Would Like to Meet

by Rachel Winters

SARAH: fine. But knowing you, he’ll probably be an ax murderer or something

  MARIA: Operation “Find Evie Someone Who Isn’t an Ax Murderer” is now in progress. Everyone share my post!

  SARAH: done

  JEREMY: only with friends, right, Sarah? Not the whole world?

  SARAH: yes, Jeremy, I’m not the disaster here

  EVIE: hey!

  JEREMY: Sarah just shared with everyone

  SARAH: I didn’t, did I? I’m doing this while on a conference call with the caterer, the florist, and the venue manager, so forgive me if you don’t have 100 percent of my attention

  EVIE: don’t worry, Sarah. I’m sure any friends of your friends are just fine

  JEREMY: bless your little heart, Evie

  SARAH: I think I just shared it again

  MARIA: speaking of oversharing, NOB made it into the gossip columns this week. Hang on, I’ll send the link

  MONICA REED “DEEPLY UNHAPPY”

  A close source told Bitch About It that the Oscar winner, 44, is finally ready to throw her boy toy out of the pram. Mum of two Reed has been dating one-hit wonder Ezra Chester, 33, on and off for a year now. Reed’s friends are concerned: “It’s her first fling after her divorce and she’s clearly deeply unhappy. The last thing she needs is another child to take care of.”

  MARIA: it’s about damn time. She deserves so much better.

  JEREMY: I adore catty Maria

  MARIA: it’s my release

  SARAH: I’ve found someone!

  JEREMY: I’ve changed my mind. The road trip is a terrible plan. Don’t do it

  SARAH: he’s lovely, I promise. Absolutely definitely not a pervert!

  JEREMY: it’s not reassuring when you have to say it, Sarah

  MARIA: hush, Jem. You know what she means. That was quick, Sarah. Who is he? A friend?

  SARAH: in a way

  JEREMY: now I’m reassured

  EVIE: right now, I’ll take anyone

  SARAH: good, because I’ve already sent him your number

  * * *

  UNKNOWN NUMBER: Er, hi, this is weird, but do you know Sarah? She said you were offering lifts to Sheffield at Christmas?

  EVIE: hi! What’s your name, sorry? Yes, it’s more of a car share, is that okay? Do you have a car?

  UNKNOWN NUMBER: Sorry, haha! It’s Paul. I don’t have a car.

  EVIE: hi Paul. No worries. We can hire one. Do you have a license?

  NOTAPERVERTPAUL: Yes, though there might be a small issue that means I can’t actually drive. I can explain when we meet.

  NOTAPERVERTPAUL: Are you there?

  NOTAPERVERTPAUL: Hello? Are you ignoring me? If you are, don’t worry. I don’t mind.

  NOTAPERVERTPAUL: It’s just that it’s Christmas, and Sarah said you were giving free lifts but if you’ve changed your mind just let me know. It’s the polite thing to do. No need to be an arsehole. Haha!

  EVIE: sorry for the delay, I was on the tube heading home from work

  NOTAPERVERTPAUL: It’s late to be just finishing work, but no worries.

  EVIE: I really was on the tube, Paul

  * * *

  EVIE: Sarah, who is Paul?

  SARAH: You know my friend Michelle from work?

  JEREMY: no

  MARIA: the one who went missing?

  SARAH: it turned out she just needed some time to herself. He’s her ex

  EVIE: Sarah!

  SARAH: What?! I met him once and he looked rich

  * * *

  EVIE: hi Paul, I’m so sorry, there’s been a mistake. I’m really looking for someone with a car. Sorry to waste your time

  NOTAPERVERTPAUL: I thought you were a saddo looking for a boyfriend.

