Perfect Match

x Daniel

Oh my God, he actually sounds quite cool, as well as being ridiculously hot!

‘See, didn’t I tell you he was a catch?’ Sandra grins, looking over. ‘And isn’t his writing great?’

‘Yeah, it is…’ I reply, unable to peel my eyes away from his message. It sounds so friendly and so normal for a change. And Sandra’s right, his punctuation and grammar are spot on too, now that I come to think of it.

‘Are you okay? You seem a bit dazed,’ Sandra notes.

‘I just… I didn’t expect that at all.’

‘But didn’t I tell you? He’s a total dreamboat.’

Where does Sandra get these words, ‘dreamboat’ and ‘dish’? If it wasn’t for the fact that she despises make-up, I’d think she was some sort of beauty school dropout.

‘Yeah, he’s a dreamboat all right,’ I can’t help agreeing, although I’m still feeling a bit taken aback. That profile was a joke, I never expected to actually meet the kind of guy I described. And yet, I can’t help feeling a bit giddy at the prospect of having found someone who fits the bill – a sexy Robert Pattinson lookalike with a rescue cat!

‘You have to meet him, Sophia,’ Sandra insists. ‘You can’t let this one go.’

Suddenly Ted strides into the office, clutching a brown paper bag and steaming polystyrene cup. I quickly shut down the site and frown, as if I’m concentrating hard on catheters. Sandra does the same. Ted nods firmly in our direction before retreating to his desk.

I click into my emails and write a message to Sandra.

From: [e-mail]

To: [e-mail]

Subject: UTIs

Definitely not letting this one go!

Sandra looks over from her desk and gives me a big thumbs-up.

Chapter Five

‘You’ll never guess what?’ I bolt through the front door and rush over to the sofa.

‘What?’ Kate looks up from the script she’s reading as I plonk myself down next to her. She’s sitting cross-legged in her black and white striped leggings.

‘You won’t believe it. You know that ad we placed on Dream Dates? Well, this guy replied. He’s totally gorgeous. Looks like Robert Pattinson. Spitting image but better. Body of Daniel Craig. Oh my God and he has a cat called Esther and—’

‘Sophia!’ Kate interrupts a little loudly. ‘What are you on about?’

‘That ad we placed on Dream Dates the other night. Well this guy replied, he basically meets all the criteria, except maybe the penis size, he didn’t mention that, but he seems to be my dream date!’ I clap my hands together.

Kate raises an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, right. So, what, some random guy messages you claiming to be the spitting image of Robert Pattinson?’

‘Yeah, but I saw his pics and he actually is and—’

‘Sophia, any idiot can take photos off Google of Robert Pattinson and create a profile on a dating website. You’re not buying into that are you?’ She gives me a wary look like I might have finally lost it for real.

‘I’m not going crazy, trust me,’ I insist. ‘Sandra’s seen him and apparently he looks just as good in person, if not better.’

‘Sandra’s seen him?’ Kate looks confused.

‘Yeah.’ I tell her the story of how Sandra ended up checking him out in The Anchor and Hope.

‘Sandra?’ Kate enunciates. ‘Sandra?’ She raises her voice a little louder. Reading the script must have thrown her into full-blown melodramatic actor mode.

‘You’re not actually trusting Sandra for dating advice, are you? The woman whose closest brush with intimacy is cuddles with little Hammy?’

‘Her hamster’s called Betsy actually.’ I point out.

Kate tuts. ‘Same difference.’

I feel myself sink a little into the sofa, my shoulders slumping. What if I have got carried away? Kate’s right, he could have used photos from Google. Why didn’t that occur to me? Maybe he’s a pro at Photoshop. He might have enhanced the eyes to make them even more striking and merged Daniel Craig’s body with RPatz’s head. It’s not like I’ve seen this guy with my own eyes, I am basing everything on what Sandra says and it’s true, she’s hardly an authority when it comes to men.

‘Look, I don’t mean to piss on your parade but I’ve just seen you do this so many times.’ Kate fixes me with a serious look. ‘You build men up to be these absolute gods and then you get disappointed when you realise they’re just normal human beings. That’s always your downfall. I just think you need to take a more rational approach to dating, take things slowly, don’t expect the world and keep an eye out for weirdos,’ she tells me sagely.

‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right,’ I admit reluctantly.

Kate places her script down on the coffee table. ‘Well, let’s see him then.’

I glance up at her. ‘Eh?’

‘Show me his profile,’ she insists.

‘But you think he’s a fake?’

‘Yeah, but I want to see the profile anyway. I’m curious now.’

