There were twenty or more rusted metal signs nailed to the wall above the serving hatch, through which grimaced a sour-faced old man with a weak chin and bushy eyebrows. One of the signs depicted the face of a smiling 1950s woman giving a thumbs up. Above her head it read, Today could be the start of the rest of your life.
I couldn’t help but feel that the message wasn’t for me. Daz was not a life changer and I’d be lucky if he even came back rather than trying to squeeze his inflated ego through the skinny awning window in the bathroom.
I saw him walking back over and surmised that the window had been too small. He made his way to the table but didn’t bother sitting down.
‘Hey, listen, I don’t mean to sound like a dick but you’re not what I signed up for and I don’t really wanna waste my money on someone who I’d have swiped left.’
I recoiled and tried to form a retort but the words collected in my throat and remained there like a cork. He lifted a finger to his forehead and saluted me before sauntering out the door and letting a draught in as he left.
I turned, my jeans squeaking against the pleather, and fixed my eyes on a poster of Elvis that sat on the wall oppos-ite. I tried not to cry, but I could feel the sob building in my throat.
‘Excuse me.’ I heard a voice in my right ear and turned around to see the face of the noisy eater from the booth behind. ‘Hi, my name’s Theo and I couldn’t help but notice that your date was a complete wanker.’ He smiled at me, his blue eyes hidden beneath scruffy blond hair. He held out his hand and waited for me to shake it. ‘You can come join me if you want – I’ll never eat all of this.’ He gestured to the half-eaten burger and grease-sodden fries that remained on his ketchup-smeared plate.
‘You were listening?’ I asked, embarrassed.
‘I’m sorry, but as soon as a douchebag walks in dressed like that, it’s pretty much impossible not to pay attention.’ He grinned.
‘Well, I’m glad there was an audience to my humiliation.’
I pulled out my purse and slammed the money for my Coke down onto the table.
Then, with anger fuelling me, I pulled my bag strap over my shoulder and slid out of the booth.
‘Why are you the one who’s embarrassed? He was the one being a dick,’ he said as I walked quickly past.
I spun around, a frown fixed on my face, and said, ‘You should try and eat more quietly. You sound like a cement mixer.’ I turned on my heel and headed for the door.
‘Now who’s the eavesdropper?’ I heard him mumble but I ignored him and as soon as the cool October air hit my burning cheeks, I let the tears fall and cried all the way home.
Chapter Three
I woke with a pounding head and a blockage of dried snot in my beetroot-coloured nose. The night before had been filled with a lot of red wine – the evidence of which could be seen in the magenta stain that tinted most of my lower lip – and what can only be described as a ‘mama hug meltdown’. For those people not sure what one of those is, a ‘mama hug meltdown’ can be defined by three invariable characteristics.
1.It is generally conducted on some kind of floor and whilst being called the ‘mama hug meltdown’ it doesn’t necessarily involve a mother and can be conducted in or around the arms of a parent, guardian or trusted figure to whom you look for emotional comfort.
2.There must always be copious amounts of snot, tears and/or saliva, which are periodically smeared onto said parent or trusted figure as you spew forth lines of self-hatred and woe about your life and situation.
3.These events are usually, but not always, followed by wine or some other kind of numbing alcoholic liquid – this can be interchanged for tea if necessary – and the meltdown will eventually come to a close when you end up in bed with a thumping head, a blocked nose and a feeling that tomorrow cannot possibly be as bad as the day you are putting behind you.
I’d opted for the bathroom floor for my meltdown, my tears pooling in the grooves of the colonial-style tiles as my mother tried to soothe me with Cabernet Sauvignon and promises of karma coming back around to give me everything I wanted. Joy and I rarely saw eye to eye. We had the rare talent of being able to make an argument out of anything, and I mean anything. We once didn’t speak for two days because I insulted the blouse of a local newsreader who happened to be her favourite. But despite how little we got on, I knew that she was always great in a crisis. I had listened and cried and drunk and thought of all the hundreds of thousands of things that I could have (but hadn’t) said to Daz in retaliation for his rudeness, before ending up falling asleep at around five o’clock in the morning; my drunken, stained lips still mumbling retorts into the darkness as I drifted off.
