Then I Met You

by Dunn, Matt

  As their respective friends hurried out of the pub, Lisa sat there for a second or two, dumbfounded, then she gently but firmly removed Simon’s hand from on top of hers. ‘I’m sorry about that . . .’ she said, at exactly the same time as Simon’s ‘I had no idea . . .’ Then they both burst out laughing.

  ‘Can you believe the two of them?’

  Simon shook his head and peered towards the door, as if he were expecting Jess and Will to be watching them through the frosted glass. ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘She really might lose her job?’

  ‘So Will said.’

  ‘You don’t think . . . ?’

  ‘They’re making it up? I would very much doubt it,’ said Simon, and Lisa blew a raspberry with her lips.

  ‘They left their drinks,’ she said, after a pause.

  ‘They did.’

  ‘So should we . . . ?’

  Simon slid Jess’s wine glass towards her, then he picked up Will’s bottle. ‘Rude not to.’ Then he made a face like a lightbulb had just appeared above his head. ‘And how about some crisps?’ he said, brandishing Jess’s credit card like a referee sending someone off.

  Lisa looked at him for a moment, then picked up Jess’s glass and clinked it against Will’s untouched beer.

  ‘I like your style,’ she said.

  And, to her surprise, she realised that she meant it.

  Chapter 13

  Simon stifled a burp as he glanced back towards their table. They’d finished the drinks Will and Jess had left, along with two packets of crisps (cheese and onion – his favourite, as well as Lisa’s, it had turned out), then decided they were still hungry, but the best the pub could do was more crisps, so – with an hour or so to go until the photographer was due – Lisa had suggested they take the short walk back to where they’d started this whole extravaganza, to try some of the street food they hadn’t had the chance to sample earlier.

  And though at first he’d been keen to get the photos over and done with, he’d been surprised by how glad he felt when Lisa had announced she was hungry. As time had gone on, Simon had begun to . . . well, not enjoy himself, exactly, but there was something about Lisa that was . . . ‘intriguing’ was perhaps too strong a word, but ‘interesting’ wasn’t. Perhaps he’d been missing out on female company, he had to concede. Women were . . . vibrant. Animated. Chatty. Different. At least, this woman was.

  She was pretty too – as he’d noticed when she’d stormed up to his car earlier – and (despite first appearances) had a good sense of humour, was quick to laugh at things (including herself) . . . Everything he might look for in a girlfriend, if he had been looking for one. Plus, she’d obviously had some bad luck on the dating front, and strangely, Simon was feeling a bit of a responsibility to prove to her that all men weren’t bastards – something he understood was a common assumption.

  It had even crossed his mind that it might be an opportunity to try out a bit of what he understood was ‘banter’, to see just how rusty he was, putting any faux pas he made (there had been several – and no doubt would be several more) down to rustiness, though given just how incompatible the two of them were, he’d decided not to bother. After all, what was the point of investing in lottery tickets if you didn’t want to win the jackpot?

  So they’d sat back down at their original table, got themselves the same drinks, and now he found himself in the queue for the burger van, relieved that Lisa had been very specific about her medium cheeseburger, extra onions, ketchup and mayo on the side, plus a side of fries to share – and he may have been clutching at straws, but Simon’s jaw had almost hit the floor at the hint of intimacy that had implied, until he’d realised this may simply have been one of those tricks women sometimes used not to appear to be ordering something unhealthy, even though they’d then proceed to gannet down the majority of it. It had been one of Alice’s tactics, and the memory made him smile and feel sad at the same time.

  In truth, he’d had his eye on something Vietnamese, but a cheeseburger would do, and ‘mirroring’ was something apparently helpful when trying to get on with someone – and he and Lisa still had a way to go to make up for their original frostiness – so he’d decided he’d order the same. And while he felt a little bad that someone else was picking up the bill, he’d forked out for enough bad dates in his time. Besides, like she’d said, Jess (and the Gazette – seeing as Simon and Lisa were providing them with unpaid content) owed them.

  ‘What can I get you, love?’

