Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop

by Annie Darling

  ‘Yes, I do know that but how do you know that?’ Posy demanded. ‘What is going on between you? I mean, what’s with all the flirting? Am I right, Very?’

  Verity nodded eagerly. ‘You were practically eating each other up with your eyes.’

  ‘Yes!’ Posy clasped her hands together in agreement. ‘Doing things with your eyes that made me go red.’

  ‘Everything makes you go red,’ Nina said crisply.

  ‘Nina!’ Posy came out from behind the counter so she could stalk towards Nina who quickly moved to the other side of the shop. ‘And how did he know that you have special gunk to put on your tattoo?’

  ‘I might have mentioned it in passing,’ Nina mumbled.

  ‘And yesterday the office door was open and I could have sworn I saw Noah putting a hand on your back,’ Verity said.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so Victorian,’ Nina said scathingly. ‘There could be a hundred reasons for Noah to put his hand on my back …’

  ‘OK, then, name three of them …’

  ‘The problem with you two is that because you’ve hooked up and settled down, you expect everyone else to do the same,’ Nina said, warming to her theme now. ‘But I’ve told you a million times, I don’t want to settle down. Yuck! No offence.’

  ‘None taken, I’m sure,’ Posy said a little huffily. ‘Anyway, Noah doesn’t want to settle down either. He’s always off travelling and ziplining through jungles and stuff. Sebastian says it’s a wonder that Noah hasn’t broken his neck yet or been kidnapped by a Bolivian drug cartel and held for ransom. Not really your type, Nina.’

  ‘I have adventures,’ Nina bit out.

  ‘Yeah, but your adventures seem to involve drinking too much vodka and copping off with those awful men you meet online,’ said Posy crushingly. Nina wouldn’t be asking her for a character reference any time soon.

  ‘It’s weird though because Merry swore blind that she saw you the other night in this burger place in Soho with a bloke who she said wasn’t your usual sort,’ Verity mused. She pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. ‘She took a photo. I said I didn’t want to see it because it was an invasion of your privacy but I’ve changed my mind. I’m texting her right now.’

  Nina pretended to put a book back in its rightful place but really she was clutching on to the shelf for support. ‘Your sister took a photo of me? Well, that’s an infringement of my civil liberties!’

  ‘Says the woman who took a photo of Johnny the night she and Posy stalked me to the restaurant where we both were and then showed it to that same sister,’ Verity said, which was neither here nor there as far as Nina was concerned. She was actually far more concerned about the ping on Verity’s phone signalling that a text message had just arrived. ‘Oh my goodness! Yes! That absolutely is you!’

  ‘I bet it absolutely isn’t!’ Nina hurried closer so she could see the damning evidence for herself. ‘It doesn’t even look like me!’ she insisted, though the pink-haired woman in the photo …

  ‘Looks exactly like you!’ Posy cried. She snatched the phone from Verity’s hand. ‘And that looks exactly like Noah! You and Noah! Eating burgers! Drinking alcohol! You were on a date with him! How? How did this happen? When did it happen? Why did it happen? How long has this been going on? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Posy was pacing around in little circles as she spat out her endless questions. There was a very real possibility that something in Posy’s brain would short circuit. Hopefully. Because try as hard as she could (and she really was trying hard), Nina couldn’t think of any innocent reason why she and Noah would be eating dirty burgers and drinking whisky cocktails.

  ‘All right, all right … Posy, please stop that, you’re making me dizzy,’ Nina pleaded and when Posy came to a halt, it was time for the truth. ‘Noah and I … Yes, OK, we were on a date. But it was a non-date! And then we went on another non-date, except he didn’t know it was a non-date but then it turned into a date.’

  ‘WHAT?’ Posy was back to walking in circles on the spot again. ‘This is big. It’s huge.’

  ‘Really not that huge,’ Nina said a little desperately.

  ‘How would you even know if it was huge or not, you haven’t been on your third date yet, have you?’ Verity chortled. Nina absolutely did not appreciate the fact that Verity had chosen this moment to crack her first rude joke.

