by Sue Watson
‘I’m short of teaspoons,’ he says.
‘Isn’t everyone?’ I giggle and don’t mention my used napkin. I don’t want to embarrass him, nor do I want this perfect evening to be tainted by anything weird. So I leave it. For now.
An hour later, as we stand in the inner doorway of my block of flats, Alex says I still have some toffee on my cheek. He touches my face, and with his other hand pulls me towards him gently, but firmly. I melt into him, he smells of pine forests and leather – and a subtle undercurrent of something else, smoky, and dark. I breathe him in as he kisses me deeply, taking me somewhere else, filling my head with wonderful nonsense, and I close my eyes, drifting off into the night. And then, to my absolute surprise, in the middle of all this, he pulls away. I open my eyes, and he’s just looking down at me. It’s dark, and as hard as I try I can’t see his face properly to work out what’s happening. I feel confused, abandoned, he’s now holding me away, his hands on my shoulders.
Then he suddenly kisses me on the top of my head and says, ‘Goodnight, Hannah, it’s been lovely.’
I long for him to say more, to pull me in again, to tease me with more kisses, to take things further, but he doesn’t, he just turns and walks away.
I think I might cry with disappointment and confusion as I watch him go, the street lamps providing a grainy light over the road and houses and a dark figure walking away. It reminds me of his photos on Instagram, bleak, unreadable, rain reflected in pavements. I stand in the cold for a long time after he’s gone. Tonight, I’ve been adored and rejected within a matter of hours, and now my chest is wide open, and my heart exposed – visible for anyone who might be passing to see.
Chapter Two
When I woke this morning, the first thing I thought about was last night. I made a pot of tea, and thought about his eyes; microwaved some porridge and analysed everything he’d said, every facial expression, every nuance. I’ve pushed away the kiss that ended so abruptly, and tried not to dwell on the spoon and napkin he slipped into his pocket. Instead, I’m reliving the best parts of the evening. Driving to work, I almost ran a red light remembering how his hand brushed mine, the way he looked at me, and listened. Really listened.
‘How was last night?’ Sameera calls when I arrive at work, popping her head out from the office kitchen expectantly.
‘Good, good,’ I answer, grateful for the camaraderie and support from my colleagues, but wishing at the same time they didn’t have to know everything. My fault, I overshare – but what I don’t tell them, Jas does, so Sameera and Harry, my other colleague, pretty much get filled in one way or another.
‘Did you get laid?’ Harry asks.
‘Like I’d tell you if I did!’ I laugh.
‘Oh no, were you catfished?’ He laughs. ‘Was he really a seventy-six-year-old with a heart problem and a harem of young brides?’
‘He was lovely actually.’ I smile.
‘Any gaffer tape and scissors in his car?’
I smile, and stick my tongue out at him.
In this profession, you get close to your co-workers quickly. When you’re dealing with the mess of life, you need support, and you give it too. There are just four of us in the office, we go through a lot together on a daily basis, and our bond is deep.
‘So, how did it go?’ Jas mouths through the glass pane of her office. I’m now checking my phone to see if he’s called, or texted. He hasn’t. ‘Come on, spill the beans, I want to know everything,’ she calls, beckoning me in with her finger.
Jas has taken it upon herself to be my ‘dating coach’. After my horrible break-up with Tom last year she’s encouraged me to meet new men. Jas lost her husband, Tony, in a car accident more than ten years ago, and I can only imagine how devastated she must have been to suddenly become a widow in her thirties. I think Jas is almost scared of finding love again in case she loses it, which explains why she only seeks casual relationships, and wants to live vicariously through me. Now she wants a blow-by-blow account of last night. But it doesn’t matter how well I think it went, the fact we haven’t made arrangements for a second date makes me feel I may have got it all wrong. I so want to believe it went well, but why did he pull away from the kiss? Did I misread the signals? I’m torn between feeling elated and wondering if I’ll ever see him again.
Margaret, our receptionist and admin assistant, waves at me from across the office. ‘Was he as good looking as his photo?’ she asks, having studied his online profile in some detail, along with the rest of the office, last time she popped up on her break.
