Summer Loving

by Spicer, Rivka

  “Is that it?” Dave asked her as they both approved the final draft. “Am I free to be let loose into the wild?”

  “Not yet.” Elise grinned. “I have one last thing planned for you tonight and then you’ll be ready.”

  “What’s that?” Dave asked dubiously and Elise grinned.

  “Well I know you can talk to me about what’s going on with you but I need to know that you can speak to other women.” She explained. “Having an excellent profile is all well and good but you need to engage in conversation. So after we’ve had dinner, you and I are going speed dating. Well, you are going speed dating. I’m coming along to supervise.”

  “Speed dating?” He looked a little queasy. “I don’t think I like the sound of that. What happens?”

  “Well there are a lot of men and women in a room and it works on a rotation. You get a set amount of time to talk to each woman and then when the bell rings you have to move on to the next woman. You score each other as you go along. The idea is to exchange as much information as possible in the time allotted to you to establish whether there’s any connection there. If there is then you tick that you’d like to see them again and if you have both ticked the same box your details get exchanged and you arrange your own date.”

  “It sounds really complicated.” He grumbled dubiously. “Are you sure about this?”

  “It’s really very simple.” She bumped his shoulder cheerfully. “You’ll be fine.”

  The first four dates were a disaster. As predicted, Dave had been faced with unknown women and had immediately clammed up. As they came away for a break Elise already had a drink waiting for him and they sat to discuss the problem.

  “You’ve got to stop answering with the basics.” Elise told him. “They’re interested in you so you need to tell them about you. When they ask you what you do for a living what do you tell them?”

  “That I work in an office in the day and sometimes in a bar at night.” She waited for him to expand but he didn’t and she sighed.

  “And that there is the problem. You either ask them what they do for a living and express interest in it or you tell them why you have two jobs. You should say that by day you work in an office and at night you work in a bar for the extra money because you’re raising money for this, that and the next thing. You get what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay so if a girl asks you where you live, what do you say?”

  “Bow Road.”

  Elise facepalmed. “No. You say ‘I live in Bow Road. It’s a nice area mostly and there’s a great little shop around the corner from my house. Where do you live?’ You’ve got to expand. Give her something to pick up on so the conversation doesn’t fizzle out.”

  “Right.” The bell rang to signal the next round and sheepishly he took his drink, promising to do better.

  By the second break he was almost there and by the third break he was well and truly on the ball, keeping conversations going with every girl he sat with. Elise watched him proudly from the sidelines, trying to get sneak peeks of whether anyone wanted to see him again. It was a great moment to see him being so charming and chatty. He wasn’t even tensing every time he approached a new seat any more, totally relaxed in himself now that he was in the zone.

  As they walked back to the tube station afterwards he was laughing gleefully at the phone numbers clutched in his hand. The last five women he had spoken to all wanted to see him again and if he didn’t get any bites from the internet dating he was going to call them. He was so excited it almost brought tears to Elise’s eyes.

  Nathan was waiting for her at the tube station where she was dropping Dave off because he hadn’t been happy about her travelling home alone so late at night. He shook Dave’s hand and then took Elise’s as they waved the elated project two away on a train.

  “You look tired.” Nathan told her, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Was it hard work?”

  “Unbelievably.” She tried not to yawn but she couldn’t help it. “He’s on the right path though. He’ll find the right woman and sooner rather than later. He’s a good guy.”

  “I know. I read your blog.” They stepped onto a train heading in the direction of the Wharf and sat down in the almost deserted carriage. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like.” He continued as they watched London fly by in a blur. “I tried to think what it would be like to lose Harry and my mind just couldn’t comprehend it. It was too much.”

  “I know.” Elise agreed quietly. “I don’t know what kind of strength of character it must have taken to not be crushed by it...to actually become a better person because of it. It’s extraordinary.”

  “I think we’ll all learn lessons from this week.” Nathan told her. “I got you something.” He rummaged in his pockets until he eventually found an envelope. It was a little battered but it clearly hadn’t been in his pocket for very long.

  “What are you buying me presents for?” Elise laughed as she opened the envelope. “I haven’t done anything special.”

  “I disagree.” His eyes twinkled as they flashed past another station. “You do something special every day just by existing. But this is different. This is taking a leaf out of Dave’s book. I might lose you in ten weeks time so we need to cram in as many of the dreams from our collective bucket list as we can.”

  She knew what it would be before she even pulled out the vouchers entitling her to dance classes. “Oh my God!” She squealed excitedly. “It says these are for two! Are you coming?”

  “Of course I’m coming.” He laughed as she hugged him. “I looked up the Argentine Tango on Youtube. It’s pretty sexy. I’m thinking I’d quite like to see that. Apparently this guy specialises in it.”

  “Oh my God!” Abruptly her eyes filled with tears. “Thank you so much!” She struggled to stop them from falling and he hugged her again. “These must have cost you a fortune.”

  “Not really. And it was totally worth it for the look on your face right now. Money is just money...you can’t take it with you when you go.”

