Thirteen
Ryan and I exchange a few texts over the next few days. All pretty light and friendly, but every time my phone pings, my tummy does a little flip; it’s very distracting when I still have several thousand words to go on the finer points of crocodile care for my Reptiles Monthly deadline. I’m having an irritating internal battle between heart and brain, with my brain acting like a needy Pekingese puppy in its seemingly constant need to remind me that I am supposed to be helping Ryan with his confidence rather than getting carried away with images of handholding on the Embankment. Why do I do this? Why? The amount of times I’ve been down the aisle before a first date is just extraordinary. It’s very impressive how I can coolly indulge in casual banter by text message, all the while running away to Happy Ever After in my mind. I firmly tell myself to stop fantasising, and we agree to a spring picnic on Wednesday evening.
For once, my mother would be proud of me. Granny pants and worn bra out the window (not literally – my neighbours think I’m strange enough). Best lingerie on, under a summer dress that I can actually fit over more than one leg. I even brush my hair. As I catch my reflection, I proudly think that I’m leaving the Knutsford Granny Pants Streaker behind. This is the glamorous me. Anastasia Edwards.
Adam pokes his head around the door as I’m putting the finishing touches to my make-up, looking suspicious.
“Where are you off to?”
“Oh, just off to see a friend!” I say non-committally. “Nowhere important. How’s Jessica?” I ask, trying desperately to change the subject.
“Who?”
I sigh impatiently. “The girl from the other night. The one you didn’t sleep with immediately. The one who could be The One .”
“Oh, her!” he remembers. “Oh, nothing. Keeping things very casual. Why are you wearing make-up?” He shifts the conversation back to me.
“No reason, really – just thought it would help pull me out of the Chris doldrums.”
I use the Chris card as I know that a) Adam will believe me, and b) he will run away as quickly as possible rather than risk opening the floodgates. I realise, too, that for the first time, it’s a fib. I’m not in any doldrums. Instead, all I can remember is Chris’s backhanded compliments about some of the outfits I chose to wear. “Ohhh, edgy,” he’d laugh at some of my sartorial choices. Or when I’d try to dress up and think I looked quite glamorous, he’d say things like, “You look lovely, but is it really you?”
Fortunately, the fib is enough to satisfy Adam’s nosiness.
“Oh right, lovely! Well, maybe you’ll meet someone!” he says cheerfully before scarpering.
Ryan and I have agreed to meet outside St James’s Park station at 6pm. He’s already there, leaning against the fence – looking slightly nervous. Unlike slacker-me, he’s been at work and is wearing a slimline blue shirt, sleeves rolled up, and some dark blue jeans. I notice that his arms are as nice as expected. Even better, one of them is holding a bag full of picnic-y goodness.
He leans and kisses me slightly awkwardly on the cheek. My face tingles. “You look beautiful, Anastasia,” he smiles.
“Oh. Thank you. Where are we heading? The park?”
He looks shy all of a sudden, “Ah, it’s a bit of a surprise. If you’re OK with that? Nowhere dodgy,” he adds.
I laugh, “It’s OK. I don’t think you’re the serial killer type.”
“This way.” He makes a move towards taking my hand. Then he seems to get nervous, so I place mine in his (Anastasia would definitely be so bold), and he leads me on a complicated route involving detours through several small passageways before we emerge on a beautiful cherry blossom lined-street, with an imposing row of Victorian townhouses. It’s the type of street I could never even dream of living on unless I manage to write several bestsellers. As my mother frequently reminds me through pursed lips, I’m more likely to end up renting half a hovel until they’re “dead and gone”, and I inherit the house. This is why I’m always served up as a cautionary tale illustrating my mother’s perception of ‘careers in the arts’.
Anyway, we wander down the beautiful street that I will be unlikely ever to call home. One of the houses is covered in scaffolding, and to my surprise, that’s where we seem to be headed. Ryan leads me in through the magnificent entrance (well, it would be marvellous if it wasn’t obstructed by netting), and he starts climbing the sweeping staircase. The building is in the throes of massive renovation; every room is a dusty building site, with ladders and random piles of bricks and planks of wood piled neatly in the corners of most rooms. The place is empty, and I’m beginning to get a little creeped out. After all, what do I know about this guy really? I really just exchanged a couple of anonymous agony uncle letters and then met him for all of ten minutes at a Singles Mingle.
