Oh, so he is fresh out of school.
‘OK, well, don’t talk to women like they’re your teacher. It will make you seem young,’ I suggest.
That is if his baby face doesn’t do the trick first. Toby is short and skinny with a round face and an auburn buzz cut. He’s got this rabbit-in-the-headlights look in his eyes, like he’s terrified, and almost certain the end is near.
‘I … I didn’t realise I was going to be getting feedback on everything …’ he says. ‘I thought after …’
‘No, sorry, occupational hazard,’ I insist. ‘I was just trying to help. Let’s start again. Hello, I’m Lola.’
‘Hello, Lola, I’m Toby.’
‘Great to meet you, Toby. I …’
Ding!
Toby’s eyes widen as he pulls himself to his feet, ready to move on to the next woman.
I know my mum thought this would be right up my street but, I have to say, as a professional matchmaker, I do not advocate speed dating at all. Well, what’s the point? A few awkward seconds in front of a bunch of people, all of whom will be judging a bunch of people they’ve met for a few seconds. That is no way to meet anyone and it certainly isn’t enough information to go on, to try and work out if you’re into someone. Unless you’re just working off face value, but if that’s all you care about then you might as well just swipe left and right on a dating app, or approach people in a bar.
This isn’t going very well at all, is it? And it doesn’t get any better when a heavily tattooed man in a tight T-shirt and a pair of tracksuit bottoms sits down in front of me.
‘All right, love, the name’s Gaz.’
‘Hello, Gaz, I’m Lola,’ I reply. ‘Nice trackies.’
‘Yeah?’ he replies as he admires them himself. ‘My mum told me not to wear them but you gotta take me as I come, y’know?’
I don’t know what expression I pull, but it makes it clear that I don’t know because Gaz reacts.
‘You don’t think I should’ve come comfortable?’
‘Honestly?’
‘Hit me straight,’ he insists. ‘I can take it.’
‘Well, one of my legs is in plaster, and I still put a nice skirt on.’
One of my mum’s nice skirts, to be more specific. A floaty, floral number that, if memory serves, she wore to my christening – memory of the photo album, I hasten to add. I don’t remember what my mum was wearing at my own christening, and even if I did, I probably would’ve repressed it. Even my mum said it’s the ugliest skirt she owns, which is the only reason I’m allowed to wear it. Funnily enough, I didn’t pack any going-out clothes when I headed up here.
‘Is this a date or a roast?’ he asks with a laugh.
‘Why can’t it be both?’ I ask with a smile.
‘Well, your nice skirt … is not a nice skirt.’
I can’t help but laugh. Gaz has this undeniable cheeky charm. He’s a little rough around the edges, but he seems friendly enough. Good banter, I think is what the kids would call it.
‘Hey, sorry to interrupt,’ Robbie interrupts. He leans into my ear to whisper to me. ‘Vince has stormed out and we’re in the middle of the food for tonight. He wasn’t happy making my recipes. We had a bit of a row – I don’t know if he’s going to come back. I’m terrified to tell your folks.’
‘Don’t tell them,’ I whisper back. ‘You got this.’
‘Do I?’
‘You do,’ I say encouragingly. ‘So get back in that kitchen and blow everyone away.’
‘So, where were we?’ I say to Gaz.
Ding!
‘Maybe next time,’ he says with another laugh.
A thirty-something man with a big, bushy beard sits down in front of me. Not a bad-looking guy, but a total hipster. He’s wearing a vintage shirt, a beanie hat and he’s placed a pristine Kånken backpack on the floor next to him – you know, the one that all the cool kids carry. I’m sure he’s carrying it ironically or sarcastically or maybe, just maybe, because he saw one on Instagram. I wonder to myself why I’m so preoccupied with whatever floats this dude’s boat. It’s like I’m not even willing to give him a chance, which isn’t going to get me anywhere. Just as my attitude begins to shift a little in the right direction, I feel my wheelchair being pulled back slightly.
‘What are you doing?’ my mum whispers into my ear.
‘Speed dating,’ I reply pointlessly.
