Chapter Sixteen
To think that earlier that morning, Tess had had every intention of bailing on Gabe and his intriguing proposition.
Not even because she was worried that spending time with him, without the comfort and drugging qualities of a huge dim sum banquet, would mean a stilted, awkward silence. Or bickering and barbed remarks.
It had everything to do with the email that she’d received that morning from Sarah, the features editor, finally responding to the article pitches that Tess had sent her.
To: Tess.Hardy@
From: Sarah.Nelson@
Subject: Re features ideas
Sorry, Tess, but these are too fluffy for the stuffy Sunday Sentinel readers.
However, loved the idea about getting the partners of five different MPs together for dinner to find out what they have in common, rather than what separates them.
Going to give that to Giles on the politics desk as he has great contacts and is keen to write something that isn’t Parliamentary sketches.
Don’t be disheartened! Had a bit of a brainstorm with the team about pieces we could get our resident ‘single gal’ to write. How would you feel about going on a series of dates with men that you’d usually swipe right on?
We also liked the thought of you interviewing past boyfriends, situationships, and even one-night stands to find out what it was about you that turned them off and how you could use this knowledge to improve your dating game.
One final idea. This piece would be a bit more serious if you wanted to flex your writing muscles.
We could set you up with a fertility specialist to give you an MOT and see just how loud that biological clock is ticking.
What steps could you take to improve your fertility while you wait for Mr Right?
Maybe even egg freezing? (For some reason, our readers get really exercised about single women freezing their eggs, so would do good numbers on the website, though you might not want to read the comments. LOL.)
Let me know what you think.
SN
It was proof, not that Tess needed it, that she was a person that other people didn’t take very seriously. She was a figure of fun. A dilettante, one of her favourite words, maybe because it summed her up perfectly. An amateur, a dabbler, in all things, including her own life.
Especially her own career. Her ideas were too fluffy, apart from the one that would be given to a proper writer to do it justice.
While the ideas the features team had in mind for her …
It was one thing to feel like a failure because she couldn’t attract a decent man.
It was another thing, a very humiliating thing, to flaunt that failure for the malicious delight of The Sunday Sentinel readership so they could leave vile comments.
Tess had been so down about it that she’d nearly cancelled the walk and talk with Gabe, in favour of taking to her bed for the entire weekend.
Now she was glad that she hadn’t flaked. It was annoying how true it was that a bit of exercise and some fresh air could cure quite a lot of life’s ills. And also, if she’d taken to her bed, then she’d have missed the very becoming sight of Gabriel Sharma leaning.
He was so good at leaning.
Better even than Jordan Catalano in My So-Called Life, which was probably where Tess’s love of a bad boy had first blossomed.
Gabe was so upright and rigid most of the time that seeing him relaxed, slouching, elbows on the wall behind him, hips forward made Tess glad that she was wearing big shades.
Then she remembered that it was very warm for May, which had to be the reason why her face felt so flushed.
It felt like a crime against humanity, and against any passing woman who also appreciated a good lean, to beckon Gabe over so he had to straighten up.
His slow saunter with a slow smile to match was almost as good as the lean. Then he said in that precise voice of his, which sounded huskier than usual, ‘I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.’
Tess’s mind went to a very dark place. Lights off. Under the covers. Hands delving. Uncovering. ‘I’m sorry, what?’
Gabe gently tapped her on the shoulder with the book he was holding.
‘I thought you might like this,’ he said and handed it over so that Tess could see the cover clearly.
A bar by a beach. Blue sky. Yellow sand.
An old building with green shutters and wrought iron balconies.
A red awning to shield the glare of the sun from anyone sitting on one of the little tables outside.
It was the kind of picture Tess wanted to step inside, take a chair and order a large Aperol Spritz.
‘Plato And A Platypus Walk Into A Bar.’ She read the title out loud, doubt creeping around each word. Proof that you really couldn’t judge a book by its cover. ‘“Understand philosophy through jokes”.’
‘If you were interested in finding out a little bit more about philosophy but in a way that doesn’t bang on about dialectics …
’ Gabe sounded doubtful too. ‘It’s the book I always set for the last week of the first-year undergraduate course.
