When Polly Met Olly

by Zoe May

‘What do you mean?’ Derek asks.

  ‘Are you sure Leila told you the whole truth? Like maybe there was a reason Olly didn’t call or something?’ I ask, but even as I say it out loud it seems weak and desperate, as though I just don’t want to hear the truth.

  ‘Look, if you want to speak to her yourself, I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it. Or I can put you in touch with the others.’

  ‘The others?’ I gawp.

  ‘There were a few other former clients that seemed to have similar stories. At least that’s what I’ve heard.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  I feel deflated. Five minutes ago, I was strutting into the office, feeling on top of the world, and now I feel like a complete fool. I wasn’t finally getting lucky in love, I was being played by a callous scumbag who uses his dating agency to prey on desperate women. It’s no wonder he went for me. He probably saw me for the lonely, confused girl I so evidently am. I feel my palms prickle with sweat.

  ‘I think I need to take five minutes. Is that okay, Derek?’

  ‘Of course,’ Derek replies. ‘Sorry Polly, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought you should know what he’s like.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I grumble as I scurry out of the room.

  I close the office door and perch on the edge of the sofa in the client lounge as I try to wrap my head around what Derek has just told me. I knew there had to be a catch with Olly. He was just too handsome and cool and charming. The whole thing was too much like a fairy tale to be real. I hadn’t met my Prince Charming, I just met Prince Player: Prince Charming to every girl. It’s like my mum always used to say, if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Olly isn’t some eligible, cool, exciting guy, he’s just yet another tragic bachelor who refuses to settle down.

  I get up and wander over to the window. I watch a few builders in orange hard hats smoking in front of a construction site opposite. A few girls, who look like tourists with SLR cameras slung around their necks wander into an Italian café down the street. A pigeon flies off the road and onto the pavement to avoid a passing cab. I look on, feeling rotten. I should have known what I was doing. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to get so carried away over Olly. I sigh as I try to let the fantasy go. I thought our date had been so special, but the idea of it being a routine that he’s gone through with tons of other girls is unbelievably depressing. I feel ashamed and embarrassed at having been duped into caring, like so many others. Olly may have got all the other girls he wined and dined and took back to his place to become obsessed with him, but if he thinks that’s going to be me, he has another think coming. I am not going to flatter his ego. I’m going to be strong and resolute. Guys like him need a cold hard dose of reality. They need to realise that they can’t just wheedle their way into everyone’s hearts. I get my phone out of my jeans pocket and find his number. The last message he sent me was a cute ‘Feeling sad to be waking up without you this morning x’ message sent only a few hours ago. I erase our chat history and go to delete his number. My finger hovers over block, but I can’t quite bring myself to block him. Instead, I re-save his contact details, delete his name and rename him ‘Ignore’, just in case I feel weak and get tempted to pick up if he tries to call me later.

  I take a deep breath and watch a plane swoop across the sky before heading back into the office.

  ‘Sorry about that, Derek,’ I mutter as I sit back down at my desk.

  ‘You okay? I didn’t mean to upset you,’ Derek says, looking genuinely guilty.

  ‘I’m fine. Honestly, Derek. I’m really glad you told me,’ I insist, as I scan my inbox.

  ‘Okay. I’m glad you think so. I was beginning to regret saying anything, but I wanted to warn you.’

  ‘I totally understand. You did the right thing.’

  ‘Okay, good.’ Derek reaches into his desk drawer and retrieves his pack of Oreos. He offers one to me. ‘Biscuit?’

  I laugh. Oreos are Derek’s solution to everything.

  ‘No, it’s okay, Derek,’ I say, and then instantly, I reconsider. Maybe biscuit consumption isn’t the most sophisticated solution to every problem, but it’s a start. I reach for an Oreo, thank him, and then crack on with work.

