by Zoe May
‘You two!’ He exclaims. ‘You two are adorable. Aren’t they?’ he turns around to no one in particular. ‘You’re perfect! A perfect match!’
‘Shut up, Tom!’ I hiss, but he bounds off across the dance floor towards Gerry who’s still manning the karaoke machine, and cackles mischievously over his shoulder.
‘Sorry about that,’ I grumble to Chris, shyly meeting his gaze. I expect him to look awkward or put out, but he just smiles at me, with a warm, affectionate look, and seems totally unfazed.
‘Right, I think I’ve earnt this turn!’ Gerry jokes through the mike. ‘How about a slow number, eh? This is one of my favourite songs and I used to be on my school choir so, enjoy! Take it away, Tom,’ he says, and Tom, who is now stationed at the karaoke gear, presses ‘play’.
Gerry, who does have an incredibly soft singing voice, begins to croon along to Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton. People break off into couples and begin to slow dance.
‘Shall we get a drink?’ I suggest, looking towards the buffet.
Chris shakes his head. ‘Come here.’ He holds his hand out to me.
‘Oh, okay,’ I reply, laughing nervously. ‘Sure.’
The gentle music sweeps over me and I can’t bring myself to resist being swept up into his arms. Why would I? The beautiful melody, the twinkling lights, and Gerry’s smooth tones have a spell-binding effect, making Daniel and Laura and everything relating to real life feel remote and unreal. Chris takes my hand and slips his fingers through mine. He pulls me close, sweeping his other hand behind my back. He feels masculine and strong, showing another side to his character beyond the cake-baking library lover. I look at him, impressed, as I place my hand on his shoulder. Our bodies are touching, the sequins of my dress brushing against his cotton shirt. I can feel the heat of him. Without thinking, I rest my head against his chest and close my eyes. He lowers his head against the top of mine as the music engulfs us. And soon, I’m aware of nothing but Chris, his head on mine, the washing powder smell of his shirt, the warm safe feeling of having his arm on my back and it’s wonderful, just like Eric Clapton sang.
‘Sophia?’ Chris says softly into my ear. I lift my head and meet his gaze. His eyes are tender and intense. He reaches up to my face and sweeps a few mussed-up strands away from my temple, his fingertips brushing against my skin.
‘You know that thing Tom said?’ Chris gazes into my eyes. ‘About you being my perfect match…’
I nod, my heart thumping in my chest, sensing that we’re seconds away from our first kiss.
‘Well,’ he ventures. ‘I was thinking—’
‘Sophia?’ a hard voice punctures the moment. I turn around and find Daniel – Daniel! – standing behind me.
‘What’s going on here?’ he barks as I spring out of Chris’ arms.
‘Friend! He’s a friend. Dancing. We were just dancing,’ I blurt out.
Daniel shoots Chris daggers. ‘Dancing,’ he echoes through gritted teeth.
I look at Daniel, with his frowning expression, quaffed hair and ludicrously expensive clothes. Today, he’s sporting a leather jacket with far more zips than anyone could ever possibly need over a distressed black jumper (which is probably spun from lambs’ wool and has been lovingly ‘distressed’ by a team of dressmakers in a workshop in Milan) and a pair of artfully faded biker jeans. His outfit no doubt cost thousands, the kind of edgy designer stuff he orders from online boutiques and has delivered to ‘Daniel Hamilton-Jones, the Shard’. He looks so out of place here, in Lewisham Community Centre, next to Chris with his crumpled office shirt and flushed cheeks.
‘Errr… I’m going to, umm…’ Chris mutters, scurrying away, no doubt feeling unnerved under Daniel’s penetrating gaze.
‘What was that all about, Sophia? Is that why you haven’t called me? Because you’re with someone else?’ he balks.
‘What? No, don’t be silly!’ I say in a slightly too high-pitched voice when I’m suddenly distracted by Paige, her hair extensions wild from dancing, who is standing, gawping, a few feet behind Daniel, clearly believing that Robert Pattinson has just wandered into our little shindig.
‘Come on, let’s go somewhere quieter.’ I pull Daniel away from the dancefloor.
‘Fine by me,’ he replies, casting a snooty look at the stage, where one of Lyn’s friend’s – an overweight burly guy – breaks into a rendition of Whole Again by Atomic Kitten. I roll my eyes, hating him for his snobbery.
