Match Me If You Can

by Michele Gorman

  ‘Great, count me in.’

  ‘But I haven’t told you anything about her.’

  ‘That’s okay. I trust you.’

  His words pierced her conscience.

  ‘She’s called Georgina. I’ll email you her details.’

  Georgina was going to hate him.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Rachel

  Rachel plastered a smile to her face as she answered the door. ‘Nate, hi, come in.’ He had just three of his boys with him. She wondered if that was good or bad. Ever since he’d flounced off after setting fire to the neighbours’ TV they were all paranoid that he’d pull another Houdini. Then the house would never get finished.

  ‘All right. Rachel, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said.

  ‘I never forget a face. Especially one who makes such good coffee.’ He glanced over her shoulder at the stairs to the kitchen. Very subtle.

  She sighed. ‘You’re finishing the bathroom today, right?’

  Nate laughed. ‘We’re gonna try!’

  They should bloody try harder, she grumbled as she stomped to the kitchen. If she’d screwed up deadlines like the builders did, Ed would have fired her by now. In what other profession did clients have to beg workers to do the job they were being paid for?

  She got herself more and more worked up about Nate. So by the time she sipped the last of her coffee and went into the bathroom to use the loo, and her socked feet went unexpectedly wet, she felt ready to scream.

  ‘Oh God.’ That wasn’t bath water. She pulled off her socks.

  ‘Nate!’

  He popped his head around the corner. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘The floor in here is soaked with, well, I think you know what it is.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry about that. I guess we should be a bit more careful. Blame the early morning. We’re less steady on our feet.’ He shrugged as if he’d spilled a bit of tea on the floor.

  ‘It’s totally disgusting, Nate, really completely out of order!’

  ‘I’m sensing some tension, Rachel.’

  Two of the boys came downstairs to see what the shouting was about.

  ‘If I’m tense it’s because it looks like you’ve sprayed a flippin’ fire hose in here!’

  The boys giggled.

  Nate couldn’t look prouder. ‘Well I don’t like to brag …’

  Her mobile rang.

  ‘Hey Sarah,’ she said, pushing past Nate to go back downstairs.

  ‘Did the builders arrive?’

  ‘Oh yes. They’re here. They’ve pissed all over the bathroom floor.’

  ‘There’s a bucket and disinfectant in the cabinet in the kitchen. And a mop that I use just for that.’

  ‘You’re serious? You’ve been mopping up their wee every day?’

  Sarah laughed. ‘Well they don’t exactly do it themselves, do they?’

  ‘That is disgusting. I had no idea you were doing that. Thank you.’

  ‘Not a problem. Be sure to get the mop into the space behind the sink too.’

  ‘Behind the sink? That’s nowhere near the toilet.’

  ‘I know.’

  They were quiet as they contemplated the acrobatic manoeuvres the builders might be trying in their loo.

  ‘How’s the home?’ Rachel asked. She and Robin were visiting another potential place for Sissy.

  ‘It’s not horrible but definitely not my first choice either. Mum was so lucky to find Whispering Sands. I realise that now.’

  ‘Did she look at a lot of places?’

  ‘Do you know, I’m not sure. She just told Robin and me about Whispering Sands when she found it. She always made everything seem easy.’

  ‘Mums are good at that,’ said Rachel. ‘You’ll find the right place, Sarah Lee, don’t worry.’

  ‘I’m trying not to.’

  Nate was still working when it was time for Rachel to go. ‘This has been a long day for you,’ she said to the boy tiling the bathroom wall.

  ‘Simon here can burn the midnight oil to get the wall done,’ said Nate, who seemed to be contributing nothing but moral support to the job.

  She never thought she’d hear them offer to work longer than planned. ‘But you can’t stay late tonight. I have a date and there’ll be no one here to lock up when you leave.’

  Nate sucked his teeth. ‘Well then, I’m not sure when we’ll be able to come back to finish.’

  Rachel glimpsed their future in their half-tiled bathroom.

