by Zoe May
Our fake honeymoon didn’t just change our lives romantically, but professionally too. I stayed in touch with Lars after I got back home and donated to a few of his charities like I’d promised. Then one evening, Will and I were watching the news together and he was complaining about the negative way social issues are covered, with stories offering nothing but an opportunity for people to moan or feel bad. I suddenly remembered about Lars and suggested that Will get in touch with him to write about some of his initiatives.
Will ended up writing a few articles covering some of the work Lars’s charities are doing. He really dug into the stories, finding the human-interest angles, and then had a brainwave for a website featuring stories about current social issues told in a relatable way, with calls to action at the end, showing readers how they can get involved either by donating, signing petitions or simply sharing the story on social media. Will created a business plan and Lars loved the idea so much that he gave Will funding to launch the project as a proper enterprise. The site went live a few months ago and it’s already proving a success, with each article attracting thousands of hits and a substantial amount of donations in return. Will’s been loving it. He gets to chase stories like he’s always done but while covering important issues, he’s also making a difference. He’s even started appearing on TV again, with one of his old contacts from Sky inviting him to discuss a few of the social issues covered by the site. It’s been great to see Will get his lust for life back.
But he’s not the only one who’s succeeding in business. I managed to secure some press coverage for Medhi and Amira just like I’d promised myself I would as a way of alleviating my guilty conscience over faking being newlyweds. They still think Will and I are married, but I don’t feel so bad now that their honeymoon suite is booked out thanks to the national newspaper feature I managed to arrange for them. In the process of contacting travel editors, I started making a new contacts list and ever since, I’ve been dipping my toe in the travel PR market, collaborating with a few boutique hotels looking to raise their profile. It’s added another string to my bow and it’s proving lucrative, helping me save money for the deposit I’m putting together for a house with Hera, a permanent house. Even though we moved into our little terraced house around six months ago, it’s rented and it’s still my dream to have a proper home.
Did I mention that Will lives with us too? We moved in together fairly quickly, but I needed to get out of my mum’s place and Will was living in a cramped studio flat so it just made sense to move in together. I was a bit worried about it at first, particularly as Hera would be with us. Although Will adores her, I was concerned that living with her might be another story – but things have been great. We’ve had a few challenges. Will’s definitely not the tidiest of people and his habit of leaving his stuff strewn about everywhere does annoy me, but then he finds the way I take up half the bedroom with my clothes rails annoying too. On the whole, we get along amazingly well and it’s been lovely having him around. There have been times when I can barely get my head around how my life ever felt normal without him. He really does feel like the missing piece, not just to me, but also to Hera. My mum is over the moon that we’re together and has practically already adopted Will as her new son-in-law. Our relationship makes what Leroy and I had feel like child’s play. I thought I was in love back then, but it wasn’t love. It was just lust and loneliness. With Will, it’s the real deal. I love everything about him, from his kind. sweet nature that I fell in love with back at school, to the adorable nurturing way he is with Hera and his passion for his work. He’s just incredible and I feel so lucky that we found our way back to each other after so many years.
I open my backpack and pull out a canvas sack.
‘What’s that?’ Will asks as I place it down amongst all the picnic food.
I take out the tagine dish inside.
Will raises an eyebrow. ‘You made a tagine?’ he asks.
I’ve been building up to this moment for weeks, but my stomach is swarming with butterflies. I look between Will and Hera’s curious faces.
‘Not quite. Open it,’ I suggest.
‘Okay!’ Will raises an eyebrow and reaches for the lid.
I brace myself as he lifts the lid to reveal a cheap costume jewellery ring I picked up in town. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s only meant to be symbolic.
‘What?’ Will’s eyes widen. Our eyes lock and it feels like it’s just me, him and Hera in the entire world. The park shrinks away, the sounds drowned out. The kids playing, the dog walkers, the ducks quacking by the lake disappear and it’s just us on this picnic blanket, with a ring between us.
‘Will you … Will you marry me?’ I ask, my words choked.
I can’t believe I’m doing this and yet it feels completely right. Will’s been quite gentle and tentative in his approach to our relationship, knowing how hurt I was by Leroy. I know he loves me and he’s willing to take things slowly. I don’t think he realises I’m ready now. I’m ready for a life-long commitment. I’ve never felt more ready to be with anyone in my life. I want to make things official and become a proper family.
‘Aren’t I supposed to ask this?’ Will says, a grin spreading over his face.
‘I’m a modern woman, Will!’ I reply, grinning back.
‘I can’t believe it!’ Will gazes in shock at the ring lying in the dish.
‘I love you, Will. I never thought I’d be this happy, I really didn’t. You’re the one. I want to spend my life with you.’ I pick up Hera and pull her onto my lap, blinking back tears. ‘We want to spend our life with you!’
Will picks up the ring. It’s a symbolic ring really, since I don’t think men wear engagement rings. Will holds it between his fingers and for a terrifying moment, I fear he’s going to say, ‘No’, but then he looks up at me, his eyes as damp and full of emotion as my own.
‘Of course, I’ll marry you, Nat,’ he says. ‘I love you.’ He looks at Hera. ‘I love you both.’