A bit of a palate cleaner. I mean, it references Bette Midler and Sherlock Holmes …
’ He held out his hand for Tess to return his gift. ‘You don’t like it.’
Tess had never heard Gabe so unsure of himself.
Which made her hold on tight to the book.
It might be funny. And it would be useful to have even a vague clue what Gabe was talking about when he started wittering on about Wittgenstein and the like.
He loved philosophy and he wanted to share that love with Tess, while she was just standing there and she could tell that she had the mardiest, moodiest look on her face.
‘No. No! I do like it. I’m sure it’s going to be a handy guide to what makes you tick,’ she insisted.
‘Plus jokes. Who doesn’t love jokes? Me, I love jokes! ’
‘You’ve gone too far in the other direction,’ Gabe told her dryly, but he managed a half smile like he was pleased that his gift hadn’t been a total flop. ‘You might want to rein it back in.’
‘I’m fully on board with a philosophical joke book,’ Tess said, as the two of them made a silent agreement to start walking again, Gabe matching his pace to Tess’s much slower amble.
‘I can’t live on romantic novels alone. I think the last couple of weeks have proved that.
You know, I reread Wuthering Heights last week and why did I think it was a good idea to go on a date with a man who literally dug up his beloved’s coffin?
No wonder Heathcliff has unresolved anger issues. ’
If Gabe had thought about it at all, which he hadn’t, then he’d have imagined that Wuthering Heights featured a lot of yearning and impassioned declarations of love in a moorland setting. Not possible necrophilia. ‘I’m going to take that one off my reading list. So, am I allowed my present now?’
They’d reached the Oxo Tower. It was tempting to go off course and investigate the little wharfs and squares full of boutiques and cafés, but Tess decided to keep on walking.
It was easier to talk to Gabe when she didn’t have to look at his face.
Usually he was so serious, like he was giving her words their full weight when they were never really that weighty.
It seemed to Tess that too often her words, her opinions, were light and insubstantial.
Quite hard to pin down. They definitely didn’t stand up to much scrutiny.
She angled a glance at Gabe, who was looking expectantly at her as she continued to withhold his present.
But like everything else: her features ideas, her Love Library dates, the book that she’d just bought him hadn’t been properly thought through either.
‘You don’t read novels,’ she reminded him.
She might just as well yeet the book, still in its brown paper bag, straight into the river.
‘It’s funny you should mention that, because I’m about to embark on a project that will involve quite a bit of novel reading,’ Gabe revealed. When Tess glanced over at him, he was half smiling again. Like he was winding her up.
‘No, you’re not,’ Tess said with certainty. A sort of certainty. ‘Really?’
‘To do with the proposition I wanted to run past you,’ Gabe said, as they reached the short tunnel underneath Blackfriars Bridge, which meant they had to walk single file to avoid bottle necks from people coming in the opposite direction. ‘I’ll need some advice on where to start.’
Maybe her present wasn’t quite as useless as she thought. As they emerged from the tunnel, into the chalk-bright sunshine again, Tess nudged him with her parcel. ‘You could start with this then. Arguably the greatest English language novel ever written.’
She didn’t know why she was holding her breath as Gabe pulled out a copy of Pride and Prejudice.
It wasn’t one of the beautiful clothbound editions with elaborate sprayed edges, just a bog-standard paperback, its cover creased.
It had only cost a couple of quid, but it would be the best two pounds Tess had spent all month if Gabe read it and loved it.
He turned the book over to read the back cover blurb like he genuinely didn’t know what the book was about. Knowing Gabe, he probably didn’t. He might know when it was written, where it was set, that Darcy was a big hit with the female PhD students, but he wouldn’t get the vibes.
‘Don’t read that,’ Tess said, covering the blurb with her hand. ‘I mean, are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?’
‘I beg your pardon.’ At least Gabe was looking at Tess as if she was speaking in tongues rather than the dry precis on the back cover.
‘A few lines explaining what Pride and Prejudice is about just isn’t going to cut it.
It’s my favourite book. I need you to love it,’ Tess said.
Which was ridiculous because it wasn’t as if her entire future happiness depended on Gabe loving Pride and Prejudice.
He didn’t even read novels, but if he was going to read one novel, this novel …