Tag Archives: date

No kiss and tell

Leave a reply

“So how was it?” asked Leah as soon as Aps let herself in to the house.

“I am not taking questions at this time,” said Aps, slipping her denim jacket off and slinging it across the bannister in the hall. The last couple of weeks had been warm, late Spring looking like it was going to full bloom into Summer, and they’d all been grateful that lockdown had been short.

“Oh, you so are,” said Leah, grabbing her by the shoulders and guiding her into the kitchen. “Check you out with the strapless dress and the perfume and the hair cascading just perfectly across those exposed shoulders. It must be getting serious. Tell me everything.”

“Are you hitting on me?” said Aps, smirking. “It wasn’t for him. I dress to make myself feel good.” Leah raised her eyebrows and nodded sarcastically. “And anyway this is just an old halter my sister didn’t want anymore. Nothing special.”

April had heard their voices and set aside the essay she was working on to join them. She  stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and turned to Leah throwing her arms up in exaggerated surprise. “Leah, who is this pretty, pretty lady? You did not tell me we were expecting a guest?”

“We’re really going to have to do some more work on those gestures,” said Leah. “You need to give it the full Italian. Like I showed you. I’m only half Italian and even I can give it full.” She stood up and threw her arms explosively, catching the lightshade above the kitchen table, leaving it swinging in the ceiling.

“Hey, I’d quite like to get the deposit back when we leave,” said April, reaching up and grabbing the shade, stopping it from moving. “I’m prepared to sacrifice fully playing out a stereotype for that.”

“It’s only a stereotype because it’s true. I can say that, you can’t.” said Leah. “We’re an expressive people.”

“Expressive is not my strongest suit,” replied April. “Anyway, I think we’re getting sidetracked. You were going to introduce me to this mysterious, beautiful stranger. She looks sort of familiar. Like someone I used to know… just, I don’t know, just shinier.”

Aps ran the tap and poured herself a glass of water, listening to them continue their performance. She said nothing until she was reasonably sure they’d finished.

“Alright, I’ll spill,” she said. The others pulled up chairs.

“Wait, I need to prepare myself,” said Leah. “What are we talking, here? Is this all going to be strictly rated PG, mild peril, moderate swearing, or are we settling in for an 18?”

“Well, spoilers, there’s no scenes of a sexual nature,” said Aps. “There may be violence soon though if we make it to a fourth film.”

“I’m not going to pretend I’m not a bit disappointed at the lack of adult themes in this story but impending violence sounds interesting. Continue,” said Leah.

“There’s not that much to tell. It was nice. He was nice. Is nice. Listen, I do think I like him, he’s sweet and attentive and he’s pretty funny when he remembers that he doesn’t have to be nervous,”

“How many dates now?” asked April.

“If you don’t count the online chat in lockdown then this was number three. So there’s nothing to stress about, right? It’s early days. There’s something there. Or at least I think there is. Maybe he doesn’t feel anything. Maybe we’ll just be friends.” Aps smiled at them.

She had enjoyed the time with James again, a walk across the Downs and a coffee in Clifton. He’d told her about a couple of bands he wanted to see over the summer, they’d talked a bit about what it must have been to like to go to Glastonbury, what it must have been like to be in any big gathering outside of a place where all the usual health checks could be run on everyone attending. They’d talked a bit about their families, his parents were both in medicine but he didn’t have the grades and was studying Politics. He’d started to talk earnestly about the balance between individual freedoms and what was good for society but had stopped himself. Aps thought he’d misinterpreted her reaction, mistakenly thought she wasn’t interested but he’d changed the subject even after she’d said that her listening face looked a lot like her bored face. She told him about her sisters, joked that he’d probably get on better with her eldest sibling. They could make playlists for each other.

“Surely he took the hint when you said he might prefer your sister?” said April.

“Not so much,” said Aps. “The stupid thing is that I think he is interested, he’s just pretty shy and pretty bad at picking up signals.”

“Do you want us to intervene?” said Leah. Aps looked genuinely horrified.

“God, no. There’s a reason I haven’t suggested he comes back here. It’s taken me three dates to get him to hold eye contact for more than three seconds. I’m going to stick with it a bit longer. You have to promise, by the way, to behave on Saturday. He’s going to the Kandi and I said I’d see him there.”

