Swipe Right

by Stephie Chapman

  ‘Oh, you,’ he whispers, softly, in my ear, and then, slightly louder, for the room, this time, ‘That, Frances, was lovely.’ And he’s used my full name, so I think he really means it.

  ‘Don’t!’ I say into his shoulder. ‘I’m barely holding it together, and nobody needs or wants to see me crying. Let’s just stand here for a bit and pretend this is a regular Friday night and I’ll deal with it all on Monday.’

  ‘Okay,’ he says, and he pats my hair and rubs little circles on my back.

  Someone touches me on the arm and I pull myself together and away from him, because really, us standing there wrapped around each other is possibly bordering on inappropriate. A glass of something pink and fizzy is shoved into my hands and I neck back the majority in a single gulp.

  ‘I’m still cross with you for leaving,’ I say. ‘But at least you’ll still sort of be around, in a tenuous sort of way. Sometimes.’

  ‘You should come out to Sydney. Hang out with us for a while.’

  ‘I’d love that,’ I say. ‘You’ll have to show me around the office out there. Introduce me to all our Aussie chums. And obviously take me to the Home and Away set.’

  But I know in my heart it won’t happen and all this talk is just that. There’s no way Lou would be cool with that. And I wouldn’t put him in that position.

  ‘Well, that really was a touching speech.’ Lou’s voice simpers, saccharine between us. Jesus, speak of the devil. She’s sidled over and is staring at me.

  ‘Lou!’ Ollie says, and he’s excited to see her. ‘When did you arrive?’ He pulls her close to him and kisses the top of her head. She glares at me over his shoulder. I ignore it.

  ‘Just about when Frances told everyone you’re her work husband,’ Lou says, and then titters as if it’s all a joke.

  ‘It’s true,’ he laughs. ‘I am.’ She hooks her arm around his neck and kisses him. ‘Let’s get you a drink,’ he says, after. Another glass of the same pink fizz is produced and I stick my own out for a refill.

  We create a little circle and chat, but it’s not the sort of comfortable work chat you have with colleagues you get on well with and, despite seeing her most Fridays, we have to stop to explain things to Lou, who doesn’t really get our jokes and doesn’t really care. After thirty painful minutes, someone yells that the pizzas have arrived and I’ve never been more grateful for cheese and carbs in my life. Everyone crowds around the stacks of pizza boxes like gannets. The smell of hot cheese and various toppings wafts through the room. Someone lobs a piece of pineapple through the air. I look around but I can’t see Ollie or Lou anymore.

  Later, Carlina finds me, sitting in one of the meeting rooms, idly swiping through Tinder. I’d kept off the apps after the thing with Louis. I felt a little burned, and like a little piece of my confidence had been stolen, and mainly just tired. Instead I published my piece, and set up a fundraiser, and busied myself with other things. I sent the cheque, too, but to date it hasn’t been cashed.

  But right now I just need a few minutes distraction, where I’m not sneered at by Lou or reminded that work next week isn’t going to be quite as fun.

  ‘You alright, chick?’ She plops down onto one of the yellow bean bags and balances a paper plate of chocolate fudge cake on her knees.

  ‘Yeah. Can’t whinge. What do you think of this guy?’ I ask, tilting the screen in her direction.

  ‘He’s okay. But you absolutely can whinge. Is it because the ice queen showed up and stole Ollie away from you?’

  ‘Nah,’ I lie, wrinkling up my nose. ‘Not specifically that. Just more that he’s not going to be here at all. We were so good for each other.’ Carlina raises her eyebrows. ‘In a work capacity,’ I add, quickly. I swipe right on the cute guy. No match.

  ‘Uh huh. Yeah, the way you clutched on to each other positively screamed matey pals,’ she says. ‘I hope I’m afforded the same affection when our working days come to an end.’ She bites heartily into her slab of cake. There’s chocolate frosting on her lips.

  ‘There’s a lot of research into having a best friend at work,’ I explain, my eyes still locked on my screen, my finger still swiping. ‘Studies have shown that having a work spouse means you’re supportive of each other, and you want the best for each other. It creates a nicer atmosphere. It’s a good thing all round, and basically, everyone should have one.’

