Thank You, Next: A perfect, uplifting and funny romantic comedy

by Sophie Ranald

  I was about to step right back out again and never return when I saw a woman in one of the shadowy corners, lit by a string of fluorescent red lights. She had one of the silver bars over her shoulders, laden with weights, and she was doing squats. She was about my age, and slim like me, and the plates looked huge on her shoulders. I could see her face contort with effort as she moved the bar, but she managed it, and when she’d replaced it on its rack there was a smile of pure, triumphant happiness on her face.

  And I thought, I want to be able to do that.

  Almost a year later, I still couldn’t. Not that heavy, anyway. But I was getting there, and I was hooked. I loved the smell of the place: rubber and sweat and disinfectant. I loved the sounds of iron meeting iron, people gasping with effort, heavy weights thunking on the rubber floor. I loved the new muscles that had appeared with surprising speed on my arms and thighs, and the calluses that had appeared on my hands alongside the ones left by my chef’s knives.

  Most of all, I loved how, when I came here, there was no space in my head for anything at all except the awareness of what my body was doing, the effort every move took, the longing for it to be over, the elation when it was.

  Now, walking through the door felt like stepping into my happy place – which I guess it was. Mike, the owner, was on the phone, but waved a greeting. The woman I’d noticed on my first day there was in her usual spot by the far wall, doing some warm-up stretches. I walked over to join her, dropping my bag next to hers.

  ‘Hey, Zoë.’

  ‘Hey, Dani. How’s it going?’

  Dani stood up, took a gulp from her water bottle and twisted the bobble more securely around her ponytail. When I’d started at the gym, her beauty had been one of the many things about it that had intimidated me. Her mahogany-coloured hair was always straightened and glossy, even when she was literally wringing sweat out of it. Her arms and legs were long, smooth and perfectly tanned. She always wore make-up, and even the toughest workout didn’t seem to shift it. She looked like she’d stepped straight out of one of those Instagram posts with a #fitspo hashtag.

  ‘Ugh, same old, same old,’ she said. ‘Started work at seven this morning, and as soon as I sat down a patient was screaming down the phone at me because he’d forgotten his appointment and we’d charged him for it and somehow that was all my fault. I was tempted to tell him to adjust his own bloody braces if that suited him better, but I didn’t, obviously.’

  I made sympathetic noises and dropped down onto the mat to start my own stretches, and we were still chatting away about nothing much as we started our workout together. I noticed Mike glancing over to us, a benevolent smile on his battered ex-boxer’s face.

  It was he who, a few months back, after he’d given me what passed for a formal induction into the gym – where everything was, how everything worked, how to secure the weights on the bars, that sort of thing (the more advanced stuff, he said, he’d show me as I went along) – had said, ‘In the meantime, if you need a workout buddy, chat to Dani.’

  In those first few weeks, at times when Mike wasn’t around, Dani had shown me some of the ropes – literally, because it turned out I was going to have to learn how to skip for the first time since I was about seven. She’d been friendly and patient but also kind of remote. We’d chatted a bit while we worked out together; I told her I was a cook, working freelance for a catering company and manning a food cart with my short-lived then-boyfriend, Sean, at weekends, but that I dreamed of having a kitchen of my own one day, maybe in a pub, a place I could make my own. She told me she was a receptionist at a nearby dental surgery, and when I asked if she enjoyed it, she shrugged and said it paid the rent. Then she’d flashed a brief, dazzling smile and said, ‘Plus I get my teeth whitened for nothing. Good for business, right?’

  When Sean and I split up, I’d told Dani and she’d said she was single too, and weren’t blokes more hassle than they were worth. When I started working at the Ginger Cat, she’d congratulated me and told me I’d be brilliant, and she must drop in for a pint sometime, although she never had. When she moved into a new flat, she’d shown me pictures and asked for my advice on paint colours, and we’d started following each other on Instagram.

  So, for a while, we were kind-of friends.