  ‘Haha! Good one, Very! High five!’ Posy crowed. ‘So, Nina, your third date’s looming then? And we all know what happens on a third date!’

  How Nina wished that she’d never told Posy or Verity about the third-date rule. ‘You know, you don’t have to shag someone on a third date. It’s not the law,’ she said.

  ‘Oh really? Because you’ve always been pretty adamant that it is the law, unless there were extenuating circumstances,’ Posy said as Verity nodded her head vigorously in agreement.

  ‘Yes, you said being a vicar’s daughter was extenuating circumstances and so it would be all right if I waited until the fifth date but in the meantime, it was only polite to have a bit of oral sex,’ Verity recalled, a finger to her chin, which Nina thought was overkill.

  ‘I’m sure I never said that!’

  ‘Yeah, you did,’ Verity assured her. The pair of them were enjoying this far too much.

  Nina cast a longing look at the shop door, praying that a whole coachload of customers would descend, all with urgent queries that only Nina could help them with. No such luck.

  ‘Oh poor Nina,’ Posy cooed, as she saw the stricken look on her friend’s face. ‘Payback is a bitch, isn’t it? But, come on, all those times that you’ve hounded us about our dating …’

  ‘Or lack of dating,’ Verity chimed in. ‘Or speculated about our sex lives, usually in front of customers. It’s quite nice to get our revenge.’

  ‘I’m sure that I’ve only ever been supportive of your relationships,’ Nina grumbled but it was very lacklustre because Posy and Verity were right. God damn them. She was the annoying friend who dragged her single friends out on the pull, even if they didn’t want to go anywhere near the pull. And when Verity had been seeing an oceanographer called Peter Hardy who’d left her alone for long periods of time while he graphed oceans, Nina had constantly speculated on how Verity was getting her sexual needs fulfilled in the long absences. ‘OK, you have five more minutes to rib me about this but then I’m cutting you off.’

  ‘No more ribbing, but I am curious,’ Posy admitted as she flopped onto one of the sofas. The shop was so quiet that Nina decided she might as well flop next to her. ‘I mean, Noah. I just can’t get my head around it.’

  ‘What do you mean, Noah?’ Nina demanded indignantly. ‘He’s lovely.’

  ‘Case in point. You don’t do lovely. He seems very off-brand for you,’ Posy mused. ‘You said you were looking for Heathcliff but Noah seems far too nice to be Heathcliff.’

  ‘Although, to be fair, your type hasn’t really been working for you,’ Verity said gently, perching on the arm of the sofa where Posy and Nina had flopped so that it started to feel a lot like an intervention. ‘Heathcliff is the worst possible romantic role model to base your search for a soulmate on – at least Darcy came good in the end. No wonder you end up with all of those so-called bad boys who end up treating you terribly. That can’t be much fun, or is it that you just like the thrill of the chase?’

  ‘Pfffffft, don’t be silly, Very. I LOVE the thrill of the chase,’ Nina said because that was what she was meant to say. It was what she always said. ‘You know me, I’m all about the passion and the drama. Without passion and drama, we might just as well be dead. And Noah, lovely though he is, definitely isn’t passion and drama.’

  ‘Well, I have to say, Nina, it sounds exhausting,’ Posy said with great feeling because she was married to a man who had brought a lot of passion and drama into Posy’s life. ‘What is the endgame here? Are you still going to be on HookUpp or hanging out in dive bars and dodgy pubs, when you’re in your forties, fifties …’


  ‘I’m not even thirty yet,’ Nina said. ‘And anyway, age ain’t nothing but a number and the endgame is that I meet my one true love. My soulmate. The one man I can never get enough of: can’t live without him, can’t live with him.’

  ‘That sounds exhausting too,’ Verity noted. ‘I know lots of people who are happily coupled up but I don’t know anyone who’s in that kind of relationship.’

  ‘Because a love like that doesn’t come around too often,’ Nina said. A love beyond all rhyme and reason. Without it, she was just going through the motions and it felt like she’d been doing that, stuck in a bad-boy holding pattern, waiting for years.