‘We love you!’ I gush as I reach over and slide the ring onto his finger, my heart bursting with joy.
Hera claps her hands together and we all laugh. Will holds out his hand, taking in the ring.
‘We’re engaged!’ he enthuses, his eyes sparkling, before leaning forward and sealing the deal with a kiss.
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Acknowledgements
A huge thanks to my fantastic editor Charlotte Mursell for her invaluable editorial insights. I’m so fortunate to work with such a talented editor.
If you loved As Luck Would Have It then turn the page for an exclusive extract from When Polly Met Olly …
Chapter 1
Surely, I’m not qualified to be a matchmaker?!
You’d think getting a job at a dating agency might actually require you to have found love, or at least be good at dating, but apparently not. I’ve been single for three years and I haven’t had a date for six months, yet I’m pretty sure I’m nailing this interview.
‘So, what kind of message would you send Erica?’ Derek asks, handing me a print-out showing a dating profile of a pretty, tanned brunette. Derek is the boss of To the Moon & Back dating agency, although with his nicotine-stained teeth, lurid purple shirt stretching over his giant pot belly and cramped city office, he’s not exactly what I imagine when I think of Cupid.
What kind of message would I sent Erica? When Derek says ‘you’, he doesn’t mean me, as in Polly Wood. He means me pretending to be 34-year-old bachelor Andy Graham, because that’s what my job as a matchmaker would involve. While Andy, and the rest of the busy singletons on the agency’s books, are out earning the big bucks, too busy to trawl internet dating sites looking for love, I’ll be sitting here with Derek, firing off messages on their behalf in the hope of clinching dates. It’s a little mo
rally questionable I suppose, since the women will be chatting to me beforehand, and will no doubt become enamoured with my witty repartee and effortless charm, but to be honest, I haven’t really given the moral side of it much thought. According to Derek, it’s what all dating agencies do, and anyway, ethics somehow stop being so important when you really need cash.
I try to put myself in the mindset of Andy, while thinking up a message for Erica. I only know about him from reading a form he’s supposedly filled in, which Derek gave me to study five minutes earlier. According to the form, Andy is an ex-army officer turned property surveyor. He grew up in a small town in Ohio where his family still reside. His younger brother, aged 31, has already settled down with a wife and three kids, and reading in between the lines, I get the impression that Andy feels he’s beginning to lag behind. He works long hours, reads Second World War history books in his spare time, enjoys visiting aviation museums and likes to play tennis at the weekends. Oh, and he has a penchant for Thai food.
I take a look at Erica’s profile. She’s 32, lives in the Upper East Side and works as a fashion buyer. Her interests are listed as: ‘yoga, fine dining, dinner parties (hosting and attending!), dancing, cocktails with the girls, travelling, tennis, and festivals’. Erica sounds cool. She sounds fun. She seems like a girl about town. And to be perfectly honest, she strikes me as a bit too cool for Andy. I can’t imagine her wanting to visit aviation museums or discuss Second World War history. But for all I know, Andy could have stunningly handsome looks that somehow make up for his yawn-inducing interests. But from what I do know so far, he and Erica hardly seem like a great match. I glance up at Derek, scanning his face for any sign that this might be a trick question, but he simply looks back, keen with anticipation. He doesn’t seem like he’s testing me; he clearly thinks Erica is in Andy’s league, although as far as I can see, the only thing they have in common is tennis.
‘So, what do you think?’ Derek presses me.
‘Erm, I’d keep the opener light. From Erica’s profile, you can tell she’s a breezy, happy kind of person. I’d try to mirror that tone,’ I tell him, biding time while I attempt to think of a witty opener.
‘Good tactic,’ Derek agrees with an encouraging nod.
‘Thanks,’ I reply as I desperately try to come up with an attention-grabbing message. Something that will capture Erica’s attention among the deluge of ‘hey, how r u? x’ type openers she probably receives all the time. But what can I write? What could Andy possibly say that would grab Erica’s attention when their only mutual interest is tennis?! Then suddenly, it hits me. I smile to myself.
‘I’d probably go with something along the lines of “I’m glad to see you’re a tennis player, because I’m going to court you”,’ I tell Derek.
He snorts with laughter. ‘Good one! Cheeky! I think Erica would like that.’
I grin, feeling a flush of pride. ‘Thank you.’
‘Great line! Very good!’ Derek laughs.
‘Thanks. I mean, why play singles when you can play doubles?’ I add, cringing internally. I think I might be taking the tennis puns too far now. Fortunately, Derek laughs again, clearly not adverse to a good sports-themed chat-up line.
‘Indeed!’ he says.