  ‘Works even better when you actually fancy them, too.’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Carlina! It’s not like that. It’s never been like that.’

  ‘Fuck off, Fran. You two are the only ones who can’t see it.’

  ‘Alright,’ I say, mainly to quieten her. ‘Look, he’s coming.’

  Ollie knocks on the glass door and opens it tentatively.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Of course.’ He sits next to me on the yellow couch, and it could be any one of our catch-ups. He swigs from his beer bottle and stretches out.

  ‘Sorry I haven’t spent as much time with you tonight as I would have wanted. Just, you know, what with Lou being here. She doesn’t really know anyone… I didn’t feel like I could just leave her, you know?’

  ‘That’s not true, she knows us all,’ Carlina says. ‘She’s out with us all the time.’

  Ollie looks embarrassed.

  ‘It’s fine. I wouldn’t have expected you to. It’s your party, you’re supposed to mingle,’ I say, rescuing him.

  ‘So when do you fly?’ Carlina asks, changing the subject.

  ‘Monday,’ Ollie and I both say, simultaneously, and I look away quickly, out at the party happening around us. Someone’s hijacked the Spotify account. The music changes halfway through a song and it’s so loud we can hear it, dampened slightly, in the soundproof room. I’d thought it might have died down a bit by now but it’s still like a warehouse rave out there and if that’s not testament to Ollie’s popularity then I don’t know what is.

  ‘Where’s Lou now?’ I ask.

  ‘She got chatting to Mindy. Thought I’d leave them to it for a bit.’

  ‘I’m surprised they can hear each other. I love a proper Viral Hive knees-up. Anyway, are you excited for your trip? Where are you going first?’

  ‘Amsterdam for a couple of days.’

  ‘Very nice. Good cheese, as I recall.’

  ‘Good weed, too,’ Ollie smirks.

  ‘Can’t see your girlfriend going in for that, though,’ Carlina laughs.

  ‘Probably not,’ Ollie concedes. ‘Anyway, then on to Copenhagen, and Stockholm. Probably won’t have to work until we get down to Italy. Lou has this idea to do some fruit-picking. But between us, I think she’ll last a week at best.’

  ‘Ah regardless, it’s such an adventure,’ I say. ‘You should write about it. Some sort of Eat, Pray, Love enlightenment thing. People will lap it up. There’s probably a book deal in it for you.’

  ‘Ah Fran, me and every other traveller. I just want to see things I wouldn’t otherwise get to, and take some nice photos to have blown up into prints for the living room wall when we get back.’

  ‘Speaking of,’ Carlina mutters, and nods towards the glass. Lou’s on her way over. It’s like she has a radar for when we’re spending time together this evening. She pushes the door open and stands with her hand on her hip. Mindy hovers behind.

  ‘Ollie,’ she says. ‘It’s time we thought about leaving.’

  ‘Really?’ he says. ‘Why?’

  ‘Late dinner reservation.’ She taps her watch and nods her head towards the door. Ollie looks at her doubtfully.

  ‘Oh. I mean, okay, sure, I just thought we were having pizza here.’

  ‘Well… we’re not,’ she shrugs. Mindy winces. I stare at my feet. Next to me Carlina stiffens. ‘I did say,’ Lou continues.

  ‘Yeah, probably,’ Ollie says. He stands up, turns towards me. ‘So I guess this is it then.’

  ‘I guess it is. It’s been a blast.’

  ‘Hasn’t i
t?’ he says, grinning at me. We hug again.

  ‘I want pictures of everywhere,’ I say. Lou rolls her eyes. Sod off, I think. We pull away and I kiss him on the cheek. ‘Take care, you.’ I say rubbing his arms, and he nods at me. Then he’s gone, following Lou as she weaves through the throngs of our colleagues towards the door. I sit back down on the couch. Mindy loiters by the door.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Bit of a bummer that she made reservations though, given we just had pizza.’

  ‘Yeah that was odd.’ Mindy shuts the door and perches on the table. ‘I emailed her a couple of weeks ago to tell her what the plan was for tonight, and she didn’t mention going for food. Said she was looking forward to seeing everyone somewhere that wasn’t the pub. She knew there’d be drinks and food and that it’d be a late one.’

