When Polly Met Olly

by Zoe May

  ‘No. Not at all,’ I reply guiltily, thinking of all the text messages I’ve ignored from Olly over the past week. Come to think of it, he did mention wanting to make some ‘big changes’ to his life in one of the messages. Was shutting down his dating agency what he meant? He’d wanted to talk to me at the time, but I simply ignored him.

  ‘I stopped talking to him after you warned me about him,’ I admit.

  ‘Oh… right…’ Derek utters, glancing away. ‘So, you don’t know what he means?’

  ‘No.’ I shrug, although I don’t feel blasé. In fact, my stomach has started to fizz with a vague sense of anxiety. I may have been a bit pissed off with Olly after I found out that our date was simply his cookie-cutter idea of romance, but I don’t like the idea of something bad having happened to him, and the fact that he’s chosen to shut down his agency feels weirdly out of character. Only a few weeks ago, he was trying to poach clients from To the Moon & Back.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea what’s up with him,’ I reply, feeling a bit lost and helpless.

  ‘Odd,’ Derek adds and we both slip into a pensive reverie, while staring at the press release, as though by re-reading it, we might somehow deduce a hidden meaning in its text. After a minute or so, my phone buzzes. It’s a message from Scarlett saying that she’s waiting outside the building and wondering where I am. I managed to rope her into coming along to my first proper shoot. She’s bringing her reflector screen to make the pictures a little bit more professional.

  ‘I’d better go, Derek,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Derek answers, a little distractedly. He’s clearly still in shock from the press release and I can see why. He’s been in competition with Olly Corrigan for so long that Olly taking himself out of the game is going to completely change the business landscape for him. No wonder he’s been getting so many enquiries from new clients.

  ‘Let’s catch up later,’ I say, grabbing my camera and edging towards the door, leaving Derek still staring at his computer screen.

  ‘Sure,’ he mumbles, still totally perplexed. My long lunch is probably a good thing; it’ll give Derek time to wrap his head around this new development.

  As I slip out of the office, I can’t help wishing I had the same luxury. As grateful as I am to have my first proper client for Polly’s Pics, I feel like I need to take this new information in, rather than head to the shoot feeling oddly distracted and disconcerted. I get into the lift and glance at my watch as it slides down the shaft. I’m meant to be meeting my new client Becky in ten minutes and I really need to come across as professional as possible, which means putting Olly and his ‘personal circumstances’ out of my mind.

  Scarlett is lingering outside the building, looking a little out of place in her ratty old jumper and jeans in the middle of Wall Street. She eyes the suited office workers with a slightly wary, fearful look as they stride purposefully past her. This is most definitely not her domain. She is every inch the photographer, from the giant camera slung over her shoulder to the massive bag of supplies and the collapsed reflector screen tucked under her arm.

  ‘Hey,’ I greet her as I approach.

  She turns to me, her face transforming from unnerved to her usual self. We hug.

  ‘So, are you excited?’ she asks, giving my arm a squeeze.

  ‘Yeah, kind of,’ I reply vaguely as I wonder whether to tell her about the whole Olly thing that’s detracting from my excitement levels but then I think better of it. Now is not the time to get that off my chest, it’ll only screw up my focus even more ahead of the shoot.

  ‘Kind of?’ Scarlett raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Yeah. I mean yeah, I’m excited,’ I insist with a smile. ‘Really excited.’

  We walk a few blocks towards the café where we’ve agreed to do the shoot. Becky’s an avid reader and dreams of becoming a published author, so we agreed some bookish café shots would be good. Plus, the café is just down the road from where she works and she needed to fit the shoot into her busy day. I called the café yesterday to ask if it would be okay to shoot there and they helpfully promised to clear a table at the back. Scarlett and I arrive to find Becky having a cappuccino at a window seat. Her hands are shaking a little and she seems a on edge about the shoot, even though she’s clearly gone to a lot of effort to prepare for it. At least, it seems that way. She’s heavily made-up, which I suspect is for the benefit of the pictures although it could be her standard everyday look. And she’s very well dressed in clothes that look crisp and brand new. She looks brilliant, but I expect it’ll take a fair few shots to get her to relax and start to feel comfortable.