  EVIE: bye Paul

  * * *

  EVIE: it’s a no to Paul

  MARIA: don’t worry, I’ve found you a guy—the lovely Graeme. His mum lives next door to mine and he’s driving home for Christmas too. Operation Road Trip meet-cute is a go! I can’t wait to have you up here for a whole week

  EVIE: thank you! Sorry Sarah

  * * *

  SARAH: to be honest you’ve probably dodged a bullet. Besides, I already have the solution to your plus one situation. MY WEDDING. I’m going to find you the perfect man

  JEREMY: #TeamGraeme

  * * *

  YOU MISSED A CALL TODAY AT 12:14 A.M. FROM NOTAPERVERTPAUL

  YOU MISSED A CALL TODAY AT 01:34 A.M. FROM NOTAPERVERTPAUL

  YOU MISSED A CALL TODAY AT 03:17 A.M. FROM NOTAPERVERTPAUL

  NOTAPERVERTPAUL: I’m so sorry, Evie, it looks like my cat fell asleep on my phone and butt-dialed you a few times. But while we’re here, can we talk about that lift?

  YOU BLOCKED NOTAPERVERTPAUL

  Chapter 12

  WLTM

  EXT: SOUTHBANK CENTRE BOOK MARKET—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21, 11 A.M.

  EVIE is browsing the stacks of secondhand books laid out on wooden tables in the shadow of Waterloo Bridge. She’s too absorbed to notice a man stepping up behind her until he tugs on one of the pigtails sticking out from beneath her woolly hat.

  I whipped my head around to see NOB, clearly hungover. For NOB, this meant he was wearing sunglasses in winter, rather than reconsidering his life choices like any normal human being.

  “You’re late,” I said.

  “You’re lucky I came at all.” NOB had a large coffee in one hand; his other was shoved deep into his coat pocket. He was wearing a gray beanie that hung loosely off the back of his head and was about as practical as a paper crown against the bitter December weather. Though his Canada Goose parka looked toasty enough.

  When I’d told NOB what time to meet, I’d accounted for the fact that his clock ran at least an hour later than everyone else’s, and he’d still managed to be late enough to throw off my day. This morning I’d dropped Anette’s costume off at Gil’s to find she’d left something with Xan for me. My ticket to her play. Peter Pan: “For Every Boy and Every Girl!”

  The start time was 12:30 p.m. today, and Anette’s school was an hour away, meaning I’d have to finish here pretty quickly if I was going to make it. But I couldn’t leave without getting NOB to agree to send Monty some proof that he was writing. All week Monty had been holed up in the Ash, his go-to comfort place. The only contact I’d had from him were the increasingly hysterical messages about the script. I needed to send him something from NOB to calm him down—and to prove his faith in me wasn’t misplaced.

  I tried to hand NOB what remained of my breakfast doughnuts.

  “I don’t do carbs. Why are we meeting here?”

  “You’ll see.” I made him take them from me anyway. “And live a little.”

  He chucked the bag into a trash can under the bookstall, pulling a face as he wiped his hands. “So, on the meet-cute scale, from projectile-vomiting to dragon cocks, where does this one sit?”

  A woman pulled her child away to another stall, ignoring my mouthed I’m sorry. I glared at NOB, who gave me a look that said he couldn’t have cared less. My phone buzzed. I knew who it would be without looking. Somehow the alert from Monty’s message came with an edge of hysteria.

  MONTY: Can you look into how to sell an office? Might as well start preparing ourselves.

  I put my phone away. “Hand,” I said. After a pause, NOB held out his palm. I gave him a small stack of business cards, keeping the rest for myself.

  “Nice mittens,” he said, spotting them dangling from my sleeve.

  I indicated his chapped fingers. “It’s function over fashion.”

  “I’m well aware of where you stand when it comes to fashion.” He took a sip of his coffee as he peered at what was printed on the cards.

  Evie WLTM you

  He flipped the top one over. It had my number o
n the back.

  “WLTM. Will. Losers. Text. Me?”

  I pulled a face at him as I moved to the opposite side of the stall. “Would Like to Meet. It’s an old personal ads term,” I replied. I’d thought it was appropriate, given I was attempting to meet someone the old-fashioned way, without an app. “They’re for the books.” I made sure no one was watching, then picked up a water-damaged edition of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. I slipped one of the cards inside before snapping it shut and putting it back. I spotted Kerouac’s On the Road and put one in there too.

