Our Stop

by Laura Jane Williams

‘Although I did actually feel like I’d seen him somewhere before. Maybe on Bumble? Or Tinder or Hinge?’

  Nadia tried to conjure up an image of him in her mind, but she’d only seen him in profile before the lift doors closed. It had been a millisecond of recognition. On the other hand, Nadia absolutely had a type, and several times a day she could find herself having her head turned by yet another dark-haired, tall, suit-wearing bloke with stubble. She was unimaginative that way. She liked to stick to the classics.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, thinking how much her best friend would like the opportunity to meet the men at her company too. ‘Shall we invite Emma?’

  Gaby flushed pink and said, ‘Actually, um, I already did.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Nadia. ‘Well … that’s cool.’ Her tone implied that, actually, it was anything but cool.

  It bothered her that Gaby had gone over her head to ask Emma to come. Emma had never been to a RAINFOREST work event before, so it’s not like it was a given that Nadia would’ve asked her. Nadia only had the idea because she’d need a wingwoman as much as anything, and Emma was an excellent person to be stood beside when chatting up men. She knew exactly when to stick around, and exactly when to excuse herself to go to the bathroom and not return.

  ‘I just, I figured you’d ask her anyway, and we were chatting on Instagram this morning, so …’

  ‘Yeah, totally,’ said Nadia. ‘When this guy ends up being a dud, at least I’ll have my dancing partners.’

  ‘He is not a dud,’ said Gaby, emphatically. ‘I am willing to stake my full-price Gucci belt on it.’

  ‘God, I love that belt,’ Nadia said. She’d long wanted one herself. ‘Well, in the meantime … I’m going to write back to Train Guy again. Then I’m not putting all my eggs in one basket. I’m going to meet your guy, and that takes the pressure off Train Guy, who, let’s face it, could still be Quasimodo. Or worse, a Tory. So. That’s sensible, I think.’

  ‘Babe, there’s no pressure anywhere, at all. This is supposed to be fun! Just have fun with it! And anyway, you’re not even going to want to send an advert to Train Guy once you’ve met my guy. I have a sixth sense about these things. He is absolutely the man for you.’

  Gaby glanced at the time on her phone.

  ‘Okay, shoot, I gotta go. I’m in another meeting in five.’ She gave Nadia a kiss on each cheek. ‘You can name your first child after me, yeah? You and Daniel?’

  Nadia rolled her eyes. She loved her friend’s thoughtfulness – and enthusiasm – but she felt a small stab of guilt for the man on the train she’d spent all this time thinking about. It was the right thing to do, though. That’s what they say, isn’t it? Not to put too much weight on the idea of one man too soon? That’s what Emma used to say when she had the dating column, anyway. And not that she would say as much to Gaby, but Gaby really did have a weird ability to nail people’s characters. If she said Mr Cute Bum was also Mr Cute Personality, Nadia should at least put on some lipstick and go meet him. And to increase her odds, she really would reply to Train Guy’s advert as well. She’d read in Emma’s copy of Get Your Guys! that it was wise to spread your hope, so that you felt less pressure and could enjoy each interaction for what it was, instead of what it was in your head.

  Back at her desk, then, she pulled up the submissions page for Missed Connections and typed in:

  Thanks for leaving me high and dry, Train Guy: I basically proposed marriage and a shared mortgage to a man who would be handsome if he shaved, and it wasn’t you! I wanted it to be you. Don’t tell anyone, but you’re right: I love a grand romantic gesture. Ball is in your court now, friend. Make yourself known. Love, Coffee Spill Girl.

  13

  Daniel

  ‘Mate, come on – you’re going to need back-up. I’m a great wingman! You know I’m a great wingman!’

  Lorenzo was wafting his buttered toast around as he stood in the kitchen wearing nothing but boxer shorts. He was uninhibited about being half-naked. He was uninhibited about being fully naked, actually. When Daniel had first moved in, he’d found Lorenzo sat stark bollock nude in front of the telly one Saturday afternoon, without even the smallest hint of embarrassment when Daniel passed through to the kitchen. Daniel had put his foot down on having bare skin on any of the furniture after that, which Lorenzo had protested against but ultimately conceded to. If Daniel had ever found a rogue pube on the coffee table he’d have happily strangled his flatmate, quite sure the law would be on his side. How could it not? Shared spaces were not for bare arses.

