Would Like to Meet

by Polly James

  Eva was very happy to be spared the bother, Esther far less so.

  “But I need to meet men, too, Hannah,” she said, when I told her about it at work earlier on today. “And you’re more outgoing than me, so it’s easier if I go to things with you.”

  “Didn’t exactly pay off for us when we went clubbing, did it?” I said. “Not when everyone kept calling us Siamese twins. I still don’t understand how we both ended up wearing the same dress.”

  Esther changed the subject when I mentioned the identical dress mystery, so that got me off the hook. Now all my clothing’s about to be in much the same position, as Eva’s pulling everything I own out of the wardrobe, and piling it onto the bed.

  When she’s finished, she stands back to survey the result.

  “You need to chuck out half your wardrobe, Hannah,” she says, and then she informs me that I need a makeover, asap.

  I ask what that would involve, exactly, but she’s not listening. She’s staring at something propped up on my dressing table instead. Oh, bugger, it’s the photo frame.

  Eva picks it up, studies it closely for a split second, and then says, “Who’s this, Hannah? Secret lover?”

  I roll my eyes, defiantly, and refuse to answer her. She knows perfectly well who it is, even though she’s never seen him before. It’s Dan, of course.

  “It’s Dan, isn’t it?” says Eva, when it becomes clear I’m refusing to admit it. She contemplates the photo for a moment or two, and then she adds, “I can see what you saw in him, but what’s he doing on your bedside table, for God’s sake? You two split up.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” I say, making a grab for the frame but missing when Eva jerks her hand away. “I just forgot it was there. Give it to me and I’ll get rid of it, if that’ll make you feel better.”

  “It’s you who ought to feel better after putting it out of sight,” says Eva. “I thought you were supposed to be moving on?”

  She raises a reproachful eyebrow as I yank open the bottom drawer of the bedside table and put the frame inside. I’ll reinstate Dan tonight, when Eva’s gone. I occasionally blow him a kiss, just before I go to sleep.

  “I was moving on,” I say, “I mean, I am. Now can we please not talk about Dan any more?”

  Eva agrees and changes the subject as we make our way downstairs. We spend the next hour or so sitting curled up on the sofa, singing along to my old “Soul Weekender” CDs, and trying to work out what sort of haircut I should have, as part of the makeover that she’s planning. It’s much harder inserting a photo of yourself into those online hairstyle templates than it looks, and eventually Eva loses patience with my failed attempts and takes over the process herself. She hands me a magazine to read to keep me occupied while she does it, the latest edition of Viva Vintage.

  God knows how someone as undomesticated as Eva can edit a magazine that seems to glorify all the skills from which Pearl and my mum were so desperate to disassociate themselves in the 1970s, when they were raising their consciousnesses and burning their bras all over the place. (Mum got away with the bra-burning as she had a minuscule bosom like mine, but Pearl says the Women’s Lib movement should have warned members the effects gravity would have on bosoms as pronounced as hers.)

  The magazine’s content may be a bit puzzling to someone my age, but the overall effect is aesthetically pleasing. In fact, the photography manages to make the most mundane household objects appear beautiful, and the shots of cupcakes are really enticing. The Halfwits cupcake crew are going to have to up their game to compete with those.

  I read the magazine from cover to cover, while Eva messes about slotting my head into various templates. There’s even a garden section, which surprises me. I haven’t told Eva how much I’ve been getting into gardening recently, because I’d assumed she’d disapprove, but now I pass her my latest drawing of the violas, as a test.

  “Nice,” she says, tilting her head this way and that, as she studies it. “Reminds me of a vintage botanical print. Can you draw any kind of flower, or just violas?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “They’re the only ones I’ve tried. Doesn’t gardening make me sound old and tragic, though?”

  “No,” says Eva. “It makes you sound young and hip. Gardening’s taking off in a big way among the young, you know.”

