Chapter 3
3
If there is one dating rule that I have always stuck by, it’s that I would never, ever, ever under any circumstances be set up on a blind date. I believe my exact words would usually be something along the lines of: it would have to be a cold day in hell, before I would let someone set me up with a stranger.
Well, it turns out, it doesn’t need to be a cold day in hell, just a chilly December evening in London. Let’s just say that my love life has been pretty quiet lately, and by ‘pretty quiet’ I mean non-existent, and by lately I mean for a really, really long time. Sure, I’ve been on dates, but they never seem to go anywhere, and I don’t really think it’s me (not most of the time, at least), or the lucky, lucky men who get to date me, but things just never seem to click for either of us.
I’ve tried meeting people myself, but I don’t quite have the confidence to essentially pick people up in the street, and I don’t exactly give off the confident, approachable vibes that would make the men come to me, if I’m being honest. Oh, and of course I’ve tried the apps. I’ve tried them, uninstalled them, tried them again and uninstalled them again – and so on and so on.
Really, the only two things I haven’t tried are going on blind dates and taking part in a reality TV dating show, and with the latter being so very far out of my comfort zone, I’m left with no choice other than to give being set up a go.
Still, I almost backed out, right at the last moment. I don’t know what I was hoping for – perhaps to bump into Chris Hemsworth on the journey to see my parents, who would of course fall in love with me, at first sight, and he would somehow know about my blind date and he would tear off his shirt, and get down on his knees, and beg me to go out with him instead. Didn’t see him, though, didn’t even see anyone who looked like him, or looked at me, so here I am.
It’s just a coincidence, that I’m living in a loveless world after learning of my parents’ impending divorce (excuse me, pre-divorce), so perhaps I should just be thankful that I’ve got this date lined up this evening. A little bit of hope is exactly what I need right now, to try to take the edge off the bleakness.
Sometimes even I find it hard to believe that I’m a romance writer – seeing as though I can only conjure it up on the page, and not actually manifest any in my real life. You would think it might serve me well, to know the tricks of the trade, to have tried and tested things on the page, like I’m running scientific simulations. Sadly, I’ve always found the com to be more my strong suit. As for the rom, I don’t know, I don’t even feel like I’m doing a good job on the page at the moment. I know that I should just finish this draft, in the way that Jen wants me to, but for some reason I just can’t make it happen. It’s not writer’s block necessarily, more that the creative side of my brain is protesting. It refuses to let me work on it. The second I try to work on my book, I freeze up. That’s why I’m so keen to get Jen to read my other draft. God, I hope she likes it. Although it does need a lot more work, because a big chunk of it isn’t actually written yet.
With less than a month to go until Christmas, I’m not sure what’s easier, going on a good date or finishing writing my book? The latter, for sure. Not that it’s easy, not at all, it’s just I’ve seen evidence that I’m actually capable of that one.
I rushed back to my apartment after my parents dropped the bombshell on me, and got ready for my date in less time than I would have liked, but I figured it was better to turn up looking vaguely presentable, but on time, than to spend ages on my hair, make-up and outfit, only to make a bad impression by turning up late. So here I am, not looking my best, but on time, and there’s no sign of the guy anyway.
And now I need a stress wee – fantastic. It’s funny because when I’m at home, in my writing pit, I will drink and drink (mostly coffee, never enough water), and not move from the spot for hours, and not need the loo all day, but as soon as I have any sort of social obligation, my body fires off signals left, right and centre, so I’m off to the loo, I guess.
I’m in a bar called Charliez, one that I haven’t been in before but it seems nice enough. Like all bars in December, it’s super busy, with clusters of people pumped to the max with festive cheer, so at least I know we won’t need to worry about awkward silences. It could still be awkward, obviously, but at least it won’t be silent.
It’s one of those places with a room full of individual toilets that can be used by anyone – good, because that means more toilets, so no crazy queue for the ladies’ while fellas fly in and out of the gents’, but bad because it significantly increases your chances of sitting on a seat covered in splashes.
I sit down and take my phone from my clutch to check my messages from my cousin Amy again. It’s Amy who has set me up with her friend Ray – she pitched him to me as a fellow writer, someone I was bound to get along with. I don’t think I know of any men called Ray who are under sixty. The name makes me think of my dad’s former bestie (they fell out over a STIHL saw – something my dad STIHL goes on about, and no, I don’t know what one is either, I think only Dad can tell his thousands of saws apart) who was called Ray – and then I suppose there’s Ray Winston, Ray Charles and Ray… Mears? Best I can do. None of them make me think of a young bloke turning up (thirty is generally still categorised as young, right?) but Amy assures me that this Ray is my age, and that he’ll be carrying a single red rose, so that I can spot him – something that feels impossibly corny, like the kind of thing I would write into a scene for a date that was doomed from the start.