‘Better looking, if that’s possible, Margaret,’ I call back.
She smiles and gives me a wink. She’s like the office mum, even bakes cakes for us all on our birthdays. ‘I was never lucky enough to have my own children,’ she once said to me, ‘but the universe has a way of giving you what you need.’
Last night, the universe gave me Alex. But now it’s playing twisted games and might have plans to take him away. As the minutes tick away with no word from him, my heart is beginning to feel slightly tender.
‘Thing is,’ I say to Jas, after I’ve given her the highlights of my date, ‘I’m not sure he feels the same.’ I told her about the kiss, but haven’t mentioned the spoon and napkin ‘theft’. It isn’t important, and she’ll only turn it into a drama. ‘Why do you think he didn’t invite himself to come in for coffee, Jas?’ I know she’ll have a theory.
‘Oh girl – it has been a while, hasn’t it?’ She sits back in her chair, plonking her Converse-clad feet on the desk. Jas loves throwing her energy into my non-existent love life, it’s probably a welcome break from the traumatised teens and lost adolescent souls we deal with every day.
‘Men these days don’t want to come over as pushy, they’re scared of being accused of some heinous crime. Or perhaps he was just playing games with you by making you want him, then pulling away?’
‘Two solid theories, but what if he just didn’t fancy me?’
She laughs.
‘I mean… my photos on the app make me look quite attractive, but what if he thought I was horrible in the flesh? Do I look older, fatter?’
‘Hannah,’ she says, ‘please stop with this constant self-flagellation. It’s boring. But if he didn’t mention a second date, then his loss – he doesn’t appreciate how amazing you are. Men never do – you’re gorgeous, and don’t you forget it.’
‘And you’re kind – or blind.’ I roll my eyes, I’m not good at taking compliments. ‘It seemed to go so well though. I thought he liked me. But I drank a lot of wine – Merlot – turns out that’s his favourite too. Honestly, Jas, we have so much in common, it’s mad.’
‘Merlot, eh? I hope you’re not going to start drinking Porn Star Martinis with him, that’s our drink,’ she jokes.
‘No way. You’ll always be my Porn Star Martini partner.’
‘He probably wasn’t that great anyway,’ she says as a softener. ‘You saw him through the bottom of a wine glass. It’s easy for them to come over as a dream guy on a first date, but, trust me, a few dates down the line and you’d have seen a different guy to the one you saw last night.’
I know she’s only trying to console me, but it isn’t working. Jas was the one who suggested I go on the bloody dating app, so it’s annoying that she’s doing her ‘no fish in the sea worth having’ speech now.
‘Jas, if you’d been there, if you’d met him, you’d know what I’m saying – we just fit.’
‘I’m sure you do and, hey, there’s nothing to stop you giving him a call,’ she suggests.
‘Mmm, I could,’ I murmur doubtfully.
She raises her eyebrows and, lifting her long, denim-clad legs off the desk, brings the conversation to a close with her body language.
Harry’s in the doorway waiting to see her, so I get up and move to the door.
‘Have you two finished discussing… no, dissecting, the men you slept with last night?’ Harry asks.
‘Cheeky sod,’ I say, l
aughing. ‘I didn’t sleep with anyone.’
‘Probably just as well, because he will kill again,’ he says in an American accent, while slowly putting his hands around my neck.
I waft him away, like a pesky fly. Harry’s only twenty-six, and sometimes it shows. We all love him, but sometimes he’s like an annoying little brother.
‘Let me know if you hear anything, or if you decide to call him,’ Jas says, ignoring Harry completely. ‘I mean, it’s not the 1940s.’
‘I know, but I—’
‘When you two have finished with the dating therapy, we have a nine thirty.’ Harry gestures towards Jas with his head.
Jas rolls her eyes. ‘Come in.’ She turns back to her desk, and I have to smile as I close the door and hear her say, ‘So, have you told Gemma that you love her yet?’