Daz had been the final straw in a month that I had hoped would be better than the last, but which had actually turned out to be worse. In the last thirty days, I had received three rejection letters for my novel, been thrust back into my overdraft whilst paying off the charges for being overdrawn the month before, been on two failed dates, had one screaming argument with my parents and broken my little toe. The month had been a shit show of dramatic proportions, but Daz was the rancid glacé cherry atop the shit sundae that had been October.
I showered and washed the scent of Daz’s knockoff Boss for Men out of my hair, but somehow, I couldn’t get rid of the red wine stain on my swollen lip. I found the sienna-brown lipstick from the bottom of my bag and dragged it across my mouth, covering the stain and making it look like I cared enough about my appearance to have put on make-up.
I always had an image of what I looked like in my mind – an image that had passed through the Photoshop of my brain and which I’d fooled myself into thinking was true, yet the mirror never showed it to me. I’d always straddled the line between curvy and slim, with rounded hips, a small waist and a little pooch of stomach that sometimes made me look ever so slightly pregnant. I stared into the toothpaste-spattered mirror and took in the puffy skin that sat around my large green eyes and the tip of my ski-slope nose that refused to stop blazing red, no matter how much foundation I dabbed on to it. My hair lay in a tangle of russet curls, which should probably have been washed yesterday, reaching down to the small of my back. My hair had always been my defining feature but it seemed to be forever getting caught in display units and car doors.
I applied a third layer of concealer to my puffy purple eyes and pulled the collar of my cardigan tightly around my neck. I tugged tighter and tighter. At first trying to keep warm but somehow, for just a moment, I entertained the idea of pulling it so tightly that I strangled myself, thus ending the sad short life of Effie ‘Meh’ Heaton.
I let go of my collar and left for work, abandoning the fleeting idea of suicide on the bathroom floor.
The shop had the good sense to know when to keep quiet. It was almost as if my force field of ennui ran to just outside the door, not permitting anyone through. I knelt beside the bestseller shelves, pulling out the ones that people hadn’t been able to get enough of last month and placing them into the bargain bin beside me. Arthur sat at the counter staring, almost manically, at his phone.
‘What exactly are you waiting for it to do?’ I asked without turning away from what I was doing.
‘Nothing,’ he replied too quickly.
‘You sure? ’Cause you’ve been staring at it like that for twenty minutes now.’
‘I’m just waiting for a call?’
‘From who?’
‘No one!’ he snapped.
A moment later the screen blazed into life and the theme from Doctor Who played from the tinny speakers. Arthur leapt back like he’d just seen a viper; his mouth drawn open, a look of terror in his eyes.
‘Well,’ I prompted after hearing it ring for a full five seconds. ‘Answer it then.’
He accepted the call and raised it to his ear. He took a deep breath before pulling his mouth into a smile and donning a laid-back tone. ‘Hi, Toby. How’s things?’
I couldn’t help but smile as well as I finally underst
ood Arthur’s strange behaviour.
‘I was just wondering,’ he continued, clearing his throat a few more times than necessary, ‘if you wouldn’t mind popping by. I’ve buggered up on my tax return again and I need someone who knows what they’re doing to take a look at it.’ His fake smile turned into a real one when Toby accepted his invitation and when he hung up, his face was bright red with excitement.
‘Tax returns?’ I asked whilst trying to keep a straight face.
Arthur’s smile dissipated as he tried to shrug his way out of the conversation. ‘Oh, shut up. I need him to check it for me.’
‘And this has nothing to do with the fact that you’re completely in love with him?’
Arthur’s face drew into an expression of outrage. ‘I am not in love with him, Effie. He is my accountant!’
‘Yes, and you’re in love with him.’
‘I most certainly am not.’ His face turned from pink to puce. ‘It would be completely inappropriate.’