I put my phone back in my bright pink clutch bag. I thought a bit of colour was necessary, after throwing on a white shirt and the tailored black trousers I found conveniently screwed up on my bedroom floor – because I was worried I looked a little bit like I was going to a wake. So I straightened my long blonde hair and I layered on the eye make-up behind my white thick-rimmed glasses in the hope it would jazz me up somehow.
Standing up, as I go to pull my trousers back up, I notice something in one of the legs. Is that…? Oh God, it’s a pair of knickers, and a worn pair at that. I probably took them off with my trousers the last time I wore them and, like the catch that I am, left them there. I was going to say thank God I noticed in here, as though there was ever a likelihood of me taking my trousers off this evening anywhere apart from here in the loo or at home alone. Of course, I’ve no sooner pulled them out of my trousers (like a really shit, kind of kinky magician) when I’ve dropped them in the wet sink. Amazing, just fantastic, not stress-inducing at all. Obviously I’ve got no choice but to wring them out (thankfully they’re not soaking wet) and stuff them in my clutch bag, because I can’t exactly leave them in here, or flush them down the loo, and now that they’re wet returning them from whence they came (my trouser leg) is off the table. Stunning. I’ll probably forget I put them in there too and find them weeks later, when I’ve forgotten all about today (look at me writing this date off already) and least expect it.
As is typical of London, if you go deep enough into anywhere expensive enough, it can make you feel like you don’t belong there, and that’s exactly how I feel here in Charliez. Well, if you subscribe to that mentality, which I don’t, but there’s always that worry that you’ll be forcibly removed by those who do. The dress code here appears to be: unaffordable. Everyone else is in their designer outfits – everywhere you look there’s a Balenciaga B or a pair of Gucci Gs. Meanwhile I’m doing my best to make sure that the label isn’t sticking out on my Zara shirt and that no one manages to eyeball my bag as something I picked up from Topshop a million years ago. Who am I kidding? I’ll bet no one in here ever set foot in an original Topshop. What I’ve been telling myself is that I’m hoarding items – and I have been since I was a kid – so that I have a collection of clothing that will eventually be considered vintage which I can make a fortune from selling. And that’s my excuse, for why I still sometimes sleep in one of those Miss Selfridge tie-dye love-heart T-shirts that were all the rage in the nineties, and I’m sticking with it.
Charliez is all about elegance with a hint of – how do I even describe this? – purposeful tackiness. It’s supposed to be jarring, I guess, as you cast an eye around the room and try to make sense of the décor. The polished mahogany, the plush animal-print velvet, and the chandeliers that look like they belong in a ballroom but, for the purposes of the venue, have been refitted with disco lights. I know, it sounds awful, but somehow it works perfectly, shining down over the beautiful clientele and their overpriced cocktails. Oh, and with it being Christmas, the place is decked out for that. This is an old building, with super-high ceilings, so they’ve gone for the biggest tree they could get, overloaded with the most decorations they could squeeze on there, resulting in something that would give the Rockefeller Center a run for its money. The bar is lined with tinsel – yes, tinsel, the old-school kind your gran brought out every year when you were a kid – and you can hardly take a few steps without finding yourself underneath a piece of mistletoe. It’s coming down like snow, suspended in the air, putting a huge amount of pressure on the folks below – although people appear to be ignoring it for the most part.
Still no sign of my date. I push my way to the bar to order myself a drink, and smile as I glance over a Christmas-themed cocktail menu that offers drinks like a Sleigh My Name and Yule Only Live Once – bloody hell, at ￡32 a drink, yule only buy one once too. The young barman who serves me manages to do so in a way that barely acknowledges I’m even here. He looks so miserable, in a way that I’m starting to think might be part of the job, because he practically makes my drink with contempt. There’s no way a drink can taste good when it’s thrown together with such little effort, and yet… wow, it’s amazing. I want to say that it tastes ￡32 good, but maybe that’s just another thing I’m telling myself to make myself feel better.
I see a man making his way through the crowd, a single red rose in his hand. Ah, this must be Ray. My date. Holding his solitary rose to let me know that it’s him – something that sounded sort of romantic, on paper, but in real life looks sort of sad.