A couple of cars honk loudly outside and for a second, I’m taken out of this surreal alternative reality of pretending to be Andy messaging Erica and it hits me that the real me has probably got this job. In fact, I know I have. I’m 99.99 per cent sure. I can tell by the way Derek is regarding me like a proud father. I can tell in the easy, relaxed way we’ve been chatting the entire interview. We seem to have really hit it off, which is a little disconcerting seeing as I’m, you know, a respectable (okay, at least semi-respectable) person and he’s a middle-aged owner of a slightly shady dating agency. Maybe it’s because I’m British, having grown up in Cornwall before moving to the States when I was 18. Derek said he used to date a Brit, recounting how they went on holiday to Cornwall one summer. He even described it as ‘heavenly’. Or, perhaps we click because we went to the same university. Derek’s barely looked at my CV but he glanced at it for a second as I came in and when he saw that I went to Wittingon Liberal Arts College, that was it. He was gone. Even though our degrees were thirty years apart, he was treating me like an old chum, reminiscing about his times at the college bar, where he insisted with a chortle and a wink that he’d had ‘many a wild night’.
He went a bit misty-eyed talking about those days, which isn’t that surprising really. I only left three years ago and sometimes even I get misty-eyed thinking about it. Probably because everything has gone a bit awry since. I moved to the States for university convinced I’d make it big here, but now I’m beginning to think there’s a reason my dad, who grew up in New York, left to marry an English woman and live in Cornwall. Because while my student days were idyllic, it turns out real life in Manhattan is nothing like the dream world of a liberal arts university. The chaotic streets of New York bear no resemblance to the tree-lined pathways of the campus; people in the city don’t spend hours having picnics and reading poetry; and a degree in photography, although widely revered among my college peers and considered of utmost importance by my professor, seems to hold little to no currency in the real world. I’ve found that out the hard way, which is why I’m here, trying to clinch this job, which despite being a bit shady, is surprisingly well paid. Well, by my standards anyway. It pays twice as much as my last job as a barmaid and I’m pretty sure I won’t have to wash pint glasses or deal with annoying drunks. Although you never know.
Derek studied an equally impractical course – media studies and communication skills – and from a quick Google search this morning, it doesn’t seem like he’s managed to put it to much real-world use either, unless he was a very communicative boss in his former career as an adult entertainment company director. Or in his stint as a used car salesman. Yep, it’s fair to say that neither of us would quite make the list of our college’s star alumni. Despite Derek’s questionable background, his latest venture, To the Moon & Back, seems to be doing surprisingly well. The company won Dating Agency of the Year at the prestigious US Dating Awards a few years ago. And it’s received a ton of rave reviews online with former clients claiming that thanks to the agency, they finally met the love of their life after years of struggling to find a partner. It was even profiled by The New Yorker, which described it as an, ‘innovative and ambitious dating service with a friendly personal approach’.
The website of To the Moon & Back is incredibly slick too, which is why I was a little surprised when I rocked up to find that in person it consists of nothing more than a client lounge and a cramped back office. With a central address on Wall Street, I thought it was going to be as swanky as its zip code, but it’s tiny. Located at the top floor of a financial advisory firm, it’s nothing like the salubrious offices below. The client lounge, which Derek showed me through earlier, is like a kooky cocktail bar, with a huge sofa laden with sparkly cushions and throws, two comfy armchairs, an ornate coffee table, low-hanging gold lamps and sumptuous curtains. Leading on from the lounge is this pokey office, which features Derek’s worn-looking old desk, a dated Mac computer, a filing cabinet, a shrivelled pot plant in the corner and an incongruous and oddly distracting waving Chinese cat ornament which sits proudly next to Derek’s monitor. Derek told me he’s been running the whole operation himself since he launched the business two years ago, but apparently, he now needs extra help looking after his client list of ‘successful single bachelors’ and fighting off competition from rival agency, Elite Love Match, which Derek claims are ‘scum, a bunch of charlatans, the worst dating agency in New York’.
Derek’s stomach growls and he reaches into his desk drawer, pulling out a pack of Oreos.
‘Fancy a biscuit?’ He thrusts the pack towards me.
‘Sure!’ I reach for one, smiling gratefully.
Derek sips his coffee and takes a bite.
‘So …’ he vent
ures through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Where would you suggest taking Erica for a first date?’
‘Oh!’ I feel my face light up. Now this is my forte. I may not be a natural when it comes to love, but I do know New York’s fine dining scene inside out.
Not because I frequent such establishments, just because I know them. I read about them. I follow every major food critic in the city on Twitter and I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of Manhattan’s high-end dining scene. I suppose it’s to me what Second World War history is to Andy Graham. These places represent the glittery side of New York. The side of the people who’ve made it. The holy grail, if you will. And yes, I’m more likely to order in from Domino’s than actually go to such places, but I like knowing that they’re there. Just in case.
‘How about Zuma?’ I suggest. Zuma is a new Japanese fusion restaurant in Midtown. It was opened a couple of months ago by a Michelin star chef and it’s been getting rave reviews.
‘Interesting, why Zuma?’ Derek asks.
‘Well, the food’s meant to be great, but it’s also classy and cool. It’s not just your run of the mill bar or café, it’s the kind of place you take someone to impress them and I think Erica would feel complimented by the choice. It sets a good standard for a first date. Oh, and it’s not far from the Upper East Side so it’s convenient for Erica too.’
‘Very convenient! Especially if she and Andy hit it off,’ Derek adds, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
‘Yes,’ I laugh awkwardly.
‘Zuma is a great choice,’ Derek says. ‘Have you been?’
‘No.’ I admit. ‘I’ve just heard about it.’