‘All right.’ I grab Kate’s laptop from the table and open a browser. I log on to Dream Dates and pull up Daniel’s profile.

Kate pulls the laptop onto her lap and clicks through his photos with a blank expression, not saying a word.

‘Well?’

‘He’s gorgeous,’ she remarks. ‘You weren’t exaggerating when you said he looks like Robert Pattinson.’

‘I know!’ I can’t help grinning. ‘Just think what he’d look like in the wedding photos! And we’d have such cute babies!’

‘His lips are actually better and those eyes…’ Kate slowly shakes her head. ‘He must be really good at Photoshop.’

‘What?’

‘Well, yeah, obviously! Someone’s winding you up! You say you want a Robert Pattinson lookalike and then the first guy who messages you is exactly that.’

‘He wasn’t the first guy who messaged me,’ I tell her. ‘There were loads before him.’

‘Oh.’ Kate looks taken aback. ‘Why didn’t you mention them?’

I shrug. ‘Just the usual drivel. Not even worth mentioning.’

‘Hmmm…’ Kate scrolls down Daniel’s profile. ‘Income over one hundred and fifty thousand pounds a year, six foot one, twenty-nine years old. Yeah right.’ She rolls her eyes.

‘But Sandra saw him,’ I remind her.

‘Well maybe Sandra created this profile! Maybe she’s catfishing you to get you back for never having gone with her to knitting club!’ Kate suggests, her eyes sparkling wickedly.

I grab the laptop.

‘Are you deleting your account?’ she asks.

‘No, just logging off.’

‘Sophia…’ Kate groans.

I log off and snap the laptop closed, before setting it back down on the coffee table.

‘You’re not annoyed, are you?’ Kate asks, giving my hand a squeeze. I look down at her fingers. She used to love wearing nail varnish at university but ever since she became an actress, she’s had to keep her nails natural and neat. I guess nail varnish would look a bit out of place in a Shakespeare play.

‘I’m not annoyed, I’m just…’ I pause, searching for the right word. ‘Disappointed. You’re probably right. It’s probably a prank or something.’

Kate nods. ‘In my experience, when things seem too good to be true, they usually are…’

‘Yeah. Oh well.’ I stand up and take off my coat before hanging it up by the door.

‘Don’t be down, you’ll meet someone soon.’ Kate smiles, before picking up her script.

‘What’s the script for?’ I ask as I sit back down.

Kate’s face lights up.

‘Oh, it’s for an audition for The Mousetrap!’ she explains. ‘I’m getting a bit tired of playing Des, and I think the public’s getting sick of it too. They’re thinking of pulling the play, so I’m going to have to find something new.’

‘But something modern?’

‘Yeah, my agent’s encouraging me to be a bit more versatile. Says I’ll regret it later if I pigeonhole myself into Shakespeare now.’ Kate smiles, a little ruefully.

‘So, what’s the new role?’ I ask.

‘The main character! Mollie Ralston. It’ll be an easy gig! Basically, I just have to be freaked out and neurotic the whole play. So much easier than playing Des.’

‘Sounds really cool!’

‘Yeah, it should be!’ Kate says, her eyes bright and hopeful.

‘Fingers crossed!’ I hold up my crossed fingers and Kate crosses hers back.

‘Want a hot chocolate?’ I ask.

‘Nah, I’m all right, thanks.’

‘Oh, another postcard arrived,’ she tells me, gesturing at a postcard of an exotic beach, half covered by some junk mail on the coffee table. I pick the postcard up and turn it over to read the message. It’s from my mum and dad who are on a round-the-world cruise.

Hi Darling,

We just left Phra Nang beach in Thailand. It was paradise! Absolutely beautiful. Although your dad thought it would be funny to eat deep-fried crickets in Bangkok and was running to the loo the whole time! About to get back on the cruise ship now. Next port – Penang – Malaysia!

Love and miss you!

Mum XXX

I turn it over and look at the beach again. It really is beautiful. Shimmering blue water, cloudless sky, white sand. I can just imagine my mum lounging by the sea, with one of her favourite detective novels open on her lap, her ridiculously wide-brimmed sunhat casting shadows over her face, and my dad, no doubt wearing one of the cringe-worthy Hawaiian shirts he always packs for holidays, sprinting off to the loo every five minutes. I feel a pang of longing for them. My parents are so sweet. They met at a school disco when they were seventeen. Love at first sight, apparently. I know my mum would love for me to find someone and have something similar to what she’s got with Dad but I don’t think she realises that, these days, you’re more likely to find lust at first swipe than love at first sight.