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask as we cross the hall. I cast my eyes around for Chris but I can’t see where he’s gone.
‘I needed to speak to you and since you’ve been ignoring my calls, I didn’t really have much choice but to come and talk to you myself,’ Daniel explains as we step out of the hall into the corridor, which is quiet and smells of the same cheap bleach the caretakers used to mop the floors with at my old school.
‘I went to your place, but you weren’t in, then I remembered about your party so I came here.’
‘Right,’ I murmur, looking down at my shoes. How could Daniel have forgotten about Lyn’s party when I’ve been banging on about it pretty much every day since I met him?
‘It’s quite the, err… celebration.’ Daniel sneers, making ‘celebration’ sound like the most derogatory word imaginable.
‘Yes, it is a celebration, Daniel,’ I assert. ‘A bloody great one, actually.’
Daniel fixes me with a pointed stare. ‘Well yes, I can see you were having a great time.’
‘Drop it, Daniel,’ I sigh.
‘It’s pretty difficult not to be annoyed, when you don’t return my calls for days and then the next moment I see you, you’re slow dancing with another guy!’
I feel my stomach lurch slightly. As much as I dislike Daniel right now, he does kind of have a point. I have been pretty much blotting out his existence over the past few days and if he’d arrived a minute later tonight, Chris and I would probably have been kissing. That’s not exactly great behaviour since we haven’t officially broken up, but regardless, I still can’t help thinking about the way Chris was looking at me, how it felt when his fingers brushed my hair aside, that thing he’d been saying about Tom’s comment that we were a ‘perfect match’. Surely, he was just about to admit his feelings for me? We were on the cusp of something, things were just about to change between us, and then Daniel had to come along and ruin everything.
I take a deep breath and force myself to have this conversation.
‘I’m sorry, I should have called,’ I admit in a quiet voice. ‘But I felt really uncomfortable after what Cleo said. I thought we had something Daniel. I was practically living with you but Cleo just made me feel like I was one of many. Yet another Cinderella-type girl on your dating conveyor belt. It was shameful.’ Suddenly I find myself welling up. It’s as if all the shame and hurt I’ve been pushing down over the past few days has finally flooded to the surface and I can’t even bring myself to meet his gaze.
‘Sophia…’ Daniel says in a soft, sympathetic voice. I blink and two hot tears fall down my cheeks.
‘Sophia, I’m sorry.’
I glance up to see he’s no longer frowning and now looks genuinely contrite. He takes a step closer and he wipes a tear from my cheek with his thumb. I look into his eyes, those gorgeous piercing blue eyes that used to make me want to reach for a camera I found them so beautiful, but now I feel nothing. Nothing but shame. Mistaking my eye contact for affection, Daniel lowers his lips towards mine, his soft lips landing on my unmoving mouth.
A burst of music floods out of the community hall and as the door swings open, I pull away from Daniel’s kiss to see Chris, standing there, frozen and awkward, a shocked and hurt expression on his face.
‘Sorry, I was just…’ he trails off and dashes back into the hall.
‘What’s with that guy?’ Daniel narrows his eyes as the hall doors swing shut.
Damn it! I want to run after Chris, but Daniel is still holding me, expecting to kiss and make up. I
can’t just hurry after him, especially since I’ve already made out that nothing’s going on between us. But I am desperate to. I want to explain everything: the misguided reasons I went for Daniel, how much I regret not going on a second date and how stupid I feel for believing that love was something I needed to feel at first sight. I want to tell him how adorable I’ve come to find the awkward bumbling way he blurts out food facts, how much I love his habit of carrying around random library books every day and how much I appreciate his kind, giving nature but I can’t. I can’t say any of those things because I’ve got Daniel in front of me. Gorgeous, rich, empty Daniel.
‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ Daniel says.
‘What?’ I look at him, perplexed.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ he repeats. ‘We have a lot of things we need to talk about,’ he says in a stern tone, which reminds me of Tom’s headteacher voice. ‘I’ve booked us a table at Avenue 8. It’s a new champagne bar in Liverpool Street. It’ll be quiet, we can talk there. Come on.’
Daniel edges down the hallway while I watch him, disbelieving.
