“Twenty-seven. I had a few boyfriends in high school and college, and then after that I had a long-term boyfriend. We broke up a year after my parents died.”
“Your parents died?”
I sip my drink; how did we get onto this subject?
Why did I say that?
“They were involved in a head-on collision car crash,” Rebecca replies; she knows how much I hate saying that out loud.
Daniel’s eyes come to me in a question.
“My mother died at the scene, my father died on the way to hospital. The driver that hit them had a heart attack and veered onto the wrong side of the road.” I feel the heaviness come over me as my chest constricts, and I glance up into the kind eyes of Rebecca, who gives me a soft smile and takes my hand across the table. I had just moved in with Rebecca at college when my parents died. She’s been my rock and a wonderful friend and has been there for me on many lonely sad nights.
“I’m so sorry,” Daniel whispers. “Do you have any other family?”
“Yes.” I smile. “I have a wonderful brother, Brad, and I have a sister who . . .” My voice trails off.
“Who what?” Daniel asks.
“Is a raving bitch,” Rebecca snaps. “I have no idea how the two of these girls are genetically related. They have nothing at all in common. Chalk and cheese.”
Daniel smiles in surprise as he looks between us. “Why, what’s she like?”
“Beautiful.” I sip my drink.
“Entitled and mean,” Rebecca interjects.
I smile sadly. “She’s not so bad. She’s taken our parents’ death the hardest and somehow her personality changed overnight. Brad and I have held each other up and limped along and yet, all she wanted to do is be on her own. She hasn’t handled grief the same as we have.”
“You don’t see her at all?” Daniel asks.
“No, I do see her,” I reply. “I’m just usually upset or ruffled after she leaves. You know when you spend time with someone and they kind of suck the life out of you. She likes money and fame and having the designer handbags and all her gorgeous boyfriends. I feel like”—I pause as I try to articulate myself—“I feel like she’s replacing our parents’ love with objects.”
“You don’t like designer things?”
“I guess.” I shrug. “Everyone likes nice things, don’t they? It’s just not my priority.”
“Kate is very good with her money,” Rebecca interrupts.
“That’s code for tight.” Daniel laughs as his eyes flick to me. “Are you tight, Kate?”
“I am not tight.”
“Oh, you are too,” Rebecca scoffs. “She won’t spend any money on herself at all and is always saving for a rainy day. She wears the same ten outfits and hides behind those big thick glasses.”
“I need them to see, Rebecca,” I announce, indignant. “And I just don’t see the point in spending a fortune on clothes and dressing up fancy all the time.”
“You work in central London with some of the hottest men in the capital and you’re too busy wearing sensible office clothes to attract any of them.”
I roll my eyes in disgust. “Trust me, there is no one at work worth impressing.”
Daniel’s eyes linger on me and, as amusement flashes across his face, he clinks his wineglass with mine.
“What?” I ask.
“I think I just found my new project.”
Four hours and three bottles of wine later, and with Stevie Nicks playing in the background, Daniel says, “Then what will I write?” He laughs.
We are sitting on the couch still talking way too much nonsense, and filling in a profile on a dating app for Daniel on my computer. Apparently this is a priority when you move to a new city.
Who knew?
The question reads:
What are you looking for?
“Hmm, that’s a hard one.” Daniel inhales sharply as he does his best to think through the cloud of alcohol.
“Oh, I know. Write this,” Rebecca says in her throaty, I’m-as-drunk-as-a-skunk voice. “Vagina or dick, short or tall, waxed or hairy, preferably hot.”
“So basically”—I point to him with my wineglass—“you’ll take anything.”
“In a nutshell,” Daniel replies as he types something in. “Scratch the preferably.”
I laugh as I lie back; the room is beginning to spin. “I have to go to bed.” I sigh. “I have to work tomorrow.”
“Not so fast,” Daniel says. “We’re making you a profile next.”
“I am not getting on a dating website. For your information,” I slur, “there isn’t a man on earth who could impress me in writing. And besides, I’m way too inebriated.”
“Yes,” he insists.
“Not right now, the timing isn’t right.”
Daniel types furiously. “You have to fill these things out while you’re drunk, and there is no time like the present.”
“What if someone found out it was me?” I asked, horrified. “I would never live it down.”
“Nobody cares about dating apps, everybody does it,” Rebecca scoffs as if I’m clueless. “Don’t use your real name, then.”
“Wouldn’t that be weird, though?” I say. “Like I told him a fake name and then we’re on a date and I have to say, sorry but this is my real name now, and I’m actually a liar.”
“Well, you don’t have to tell them straight up,” Daniel says as he types. “You keep the fake name until you know if you like them and then you tell them your real name.”
I smirk into my wineglass as I watch him and Rebecca go through the profile.
Daniel is fun.
He hands me my laptop. “You fill in the rest.”
“Huh?”
“I filled it out for you, answer the next question.”
“What?”
“We made you a profile,” Rebecca informs me. “Just humor us, please.”
Name
Pinkie Leroo
Height
5ft7
Weight
Just right
Appearance
Gorgeous
Hobbies
Gym and working out, laughing
Favorite pastime
Eating out and having sex
Profession
Computer analytics
Hair color
Sandy blonde
Eyes
Brown
Skin
Olive
What are you looking for?
“Pinkie Leroo?” I scoff. “Who the hell is that?”
“That’s you.”
“What?” I laugh. “You couldn’t come up with a better fake name? I sound like a cheap bottle of wine.”
“Men love that shit,” Daniel replies.
“But, do they?” I read through the details they’ve added. “I thought we were lying on this thing?”
“We are.”
“Well, I do like eating out and having sex, so . . .” I shrug.
“The gym and working out part?” Rebecca raises an impatient eyebrow.