  Maybe that’s why Joel tried to persuade me to give him a flowerbed for his personal use. I refused, because I assumed he wanted to grow cannabis.

  * * *

  “Join our singles’ supper club and enjoy delicious food while finding love,” the advert said. It should have added, “But only if you’re a lesbian.”

  Fifteen women – and only three men. Three of them, for goodness’ sake! I may as well have left my hair unwashed.

  The hostess tries her best to make a joke of it, though none of the other women present seem to think it’s very funny. There’s a fair bit of muttering about taking people’s bookings under false pretences, and someone even mentions the Trade Descriptions Act.

  “Oh, let’s not lose our sense of humour,” says the hostess, in an attempt to quell dissent. “We’ll have one man per table, and then they can swap seats between each course. It’ll be fun, like musical chairs.”

  Even the men look uncomfortable with this idea, and I can’t think of anything more humiliating for the women. If this is what socialising by yourself as a single, middle-aged female is going to be like, then it’s the bloody pits. No wonder Eva said I was being stupidly optimistic about the supper club. The only highlight is the food, as the conversation’s so dull it makes me want to rip my own ears off and dip them into the cheese fondue the hostess described as “something to get everyone to interact”.

  The men aren’t interacting at all. They don’t need to. As the wine flows, they just sit back in their chairs, smiling benignly, while the women try harder and harder to earn their undivided attention. Honestly, what with some of them trying to look as if they’re fellating chunks of bread dipped in cheese, and others trying to feed them to the men, it’s getting more and more nauseating by the second. By the time the main course is served, the air’s so thick with sexual innuendo that I can hardly breathe.

  I just keep quiet and eat my way steadily through each course, while drinking too much wine and doodling caricatures of the other guests on a pile of spare paper napkins I found lying around on the end of my table. I’ve got enough material for a whole Hogarthian series of paintings by the time I get careless about covering up the evidence with my arm, at which point one of my table-mates spots the sketches and then shows them to everyone else.

  It’s an awkward moment, to say the least, one that demands a convincing reason to make a rapid escape. I can only think of a wholly-unconvincing one, but luckily, all the guests are so absorbed in arguing about which doodle represents whom that none of them notice I’m answering a phone that hasn’t rung. They don’t even react when I ask my imaginary caller, “So it’s definitely an emergency?”

  The only person who shows any interest in me at all is the hostess, and she seems almost pleased when I apologise and tell her I have to leave immediately. Maybe she’s worked out that the half-naked table-dancing doodle is of her.

  Chapter 25

  God, this single life involves a lot of drinking and a lot of hangovers. I’m almost late for work this morning, because it takes me so long to get going, and then I make it into the Fembot’s presentation just in time, only to realise I’ve left my sunglasses at home. The rest of the team have all remembered theirs, except for Esther, because her team didn’t tell her they’re essential for whenever the Fembot dims the lights.

  As soon as she switches the projector on, her over-whitened teeth fluoresce. The effect hurts your eyes after a while, so by the time the meeting finishes, Esther’s are streaming with tears.

  “Why didn’t you warn me?” she says, as we help ourselves to some of today’s batch of cupcakes: more breasts in frilly half-cup bras.

  “I
meant to phone you last night,” I say, “but then I ran out of time to get to the supper club.”

  Of course, that leads Esther to demand the whole story, by which time the Fembot’s joined us, so she gets to hear all about my latest disastrous foray into the dating world as well.

  “I’m never going to find a new man,” I say, biting into another pink-iced breast.

  The Fembot stands back, hand on hip, and looks me up and down for what feels like hours. I’m squirming under the scrutiny by the time she nods, as if she’s finally worked out something that’s been bothering her.

  “What about Botox, Hannah,” she says, “or a face lift? Have you considered either of those?”

  “I’m not filling my face full of poison, and going all shiny,” I say, “and I can’t afford a face lift.”