  ‘She’s a snake,’ Carlina mutters.

  ‘Ah leave her,’ I say. ‘Can’t be easy being that much of a cow. And anyway, of course she’d want to spend time with her bloke.’

  ‘He’s leaving all his mates, and his family and his job to go around the world with her,’ Carlina sniffs. ‘The very least she could have done was let him have a decent send-off.’

  ‘She was asking about you mostly,’ Mindy says. ‘When we were talking.’

  ‘Still?’ I’m surprised and yet I’m not. ‘She was all about that this time last year. You’d think she’d have got over it by now.’

  ‘Well,’ Carlina says, and she and Mindy share a look. ‘Your hug after your speech. I feel like that might have got my hackles up as well if I were her. There was… a lot of feeling in it.’

  ‘Maybe she has reason to be suspicious,’ Mindy says.

  ‘She does not,’ I say, darkly.

  ‘Not about you, silly. Maybe he’s got a past. Maybe he’s dicked her around before and she feels justified in keeping her eye on him. Anyway, she wanted to know if you were still working closely.’

  ‘Jesus, what the fuck?’ I say. ‘They’re going off around the world. Why does she care?’

  ‘That’s probably why they’re going off round the world,’ Carlina crows, but she resists theorising any further and that’s probably just as well.

  There’s a little crowd forming by the door of the offices which dissipates after a few moments. Ollie has left the building. I give it a further fifteen and nip out unnoticed.

  * * *

  Back in Stratford my phone pushes through a notification. A match! With the cute guy I showed Carlina. Joshua. I take another look at his profile, just to make sure I’m still keen before initiating contact. Five feet ten (so his profile says), thirty-one, sporty-looking. No photos of him with fish or kids or girls. No pictures of him looking intoxicated. He has a kind face, sandy blond hair and is clean-shaven and nicely dressed. He’s certainly ticking boxes, although I know as much as anyone that looking nice counts for shit if you’re an arse. I stop by the pedestrian crossing outside the station and fire off a message as I wait for the lights to change.

  Your desert island discs… go!

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Joshua: Hello! How many do I get?

  Fran: Hmm. 3.

  Joshua: ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, ‘I Can’t Dance’, ‘Rockstar’

  Fran: ‘I Can’t Dance’ as in Genesis?

  Joshua: Yes.

  Fran: In an ironic way?

  Joshua: No. Why?

  Fran: No reason. And ‘Rockstar’ by Nickelback?

  Joshua: Yes. You’re good at this.

  Fran: It would appear so.

  It would also appear you have very questionable taste in music and might well be a young fogey. Still, let’s not act in haste.

  Joshua: Answer me this, which is better, apple crumble or apple pie?

  Fran: Obviously crumble.

  Joshua: Correct! You have passed the test! I can definitely introduce you to my mother now. She makes a mean crumble.

  Steady on, pal. It hasn’t even been ten minutes.

  Fran: Haha. Well, let’s just see, shall we?

  Joshua: So what are you up to?

  Fran: Right now? Walking home after a leaving do at work.

  Joshua: Are you on your own? Please be careful and stay aware of yourself. Message me when you get home.

  Fran: That’s unexpectedly nice of you. But I reserve the right to change my mind about that if you unmatch in the next fifteen minutes.

  Joshua: I have sisters. And I won’t. Talk later!

  Oh god, I might be in love.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ‘Good grief,’ Carlina says, from the other side of the curtain. She’s reading through one of my conversations with Joshua, whilst I try on half of the womenswear section of H&M in our lunch break. It’s been a week since Ollie left, and she’s working hard to fill his shoes although I haven’t taken her for tacos yet, I still see that as very much mine and Ollie’s thing. ‘So this is the guy you matched with on Friday night?’

  ‘Correct,’ I say.

  Once I was safely home and tucked up in bed, with a cup of tea and a Twix, I got back to the business of app flirting, and handed over my number shortly thereafter. We’d bounced messages back and forth until I fell asleep and there was a coffee emoji waiting for me when I woke up. Arm over the side of my bed. Phone on the floor. Drool on my pillow. I’m quite the lady.