‘You’re not even trying. You gave that poor young boy a lecture, you made fun of the second man and now, with this gent, I saw the look on your face when he sat down.’
‘What look?’ I squeak.
‘The one you are still doing now,’ she tells me. ‘All scrunched up and judgey.’
‘OK, fine, I’ll be less judgey and more datey,’ I insist. ‘Wheel me back.’
‘Erm, hi,’ the hipster says when we’re finally alone again.
‘Hi,’ I reply. ‘I’m …’
Ding!
I puff air from my cheeks. Frustration and regret are just starting to take hold when Dr Will sits down in front of me. Just the cure I need.
‘Well, hello there,’ he says cheerfully. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
‘I know, we have to stop meeting like this,’ I joke.
‘How’s the leg?’
‘Still broken.’
‘You want to get yourself a better doctor.’
‘I’m working on it,’ I say, a little light flirtation creeping into my words.
He smiles. ‘So, do you think you’ve met your future husband yet?’ he asks.
‘I do not,’ I reply very matter-of-factly. ‘Do you think you’ll find a girlfriend?’
‘Just the one,’ he replies quietly. I feel my heart jump into my mouth. Could he mean …? ‘My ex, actually.’
‘Oh?’
I feel some sort of reaction to this news, deep inside my stomach. It’s a sickly, swirly feeling, like I’ve been shaken about by a waltzer. What do I care, if his ex is here?
‘That’s her,’ he says as he points out a tall, hot blonde, sitting at the next table. She’s playfully running a hand through the hipster’s beard, paralysing him with a case of the nerves. ‘Megan.’
‘Oh wow,’ I blurt. ‘She looks like an influencer.’
‘She’s actually a primary school teacher,’ he informs me, still in hushed tones, but the tables are well spaced out to give the daters privacy. ‘She’s just moved back here, to start work at Acorn School. They’ve built an extension!’
There’s a faux excitement in his voice, as he tells me about this completely unremarkable development at the local primary school. Wow, now they might have three classrooms instead of two.
‘A teacher, that’s impressive,’ I say. ‘I get footballers laid for a living.’
‘Hey, it’s a tough job, but someone has to do it,’ Will jokes. ‘I think I’m talking to her next. It will be the first time we’ve had a proper chat since we split, when she moved away. I only know about her new job from the Facebook group. Have you joined?’
‘I haven’t,’ I reply. ‘I didn’t think I’d need to, what with me not sticking around for any longer than I have to.’
Will’s face falls, and I wonder why I pointed that out.
Ding!
Oh, perfect timing. The one guy here I’m actually romantically interested in and we spent the whole time talking about his ex before I clumsily shot him down. Why, oh why, did I do that? Why did I feel like I needed to do that?
‘Well, wish me luck,’ he says.
‘Good luck,’ I call after him as I watch him head over to sit down with his ex.
Megan’s eyes light up when Will approaches her. She jumps up from her chair and plants a kiss in that dangerous territory somewhere between the cheek and the lips, the kind you do when you’re testing the waters, not wanting to be too friendly, but not too romantic either. It’s a move I have made myself many times, and I can spot it a mile off.
It doesn’t matter who sits down in front of me now, a
ll I can think about is Will and this girl, this leggy teacher with her ambiguous kisses and her impossibly shiny hair. I can’t have a crush on Will already, can I? So soon after Patrick? Sure, we weren’t that serious (especially not to him), and it wasn’t really going anywhere, but I’m still upset. What am I going to do, rebound myself into the first handsome man I meet?
‘Ouch,’ I cry out in faux pain. ‘Ouch, ouch, ouch!’
Apparently I am.
Dr Will comes rushing over.
‘Lola, are you OK?’ he asks, wasting no time in looking over my leg. Everyone in the room stops what they are doing and crowds round.
Why did I do that? Why? Why? Am I really so jealous that I’m faking leg pain? I mean, I’m not technically faking leg pain because it really bloody hurts all the bloody time, even on the painkillers I’m taking, but it’s more of a background pain than an ‘ouch, I need a doctor right now’ pain.