  I decide to start the shoot with a couple of pictures of her reading in the café, so she can get used to having her photo taken without having to engage much with the camera. She’s brought along a book she’s reading, so she pretends to read it while Scarlett holds up a spotlight to brighten her face. I snap away. In the first few pictures, she’s a little stiff. There’s some tension around her eyes but the more I snap away, the more she starts to relax. I think she actually starts to read the book and a few pictures later, I get a perfect shot.

  We then take a few shots of her enjoying a cappuccino. She’s still a little stiff so I decide to try something out. She’s into romance novels so I suggest a little technique, getting her to imagine a romantic scenario. I ask her if she could be on a date with anyone, who it would be. Without skipping a beat, she responds, ‘Ryan Gosling’. I then get her to pretend she’s sitting across from Ryan Gosling.

  ‘Okay, so Ryan’s just bought you a cappuccino,’ I say, glancing at the cappuccino that Scarlett fetched a few minutes ago. ‘Give him your best thank-you-Ryan-you’re-the-best smile.’

  Becky cracks up and then starts smiling playfully.

  ‘Ryan just suggested the best date ever. He wants to go for a candlelit meal.’

  She smiles into the camera and raises an eyebrow suggestively. It’s working! My weird plan is working. She no longer seems awkward!

  I take a few more pictures and then we head outside and take some really nice headshots against a wall. It’s a bright, clear day with and with Scarlett holding up the reflector screen, the fresh February sunshine lights up Becky’s face, giving her a beautiful glow. By this point, she’s relaxed and got into it, and she smiles effortlessly. I take a few more in front of some trees in a nearby park. We manage to get some great shots. Becky dons a blazer and we take a few more full body slightly corporate looking shots, which show off her sleek figure for dating, but which she also hopes to use professionally. Becky’s phone starts buzzing.

  ‘Urgghh, sorry,’ she groans. ‘My boss needs me back in the office. We’re working on a really demanding project and apparently the client’s already arrived for our afternoon meeting.’ She rolls her eyes.

  ‘No problem!’ I insist. ‘We’ve got plenty of photos.’

  ‘Oh great.’ Becky stashes her phone back in her handbag. ‘Thank you,’ she says.

  ‘No, thank you!’ I insist. ‘It’s been fun!’

  ‘Excellent!’ Becky grins. ‘You know…’ she ventures, looking a little pensive. ‘I was a bit nervous about this. If I’m totally honest, I was kind of dreading it, but I just knew I needed some decent photos, and actually, it’s been surprisingly fun. I’ve really enjoyed it.’

  I smile broadly. Her words are music to my ears. ‘I’m so glad!’

  Becky beams back, hesitates for a second and then pulls me into a hug. I have to pull my camera out of the way, but she hugs me tightly and gives Scarlett a hug too. I get the feeling the shoot has meant something to her, perhaps it’s helped with confidence-building since she seems a lot more relaxed now compared to how nervous she was when we first met up.

  ‘Thanks guys!’ she says, waving over her shoulder as she turns to head back to her office.

  Becky and I wave goodbye.

  ‘Well, that went well,’ Scarlett says as she collapses her reflector screen.

  ‘Yeah, really
well!’ I echo, and I mean it. The shoot really did go incredibly well. Despite finding out about Olly’s press release just beforehand, I somehow managed to completely put it out of my mind. What started as a deliberate effort not to think about him quickly became natural. While I was taking pictures, Olly was the furthest thing from my mind. All that mattered was the shots. But that’s what happens when I’m in the zone and doing what I love: real life just somehow ceases to exist and all I care about are the pictures.

  Scarlett finishes collapsing her reflector screen and zips it up inside its bag. I place my camera in its case. I can’t help feeling a twinge of pride and anticipation as I think about all the images on the sim card; I’m already itching to get home this evening and edit them. As I sling my camera bag over my shoulder and Scarlett and begin walking down the street, my thoughts return to Olly. After we’ve chatted a little bit about the shoot, I decide to fill her in.

  ‘Do you remember that guy I told you about? The dating agency one?’

  ‘Derek?’ Scarlett asks.

  ‘No! Not Derek! The hot one – Olly Corrigan. The one with the tattoos?’