  ‘Let me check next door,’ she told Nate. ‘I’ll see if they can lock up for us when you leave.’ The Rogers-Smiths were going to love that. But she didn’t have much choice.

  She couldn’t cancel Thomas. It hadn’t been easy to pin him down to another date in the first place. But she couldn’t take no for an answer. Not after implying to James that they were practically engaged.

  She wished she hadn’t done that. She could have said she was dating loads of guys from the website instead. Then she could tell James about someone new when he asked her. Because he kept asking her.

  Thomas did seem nice though. At least, he was too nice to reject her when she went through her calendar day-by-day telling him when she was free. And his Scottish accent was still sexy, so that was something. Add a nice dark bar, enough wine and it wouldn’t be bad.

  But the bar that Thomas chose was bright enough to perform surgery in. It was one of those places that tried to be a bar, a coffee house, performance space and gallery. The kind that had wooden cutlery and plates made of potato starch. They probably hired their staff by beard length.

  At least he’d ditched his fleece in favour of a navy jumper. That was progress. A baby step anyway. If only he’d be as funny as his texts.

  ‘Do you want to get some nibbles? I’m a bit hungry,’ she said as he poured her some wine. ‘I think they have some bigger snacks too, not just these.’ She popped a few of the artisan-vegan-socially-responsible-harvested-by-moonlight kale chips into her mouth.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he cried.

  It was as animated as she’d ever seen him. ‘Having some crisps. They’re pretty good. Want some?’ When she held the bowl out he recoiled like she’d handed him her bowel movement.

  ‘Have you got any idea how many people have had their hands in those? They’re bacteria in a bowl.’ His normally jovial face was tensely disapproving.

  ‘Oh no, I’m sure they’re fine, Thomas. I eat them all the time. How about something from the menu? I can order at the bar.’

  He wouldn’t be distracted by her offer. ‘I don’t mean to sound paranoid but there’ve been loads of studies about it. Even in posh places they find bacteria in the snacks. And E. coli. That’s a killer.’

  What a downer. Who didn’t snarf free snacks when they were drinking? ‘A little bacteria never hurt anyone … aside from E. coli, I mean.’

  But his smile had vanished. ‘Two-thirds of people don’t use soap when they wash their hands in the loo. A tenth don’t even wash at all.’

  ‘Well, we wash ours right? So we don’t have to worry about eating each other’s wee.’ She laughed.

  He didn’t.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll go to the bar for something to eat. Want to share a few things?’

  He glanced at the menu, skipping over the cheese page that Rachel had her eye on. From Thomas’s point of view the menu must have been fraught with danger.

  Olives? Who knew where they’d been? And he might object to pips too on choking grounds. He’d never go for those delicious salty Spanish almonds either, unless they came in an unopened package. Even then she wasn’t sure he believed her about the hand-washing.

  ‘How about the meatballs?’ he asked. ‘And maybe the maple-glazed tempeh?’

  ‘Tinie Tempah’s “Maple Glaze”?’ she said. ‘I don’t know that one.’ She threw a few gang hand signs and started rapping, ‘Yeah, yeah, we bring the stars out. Let’s have a toast with maple glaze and get a glass out.’

  He just
looked at her.

  ‘Tinie Tempah? The rapper?’ She’d learned the song for a rap duel with James at last year’s conference. Best not to elaborate.

  ‘Do you think that’s enough food?’ Thomas asked, as if she hadn’t just made an excellent pun.

  So he wasn’t familiar with rap stars. She didn’t exactly get down with her bitches in the crib at the weekend. Still, she thought, courtesy demanded at least a smile. ‘We can always order more if we want,’ she said. ‘Be right back.’

  When she returned to the table a few minutes later he was tucking a wet wipe into his pocket.

  ‘Were you just cleaning the tabletop?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve got a germ thing.’

  ‘Yeah, I got that from the bacteria talk earlier. I guess you worry a lot about illness?’

  ‘It’s probably the worrying that keeps me well.’

  ‘So you think. I never worry about it and I’m never ill. How do you explain that?’

  He knocked on the table. ‘That’s lucky. So far. My mum got a flesh-eating virus.’