  I don’t add that I wouldn’t get one, even if I could. I’m pretty sure no one thinks people who’ve had loads of plastic surgery are younger than they really are. They just think they’ve obviously had plastic surgery, so they must be older than they look.

  “Well, what about a boob job, then?” says the Fembot. “I can recommend my surgeon.”

  Looking over her shoulder, I can see some of the staff high-fiving each other, and money changing hands, as yet another Fembot-related bet is settled. I shake my head: No. Dan never liked big boobs, and surely he can’t be the only one?

  The Fembot never gives up once she gets started on something. She twirls a couple of times, while clicking her pen against her teeth, which probably accounts for her next suggestion.

  “Teeth-whitening?” she says.

  * * *

  I’m trying not to chat to Danny so much these days, especially while I’m at work, so I spend this lunchtime answering questions on Halfwits instead, though the quality of those isn’t getting any better. The first ten I check out are variations on a theme: “What’s a cute thing to say to a woman on a first date?”

  “Can’t these idiots think of anything for themselves?” I ask Esther, who’s also spending her break answering questions in the hope that’ll help her get promoted.

  She’s now Halfwits’ self-appointed allergy specialist, and is munching through her sandwiches while inspecting photos of other people’s skin complaints.

  I don’t know why she’s bothering as, not only are the pictures repulsive, but the Fembot almost always goes to the gym at lunchtimes so she won’t have a clue whether Esther’s working overtime or not. I point that out, but Esther’s taking the whole thing so seriously that she just shakes her head to shut me up, then returns to the answer she’s been working on.

  “You’re no fun any more,” I say, spinning my chair round and round, and circling my ankles while I try to recall my first date with Dan, and what he said.

  To be honest, it wasn’t supposed to be a date at all, seeing as we were just friends at the time, and not the kind with benefits. We’d first met in life-drawing class and got on so well, we often ended up hanging out together late at night in the art school bar. Dan made me laugh, and he wasn’t precious about his work like so many of our classmates were.

  “It’s only sculpture,” he’d say. “It’s not as if I’m saving the world, or anything useful, is it?”

  He was a good sculptor, though, but even better at playing the sax. That’s where we’d been when things changed between us: at a gig he and his band were playing. If you want to blame anything for what happened afterwards, then blame the saxophone. It ought to be called the sexophone, given the effect it had on me, though Dan always ascribes the whole thing to the new dress I was wearing.

  It was one of those back-to-front mid-’80s dresses, a simple, fine-knit jersey shift in midnight blue, with buttons all the way down the back.

  I thought it was fantastic, which was a good job as it had cost most of the money I’d earned from painting a highly-flattering portrait of the (really ugly) local mayor, but Dan didn’t say anything about the dress all night – not until he’d walked me back to my flat, where we drank a bottle of wine while lying on giant floor cushions and listening to Van Morrison. (Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, in case you’re wondering.)

  Anyway, when it began to get light, Dan said he ought to be going, but then we stood talking for ages in the hallway, still making far more eye contact than had ever been normal for us in the past. I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from his, and he seemed to be having much the same problem, but eventually I turned around to switch off the light (because by then the sun was fully-risen), and that’s when he said, “God, that dress.” Then he kissed me on the nape of my neck and just kept on going – downwards.

  The rest, as they say, is history, achieved without the so-called “help” of Halfwits users.

  I type, “Say, ‘God, that dress’” into the answer box on the screen in front of me, and then hit post.

  * * *

  When I get home from work, I tell Joel all about how stupid today’s questions were, and – naively – expect some sympathy. He listens fairly attentively (for him) but, when I’ve finished, he just looks bewildered.

  “So, let me get this straight, Mum,” he says, as if he has no idea about the company I’ve worked at for the last God knows how long. “It’s a website. People log on and ask complete strangers to answer a question, and that’s it?”

  “Um, yes,” I say, not quite sure where this is going, but not much liking the sound of it.

  “Well, then, why the hell don’t these halfwits, as you call them, just ask someone they know for the answer?” says Joel. “Or, even better, Google it?”

