I splayed my fingers and winced as the joints clicked. Kyazike returned and nestled between my knees again. “So, where was I?” She opened her Twix with elegant fingers tipped with white acrylic nails and took a bite.
“I get downstairs, and when I open the door and spot his BMW, I just stand for a couple minutes so he can take in how amazing I’m looking.” She paused for me to really take in how amazing she might have looked. “Sean gets out the car and I clock that he’s just in a T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. From then I’m vex. He opens the door for me, and I slide in. When he gets in the driver side, I cross my left leg to make sure he can see the red sole. He sees. He tells me I look ‘nice,’ and he starts driving. Remember I told you he wouldn’t tell me where this date was? Well. When he gets to the turning, I’m expecting he’s going to buss a left, toward West End. So let me know why this man is going right, please?” Kyazike asked, her head turning to ask an imaginary audience. “But look, I don’t say anything, I just bite my lip and I keep quiet. I thought, okay, maybe he has a surprise for me, and I don’t want to spoil it. Queenie, the next thing I knew, we were parking in Crystal Palace, fam! And no offense to Crystal Palace, but is my outfit a Crystal Palace outfit? No. So he gets out and starts walking, and from then I’m not saying anything to him, I’m vex. We get to some Thai restaurant and he stops and I just stand there and look at him because I can’t believe this is where he’s taken me,” Kyazike said in disbelief. “Listen, Queenie. I’m not saying that I’m too good for Thai, but this is where you come on a Friday night when you’ve been in a relationship for two-plus years, not where you take someone on a first date. But I just thought to myself, let’s see what this guy is about. So we walk in. The lady come over and asks if we’ve made a reservation. Hear Sean: ‘Table for two under the name Kyazike, please.’ I’m sorry? Is that even legal? How can you be booking to take me on a date and you’re telling the people my government name?” She rolled her eyes. “Anyway, I take a deep breath and I just think, it’s calm, keep going. We walk through the restaurant and everyone is looking at me in my outfit, wondering what I’m doing there. We sit down at the table and start talking. Queenie. I feel a draft and look up next to me; why is there a hole in the wall being half-filled by a piece of wood? Is this guy mad? Is this really where he’s bringing me?”
By this point I had to put the razor blade down because I was laughing so much that I was scared I’d do one of us damage. “Oh, but he can’t help it! And maybe the food was really nice?” I offered weakly.
“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?
Queenie
What do you mean?
Cassandra
Corgis. Obviously.
Queenie
The Queen loves her corgis
Queenie
And they support her
Queenie
Like you’re all doing now
Cassandra
And you’re the queen in this?
Queenie
Of course
Cassandra
I think we all know that the monarchy is obsolete.
Darcy
I think it’s quite sweet
Queenie
Cassandra, it’s just a play on words, relax. Unless there are any objections from you, @Kyazike?
Kyazike
Nah, it’s calm. Do what you’re doin, innit
* * *