  Following the party, a few new clients have signed up and Derek’s already forwarded me their details. One of them, a 37-year-old accountant called Lionel, reminds me of Andy Graham. He has the same sort of non-descript look. He’s reasonably tall – five-foot-eleven apparently – but his slightly overweight, middle-aged sprawl is beginning to catch up with him. And his face is unremarkable – his hairline is receding and he has a slightly weak chin – but he’s not exactly ugly. Like Andy, he’s just there. And like Andy, the selection of pictures on his Facebook account is just dire. They’re all either crappy selfies taken at the world’s worst angles or pictures of him standing in front of monuments in which he’s so small that you can barely make out that it’s a man, let alone see his features. I click through the pictures, feeling despondent.

  ‘Derek,’ I pipe up.

  Derek looks over. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Have you seen Lionel’s pictures?’ I ask.

  ‘Err… One or two.’

  ‘They’re awful,’ I comment. ‘Like truly bad. No one would want to date him based on these pictures.’

  ‘Really?’ Derek looks sceptical.

  ‘Really.’ I turn to my screen and click onto what’s probably the least flattering photo of Lionel. I really don’t know what he was thinking. It’s as though he was just holding his phone, put it into selfie mode and then took a picture without lifting the phone up at all. The picture makes him look like he has an enormous double chin, it shows his nose hair and the sloping shadows across his cheeks from his glasses. It’s a dreadful picture. There’s no denying it. It looks like found footage from a low budget horror film. Derek grimaces.

  ‘Yeesh. That’s not the best. Surely there are some better shots than that?’ Derek asks.

  ‘Not really. All of his selfies are like this. I don’t know what he was thinking.’

  ‘A lot of our male clients aren’t the best selfie takers,’ Derek notes.

  ‘Tell me about it.’ I sigh.

  ‘Doesn’t he have any other photos that aren’t selfies?’ Derek asks.

  ‘Well, yeah, but they’re not much better.’ I select a picture of Derek standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in which he resembles a speck.

  Derek narrows his eyes, trying to make Lionel out. ‘Are they all like that?’

  ‘Yeah, pretty much.’

  ‘Hmm… I can see this is going to be a problem then,’ Derek says. ‘I’ll email him and ask him to send some more pictures over.’ He turns back to his computer screen.

  An idea hits me as I watch Derek click into his inbox. He opens a new message window. I feel a tremor of nervousness about suggesting what I’m about to suggest, but I force myself to say it anyway.

  ‘Wait a second, Derek. How about I take some pictures of Lionel? He clearly has no idea what he’s doing, and I am a photographer after all. I may as well help him out.’

  Derek turns to me and I can see the idea resonating with him. He looks pensive, but his eyes have become brighter.

  ‘That’s not a bad idea, you know,’ he says. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? Do you have portrait photography experience?’

  The question is music to my ears. It’s been ages since anyone asked me about my photography in a serious way.

  ‘Yes! I completed modules in it at university. I’ve done a few freelance portrait jobs too. I took staff pictures for a marketing company and for some social workers in Queens,’ I tell him, recalling a few freelance jobs I’ve done.

  ‘So, you’re actually pretty well-qualified for this then,’ Derek muses.

  ‘Yeah! Definitely! Well, I’d like to think so!’

  ‘And all this time, we’ve been missing out on this opportunity.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I should have been get
ting you to take photos of clients ever since you started. It could have been great for their dating profiles, but it didn’t occur to me. We could have offered it as part of our package, rather than just trying to get by on the photos the clients provide. Professional pictures might have saved us a lot of bother when it comes to messaging people. They could have sold our clients better and done half the work for us. They say a picture speaks a thousand words after all. If our clients have better pictures and are getting better matches, that frees up our time to take on more clients,’ Derek says. I can tell he’s thinking aloud, but it makes perfect sense. Business is clearly his passion. It lights him up the way photography lights me up.

  ‘Sounds good. So, I’d be taking photos of all our clients?’ I ask, unable to mask the hopeful inflection in my voice.

  ‘Well, we should definitely trial it and see how it goes,’ Derek says.

  ‘Okay, great!’ I clap my hands together with glee. It may only be a trial, but I can’t contain my excitement. I’ll get to take photos as part of my job. How cool is that? I can’t wait.

  ‘This is brilliant, Derek! I’m sure we can sell the clients so much better! I’m sure it’ll pay off. How about I trial it with someone today?’ I suggest, feeling excited. My mood has already transformed, considering that not long ago I was feeling awful over Olly. What a rollercoaster today is turning out to be.