  ‘Oh yeah!’ Scarlett nods. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Well, he’s…’ I pause, not quite knowing where to start. Do I tell her about the messages we sent each other when he was masquerading as Eve? Or start with an account of our incredible date? Or do I simply tell her that I started to have feelings for him? I need to fill her in on why I began ignoring his texts, not to mention the recent news about how he’s shutting down his business. And I still don’t even know quite why that’s bothering me so much or how I feel about it. So much has happened since I last saw Scarlett and I should probably be heading back to work, not filling her in on everything.

  ‘What?’ she presses me.

  I glance at my watch. I still have half an hour until I said I’d be back at the office; not a hell of a lot of time, but I doubt – given the news he’s just received – that Derek’s going to be watching the clock.

  ‘Let’s go for a coffee,’ I say, gesturing back towards the café.

  ‘Okay, cool, let’s do it,’ Scarlett agrees.

  We head back inside the café, grab coffees and sandwiches and then we sit at a table and I tell her everything. Scarlett listens patiently to the whole story while eating a cheese toastie and sipping on a mocha latte.

  ‘So, hang on a minute,’ she says, once I’ve got it all out. ‘You got pissed off with this guy because he took other girls to the same restaurant and museum as he took you.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ I scoff, ‘when you put it like that, it sounds terrible, but it was more about the way he treated Leila. She was his client and he preyed on her. He exploited her desire to fall in love, led her on, and then never called her again. Then he had the audacity to kick her off his agency’s books!’

  Scarlett holds up her hands in mock surrender. ‘Okay, okay, that is pretty bad, but don’t you think you’re being a bit hard on him? You haven’t even heard his side of the story and anyway, none of us are perfect. It’s not like you’ve never done anything bad in relationships, just luckily for you, Olly doesn’t know anyone who knows you and so he can’t gossip like Derek’s doing.’

  ‘Derek wasn’t gossiping, he was just trying to warn me,’ I insist, taking a bit of my sandwich.

  ‘I’m not saying he wasn’t well-intentioned. Derek probably did just want to warn you, but I feel like maybe you shouldn’t have just cut Olly out without talking to him. You clearly care about him or you wouldn’t be bothered about why he’s shut his business down,’ Scarlett points out.

  ‘Suppose,’ I admit, a little reluctantly.

  Scarlett takes a sip of her drink.

  ‘I guess I’d better message him,’ I say eventually.

  ‘Yep, I think you’d better,’ Polly agrees.

  I get my phone out of my bag and draft a message.

  Chapter 29

  When I messaged Olly at lunch, I didn’t expect him to reply straight away. After all, I have been ghosting him, but he replied instantly and suggested we meet somewhere private to talk. I ventured that we go to a bar, but Olly said it ‘might not be quiet enough’ and suggested we meet at his office instead. So here I am, standing outside the slick offices of Elite Love Match, taking a deep breath in an effort to calm my nerves before slipping through the revolving doors and striding in. The receptionist greets me with recognition.

  ‘Hi Polly,’ she says with a friendly smile. ‘Olly’s waiting for you upstairs. Just head up.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I reply, smiling politely back before heading over to the lift.

  I get inside and press the button for Olly’s floor. I quickly check my make-up, dabbing my nose with powder as the lift shoots up the shaft. For someone who’s been trying to distance herself mentally from Olly, I’m certainly not acting like I’m over him. My head is all over the pace and I don’t know what to feel. I’m torn between concern and yearning, and annoyance and hurt, and all the feelings are jostling for prime position in my mind. The lift doors open and even though it’s the evening, the office is still bustling. In fact, Olly’s staff look so busy and pre-occupied that they don’t even give me their usual once over and instead just busy themselves with work as I head to Olly’s office. I knock gently on the door even though I can see him inside through the glass. He looks over from behind his monitor and gestures for me to come in.

  I push the door open and there I am. Back to Olly. His office smells of his aftershave and the warm musky scent makes my heart flutter, immediately taking me back to the night we spend together, cuddled up in his bed, talking late into the night, wrapped in each other’s arms.

  ‘Hi,’ I mutter, shuffling over to his desk

  ‘Hi Polly,’ Olly replies, his expression still blank and unreadable. He’s sitting stiffly at his desk, looking ridiculously handsome as usual, and he’s dressed in a typically outlandish outfit of a yellow argyle jumper teamed with black and white striped trousers, but something doesn’t feel right. His jaw looks tense.