‘I just … I got these shooting pains,’ I explain as I notice Megan appear from behind Will. She looks down at me as Will examines me, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was looking right through me. I feel like she knows my game.
‘Has it stopped?’ Will asks.
‘It still feels weird, like it might come back,’ I say. That can’t have sounded at all convincing. ‘I think maybe I need to get out of this chair, sit on the sofa with my foot up.’
‘Good idea,’ Will says. ‘I’ll take you.’
‘What about our catch-up?’ Megan pouts.
‘We’ll arrange something soon,’ he says, removing the brake from my wheelchair before taking me back to my living room/bedroom.
‘Thanks so much for that,’ I say once we’re away from the noise. ‘It just felt so strange – I’ve never felt anything like that before.’
Not technically a lie, I’ve never felt so jealous in my life, and over someone I’ve only spent a matter of hours with since over a decade ago.
‘Perhaps it was all just a bit much,’ he says. ‘It’s an intense experience, to say the least.’
‘It is. We didn’t even get chance to talk.’
‘Well, let’s talk now. Let’s have a not speedy speed date,’ he suggests.
‘Yeah?’ I smile.
‘Yeah, why not.’
‘OK,’ I say excitedly. ‘I’m sorry for taking you from your ex. She seemed like she really wanted to catch up with you.’
‘Isn’t the first rule of first dates that we don’t talk about our exes?’ he asks.
‘Ordinarily, but you already brought her up,’ I point out.
Will laughs as he runs a hand through his dirty blond hair. ‘I did. Well, why don’t you level the playing field? What really happened with your boyfriend?’
My face falls.
‘If you don’t mind me asking …’ Will quickly adds.
‘No, it’s fine,’ I say. ‘It’s like I said before: I guess we weren’t as serious as I thought we were, oh, and I’m pretty sure he was cheating on me. I think I left that part out.’
‘You did,’ Will says. ‘Lola, I’m so sorry. That’s horrible. There was, erm, some of that business in my relationship with Megan,’ he says. ‘That’s why we broke up. Horrible memories.’
I knew I didn’t like the look of her, the second I laid eyes on her. I guess it wasn’t just a jealousy thing.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I say as I place a hand on his knee. ‘This must be the last thing you want to talk about.’
‘I just want you to know that I know what it’s like.’
‘Yeah, it doesn’t feel great,’ I admit. ‘But it also means that I don’t feel anything for him anymore. I don’t want to talk to him; I certainly don’t want to get back with him.’
‘Well, you don’t have to do any of those things, right?’
‘Right,’ I reply, although as the word leaves my lips, I realise that I do. I booked us a weekend away in the Lakes – I booked it, I paid for it, but I used his bloody email address for the confirmation, and I imagine that’s the email I’ll need for cancelling the damn thing. I didn’t take down the booking reference and I’m not even sure which place I ended up booking in the end. I’ll need to sort that out ASAP because there’s no way I can go, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him go with someone else.
‘You seem like you have a really good attitude towards it all,’ he points out.
‘I have to,’ I reply. ‘I can’t walk, my mum has to help me shower, I don’t have work to keep me busy … If I let this get in my head, I’ll lose my mind. I just want to move on with my life.’
‘That makes sense,’ Will says with a knowing nod. ‘It’s attractive, that you know what you want, that you’re not going to let it hold you back in life.’
‘Is it?’
‘It is,’ he says. ‘And … well, it’s a bit embarrassing, but I had such a crush on you, when we were at school together.’
‘Really?’ I squeak.
‘Really. You honestly had no idea?’
‘None at all,’ I say. I never really looked at young Will that way – he was just my nerdy friend, not the dreamy doctor sitting in front of me here today.
‘I figured the feeling wasn’t mutual, which is why I never acted on it,’ he admits. ‘Oh, and also, because I was a huge nerd, and I was terrified of girls. Girls only ever rejected me back then.’
‘Well, I’ll bet they’re kicking themselves now,’ I tell him. ‘I know I am.’
The words leave my lips before I’ve thought them through. I was just trying to be comforting, I suppose, but it’s come out as more of a declaration. Of course I fancy Will, who wouldn’t? But I wasn’t flirting with him.
