Polly James - Would Like to Meet

“I’m not worried about the new job at all,” says Eva, “as it’s not going to be much different from my old one in the States, but I have been worried about making new friends. It’s not so easy when you’re our age, and you’re busy all the time, is it, Hannah?”

“No, it isn’t,” I say, “especially when you’ve let all your old friends slip away. That’s what I seem to have done.”

Eva clinks her glass against mine for the second time.

“Well, in that case,” she says, “why don’t we be friends? Anyone who hates walking-for-singles as much as I do has to be a kindred spirit. Let’s arrange to meet up, as soon as poss. We can go clubbing together and see how many men we can pull.”

I suspect Eva’s score will outstrip mine by quite some margin, but maybe I can pick up the odd cast-off here and there. Things might be starting to look up.

* * *

Esther says that Eva sounds “intimidating”, when I tell her how the walking-for-singles went, but I don’t let that put me off. When I get home from work this evening, I find the business card Eva gave me and then dial her number straight away, before she can change her mind about being friends with someone as unglamorous as me.

“I’ve got an early start tomorrow,” she says, “so I can’t go clubbing tonight, but I’d love a coffee and a chat instead, if that’s any good for you?”

“It’s even better,” I say. “I’ve made cupcakes.”

I haven’t, but I don’t want to make Eva think I’m even less competent than I am. The Fembot let me have the ones she made for today’s cupcake photos in return for a generous donation to the charity box.

“Great,” says Eva. “I can’t cook to save my life.”

* * *

Her new house turns out to be only five minutes away from mine, so she turns up at the door before I’ve finished instructing Joel to be on his best behaviour, and not to mention that I design stupid icons for a living. She kisses both of us enthusiastically, which I have a feeling makes Joel blush, though it’s hard to be sure due to most of his face being covered in beard. Then I make coffee while Eva pumps him for information about when he thinks the hipster beard craze will finally peak, and which vintage sneakers he considers the most desirable.

He’s still holding forth about that by the time I join him and Eva in the living room, bearing the box of cakes in front of me like a prize. I put it down on the coffee table and open it with a flourish, only to find it contains four cupcakes, two of which are iced to look like breasts in frilly half-cup bras and the other two to resemble Kim Kardashian’s naked bum.

Eva raises her eyebrows when she sees them, as does Joel, so then I have no choice but to ’fess up that I lied. That passes off surprisingly well.

“Always fake it, if you can’t make it,” says Eva. “I know I do.”

She takes an enormous bite of Kim’s bottom and starts to chew. Then she tells me some more about herself, like the fact that she was christened Enid, but changed her name by deed poll as soon as she left home. She’s also been divorced for years. Quite happily.

Everyone’s divorced these days, aren’t they? Apart from Theo and Claire, though if it could happen to me and Dan, it could easily happen to them – or to anyone . Not that we’re divorced, of course. Not yet …

Joel looks incredulous when I tell him I’m going clubbing with Eva tonight, so I decide to go out straight from work, rather than risk going home to get ready and having to endure his probably even-more-incredulous expression when he sees me dressed up to the nines. If I am dressed up to the nines, that is.

I have no idea what people my age wear to go clubbing and Esther wasn’t much help when I asked her advice yesterday, so I just grab my newest dress from the wardrobe, the one I bought myself one lunchtime last week, to make up for bursting into tears in the food section of M&S. (I’d just put Dan’s favourite apricot tart into my basket, by mistake.)

I shove the dress into one of his old suit bags, pick up my most impractical pair of shoes, and leave for work. Then I hang the suit bag in the staff room, hoping the creases will drop out of my dress before I finish work, and hurl my shoes under my desk.

That was a mistake, as – before you know it – the Fembot looks the shoes up and down and wrinkles her nose.

For once, she doesn’t say what the wrinkled nose denotes, but then she wrinkles it again at the end of the day when she spots me sitting at my desk, trying to finish applying my make-up without anyone noticing. Then her comments come thick and fast.

“Ooh, look, guys,” she says, to no one in particular. “Hannah’s tarting herself up to meet a man!”

All the HOO staff dutifully turn round from their desks to look at me, and then turn back again, without saying a single word. For one delusional moment, I think the worst is over, but then the Fembot adds,

“I guess it takes a lot longer once you get to your age, Hannah. Filling the cracks, you know?”

She giggles to herself, twirls around on her toes a couple of times, then says, “There’s some Polyfilla in the cupboard where the vacuum cleaner’s kept, if you need it. ’Bye, everyone!”

There’s a deathly silence for all of thirty seconds and then a series of dutiful grunts by way of response. (It’s a mystery why the Fembot is always the first to leave when she claims the place can’t run without her.)

I sit and glare at her back as she click-clacks her way out of the office on her Louboutins, and breathe a sigh of relief as the door slams shut behind her. Then Esther pops her head over the screen that separates our desks.

“Sometimes, I really hate the Fembot,” she says. “The other day, she told me all my allergies were in my head.”

“I sometimes think she’s got Asperger’s,” I say. “Then, other times, I just know she’s evil. Oh, shit!”

I’ve just looked at my watch, and I’m going to be late if I don’t hurry up. I aim some red lipstick at my mouth without bothering to put my glasses on, then freak out when I check the outcome in the mirror. By then, the lipstick has already sunk into all the tiny lines around my mouth, so I have to wash it off in the staff-room sink, which removes half of my already ill-applied foundation in the process. I dry my face under the hand dryer (which causes an immense hot flush), chuck some more blusher, eyeliner and mascara on, and then revert to my usual nude lipstick instead of the red. That seems a safer option for someone whose upper lip appears to have lost all definition overnight, but whose wrinkles haven’t.

I put on my still-creased dress, my nose-wrinkling shoes and, finally, my padded coat. It’s freezing cold, so I zip it up to the neck, then add a thick woolly scarf.

“Ready?” says Esther, as she comes into the staff room to collect her belongings and walks straight into the cloud of perfume I’ve just squirted up into the air. (I was planning on spinning around in it, but she got in the way.)

“Where are you meeting Eva?” she says, rapidly rinsing her face to get the perfume off.

“At the Habanero bar,” I say. “Wherever the hell that is. We’re having drinks and tapas before we head for a club. Oh, bugger, I’ve forgotten to shut down my computer.”

“I’ll do it,” says Esther. “You go, in case Eva’s waiting. I’ll meet you there a bit later on, once I’ve been home to change.”

My face must be a picture, as then Esther adds, “If that’s okay with you?”

* * *

Luckily, Eva’s fine with Esther having invited herself along – “the more the merrier”, she says – but there’s a reason I haven’t been clubbing for so many years: it’s horrible, and I am the world’s most useless flirt.