  ‘Well, Noah is great, so please don’t hurt him,’ Posy implored. ‘He doesn’t deserve to have his heart broken and also, Sebastian would be very cross. He thinks of Noah as an honorary younger brother.’ Posy sighed and then went all melty and misty-eyed. ‘You know, Sebastian is a lot more sensitive than most people give him credit for. And yes, he is very passionate and overly dramatic, but not all the time, thank goodness. Passion and drama can get very old very fast, Nina.’

  ‘Maybe what you think you want and what you actually need are two very different things,’ Verity said with all the calm logic that usually Nina valued. ‘I really like Noah, except when he’s eavesdropping on my private conversations or manhandling Strumpet. He might not be big with the passion and the drama but he could be so good for you.’

  And that was the one problem with Noah – which was odd because usually when Nina was seeing someone they came with at least ninety-nine problems – who wanted to go out with someone that everyone liked? Who wasn’t a misunderstood renegade?

  Even if Nina and Noah did have a proper relationship, it would still implode like all Nina’s relationships did. Not in a dramatic, passionate, china-smashing way because that wasn’t Noah’s style, which was why their break-up would be inevitable because they were absolutely incompatible. And, if Nina was really honest with herself, it wasn’t just his lack of drama and passion that was the issue.

  The secret truth that Nina had been shying away from since that train journey back from Worcester Park was that Noah, for all his talk of compartmentalisation and being a cold fish, had risked life and limb on all sorts of hair-raising adventures. He never stayed in one place for too long and had been all around the world and was planning a road trip across America. Nina, on the other hand, for all her talk of living life to the full, hadn’t ventured further than the fifteen or so miles that separated Bloomsbury from Worcester Park. If you took away the vintage clothes and make-up and the extra four stone she’d put on since then, Nina suspected that she was still the same girl who nearly got married at twenty. Clinging on to the twin pillars of drama and passion was the only way Nina knew to rid herself of that girl.

  As soon as Nina remembered the girl she’d been, inevitably she thought about the boy Noah had been. Creeping and cringing down the school corridors as people chanted ‘Know It All’ at him or tried to shove him headfirst into lockers or down toilets. And more often than not, it was her brother who was doing the shoving.

  And when Nina remembered their school days, she was also reminded of the terrible secret she was keeping from him, which meant that she and Noah could never be anything.

  It was probably best to end things now. Two non-dates in, before there was too much collateral damage and especially before Noah realised that Nina was the very last woman on earth that he wanted to have feelings for.

  Verity and Posy were both looking at her, eyes wide with hope and expectation that all Nina needed were a few dates with a good man to see the error of her ways. So that she’d settle down like they had. She hated to disappoint them because she really did love them both but …

  ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here!’ she declared in her most careless voice. ‘Noah and I have been on two dates. We’re not even exclusive, so stop getting ideas. Yes, he’s a lovely bloke but he could never be my Heathcliff.’

  ‘You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!’

  Normally, Nina wasn’t the kind of woman to dither. She was a ripper-off of plasters, a plunger into cold swimming pools, but instead of immediately breaking things off with Noah, she decided to sleep on it.

  Then Noah gave her the perfect opportunity the next day when he texted Nina to tell her that he had to fly to Glasgow to sort out a crisis at a packaging plant.

  ‘Posy and Verity know about us,’ she texted back, reasoning that it was only fair to have the difficult conversation face to face. Binning people by text message was so ten years ago … ‘Apparently, we weren’t very stealthy.’

  ‘I know they know. Sebastian is worried that you’ll be a bad influence and I’ll end up with all sorts of body parts pierced and tattooed.’

  What Sebastian had probably said was more along the lines of ‘You could do better than Tattoo Girl: she’s been around the block more times than the milkman.’ Nina also didn’t want to think about Noah’s body parts or his lovely freckly skin covered up with tattoos.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so many conflicting thoughts about a man. Probably not since Orlando Bloom (her teen crush) had married Miranda Kerr.

  She texted back a perfunctory: ‘I guess I’ll see you when you get back’ and in the meantime, set about trying to forget Noah, which meant firing up HookUpp and up-swiping on a graphic designer who worked just round the corner. In his profile pic he was dark and smouldering and his bio was one line: ‘Let me paint you like one of those French girls.’

