Fullepub 
Chapter 35
35
A few years ago, in a rare burst of confidence and hope, I bought the sexiest, most beautiful dress I’d ever seen, from a boutique on Westbourne Grove. It was only when I got back to my flat that I realised I actually had nowhere to wear it. And even if I did, it was way too glamourous and slinky for someone like me. It’s been hanging unworn in my wardrobe ever since. I decide that I might as well wear the pale green dress with the slit tonight because I literally have nothing left to lose. If I’m going to dive into these last two days, I might as well really dive in. While the heat wave has finally broken, it’s still warm, so I tie my hair up with a black ribbon, brushing the hair so much that the waves sort of puff out, making the ponytail super voluminous. It looks cool, I think. My heel blisters mean that the only footwear I can conceivably wear without ripping my feet to shreds is a pair of silver flip-flops I picked up last summer. They might not exactly go with this dress, but at least I can comfortably walk in them.
I opt for some tinted moisturiser and dab on more of the glossy lip balm that Leanne lent to me for the gala.
Cooper has an appointment somewhere before our date, so the plan is to meet him outside the restaurant. I have no clue what to expect, this being my first date and everything, but as I shuffle down the street with the other summer revellers, I am filled with nerves that feel very different to the nerves I’m used to. These nervous jangles are soft and bright and twinkling, not the heavy thunking darts of dread I’ve previously felt.
I’ve never been to Chelsea, so I use a newly downloaded map app on my phone to find the way to the restaurant—a place called Concept and Caramel. As I reach the restaurant, a discreet-looking building with darkened windows, I see a group of teenagers sitting on a wall opposite. Two of the teenagers are laughing at one of the others, a younger-looking girl with buck teeth and acne-scarred skin.
I halt and watch as one of the older kids nudges the other as if to say, Watch this, and then takes a huge wad of pink gum out of his mouth before splatting it onto the younger girl’s head with a slap that is audible to me from across the street. I picture Gen and Ryan doing the same thing to me. You’d think teenagers would have thought up new, more interesting ways to harass each other. Some things just never change.
Before I can think about what I’m doing, I march across the road to where one of the girls is laughing at the “joke” while the other teenager takes a pic on his phone. The younger girl has tears in her eyes. I can tell this is not her first rodeo with these goons.
“Hey, idiots,” I say to the two older kids. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Their mouths drop open like I’m Beyoncé or something. I do look pretty good tonight, to be fair. “Whoa,” the boy says.
“Are you okay?” I say to the younger girl. She nods forcefully but it’s clear that she’s not.
“You’re a loser,” I say, pointing to the older girl. “And you’re a loser,” I say to the older boy. “And you know what? You’re always going to be losers. Making other people feel bad because of your own lack of talent or personality or charisma might feel good now, but it’s a trap.”
The older girl sniggers.
“Oi!” the younger girl says, her voice shaking. “They’re my friends. They were just having a laugh.”
“They’re not your friends,” I say to her, chest aching at her attempt to downplay what’s going on, a move I’m horribly familiar with. “They’re a couple of lowlifes who are bullying you for kicks. Stand up for yourself, for fuck’s sake!”
Her chin wobbles a bit. “Don’t shout at me.”
“Hey! Delphie! Hi!” I whirl around to see Cooper waving at me from outside the restaurant on the other side of the road. “You okay?”
I blink and swallow down my anger. “Just a sec,” I call back. “I’m sorry for shouting,” I say to the girl, pointing to the gum in her hair. “Olive oil will get it out. You don’t have to cut it.”
My own chin wobbles.
The younger girl just stares at me slightly horrified. The older two giggle, but they sound nervous.
“Try to be kinder,” I say to them with a sigh. “Bullying people is just…it’s pathetic.”
With one last hard stare, I turn on my heel and go to meet Cooper for our date.
Before I can even process what just happened and how I feel about it, Cooper and I are met at the restaurant front desk by a man with a curled-up moustache, wearing a full velvet jumpsuit in neon green. He looks, somehow, glorious.
“Guys, I’m Sullivan, and I’m the maître d’. Welcome to Concept and Caramel—‘the Experience.’ ”
I side-eye Cooper, who does a sort of nervous gulp as we are led through a corridor to a large white room where groups of cool-looking people sit at large white tables, some of them licking their plates, some of them eating with their fingers, most of them laughing and shrieking. The other waiters are all in velvet jumpsuits of varying neon colours. This is what restaurants are like these days? This is not the impression that TV and film have given me.
We are led to a table in the far left corner where the maître d’ wishes us a magical evening before melting away into the fray. He is replaced by a waitress in pink who asks us what we would like to drink. She’s wearing contact lenses that make her eyes look the same colour as her jumpsuit. I don’t realise I’m staring until Cooper clears his throat. “Delphie? Drink?”
“Hmm…” I say dazedly. “Do you do Liza cocktails?”
The waitress screws up her face.
I think back to The Orchestra Pit and the sequinned barman. “It’s vodka, I think with apple sours and something else that I can’t remember.”
“We don’t do that specifically, but I have something similar. It’s vodka and apple based.”
“Okay, yes. That would be lovely, thanks.”
“And you, my dude?” she asks Cooper, who I don’t believe has ever been referred to as “my dude” in his life.
“Bourbon, rocks,” he says.