  The woman in the burger booth was smiling at him, so Simon narrowed his eyes at the board to his left, even though he already knew what he wanted. ‘Two cheeseburgers, extra onions, ketchup and mayo on the side, please. Plus one order of fries. To share,’ he said, liking how the word sounded.

  ‘How would you like the burgers?’

  ‘Um, medium?’ he said, more of a question than a statement, and the woman pressed a couple of keys on an iPad.

  ‘Nineteen seventy-eight?’

  It took him a second or two to realise she wasn’t trying to guess his birth year, so he held the credit card up. ‘Contactless?’ she said, and he smiled grimly, thinking that would probably be a fitting description of how he and Lisa had ended the date earlier, and pressed the card against the monochromatic screen. After a moment, one that lasted so long Simon hoped Jess’s card wouldn’t be declined, the small machine buzzed and spewed out his receipt.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ said the woman. ‘Connection problems.’

  Tell me about it, thought Simon.

  ‘Take a seat,’ she said, presenting him with a metal spiked stand with a wooden block on the end with ‘13’ written on it. ‘Someone will bring them over when they’re ready.’

  He nodded his understanding. ‘Great. We’re . . .’ He pointed to where Lisa was sitting, then frowned at the marker. ‘You don’t have a different one, do you? With a different number?’

  The woman peered uncomprehendingly at him for a second or two, then she glanced at Lisa and smiled. ‘First date, is it?’

  ‘And the last one,’ he said.

  ‘Need all the help you can get?’

  ‘More like she’s a bit superstitious.’

  He handed the marker back to her, and the woman rolled her eyes good-naturedly and exchanged his ‘13’ for a ‘7’ – something Simon was sure Lisa would be more than happy about – then he helped himself to two sets of cutlery and pushed his way back through the crowds to where she was sitting.

  ‘They’ll bring them over,’ he said, setting the marker down between them on the table and sitting down.

  ‘Great.’

  ‘So.’

  ‘So . . .’

  He leaned back on the bench, forgetting it didn’t have a back, and nearly toppled over, managing – just – to turn it into a comedy routine by picking up his non-alcoholic beer and staring at it accusingly in a ‘how strong is this?’ way, but when he looked at Lisa for acknowledgement, she seemed to be assessing more than just his comedic timing.

  ‘Margate born and bred, eh?’ he said, desperate to divert the focus away from his own awkwardness.

  Lisa smiled politely. ‘That’s me.’

  ‘And you work in . . . ?’

  ‘Margate too.’

  ‘No, what field?’

  ‘I don’t work in a field. That would make me a farmer.’ She mimed a drum roll and cymbal hit, adding the badum-tish for good measure. ‘Publishing.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Doing what, exactly?’

  ‘I design book covers.’

  ‘Wow! So you’re an artist?’

  ‘I suppose I am, yes.’

  Lisa was looking delighted at his observation, but Simon couldn’t think how to follow it up. ‘Great,’ he said, before admitting, ‘I don’t know much about art.’

  ‘But you know what you like?’

  Simon recognised the line, but again drew a blank. ‘Not really, no. I just never . . .’ He shifted position on the bench, took another swig of be
er and tried again. ‘So, would I have read – or rather seen – any of your work?’

  ‘Not unless you’ve a reading age of five to seven years. Or you’ve got a secret lovechild that Jess didn’t mention.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘They’re mainly for children’s books.’

  Simon acknowledged the comment with a smile, then he tried – unsuccessfully – to suppress a broader one as Lisa’s stomach let out a loud rumble.

  ‘Sorry.’ She grinned sheepishly. ‘I’m just a bit . . .’

  ‘Hungry? Me too. Though evidently not quite as . . .’

  ‘Audibly?’