  That was true. Life was for living and that was exactly what she intended to do.

  Nathan stayed over at hers and made her breakfast before he headed off to work the next morning. Elise was feeling lazy after her late night so after her morning shower she dressed in a tracksuit and sat down to write her final blog post of the week.

  I once read that the secret to hosting the best parties is to learn something interesting about each of your guests and use it as an introductory ice-breaker. Hi so-and-so, this is such-and-such the accountant. Such-and-such, this is so-and-so. He’s into snow-boarding too... This gives your guests a point of origin from which to start a conversation and you can then leave them to it and flow on to the next introduction. Of course, if you are wicked like me you’ll make up facts just for the amusement value. Huckleberry, this is Doodlebug and he breeds giraffes. Doodlebug this is Huckleberry and he’s a drag queen in his free time. It still has the intended effect – they have to talk to each other to sort out the facts from the fiction – it’s just a lot funnier when you see their eyes widen.

  I think this is an important lesson for my projects. For one reason or another both Mark and Dave have been painfully inept at conversing with a woman. Having a decent profile will help of course because it puts their interesting facts out there for the conversation to be struck from but unless they can expand on that conversation it’s going to go nowhere. Dave had issues with this and as his hostess for the week it was important for me to teach him this valuable art. There’s only one place I know you can go where you can have multiple attempts at conversations with total strangers in one place. I took him speed dating.

  It was like watching the verbal equivalent of a gazelle on ice. He was a man of sprawling monosyllabic answers and very little else. How anyone can run out of things to say in less than five minutes is beyond me. A conversation about the weather can take longer than five minutes and I know that this is
a man who has a lot in his life to discuss. On listening carefully I discovered that he doesn’t link things in his head. If someone asked him his job he’d tell them what his jobs are and that’s it. It didn’t occur to him to explain why he was doing two jobs which would have led into a whole other section of conversation. It was painful.

  I had to give him two pep talks (and 3 secret vodkas in his lager) before he finally got the hang of it. And he was good at it. By the end of the night his natural charm and honest heart had won him no less than five phone numbers. It was an all round excellent result.

  We’ve worked on his profile and it’s ready to go up on the dating site tonight. I introduced him to Mark (project one) who took some great pictures of him for his profile. I’m pretty confident he’ll be successful in finding dates. He’s an average looking guy with an attitude towards life that one can’t help but love. I suspect that when he does find The One it will be a wild ride for them...a lifetime of seizing each and every day by the balls and wringing out every last drop of joy.

  All in all it was a week just as epic as last week. I have learned important things about life and I would be a coward not to put them into practice. Life is too short not to live it to the max and love every moment. You never know what is right around the next corner. For him I hope it’s a good (fertile) woman but for me...well, I’m going to learn that tango.

  The question of the week – if Dave was a cake what would he be?

  Carrot cake with a sweet chilli frosting.

  As she was going through to correct typos and grammatical errors, the tone on her inbox pinged and some weird sixth sense told her it was Mr X before she maximised the window to look.

  To: Elise Waterford (elise.waterford@monochrome.co.uk)

  From: Mr X (X_Towers@hotmail.com)

  Elise,

  This Dave sounds like a wonderful guy. I really hope you can help him find someone. I can’t imagine experiencing that sort of loss and I’m glad he’s got you to help him achieve the things he doesn’t know how to achieve on his own. It’s made me think a lot about my bucket list. I think I’ll start one this evening, all those things I want to try before it’s too late. Does Dave have a website or a just giving page? I’d really like to help him out, make a donation.

  Ever yours,

  X

  Not knowing his identity was frustrating but Elise couldn’t deny that he actually seemed like a caring kind of guy and she fired off a quick email to him in response.

  To: Mr X (X_Towers@hotmail.com)

  From: Elise Waterford (elise.waterford@monochrome.co.uk)

  X,

  If you look at my feature page on the website there’s a link to his just giving page on there. I’m sorry, I can’t remember it off the top of my head. Thank you for donating. It will mean a lot to him that strangers are helping him out. Guess we all have a bucket list :)

  Elise

  Nathan came round straight after work and they cooked dinner together again. He watched as she pan-fried salmon fillets and whisked up lemon vinaigrette for the potatoes with something akin to awe on his face. He was clearly a microwave meal man when he was on his own and proper home-cooked food was still a novelty to him. They sat at the table and were chattering cheerfully away when they heard Elise’s computer beep from the study.

  “What was that?” He looked around and Elise grinned awkwardly.

  “Just an email. It’s probably Taylor telling me my blog post is online. If they wanted me to edit it I would have heard already.”

  “Oh right.” He played with his food for a moment. “Have you read what Mr X has to say this week?”

  “Nope.” She replied cheerfully, chowing down on a huge forkful of fish.

  “He’s still posting after very blog.” It was still clearly irritating him if his sudden moodiness was anything to go by and Elise set her knife and fork down.

