Chapter 14

14

How can this be? I peer closer. “Yes!” Jonah is right there, beaming into the camera along with six other people. Some cynics would call this a coincidence. And just a few days ago I would have been one of those cynics. But now, knowing what I know about soulmates, I can see that it’s clearly a sign that Jonah and I are fated to meet, just like Merritt said. I scan the text—it’s advertising a weekly art class called Drawing from Life. Jonah draws? I draw! I mean, I used to. But still. Jonah is interested in art too? I suddenly see us together, wandering the cavernous rooms of the National Gallery, gently disagreeing about who the real star of the Postimpressionist movement is. He would eventually acquiesce to my superior opinion, take me into his arms by a Cézanne, and kiss me on the nose.

I feel the press of paws against my calves and turn to find the dog-walking woman and her rambunctious group of hounds are still there.

“I walk past this sign every single day,” the woman says, scanning the poster. “And I think, ‘Oh my! That guy is really something.’ ” I expect her to point at Jonah, but she doesn’t. She points at the man next to him. The one with the bald head and the black turtleneck. “I think to myself, ‘I’d like to go to this class.’ But I’m terrible at drawing.”

I shrug. “I don’t think that matters. Drawing is mostly about the act of it, I reckon. The act of creating something from nothing and the way that feels. In the beginning, it doesn’t much matter if it’s good or not because—”

I cut myself off. What right have I got to talk about drawing? I haven’t done it in over ten years.

“Do you think you’ll go?”

The classes are held in Notting Hill once a week—and it’s on tomorrow night! And while waiting a whole day isn’t ideal, at least Jonah will be there and he’ll be standing still. Plus I won’t be so sweaty, no matter how hot I look in this retro running outfit.

I nod, holding my phone up to take a picture of the poster and the address of the class.

The woman’s eyes widen. “If you will go, I will go. We could go together! For support. I always find these new situations to be nerve-racking.”

I shake my head quickly. “Oh no…No, that’s alright. I can go on my own. I won’t be staying for the whole class anyway. I just need to speak to someone there.” And get him to kiss me as soon as possible.

“Let’s go together. Let’s ‘buddy up.’ ”

This has now become uncomfortable. “I…I don’t do that,” I say as her dogs continue to jump up at me, the smaller one attempting to climb my leg.

“Why not?” The woman tilts her head to the side.

“Well…I’m not exactly a ‘buddy’ kind of a person.”

The woman screws up her face. “What?”

“I don’t just hang around with people. Especially strangers.”

The woman pulls another face. “Then they will always be strangers if you never hang out with them. Never friends.”

“Exactly.”

The woman sighs, using a plastic bag to pick up one of the dogs’ poos and speedily twisting the bag closed into an efficient knot. “I would love to have more friends, but it’s hard in London, you see? All of my friends are dogs. And sometimes they’re not great friends. Like Ian, who, as you now know, is Machiavelli in a cute dog suit. I did have Gant—he was my lover. But now he’s gone.” She bows her head solemnly.

“Oh god. He died?”

“No. He got caught under the spell of another lover.”

The expression on her face reminds me of something, but I can’t quite tell what. And then it comes to me. She looks like I did in Merritt’s This Was Your Life video. Entirely deflated.

“Fine.” I blow the air out through my cheeks. “Let’s just go together.”

“We’ll buddy up?”

“No. No buddying up. We’ll go into the class together if you want. But I won’t be staying to draw, so don’t expect me to, like, wait around for you or anything.”

“That’s okay with me!” The woman grins and holds out her hand. “I’m Frida.”

“My name’s Delphie,” I say, giving her hand a quick shake.

Frida hesitates for a moment before leaning in and lowering her voice.

“If we were buddies, I’d probably have to tell you. Those pants, they give you…What’s the correct expression in England? A caramel slice?”

A caramel slice? What? I follow her gaze down to my crotch, and it becomes very clear that she means camel toe. That’s why everyone has been staring at me. Good god. Once again I use the noticeboard as a shield while I try to yank the fabric out, but it’s extremely elastic and snaps right back into its previous X-rated position.