Jas loves getting in people’s business, and when she’s not being the boss, she’s the office agony aunt. Last year she convinced Harry to break up with Natalie, his childhood sweetheart, said they weren’t right together. Then, after going into Brown’s Bakery one day, she spotted Gemma working behind the counter and decided she was ‘the one’ for Harry. His budding romance with Gemma has been like a daily soap ever since, with Jas tutoring him at every turn.
‘I might become a matchmaker if this social work thing doesn’t work out,’ she jokes. But it seems Jas has good instincts for romantic couplings, because Harry’s been with Gemma for almost a year now, and they’re madly in love. Harry’s always looking for excuses to go to the café to see her, and one of those excuses is to pick up something delicious and high-calorie, which he offloads on me on his return. I’m not complaining though, Gemma bakes a mean cake and I rarely resist.
Harry’s young and makes fun of his female colleagues’ romantic aspirations, but deep down I think he’s as starry-eyed as the rest of us. He told me once how when they were first together, Gemma made him a batch of mini doughnuts, and before she put each one to his mouth, she kissed it. I think that’s probably the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. At the time, I was still with Tom, and seeing Harry with Gemma just confirmed for me how far away we were from love. I thought last night I might actually be on to something but now it looks like I’m no further on.
Later, when Harry and Jas have had their meeting, Jas wanders over to my desk. Her dark, curly hair is fizzing around her face, her lips are a questioning pout enquiring without words if Alex has called, but I shake my head before she asks.
‘He just didn’t feel the same, obviously,’ I mumble, lifting my head up from the computer screen.
‘Yeah, he obviously found you repulsive,’ she says, deadpan.
I must look surprised at this, because she lets out a belly laugh, her perfect white teeth framed by red lips. I start laughing too, and now Harry and Sameera are looking up to see what all the noise is about.
‘Jas says I’m boring and ugly,’ I say to them.
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’ Harry shrugs, slipping into his default mode as the teasing younger brother.
Sameera throws a ball of paper at him. ‘You’re gorgeous, Hannah!’ she says, frowning at him.
Having ducked the paper, he’s now pretending to concentrate on work, but a dimple forms on his cheek. He’s trying not to laugh, and I can see by his face he’s thinking up a far worse punishment for Sameera than a rolled ball of paper.
Jas and I roll our eyes at each other, at the two ‘kids’ in the office.
A psychologist I worked with once told me that within a group of people, a family unit always emerges. However long they’ve known each other, people subconsciously take on familial roles, and I see this in our small team every day. Jas is in her early forties, she’s in charge and very much the alpha, the big sister of the group. I don’t think anyone would argue with my theory that at thirty-six, I’m the next big sister, while Sameera and Harry, both in their twenties, are the unruly kids.
I watch Jas as she answers a query from Harry about one of his clients. She’s so ‘on it’, knowing exactly who he’s talking about and responding clearly, in bullet points. She practises ‘controlled emotional involvement’, something we all know is the secret of a good social worker. She cares, she understands, she empathises, but doesn’t allow emotions to cloud her judgement. Unlike me.
Despite a pile of paperwork on my desk and at least five home visits to do today, all I can think about is Alex, and my emotions are clouding everything. I watch Jas through the glass of her office and wonder if she’s right that he’s like all the rest. As she said, I know it’s not just up to him to get in touch – but I want him to want a second date enough to call and ask me, rather than have me chase him.
A couple of hours later, I look up from my computer screen and realise, with a sharp sting, that he still hasn’t called. I wonder if he’s like me, and doesn’t want to be the one to call. How many great love affairs have been dashed on the rocks before they began because neither had the courage to make that first move?
I’d given up on men, until Jas told me about Meet your Match. She convinced me that I should ‘get back on the horse after Tom’.
‘Even if it’s just a bloke you can go to the cinema with, sleep with, someone to put your bins out,’ she’d said.
‘I want more than that,’ I’d replied, as we sat at the bar of The Orange Tree that night.
‘There’s no such thing as a man who wants commitment. They all just want a one-night stand,’ she said, as we sipped on Porn Star Martinis – ‘our’ drink.