I head over to the fridge and stick the postcard to the door with a magnet, next to all the others from my parents’ cruise. They’ve been away for around three months now, and still have a couple of months to go. Unlike most of my friends’ parents, mine are in their late sixties and retired a few years ago. They tried for a child when they were younger but, in the end, they just gave up on the idea. Then, when my mum turned forty, she suddenly got pregnant with me. Completely out of the blue. Her little miracle, she used to say.

I take a quick photo of the postcard stuck to the fridge door and WhatsApp it to my mum, adding a little note with a ton of kisses. I leave Kate in peace to read her script and head to my bedroom where I take off my work clothes, donning a pair of pyjama bottoms and a hoody instead. I put on some mellow music and light a candle. Having created the right ambience, I turn on my laptop and open up my novel. I really need to finish it. So far, my literary ambitions’ peak was at the age of twenty-two when I won a poetry competition and had my rhyming couplets emblazoned on London Underground trains. It was the coolest thing. Naturally, I took a ton of selfies next to my poem on various different lines, I even bragged about it in my Twitter bio, but, eventually, my poem got replaced by ads for holiday destinations or recruitment sites or whatever, and too many years have elapsed for me to cling to that glory any more. Now the only real traces of my poem are a framed photo I took of it, which is proudly displayed above my desk, where my laptop sits, containing my half-written novel – a modern-day retelling of Madame Bovary, which is set in Lewisham instead of nineteenth-century France.

I write a paragraph, but the words aren’t coming out right. My sentences are convoluted and my attention keeps wavering. Sandra wouldn’t trick me, would she? She can be a little odd sometimes but she’s not mean. And yeah, she was a bit disappointed when I wouldn’t join her knitting club but it’s hardly the kind of thing that warrants revenge. She wouldn’t be that petty. But if it wasn’t her, then it must have been a stranger and who would go to the effort of photoshopping a load of pictures just to wind a random person up? People just don’t do that. I minimise my novel and log on to Dream Dates again. A new message pops up on my screen.

Cityboy33:

All right missus,

Lookin for a partner in crime sum1 as dirty n naughty as me. Reckon it cud be u ;) wot u think?

X Baz

I shudder and hit delete. At least ‘Baz’ had the courtesy not to attach a dick pic. I reread my messages from Daniel; they seem so surprisingly well adjusted in comparison. I click through his pictures and find my gaze lingering on one of him sitting at a restaurant, smiling with a sort of wry half-smile. He really is gorgeous – in a completely different league to the guys I’ve been dating. His jaw is lined with stubble and his hair is thick, dark brown and soft-looking, with loose curls swept away from his face, apart from one stray lock falling across his forehead. His eyes are so piercingly blue that they would be quite intimidating if it wasn’t for the dark girlish lashes lining them. He’s got a tiny gold stud midway up his left ear. I don’t think I’ve seen a guy with a piercing there before. It’s so cool. Original and stylish, just like I specified. Oh, screw it. I may as well message him. It’s not like I’ve got much to lose from simply sending a message. Either he’s a catfish and I’ll end up writing him off as yet another internet weirdo, or he’s for real, in which case… I want to meet him – though he’s more than likely to be an arrogant fuck-boy with a face that good.

I start drafting a reply.

Sophialj:

Hi Daniel,

Maybe I could be the Bella Swan to your Edward Cullen?

I type, smiling to myself. I reread it. Actually no, what am I doing?! I think that’s funny but he might not get that I’m being ironically naff. Okay, I’ll just write something normal, something casual. I can always reveal my truly witty self at a later date.

Sophialj:

Hi Daniel,

I’m really glad you got in touch and weren’t put off by my crazy profile! I did in fact set it up as a bit of a laugh – I wasn’t really expecting to actually meet anyone through it! Sorry I couldn’t make it to the pub last night, I only picked up your messages this morning. Perhaps you’re free for a drink tomorrow evening? I’d love to hear more about Esther, volunteering, and what it’s like to look just like Robert Pattinson.

X

Sophia

I reread the message. I’m really glad you got in touch. That sounds too keen. I delete ‘really’ but ‘I’m glad you got in touch’ sounds too formal, like I’m sending a work email or something. I’ll just delete it and start with, ‘I’m glad you weren’t put off by my crazy profile!’ Yes, that sounds better – lighter and happier. The rest of the message is fine. Interested but not desperate, friendly but not full-on. With a small thrill of excitement, I hit the send button. I can hear Kate shuffling about next door and quickly log off the site, opening up my novel again.

