The Thirty Before Thirty List

Chapter One

I never ran for the Tube. It wasn’t worth getting sweaty and flustered when another would come approximately two minutes later. That day, though – the day that completely changed the course of my life – I ran, trying not to curse my parents as I did. I had been late for work two days in a row that week and I couldn’t turn it into a hat-trick. I had a new boss who didn’t know I was pretty amazing at my job and that it wasn’t a biggie if I was occasionally late, because I always got the job done. I was at the stage where I had to prove myself all over again, despite being there for two years and smashing all my performance reviews.

Showing up late for the third consecutive day would make me look like that incompetent brown girl. The one who only worked until she reached her true goal in life – to get married and have kids. I wasn’t being paranoid. Nicola, an ex-colleague, actually said that to me when we met. Not in so many words, of course, but the sentiment was there, beneath the casual, ‘Ah, you’ll probably be off getting married and having kids soon, won’t you?’

It wasn’t even my fault I’d been late. Not really. I knew I was too old to blame my shortcomings on my parents, but it really was because of them. On Monday, as I was about to leave the house, Ma made me throw out the kitchen rubbish, recycling and food recycling. As I went to open the compost box, everything spilt out onto my feet and ruined my shoes completely. I had to clean up the sticky, soggy and stinky mess from the front path, wash my feet and hunt around for my only other pair of black ballet pumps before I could leave the house again.

On Tuesday, I was putting my jacket on when my dad started lecturing me about how I was getting old and how I needed to find a husband, how they didn’t grow on trees and I needed to be proactive, blah blah blah. An argument ensued, I lost track of time and there you had it, I was late once again.

That day, it was completely my fault. I forgot to set my alarm, woke up late and had to leg it out of the house without a shower or doing my makeup. Flying onto the semi-full carriage, I threw myself into the nearest available seat, panting heavily and trying to catch my breath. The fact that running for the train winded me said a lot about my fitness. It was something I was planning to work on .?.?. one day. Today my only goal was getting to work on time.

‘Hey, you dropped this,’ a voice said quietly. Startled, I looked up at the man who’d had the audacity to speak to me. He was sitting across from me and he held out the newspaper I’d dropped in my haste. Who did that on the London Underground? You were supposed to avoid eye contact at ALL COSTS. Speaking to a stranger was borderline harassment.

‘Thanks,’ I replied warily as I grabbed the paper from TubeGuy while trying to avoid his gaze. He was obviously a weirdo. A free newspaper was hardly something I couldn’t live without. There was a discarded one on the seat right next to me. What did he want? The last time a stranger started up a random conversation with me on public transport, he ended up trying to convert me to Mormonism.

Arranging my expression into its most authentic RBF, I hoped that my lack of enthusiasm would discourage any further contact. I didn’t have time to make friends. I needed to spend the first ten minutes of the Piccadilly Line journey to Hammersmith doing my makeup. I couldn’t show up to work completely barefaced, not with a new boss watching me.

Obviously, I realise that men go to work without makeup all the time and no one thinks they look unprofessional and this is another manifestation of the patriarchy and all that. And it’s true. But for me, makeup is a shield. A mask. A barrier. Without it, I feel exposed. I wish I was the sort of person who is comfortable in their own skin, but I’m not. In fact, I’m in a constant state of dis comfort.

Trying my best to ignore TubeGuy and everyone else around me, I placed the newspaper on my lap and planted my giant tote on top of it so I could fish out the products I’d thrown in that morning. Up until this low point in my life, I’d always thought applying makeup on public transport was a bit cringe. It wasn’t that hard to schedule an extra ten minutes at home to save yourself the embarrassment of trying to fill in your eyebrows in front of everyone .?.?. or so I thought. Ha. Served me right for being so judgy.

I hated drawing attention to myself, but I hated the thought of Sheila condemning me even more, so putting aside my fear of public ridicule, I began with a quick dab of concealer under my eyes and on a couple of blemishes, evened out my complexion with some pressed powder and managed to apply mascara without stabbing my eyeball.

As I worked on making myself presentable, I could feel TubeGuy watching me. Feeling like a zoo exhibit, I tried to block him and everyone else out as I hastily brushed on a bit of blusher to add some life to my sallow complexion and went straight to lip gloss next, because I couldn’t risk lipliner and lipstick on a moving carriage. It was bad enough as it was, trying to put makeup on when I could only see a tiny part of my face in the compact mirror. The lighting wasn’t great either, so there was every chance that I had made myself look like a geisha.

