Bella Marble
We could also meet later if you had other plans
I waited five hours after sending that last one and regretted everything. The stupid app interface doesn’t let you delete messages or I would have instantly. I was about thirty minutes away from deleting my entire profile, but, like a true prince galloping over the horizon, he texted back.
Charles Wolf
Sounds good to me. Let’s say 11
3
Eleven p.m. was a rogue time for a first date, but given how much effort it had been to secure the rendezvous I didn’t want to take my chances asking to move it only to find myself alone on a Friday night. Luckily for me, 11 p.m. is basically the new 7 p.m. in Soho … at least that’s what I told myself as I reapplied my makeup five hours early and tried to coerce a few of the commissioner’s assistants to have after-work drinks with me so I wasn’t just hanging around. By the time I polished off a shared bottle and finally wandered down Marylebone Road toward the twinkling lights of Piccadilly, swerving around annoying tourist and Instagrammer alike, it was already 10:30 p.m.
Still, I was early and arriving early on a date is never ideal. I thought about circling Leicester Square but given that I’d opted for heeled boots my feet hurt too much to walk more than I already had. Plus I went for a “borderline-work-appropriate sexy” look in a sheer white shirt over my black jeans, and given my autumn jacket is basically a moth-eaten relic, it was too cold just to hover outside.
I picked a corner of the nearly empty pub maybe a bit close to the Christmas tree (it’s September now; surely it will die before December?) to try to avoid people looking up at me with those “you okay, hon” eyes as I waited completely alone, not “okay, hon.” It didn’t help that the place was almost empty. The kind of vibe the pub emitted, all homely and warm, isn’t the kind of vibe people come to Soho for on a Friday night, unless you’re me, of course.
As 11 p.m. came and went the last-call bell rang out. Charles had already sent me a preorder with some flimsy late excuse so it wasn’t an immediate problem, only it did remind me that it was probably not the best idea to choose a pub for an 11 p.m. date. Then again when I’d suggested the place I think I’d anticipated a slightly earlier start time. But he did get there eventually, all politeness and apologies and any thought I had for calling it a night early was quickly switched out for the happy butterflies of budding romance.
“So tell me a bit about yourself.”
“Ever seen that Leonardo film?” His accent was cool public school drool, which wasn’t entirely unexpected. His stiff white shirt was unbuttoned at his collar and a plethora of thick brown hair was protruding out of his chest like a fur blanket. In fact it was quite easy to follow the zigzag of hair from his chest, right up around the sides of his ears, right around his untamed beard, and finishing with a thick patch of brown sprouts twisting around in no order whatsoever on the top of his strangely square head. I was trying not to stare directly at it, keeping my eyes fixated on his.
“Da Vinci?”
“No, the actor.”
“DiCaprio?”
“The film with the fit one from the superhero movies? The blonde?”
I’m sure this game of Articulate! would have immediately put off some women but what some might have seen as off-putting, I saw as a challenge. Movie trivia was my specialized subject. I was in the game.
“Margot Robbie? You’re talking about Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie?”
“Yeah—them.”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood?”
“Na, the one where you see her pussy.”
I tried not to wince at the word. Call me slightly prudish but I’m not big on vagina-based terminology. Not on a first date. Not really in general. But the game was on, my cold expensive cider was before me, and the night was young (ish. It was already 11:30 p.m.).
“Oh! The Wolf of Wall Street! The Scorsese movie.”
“Who?”
“The director—it doesn’t matter. What about it?”
“Yeah, well, it’s a bit like that.”
“What is?”
“My life.”
“Oh,” I said, all smiles because if this was the one—if this was my Prince Charming—then I wanted him to get lost in my bright blue eyes and not see the confusion and early onset regret that was currently in them. I wanted this night to be perfect, one we could tell to our future generations. The “how we met” we’d tell to our mini ginger mes and hopefully-less-hairy hims. Our little Wolfy children.
“Oh—that’s actually quite funny, isn’t it,” I realized. “Wolf of Wall Street, you’re Charlie Wolf. Kind of fitting.”
“Charles Wolf.”
Not his fault.
“Charles. Sorry.”
“Yeah, maybe,” he concluded, swinging back the £9 craft beer that he’d preordered.
“My, what big gulps you take!” I said, watching the whole thing disappear down him. He wiped the foam from his mouth like a true gentleman. Sort of.
“You a natural redhead?” he asked finally after a slightly awkward silence.
Asking questions—well, that’s a good sign. It shows he’s interested at least. It might not be the most original of inquiries, but it’s something at least.
“I am indeed,” I answered, twiddling one of my locks around my index finger.
“You’re pretty,” he said, and immediately my cheeks exploded a dusty pink. It was the first compliment I’d had from a guy in like … months. Maybe even a year. I couldn’t stop my heart from fluttering away.
It’s not that I think I’m bad looking at all—I don’t. I know I look pretty good when I make an effort, only given every girl out there makes an effort these days and most boys don’t naturally think “short with freckles” is their “type,” I don’t think that many people actually notice.
“For a ginger,” he added, but I ignored that bit for obvious reasons.
Suddenly I didn’t care that he wasn’t a natural beauty. Suddenly I didn’t care that I could weave his eyebrow hair into a French plait. I was just a girl, sitting in front of a boy, listening to him call her pretty and loving it.
“Thanks,” I said, threading a loose strand back off my face and looking down coyly. “You know I—”
“Shall we go back to mine?” he interrupted. I mean, I wasn’t going to say anything too breakthrough anyway so like, whatever.
I looked down at my very full pint of cider.
“Maybe another one?” I asked, my voice sounding light and uncaring like I’d seen work in a hundred rom-coms before.
“The bar’s shut.”
“Somewhere else?”
“My place is like a thirty-minute Uber. We can split it. It won’t be more than twenty pounds or something.”
This might be the father of my children, I thought. The charm’s a little less than I’d hoped, but perhaps he was just shy. Many men are just shy.
Besides, he’d just told me I was pretty. I couldn’t keep running from men at the first sign of trouble. Who on earth would there still be if I turned down every man who thought dick first? So I took a gamble.