I made my way over to the counter. ‘He’s an accountant, not a Montague. If you want to ask him out, then do it, Juliet. It’s been almost six years and this will-they-won’t-they thing that you’ve got going on is getting kinda old.’
Arthur sighed and placed his forehead on the counter. ‘But what if he says no?’
‘Oh please,’ I replied as the bell above the door jingled. ‘That awkward, specky man is just as much a fool for you as you are for him. Just shag and get it over with already.’
Arthur pressed his finger to his lips and shot me a warning glance before turning to the customer behind and asking if they needed any help.
‘Hi, I’m here to see Matilda.’ Something about his voice made me feel like I’d heard it before and when I turned, I saw that I had.
‘You!’ I exclaimed, stepping closer to the man who’d borne witness to my date from hell the night before. ‘The Eavesdropper.’
‘That is my formal title, yes. But I prefer to go by Theo.’ He smiled and it was one of those one-sided, dangerously alluring smiles that can lead a girl to make bad decisions.
‘Well, Theo, what are you doing here and how do you know my name?’ I crossed my arms and shot him a questioning scowl. The anger, born from my utter embarrassment, still burned brightly in my chest.
‘The waitress handed me this after you left. I guess she saw us talking and assumed we’d come in together.’ He held out his hand. My purse sat in his fingers and regret for my earlier moodiness changed my frown to an apologetic smile.
‘Oh my God. I didn’t even know I’d lost it. Thank you.’ I took the purse and opened it to check everything was still inside.
‘Don’t worry, I didn’t do anything with it, except buy that speedboat, of course, but I doubt you’ll miss seventy grand.’ He pushed his hands into his pockets in the same way that awkward teenagers do, although he was clearly not a teen, and flicked his floppy blond hair out of his face.
‘How did you know where I worked?’
‘Facebook,’ he said simply. ‘So, as a thank you for not stealing all of your money and returning your property to you, I was thinking that you could buy me a coffee.’
I raised an eyebrow and recrossed my arms, realising that my forgiveness had been a little premature. ‘Did you now?’
‘Yeah, well it would be rude of you to not give something in return for me being such a good Samaritan.’
I thought about it for a moment. There were positives to going out for coffee with an alluring and persistent stranger. He was hot, there was no denying that, and apart from being overly sarcastic and cocky, he seemed all right. But Daz had taken my last surviving molecule of confidence and crushed it under the sole of his Nike Airs and the idea of possibly facing humiliation again was enough to make up my mind.
‘You know I would, but I’m working and so I don’t think I’ll have time,’ I said in a transparently fake apologetic tone.
‘It’s fine. Take a break.’ Arthur’s voice came from behind me. I spun around and scowled at him. ‘Take as long as you need.’ He smirked and leaned back in his chair.
‘It’s settled then,’ Theo said, making for the door. ‘I’m thirsty, let’s go to the café in the park.’
I walked to the counter where Arthur was holding my jacket in his outstretched hand, a wicked smile on his lips. ‘I hate you so very much right now,’ I whisper-shouted.
‘Oh, just shag and get it over with,’ he replied mockingly.
With a sigh, I followed Theo out of the door for our impromptu coffee date and inside my brain, the Countdown theme began. It wouldn’t be long until I embarrassed myself and this handsome stranger saw what a complete loser he’d worked so hard to spend time with.
It took almost ten minutes before the dreaded question was asked: ‘What do you do for fun?’
My immediate answers were ‘Nothing’ and ‘What is this fun you speak of?’ But it was too early to let him know what a bore I really was.
‘You know. Stuff,’ I replied as we took a seat on a frigid stone bench.
‘How very in-depth.’ He smirked and took a sip of his decaf flat white.
‘What about you? What do you do?’