  ‘Exactly.’ He drummed his fingers on the table, then glanced back over his shoulder at the burger booth. ‘What on earth’s keeping those burgers?’ he said, wondering whether he should go over and check. ‘It says they’re organic. Maybe they have to kill the cow.’ Lisa’s face had morphed into a grimace, so Simon did the same. ‘Humanely, I mean.’ He sighed, picked his bottle back up, held it up to the light, then put it back down again, taking care to locate it exactly on the condensation ring it had left on the table. ‘And no, I don’t have any secret lovechildren,’ he said, desperate to fill the lull in conversation. ‘Not that I know about, anyway. So I suppose I could have. Which would be a shame. You know, to have one and not know about it, rather than have one . . .’ He stopped talking, conscious he was tying himself in knots again. ‘I just meant, you know, that I love kids – not in that way, obviously – and that I’d like to have them one day. Do you want kids?’ He caught himself again. ‘Sorry. A little early in the “date”’ – he grinned as he air-quoted – ‘for that kind of talk. Back to you. Or rather, your job.’ He glanced around. ‘Do you enjoy it?’

  ‘I love it,’ said Lisa. ‘Working with authors, discussing their ideas, translating them into something the publisher thinks is commercial, then trying to convince the author . . . But the best bit is getting to present them with the finished article, when they finally see their germ of an idea – their months, and sometimes years, of typing – is actually a living and breathing book . . . And there’s a lot of pressure not to let them down, you know? To make them proud of what they’ve created.’

  It was the most animated he’d seen her, and Simon made a mental note to return the conversation to this particular subject if things began to flag.

  ‘I can imagine. It sounds amazing!’

  Lisa’s face had lit up even more, so Simon congratulated himself with his successful repartee, then he realised it was simply because their burgers had arrived. He sat back as the waiter deposited a tray of condiments on the table, then watched, fascinated, as Lisa picked up the mayonnaise, removed the top of the bun from her burger, and squeezed a third of the bottle’s contents on to its underside.

  ‘Fancy some burger with your mayo?’ he said, and Lisa gave him a look before she carefully placed the top of the bun back where it had come from and gave it a couple of swivels, as if to ensure the mayonnaise was evenly coating the burger.

  ‘What are you doing that for?’ he asked, as she took her phone out again and photographed her plate from several angles. ‘Evidence?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘In case you get food poisoning?’

  ‘Oh. Right. No. Instagram.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit . . . weird? Posting pictures of what you eat?’

  ‘Not at all! My feed’s full of shots like this.’

  ‘Hence the reason it’s called a “feed”!’ Simon waited for Lisa to respond to what he thought was a pretty good joke, but she was too busy finding the appropriate filter. ‘Did you want to . . . ?’ He slid his plate towards her. ‘Or is mine not as photogenic?’

  ‘No, that’s fine,’ said Lisa. ‘Posting photos of your own food is fine, but someone else’s . . .’ She made a face, to suggest the concept was a little dodgy, and Simon nodded.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, though he wasn’t.

  ‘Right then.’ Lisa unwrapped her knife from where it had been swaddled in a serviette with her fork, then began cutting her burger into tiny triangles. ‘What?’ she said, noticing Simon’s horrified look.

  ‘It’s a burger. Not a Victoria sponge. Or are we going to be playing some form of food Trivial Pursuit?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to eat it with my knife and fork.’

  ‘Phew!’ said Simon, exaggeratedly. ‘Though that’s as good as.’

  ‘And what would be wrong with it if I did?’

  ‘Because it’s a sandwich.’

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘Hello? Piece of bread, filling, another piece of bread . . . I think if you looked in the dictionary under “sandwich”, that’s possibly what you’d find.’

  ‘And what if I looked in the dictionary under “pedant”?’ Lisa picked up the ketchup bottle, deposited a dollop on her plate, then handed it to him. ‘Anyway, there’s a method to my madness.’

  ‘Which you’re going to have to explain.’

  ‘I always like mayo on my burger. And sometimes a little ketchup. This way, I can control exactly how much.’ She indicated her plate with a wave of her hand, like a game-show hostess showing off a prize, and launched into a demonstration, picking up one of the triangles, dipping the pointed end into the ketchup, then popping it into her mouth. ‘See?’ she said, once she’d swallowed it. ‘Bite-size pieces, no mess, and if I want ketchup, all I have to do is dip.’