  I sit down in the seat opposite him. Our eyes lock. His are sad and uneasy, and immediately, I feel that magnetic draw to him. I want – need – to find out whether everything’s okay with him. All the feelings I’ve been suppressing all week begin flooding back. Regardless of everything Derek said, and despite me convincing myself that Olly’s probably just another player, I have to know that he’s okay, because I care about him. In spite of everything, I really do care.

  ‘What’s happened Olly? Why are you closing down? Are you okay? Has something happened?’ I blurt out.

  Olly laughs. He just seems amused.

  ‘What?’ I ask as I watch his lips twisting into a smile.

  ‘That’s one of your things,’ he says, as though making a mental note. ‘You don’t just ask one question, you ask a series, like a torrent of questions. I noticed it at the weekend too.’

  ‘Oh, haha! Right…’ I smile awkwardly. ‘Well, can you answer them please?!’ I ask, mirroring his playful tone.

  ‘Okay. What happened? Nothing. I just did a lot of thinking. Why am I closing down? Because I’m a phoney. Am I okay? Yes, I guess I’m okay. Has something happened? Yes, I’ve made a decision that I want to be less of a phoney, I want to change.’

  ‘Wait, what?’ I frown as I try to wrap my head around his answers.

  ‘See why people usually ask just one question at a time?’ Olly jokes. ‘Don’t change though. I like it.’ He smiles affectionately and it’s as though I haven’t been ignoring him for the past week. Despite my coldness, he seems warm and happy to see me.

  ‘Yeah, I can see that. So, what do you mean, you’ve “done a lot of thinking and you’ve made a decision to change”?’ I ask, doing air quotes.

  ‘Well…’ Olly glances away and a pained look replaces his playfulness. All of a sudden, it occurs to me that maybe I’m prying. Maybe this is none of my business at all. As long as Olly’s healthy and nothing terrible has happened to him
, then is it really any of my business to pry into his personal life, especially since I’ve ignored him for a week?

  ‘Erm…’ Olly hesitates as though he can’t quite find the right words.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’

  Olly raises an eyebrow, looking perplexed.

  ‘I mean, I haven’t spoken to you for a week, I don’t really have any right to just rock up at your workplace and ask you to tell me all about your deepest darkest thoughts.’

  Olly laughs. ‘What if I like sharing my deepest darkest thoughts with you?’ he asks, holding my gaze.

  Instantly, I feel a surge of chemistry flood through me. That undeniable spark. Why is he so irresistible? Despite everything Derek’s said and despite a week of resolutely ignoring him, how is it that all I need to do is gaze into his gorgeous brown eyes to be reduced to mush?

  I look away, breaking eye contact. ‘I’m sorry I ignored your messages,’ I say. ‘I started to have doubts because—’

  ‘Because of Derek,’ Olly finishes my sentence.

  ‘Yep, basically,’ I admit. I may be dropping Derek in it, but it doesn’t really matter anymore since they’re no longer business competitors.

  ‘I knew that was why.’ Olly sighs. Derek’s not my biggest fan, and to be honest, with good reason.’ Olly smiles sadly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

  Olly leans back in his chair, looking deflated. ‘I haven’t always been as respectful as I should have been towards women,’ he admits, reluctantly meeting my gaze. His expression seems truly contrite and I can tell he’s been doing some serious soul-searching. ‘I’ve dated some people I probably shouldn’t have and maybe I didn’t treat them quite as well as I should have done.’

  ‘You mean Leila,’ I suggest.

  ‘Exactly. I knew Derek would have told you about her,’ Olly says sheepishly.

  ‘Yeah, I was a bit disappointed,’ I confess. As I say the words out loud, I realise – with a pang of emotion – just how true they are. I was really, truly, disappointed in Olly, and instead of acknowledging those feelings, I’ve spent the whole week pushing them down by ignoring all of Olly’s messages and throwing myself into building my new business. And until now, it’s worked a treat. I force myself to look at Olly and as silly as it seems – considering we’ve only had one proper date – my eyes have gone glassy with tears.