‘Wait.’ He looks me up and down. ‘Do you, err, have anything else to wear?’
I glance down at my sparkly dress and ballet shoes, which are sticky with spilt Fanta.
‘It’s just, that’s a bit…’ Daniel trails off.
A fuse of pent up anger that’s been simmering away inside me ever since my conversation with Cleo blows up, a swell rising in my chest.
‘It’s a bit what, Daniel? Spit it out. A bit trashy? A bit tacky? A bit cheap?’
Daniel sighs.
‘Well guess what, Daniel? I am a bit trashy. I am a bit tacky and do you know what? I don’t care! I don’t want to hang out in some poncey champagne bar where I can’t relax because everyone’s so bloody stuck-up and pretentious. And I don’t want to put on some stupid overpriced dress that isn’t me, just to please you. I want to hang out here. I want to drink Fanta and wear sequins and sing karaoke and actually have fun,’ I tell him.
Daniel’s mouth gapes open. ‘Fine. So, you don’t want to talk about our relationship then, like you promised?’
‘I said I’d call you,’ I remind him. ‘We would have talked about our relationship, but you just had to show up here instead.’
‘The thing is, Sophia, I don’t think you would have called, would you?’ He gives me with a penetrating look and I cast my eyes sheepishly down at the ground.
‘And to be perfectly honest,’ Daniel continues, ‘I’m getting a bit sick of all this,’ he says, a hard edge to his voice.
‘Sick of what?’
‘Sick of you ignoring my calls. Sick of you putting everyone else before me. You’re quite happy to make a fuss over Lyn, but what about me?’
‘Are you serious?’ I gawp.
‘Yes,’ Daniel insists. ‘You spend all this time on Lyn, but what about me?’
I look at him, aghast. ‘Are you seriously telling me you’re jealous that I organised a birthday party for my elderly neighbour?’
‘I’m not jealous,’ Daniel huffs. ‘But I just think you should think about me sometimes too. Now are you coming to Avenue 8 or not?’
‘No!’ I scoff. ‘Of course, I’m not coming to Avenue 8!’
‘What do you mean you’re not coming?’ Daniel snaps. ‘We have a lot to talk about.’
‘Daniel, I’ve been planning this party for weeks. I’m not just leaving!’ I shake my head in disbelief.
‘See?’ Daniel snarls, his eyes wide with exasperation. ‘This is what I’m talking about. You’re putting Lyn before me.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ I snap, turning to head back to the party but Daniel grabs my arm.
‘You said we were going to talk.’
‘Yeah but I’m not leaving!’ I shake my arm free. ‘Look, if really you want, you can stay here and we’ll talk,’ I suggest, although the second the words are out of my mouth, I realise I don’t actually want him to. I want to go and find Chris. I want to dance and have fun with him and Lyn and Tom, without Daniel looking down his nose at us.
‘I’m not staying!’ Daniel sneers again, as if the suggestion’s completely absurd.
‘Why not?’
‘Because…’ He squirms, and of course, it’s because he thinks he’s too good for Lyn’s party. He thinks he’s too good to hang out at a community centre on a Friday night doing karaoke.
‘Because this is taking the pauper fetish a bit too far, right? You’re willing to find me, like a little diamond in the rough, but only if you can take me out of the rough? You’re not actually willing to become part of my world.’
Daniel sighs loudly. ‘It’s not like that.’
‘It is like that though, isn’t Daniel? Or should I call you Prince Charming? I’m just yet another one of your broke girls. You thought you could just take me, whisk me out of Lewisham and mould me into the girlfriend you wanted me to be,’ I rant.
I want him to deny what I’ve said, or at least explain it, but he simply shifts uncomfortably and looks down at the floor.
‘Daniel?’ I venture in a small voice.
He looks up at me and guilt passes over his features like a shadow.
‘I said I’m sorry.’
I feel a stab of mortification and suddenly, I feel stone cold sober.
‘I can’t believe you.’ I gulp. ‘Why would you do that?’
Daniel looks down to the floor again, but doesn’t say anything.
‘Daniel, why? That’s so messed up!’
He glances up at me, his eyes dark and cold.