  ‘Which you could have done by picking up the whole, undivided burger, and dipping the bit you were about to take a bite from.’

  ‘But then you get ketchup on the outer circumference of the bun, rather than on the meat, which means it’s harder to eat without making a mess around your mouth and ending up looking like the Joker.’

  ‘It’s a burger. It’s supposed to be messy.’

  ‘Two words,’ she said, giving him a look. ‘Coffee, tea!’

  Simon watched her for a moment, trying to decide if Lisa was a control freak or if she was just plain weird and this kind of thing made perfect sense to her, then he decided that judging someone based on the way they ate a burger was probably a little shallow. Besides, Lisa was already on her second ‘slice’, so Simon picked his own burger up, suddenly extremely self-conscious about how to eat it.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘But don’t you think you should perhaps . . . let yourself go a bit?’

  ‘Look who’s talking!’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Jess told me the reason you haven’t been on a date for the last two years was because you’re . . . picky.’

  Simon’s heart had skipped a beat. But being called ‘picky’ was a lot better than having to talk about the actual reason.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘That you’re not open to new things. Or new people.’

  ‘I am! Just not . . .’ He indicated the two of them, then expanded the gesture to encompass the whole venue, worried Lisa might take it personally.

  ‘Yes, well.’ Lisa helped herself to a chip from the fake-newspaper-lined mini metal bucket everywhere seemed to insist on serving them in these days, and pointed at him with it. ‘You’ve obviously never been in love.’

  Simon had been about to take a bite of his burger, but at Lisa’s comment he froze and put it back down, untouched, on his plate.

  ‘Why would you say that?’

  ‘Because if you had . . .’ Lisa dunked the chip into her dollop of ketchup, then popped it into her mouth. ‘. . . you’d be keen to find it again,’ she said, between chews. ‘And the only way to do that is to . . .’ She mimicked his earlier gesture, and Simon smiled wryly.

  ‘Yes, well. There’s love, and there’s love.’

  ‘It’s all love.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. I don’t think you should generalise.’

  ‘A statement which, in itself, is a generalisation.’

  ‘What? No, I . . .’ He sighed, and tried to ignore Lisa’s victorious grin.

  ‘So you have be
en in love?’

  ‘Yup.’ Simon did his best to keep his voice level. ‘With my last girlfriend, actually.’

  ‘And what happened?’ Lisa was regarding her plate curiously, perhaps choosing which triangle of burger to eat next, then she finally selected a wedge and popped it into her mouth, evidently deciding to eat this one without ketchup. ‘Didn’t she feel the same way?’ she asked through a mouthful of food, shielding her chewing with her hand.

  ‘Oh no. We were in love all right. She was pretty much perfect, actually.’

  Lisa indicated he should wait until she finished chewing. ‘Bummer,’ she said eventually, then she immediately looked like she felt awful at how insensitively trivial that sounded. ‘Sorry. Do you mind talking about it?’

  ‘In general? Or right now?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘A bit, yes,’ he said, aware that was possibly the understatement of the century.

  ‘Right.’ Lisa waited for a moment, took a sip of her white wine, then another one, and then said: ‘But would you?’

  ‘Fine.’ Simon picked his beer bottle up, checked the level and took a swig. ‘Where did you want me to start?’ he said, hoping that answering specific questions might be easier than just blurting stuff out. And might get it over with quicker too.

  ‘Did she have a name?’ asked Lisa, then she facepalmed. ‘Sorry, that was insensitive too,’ she said, checking she hadn’t smeared mayonnaise on her forehead as a result. ‘What was her . . . I mean, what’s her name?’

  ‘Alice.’

  ‘That’s a lovely name,’ said Lisa. ‘Sorry, I sound like I’m addressing a toddler. And were you together for a long time?’

  ‘Six months. And perhaps that doesn’t sound like enough time to fall in love with someone . . .’

  ‘Of course it does. After all, people fall in love at first sight. Not everyone, obviously. With some people it can take a while before . . . Sorry, I’ll shut up.’