  ‘But I’m not going because I actually want to be set up,’ Daniel explained, for the seventh time, as he reached for his keys. ‘I’m going because this woman, this Gaby, was very persuasive, and I don’t want to reflect badly on Michael by being rude. In fact, Michael himself might actually still be able to make it in time, so I already have a wingman.’

  He walked towards the front door, checking his reflection in the mirror on his way. Lorenzo followed him. Daniel tried not to think of the crumbs he was making.

  ‘Isn’t it ruder to go and blow off this girl than to not go at all?’ Lorenzo said, with a full mouth.

  ‘Don’t say girl. She’s a grown-up. She’s a woman.’

  ‘Shut up. Girls are … girls. And I’m coming. I’ll come pick you up from work at about six? Okay?’

  ‘I’ll text you,’ shouted Daniel, as he closed the door behind him. ‘Let me think about it.’

  He had no intention of thinking about it.

  It was the day of the party, and Daniel felt weirdly anxious. He was committed to seducing his rush hour crush, not this woman at the party. Whenever he felt sad about his dad he tried to imagine what he would tell him about her, about Nadia, this woman on the train, and their notes to each other – and he’d sort of have a conversation with him in his head, one that was nice and positive, rather than feeling miserable that he was gone.

  And he couldn’t wait to tell his mum something nice, something a bit exciting and hopeful, rather than all of their conversations being about something neither of them could control. Daniel often wished he had a brother, a dude to figure out this family stuff with. But he didn’t. The closest thing he had to a brother was his cousin Darren, who was fed up with what he called ‘rainy and fucking miserable’ England and had gone to Australia on an under-thirties visa and met a bloke that he went on to marry. They lived in Sydney and posted pictures on Facebook of weekend cookouts where they were both muscly and bronzed and had matching sunglasses which suited one of them (Darren’s husband) but not the other (Darren’s head was a bit narrow for sunglasses like that).

  It was a funny day, and on the walk to the underground station and then as the tube sped through to Angel, Daniel found himself thinking that he’d only be able to get out of the party if she was there, on the train. He decided that would be the sign to gather his courage and at least make eye contact, and if he could do that, then he could simply not turn up to the party. But then he didn’t see her on the platform, and she certainly didn’t get into his carriage, and so by the time he got off, ready for work and certain he hadn’t got his nudge from the universe or some larger being, he messaged Lorenzo to say, Okay fine, meet me at six.

  Lorenzo texted back immediately, with the two beers emoji and a smiley face.

  Romeo wasn’t on the door this morning, so Daniel didn’t have an excuse to slow down and sound out his love life with the man who increasingly was the only person who talked sense to him about … well, anything, really. The pang of disappointment he felt reminded him that he hadn’t seen his mates from university – the ones he used to have a beer at the weekend or get dinner with – for a while either. He was thirty, almost thirty-one, and everyone he knew apart from Lorenzo had left the immediate area of London to start a family – or at least start thinking about maybe thinking about starting a family.

  He’d stopped going to weddings every weekend – that had tapered off about two years ago, when he’d had his last serious relationship,
with Sarah, who’d left him for a guy at work who wore a waistcoat unironically – and now spent a lot of time at christenings and first birthdays in the Cotswolds or Kent or, for his friends Jeremy and Sabrina, Milton Keynes. But never just at the pub, after work.

  His group had, in a lot of ways, moved on without him.

  For ten years, they’d called each other brothers and swore it was ‘bros before hoes’. Daniel reflected that it might have been poor taste to call the women they dated hoes, but nothing rhymed with ‘young women with dreams, hopes, aspiration and quite a good sense of humour’. In his twenties, his group of mates swore to one another they were family, but in the space of a few years, maybe even less, everyone except Daniel had peeled off and built actual families, recognized by the state. Sam’s wife had even taken his name, which had caused a weird rift between her and the other WAGS of the group. They’d all said it wasn’t feminist, but then Rashida had screamed at them that her feminism was about choice, and they needed to take a look in the mirror if they were going to tell her what she should and shouldn’t do. Daniel wasn’t sure what to think. He didn’t have a wife to worry about.

