6
As soon as I was sure he wasn’t following me I did a stock check. My handbag is unfortunately as bottomless as Mary Poppins’s magic suitcase, only instead of a handy hat rack and a variety of undoubtedly useful household items like hers contains, mine’s filled with miscellaneous crap that no one needs ever. Empty crisp packets I keep forgetting to take out, old lipsticks and mascaras that have probably dried up by now, pens without caps, caps without pens, and gum that’s probably wildly past its use-by date. My hand riffles through it all until I find what I’m looking for. I brought out my battered iPhone, breathing a sigh of relief that I didn’t leave it behind in Charles’s flat.
I clicked on Uber first. It was 4 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Surcharge: 1.6 percent.
I swore, grinding my teeth together in the cold as I checked out my bank account. Buying two drinks and adding that not-actually-shared taxi to the Wolf’s house (a taxi! Who gets a taxi from Soho home?) leaves me with a grand total of £19.30 to last me the rest of the month. I check the date: Saturday, September 26. Could be worse, but when I’m cold and want my bed and my fabricated lottery winnings still haven’t magically appeared in my bank account, I’m not thinking practically about my limitations. I’m just furious that my magic handbag doesn’t contain a fully chauffeured Ferrari and/or Pegasus.
I let out a little scream large enough to wake the cat sitting beside me on a low-lying wall, but not quite enough to scare it. It raised its eyebrow to me, smiling through its adorably cynical face and judging me for my terrible life decisions.
“Don’t judge me,” I told it. “He might have been the one. Underneath all the … the hair. He might have been the one if we’d had time to get to know each other. So screw you.”
I was annoyed, wondering how much bad karma you can get if you push a cat off a wall. I’m more of a dog person myself. But stomping my feet and beating myself up weren’t getting me any closer to a warm bed, and despite September often bringing a late heat wave with it, given it was near the end of the month it was so cold outside my eyelashes had frozen.
So I sighed.
“Which way should I go?” I asked it eventually.
But it didn’t say anything. Obviously. Because it’s a cat.
So I consulted the guru of Citymapper instead and went on my way.
7
Two bus rides (one in the exact wrong direction for over thirty minutes before I even realized) later brings us right back now to the present, standing on the steps of my own Balham palace.
A three-story Victorian building split into two flats, the bottom that houses what my mother once described as the “world’s most try-hard fraternity” after she spent the night in our kitchen listening to the sound of their evening activities from the floorboards below. There’s no noise now, mind, for even those retaining university stamina long past uni still have to go to bed eventually. I walk past their door and up the browning lime-green carpeted staircase to the first floor. The stale mildew smell of the shared space greets me like potpourri, no longer affecting me as it once did years ago but instead bringing a smile to my face. What once repelled me daily has now become the comforting aroma of home.
As I turn the key to my own flat at the top of the landing I can already hear movement. I check my watch: 5:55 a.m.
Should I be worried?
As I open the door the perky face of Annie Palmer gallops toward me, all high ponytail and leggings with a sports bag hitched over one shoulder.
“Good date?” she asks as she passes by, catching the still open front door behind me.
“Nope.”
“Shame. See you later.”
Just like that she’s flying away out into the wide world and beyond.
“Annie?” I call after her quietly, rechecking my watch.
“Yes?”
She turns around and her ponytail flies around with her, almost hitting her back in the face. She’s unbearably beautiful, flawless smooth skin straight out of a Maybelline ad except her naturally thick, long lashes need no volume-enhancing mascara to glow. At least she’s the kind of person who knows it. There’s no false modesty when it comes to Annie Palmer.
“It’s a Saturday. Doesn’t your body need … I don’t know … sleep?” I ask, exhausted just looking at her. “Sleep is so good.”
“Can’t. I have spin with the girls,” she says merrily, ignoring my look of horror as she closes the front door behind her and disappears away down the stairs and beyond. I stare at the door with an open mouth in tiredness and confusion as I hear her taking the steps two at a time.
Annie’s such a freak. Who enjoys any form of fitness class? Who enjoys being publicly humiliated by angry Baywatch wannabes and dripping with sweat before they’ve even had their first flat white of the day? I mean, probably those who have better luck with men than I do, but still. I’ve done the math: in terms of effort/reward it’s just not worth it. I much prefer my own method of sitting back, sipping my skinny latte, and waiting for my fairy godmother to magically appear and deliver me my own, ready-to-go Prince Charming.
When I turn back into the apartment I come face-to-face with a man so beautiful my eyes burn. He stands there as if he belongs there, naked save for a pair of what must be nude-colored underwear that I try not to look at directly. I blink, hard.
Holy shit.
Fairy godmother?
8
And then I remember that if fairy godmothers do exist, they’d probably have a bit more class than just running a naked man delivery service.
“Bathroom?” he asks. He has a Spanish accent and it gets me hot and bothered in a way that Charles Wolf never did. His muscles are sharply defined, his briefs tighter than they probably should have been. I both must not objectify this man and can’t stop thinking about my tongue running down his perfectly man-scaped snail trail. He’s practically hairless—a far cry from my earlier catastrophe.
I point gormlessly to the door next to the kitchen, unable to muster words, and the Spanish man follows my wordless instructions. As the bathroom door shuts behind him I reach immediately for my phone.
I find Annie’s number and text so quickly my thumb hurts.
26 Sep 05:58-Me
I think you left someone behind!?
Annie Flatmate-26 Sep 05:59
Mine left last night. Guess again
Not hers?
The flush sounds and the door reopens. The beautiful man reemerges and looks at me again, a little confused. He blinks into the dim light of the entrance hall and I suddenly realize I haven’t moved an inch since he went in there.
Oh God. I’m being weird and creepy.
The beautiful man shrugs and walks to the only other bedroom on this floor of the house.
“Simon?” I whisper under my breath proudly. “Go you!”
For as long as I’ve lived with him he’s only had one adult sleepover and it was with his terrible cheating ex who he couldn’t seem to rid himself of. This was a vast improvement on that scumbag.
Except as the corridor goes quiet again, memories of my own less successful night come back and I realize I’m standing here, all alone again in a house of people much luckier than I am.
I wander up one more set of stairs and instead of turning immediately right to my bedroom, I pause. I look at the door at the end of the hallway. I begrudgingly turn to my right and look at my own lonely, depressing door and I make a decision.