Queenie(21)

“Queenie, I ask him if we can move tables. He calls the waitress over, and this time they take us to a table on the other side of the restaurant by some stairs to the basement. They put Sean in a seat that’s about one centimeter away from the top step, and he asks me if he can swap seats. In my heels, he wants me to sit at the top of the stairs so I’m the one who can fall and break my neck? I tell him to stay where he is.”

I was lying on the sofa now, shaking with laughter, even though I’d sworn I wouldn’t be able to smile again. “It’s not funny, fam, this is my life!” Kyazike shouted. “So listen, it’s not over yet. We eat dinner, the food is average. He manages not to fall down the stairs, even though it might have been better if he had. The waitress comes over to ask if we want dessert, and he says no because he has a special surprise for me. Do you know what his surprise is, Queenie?”

“What is it?” I asked cautiously. “Do I want to know?”

“He wants to take me to a golfing range.” She turned around to face me. “In. This. Dress. In. These. Heels.” Kyazike clapped her hands with each word. “Queenie, when I tell him that I’m not stepping onto a golf course in five-point-five-inch Louboutins, do you know what he says?”

I was laughing so much that trying to breathe was futile, so I mouthed, “What?”

“He says he’ll take me to Tesco Express to get some sneakers. Fam, which branch of Tesco Express sells sneakers? I told him to express me home.”



* * *



Though Kyazike’s date wasn’t especially aspirational, it certainly was inspirational. Without using the term putting myself out there, if I go on some actual dates of my own in this stopgap before mine and Tom’s reuniting, maybe I’ll stop thinking about how heartbreak might actually kill me. That night before bed, I checked OkCupid yet again.

So don’t forget to wash your sheets . . . and your penis

Hold on, this one was quoting Spaced, which meant that he’d actually taken a full three seconds to read what my favorite TV shows were. I replied, and after swiftly arranging to go for a drink the next day, I went to sleep clutching a T-shirt of Tom’s that I’d stolen from the wash basket, breathing in the scent that I was determined to smell again on him.





chapter


FIVE


IN THE PUB, people spoke excitedly and glasses clattered noisily. “My last girlfriend was black.” I looked at my date and blinked, sure I’d misheard him.

“Sorry?” I asked, leaning across the table.

“My last girlfriend was black,” he repeated, not a trace of irony in his voice.

“That’s nice. Was she a nice person?” I asked, taking a very large gulp of my wine. I was still on antibiotics and this red was not going down well.

“She was crazy,” he said, shaking his round head as alarm bells and red flags popped into mine. My date was almost as wide as he was tall, with a huge belly straining under his T-shirt. Blond curls framed his big, rosy cheeks. In essence, he was a giant cherub. He didn’t look like a giant cherub in any of his OkCupid photos, obviously.

I made eye contact with a girl across the room who also appeared to be on a first date. We smiled at each other in solidarity. “Maybe we should go to the smoking area?” I suggested. “Get some air?”

“Or we could go back to mine?” He shrugged. “I’m up for it.”

It just didn’t feel like courtship to me. Maybe I was too old-fashioned in my thinking? I feigned illness and got the bus home. I must have jinxed myself, because on the way back I did start to feel ill. My head felt heavy and my stomach churned. I went to text Tom but stopped myself. If a clean break was what he needed to remind him that he loved me, it’s what I should give him.

Instead, I began to type a message to the group chat I’d formed with absolutely no permission from the people I’d put in it: Darcy, Kyazike, and Cassandra, three longtime friends who knew most of my secrets. I had no business throwing them all together in this digital pen, but it saved me having to copy and paste my thoughts and feelings from one to the other. They’d taken to it quite well, actually.

Queenie

I’m on my way home from the date. It was awful. He looked like a giant cherub



Queenie

But that’s not why it was bad, because big is beautiful as we know, but he didn’t look like that in his pictures! The date was bad because he was awful



Darcy

Awful how?



Queenie

He dropped that his ex-girlfriend was black



Kyazike

LOOOOL



Queenie

And “crazy”



Cassandra

He actually said “crazy”? Or are you paraphrasing?



Kyazike

Why did you even go, fam



Queenie

Something to do while Tom has his space?



Cassandra

I would argue that there are better diversion techniques.



Darcy

At least it reminded you that Tom is the one for you?




QUEENIE CHANGED THE GROUP NAME TO “THE CORGIS”

Cassandra

What’s this?