“They never looked this way on my mum,” I complain, pulling at the fabric again.

“You probably just have a fatter labia. Some labia are just hungry. It’s all natural and human, don’t be upset.”

Absolutely mortified, I back away from Frida before turning and immediately jogging off down the path towards home, hands placed firmly over my private parts.

“I’ll meet you there at seven twenty-five tomorrow!” Frida calls after me. “Because you’re now running away without telling me your phone number!”

“Yeah, okay!” I call back, running back past the fountains and out onto Bayswater Road. I run as fast as I possibly can, because if I stop, the business I was telling everyone to keep their eyes off will be on full display for anyone who wants to have a gander.

I eventually slow down as I reach Westbourne Hyde Road, placing my hands over my crotch again. I spot Leanne, my boss from work, looking out of the huge pharmacy window. She gives me a little wave, then frowns as she notices the position of my hands. I nod a brief hello and frantically open my front door.

I step inside the hallway only to be faced with the disconcerting image of a dark-haired woman in yoga pants, wrapped all the way around Cooper. They’re pressed up against the doorway to his flat, a morning goodbye that appears to be lingering. The woman kisses Cooper’s neck. He nuzzles into her with a groan and scrapes his teeth lightly against her earlobe. His eyes open and latch briefly on to mine. I immediately blush and shuffle towards the stairs, hands still covering my modesty. The sound of the outer door slamming behind me yanks the woman away from her nibbling. She tinkles her fingers at Cooper in a reluctant goodbye. When she passes by me, I see that her eyes are all floaty looking, pupils fully dilated.

Cooper is still lingering in his doorway. I definitely do not want him to witness the fit of these running pants, so I sidestep like a crab across the corridor and then up the stairs.

“Delphie.”

Ah jeez.

Cooper strolls to the bottom step. “My extra research this morning. Did it help? Was it the right man?”

I continue up the stairs, angling myself completely away from him so that he is faced with a view of my butt as I ascend. Not ideal but better than the alternative. “Oh yeah!” I call over my shoulder. “His name is definitely Jonah Truman. Thanks so, so much for that. Really nice of you. I’m going to meet him tomorrow night and finally get all of this figured out. Okay! Bye then!”

I hop up a couple more steps.

“Wait. I need to ask you something.”

I pause, twisting my head as far round as I can without moving the rest of my body. Like in The Exorcist. “What is it?” I ask, wishing he would just bugger off. “I already updated my grocery delivery instructions online. They won’t ring your buzzer again.”

Cooper scoots up two of the stairs. Yikes. If he nudges past, he’ll see everything. I drop down, sitting myself onto the top stair and hunching my knees up so that the area between my waist and knees is covered. Cooper looks tired, his curls fluffy and wayward, the circles beneath his eyes darker than usual. It irritates me that this makes him look like a cooler version of himself. Like a drummer in a band. If I pulled sexual all-nighters at the rate he does, my face would look baggy and my eyes would constantly have those gross crusty bits in the corners.

To his credit, Cooper doesn’t seem to notice my boobs spilling out of the crop top, and even if he does, he manages to refrain from making a snide remark.

“It’s not about the groceries.” He shifts onto his other foot. “Remember how you said you would do anything for my help?”

“Of course I remember, it was literally yesterday. And I already did your weird selfie thing, so we’re even.”

“The selfie was in return for the help I gave you finding every Jonah T. in London. I did extra research this morning and told you about Jonah Truman and the running club, ergo you technically owe me again.”

“Ergo? Christ.”

“Ergo.”

I sigh. “What do you want?”

Cooper studies me for a moment. “Are you free this evening?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “Tell me why and then I’ll tell you if I’m free.”

Cooper runs his finger up and down the banister of the stairs. “So…I may have told my parents we were dating. And now they want to meet you.” He grimaces. “Tonight.”

“Yikes. Why? Is this something to do with why you wanted that selfie?”