I glanced up then to find TubeGuy’s eyes on me like he was watching a movie. Looking around the carriage, I found that there were two other people gawking at me as well: an older man who really should have had better things to do than witness my glow-up and a middle-aged woman with flawless makeup who looked like she was smirking at me. I bet she had never found herself in such an embarrassing situation. I bet she was the type who sent all of her outfits to the dry cleaners to get pressed because she was too busy being fabulous to bother with trivial chores. I was still waiting for fabulous to come to me; until then, I would have to make do with ‘flabulous’.

If I had the guts, I would have said something like, ‘Would you like to take a picture?’ But I didn’t. Instead, I sent all three of the nosy-Nancys bad vibes and tried to block them out.

Then came the hardest part, which I saved for the end: taming my unruly and uneven brows. My right eyebrow behaved and it was a nice, tidy shape in a few seconds. But just as I began work on the left, the train jerked so violently that a woman standing in the aisle knocked into me, causing my hand to swipe a long, black line across my face.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, not very apologetically. She wasn’t even holding on to the handrail, of course she was going to bash into someone!

‘It’s OK,’ I muttered back, my face burning. I couldn’t bring myself to ignore her apology completely, especially not with at least three other people watching. I tried to rub the smear off, but I only managed to ruin the makeup underneath it as well. Now not only did I have a black smudge, but I also had a patchwork cheek too.

‘You were doing such a good job until then,’ TubeGuy said, loud enough for me to hear him over the noise of the carriage rattling through the tunnels. Ms Fabulous chuckled and I glared at her before looking at him, snarky reply ready to go. But then he grinned cheekily at me, flashing a set of perfect pearly whites. My rebuff died on my lips. This man was bloody fit. Like, seriously hot. Actor hot. No, model hot. Clear, smooth complexion. The right amount of beard. Luscious, light brown hair. Greyish-green eyes. I tried not to let my jaw drop. Maybe he wasn’t a weirdo after all?

‘Thanks, I think,’ I replied, trying to switch my face from astonishment to impassive, so that he wouldn’t realise how in awe of him I was. ‘Serves me right for not doing this nonsense at home.’

‘To be fair, you didn’t really need all that,’ he said and I raised my good eyebrow, confused.

‘What do you mean?’

He looked a bit sheepish then. ‘I just meant that, erm, you looked fine without it.’

This time, my jaw did fall ajar. Was TubeGuy flirting with me? I was so out of the game – well, to be fair, I hadn’t ever been in the game – that I didn’t realise what he was trying to say and I went and embarrassed him completely unintentionally.

‘Oh, thanks,’ I said. But as soon as the words left my mouth, I realised that it could be that he wasn’t complimenting me at all. He could have been insulting me. I began to backtrack, feeling like an idiot. ‘I think? Or are you trying to tell me that my makeup application skills are crap?’

It was his turn to look uncomfortable. ‘No! It was supposed to be a compliment. Not that my opinion matters, obviously. Or anyone’s opinion, really. Especially a man’s.’ Heat flared in his cheeks and I found myself smiling. How had my life become so exciting so quickly? Just that morning, as I got ready for work and threw on my usual, uninspiring workwear of trousers, top and blazer, I wondered exactly how and when my life became so .?.?. mundane.

I was twenty-seven years old, for crying out loud. Hardly geriatric. Yet my routine screamed OLD PERSON at me. Worse than old person. Because, unlike actual old people, I didn’t have a child or spouse to take care of. I didn’t have my own house and mortgage to think about. I was acting like an old person without the shackles of marriage, offspring and commitment. How had that happened?

But that day, as I looked into TubeGuy’s friendly eyes, desperately trying not to bite my nails from the nerves .?.?. suddenly, I didn’t feel quite so old. Maybe this was my moment to do something interesting for a change, live a little and engage with him instead of burying my head in a newspaper.

Only now that he had gone and complimented me, I didn’t know what to say in response. I wasn’t cool or witty. I didn’t have banter. I was the sort of person who faded into the background and I usually liked it that way. My days consisted of going to the same paralegal job I had for the past two years; my second job since graduating with a first-class degree in Law. My nights were made up of a combination of watching Netflix with Ma, reading or chilling with my family. And the most exciting thing I ever did at the weekend was meet up with my best mate Dina, or my cousins and go for a meal/movie. Both, if we were feeling particularly ambitious.

There was a reason why I had never dated anyone. It wasn’t because I was a devout Muslim or that my parents were too strict. They weren’t. In fact, Ma was always telling me to go out more.

‘When are you going to tell me that you’ve met someone?’ she had asked me a few weeks before.

‘When it happens, I guess,’ I spluttered into my tea, my cheeks turning pink.

‘Can you hurry up? Your thirties are just around the corner, you know!’

How could I not know when I was reminded every month, mostly by her only sister, my Aunt Lottie – short for Lotifah, not Charlotte.