  I spot some weeds in the garden that urgently require pulling up, so I rush outside, and close the back door firmly behind me. That was the one question I’ve never worked out the answer to, despite Googling it myself. Clearly my love life isn’t the only aspect of my existence that could best be described as utterly futile.

  * * *

  I do wish the Fembot wouldn’t appear from nowhere so often – especially when I’m in the ladies’ toilets. Today, she comes click-clacking across the floor on her Louboutins and then raps on the door of the cubicle in which I’m mulling over what to do about my love life, now I’ve decided it’s as futile as my job. She’s obviously been considering exactly the same thing for the last few days, since I ruled out her suggestions for self-improvement.

  “I’ve been thinking about what we were talking about the other day, Hannah,” she says, through the door. “You know, about how you’re going to find a new man. Have you thought about blind dates, at all?”

  I sigh, then open the door so I can see the Fembot’s face, just to check if she’s being mean and implying only a blind person would be willing to date an unreconstr‌ucted me. Her expression is uncharacte‌ristically kindly, though, so I try to avoid assuming the worst on the basis of past experience.

  “No, I haven’t thought about it,” I say, eventually. “But only because it hasn’t occurred to me before. Why are you asking, anyway?”

  “Because I know the perfect man for you,” says the Fembot. “Shall I arrange a date?”

  There’s no time to think because, at that moment, someone else comes in and starts spraying vanilla Impulse everywhere and the Fembot motions that we should leave. It’s not as if there’s much to think about, anyway. I’m not getting anywhere by myself.

  I take as deep a breath as the choking clouds of body spray permit and then I say, “Yes, please. Go for it.”

  I ignore the image of Dannyboy that immediately springs to mind.

  Chapter 26

  Maybe I can find romance without having to go online: I’ve got a date tomorrow night! The Fembot lives up to her motto that if you want something done, you should ask a busy person. Late this afternoon, she informs me that it’s all arranged. I’m to meet the guy she’s set me up with at 8pm, at a new restaurant in town.

  “I think it’s called Orgasmic,” she adds, loud enough for my entire team to hear, so now I’m never going to live that down.
>
  I do my best to rise above it, anyway, mainly by pretending I can’t hear the snorts of stifled laughter coming from behind the screen that separates my side of the long desk from where the majority of my team have been ordered to sit today, as part of the Fembot’s hot-desking experiment.

  “Is the food there any good?” I ask, hoping it won’t involve anything too messy, like spaghetti in a sauce or anything containing bits of spinach. I always get those stuck between my teeth.

  “I don’t know,” says the Fembot. “Orgasmic’s pescatarian, I think, but the Paleo diet’s what I’m on at the moment.”

  That shuts me up completely as I have no idea what the Paleo diet is, so I turn back to my computer and Google it, while everyone else packs away their belongings and then says goodbye. When the search results pop up, they prove more interesting than I’m expecting, because the Paleo diet promises to improve your libido. I know I don’t need that at the moment, because sex is the one thing talking to Danny in cyberspace still doesn’t involve, other than in the dreams I sometimes have about him afterwards, but maybe this date will turn out to be someone I can use my libido on, whether it’s been improved or not.

  Christ, it’s possible I may have sex tomorrow! I’d better go home, right now. I’ve only got this evening to shave and/or wax everything in sight, paint my toenails and get an early night. I need all the beauty sleep I can get.

  * * *

  Is there no end to the indignities of growing older? I’m trying to shave my bikini line – an activity that’s getting ever-more hazardous as my eyesight gets poorer, along with my flexibility – when I spot a clump of prickly white hairs sticking out, and at very peculiar angles, too. White hairs, for goodness’ sake! Now not only do I risk inflicting female genital mutilation on myself every time I need a tidy-up down there, due to the vision problem, but I also need to find out whether you can dye your pubic hair without getting chemical burns.