Chapter 23
23
GRETA
Conversation does eventually start to flow, especially after Harrison tells me his sister put his profile up on a dating app without asking, which led to him being ‘headhunted’ by the Ever After Agency. I hadn’t known that – how they find potential matches – and find it fascinating.
And following the unwritten tit-for-tat rule of conversation, over starters I recount my lunch at Mum and Dad’s when Mum attempted to foist Ian, Dad’s widower friend, on me as a potential partner.
We share another laugh, commiserating with each other about our well-meaning family members. Then we tell each other why we’re still single.
Me: career-focussed and perhaps a little guarded after being cheated on by my only long-term boyfriend. Him: career-focussed and incredibly guarded after a several-year relationship that became routine and unfulfilling for both parties.
‘So, here I am, forty, successful in my career, with a nice flat, good friends, and a solid social life, but firmly a bachelor,’ he says.
‘Did it feel like you simply lifted your head one day and that was the status quo – like it had crept up on you?’ I ask. ‘That’s how it was for me.’
‘Yes, except for the “lifting my head” part – that was just Emily sending me my username and password for Flutter.’
‘I thought Flutter was for thirty-fives and under?’
‘They recently raised the age cap to forty. Lucky me, huh?’
‘Mmm,’ I agree. ‘And you haven’t dated anyone from the app?’ I ask. ‘You mentioned before that I’m the first date you’ve had in a while.’
‘No, I was too… well, scared, I guess. I mean, dating apps?’ He shrugs. ‘Not really my thing.’
This explains why he was still available to date me after weeks of being ‘on hold’ with the agency.
‘And what about meeting me?’ I ask. ‘Not as scary?’
‘Not as scary,’ he admits. ‘The people at the agency were really understanding. When I signed on, they promised I’d only be matched with one woman at a time – and they’d send me her profile and a photo – but that I wouldn’t have to meet her if I didn’t want to.’
And that answers my question about how much he knew about me before our date.
‘What made you agree to meet me?’ I ask.
‘Are you fishing?’ he teases.
‘Of course!’
‘Well, you’re accomplished, we have similar life goals, and you’re very pretty,’ he states matter-of-factly.
‘Oh, well, thank you.’
He sends a smile across the table, then sops up the sauce from his starter with a chunk of bread and pops it into his mouth.
But suddenly, I’m no longer hungry, and I set my fork on my plate. I’m not sure what I expected him to say. I also don’t know why I feel disappointed by such a flattering description.
Maybe having my entire character – every attribute, hope, fear, and ability – reduced to three short statements – sorry, two statements, as the third was about my looks – is a reminder of how artificial this process is. How super ficial it is. Harrison has (likely unintentionally) turned me into a pull quote.
But isn’t that what I’ve been doing with my ‘Dating Horrors’ subjects – and even with Harrison? Reducing them to the juiciest titbits?
Harrison Reed: tall, beefy, and handsome; voice like treacle being poured over granite; dedicated music teacher; eager to be a husband and father; loves to travel; and occasionally puts his foot in his mouth.
Most of that I got from reading a two-page biography, and other than his tendency to say inappropriate things (like I do), the rest I’d filled in with my imagination. And I’ve been anticipating this for so long, it never occurred to me that with everything we have in common, there could be a deal-breaker.
And never in a million years would I have guessed that the deal-breaker was my own romanticism. I don’t just want to be in a relationship and have a baby with someone I share common interests with.
I want to fall in love. Head over heels in love.
And I certainly don’t want someone perusing the details of my life like they’re reading from a catalogue. No, I need to put an end to this whole affair (so to speak).
My appetite abandons me entirely and my stomach roils as I long for a time machine so I can jump ahead a couple of hours. I want to be snuggled in my bed, messaging Tiggy and hoping she’ll reply between rounds of her threesome. Assuming there are ‘rounds’ in threesomes. I wouldn’t know.
‘So, what’s on for the rest of the weekend, then?’ Harrison asks as the waiter tops up our wine.
And so the rest of dinner goes: making small talk and me taking micro-sips of wine and picking at my food. Now I’m glad I didn’t order dessert.