‘Sophia…?’ Kate knocks on my door whilst simultaneously turning the knob and pushing it open. I’ve told her a million times that opening the door while knocking defeats the point of knocking in the first place but it’s a habit that she just can’t seem to break.

‘What are you up to?’ she asks.

‘Reading,’ I reply.

She lingers in the doorway. ‘Do you want some pasta?’

‘What with?’

Kate shrugs. ‘I don’t know, pesto or something?’

‘Yeah, go on then.’

‘Cool.’

Kate closes my bedroom door. Culinary prowess has never been our strong point. In all the years that Kate and I have lived together, our meals have rarely digressed from a limited menu of pasta with pesto, pasta with red pesto, pasta with tuna, and occasionally, when we’re feeling adventurous, jacket potatoes with beans and cheese. Even back at school when we first became friends, we’d go over to each other’s house and scoff pasta and crisps. There was a brief interlude – when Kate went to RADA and I went to Aberystwyth Uni – when I began eating slightly healthier but since I moved to London and we became flatmates, it’s been carb central. Sometimes I feel guilty that we eat so badly but Kate says it’s because we’re creatives, and creatives have better things to think about than food.

I start writing another paragraph of my novel but my eyes begin to sting. I try reducing the brightness of my screen but it doesn’t help. That’s the problem with typing all day long and then attempting to write a novel in the evenings; there are only so many hours one human being can stare at a screen and I’m already maxed out. I turn my computer off and pick up a notebook. I’ll write by longhand instead. No excuses. I doubt F. Scott Fitzgerald would have been put off if his typewriter broke down. And didn’t J. K. Rowling plot Harry Potter on the back of a napkin? A notebook is a luxury. I start writing.

A minute later, I pick up my phone to check if I have any messages from Dream Dates. I mean, it might have developed a fault and maybe Daniel replied but the message notification failed to sound. But, of course, it hasn’t malfunctioned; I just don’t have any messages. I let out a big sigh and carry on writing.

‘Dinner’s ready!’ Kate calls.

I head into the living room to find her curled up on the sofa tucking into a bowl of pasta in front of EastEnders.

‘Thanks.’ I pick up the steaming bowl she’s left for me on the coffee table.

I try not to make a habit of watching EastEnders, but sometimes I can’t help getting sucked into the storylines. I tuck into my pasta, losing myself in a row in the Queen Vic when my phone suddenly beeps. Without skipping a beat, I grab it from the armrest. I sigh.

‘What’s up?’ Kate glances over.

‘It’s just a text from the noodle nerd, my date from the other day,’ I tell her glumly.

‘Who did you think it was?’ Kate asks.

‘Oh, no one.’ There’s no way I’m telling her that I thought it might have been Daniel from Dream Dates. I read the message.

‘God, he actually seems to think we had a great time the other night. Wants to “do it again soon”,’ I tell her, doing air quotations. ‘As if I’d subject myself to that again!’

I delete the text and place my phone back on the armrest.

‘Crazy,’ Kate mutters, her eyes riveted to the screen.

‘Yeah, crazy,’ I agree, shovelling a forkful of pasta into my mouth.

Chapter Six

‘You all right, sweetheart?’ Lyn says, smiling shyly, as she opens her front door wide and steps back to allow me into the hall. She’s tied the sash of her floral dressing gown over her pyjamas and looks as though she’s only just woken up.

‘Yeah, not too bad,’ I reply as I make my way into her hallway, carrying the shopping I’ve got for her. ‘Did I wake you?’

‘I should have been up anyway,’ Lyn says, yawning loudly as we head into her kitchen, where I begin unloading the stuff I’ve bought.

‘Oh, Soph. You’re an angel.’ Lyn smiles gratefully.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I insist as I take the fruit yoghurts she likes out of the bag and start placing them in the fridge, along with the ham and cheese sandwiches, mango smoothies and milk I’ve picked up. These days, Lyn has pretty much the same order every week, although sometimes, she’ll text me to ask if I’ll get her a cheese and pickle sandwich instead of the usual ham and cheese.

‘I’ll pop the kettle on,’ Lyn says, filling it up at the sink as I arrange her shopping in the fridge.

‘Great. I could do with a cuppa.’

Every week, since I first met Lyn, I’ve been helping her out by doing a bit of weekly shopping

I remember the first time I saw her, it was a couple of years ago now. She was zipping along in her mobility scooter with bags of shopping spilling out of the basket and hanging off the armrests. I was walking behind on my way home from work, when, all of a sudden, I noticed her swerve to avoid a taxi door swinging open across the pavement. The sudden movement caused an overflowing bag of potatoes to tumble out of her scooter basket, sending them rolling across the pavement.