  ‘Yes, let’s do a trial today. Good idea.’ Derek smiles.

  ‘Cool! Who shall I photograph?’

  ‘Me!’ Derek points out like it’s obvious.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yeah!’ Derek grins. There are still quite a few Oreo crumbs caught between his teeth. ‘I’ll be your guinea pig. If you can make me look dateable then you can make anyone look dateable.’

  I can’t help laughing at his self-deprecating humour. He has a point. With his giant pot belly, terrible shirts and awful glasses, Derek isn’t exactly handsome. He’s the kind of guy who, if you were trying to set them up with your friend, you’d probably describe them as having a ‘great personality’, omitting the looks part.

  ‘Having doubts?’ Derek jests.

  I grin. ‘No, I’m game if you are!’ I insist, although I’m already trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to do this. There is no camera angle I can use or pose I can put Derek in that will make him look slim. There’s no filter that can hide his jowelly neck or indelicate features. I’m already mentally abandoning all thoughts of making Derek look handsome. That’s clearly going to be a non-starter. My best bet is to focus on his personality and strive to bring out his kind eyes, the exuberance of his smile and his natural warmth. If I can get that across, then I’m onto a winner.

  ‘Great, let’s do it!’ Derek says.

  Chapter 26

  As I expected, it’s not exactly easy to take dating profile pictures of an eighteen-stone man with the look of an ageing porn director, which is of course what Derek is. But I do my best. At first, Derek and I try an office shoot. I get him to don a smart blazer. Well, I say smart. It’s been dangling on a peg on the back of the office door ever since I started working at the agency and I had to spend quite a while brushing dust off it. Nevertheless, Derek puts it on, and then I get him to stand by the office window with his arms folded across his chest in an executive Apprentice style pose. The light from the window is falling onto his face and I’d hoped the image would capture Derek’s passion for business and make him look ambitious and intelligent. In reality, he just comes across as stiff and vaguely creepy.

  ‘Hmm, okay, let’s try something different,’ I suggest as I scroll through the pictures on the back of my camera.

  ‘Like what?’ Derek asks.

  ‘How about Central Park?’

  I tell Derek to abandon the blazer. It clearly isn’t having the right affect; it just makes him look stern and Derek is not stern. He’s a softy and that’s what I want to get across in the pictures. Derek’s kind and warm; those are his selling points and that should be the reason anyone would want to date him. That’s what I need to capture. Not give him the look of a disgruntled scary office worker.

  So, we head to Central Park and I get Derek to sit on a park bench. Bad idea. I take a few snaps, but within seconds, a giant bedraggled-looking pigeon lands on Derek’s belly and begins pecking at some leftover Oreo crumbs. He loses his shit and immediately jumps off the bench. The pigeon flaps around and Derek swears. I watch the whole thing through my camera lens, and in some kind of photographer’s trance, I continue to take photos, despite the commotion. Derek gets increasingly red-faced as he calls the pigeon a ‘little flappy bastard’. The photos are not the best.

  ‘Stop taking pictures!’ Derek shouts as the pigeon finally launches off in search of someone new to harass.

  ‘Sorry.’ I get up from my squatting position, turning my camera off. I may have stopped taking pictures, but I’m not planning on deleting the ones I’ve taken just yet. I’m pretty sure Gabe and I can have a giggle over them later.

  ‘We need a different setting. The park isn’t cutting it,’ I declare.

  ‘Another setting?!’ Derek sighs. His brow is already glistening with sweat from his altercation with the pigeon and he has a rather unbecoming pair of sweaty half-moons under his arms.

  ‘Just one more,’ I assure him.

  ‘Where?’ Derek asks with a look of dread in his eyes.

  Where? I haven’t quite got to that yet. I rack my brains while Derek’s unimpressed eyes bore into me and then suddenly it hits me: we could go to Brooklyn and take pictures next to the murals and street art where Scarlett and I took pictures a few weeks ago. It might be a little bit too hip and urban for Derek, but in the moment, I can’t think of anywhere else.