“We do a bourbon-based hard seltzer with a chocolate and truffle foam top?” she suggests.
He shakes his head. “Just the bourbon, thank you.”
She nods, looking disappointed before handing us two menus and disappearing to the bar. I look around in astonishment, noticing that the couple at the next table appear to be licking some sort of sugary goo off each other’s fingers.
“I’m so sorry,” Cooper says in a strangled voice. “I googled ‘restaurants with an arty vibe,’ and this came at the top. When I saw it had Caramel in the name I just reserved because I know how much you like sugar.”
“It’s cool,” I say with a nonchalant shrug.
“It’s kind of terrible, though…”
“Yeah. Truly awful.” I laugh, which makes Cooper laugh until we’re both looking around us and laughing at how weird this all is.
The waitress brings our drinks, mine incredibly delicious,and we order a couple of starters—Cooper the miso cod and me the mushroom paté.
“So,” Cooper says when the waitress has disappeared again. “What was that outside?”
My cheeks turn pink. “Uh…I just saw this kid getting bullied and…you know. It sort of set me off. At school, I…”
He grimaces. “The woman from the gala.”
I meet his eyes. “Yeah. She made my life a misery. Her and her boyfriend. Husband now…”
“The idiot in the baseball kit?”
I nod.
“I’m sorry. Jesus. I got some ribbings at school but nothing so bad that I still remember it. I can’t begin to imagine…”
I knock back my drink and signal to the staff for another. “It’s taken up a lot of my life. Too much of it, to be honest.”
Cooper bunches his mouth to the side and sips at his drink. He looks brighter than usual—he’s not wearing black today, but instead a light blue linen shirt. He looks…All this time I was living so close to him. And now…No. Don’t think about that. Tonight is for fun only.
“Have you considered therapy?” he says. “I don’t want to be that guy, but Em swore by it and—”
I prickle, thinking about my GP. How she said she was convinced that I would benefit from counselling. How the very thought of telling a total stranger all of my feelings makes me want to throw up. “Have you considered therapy?” I shoot back.
He surprises me by nodding, a small laugh escaping him. “I…That was the appointment I just had. My first session. Figured it was about time to start dealing with Em and thinking how I might get back to writing at some point. I know she’d hate it that I’d stopped.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Oh. That’s great, Cooper. Wow. Had that been on the cards for a while then?”
He shakes his head. “I booked it after we went to see my parents.”
“Why then?”
He looks down at his glass. “I think that’s the first time I’ve properly laughed since Em died. It felt…like a relief. I wanted more of it.”
I catch my breath as it occurs to me that getting involved with Cooper—a man who is still dealing with the grief of losing his sister—may not be the most considerate idea I’ve ever had when I’m also going to expire in a couple of days. But then…we barely know each other. He’d probably be a bit sad, but he’s dealt with far worse. And this is all still pretty casual, right? An entirely sex-based dalliance? He’ll be alright. Won’t he?
“I made you laugh that night!” I say proudly, trying to distract myself from my own dark thoughts.
“You did. I’m grateful for it.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.” I shrug him off, blushing. “Just a natural skill of mine.”
“One of many,” he says, in a voice low enough to send a shiver right through me. Yes. Definitely an entirely sex-based dalliance.
The waitress brings over our starters along with a pot of paint and a paintbrush.
“Now,” she says. “this may look like paint, but it is an edible coulis, perfectly prepared to accompany your starter.” She puts a square white plate down in front of me. “You paint the sauce onto your plate, in any way you like. I’m a fan of thick, abstract splotches, some diners prefer a simple ground layer, others a pointillist application, although if you choose that, your food may cool down a little more than we would advise.”
I look at the plate, and at the paint pot and then at the other plate that holds my paté. I look over at Cooper, and he has a similar setup but with a piece of fish, his paint a dubious green colour that the waitress says is made from broccoli.
“But…why?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“Excuse me?” The waitress blinks.
“Why did you not pour the sauce on already?”
She gawps at us. “Because the point is to paint it?”
“Yes, but why?” Cooper adds.
The woman shakes her head. “Because the plate is the canvas,” she explains slowly, as if we are dumb.
“No-one else has ever asked you why before?” I ask.
She shakes her head again before backing away, eyeing us curiously.
“Again, sorry.” Cooper laughs. “It had good ratings online, so hopefully the food is actually delicious and we’re just a pair of dickheads who don’t quite get the concept bit of Concept and Caramel.”
“That’s definitely it. I mean, I know for a fact you’re a dickhead.”
I pick up the paint pot and dump its contents over my food. It splodges messily right out to the edges of the plate.
Cooper tuts. “And you call yourself an artist.”
“I’ve never called myself an artist.”
“You should. Those drawings…”
I frown. “I don’t really do that anymore.”
“You don’t like doing it?”
“I love doing it. I just…” I trail off awkwardly. I just what? I got burned in school and gave up? Gave up on the thing I loved more than anything else?
I grab my glass of water and down it.
Cooper smiles. “Well, if you ever have an exhibition, I’ll be first in line to buy a piece.”
He forks some miso cod into his mouth and swallows it. He waits for me to take a bite of my paté, which is claggy, the sauce tasting like actual paint.
“McDonald’s?” he whispers, a smile playing around his eyes.
I nod. “Yes, please.”