  Then, one day a few weeks back, things had changed. That day’s workout had been particularly brutal, and although Dani had raced through it way faster and more easily than me, by the end we were both flat out on our backs on the mat, just as knackered as each other, gasping for breath and soaked in our own sweat like we were being marinated for a cannibal barbecue. I glanced over to her, ready for our usual high-five, but she didn’t stick her hand out.

  She pressed both palms over her face, and I realised she was crying.

  ‘Hey.’ I sat up, reaching over to touch her shoulder. ‘What’s up?’

  She tried unsuccessfully to laugh. ‘Don’t tell Mike. He’ll think the workout was too hard for me.’

  ‘And it so wasn’t – you totally smashed it. But there’s something the matter, isn’t there?’

  She shook her head, her hands still covering her face. I could see her shoulders shaking with sobs. I jumped up, my legs somehow finding strength I wouldn’t have believed they had, and grabbed a wad of paper towel from the enormous roll mounted on the wall.

  ‘Do you want to talk?’ I asked, squatting down next to her.

  ‘No. Yes. But it’s just a stupid thing.’

  ‘It’s not, if it makes you feel like this. You can tell me, if you like.’

  She peeled herself up off the floor and leaned her face forward between her long, slender thighs.

  ‘It’s my birthday,’ she said, her voice muffled by the curtain of her hair.

  ‘Oh no! Why didn’t you say? Happy birthday! Are you doing anything nice?’

  ‘Not really. Might go out with some mates. But that’s not the point.’

  She lifted her head. For the first time ever, I saw her make-up smudged, her nose and eyes red.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘My mum didn’t ring me. Not a card, not anything. I should be used to it by now, we’re not close, but it still hurts so much.’

  And she made a strange keening sound, and I hugged her, not caring that we were both drenched in sweat and totally minging.

  ‘She never wanted me to move to London,’ Dani explained between sobs. ‘She wanted me to stay in Liverpool and marry the boy I’d been seeing since high school, because he was so nice and suitable and about to qualify as a dentist. But I couldn’t do it. I just thought about my life being the same for ever and ever and I wasn’t in love with him any more, so I ended it and came to London. And it’s like she’s never forgiven me. I can’t even go home for Christmas and stuff because there’s always rows, so I make up excuses about having to work, and I just feel so alone.’

  I’d listened, passed her tissues and waited for her to finish crying. I didn’t tell her then, because I didn’t want to make it all about me, but I totally got what she was saying. I sometimes felt like I’d missed out on the window of opportunity when everyone else had seemed to build up a close network of people they could hang out with, go on holiday with, make memories with. All documented with accompanying Instagram stories and hashtags.

  The next day, I turned up at the gym with a cake I’d baked, Mike and all the regulars sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her, a group of us went out for a few beers, and that had been that. Dani and I were mates. And still, months later, I caught Mike looking at us with a slightly smug expression on his face, and I knew it wasn’t just because he saw us challenging each other, motivating each other, but because he knew he’d been instrumental in giving us what we’d both been missing: a friend.

  ‘Shall we do chin-ups next?’ Dani asked now. Chin-ups were her favourites, and watching her pull herself up on the bar again and again, her strong arms straining until she got her whole head over it, was total life goals.

  ‘Sure. I’m just
going to get some water.’

  I crossed the gym towards the water cooler, glancing around me. It was quiet, as was usual for the middle of the afternoon – there were only a couple of hench guys doing bench presses by the weights racks, a woman chatting to Mike by the doorway and a guy finishing off a run on the treadmill.

  The machine slowed as I watched, and he stepped off, towelling his face. He was tall and lanky, and something about his easy grace reminded me of Joe. I waited for the familiar twist of pain, but it didn’t come – I could just discreetly and appreciatively check out this sweaty but handsome stranger, who was also approaching the water cooler, his aluminium drinks bottle swinging from one hand.

  We reached it at the same time.

  ‘After you,’ he said.