Despite my inner reluctance, I continue following him. My brain whirs rapidly, berating itself for not telling Adam (or anyone) where I was going but also trying to plot the quickest escape route. We climb higher and higher in the building, and my palms get a little sweaty as my escape options diminish. Interestingly, I’m still worried about clammy hands not being very sexy despite my potentially impending murder.
I decide to come clean. “I’m starting to reevaluate my serial killer conclusion,” I say nervously as he disappears up a final narrow staircase into what looks like an attic.
“Ryan, I’m going to be really disappointed if you ARE a serial killer.”
We reach the attic, which is completely dark, and for a moment, I feel a wave of actual panic, as opposed to my faux, melodramatic, what-would-the-newspapers-write-about-me internal narrative. I’m about to actually make a run for it when suddenly I’m hit by a wall of light as Ryan opens a door out onto a huge roof terrace. I stop, transfixed, as my eyes drink everything in. Outside, there’s a table set for two, complete with a red gingham tablecloth, a vase of daffodils, and two folding chairs. He puts the picnic bag down and starts unpacking. There’s Chablis in a cooler bag and snack-type things like grapes, dips, bread, and olives. He then pulls out a container of the most delicious-looking salmon salad, followed by two slices of strawberry cheesecake. My heart feels just about to burst with the romance of it all. Like a kid in a sweetshop, my eyes flit from Ryan to the goodies to the amazing view across Westminster, stretching across to the river and beyond.
“This is amazing,” I say, looking dreamily across at St Paul’s Cathedral. “What is this place?”
He looks incredibly relieved, a shy smile in full beam. “It’s my project. I’m an architect. We’re converting it from flats back into a single house for some jet-setting billionaire. He wants a pool in the basement and a library, so it’s all pretty exciting. I’ve kind of been smitten by this sun terrace since I first came; the views are just breathtaking.
“It’s so peaceful,” I sigh.
He chuckles, “You should have seen the place an hour ago. It was swarming with builders. I got a fair bit of teasing trying to set up for the picnic!”
I pull up a chair as he pours the wine. “Well, I love it.”
I take a sip of wine and, at Ryan’s invitation, help myself to some salad. For all of Ryan’s quietness, he’s surprisingly easy to talk to. He talks briefly about his plans for the conversion and how they’re going to maximise the south-facing sun terrace. Then, shock of shocks, he stops talking about the project and asks me a question. I’m almost startled. It’s a first. A guy who stops talking about themselves to proactively ask me a question, without me having to try and jump in on a vague tangent just so that I have the opportunity to say anything at all. With Ryan, though, that’s pretty much how it continues. Without meaning to, I end up telling him the story of the Knutsford clothes shop debacle. He laughs loudly (such a pleasant laugh, I think dreamily), but he definitely gets the horror of it, too. Even I know mentioning exes at any length on a date is a no-no – so I skip over the closure the whole episode gave me and just play it for laughs.
“I’m not sure if listing all the undignified things that tend to happen to me is a good idea on a first date…”
“I wouldn’t ever say you’re undignified. I wasn’t sure if you did just think I wanted more tips on breaking the ice.”
“OK, well, balance me a bit,” I say, teasing. “Tell me some of your past horrors.”
In his quiet way, Ryan has a sly wit, making me laugh out loud with some of his more disastrous dates. Like the one with the girl who was so much shyer than him that pretty much the only time they spoke was to order their food and ask for the bill. Then there was the fellow architect who was just trying to get a job in his firm and asked lots of probing questions about the directors and what their interview styles were like. And then the woman who was actually married and was flagrantly cheating in order to make her husband jealous.
“Ha, these stories are really making me out to be a pretty good catch by comparison.”
“You definitely are. So, why the name Anastasia?”
“Sorry?” I ask, momentarily confused as my brain relaxes into good food and wine.
“Why did your parents go for it?”
“Ooohh!” I think at speed, “My dad is Russian.”
He lifts his eyebrows. “Really? But with Edwards?”
“Oh yes. They changed it. Because of the revolution.” I cringe inwardly. I hate lying to him. I’m not particularly good at it, but he seems convinced.