‘Oh no!’ I stopped and crouched down to the ground, unsure whether to pick them up. After all, does the three second rule apply to pavements?

The man who’d opened the taxi door without looking ignored the scene he’d caused and simply sidestepped the potatoes and strode across the pavement towards his front door. I pointedly cleared my throat, but he ignored me.

‘Aren’t you going to apologise?’ I piped up, glancing awkwardly between Lyn, who looked quite upset, and the man, who refused to meet my gaze as he stuck his key in his front door.

‘Dickhead,’ Lyn muttered, taking me by surprise. ‘Leave them, love,’ she added as I brushed some flecks of concrete off a spud.

‘Okay…’ I relented, dropping the potato, which rolled across the pavement. ‘Have you got far to go?’ I asked.

‘Nah, just around the corner,’ she replied as the engine of her scooter began to rumble into action once more and we set off down the road.

‘I can’t believe what a dickhead that guy was,’ I fumed, borrowing her slur.

‘Coward, couldn’t even look an old lady in the eyes,’ Lyn tutted, loud enough that he might have been able to hear her from inside his house.

I couldn’t help laughing. Despite looking like a little old lady, with her headscarf, quilted coat, crumpled skin and slick of dated, bright red lipstick, this woman had the sass of a twenty-year-old.

We ended up walking back to Lyn’s house together, which turned out to be only a few doors down from my flat.

She invited me in for a cup of tea in her chintzy front room, and though she didn’t seem it, with her sharp tongue, I could tell she was a little vulnerable and, I suspected, a bit lonely. Seeing her swerving to avoid being knocked by the taxi door tugged at my heart strings. I’ve never considered myself an overly charitable person but I couldn’t walk away without leaving my number and telling her to call me if she ever needed anything.

About a week later, Lyn texted to see if I wanted to come over for another cuppa; it turned out that all she really needed was company. Her husband, Alfie, died five years ago and I think she misses having someone to chat to. And, to be honest, maybe I needed a bit of extra company too. Lyn’s become like family to me, and since my actual family (when they’re not away on round-the-world cruises) live over a hundred miles away, it’s nice to have someone nearby who’s kind and sweet and always there for me. It’s comforting, when London life gets crazy, to have a little enclave where nothing really changes. Lyn is always her funny old self. Her front room is always exactly the same. Biscuits are always arranged on a plate and the telly is always on. We both have a mutual love of trashy TV shows like Come Dine With Me and The X Factor, neither of us approve of the Conservatives and we both enjoy French Fancies – what more do you need in a friend?

The kettle boils as I finish unloading the shopping. Lyn pours the steaming water into a pair of mugs and we settle down at the kitchen table for a catch up.

‘And how’s the love life?’ Lyn asks, after we’ve finished moaning about the Tories’ latest benefits cut.

‘Oh, you know.’ I shrug. ‘Same old,’ I tell her, deciding to keep Daniel to myself for now.

He still hasn’t replied to the message I sent last night. Kate’s probably right. The whole thing is likely some long-winded prank some weirdo went to the trouble of, but then again, if he is real, maybe I ought to give him a bit more of a chance to respond. After all, it is only 8.10 a.m.

‘I don’t get it,’ Lyn sighs. ‘You and my Tom. Both single. Both so sweet. What’s the world coming to if you two can’t find love, eh?’

‘It’s tough out there, Lyn,’ I murmur, reaching for a biscuit and hoping she won’t launch into one of her spiels about how Tom and I would make such a great couple.

Much as I’m fond of Lyn’s son Tom, he’s not exactly my type. I’m pretty sure he’s either gay or asexual since, according to Lyn, he’s never had a girlfriend and he doesn’t seem in the least bit interested in finding one. But even if he wasn’t totally uninterested in women, he still wouldn’t be my type. He’s thirty-eight and probably the only man I’ve ever met who I can really describe as ‘frumpy’. He works as an English teacher at a secondary school, wears thick glasses that make his eyes bulge, has several hairy moles dotted over his face and is constantly rambling on about how amazing a writer Philip Pullman is, even though His Dark Materials was published, like, twenty years ago. He lives in a bobbling zip-up fleece which is always just a little tight around his paunch, as well as being covered in dog hair from his beloved sausage dog, Hamish. And even though he’s the apple of Lyn’s eye, and he is incredibly sweet and does have a ridiculously infectious laugh, he’s still Tom. Frumpy, albeit lovely, Tom.