Laura Williams - Our Stop

‘This hair costs me two hundred and ten pounds every twelve weeks. I think it would be a crime against hair if I wasn’t proud of it, don’t you?’

‘Very true.’

‘This is hard,’ complained Nadia. ‘What if I reply, and it’s shit, and he loses interest?’

‘Woah, woah, woah, friend – stop that before it starts! It is NOT your job to seduce him. It is his job to impress you . Whoever the next guy is, he has to break the cycle, okay? No more simpering, pliable Nadia. Date like the Nadia we know! And love! Literally your state of mind cannot be to impress him. He’d be lucky to have you. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘And if he is the one in fifty who is worth being bothered about, you’ll be lucky to have him too. And together, it will be lovely.’

‘Okay.’

‘Literally, one in fifty, okay? He has to prove he is one in fifty.’

‘It’s hilarious to think he’s probably looking for his one in million.’

‘It is. Nobody will ever win those odds. We’re all only human, after all.’

Within the hour, a third bottle of wine had been ordered.

‘Wassabout being flirt-y. FLIRT-Y,’ slurred Emma, just enough to let Nadia know that she was as pissed as she was. ‘I’m-the-best-flirt-y. I really am.’

Nadia nodded, sagely. ‘You are. You really, really, really are.’ She sank back in her chair, and smiled at her friend without showing her teeth – the smile of the drunk.

‘I gotta go home,’ she said. Picking up her phone from the table and hitting a button to make the time glow, she said, ‘It’s almost midnight! I-gotta-be-up in like …’ She went quiet and used her fingers to help count from midnight to 6 a.m. ‘Six hours!’

‘I like your new routine thing,’ said Emma. ‘I couldn’t do it, but I like you for doing it. Is proactive.’

Nadia nodded, her eyelids drooping. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘I’m-no-very good every day but I try,’ she said.

Emma paid, getting a receipt so she could expense it, and they feigned a more sober demeanour as they walked the flight of stairs to the reception area, not speaking except to say a strident ‘Goodnight!’ to the two stern-faced women in short black dresses and sleek ponytails on the desk.

‘Uber,’ said Nadia outside. ‘I need an Uber.’ She figured she could justify the expense of it since she’d not spent anything all night, even though The New Routine to Change My Life limited silly mid-week expenses like taxis. She paid her mum a good chunk of money every month, almost like rent, so that eventually the flat would be in her name. But the chunks of money needed to be bigger if she was going to own the deeds before she was 75. She poked around on her phone and ordered a cab.

‘Three minutes, it says.’ She glanced up in time to see Emma looking further down the street at something, and instinctively followed her best friend’s gaze to see Gaby – work BFF Gaby – waving. Nadia looked back over from her to Emma, who looked slightly panicked, and then shouted, ‘Gaby! Is that you?’

Gaby walked towards them, looking fabulous in what Nadia knew, even with her wine goggles on, was a date outfit. Hadn’t she said she wasn’t dating?

‘Hey, guys!’ she said, brightly. ‘What are you two doing here?’

‘We just sent an advert to the paper … for Train Guy,’ said Emma, smiling brightly.

Nadia corrected her, ‘Well. Didn’t send it. Wrote it.’

Emma shifted her eyes from side to side, mischievously. ‘Yeah. What she said.’

Nadia suddenly felt nauseous, as well as a lot more sober. ‘Emma!’ she said, as if addressing a naughty puppy who had peed on the carpet.

‘No,’ said Emma, giving nothing away. ‘I mean yes. No. Maybe!’

A white Prius pulled up alongside the three women.

‘Nadia?’ said a guy through the driver’s window, and Nadia looked down at him, waiting for him to say something else before realizing he was telling her that he was her ride.

‘Oh, I – this is me,’ she said, offering her cheek to Gaby to kiss it, and then to Emma. ‘Tell me everything tomorrow?’ she said to Gaby, alluding to her date dress. ‘I knew you were seeing somebody!’

And then to Emma she said, ‘You had better be joking about that advert! I swear to god, Emma.’

Emma smiled as if butter wouldn’t melt, helping her into the car and closing the door behind her. ‘Of course I am,’ she said, as Nadia wound down her window to hear her. ‘I wouldn’t send it without permission.’

‘We love you!’ Gaby shouted through the open window, holding onto Emma’s waist as the pair waved her off.

‘I love you both too,’ Nadia slurred, before telling the driver, ‘Hey – can you put something nice on? Some music? Something romantic. Something about love.’

The cab driver switched on to a station that seemed to play love songs on repeat, and Nadia left Emma and Gaby in the middle of Soho, her head filled with thoughts of the man on the train lusting after her, arriving home just as the last chorus of ‘Endless Love’ finished. She went to bed without taking her make-up off, dreaming of trains and duets and newspapers. And, of course, totally forgot to set an alarm.

Daniel had had Percy block out the last hour of his Tuesday as a meeting in the diary, and slinked off from work early. He was headed to his mother’s for tea, and was in the perfect state of mind to get fussed over. He’d never be too old for his mum. He’d not told her about the advert – the only person who knew was Lorenzo, what with it being his idea. It was literally yesterday’s news, anyway. He wanted to forget about it. What a stupid, dumb, pointless thing to have pinned his hopes on. He felt like a right twat.

Daniel passed by security on the way out, and a man with a shaved head and a walkie-talkie called, romantically, Romeo, held up his palm for Daniel to high five.

‘My brother, my man,’ Romeo said, turning the high five into a sort of fist grab, pulling Daniel’s right shoulder into his right shoulder so that they bumped in a way Daniel had seen American sports players and some rappers do. Romeo wasn’t American. Romeo had been born in Westgate-on-Sea.

‘How’s it going today? You’re looking shaaaarp.’ Romeo spoke as if he was the comic relief cousin in a Will Smith movie about a comedy bank heist done in the name of love, but was white with blue eyes and blond hair scraped up into a man-bun, and had a degree in Landscape Architecture. (‘Turns out I don’t like being outdoors much,’ he’d explained, with a regretful shrug.)

Daniel tugged on his own collar, jutting it upwards like John Travolta. He’d worn a jacket with his suit trousers today, which wasn’t expected in the office and which the weather was about ten degrees too warm for, but he’d wanted to look nice because it lifted his mood. He liked to take care of himself, liked to spend money on clothes. He liked feeling as though he was putting his best foot forward – it bolstered him. And after yesterday, he wanted to feel bolstered.