‘You know. Stuff,’ he replied, looking at me with a grin, his lips curling up and sending creases to the corners of his mouth. He had high, sculpted cheekbones and a roman nose that made him look like an artist had chiselled him out of marble. He was at least half a foot taller than me with wide shoulders that sat beneath a green cable-knit jumper and denim jacket. ‘You know, I can’t help but feel like you’re not the chatty type.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Well, I am.’ He looked up at the sky and watched a flock of pigeons descend onto the square in front of us. ‘You’re an odd one.’
‘That’s the most accurate description of me I’ve ever heard,’ I replied, the Countdown theme almost at the final bong.
‘Odd and needlessly angry.’
‘Oh, there’s plenty of need for it. It fuels me.’
I shifted on the cold stone bench and bounced my knees to try and keep warm.
‘Is this on my account or do you do this all the time?’ He turned to me, placing one of his large hands on his knee; the trace of a smile just visible.
‘Do I do what all the time?’
‘Bombard others with hostility and take an instant dislike to people you know nothing about.’
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but I knew that what he’d said was true.
Hostility was my comfort zone.
‘You can’t just make me buy you coffee and then insult me,’ I said, my voice thick with annoyance.
He rolled his eyes and turned back to the pigeons that were now pecking around on the ground in front of us. A male pigeon puffed out his chest and attempted to seduce one of the females; she was having none of it and I felt a strange kind of affinity with her.
‘There was a time when a handsome stranger could notice a pretty girl and take her out for coffee and she wouldn’t think that he had some sort of hidden agenda.’
‘Ha! You see, that’s where you’ve gone wrong.’ I held up a finger and looked into his eyes with lowered lids. ‘I’m the one who took you out for coffee, so clearly the secret agenda is still in there.’ I poked my finger into the centre of his chest, then realised that that was far too familiar and scooted away from him slightly.
‘We do live in the age of equality; if you want to pay for coffee I’m not going to stop you.’ He swigged at his drink. The ever-present gleam of mischief that glinted in his eyes was somewhat irksome.
‘Which is the real you?’ he asked, his tone suddenly serious.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, the person you are being now isn’t the same as the one who went out for a date with that Love Island contestant last night. If this version of you had been in that booth, then I’d have been surprised if Daz had left alive. But instead you just let him put you down. Why did you do that?’
I scow
led at him. Who the hell was this person? I hadn’t known him for more than half an hour and he’d already asked me more in-depth questions than my mother had in twenty-eight years.
I stood up, my body zinging with an amalgamation of fury and discomfort.
‘Well, as lovely as this has been, I’m going to go now.’ I thought about tossing my cup into the bin beside me but it was still half full and I didn’t want to waste what little money I had.
‘Hey, wait a minute.’ He stood, holding his hands up in front of him in surrender. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I wasn’t being cruel; I just wanted to know the answer. Sometimes I do this thing where I just say what I think without it going through the filter of social acceptability.’
Snap.
‘I’m going,’ I said, stepping away from him in the direction of the shop.
‘Before you go, can I just ask you one more question?’ He stepped in front of me, blocking my path and causing me to bump into him.
I groaned loudly and looked up into his face. I tried to ignore how amazing he smelled and kept my grimace intact. I shrugged dramatically and he carried on.
‘Why is it that you happily went along to that date last night with someone terrible, but you won’t give me the time of day? Are you one of these girls who date douchebags because they think they don’t deserve better, or do you just not like me?’
My shoulders slumped as my bravado abandoned me and I sat back down on the frigid bench without uttering another word. How was it that he had me pegged already? Was I that transparent?
‘It can’t be because of how I look – you called me handsome.’
‘You called yourself handsome; I had nothing to do with it.’
‘Ah! But you didn’t disagree.’ His smile was almost a superpower, the way it ignited his face and caused something to twist inside me in return.
‘Look,’ I sighed, my anger now reducing to a worn-down feeling of general shittiness, ‘you seem like an okay guy and you’re … not awful in the face department, or the shoulder department for that matter. If last night’s date hadn’t happened, then I might be more into this, but it did and I don’t think I can handle another disaster right now.’
Very Nearly Normal Page 3