Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

K iera was wearing her favourite smart jeans and a navy and white patterned shirt she was fond of. Mr Chips had helped her choose it. Granted, this was because she’d put two shirts on her bed, and Mr Chips had sat on the other one and shed hair all over it, rendering it unwearable, but still… She felt confident. Sexy, even. She sat at the city centre bar with an espresso martini. She wanted to be able to see Abi when she came in. Then they’d be able to find a table and meet properly. She was nervous. What if the real Abi bore no resemblance to the idea of Abi she’d formed in her imagination? They’d only been texting for a few days, although there had been lots of flirting. She knew that there was a phenomenon of people forming an idea of a person online and then meeting them and finding them to be totally different. She didn’t want that. She wanted the Abi in her head, not least because the Abi in her head was very sexy.

The espresso martini was good, and revived her after a long day at work. Happily, this time she’d been much more on her game in the last meeting of the day, and Rick had been there to see it. He’d given her a thumbs-up afterwards, which was spectacularly patronising. Charlie had been in her eyeline and had mimed being sick, just to make matters worse (or better).

Kiera was hungry, but was working on the basis that they would probably order food at some point in their date.

“Well, hey.” Kiera turned around to see who was talking to her. Not Abi.

“Seymour!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I exist outside that café, you know,” said Seymour with a laugh. “I’m here with a friend. All on your own?”

“Oh, er no. Meeting someone.”

“Ooh, a date?”

Kiera blushed and then nodded, feeling self-conscious, but not knowing why. It felt oddly like she was cheating on the café in some way by meeting her date elsewhere. They’d chosen this spot out of practicality, as Abi had to catch the train to get into Birmingham, so city centre was easiest.

“Nice work. Well, I hope you both have a lovely evening. I’ll stop cramping your style,” said Seymour, picking up the drinks she’d ordered and disappearing towards a booth on the other side of the bar. Kiera was trying to work out what was different about her. As her figure retreated she realised it was that she was wearing a dress, rather than her customary jeans, and had her hair down. She looked good. Kiera stopped herself going any further down that path. She was here to meet someone for a date. Ogling Seymour would not be appropriate. Was she ogling?

Her cocktail was nearly done and she checked her watch. It was already fifteen minutes past when they had been due to meet. She picked up her phone and double checked the arrangement they had made. Right day, right place, right time. Kiera furrowed her brow. Was it too soon to send her a text asking if everything was ok? Would it make her look a bit ‘extra’? She put her phone down and drained her glass, then ordered another. She wasn’t entirely sure that was a wise choice, but she didn’t want Abi to arrive and find her without a drink. Although why that mattered to her, she didn’t know.

Ten more minutes went by. Several couples had arrived, bought their drinks and settled down for their evenings. She began to feel self-conscious. At least one person in the bar knew for sure she was there for a date; a date who, as yet, had not turned up. It wasn’t the kind of bar where people rocked up alone. She picked up her phone and checked her messages for the twentieth time. Abi was nearly half an hour late now. Surely it was acceptable by this point to send her a message and check everything was ok?

She quickly drafted something that sounded light-hearted rather than concerned, checking Abi was on her way. She pressed send.

“She’s a fool if she’s stood you up,” said Seymour, who seemed to have managed to sneak up on Kiera again.

“Ha, no, just held up, I think,” said Kiera, trying not to spill her cocktail down herself and hating the waver in her voice.

“Well, I hope she sorts herself quickly. You don’t deserve to be left waiting,” replied Seymour, giving Kiera a smile.

“I’m sure she’ll be here.” Kiera was desperate to change the subject, but also genuinely curious about who Seymour was there with. “What about you? Hot date?”

“Ah no, we’ve known each other too long for that,” said Seymour with a half-smile. “If your date doesn’t show, do tell her never to darken your door again. In fact, tell her that from me. ”

The door to the bar opened and they both looked up. Kiera hoped against hope that it was Abi. It was a man with a bun and a beard. Definitely not Abi. “Good luck,” said Seymour, returning to her booth.

Kiera could see a second pair of legs wearing skinny jeans and Converse shoes extending from under the table in Seymour’s booth. She was desperate to see who this woman was, who had known Seymour for so long. She’d said it wasn’t a date, but was she just being coy? Could it be an old friend? An old flame? Kiera wasn’t sure why it mattered.

She checked her phone again. Nothing. She opened the app to check she’d sent the message. She definitely had. But then she noticed something odd. Abi’s avatar no longer displayed her face. It was blank. She looked again at her message – there were no ticks to say it had been received or read. She clicked through to Abi’s profile on the app.

“This profile has been deleted.”

Kiera felt sick. She had been stood up. There she was, sat at an upmarket city centre bar, all dressed up for someone who had never had any intention of turning up. She wanted to cry with the unfairness of it. She gulped some of her cocktail. She looked over to Seymour’s booth. She couldn’t let Seymour see her like this.

She picked up her phone and called Lou.

“Oh mate, that’s horrible,” said Lou, as she opened her front door. Kiera had snuck out of the bar and caught a cab out of town. “What an arsehole.”

“Yep,” said Kiera. “I don’t get it.”

They were soon in their usual seats in the kitchen sipping tea. Lou had offered wine, but Kiera was already slightly wobbly as a result of the cocktails and the lack of food. “Here,” said Lou. “Beans on toast. Not exactly gourme t, but it’ll help you feel a bit more human. Ketchup? Sure, I’ll grab it from the fridge.”

“Could she not have just said she wasn’t sure she wanted to meet up? Or made an excuse? That’s what any normal person would do, right?” said Kiera, shovelling beans into her mouth and hoping they would help her feel a bit more sane.

“It’s a thing, though,” said Lou.

“A thing?”

“Yeah. You’ve been ghosted.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” said Kiera, lamenting her continued lack of dating nous.

“One of the mums in the playground told me. Basically, it’s when someone wants to stop seeing you or messaging you, so they just stop texting and block you. Another gem from the Urban Dictionary, I think.”

“That’s horrible, and nothing vanilla about it,” said Kiera, grumpily. “I nearly got myself in trouble at work because of her.”

“You live to date another day, hun, I promise,” said Lou, gently.

Once the beans on toast had been consumed, and Kiera had had two cups of tea, she was feeling much happier with the world. “What a coward,” she said, quietly.

“Yes, she is,” Lou agreed. “I think that’s the thing with the online world. People are all confident about things virtually, and then when it comes to it, they get scared. I’m not excusing it, mind. Like you say, she could at least have sent a crappy excuse.”

“Dog ate my homework,” said Kiera.

“Exactly.”