  “Nathan the fact that I haven’t read it should tell you unequivocally that I really don’t care. I don’t care who he is or what he’s writing. As far as I’m concerned you’re the only man in my life right now and you’re the only man I want in my life. Whoever this Mr X is can write whatever he wants. I’m just going to ignore him until he gets the picture and goes away.” That wasn’t entirely true because she was desperately curious to know who he was, but so far his emails had been entirely non-inflammatory.

  “But aren’t you even just a tiny bit curious?” He persisted. “If it is someone that knows you wouldn’t you rather know who it is?”

  “Not particularly.” She replied calmly. “Knowing won’t change anything other than possibly costing me a friendship. If you want me to then I’ll go and read them but it won’t change anything. I’m still yours.”

  “Okay. Fair enough. I can understand why you aren’t bothered but it’s a little weird that he’s posting this stuff. You should keep an eye on it at the very least in case he does turn into some weird stalker.”

  “Okay, I’ll check it. But don’t worry about it.” She smiled at him reassuringly and they continued dinner.

  Afterwards he went to run them a bath while Elise checked her emails. Sure enough the blog had been approved and she had a short email from Taylor but she didn’t bother drafting a reply to it. There was nothing urgent and he hadn’t progressed past the two kisses so their tentative friendship was still on track. She was sure he wouldn’t mind waiting for a response, especially given that it was Friday night.

  Mindful of her conversation with Nathan, she brought up the internet and went to the blog to read Mr X’s comments.

  Monday – Elise, I cannot believe that you are flawed. To me you will always be perfect. Each little thing that you consider a flaw just makes you more interesting, makes you more perfect. If beauty is a state of being then you will walk in it all the days of your life...your heart is too big to allow for any less. Ever yours...

  Wednesday – Elise, I envy the ability to live for the day...to follow my dreams. The truth is that my dreams involve you but I am too scared to tell you to your face that I love you. I cannot embrace my own mortality enough to overcome my fears, but know that I will love you in silence until perhaps ‘one of these days’ I will be brave enough to speak my feelings to you out loud. Ever yours...

  Friday – Elise, As I read the end of this post I didn’t think I could put it any more eloquently than the song...from my heart to yours: [Youtube_Ronan Keating_I Hope You Dance]

  Elise, I hope you dance. Ever yours...

  “Damn it!” She muttered as she closed down the browser. That was one of her all time favourite songs and now she was going to have it in her head for the rest of the night.

  “Bath is ready!” Nathan called through and Elise sighed, scrubbing her face with her hands to shake off the uncomfortable feeling the comments had left in her. Maybe she would sing that song for Nathan, associate it with him in her thoughts and not this nameless, faceless stranger. He would understand, she was sure. She wished she had never read the comments.

  “What did he write tonight?” Nathan asked, judging her tense moodiness correctly as they settled in the bubbles together.

  “Not much. He quoted me a song.” She sighed and tried to relax into him. “It just irritates me because I love that song and I don’t want to think of him when I sing it. I don’t want to associate it with frustration.”

  “I’m sure I can help you with that.” His hand traced a lazy arc across her collarbone. “Do you think he quoted it because he knows you like it or was it just coincidence?”

  “Coincidence I think.” Elise frowned as she thought about it. “It seemed appropriate to the post.”

  “Ah well. Forget about him. Hey, we’ve got our first dance class tomorrow.” He tugged her hair playfully and she grinned.

  “Before or after baking?”

  He gasped. “I’d forgotten tomorrow was baking day!” He twined her hair thoughtfully around his fingers. “Well class is at 3pm so I guess we can bake in the morning. I really want to bake
.”

  “You’re so cute.” She laughed. “Okay, we’ll bake in the morning. I got ingredients while I was at the shop today. I thought we’d make muffins.”

  “Sounds awesome. What flavour muffins?”

  “Raspberry and almond. I have a really nice recipe and they’re quite simple to make.”

  “They sound lush.” He sighed happily. “I don’t know how I ever lived without you. If you’re not careful I might ask you to marry me one of these days.”

  Elise burst out laughing. “After two weeks? Are you nuts?”

  “Two and a half weeks.” He corrected. “And don’t you think what we’ve got is special?”

  She thought about how they’d slotted so seamlessly into each other’s lives, how they laughed almost non-stop, how she felt about him... “Yeah I do.” She said quietly. “But we’re still in the honeymoon period. Two weeks isn’t long enough to base the rest of our lives on.”

  “Two and a half. I know that. I’m just kidding really.” His arms slipped around her and he held her close. “Would it scare you if I told you that I love you?”

  “No.” She swallowed thickly. “I feel the same. I just don’t know how it happened so quickly.”

  “There was cake involved.” He joked, half-seriously. “That always helps.”

  “Yeah, there was me thinking that it was the windows to your soul that hold the key to my heart but really it’s the cakes in my stomach...” Elise burst out laughing, threatening to slosh water over the side of the tub.

  “I didn’t say it was the whole reason!” He protested, laughing with her. “Just that it helped.”