I know, you should never judge a book by its cover, but if it weren’t for the rose, Ray seems like the kind of guy you could easily overlook in a crowd. He’s got that sensible, slightly unkempt look that only a writer can truly pull off. His hair, a nondescript shade of brown, is messy, like he’s just run his fingers through it while contemplating his next paragraph. He’s wearing a jumper that could only be described as comfortable and jeans that are neither too tight nor too baggy.
I often wonder if I look like a writer. I mean, I’m sure I do when I’m actually writing, wearing what I like to call my ‘house bra’ (a big, squishy thing that does nothing for me or my boobs), an oversized T-shirt and my PJ bottoms, with my long blonde hair scraped up into a bun on the top of my head – to be untangled at a time when I have, well, time – and then there’s my glasses. Tonight, though, I’m dolled up for my date, so the glasses are the only part of the writer ensemble that made it out of the house, for obvious reasons. I love over-the-top glasses. I figure, if I need them, I may as well rock them. They’re as much a fashion accessory as my bag or my earrings as far as I’m concerned.
It’s probably a good sign that Ray looks as out of place in here as I feel, because it makes me feel like we might have more in common than simply being writers.
I grab my drink (or what little is left of it) and hop down from my stool. I should let Ray know that I’m here, and I’m me, to save him from aimlessly wandering around the bar with a flower.
‘Ray, hi, it’s Amber,’ I say brightly.
Ray snorts.
‘When Amy said it was a blind date, you know it was the date she was referring to, and not me, right?’ he replies. ‘I know it’s you. I can see.’
I’m instantly stopped in my tracks because I wasn’t expecting him to say, well, anything apart from hello. Is he joking or…?
‘Oh, er, sorry,’ I apologise – because of course I apologise. I’m always fucking apologising, with no real idea why. I wish I could stop. ‘I thought, with it being a blind date, and me only knowing you were you because of the flower, I didn’t think that you would know that I was me… if that makes sense?’
‘That barely makes sense,’ he replies, narrowing his eyes at me. ‘And you’re a writer?’
He’s either a total arsehole or going for some kind of ‘treat ’em mean’, extreme negging strategy. Or he could be joking, I suppose, but I don’t really get it.
‘Yep,’ I say simply.
‘Well, I’ve sorted us a table, and I’ve ordered us some food,’ he announces. ‘They do these sharing platters here – amazing – so, let’s sit down, and order some more drinks, yeah?’
Okay, this is more like it. Perhaps his nerves were getting the better of him too, and he’s settling down now.
‘Okay, let’s do it,’ I reply. ‘You should try one of these drinks. Honestly, they’re so good.’
‘Tell you what, why don’t you ask the barman to send us over two more, and charge it to our table – table 13,’ he suggests.
I smile before doing as instructed. I catch up with Ray at table 13 – unlucky for some, but hopefully lucky for me tonight. Oh, and I mean that in a good-fortune way, not a ‘get lucky’ way, I hasten to add.
‘So,’ I say, sitting down across from him.
‘They’re big glasses,’ he points out, nodding towards my face.
I push them up my nose.
‘Oh, yeah,’ I say with a laugh. ‘I like to make a statement with them, I guess.’
‘They didn’t look as in-your-face in your photo,’ he tells me.
‘They’re more on-my-face,’ I joke – then I realise what he just said. ‘In my photo?’
‘Yeah, I had Amy show me a photo of you, before I would agree to come,’ he says. ‘You never know who is going to turn out to be a bit of a moose.’
He smiles briefly, almost flirting with the idea that he might be joking, before snapping back to his straight face.
‘Are they real glasses?’ he asks.
‘Yep,’ I reply, reaching behind my ear to wiggle the arm on one side, making my glasses bounce on my nose.
‘I mean, do you genuinely need them?’ he clarifies.
‘Only if I want to see,’ I reply, trying to joke away the awkward vibes. ‘I’m good, until about arm’s length, and then things get blurry.’
‘I wear contact lenses,’ he tells me, and somehow it sounds like a suggestion.
‘I gave them a go but I couldn’t get on with them,’ I confess. ‘I could get them in okay, but I found getting them out at the end of the day a nightmare.’
‘I find that glasses aren’t always appropriate,’ he points out.
‘Oh?’ is all I can think to say.
‘Yeah, I mean, come on, are you planning on wearing them on your wedding day?’ he replies.
‘Steady on, buddy, it’s only our first date,’ I joke. ‘But, hey, at least the frames are white.’
Ray pulls a face.
‘Not that I’m asking, but it’s good to know these things,’ he explains. ‘Dating in your thirties isn’t easy, is it?’
I feel that.