  On his way up to the office, he took out his phone to text the lads’ WhatsApp group, saying, All right, guys, we’ve gotta get together soon, man. London, one Saturday afternoon? Or maybe even an Airbnb somewhere?

  Over the course of the morning he got a stream of messages that concluded six out of the other guys in the thread were up for it. Daniel asked if it was crazy to say this weekend. It was rare to be able to do anything spontaneously now they all had responsibilities. But Terrence said his missus was on a hen weekend for her youngest sister, so everyone could crash at his place, and that made it easier. Some could make it just for the Friday, and some just for the Saturday, but all in all six of them was a bloody good show.

  Daniel’s mood was lifted enough to start looking forward to the night’s party. Things could be good, he thought, if he let them be. He went out at lunch and got his hair-line tidied up and splashed on some Hwyl perfume at the Aesop store: he’d read on the GQ website that it was the scent every hipster should be wearing. He thought to himself how much better he felt for being proactive in his own happiness. He didn’t know a lot of people who went after the things that made them feel good – he knew a lot of people who sat around and waited for life to happen to them. Romeo seemed proactive: that’s why he liked him. It was apt he was in the lobby on his way back in from lunch. Daniel was pleased to see him.

  ‘Looking good, my friend,’ Romeo said, which was almost word-for-word what he said every day. And then, ‘And smelling good – is that the Aesop stuff?’

  ‘You know it,’ Daniel said, bumping his fist as he walked by.

  ‘You’ve got a spring in your step today, huh?’

  Daniel stopped and turned around. ‘Romeo, I’ve decided today is a great day.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, Daniel. Man, are you right. You inspire me, man!’

  Daniel winked at him. He was feeling inspired himself.

  ‘And she wrote you back, I saw. Might that have anything to do with this wonderful mood?’

  Daniel spun on his heel to look at Romeo. ‘What? I didn’t see the paper today. I was so busy looking for her on the tube that I didn’t think to look for her in the paper!’

  Romeo flung a copy of that morning’s newspaper from the welcome desk over to Daniel, who thumbed immediately to the right page, read her note, and then stood, grinning, at Romeo.

  ‘Daniel?’ Romeo said, eventually.

  ‘Yes?’ Daniel said, dreamily. She’d looked for him! On the train!

  ‘Don’t just stand there – go write her back!’

  Daniel smiled even wider, if that were possible.

  ‘On it,’ he said, pointing a finger at Romeo with his thumb in the air, which he bent slightly like a trigger. ‘ON. IT.’

  He went back to his office and wrote back to Nadia, first-time perfect:

  You’re funny. Do you get told that a lot? Funny and cute. How lucky am I?! Listen, if you ever made the train on time I’d happily make my move. I’m pretty eager to meet you properly. Love, Train Guy.

  He read and reread it several times, and with a nod of satisfaction hit ‘Send’.

  Daniel’s good mood lasted until just after 7 p.m., when he stood in the middle of the Sky Garden, London’s highest public garden, in a huge tower in the shape of a walkie-talkie, with views across London.

  He was surrounded by strangers, vaguely aware of Lorenzo telling his somewhat embellished story about the time he spent as a stripper to pay for his Master’s degree, and how he once got his penis stuck in the trunk of the elephant sewed to the front of his G-string. The girls – women, although they all seemed quite young, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three – were lapping it up, laughing loudly and touching his arm and teasing him so that he retold parts, making them laugh even more. As Daniel was wondering which of them he was trying to sleep with, knowing that with Lorenzo he wouldn’t have limited himself to just one, Gaby pulled on his sleeve.

  ‘You made it! I’m so pleased!’ she said, going in to kiss both of his cheeks.

  ‘I did,’ Daniel said, issuing air kisses back. ‘Though I’m afraid it looks as though my plus-one is more popular than I am.’ They both gazed in Lorenzo’s direction, where he had moved on to telling his joke about the crab at the bar, and as he reached the punchline his audience collapsed, once more, into flirtatious giggles. One of the women, holding her throat as she tipped her head back, made eye contact with Daniel as she regained her composure. She held it for a moment, pointedly, and then just as quickly looked away.

