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‘Yes, that’s probably it,’ I say, not meaning it. ‘I have unrealistic expectations about love and romance. Clearly I’m expecting far too much. I’ll definitely invite the guy who cried into my tits and then ghosted me back for more, yeah? Or stick tight with the guy who was cheating on me with his colleague. How about I marry the guy who lies to get away from me? That suit you?’
On the other end of the line, Lydia tuts at me. She actually tuts at me.
‘There’s no need to be like that,’ she says, but I’m cross with her now. It’s like she’s pinning all my misfortunes with men on me. Our joint new year’s resolution comes crashing to the fore, but I never, for a second, thought I’d have to use it on her.
‘Do me a favour, Lydia, and stay out of this from now on. I know you mean well, but you’ve automatically taken the side of Jeff’s brand new colleague over someone you’ve been mates with since you were seven and that’s pretty shitty. As was calling me a narcissist. So, I’m going now, and I think we should just catch up when we’ve cooled down a bit, okay?’
‘Fine,’ she snaps. And the line goes dead. And I throw my phone on to the floor and let out a frustrated grunting noise before flopping down on my bed. Suze knocks on the door but it’s more just to let me know she’s coming in anyway. She’s proffering the pizza box.
‘Saved you the last couple of slices,’ she says. ‘Sounds like you might need them.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, forlornly. She sits next to me and I lay my head on her shoulder.
‘You are funny when you’re cross.’
‘Oh god, Suze. I feel bad because she was so excited about this. You should have seen her at her party. I think she’s genuinely mad that we didn’t hit it off.’
‘Of course,’ she soothes. ‘She loves you; she wants the absolute best for you. And probably she’s heard one thing from you and something different from Jeff, and even though she’s your friend, she lives with Jeff so she’ll be more immersed in it from his side.’
‘I was hoping we’d be more into each other. And I wish he’d just had a bit more grace than to lie to get away from me. Am I awful?’
‘Not at all,’ Suze says. ‘You’ve had a bit of bad luck with Emo Greg and this Tim chap, not to mention Lucas.’
‘She said no one out there will ever match up to this perfect man I apparently have stored in my head.’
‘Well, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. But I also think when you meet him, none of anything you have in there will matter. You won’t even remember any of it. You’ll look at him and it will feel like the most obvious thing in the world, like you’ve known him forever, and everything will feel easy, and suddenly you’ll realise, oh, it’s you. It might not happen straight away. It might be that you get to know him, and then one day you’ll see him differently, and it’ll be, oh, it’s always been you, and I just didn’t see it before.’ She stops and runs her finger around the inside of the tub of dip that came with the pizza, and licks it off. ‘Anyway, she’s been with Jeff for ages so she probably doesn’t remember what it’s like, and so it’s best to ignore her.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I say, quietly. And I do feel a little better because, as usual, she’s right.
‘Are you going to write about Tim?’ she asks.
‘I don’t know. That’s sort of the point of it.’
‘Can I suggest you don’t? For three reasons. One, if Lydia knows, then the chances are so does Jeff, and they’ll be expecting it, and it’ll only give them ammunition against you. Two, it’s supposed to be anonymous, but if he knows you do this, he could so easily out you, which would not be prime, and three, we know he lied about where he was going, but we can’t be sure beyond reasonable doubt, to use a lawyer’s term. And you probably don’t want to mess with a solicitor if you’re not sure of the facts. He might send you a cease and desist letter.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ I say. ‘It’s probably not worth the aggro.’
‘It’s definitely not worth the aggro. You’ll just have to find someone else to write about,’ she says breezily, picking up the pizza box and making a move to leave my room. ‘So, chin up, chick. It’s time to get swiping!’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Patriotic Zac
Patriotic Zac was my second Tinder date, and I’m sure you can imagine, I was a little wary after The One Who Cried After Sex. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so a couple of Sundays ago, I dolled myself up and took the tube into town.