  ‘No, it’s fine – no rush. You go first. You look like you need it.’

  He wiped his face again, making his damp hair stand on end, and grinned ruefully. ‘That obvious, is it?’

  I smiled back. ‘Yeah, it kind of is.’

  ‘Well, I’d better go ahead then, before I collapse from dehydration.’

  ‘We wouldn’t want that to happen.’

  He leaned over and pressed the tap, and I enjoyed the view of his broad shoulders under his wet Lycra vest. We’d only exchanged a few words, but there’d been something in the way he’d looked at me that was – maybe? – flirtatious. But what did I know? I hadn’t flirted with anyone since forever. My memories of flirting were dim, ephemeral things, lost in the mists of time.

  He turned back to me and smiled again, showing straight white teeth Dani’s boss would have been proud of – or possibly not, if they were like that naturally rather than representing her next Caribbean holiday.

  ‘All yours,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks.’ I bent over to fill my own water bottle.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’

  I felt my heart give a little jump that had nothing to do with the thousand metres I’d just completed on the rowing machine. Was he about to ask me out? Me? Right here, in the gym, on the very day on which I’d decided that it was time to do something about my single state? I remembered the last words the Stargazer app had pinged into my phone:

  Fortune favours the brave.

  If he did, I resolved, I was damn well going to say yes.

  ‘Ask away,’ I said, turning and sipping water as alluringly as I could.

  ‘Um… my name’s Stephen, by the way. I’m here most afternoons, same as you.’

  I nodded. I’d seen him there, just never had the benefit of a close-up before.

  ‘I’m Zoë.’

  ‘Hi, Zoë. Uh… God, this is awkward.’

  I smiled, touched by his shyness. ‘Take your time.’

  I looked over to the pull-up bar, where Dani was finishing off her second set, and his gaze followed mine. Dani dropped down off the bar and rubbed her trembling arms.

  Now, Stephen’s words came out in a rush. ‘Your friend – the girl you train with?’

  ‘Dani.’ My warm glow of anticipation melted away, like I’d just chucked the contents of my water bottle over my head.

  ‘Dani.’ His tone was all kind of reverent. He might as well have been saying ‘the blessed Virgin Mary’. ‘Does she have a boyfriend at all?’

  ‘Ooof,’ Robbie said, when I relayed the story to him over our shepherd’s pie prep later that afternoon. ‘That must have smarted a bit.’

  ‘Tell me about it. And when I told Dani afterwards, she just laughed and said he was on a hiding to nothing, because he’s not her type, and if he asked her out she’d knock him back in a kind way, and I was welcome to him. But that’s not the point, is it?’

  ‘Zoë.’ Robbie put down his wooden spoon and folded his arms across his chest. ‘May I have your attention for just one second?’

  ‘What?’ I kept my eyes fixed on the pan of chopped onions I was stirring, so he couldn’t see that I might be about to cry.

  ‘Ahem.’ He picked up the spoon again and tapped it on the worktop.

  Reluctantly, I turned and looked at him.

  ‘That’s better. Now, listen up. You are bloody gorgeous. I’ve never seen this Dani and I’m sure she’s smoking too, but just because your man in the gym fancied her and not you, doesn’t mean you get to be down on yourself. I won’t have it. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ I sniffed and blinked my eyes rapidly a few times. ‘But…’

  ‘But what? She’s tall and dark, you’re petite with red hair. Different strokes for different folks, am I right? I bet there are plenty of blokes out there who’d look at her and go, “Eeeuuuw,” and look at you and go, “Phwoar.”’

  ‘I guess. But the thing is, if you’re dating, you’re basically putting yourself out there for people to go eeeuuuw or phwoar at, over and over again. And I just don’t know if I’m up for that.’

  Robbie twirled the spoon in his fingers like a cheerleader’s baton, sending minced lamb spattering against the wall.