  ‘You’ll be popular with the only person who matters, though,’ Gaby said. ‘The woman of the hour should be here any minute. She was going to walk from the office to get her steps in.’

  ‘Very sensible,’ said Daniel, not sure of what else to say. The pair stood, suspended in the awkwardness of not really knowing each other, and not really in the mood to feign wanting otherwise. Drink. He decided on drink. ‘I’m going to go to the bar – can I get you anything?’

  ‘No, no,’ Gaby said. ‘I just need to go say hi to someone over there. ‘I’ll come find you in a minute. I’m so glad you came.’

  Daniel held up his hand in Lorenzo’s direction, as if guzzling an imaginary pint, the universal sign for ‘Do you want another?’ Lorenzo held up his empty glass in response, the universal sign for ‘Yes, I do!’

  It was four or five drinks later when Daniel realized he’d somehow, at some point, draped his arm around a woman’s bare shoulders, and that it had dropped to dusk outside. Gaby had never come back to introduce him to anyone – in fact, he hadn’t seen her in ages. But it didn’t matter. He’d had his second pint to steady his nerves, and his third because the second had tasted so good. Once the penny dropped that there wouldn’t be a big introduction to a stranger to navigate, he supped at the pint Lorenzo handed him a bit later too. He was accidentally quite drunk by then, and hadn’t really said much as he’d continued to watch Lorenzo’s performance to his audience of admirers – but he hadn’t needed to. He knew his role when it was the two of them out together: in the handful of times they’d gone to a bar Daniel often became the silent one, which, he’d been told by women more than once, made him seem brooding and mysterious.

  That was laughable to him – not least because they’d all have no idea he was tipsy instead, not brooding – and his mum would soon set anyone who thought that of her son straight, but on occasion it had worked in his favour. The woman he’d made eye contact with earlier on had continued to catch his eye across the group of them, eventually leaning in as he headed to the bar again to say, ‘Order me a large red, would you?’ He’d looked at her and nodded. She was pretty. He was thinking about what the dating guide had said about having options, about not putting one person at the centre of your affections, about shopping around to take the pressure off. It was around that time he’d put his arm around her.


  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said to him, not long after, hot and breathy in his ear. Daniel looked at her. Somehow, they had peeled off from the group and were pressed into a corner together. Her hand was suddenly on his chest, the flat of her palm cool against the cotton of his shirt. He knew if he looked down, she’d be looking up at him and it would be an invitation to kiss. She was offering to go home and have sex with him.

  In another life, ten years ago – five years ago! Or, to be frank, even last year – he would have said yes. He would have taken her home and had sex and seen her for a few dates afterwards, both of them trying to make the pieces of themselves fit, even if they didn’t. But after his dad, he knew life was too short to waste it on people he wasn’t crazy about.

  ‘Sorry. I …’ he began, taking his arm off from around her.

  The girl looked disappointed, but also undeterred. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

  ‘No,’ Daniel said.

  ‘Because I don’t kiss and tell …’ the girl continued, stepping closer to him again. Daniel put his hands on hers to lift them off his stomach, where she’d lightly rested them in a way that was, Daniel wasn’t so drunk as not to notice, quite nice.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, firmly, and to her credit the girl simply shrugged and walked off.

  At home, in bed on his own with a pint of water on his bedside table, Daniel listened, against his will, to seven minutes of banging and moaning coming from Lorenzo’s room, before it stopped and somebody left the bedroom to pee, leaving the bathroom door slightly open. He could tell by the way it echoed. He didn’t sleep well that night, and when he did finally drift off he had weird dreams about being an octopus. He had something in every hand, and desperately wanted to pick up a book he’d found but he couldn’t pick up the book without putting something else down. And he didn’t want to. In his dream, as an octopus, he got so upset at the idea he’d have to let something go in order to look at the thing he so desperately wanted to look at that he woke up in a pool of sweat, panting and out of breath and feeling really, really sad.