  “What are you doing?”

  “It’s the Fate meet-cute,” I told him. Shuffling along, I slid another card into a book with a sticker announcing it was a literary prizewinner. “I leave my name and number in random books around London, and if a guy happens to contact me after coming across my details, it must be fate. I’ll arrange for us to meet.” Providing he wasn’t a weirdo. I assumed there wouldn’t be very many who weren’t, but Jeremy had insisted I try it anyway. His love of John Cusack films apparently extended to Serendipity.

  NOB seemed skeptical. “Sounds like your fate is to meet a bunch of perverts.”

  I pulled a copy of The Iliad from under a pile of James Pattersons.

  “Do perverts read the classics?”

  “Exclusively.” NOB yawned. He downed the rest of his coffee and left the empty cup next to one of the many NO FLYERING signs stapled along the edge of the bookstall. I dropped his cup into the trash, looking nervously toward the hulk of a man who ran the stand. He kept walking between the bookstalls like a bouncer, glaring at anyone who dared to treat his business like a library.

  “This is what I skipped my morning vinyasa for? I thought I was going to see a meet-cute in action. I’m not your lackey, Red. You need to up your game. We’re at the one-month mark, and somehow you still haven’t convinced anyone to fall for you. At this rate, that script is never going to get finished.”

  It was the perfect opening. “I’m more concerned with it getting started.”

  There was a pause. “Pay attention, Red.” He flashed those perfect white teeth of his. “We have work to do.” He picked up a tattered copy of The Da Vinci Code and put one of my cards inside before moving on to the next table. I tugged it back out of the pages.

  “Red,” he admonished, catching me.

  “What?” I asked, wide-eyed.

  NOB smirked, selecting a book with an illustration of a woman on the front. She was bursting out of an impractically small bikini, and I wasn’t sure what the man dressed as a PI was up to behind her, but she appeared to be enjoying it. Private Intentions, the title read.

  He smiled sweetly and pushed my card in. “Oh, we’re in luck. Sequels.” He locked his eyes with mine as he slid a card into each. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

  It was time to hurry this along.

  “That’s secondhand erotica, you know,” I said.

  NOB wiped his hand on his coat. “And I’m done.” He turned his back to me and I quickly retrieved all of his cards before following him to the other stall.

  “You agreed to send Monty some pages,” I reminded him, taking care to not sound as annoyed as I felt. When it came to NOB’s writer’s block, softly-softly was best. “That’s the deal.” His face darkened, but I was prepared for this. “Or,” I offered, “you could keep him happy if you just send him your idea.” Any good negotiator knows you don’t concede, you compromise. “If you haven’t come up with one yet, I can help. That’s what I’m here for, remember?” Come on, NOB, just admit that’s why you haven’t written the pages.

  “I don’t need your help.” NOB wrinkled his nose. “Are you done looking for Mr. Pretentious yet? I have things to be doing.”

  “Quit it,” I told him. He raised his brows over his glasses. “We are going to have an actual conversation for once. I’ve done everything we agreed. Now it’s your turn. Monty has been asking you for your pages, right? And he’s going to keep asking, if you don’t give him something to convince him and the producers you’re writing.” I paused. “And what do you mean, Mr. Pretentious?”

  “What’s that book you’re holding?” NOB said.

  I flushed. “Ulysses.”

  The worst thing was, I knew full well that every book I’d stuck a card into was one of Ricky’s favorites. What am I doing? NOB shook his head, then tapped some cards into a bunch of YA books and a Beano annual.

  “Mr. Pretentious,” NOB said. “The kind of man who reads literary fiction to make up for his lack of personality. In other words: bloody dull. Is that really what you’re looking for?”

  I stalled. Was he really describing Ricky? He had always made a point of reading in public. I stared at the books in dismay. It was like I was determined to repeat myself, like some kind of relationship Groundhog Day.

  “Speaking of, what’s your next meet-cute after this?” NOB asked, tapping more cards into a stack of Stephen Kings.