Less than an hour later, we’re on the footpath waiting for my Uber to arrive. I offered to drop him off then continue home but (thankfully) he lives in Wood Green, which is in the opposite direction.
A Vauxhall Crossland pulls up outside the restaurant. ‘This is me,’ I say.
‘It was really lovely to meet you, Greta.’
‘Lovely to meet you too,’ I say, smiling up at him. He leans down to kiss my cheek – a quick peck – and I climb into the car. I wave as the car drives off, and so does he, and then I rest heavily against the seat, realising that neither of us mentioned a second date.
‘Nice dinner?’ asks the driver.
‘Er, yes, thanks,’ I reply, hoping he’s not chatty.
He doesn’t say anything the rest of the ride home as I type out perhaps the longest message ever to Tiggy.
I am just about to leave my flat to meet Tiggy for lunch when my phone chimes with a message.
‘Elizabeth, if you’re cancelling on me…’ I mutter, but it’s Anjali:
Can you call me asap?
I’ve worked with Anjali for nearly twelve years, and she’s only ever asked to speak to me on a Sunday once before. An unexpected development in a celebrity court case had been leaked, and it would have undermined an entire article that was due to go to print the following day. We rallied – re-writing, copy editing, and proofing the article – then dealt with the fallout from the production team, who were (very) cross about being called in on a Sunday. We barely made the deadline in the wee hours of the Monday morning.
I send off a short message to Tiggy telling her I’ll be late and call Anjali.
‘Greta, thanks for calling straight away,’ she answers.
‘What’s going on? Are you okay?’
‘I’m all right, yes, but I’ve just learnt something rather disturbing.’
It must be to do with Nouveau . She’s not calling to share gossip about her nanny.
‘Do you remember my friend, Fenella? I think you met her when we ran into you at Covent Garden that time,’ she says.
I have a vague recollection, but we only exchanged a few words. ‘I think so.’
‘Well, I met her for breakfast this morning – our ritual on the last Sunday of the month – and she relayed something that her friend, Adele, told her about her friend who works at Panache .’
‘Oh- kay ,’ I say, mentally cataloguing the who’s-who of this story.
‘And if what I’ve heard is true, Panache is going live tomorrow with a new blog on their website, and guess what it’s called?’ She doesn’t give me time to guess, immediately supplying the answer. ‘“Disasters of Dating”.’
‘ What? ’
‘That’s exactly how I responded. Now, Fenny only knew to raise it with me because… Well, confession time – she’s my best friend and I tell her everything, so she knows all about our plans for Nouveau Life ,’ she says, her contrition obvious. ‘Such a shame. Fenny was very much looking forward to the launch of your new column.’
‘Wait, what do you mean was looking forward to?’
‘Well, we can’t go live with it now.’
‘Why not? We’ve been working on this for weeks. Does it really matter if Panache has something similar on their website? Nouveau Life is a full vertical – not just a blog.’
‘Greta, I think you’re missing the real issue.’
‘Which is?’
‘Don’t you think it’s uncanny that they published an advice column in their last print issue right as we were about to introduce one to our online magazine and now they’re launching a blog with the same premise as your column?’
I clap a hand over my mouth as the realisation lands.
‘We have a mole,’ I say, breathless.
‘It seems that we do, yes.’
‘So, what now?’
‘Well, I’ve called Amelia?—’
‘Amelia Windsor?’
‘How many Amelias do you know at Nouveau ?’ Anjali replies, her tone slightly terse.
‘Right, and what did she say?’
‘She’d like to meet with us this afternoon – at the office.’
My stomach clenches and that bloody roaring in my ears makes a comeback. Being called into the office on a weekend is rare and always a cause for concern. Being called in to meet with AMELIA WINDSOR is terrifying. What if she blames me for the leak? What if she thinks I’m the leak?
‘Greta? Are you there?’
‘I’m here,’ I reply sullenly.
‘Good. Be in the boardroom at two-thirty. Just you.’
‘Just me as in…?’
‘No one else in the Nouveau Life team.’