‘I suppose…’ He frowns, as if searching for the right words. ‘I suppose my life just gets a bit boring sometimes. I know I’m lucky and I live a charmed life, but I’m just so used to everything – the nice restaurants, the exclusive clubs, my flat. And sometimes, I feel a bit lost, as if I’m losing interest in it all, but then you come along and you get so excited and it’s just infectious and then I get excited by it all again, too.’
I think back to what Cleo said about Daniel wanting to see the world ‘through my eyes’. She was right.
‘And also,’ Daniel continues. ‘You have no idea how haughty and high-maintenance some of the girls in my circles are. They can be so demanding and uptight, girls like you are just more easy-going,’ he explains, as if to try to make me feel better.
I look into his eyes, and for the first time, I don’t see them as striking and piercing, they’re just cold. I realise that Daniel hasn’t been dating me because he loves my personality or feels crazy about me, he’s simply liked the fact that I’m low-maintenance and I’ve been so awestruck by his lifestyle that I’ve gone along with pretty much everything. Every restaurant we’ve eaten at has been his choice, every club we’ve gone to has been somewhere he’s wanted to go, and even little things like the shows we watched on TV were always the ones he wanted to watch.
‘Easy-going or easier to control?’ I ask in a flat voice, thinking back to Kate’s party. No wonder he didn’t want to go and ended up leaving so early. I was meant to be his awe-struck easy-going broke ass girlfriend but for once, I was calling the shots and he didn’t like it.
‘What?’ Daniel raises an eyebrow. ‘I don’t know about that, Sophia,’ he says although he sounds a little unsure, as if my words might have struck a chord.
I look away.
A shrill excited peel of laughter erupts from inside the party, making Daniel flinch.
‘Come on, can we please just go and sort this out somewhere quieter.’ He looks towards the exit.
‘No, Daniel,’ I sigh. ‘I’m staying here. It’s Lyn’s party and I’m not just going to abandon it.’
Daniel exhales, shaking his head. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right.’ His jaw tightens and his eyes grow colder. ‘Well, do you know what, Sophia?’ He raises an eyebrow at me, fixing me with a serious look. ‘If you don’t come with me, then I think it’s best if we just end things right he
re, right now.’
A disbelieving laugh spills from my lips.
‘Do you honestly think I care? Do you honestly think I want to go with you? I’m not just going to be your adoring low-maintenance girlfriend, clinging to your arm, doing whatever you want. Go to your champagne bar, Daniel! I don’t care!’ I rant. I’m full of rage, but tears of frustration fill my eyes.
The door of the community hall swings open and I look over to see Lyn and Tom, the smiles falling off their faces at the sight of me. Tom steps forward.
‘Sophia, what’s wrong?’ he coos as he pulls me into a hug. I bury my head into his bobbling fleece. He must have been about to pop outside for a fag with Lyn, since I know he’s partial to one after a few drinks.
‘Nothing, it’s fine,’ I sob, overwhelmed. Tom rubs my back and Lyn appears by my side, still wearing her embroidered cardigan. She gives my arm a squeeze.
‘Oh, love,’ she says. ‘Don’t cry.’
‘I’m fine. I’m okay,’ I insist, except every time I wipe the tears from my eyes, they just refill. I realise I’m not fine. I’m not okay. I’m embarrassed and ashamed. Ever since Cleo said those horrible things about Daniel, part of me was hoping they weren’t true. A small part of me was still clinging to the possibility that Daniel had liked me for me and that there had been some genuine warmth and meaning to our relationship, even if we were unlikely to last, but now it just feels as though the whole thing was a sham. He was just using me to feel better about his life, leading me on without ever having cared for me at all.
‘Oh, Sophia. I’ll go and get you a tissue, love. One second,’ Lyn says as she heads off to the toilets.
Tom holds me tighter and continues rubbing my back.
‘I think you’d better go,’ he says to Daniel. I turn my head to look at him, standing there, uncomfortable and out of place.
‘He’s right. You should go,’ I echo.
‘Okay,’ Daniel relents. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mutters as he turns to leave.
I watch as he paces down the corridor and walks out, listening to the front door shutting behind him. I’m reminded of standing at the top of the stairs outside the flat at Kate’s party, listening to the sound of the front door closing echoing up the staircase. I was a fool to think Daniel was ever truly going to become part of my life.