me that hard stare again, which reminded me of the way Frazzle looked when he wanted his breakfast. ‘I take it this was no ordinary dick pic, then? Or rather, a pic of no ordinary dick.’

  ‘I didn’t say that! It was just… You know.’

  ‘I certainly do not know. And I won’t, unless you give me details.’

  ‘Robbie. Let me remind you that this is a place of work and I am technically your boss.’

  ‘Okay, fine. Sheesh, you’re no fun.’

  ‘That’s enough of that. We’ve got the tofu to press for the vegan stir-fry, so let’s get cracking.’

  We did, but as we worked I kept catching Robbie casting sidelong, speculative glances at me, and I knew he must be thinking, I never knew she had it in her.

  And he wasn’t alone – I hadn’t known, either, until the messages I’d been exchanging with Seth had… well, escalated (and judging by the pictures he’d sent me, they weren’t the only thing that had). It was bizarre. For the first time in ages – possibly the first time ever – I’d felt purely, viscerally physical, a bit like how I did when I was in the gym, but also so very differently.

  I felt consumed by desire, but also felt desirable – like there was some kind of digital thread of lust connecting me to this man I’d never met. We didn’t even appear to have that much in common, and we hadn’t talked about anything meaningful – well, I suppose sex is meaningful, isn’t it? And we’d talked about that, a lot. I’d promised myself that if I felt uncomfortable at any point, I’d stop and block him – but I hadn’t felt uncomfortable. Not one bit.

  From his pictures, he wasn’t even anything special – nice enough to look at, with cropped dark hair that was covered by a hat in quite a lot of his photos, and eyes that were a kind of tawny light brown, but not the kind of handsome that stops you in your tracks. He was older than I’d have ideally wanted, too, right at the upper limit of the age range I’d specified.

  But none of that mattered. I was like a woman possessed. In spite of my tiredness, I felt giddy with excitement all that morning, racing through my tasks in the kitchen, running up the stairs to change into my gym kit at three in the afternoon, almost unaware of how tough my workout was, or that Dani wasn’t in the gym at her usual time – again.

  Oh, and checking my phone. I did that a lot. Every time it chirruped with an alert, I grabbed it like I was worried it might run away. When it was only a calendar reminder or a push notification from Stargazer, or a message from someone I’d been speaking to on and off on Tinder and assumed had gone off the boil, I felt a lurch of disappointment, but that did little to dull my giddy excitement.

  I understood, now, what Robbie had meant when he talked about going to a stranger’s home for sex. Not caring if it was dangerous, or reckless, or stupid – just feeling a total, all-consuming longing to tear off my clothes and sleep with someone. A particular someone.

  And Seth felt the same, I was sure. When we signed off the previous night, he’d said that, next time, it would be in real life. I didn’t care if we had a drink first, or even if he liked cats.

  Robbie, to his credit, managed to put up with my distractedness all day. It was only when we were cleaning up after the evening service had finished that he said, ‘Now. Listen up.’

  ‘What?’ I jerked out of my reverie.

  ‘I
know you’re my boss and everything. But you need to get your shit together, Zoë. Today you left the deep-fat fryer unattended and you could have burned the place down. You almost used the tongs I’d been turning chicken with to serve up the tofu. You would’ve sent a dessert out with beetroot ketchup on it instead of raspberry coulis if I hadn’t stopped you.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been all over the place. It’s lack of sleep. I’ll be fine tomorrow.’

  He gave me a hard stare. ‘You will not be fine until you get that man out of your system. When are you seeing him?’

  ‘Weeelll… he did mention meeting up on Thursday. But that’s your night off, and—’

  ‘Night off, schmight off. I’ll swap with you. You go off on your date, and afterwards maybe you’ll be able to get through a service without bringing shame on this pub.’

  I didn’t need telling twice. I thanked him, apologised again, and got straight on my phone to see if there was a local salon that could fit me in the next day to have every surplus hair on my body waxed off in preparation for my date with Seth. Bollocks to my feminist principles.

  Nine

  Passion is your governor today, Aquarius. Be guided by your heart, but remember that those who play with fire risk getting scorched.

  I lifted my martini glass, carefully so as not to spill any of the clear, icy liquid that filled it, and took a sip. My lipstick left a red smear on its rim, and I wondered what I was supposed to do about that – ignore it? Try to lick it off? Wipe it with a napkin? I’d never been much of a make-up wearer, but tonight I’d gone full femme fatale. My eyelashes were curled and mascaraed to within an inch of their lives. My freckles were blotted out with foundation. My eyebrows – normally almost invisible – had been pencilled in with countless tiny strokes and gelled into place.