  We take the subway to Brooklyn and I get increasingly worried on the way. Why am I taking a 50-year-old balding man to once of the youngest and coolest parts of New York for a photoshoot? If I thought Derek looked bad in front of an office window and in a park, why do I think he’s going to look great in front of the weird graffiti artwork covering the walls in Brooklyn? It’s the kind of place that cool young Instagrammers clamour towards to do amateur photoshoots – I know, I’m guilty of it myself (even if I’m not that cool) – but it’s hardly appropriate for a dating photoshoot for an ageing pretend bachelor.

  ‘What’s up?’ Derek asks as I fret, fiddling with my camera strap and gazing despondently out of the window.

  ‘Oh, nothing!’ I reply, plastering an optimistic smile on my face.

  I’m beginning to worry that I’m going to totally screw up this experiment and that all my photos of Derek will be be a bust, meaning that I’ll have to go back to sitting in the office all day messaging random people on dating sites instead of getting to take pictures. I might be starting to enjoy life at the agency, but the prospect of getting to take pictures as part of my job is just too alluring. It would make a fairly enjoyable job a really enjoyable job and it would actually be relevant to my career. I’d go from waking up feeling relatively content to probably waking up with a spring in my step and I want that so much. So much that I decide then and there as the cab crosses Brooklyn Bridge that I’m not going to let a slightly unusual location choice ruin this shoot. I’m going to smash it. I’ll find some way of making Derek look brilliant, weird graffiti or not.

  The cab pulls up on a side street and I immediately spot the first mural – a reggae-inspired tribute to Bob Marley. Derek takes it in with a raised eyebrow. Okay, maybe not quite the right backdrop.

  ‘This way!’ I say with a false air of confidence as I lead him to one of my favourite streets, where Scarlett and I hung out a few weeks ago. I’m worried it will be full of amateur models who’d sneer at me and Derek, but fortunately, it’s pretty empty, aside from a woman walking her dog and a cool-looking mum playing on a chalk hopscotch etching on the pavement. Perfect.

  I usher Derek towards a wall painted black with giant butterfly wings.

  ‘There. Stand in front of the wi
ngs.’

  Derek shuffles awkwardly into position. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to pull this off, particularly since posing in front of these giant wings is something hipsters tend to do, not guys like Derek, but whatever, I figure I’ll give it a shot.

  ‘What should I do?’ Derek asks as he stands with his arms limp against his sides.

  ‘Umm…’ I lift the camera towards my face. ‘Smile, hold your arms out and, erm, pretend to fly?’ I suggest.

  ‘Pretend to fly?’ Derek laughs and the second his face relaxes and a big familiar smile spreads across it, I take a picture. The moment I press the shutter, I know I’ve got a good shot. Okay, so Derek’s arms are still hanging limply at his sides, but his face is Derek-like. He looks good-natured, amused and a little wry.

  ‘That’s great, Derek,’ I say. ‘Give me a few more poses. Hold your arms out.’

  Derek rolls his eyes indulgently and holds his hands out as though he’s Jack in Titanic. He turns his eyes towards the sky with an ironically ‘deep’ expression on his face. I giggle a little behind my camera as I take another few pictures. I’d really begun to have serious doubts about how successful a backdrop of hipster murals was going to be, but actually, it’s working out surprisingly well. It comes across as idiosyncratic and ironic, and surprisingly, it’s bringing out Derek’s light-hearted playful spirit in a way I totally hadn’t anticipated. We move onto the next mural and the effect is the same.

  Derek is totally vibing off the creative atmosphere and the lively scenery. He seems happy and carefree and younger. Taking the pictures and larking about with him in Brooklyn, I can almost imagine what he must have been like as a student back at art college. He probably was as fun and popular as he makes out. Even though I thought his anecdotes seemed a little fantastical when he first dropped in a few back at my interview, I can believe them now. I bet he was one of those guys that everyone gets on with. The kind of bloke who may not be the most handsome but who will go along to a party and everyone will slap them on the back and say hi.

  I get so carried away with the shoot that Derek has to interject as I try to get him to stand in front of the tenth or eleventh mural.