  Joshua seems sweet. Slightly fuddy-duddyish. I suspect he owns deck shoes. Carlina and I have overlooked his horrible taste in music and are both impressed with the whole looking out for me on my walk home thing. You don’t see that much these days.

  ‘You are going to meet him, aren’t you?’ she asks.

  ‘I am,’ I say, poking my head out of the changing room and pointing at the screen. ‘Scroll down more. We’re meeting next Tuesday after work. We’re going to a bar.’

  ‘Food?’

  ‘No, just drinks.’

  ‘Oh. Why not food, too?’

  ‘Because after Louis I need a speedier get out. I can neck a drink, or dramatically throw it over him if he’s awful, but I can’t sit through another dinner like that.’

  ‘If only you hadn’t spotted the mousse cake. You’d have been out of there half an hour earlier.’

  ‘Ha! Yes. It was an incredibly delicious mousse cake though. I still think about it. Can you zip me into this, please?’

  Carlina obliges, and I twirl in front of the mirror.

  ‘Cute. Very you,’ she nods.

  ‘Thanks.’ I smooth the skirt over my bum. ‘Might wear it on my date.’

  ‘Well at least you’ll get another blog post out of it if it doesn’t go well.’

  ‘Ahh, I live in hope they won’t all be negative,’ I say. ‘What about with this jacket?’

  ‘Jacket’s good too. Are you meeting him as a sort of Ollie rebound?’

  I roll my eyes inside the cubicle.

  ‘The thing about rebounds, Carlina, is that there is usually something to rebound from. The last date I went on was with Louis, and we all know how that turned out. No rebound necessary.’

  ‘Yeah, but… this seems like a distraction date.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A date you go on to suppress the niggling feeling that you’re secretly deeply in love with your colleague who ran off around the world with his girlfriend.’

  ‘Have you ever actually had a friend of the opposite sex? Because I clearly remember your incredulity when Ollie said he didn’t think people could be, and yet…’

  ‘Yeah, tried it once, wondered what his penis was like. Got drunk and found out and things were never really the same after that. So I straddle both sides of that argument, so to speak.’

  ‘Are you still friends?’

  ‘No. Our one night stand sort of killed it. We couldn’t get past it. Anyway, that’s by the by. I’ll never, ever believe that you and Ollie were purely platonic, and I think, in time to come, you’ll get drunk and admit to me that you guys at the very least had a snog.’
r />   It’s a very good thing she’s sitting outside the cubicle, because my expression would give it all away. She’d know instantly that I’ve lied to her for months.

  ‘We didn’t. But okay,’ I say. I’m back in my own clothes now and I pile the things I’m buying over my arm and Carlina follows me out of the changing rooms.

  ‘You’re infuriating when you respond like that,’ she laughs. We’re by the accessories now and she picks out a velvet choker and holds it up to my neck. ‘Get this, too.’

  ‘All I need now is a floppy hat and I’ll look like something out of a TV show from the nineteen-nineties.’

  ‘Do you think they have any?’ she says, completely seriously.

  We walk back to the office after our shopping trip and it’s weird seeing Ollie’s empty desk. He’ll be in Amsterdam now. Probably having a beer next to a canal. It still doesn’t feel real. More like he’s just taken some holiday and he’ll be back in a week or so. Lee walks past, shunts his keyboard out of the way and dumps a stack of papers next to the monitor and it’s another reminder that he won’t be.

  Things don’t seem as fun without him to yack to over coffee. The days pass a little more slowly, and I’m pleased when it’s time to leave on Tuesday.

  ‘Fingers crossed he’s The One,’ Carlina says, in a stage whisper, as I’m on my way out.

  And at first, I think I could quite like him. When I get to the bar we’ve arranged to meet at and see him sitting in the window, I feel a little flutter because, despite seeming to be slightly young fogey-ish, he’s definitely not uneasy on the eye. When he stands up for me and pulls out a chair and takes my jacket, I think, what a lovely gentleman. He asks if I’d like to pick the wine and buys a bottle, returning from the bar with a jar of Bombay mix as well as the drinks and I’m impressed. A guy who used initiative and totally respected my newly imposed rule of just drinks on a first date. I could be on to a good thing.