The reason I was still single was because I had whatever it was that was less than having zero ‘game’. I couldn’t maintain eye contact for longer than a millisecond with any man I was remotely attracted to. The fact that this good-looking man was talking to me, despite getting a glimpse of my insecurities, was mind-boggling.

‘So .?.?. how was your weekend?’ TubeGuy asked, like it was the most normal question to ask a stranger on the Tube. I looked into his eyes, framed in the thickest, darkest lashes, feeling a stirring in the pit of my stomach.

‘It was all right,’ I croaked, my throat feeling unusually dry. All right? Was that the best I could come up with? Pulling out a three-day-old bottle of water from my Mary Poppins bag, I took a quick swig, trying to calm my nerves. If I left my answer at that, there was a chance he would give up trying to converse with me.

I heard Aunt Lottie’s voice in my head, screeching at me to hurry up and find a husband. ‘How will you ever get married if you can’t talk to a man?’ Fair point. Taking a deep breath, I attempted to prolong the conversation.

‘How was yours?’ I managed to mumble.

‘ So good,’ he said, his entire face alive with enthusiasm. ‘Went to see the new Marvel movie on Friday night and then on Saturday we went to this interactive art installation thing at the Tate. It was so cool.’

TubeGuy started telling me all about the exhibition and I observed him as though I were watching a performance, completely enraptured, barely registering the actual words coming out of his lips. This whole experience was surreal, but I decided to enjoy it instead of questioning his motives. Maybe there were still decent people in the world who weren’t after something. Not every strange male was a potential murderer/rapist/abuser/threat.

He moved his hands a lot when he spoke. His fingers were long and slender and his nails were neatly trimmed. He was fair-skinned, but I couldn’t tell if he was English white or European white, not that it mattered. His accent was pure London though, like mine. A little rough around the edges and I liked it. He was wearing a black leather biker jacket over a plain white T-shirt and denim jeans that hugged his muscular legs. There was a slightly worn sports bag on his lap, with a leather notebook on top of it, so I guessed he was probably on his way to work. His hair was light brown, longish at the top, and he had the same colour facial hair, which was perfectly sculpted to make the most of his sharp jawline. His nose was a bit on the large side, with a bump on the bridge which I thought made him look strong and regal. He was beautiful and as he spoke, his face was animated, his grin easy.

‘Sorry, I talk a lot,’ he said when he finally came up for air as the train pulled into Caledonian Road Station. ‘What did you get up to?’

This was my time to shine, to say something really witty so he would remember the girl on the train for something other than dodgy makeup skills. Unsurprisingly, nothing interesting came to mind.

‘I also watched that movie,’ I told him.

‘Oh really?’ He looked pleasantly surprised. ‘Did you like it?’

‘Loved it. But then, I’m a die-hard Marvel fan.’

‘What? No way! So am I! Who’s your favourite character?’

‘Iron Man,’ I replied, without skipping a beat. ‘All day, every day.’

‘Not Thor, with this golden mane and muscular physique?’

‘Nope. Brains over brawn any day. They’re both funny, but Tony’s humour is clever. Thor’s is more slapstick.’

‘Tony, huh? You’re on first-name terms with him then?’

‘Hey, I cried in Endgame . Buckets. I think that earnt me the right to call him by his first name.’

The train began to slow down and as it crawled to a stop at King’s Cross, TubeGuy grabbed his bag and notebook and stood up, along with half the carriage. I stared at him in disappointment. Just when I had finally started loosening up, he was going to get off.

I opened my mouth to say goodbye to him, but it turned out I didn’t need to. He didn’t get off the train, he changed seats to one right next to me.

‘Now I’ll be able to hear you properly,’ he smiled, turning his body so he was facing me.

Having TubeGuy beside me was a completely different sensation from having him across from me. I couldn’t see him as well, but my other senses came alive. I could smell him now, a mix of soap and sandalwood. I could feel his warmth where our bodies met on the armrest we shared. It was intoxicating.

I caught Ms Fabulous smiling wistfully at us, like she couldn’t believe that she was watching a real-life romcom play out in front of her. I felt bad for cursing her earlier.

‘So which camp are you?’ I croaked, trying to steady my starved, beating heart. ‘Black Widow or Captain Marvel?’

He waited a moment before he answered. I could tell that he was taking my question seriously, which I found crazily endearing. I hoped he would hurry up and answer. I still didn’t know when he was getting off the train and I was suddenly desperate to know if he was more of a curves guy (aka Team Black Widow) or a power guy (Team Captain Marvel).

‘Neither,’ he said thoughtfully, his eyebrows knitted together in concentration. ‘I like Gamora.’

‘Huh? The green one?’