  “It’s the Road Trip meet-cute,” I said, trying to focus. “I’m heading home for Christmas.” I leaned across him to grab a Terry Pratchett, just as he was reaching for a stack of children’s books near me. I collided against his chest (just as firm as I’d imagined).

  Blushing, I straightened. NOB lowered his glasses to look at me. Irritatingly, the hangover had mellowed the blue of his eyes to the color of a fresh spring sky. He flipped them back in place and grabbed a Tom Clancy. “I’m heading to Monica’s for Christmas,” he said conversationally. “She has an estate just outside of Harrogate. Isn’t that your neck of the woods?”

  So that gossip column was wrong about their breakup. Not that it mattered. “I’m from Sheffield,” I said. “And I know you’re trying to distract me. I’ve sent you plenty of meet-cutes, and you only need to think of one. If you need inspiration, I have this great Venn diagram . . .”

  “I told you, I don’t need your help.” Behind his glasses, NOB’s expression was indecipherable.

  “Don’t you?” I slammed down Michael McIntyre’s autobiography. “Then next time Monty asks me where your pages are, I’m going to tell him the truth. That you haven’t written a damn word. We’d be better off telling the producers that now.”

  It was a risk to threaten this, but I was banking hard on NOB’s desire to continue to put off any kind of public announcement. I stormed off, silently counting down. Three, two, one.

  I was halfway across the bookstalls when he called, “You’re assuming I don’t already have one.”

  I spun around. “What do you mean?”

  He was still putting my cards into books.

  “I mean,” NOB said, “that I do have an idea.”

  “You do?” I asked, hurrying back to him. NOB had broken through his writer’s block?

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re writing?”

  “Yes.”

  “You,” I said. We were standing almost toe-to-toe. “You are an infuriating man, you know that, don’t you?”

  A sly grin. “Yes,” he said.

  Dazed, I reached out for a familiar-looking book.

  “The thing is,” he told me, “I need more time to get the pages to Monts.”

  “I’ll buy you time. All you need to do is tell me what your film is about.” I couldn’t let myself believe him until I had proof.

  “Oi!” The shout rang out across the stalls.

  “Oi, you!” It was the stall owner, and he was coming straight toward us. “What are you doing? No flyering the books! How many times?” He started to push past people to get to us.

  “Come on, Red,” NOB said. “Run.” Before I could react, he grabbed my hand, sending the remaining cards flying and pulling me along with him as he dodged through the throngs of book browsers.

  “Come back here!”

  “Not bloody likely!” NOB called, swiping an armful of
books from a stall into the man’s path like he was in a very British action movie.

  We ducked between some Christmas trees for sale and out the other side, running as fast as we could until we were away from the bridge and heading along the South Bank, weaving between tourists and not stopping until we reached the railing overlooking the Thames.

  I leaned on it, breathless. You’re still holding NOB’s hand. I let it go and clutched my aching side.

  “Has . . . he . . . gone?” I panted.

  NOB had barely broken a sweat. “Luckily for us he was a big fella, though we were neck and neck for a while there. Have you ever run before?”

  I glowered at him, throat burning too much for a retort.

  “This was fun.” NOB eyed me. “We should get a coffee. I know a place.”

  The play, I thought, followed by: NOB has just volunteered to spend more time with you. He’d come up with an idea for his script. We could talk about it. No distractions. After a month of nothing, finally, finally, we were getting somewhere.

  Bzzz. My phone. It would be Monty again, probably asking about selling my desk on eBay. NOB was about to give me what I needed to assure him I was doing my job. I thought of Anette as Tink, looking for me in the crowd. Ben’s disapproval when he realized I’d let her down. But what choice did I have?

  “Okay,” I replied, the feeling of elation fading.

  “What’s that?” NOB said, pointing. I was still holding the book.

  It was a ragged paperback of Peter Pan, the spine so creased it resembled layers of sediment. Loved, I thought. Like the beautiful edition I had on my shelf, the one my dad had read to me a hundred times.

  “I have to go,” I said, wonderingly.

  If I hurry, I might still make it.

  “What about our coffee?” NOB said.