Patriotic Zac was American. Hot. But not like the pizza. He was tall, built like a brick shithouse. Nice smile. American teeth. Buzz cut. Blue eyes. Dude looked like a marine, something I later found out he had always wanted to be, but didn’t quite make the grade. We met outside Tottenham Court Road tube station and walked into Soho for a drink. He told me, as we walked down Wardour Street, that he was in London for a few months on a work placement, and that while he’d been in the UK had been up to Scotland, over to Ireland and across to Wales, and he was so animated about it, and I liked that. It’s nice when people make the most of where they’re visiting. So far, so nice to talk to. He didn’t really ask anything about me, but that was fine. We had all afternoon, and I figured he was bound to at some point.
So, we got to the pub and found a quiet corner to drink in, and it was all going pretty well. He still hadn’t really asked me anything, but his accent was so nice that I was happy to let him talk. He was softly spoken and rounded out his A’s. His eyes twinkled a little as he talked about his family back home. How he had a sister who’s a cheerleader. How his mum bakes cakes for church meets and takes green bean casserole to pot lucks, and his dad was in the marines, and all he’d wanted to do was follow in his footsteps.
‘So, where are you from?’ I asked.
‘Baton Rouge,’ he drawled. ‘In Louisiana.’
‘Aha! The home of Britney Spears,’ I said, reeling off the only thing I can think of about Louisiana. And I’m not even sure how I know that. It’s just one of those things you know.
‘That’s right,’ he laughed. ‘Hey, do you know where Louisiana is?’ and I giggled and admitted I did not. ‘That’s okay, I can show you. Can you name all the states?’
What an odd question, of course I couldn’t. Why would I be able to do that? Seems a weird thing to ask a Londoner. But this time he wasn’t so happy to let it go. He asked me again if I could name even a few, and it felt a little pushy. I briefly thought about asking him to tell me where Shropshire was, but decided against it.
‘Go on,’ he said in his drawly voice. ‘Have a go.’ His eyes twinkled and he laughed as I listed what I could remember. Florida, New York, Texas, California, Ohio, Louisiana, obviously. And Patriotic Zac was literally counting them on his fingers at this point. I ran out of states before he ran out of fingers, but instead of changing the subject, he pulled out his phone, complete with, oh my days, a confederate flag phone case, opened a map app, and started pointing them all out to me, one by one. ‘You gotta repeat ’em,’ he said, ‘or you’ll never learn.’
And it turns out that every day really is a school day, and I learnt all about a lot of states sitting there in that pub in Soho. Delaware, for instance, one I couldn’t even get with a lot of prompting, is on the East Coast. It has a curved state line and was the first state to ratify the constitution. And Vermont – another state I forgot – is very foresty and its biggest employer is IBM and not Ben & Jerry’s, as I erroneously guessed. And each time he pointed to another state on that stupid little map, he got a little more aggressive and I pretended to care because I didn’t want to rile him. His pointing was a little more jabby than before. It was as if he genuinely thought these were things I should know and was sort of angry that I didn’t. But I’ve never been to America, and we’re not routinely taught American geography in school, so why would I? Halfway through I went out for a smoke.
‘They wouldn’t let you do that in forests in California,’ he said. ‘Drought state.’
‘Alright, mat
e, but we’re in London, and it’s raining, so I think it’s okay,’ I huffed. I walked around the side of the pub, and it hit me that I didn’t have to be there. I didn’t have to sit and be schooled, obnoxiously, like that. Patriotic Zac loved his country more than he could ever have loved me. I ducked down under a window, switched off my phone, sort of shimmied away from the pub and ran.
I know, I know, I know, okay. It was neither big nor clever, and I know I could have handled it in a better way, but I saw a way out, and gosh darn was I ever going to take it.
It was no surprise to find a barrage of messages when I switched on my phone, and each one ruder than the last until I had enough and blocked his number and unmatched.
A pretty flaccid aubergine