  When Nina turned up to meet him in The Thornton Arms, Wilhelm was even more smouldering in the flesh. Smirky too and Nina was a sucker for a smirk as much as she was for guys in skinny jeans, Ramones T-shirts (did they give out Ramones T-shirts on the first day at art college along with an orientation pack?) and designer stubble.

  Nina hadn’t even had three sips of her vodka tonic before he said that he’d like to draw Nina naked.

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ Nina heard herself drawl in a world-weary tone when usually that was just the kind of suggestion that had her firing back with some flirty repartee of her own but honestly, she was so done with the frogs who were only interested in getting her knickers off. The date only lasted that one drink.

  Noah had ruined her for all other men and for the rest of the week, Nina lived like a nun. Well, a very progressive, liberal nun who still went to the pub with her friends, but Nina was determined not to get chatted up or picked up so she kept her eyes to herself.

  ‘Are you ill?’ Verity asked Nina one night in The Midnight Bell when Nina turned down the offer of a drink from a scruffy-haired Australian with tribal tattoos. ‘He’s just your type.’

  ‘Sickening for Noah, maybe?’ Posy suggested with a sly smile while Tom, who hadn’t been privy to the latest intel on Nina’s love life said, ‘Why would you say that? Noah and Nina? Don’t be ridiculous.’

  Even Tom knew that Nina and Noah were two people who didn’t fit together, like oil and water, or spots and stripes.

  ‘We were quite surprised when you rocked up with Noah,’ Marianne told Nina when they met for their monthly ‘nana night out’ which involved a big sesh at the Mecca bingo hall in Camden then spending their winnings on a bowl of pasta and a bottle of wine at the old-fashioned ristorante across the road.

  ‘Yeah yeah, he’s not my type,’ Nina murmured as they waited for the bingo to start. ‘I got that memo.’

  ‘He might not look your type, but that doesn’t mean a thing. You’ve been out with some absolute pigs simply because they did look your type,’ Marianne pointed out, which wasn’t very helpful. She waved at an elderly lady sitting across the aisle from them. ‘Hello Lily, how are your knees?’

  ‘I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy,’ Lily said, as she always did, and then she started listing her other ailments, of which there were many, and for the rest of the evening, Nina made sure that Noah’s name didn’t come up.

  She did su
ch a great job of forgetting about him that when she came downstairs on Friday morning, ten days after Noah had flown to Glasgow, to see him coming through the shop door, she felt rocked where she stood. Her heart thumped giddily, her body jerked in joyful recognition and she had to tell herself sternly not to smile too much, not to run over to him.

  She was going to play it cool.

  Then Noah looked up, caught sight of Nina hovering uncertainly in the no-man’s-land between shop and counter and he smiled broadly and brilliantly as if just the sight of her was enough to make everything right in his world.

  Forgetting all about her resolutions to end things before they’d started, Nina felt her heart and her spirits perk up like nobody’s business.

  ‘You’re back!’ she noted and her powers of observation weren’t going to give Sherlock Holmes any sleepless nights.

  ‘I am back,’ Noah agreed. ‘You’ve changed your hair.’

  Nina put a hand up to her hair, which was platinum once more. ‘Well, you know what they say about blondes having more fun,’ she said in a breathy voice as if she were seconds away from an asthma attack.

  ‘Talking of fun, you have the rest of the week off,’ said a voice behind her, which made Nina jump before she turned round to see Posy standing there. Two minutes with Noah and, once again, the rest of the world ceased to exist.

  ‘What do you mean, I have the rest of the week off?’ she asked, because Nina was pretty sure that if she’d booked Friday and Saturday off she’d have remembered it.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, I asked Posy … it’s a surprise,’ Noah said a little hesitantly. ‘Do you like surprises?’

  ‘Depends,’ Nina said, because often when a man asked her if she liked surprises, it usually involved him whipping down his trousers. Plus, she was supposed to be breaking them up at the earliest opportunity. ‘What kind of surprise?’