Chapter 13

13

I’m not sure I’ve ever been out of the house this early before. The four streets surrounding my building are much quieter without the arrivals and departures of the tourists from the station and surrounding hotels. Despite the hour, the temperature is already blazing, the scent of hot tarmac heavy in the air. I feel grateful to be wearing something so light. As I cross the road, the woman who runs the little florist’s hut by the estate agents gives a wave. I glance behind me to see who she’s waving at then realise that I am who she’s waving at. I tentatively wave back, but as I get closer to her, she gives me the strangest look. A cross between horror and amusement. That’s the exact way Gen and her gang used to look at me whenever I’d raise my hand to answer a question in class. Usually followed by a chorus of giggles and sometimes a wad of chewing gum somehow finding its way into my hair, hence the beginning of my daily extra-tight-braids ritual.

I scowl at the woman and chastise myself for not knowing better than to wave at people. I march past the gleaming white rows of buildings, taking a shortcut through a set of pretty cobbled mews. It’s less than a five-minute walk to the Italian Gardens in Kensington Gardens, and when I get there, I’m immediately taken by how serene it is. The ornate fountains send out a light mist that forms a miniature rainbow in the sunlight. There’s a heron perched on one of the statues. Up the hill to the left there’s a man setting up stripy green deck chairs in haphazard rows. A lone woman in a wide-brimmed hat lounges on a wooden bench, breakfasting on an icy Solero.

No wonder Mum used to come here every morning. It’s peaceful and open, just a gentle buzz of dog walkers and joggers passing by every so often.

Okay. Cooper’s note says that Jonah runs here with his group every morning at seven. I pull my phone from where it’s tucked into the waistband of my Lycra trousers. It’s 6:59 a.m.

I have no idea which entrance of Kensington Gardens Jonah will be coming from, so I decide that my best bet is to power walk around as fast as I can and save the jogging for when I’ve spotted him. I’m pretty sure that I only have around five minutes of full-on speed running available in my body, and I don’t want to use it up before I absolutely need to.

I pass a slick-looking jogger, who stares at my chest.

“Keep your eyes on your own business, pal,” I spit at him. I’m aware that my boobs splodging like this might be attractive to some people, but that gives them no right to gawk. The man flushes red and runs past me, briefly looking back as he does.

I shake my head and continue on, but then a woman jogging with a stroller runs past me and also stares, not at my chest but at my whole body, her eyes running up and down and then back again.

“Keep your eyes on your own business!” I say again, slightly outraged that people feel so bold as to openly rubberneck, but also starting to wonder if this running outfit…Does this running outfit make me hot?

When three more park frequenters seem unable to take their eyes off me, I conclude that this getup might have somehow transformed me into someone undeniably sexy.

I feel an unusual rush of power in my gut. The only person who has ever looked at me like I was a sexual being was Jonah. And now five people in a row can’t take their eyes away. Whoa. This must be how Gal Gadot feels every day of her life.

I steel myself, and with the swell of outraged/pleased energy that comes from all the sudden attention, I break into a light jog. Which is useful because ahead of me, turning out from a path on the right and sprinting towards the Serpentine, is a group of about eight people running in sets of two down the narrow path.

One of the runners turns to say something to the other. I catch the shape of his chin, and I know immediately that it is him! It’s Jonah! That’s my Jonah, running with his group just like Cooper said he would be!

“Jonah!” I call out, but I’m forty metres away and he doesn’t hear me. I speed up my run. I’m not exactly slow, but he is actively fast. It certainly doesn’t help my focus that almost every person I pass stares at me with buggy eyes. It crosses my mind that if I wore this outfit on the regular, I could probably have my pick of first-ever sexual partners. But of course I want Jonah. The sweetest, most handsome man I’ve ever laid eyes on. My literal soulmate! It’s funny. I was quite settled with the idea of never having sex until I met Jonah. But since the moment he put his hands on my arms, I haven’t been able to stop imagining what it might be like. And then, of course, immediately following that pleasantness comes the swirl of anxiety about how I’m supposed to be any good at something I’ve never done before. What if I “do it” wrong?

I think I’m gaining ground, the gap between Jonah and me closing with each pound of the pavement. But just when I get close enough to call out Jonah’s name again, a group of dogs runs right in front of me, leads of various colours trailing behind them. My foot gets looped in one of the leads, and I trip forward.

“Oof.” I pitch to the ground, grazing my knee and the heel of my hand.

Dazedly, I sit upright, only able to watch in horror as Jonah runs farther and farther away from me. I struggle to my feet and attempt to extricate myself from the dog leads, but all five dogs are scrambling over me, jumping up at my chest and licking my face with their stinky tongues.

“Get off, gremlins!” I shoo away the dogs. They ignore my request, becoming even more pumped up now that I’m speaking to them. I want to chase after Jonah, see if I can somehow catch him up, but I can hardly leave these dogs on their own. A harassed hippie-looking woman runs over to me from the side path. I pick up the jumble of leads and try to remain upright while the biggest of the dogs, a large fluffy bear of a thing, tries its best to take me down again.

“I don’t know what happened!” the woman pants as she reaches me. She’s a little younger than me, with dark blond hair in waves all the way down to her waist. She’s wearing a long violet chiffony dress and flip-flops. Her accent is Eastern European, I think. “I’m a professional,” she continues, wiping the sweat from her brow. “I walk these five pups every morning, and I’ve never dropped their leads! My hand just went like this.” She dangles her wrist. “I lost my grip and off they went. I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay,” I say, my shoulders sagging as I watch Jonah round the final bend towards the Serpentine Lido. “They’re all safe, at least.”

The woman has tears in her eyes, although from the red rims around them, it looks like she’s been crying since long before our encounter. “I’m betrayed, once again.” She side-eyes the dogs and shakes her head. “Five years I’ve been walking them, and the first chance they get, it’s Goodbye, I’m outta here.”

“They were probably just excited.”

“Ian, I am especially the most disappointed in you,” she scolds the smallest of the bunch—a grey teacup Chihuahua. “You are supposed to be the sensible one. The pack leader! Anyway.” She sighs, her eyes returning to me. “Thanks for catching them. Everyone seems to be running away from me these days. Haha.”

She laughs, although there’s no cheer in it, and I understand the reason for her tearstained face. Even I know that this is the facial expression of the recently dumped.

I tentatively reach a hand out to pat her arm but then, wondering if that’s too much, bail at the last minute and just sort of skim the surface of her sleeve instead. I glance down to see that one of the dogs is peeing on the path, the flow getting way too close to my trainers. I yelp and jump away, shielding myself behind the park noticeboard that overlooks the lake. My eyes skim up to the noticeboard. Blu-Tacked right in the centre there’s a poster; a group of happy people proudly holding up charcoal drawings.

Oh my god.

I squeak.

One of the happy people on the poster is Jonah.