“And then, when times changed, your dad decided to bring back a good old-fashioned Russian first name? Cool.”
“Oh yes, he’s big on that. Our house was a little slice of Russia as a kid.” I warm to my theme.
“And you speak Russian?” he quizzes.
“My dad used to speak it to me when I was small, but I’ve forgotten most of it,” I say, reddening and thinking of my dad pottering around his allotment in Knutsford, having never been to or even expressed an interest in going to Russia. The closest to Russia he’s ever come to is a Dostoevsky collection he found in a charity shop.
“People always say that. I bet you haven’t.”
“Oh, believe me, I have,” I insist before skilfully manoeuvring the conversation from Russia to my writing. I manage to make my job sound quite glamorous – even the Reptiles Monthly bit – and he seems so enthralled by the romance of it all that I find myself feeling quite smug about my job, which is a new and novel feeling. I tell him all about Adam, who he thinks sounds ‘a character’ and wants to meet, before confiding my fears about moving to Sir John’s. He somehow manages to make it all sound very adventurous and exciting, and enthusiasm slowly replaces my trepidation.
Apart from the Anastasia interlude, the evening flows beautifully. There are a couple of moments where he says, “Anastasia,” and I don’t really respond, but he puts that down to me just “being a dreamy writer.” We polish off the picnic and relax in front of the sunset, and as we finish the wine, I sigh contentedly.
He glances over from his chair, “You OK?”
I blush slightly, “Oh yes. Great. Thank you. I was just thinking that this has been one of my favourite evenings in London.”
His face lights up in response, and his eyes hold mine for a few seconds longer than strictly necessary. This is definitely a moment. We are having a moment, I think excitedly. He leans towards me. I lean too, all caution forgotten. Damn, the camping chairs are an unromantic distance apart. I lean further, focused on his warm smile and bright eyes. Suddenly, my folding chair tips and starts to collapse. If the laws of my life so far were being applied, the chair would have pitched me into the table, and I’d have disappeared under a shower of leftover hummus and spilt olives. But for once, they don’t seem to apply in this magical rooftop terrace world where I’m a charming and glamourous émigré. He gallantly leaps up, gently steadies me, and helps me out of the collapsing chair. I melt into him, and instead of another Charlie Chaplin moment, I’m kissing him against a perfect sunset.
***
Dear Alex,
Not really sure what to do here … I feel like I’m caught between my fiancée and my best friend. I’m getting married next summer, and my fiancée wants this really extravagant wedding on a beach on a tropical island in the Caribbean with fifty guests at the dinner. I’ve been working really hard to save for it, but on my salary, it’s never going to happen. I managed to talk her down to twenty guests for dinner and the rest just for the drinks reception. She was pretty annoyed, but she eventually agreed.
The problem now is that my best friend is getting married in two months. We’ve been best friends since we were six. We went to school together, then to university … the whole lot. I’m his best man, and he wants a traditional, crazy Amsterdam weekend. I want to make sure he has a good send-off, and if that involves a couple of strip clubs and some weed, I’m OK with that. My fiancée, however, is the opposite of OK. She’s partly annoyed about the strip clubs but mostly annoyed about the fact that I would dare spend money on something that isn’t her dream wedding. But my mate will be spending loads of cash getting him and his wife to the Caribbean for our wedding next summer, and I know he’ll organise the stag of my dreams. His fiancée is super chill, so she won’t have a problem with him doing whatever for my stag. I hate to say it, but this is making me question marrying my fiancée. Ever since we got engaged, she’s turned into the traditional bridezilla, and I just don’t know how to handle it. She’s starting to no longer act like the woman I fell in love with. Is this a permanent change? What do I do? I love her, but I also care about my friend’s wishes.
Cheers,
Stan
Dear Stan,
Wow, there’s a lot going on here! I feel for you, man. A lot of women get caught up in the thrills of wedding planning. You say this behaviour is unusual for your fiancée … have you tried talking to her? Her dream wedding does sound very expensive. I have no idea what your financial situation is, but you mention not being able to afford what she wants, and I’d caution that it’s not worth getting into financial trouble over a wedding. I think talk to her. If she is the woman you think she is, she may be upset at first, but ultimately, she will understand. If she’s not, then walk away!
Yours,
Alex
***