  ‘Ooops.’ He grabbed a cloth. ‘What you need is a resilience strategy.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I mean…’ He looked at the spoon again, then replaced it in the pan. ‘You need to be able to deal with knock-backs. Because, I’m not going to lie, you’ll get them. But dating’s meant to be fun, not hard work. You need to treat it like a game.’

  ‘More like the flipping Hunger Games.’

  He tutted. ‘Don’t be so negative! If the idea of on-tap no-strings nookie isn’t enough to motivate you, then we’re going to have to find something that will.’

  ‘Meeting my Mr Right, so I’ll never have to date anyone else ever again?’

  ‘Won’t work. That way, you’d settle for Mr Good Enough, and then realise he’s not actually good enough, and before you know it you’ll be back to square one. You need to challenge yourself to date lots of people so you can figure out what right looks like.’

  ‘But I don’t want—’

  ‘Zoë!’

  ‘Sorry. What do you mean, though? Like, work my way through the alphabet, from Alfred to Zachary, and hope I get lucky round about Christopher?’

  ‘That could work. Although if you got as far as Q you might get stuck.’

  ‘Yeah, there aren’t that many Quentins about, are there?’

  ‘Exactly. You need something where there’s an even distribution.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Robbie stirred the sauce for a moment. I could see his mind working furiously.

  ‘The zodiac!’ he said. ‘Oh my God, that’s inspired. No wonder you hired me, I’m a strategic genius.’

  I couldn’t help laughing. ‘What, you think I should date a guy from every star sign until I find one I click with?’

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘But…’ I paused, thinking of the Stargazer app on my phone. I’d installed it a year or so back. It had seemed like a bit of fun, at first, even though it claimed to base its predictions on big data derived from international space agencies and a load of other science stuff that had completely lost me. Still, sometimes the messages that pinged onto my phone seemed almost uncannily accurate.

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Is that stuff actually real? I mean, how can it be?’

  ‘Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Astrology has been regarded as a scholarly tradition throughout history. It’s the wisdom of the ancients.’

  ‘And Mystic Meg in the Sun.’

  ‘Okay, and Mystic Meg. But that’s not the point. The point is to make dating fun.’

  I switched off the gas burner under the potatoes.

  ‘I suppose anything that’ll make this whole finding-a-man malarkey feel like fun has to be worth a go,’ I said.

  ‘So you’ll do it?’

  Abruptly, my enthusiasm deserted me. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Go on, I dare you.’

  ‘Robbie, I—’

  ‘Double dare you!’

  ‘Robbie!’

  ‘Triple da
re with a cherry on top and sprinkles!’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  It was after eleven thirty that night when Frazzle and I arrived home. As I unlocked the door of my flat after climbing the stairs, my legs so tired and heavy it felt almost like I might not make it to the top, I heard the click of Frazzle’s cat flap and he wiggled his way in through the window, hopped up onto my bed and settled down for a good wash.

  ‘Where have you been then?’ I asked him. ‘Busy day?’

  He glanced at me, blinked, then carried on scrubbing his face with his paw like he was going in for a mega exfoliating session.

  As usual after a long day, I felt knackered but also too wired to settle down to sleep. There was nothing I wanted to watch on TV. I would have loved a hot bath but the flat had only a tiny shower cubicle that provided hot water in a way I guess you’d describe as quirky, if you were its mum and wanted to make it feel better about itself. I’d eaten dinner earlier in the pub kitchen, so there was no point in making myself a piece of toast.

  Instead I found myself pacing up and down, waiting for the nervous energy that had carried me through the day to dissipate enough to allow me to rest. Not that pacing in my flat got you very far – twelve steps, fifteen if they were small, took me from the front door to the bed, and eight from the bed to the bathroom door. The place was tiny, poky even. I wasn’t naturally a tidy person, but I’d quickly realised that I’d need to clean up my act or risk drowning under a rising tide of my own stuff, so the room was neat, the bed made, most of my clothes folded tidily away in the chest of drawers.