  ‘Jesus! Not from bar snacks?’

  He laughed. Finally. ‘No, she was in Sierra Leone with a medical team. She’s a nurse. She’s okay now but there’s a huge scar on her arm and chest from it.’

  ‘I can see why you’re paranoid.’

  ‘I call it prudent, but you’re not the first person to tell me I go over the top. Cheers.’

  He raised his glass to Rachel’s, not allowing them to touch, she noted.

  When the waitress brought the food a few minutes later he pulled a Ziploc bag from his coat pocket.

  She watched him extract a knife and fork. ‘Do you always carry your own cutlery?’

  ‘Are you surprised?’ He scrubbed his side plate with a wet wipe so he could scoop some of the meatballs on.

  ‘What about all the chemicals you’re probably eating from those wipes?’

  ‘They’re baby wipes. They’re not dangerous.’

  She spooned some of the little meatballs onto her plate.

  ‘Will you have some tempeh too?’ he asked.

  Under the sticky glaze were lumpy cubes that looked like cellulite. Her dog used to throw up more appetising chunks. ‘You go ahead. I’m fine with the meatballs.’

  This date was a mistake, Rachel thought as he started talking about university. Much as she wanted to like Thomas, she just couldn’t get excited about a joyless man. She loved laughing too much.

  Her mind wandered towards James.

  James and Sarah.

  What did they talk about when they were out together? He probably had her weeing in her pants. Did they meander from one thing to another like Rachel did with him? Did their conversation spark along like lighting one fag off the end of the last?

  Knowing Sarah, James probably had no idea what she was talking about half the time. That was one of the loveliest things about her friend. James wouldn’t mind it either. He claimed not to know what Rachel was talking about and she wasn’t nearly as off the wall.

  She knew one thing. He’d have laughed at her Tinie Tempah joke.

  ‘… But the distance was too much, so we broke up at the end of my first year at uni,’ Thomas was saying.

  How long had he been talking? The last thing she remembered about the conversation was that he’d wanted to go into marketing. ‘That’s too bad,’ she said. ‘But I suppose at that age it’s all about the sex. If you’re too far away that makes things difficult, obviously.’

  ‘It wasn’t about the sex with Milly and me, though,’ he said.

  ‘No, of course not. I wasn’t implying …’

  ‘We never had sex,’ he volunteered.

  ‘Oh, well. Some people start early, that’s all I meant.’ She could feel her face redden.

  ‘To be honest with you, I’m not an overly sexual person.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s just not that important to me.’

  ‘No, well, of course relationships aren’t all about the sex.’

  Were Sarah and James having sex? She absolutely didn’t want to think about that. But the question kept bashing its way into her head. Sarah had been having sleepovers. So they must be, right? She wasn’t one to sleep around, but James would definitely try it on when he got the chance.

  She started to feel sick.

  ‘I guess you could say I’m asexual,’ she heard Thomas say.

  ‘What does that mean? Like Morrissey? Don’t you ever have sex?’

  Now he looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, not never, but rarely, and under certain conditions.’

  Rachel looked at his friendly face and she felt sorry for Thomas. His issues obviously went beyond baby wipes and personal cutlery.

  If they ever did have sex he’d probably want to wrap her in cling film first.

  She had to wait a decent amount of time after this disclosure to make her excuses. ‘I’m sorry, Thomas, but I’m not feeling very well.’ This was true. Her tummy was churning. ‘Maybe it was the crisps after all. This has been fun, but I’m not sure we’re very well-suited for each other. In the long run, I mean. Besides, actually, there’s someone else.’

  Because the whole time she’d been sitting there with Thomas, she’d been thinking about James. If she hadn’t been so cocksure that she knew him all these years, she’d have seen that she hadn’t really known him until now.

  He wasn’t the same person she broke up with. Yes, he was still driven. He was working as hard as she was to win the Zigler account. But he’d also found the balance to make time to take Sarah out. And to join RecycLove in the first place. Sure, he was bolshie, but he also supported her as a colleague and, she realised, as a friend. Add to that that he was kind, fun, engaging and clever, with a connection to her that hadn’t dimmed, and there was no denying it. He was exactly who she thought she’d been looking for on RecycLove.