Will places his hand on top of mine. I stare at it, like I can’t quite believe it’s there. It’s all happening so fast, so soon.
As he leans in, as though he’s going to kiss me, I feel my entire body grind to a halt. I can’t move a muscle. He’s only inches away from me when we’re disturbed by the sound of my mum flapping in the distance.
‘Lola, Lola,’ she calls out before appearing in front of us, just as we pull away from each other. She pauses for a split second, obviously realising something was going on, before resuming her panic.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask her, trying not to seem flustered myself.
‘Vince has quit,’ she squeaks.
‘Quit?’
‘Apparently he went out for a cigarette, to try and calm down a bit, you know what he gets like. When he came back in, Robbie had taken charge of the kitchen without him. He was already furious, but then he said that Robbie had orders to cook without him. I said there was no way we’d do that, he’s our head chef … but then he said it was your call … and I said … there’s no way …’
As her sentence goes on, my mum sounds less sure about what she is saying.
‘Ah,’ I say awkwardly, edging away from Will guiltily. ‘About that …’
Chapter 13
I shuffle awkwardly in my wheelchair as I play aimlessly with my cereal. I never expected a broken leg to be a walk in the park but I had no idea of the toll it would take on the rest of my body.
First of all, my back is killing me. I don’t know if it is from the energy and effort needed to wheel myself around in this chair – I mean, I want to be a good feminist as much as the next strong, independent woman, but my complete lack of upper body strength often sees me asking for the nearest male to open a jar for me – so perhaps that’s why I’m so achy … or it could be from sleeping on the sofa bed. I’m so used to my gloriously soft yet supportive super king mattress back at home, that this small, springy excuse of a bed feels like a method of torture. If I didn’t have the broken leg for perspective, I think I’d be finding sleeping on that thing a lot harder.
I can also see a difference in my hair and my skin. Without all my potions and my strict daily routine, I can see a change already. On the one hand, this is proof that the expensive creams, serums, cleansers et cetera do actually work and are not a waste o
f money. The bad news is that I didn’t pack everything to bring here with me, nor am I able to hover in front of the bathroom mirror for too long, wiping things off and slapping things on. It’s not easy to put much time or effort into my hair or make-up either. There is only so much slap you can apply easily with a small mirror on a table top, and as for my hair, well, washing it is a military operation, with my sergeant major mother, and when it comes to drying and styling, she only knows how to handle her very short hair, or she can pull my damp hair into plaits, just like she did when I was a kid.
Sitting at the table, with my hair in plaits (that my mum did for me), eating Coco Pops (that my mum poured for me), I feel very much like a kid again.
It’s after midday now. Today is the first day my mum hasn’t woken me up at the crack of dawn, she’s been super busy all morning, so it was a while before she helped me out of bed, into my clothes, and wheeled me to the breakfast table for the quickest breakfast I’ve had since I got here. I’m not complaining, not at all, I love Coco Pops, but my mum’s MO is to feed any ailment, so I’m suspicious today. As breakfast goes, a bowl of cereal is very much my mum phoning in her efforts.
The only thing keeping me positive today is what happened with Will last night. We were going to kiss, I’m sure we were, and I know what you’re thinking: it’s too soon. Believe me I have thought it too, but … maybe everything that has happened, has happened for a reason? I know it sounds wild, but think about it: if I hadn’t broken my leg I wouldn’t have moved back home, Patrick would be doing whatever behind my back (honestly, I rarely saw him and I always thought it was just because we were both so busy and because he worked away a lot) and I never would’ve reconnected with Will. I know how daft that sounds, about fate, and of course I don’t believe it, but what if Will was my one that got away? The more I think about him, the more I wish we had kissed.
My mum enters the kitchen, sits down at the table opposite me and puffs air from her cheeks.
‘Lola,’ she starts, before pausing to compose her sentence. ‘Your dad and I need to tell you something.’
‘Oh my God, you’re pregnant!’ I joke – I always make terrible jokes when I think I’m in trouble.
Make or Break at the Lighthouse B & B Page 8