‘You think it’s someone on my team?’ I screech, my mind conjuring Bex, Taj, and Lisa, who I personally selected.
‘We don’t know, and until we do…’
‘Right. I understand.’ But I don’t understand. This whole thing must be a huge misunderstanding – or just a coincidence. Two coincidences. In a row. Hmm, not likely.
‘See you there. And Greta? No matter what, I trust you implicitly and I will have your back, all right?’
At least there’s that. ‘Thanks. I’ll see you at two-thirty.’
When the call ends, I sit with my phone in my hands, feeling powerless.
A month ago, I was riding high, smashing it professionally with my own vertical. I was also happily single – okay, that’s bollocks, but at least I wasn’t consumed by dating, desperate to land the perfect man. Perfect for me , that is. By most metrics, Harrison is the perfect man, and no one is more astonished than me that I didn’t lock in plans for a second date.
‘But there’s “perfect on paper” and then there’s reality,’ I tell myself.
My phone chimes again, reminding me I need to tell Tiggy I can’t meet her for lunch. Hopefully, she hasn’t left already. I head back to the sofa and retrieve my phone. It is a message from Tiggy and I call her immediately.
‘Hey. Sorry, but I won’t be able to make lunch,’ she says.
‘Well, I was just about to cancel on you, so… Out of interest, why can’t you make it?’
She laughs her throaty laugh and someone giggles in the background.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘You’re still out.’ This makes me wonder if she’s read my message from last night. I navigate to it, seeing it was delivered but remains unread.
‘Um, yeah,’ she says. ‘But how ’bout I pop over later, for dinner? We can order takeaway and you can tell me all about your date with Mountain Man.’
‘Sure, sounds good,’ I say – though I have no idea if an all-hands-on-deck-including-OH-MY-GOD-Amelia-Windsor meeting will run long.
The giggling gets louder. ‘Apple, give me a sec,’ says Tiggy to the giggler. ‘Sorry, babes. Gotta go.’
The call ends abruptly.
If I were remotely attracted to my best friend – and her to me – I can only imagine the sexual adventures I’d be a part of.
I glance at the clock. I have just over an hour before I need to leave, but I should probably change out of my lunch outfit into something more work appropriate.
I head to my bedroom and stare at my open wardrobe. What the hell do I wear to a meeting with my boss and her boss to determine how to handle a mole sharing our secrets with a competitor?
My ringtone shakes me from my thoughts, and I dash back to the lounge room and grab it from its spot on the sofa.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Greta, it’s Poppy.’
‘Oh. Hi.’
‘Am I calling at a bad time?’
‘Er, no,’ I lie as I think of the multitude of reasons I don’t have the time – or the mental space – to speak to her right now.
‘Oh, good. I was just wondering how it went last night – with Harrison.’
I heave out a frustrated sigh before I can temper my response, and Poppy laughs.
‘That good, huh?’ she asks.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just… Heh…’
‘Was that a laugh?’ she asks.
‘Sort of… Oh, Poppy, so much has happened since I spoke to you last. And the date with Harrison is the least of it.’
‘What’s going on?’ she asks, her tone serious.
I explain about the suspected mole at Nouveau and the possible implications.
‘I might be able to help with that,’ she says when I finish.
‘How?’
‘Our agency has this primo investigator – total gun. If anyone can track down the leak, she can. And as this issue is case-adjacent, I can probably secure her services through the agency. I’d have to run it past my bosses, of course, but do you want me to try?’
‘Er… maybe? I’m not sure Anjali will agree – this is really a Nouveau matter.’
‘Leave it with me,’ she says cryptically.
‘Okay,’ I say, feeling unable refuse Poppy’s offer. Fingers crossed it all works out.
I turn and lean against the back of the sofa, catching my breath.
This is the strangest Sunday morning I’ve ever had – well, second strangest. There was that Sunday that Tiggy and I missed the 5a.m. ferry off Phangan Island in Thailand after the Full Moon Party and ended up onboard a Greek billionaire’s yacht.
The memory brings a smile to my face, a reminder that I used to be a lot more fun than I am now.