  Unconsciously she must have known that already. Where were all the dates she promised herself when she joined the website? She’d had dozens of messages from perfectly reasonable options, but she’d hardly been out every night on dates, had she?

  Unfortunately, James had … with Sarah.

  Thomas smiled. ‘I understand, Rachel. Thanks for coming out with me though, and I hope you’ll be happy with this other guy.’

  ‘Me too.’ There was just the small matter of her best friend being happy with him already.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Sarah

  Sarah didn’t need to read the email to know that Paul and Mary wouldn’t be judging her next bake. Still, when the message came – a polite but unequivocal no thanks from the producer – she felt the searing shame of the audition all over again.

  ‘You did your best,’ said Robin, glancing up from his phone when she told him she wouldn’t be Mary’s new best friend. Lucy had already rung him twice and now he was texting her. She should just microchip him and be done with it. What did she think he was getting up to with his sisters on a Saturday morning?

  They were on the train to Brighton with the rest of London. Never mind that it was the end of March – hardly bikini weather – the sun was shining and everyone was excited about shivering on the windy beach and picking sand out of their sandwiches. Sarah found it a bit tacky there but Sissy loved being by the sea. Add those spinny rides on the pier that’d make her chuck up her candy floss and she was in heaven. She’d nabbed a train seat for herself and was telling the shaven-headed young man sitting beside her all about her plans for the day.

  Meanwhile Robin and Sarah stood wedged in the aisle between a girl who kept jabbing her giant handbag into Robin’s back and a man who’d actually fallen asleep standing up. He looked like he might be a Brightonian returning home from a night out in London. Every time the train lurched he swayed dangerously, but kept his footing and his grip on the seat.

  How did people do a daily train commute? Sarah would be murderous if she had to stand for hours every day in a carriage that smelled of farts and despair.

  ‘Thanks, but I didn’t r
eally do my best,’ she told Robin as he waited for Lucy’s text response. ‘I was hung-over when I baked and I screwed up the recipes.’

  ‘You were hung-over? What’d you do, have a glass of sherry during EastEnders?’

  ‘I was dancing at a club, if you must know, on a date.’

  ‘That’s a brilliant idea the night before the audition.’

  ‘Nice one, Robin. Make me feel even shittier.’

  ‘So who’s this guy?’

  ‘Just someone I’ve been seeing for a while.’

  ‘From that website?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  She didn’t want to talk about it, and they stood in silence to Brighton.

  ‘Breakfast!’ Sissy said as they pushed through the turnstiles at the station and followed the crowd to the waterfront.

  ‘You’ve had breakfast already,’ Robin said. ‘You can’t be hungry already.’

  ‘What did you have for breakfast?’ she asked him.

  ‘Just tea. I’m not hungry in the mornings.’

  She consulted her watch. ‘It’s ten thirty-three. Past morning. You should eat.’

  He grinned. ‘Oh should I? Any idea where?’

  ‘At a caff.’

  ‘Mmm hmm. Will this caff serve toast?’

  She shrugged.

  The problem with having a toast-obsessed sister was that she saw every outing as an opportunity.

  ‘All right, but we’ll split an order. I mean it, Sissy, we’re splitting it. One piece each.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ she said, like the whole thing was his idea.

  ‘This isn’t too bad,’ Sarah said later as they sat huddled together on towels spread over the shingle. It might be ten degrees and blowing a gale but at least it was sunny.

  ‘Rock paper scissors?’ Robin asked.

  ‘For what?’ But Sarah knew. ‘Sissy, you don’t seriously want to put your feet in? It’s cold.’

  ‘Yes I do. Are you coming?’

  ‘We both will,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s not fair for one of us to get to stay warm and dry. Come on, Robin, don’t keep your sister waiting.’

  She rolled up her jeans and stood up.

  ‘Shit, I’ve got gooseflesh and I haven’t even touched the water yet!’ Robin said.