‘Yes, the “green one”,’ he laughed. ‘She’s also determined, resourceful and forgiving. She had a tough upbringing, what with Thanos and all that, but despite that, she had a heart of gold.’

‘Are those characteristics you look for in a .?.?. friend?’ I found myself asking without thinking. Because if I had been thinking, I would have completely clammed up. This wasn’t like me at all, to engage and almost flirt with a stranger on the Tube.

‘I guess so, hadn’t really thought about it,’ he replied. ‘Does that mean to get your attention, someone would have to be super smart, super funny AND super rich and successful?’

‘Definitely,’ I joked. ‘Building a skyscraper and naming it after themselves is a bare minimum. So is flying.’

A homeless man got onto the train at Holborn. He looked young, in his thirties maybe and cold. It was September, my birthday month, and the weather had turned recently. It was at that point when it was warm in the sun, but cold in the shade; almost like being in-between two seasons, between daylight and nightfall. He must have been freezing at night.

As he approached us, his head down, his weathered fingers wrapped around a battered paper coffee cup, I took out my purse and grabbed the only cash I had on me – a ten-pound note. I stuffed it into the cup and offered the man a small smile. TubeGuy did the same, pulling out his wallet and putting a note into the cup.

‘Thank you,’ the man whispered, his watery blue eyes looking as exhausted as the rest of him. ‘Both of you.’

‘Our pleasure,’ TubeGuy and I replied in unison.

The man moved on and waited by the doors. When he got off at Covent Garden, TubeGuy turned to look at me.

‘That was nice of you,’ he murmured.

I shrugged. ‘Not really. It’s going to be cold tonight. Giving a thirsty person water, or a cold person warmth, isn’t being nice. It’s normal. You did the same.’

‘Yeah. But my friends usually tell me off for it.’

‘Mine do too. What do your friends say?’

‘Stuff about alcohol and drugs. But I don’t know, I feel like you can’t judge a stranger without knowing their situation.’

I nodded in agreement. ‘One hundred per cent.’

‘So, what do you do apart from being nice to random people on the train?’ he asked as we left the station and plunged back into the tunnel.

‘Oh, I have the most boring job in the world. I’m a paralegal. What about you?’

‘I’m a personal trainer, but I’m training to be a physiotherapist as well,’ he replied.

‘That sounds a lot more interesting,’ I smiled. That explained his physique then. ‘Who’s your craziest client?’

‘It’s this sixty-five-year-old who’s completely addicted to exercise.’ He began to tell me about his client and how he called in the middle of the night once asking if he could have a midnight training session. I only half listened because the train slowed down and as it did, I felt that twisting in my stomach again. I needed to know his name. I needed to know where he was getting off so I could mentally prepare myself. I needed to know how I could continue this conversation after we parted ways. I somehow needed to gather the strength and courage to ask for his Insta, or at least his Snap.

‘Hey, what’s your name?’ I forced myself to ask as I geared up towards asking him for his contact details. ‘I can’t believe we’ve been talking all this time without knowing each other’s names.’

‘I know, right? This is the first time I’ve ever done anything like this,’ he said. ‘I’m Noah. Well, Nuh in Arabic but I guess most people find it hard to pronounce, so they call me Noah.’

Arabic? Did that mean he was Muslim , like me? And he had dropped it into the conversation so casually, like it was normal that a guy that looked like him could actually be someone like me. Of course, he could have been an Arab Christian and therefore not marriage material. But who cared? I needed some experience before I got married anyway.

It was beginning to feel like the stars were aligned; like there was a superior force – God? Fate? Destiny? – pushing us together. Of all the Tube carriages in all of London, whizzing around underneath the city, I got on the same one as this potential Muslim who loved Marvel movies, art exhibitions and looked like a model for beard oil? And forget all that – he seemed interested in me as well.

‘Hi, Noah,’ I said as the train slowed down once again, approaching Piccadilly Circus. ‘I’m Maya.’

I offered him my hand to shake and he took it. His was warm and strong and I think I held onto it for longer than I should have.

He looked at me then. I mean, he had looked at me numerous times throughout the journey, but now he really looked at me, like he was seeing me properly for the first time. My heart began to pound and my skin prickled in anticipation as I waited for him to make the next move.

Piccadilly Circus. Noah opened his mouth and was about to say something when he suddenly jumped up.

‘Shit, it’s my stop,’ he exclaimed, making a dash for the doors as they began to beep. ‘I can’t be late. New client. Call me!’ I stared at him, glass now between us, partly shocked, partly horrified. How was I supposed to call him? We didn’t exchange numbers. Was that it? Was it all over before it began?

Noah must have realised this too, because he was mouthing something frantically at me, gesturing with his hands, but I couldn’t make out the words. Then the train began to move and he was gone.