‘But I want a home, a family, three kids and… a Labrador. I want a big garden with a trampoline and holidays in Devon, like we did when I was a kid… and…’
‘Pina coladas and walks in the rain?’ She’d sighed. ‘That’s why you can’t find anyone. I mean, talk of Labradors and kids would scare any normal man off. I think you need to be a bit more like me and lower your standards. All I ask is that a man is good in bed, makes a mean cheese on toast, doesn’t ask too many questions… and who needs a dog and kids anyway?’
Jas is ‘seeing someone’ but not in a relationship. She’s recently been hooking up with a teacher she met while working on a family case. They live their own lives and just meet up now and then, which she says she’s happy with, but recently he hasn’t been returning her calls, and she told me she thinks he’s seeing someone else. I didn’t think it would bother her too much, she’s always said she isn’t looking for commitment, doesn’t want to be married again, but I sometimes wonder if she’s lying to herself. She’s forty-two and she loves kids, and whatever she says, I worry she might regret not being a mother. Perhaps I’m just imposing my fears on her, because I very much want marriage and kids and I’m not playing games with myself pretending I don’t. I know it might sound old-fashioned, but that’s what I want, a family of my own, and someone who’s committed enough to stay with me beyond next weekend.
Jas’s weekends are spent drinking too much wine, catching up on work and cleaning her house. Her place is pristine, the surfaces shiny, with a permanent smell of bleach and every little thing in its place. She says it’s because of her past.
‘I was a bit of a tearaway, slept with a lot of guys,’ she once told me. ‘I was underage and wild. I did it to get at my dad. He was so strict, he’d try and lock me in my room, so I’d climb out the window.’
‘At least he cared?’ I’d offered.
‘Too much,’ she said, and I’ll never forget the look on her face. ‘That’s why I don’t have a door on my bedroom.’
I remember putting my arm around her, and it was then I realised that, in very different ways, we shared lost childhoods. Hers was spent escaping home, and mine was spent searching for one.
I was nine years old when I moved into my first foster home. Mum couldn’t cope, but I believed it was my fault, and living with strangers was my punishment for causing her distress. I didn’t understand then that her drug addiction was the reason she couldn’t function as a mother, it’s only now I
realise how my life was blighted.
Meeting Alex last night gave me a little glimmer of hope that I could meet someone with whom I could make a life I’ve always dreamed of, and even a real home. I just have this feeling he wants the same things I do, and I finally have the chance of having something good in my life. If only he’d call.
‘Go on the app, prove me wrong and find Mr Right.’ Jas had laughed through a haze of alcohol that night weeks ago in The Orange Tree. As the evening had worn on, she’d become more tipsy, and more keen for me to try it out. I distracted her for a while by putting ‘Wonderwall’ on the jukebox and singing along to it with her, but she’s like a dog with a bone, is Jas.
‘As your boss, I’m here to tell you that you work too hard, so it’s time for you to chill, have sex and have fun.’
‘I do have fun,’ I’d protested.
‘Oh yeah, I’m sure you do, sitting at home every night writing up reports, checking up on teenagers to make sure they’re in their own bed and not someone else’s?’
‘That’s why I’m in this job, to try and keep them safe.’
‘Well, I think you should get out more. Ooh, he’s hot.’ She pointed to a photo on the app. ‘A handsome solicitor, living minutes away and gagging for a thirty-something woman to complete his life? Yes please,’ she gushed. ‘Hannah, he’s only just gone on the app – it’s like buying a house, when a great one goes on the market, you need to pounce.’
‘I’m not pouncing.’ I laughed. ‘I’ve online dated before – and it’s not for me.’
‘Look, just click “yes” now,’ she yelled impatiently (she’s always loud in bars), ‘and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll have your sloppy seconds, he’s gorgeous!’
So, fuelled by her enthusiasm, and alcohol, I clicked, and about fifteen minutes later he clicked on me. I suddenly felt nervous. What was I letting myself in for? I told Jas I’d changed my mind, but – typical Jas – she wasn’t having that.