‘It’s a bit like trying to do your present shopping on Christmas Eve,’ he continues. ‘All the good stuff is gone, so you just have to make do with whatever is left.’
I’m relieved when a waiter turns up with our drinks and our charcuterie board because, again, I cannot tell if Ray is joking or not, but he must be.
‘Wow, this looks so good,’ I tell him.
Ray takes a sip of his drink and pulls a bit of a face.
‘The drink is… interesting,’ he replies.
This is not going well at all, is it? Perhaps if I try something else.
‘So, what do you write?’ I ask him.
‘Novels, like you,’ he replies. ‘Well, not exactly like you, obviously. I write historical fiction so it’s a lot more involved than just coming up with the stories. It requires extensive research – trips to the library, to historic sites, to interview experts.’
‘I love a research trip,’ I reply.
‘Yeah, but I’m talking real ones, not visiting a beach for “inspo”, for wherever you’re setting your latest roll around in the sand,’ he replies. ‘It’s not that I don’t do sex but, when I do, it’s not for fun.’
I know that he’s referring to sex in his books but, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if that carried into real life too.
‘I don’t really write sex scenes,’ I confess.
‘I thought you wrote romance?’ he asks, one eyebrow raised inquisitively.
‘I do,’ I reply.
‘But… no sex? I thought that’s what these books were all about?’ he says, and I can tell from his tone that he means it.
‘I mean, I think of myself as more of a comedy writer than a romance writer,’ I tell him. ‘It just so happens that my books have a strong romance arc, so marketing them as romcoms is the best way to go – well, that’s what my publishers tell me.’
‘Well, what do publishers know, hey?’ he replies. ‘Sex sells. You want to think about it. It’s what women want these days.’
My jaw drops ever so slightly.
‘I’m sorry – are you mansplaining women to me?’ I ask. ‘And my job? And… and…’
I notice Ray’s eyebrows shoot up and, if I didn’t know better, I would say he looked almost scared.
‘I… I… I wasn’t, I would never,’ he insists. ‘Is everything okay? You seem a little…’
Ray’s voice trails off. Ah, shit, is this me? Am I just determined to have a bad date tonight? Perhaps I should be honest, show him that I’m a genuine person, I’m just having a bad day.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say with a sigh. ‘I pretty much came here from my parents’ house, where they sat me and my brother down and told us that they were getting a divorce, so my mind is all over the place. So, that might be why I seem a little… off.’
‘I was going to say “intense”,’ he replies. ‘But, wow, that’s rough. Did they say why they were divorcing?’
‘I guess they’re just not happy together any more,’ I reply with a sigh. ‘I don’t know, it all sounded so confusing.’
I take a big gulp of my drink. This is the last thing I wanted to get into but perhaps it will be good to talk about it?
‘No wonder you don’t think of yourself as a romance writer,’ he points out. ‘Between your parents, and your own love life, there’s not much to feel inspired by, is there?’
I don’t know if Ray is trying to insult me, or whether his speciality really is just saying the wrong thing at every opportunity, but I don’t need this. To borrow Ray’s analogy from him, it’s not Christmas Eve yet, so I don’t need to settle for ‘whatever is left’ tonight.
‘I’m guessing the sex isn’t there either then?’ he continues.
Yep, that’s my limit.
‘Listen, sorry, but I need to go,’ I tell him – apologising yet again.
‘Oh?’ he says, and he sounds surprised, which is hilarious. Does he think this is going well? ‘But you’ve hardly touched the food – it was expensive.’
‘I’m sure it was,’ I reply. ‘Let me give you some money for it.’
I’m on my feet now, hurriedly fussing with my clutch, so that I can give him some cash and then get out of here as fast as I can.
As I pull out my purse, my still kind of wet knickers fall out of my bag, landing on the table in front of him. For a second or two, Ray just stares at them.
‘What, er…?’
I think he might finally be speechless.
I snatch them up, quickly stuffing them in my bag.
‘Sorry, sorry, that’s from… before you got here,’ I blurt, not making any sense.
Ray’s eyebrows shoot up.
‘Oh,’ he says, his voice so much higher than it has been so far.
Oh. Oh God. He thinks I mean something far, far different to what I actually mean. Ah well, he was implying I was sex-starved a moment ago, and I am, but I don’t want to spend another second on this date so I may as well own it.
‘Anyway, bye,’ I tell him.
He doesn’t even say goodbye.
Wow. I really, really didn’t expect to show my date my knickers tonight, and yet here we are.
Bloody table 13. I couldn’t have got more unlucky if I’d tried.