He shrugs a shoulder. I feel a small flicker of pride that he thought I looked like someone who could feasibly be his girlfriend; for all his dickheadedness, there is no denying that Cooper is objectively attractive, if you’re into the whole French poet–meets–Cool Rider vibe. The parade of women he has on rotation are all way, way better looking than me.

My face must be doing something, because Cooper quickly clears his throat. “My parents are trying to set me up with our old neighbour Veronica. I needed someone to quickly take a picture with so they would hold off playing Cupid. I was desperate, and you were right there, already in my flat. You wouldn’t have been my first choice, of course, but—”

“Fuck you!” I jump up and then immediately sit back down for fear of exposing my caramel slice. “No, I’m not free this evening. Ask one of the others.”

“The others?”

“Your other women? The one-night stands? There’s a whole buffet to choose from. Why didn’t you ask the woman who just left?”

Cooper shakes his head. “Because I sent my mum and dad your photograph. Now they’ve invited us for games night, and if I say no, they will invite Veronica. Frankly, I can’t bear her, but my parents think she’s the bee’s knees.”

“The bee’s knees, eh? Still no.”

I start to drag myself along the corridor towards my flat. I traverse the whole distance on my bottom so that I don’t have to stand up and risk revealing anything to Cooper.

“Why are you scooching like that?” His brows dip in confusion, creating a little rivet above his nose.

“I…I like to mix it up. Walking all the time is no fun.”

Cooper shakes his head like he can’t quite figure me out. He leans back against the banister. “You really don’t care what people think of you, do you?” he says.

I shrug. “Mostly no.”

“How do you do that?” He narrows his eyes. “My sister used to tell me I cared entirely too much of what people thought of me. That it was stunting me.”

“You obviously don’t care what I think of you, though. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so rude to me all the time.”

Cooper shrugs. “I’m only rude to you because you’re rude to me.”

“Well, that’s because you were rude to me first.”

“Your memory is skewed, Delphie. You were definitely the instigator of—” He gestures between us. “This.”

I scoff. “I don’t have time for this! I have to get back on with looking for Jonah.”

Cooper runs a hand through his hair, the front lick of it dropping to obscure one eye. “Well, I very much care what my parents think of me. What am I supposed to tell them?”

I throw my hands up. “I don’t know. Tell them you have other plans tonight, moping about or playing your shit music or whatever it is you do in your personal leisure time.”

“I’d already told them I was free because I actually wanted to attend games night. Just me. But then they invited you, and I couldn’t come up with an excuse that they would accept, so…Come on. I thought we were in a quid pro quo agreement here.”

“I’m not exactly the meet-the-parents type,” I try. Which is to say I’ve never had a boyfriend whose parents I could possibly meet.

“Clearly I know that but—”

“Start that sentence again.”

“Apologies.” Cooper’s mouth twitches upwards a little. “That was rude of me. But it would just be this once. Just to get them off my back. And also, if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even know Jonah’s surname.”

That’s true. In that sense, Cooper may have literally saved my life. And if I get my life back from Merritt, I rather like the idea of Cooper owing me one. Maybe I could use his fireplace whenever I wanted to in the winter. Or have him deliver my packages directly to me so I don’t have to traipse downstairs and risk running into scary Mrs. Ernestine. Ooh, maybe he could do a couple of shifts for me at the pharmacy? I’d like to see how well he maintains that arrogance after being forced to inspect Mrs. Wren’s antibiotic-resistant toenail infection bi-weekly.

“Fine,” I say with a cool smile. “I’ll do it. What time do you need me?”

He pulls his phone out of his tight jeans pocket. “Give me your number. I’ll double-check with my parents and text you once I know the definite time.”

I recite my number with an eye roll before Cooper leaves me be. Twenty minutes later my phone vibrates with a text.

I’ll be waiting in the lobby at seven pm.

Are you allergic to anything?

Just you, I type out before sniggering. Then I delete it and write No allergies instead.