Zoe May - Perfect Match

I take a step forward in the queue and furtively glance over my shoulder again. The girl is smiling and pouting. She’s dressed in office clothes, but she’s certainly not acting like a colleague. They must be on a lunch date or something. She throws her head back in laughter again and then takes a sip of her drink. How is she finding him so funny and charming? I shuffle over to the fridges and put my sandwich back. I can’t have lunch here now. I need somewhere peaceful and devoid of past dates in order to write. I glance over at them one last time before slipping out of the café. She really is a beautiful girl – perfect glowing skin, the body of a Victoria’s Secret model, long flirty eyelashes. I walk out onto the street and head down the road. A bulky man in a suit barges into me, knocking into my shoulder without bothering to apologise.

‘Excuse me!’ I call after him, huffily.

What a rude man. Honestly. Some people in London. I walk into another café, a dingy place where no one ever goes to because the sandwiches are always flavourless and stale. I buy a coffee and an unappetising cheese baguette and sit down, glaring out of the window as I eat. I watch as office workers stomp down the road. Why do people have to be so self-important? Can’t everyone just chill out? I tear off a few angry bites of my sandwich but eating the sweaty cheese and tough bread just makes me feel worse so I give up and take out my notebook instead to do some novel writing, but I can’t get into the zone; I’m in too much of a bad mood. Okay. Forget about the rude man who barged into me. Forget about the horrible food. I take a deep breath and try to calm down, but something else is niggling at me. That beautiful girl and the noodle nerd. Why has seeing them together pissed me off? It’s not like I’m into him. He’s just a random weird guy with an obsessive interest in noodles and tube station geography. Why do I care? Although she looked like she was having such a good time. Maybe he was just having an off day on our date. After all, he was really good on paper, with his intellectual degree and his charity work.

I pull my phone out of my bag. Why am I giving a second thought to some random noodle nerd when I potentially have a Robert Pattinson lookalike at my fingertips? I quickly draft a reply to Daniel, telling him I’m free to meet on Saturday. I take a sip of my coffee. I wonder what he’ll suggest we do for our date. It would probably best if we just start with a drink so if he does turn out to be a complete freak, I can leave fairly quickly. Not like my date with Chris. What was I thinking, agreeing to an entire dinner! Talk about holding your date hostage!

‘Good lunch?’ Sandra asks, as I get back to the office forty-five minutes later.

‘All right.’ I shrug. I’m not going to mention seeing Chris, it’s not like it matters anyway.

‘So, did you send the message?’ Sandra presses me.

Ted glances over. He looks a little confused but doesn’t push it.

‘I did indeed,’ I reply.

Sandra grins. ‘So exciting!’

I sit back down at my computer and click on to my catheter paper. My phone vibrates, muffled by my bag. Surely, it’s not Daniel already? I undo the zip and reach for my lip balm while subtly glancing at my phone screen. One new message from Dream Dates.

Daniel_86:

Hi Sophia,

Saturday night it is. How about 8 p.m. at The Cavendish Club? Do you know it? I look forward to meeting you.

x Daniel

It’s him, it’s actually him! I quickly google The Cavendish Club. ‘Set on a leafy Victorian square in a townhouse that was once the Spanish embassy, this exclusive private-members club features sumptuous décor throughout. This stylish venue boasts three bars, a restaurant catering for up to eighty diners complete with private dining rooms, a members-only nightclub, a library, several suites, and a spacious roof terrace overlooking London.’

I click through the photos, which show a wood-panelled bar with floor-to-ceiling red velvet curtains; a dining room with gold pillars and chandeliers; hotel rooms with four poster beds; waiting staff wearing crisp waistcoats carrying trays of drinks. The sound of a phlegmy throat being cleared suddenly pierces my daydream.

‘That doesn’t look like a medical research paper to me, Sophia,’ Ted barks, over my shoulder.

I swivel round.

‘Sorry, Ted, I just…’ I rack my brains for a reasonable excuse.

‘I was just… researching venues for the ummm… office Christmas party,’ I tell him even though it’s only September and our last Christmas party took place in dingy greasy spoon down the road called Janine’s. All the food was either brown or beige: Scotch eggs, sausage rolls, crisps and salted peanuts, washed down with flat Prosecco.

‘Just get back to work,’ Ted huffs, before stomping back to his desk.

‘Will do,’ I mutter.

I click on to Dream Dates.

Sophialj:

8 p.m. at The Cavendish Club would be perfect.

See you there. X

I quickly add my phone number and hit send. Ted shoots me a warning look and I awkwardly smile back before getting on with my work.

Chapter Seven

Come Friday night, I’m at a West End bar. Kate has just got out of the Globe and is still wearing her heavily contoured stage make-up, which always looks odd when paired with black leggings and a baggy jumper. A group of us have gathered to celebrate our friend Cassie’s twenty-ninth birthday.

‘So, this is Mike,’ Cassie says, introducing us to her new boyfriend. He looks round the group, blushing a little, before he’s swept up in a frenzy of hand-shaking and hugs. Cassie grins. Kate and I shared a flat with her briefly after university until her habits of burning sage, chanting spells and leaving handmade wands (aka tree branches) everywhere began to get a bit much. Then when our tenancy ran out, Kate made up some elaborate excuse about landlords and council tax or something so that we wouldn’t have to endure any more amateur witchcraft. Still, we both felt a bit guilty, especially when Cassie moved into a miserable basement studio in Elephant and Castle, so we’ve always made an effort to keep in touch.

‘Nice to meet you all,’ Mike says, shrinking back towards Cassie. She clutches his hand.

‘So how did you guys meet?’ Laura, another old friend, asks over the music.

Mike and Cassie smile awkwardly and I notice Cassie squeezing Mike’s hand a little tighter.

‘Online,’ Cassie admits. ‘OkCupid. I saw this little thumbnail of Mike. He looked so adorable! I sent him a message and then that was it, we started messaging 24/7. We were on the phone every day for hours. Even before I met him, I just knew ,’ she insists, giddily.

‘Awww…’ Kate and everyone else gushes.

Mike smiles sheepishly.

‘So how long have you been together?’ Kate asks.

‘About three months now,’ Mike tells her, taking a sip of his pint.

‘Yep, we had our three-month anniversary on Tuesday,’ Cassie adds. ‘Mike even got me a ring for it.’ She holds out her right hand, brandishing a silver Celtic ring featuring two little hands cupping a heart.

Kate inspects it. ‘Pretty,’ she squeaks in the slightly high-pitched voice she always uses when she’s lying.

‘It’ll be an engagement ring next!’ John, one of our other university friends, adds.

Cassie and Mike laugh, brushing off the suggestion, but not without exchanging a quick, meaningful look as if they might have already discussed it. They seem so close. They even look similar with their dark choppy hair, thick-framed nerdy glasses and big green eyes. I smile awkwardly. All of my university friends are now either married or on track towards getting married. John got hitched to Rose, his girlfriend of four years, recently. Laura married Simon last year. Rich got engaged to Jack a few months ago. Lucy’s still going strong with her childhood sweetheart, Ahmed, and, of course, Kate’s got Max. Thankfully, he’s still on stage tonight, because then I’d well and truly be the thirteenth wheel.