“I’ll keep them in line,” said Cora. The others didn’t know how long she’d been there, she must have slipped in whilst they were talking and was stood leaning on the doorframe. “He sounds promising. Quiet and slow can work out good. Take it from me, Rob was like that early on.” She said it quietly, eyes down, but she lifted her head back up and smiled at Aps.

“You know we wouldn’t really freak him out, don’t you?” said Leah, contrite. “Unless you want us to, obviously.”

“Don’t worry,” said Aps. “I’m going to let him take it slow I think.” She paused. “Or I might see how many drinks he has Saturday and then just push him into a dark corner and kiss him.”

“Sounds like a plan,” said Leah. “We’ll cut off his escape route.” She caught Aps’ frown. “Sorry, not that he will want to escape, of course.”

“Nobody would want to escape the pretty lady,” said April, clutching her hands together and shaking them in front of her face.

“Still not enough,” said Leah. “More expression.”

“They’ll be carving that on my grave,” said April.

 

Lockdown: Aps

Leave a reply

I hadn’t told the others yet that he’d started messaging me. I don’t think they’d noticed us talking in the club, it was the week after April had hit that idiot that had been harassing Cora at the bar. They can’t have noticed because there’s no way they would have kept their mouths shut. It had seemed to happen quite naturally in the end, I’d turned away from the bar and bumped in to him, spilling most of my drink over his arm. It seemed natural although I was a bit suspicious that he’d finally decided that the only way he could work up the nerve to speak to me was by forcing us into a collision. He’d insisted it was all his fault – it wasn’t – and bought me another drink. I think the others were dancing to Marilyn Manson but I didn’t like the heavier stuff.

“His real name’s Brian,” he shouted over the noise.

“Your name’s Brian?” I shouted back, mishearing.

“No. I’m James,” he said, leaning in slightly closer to be heard. “Marilyn Manson. His real name is Brian. Kinda funny isn’t it?”

I shook my head, decided to have some fun with him. “Not really, James. My name’s Bryony and I’ve got a brother called Brian. It’s been in my family for generations. My dad can trace us back to Brian’s in the seventeen hundreds.”

For a moment I thought I had him. He looked down, raised his palms in apology, and was just about to stammer an apology when he caught the smile on my face, noticed the eyebrow raised in what I hoped gave me a look of arch amusement and not one of someone who’d had half a botched face lift. He laughed and apologised anyway. He spent quite a lot of the conversation apologising but I found his gentle nervousness kind of sweet. Unthreatening. And he had kind, green eyes that peered out from under a mop of curly brown hair. I wasn’t sure if I fancied him but there was something about him that I liked.

We’d swapped numbers at the bar and he’d left with a bunch of friends before the others reappeared from the dance floor. He’d messaged me the next day. I thought that was kind of sweet as well but I left an industry standard two days before I texted him back. Since then we’d been in touch pretty much every day and just before lockdown I was going to suggest we meet up, it was becoming evident that I’d be waiting quite a while if I wanted him to make the first move. It was still sweet and way preferable to the guy in the first term that had started sending me unsolicited dick pics but I did want him to show a bit of courage. Some backbone. Just, you know, no other kind of bone.

Lockdown had brought a different intensity to the messages. I figured he’d done the same thing as me and was using his laptop to write instead of his phone and it had meant that our exchanges grew longer. It felt almost old fashioned, like we were in a Jane Austen novel. Was that right? Were they the ones where formal gentlemen wrote stately letters of courtship to regal ladies? What did I know. I was a chemist and checked out of English at GCSE. Anyway, we moved from half sentences, emojis and gifs to paragraphs and punctuation. I had a suspicion that he was looking to hit me with some poetry.

On the third night he sent me a link to a livestream happening in a couple of hours. Phoebe Bridgers. I knew her a little bit, my eldest sister, Hannah, used to make me playlists to, in her words, educate me when I was younger. She tended to have songs that she’d regularly string together in sequence, little patterns that she was obviously pleased with, or maybe she just forgot that she’d put them on some of the other mixes for me already. One went from Fiona Apple’s cover of ‘Across The Universe’ in to Phoebe Bridgers’ ‘Motion Sickness’ and then out to the whole of Emmylou Harris’ ‘Wrecking Ball’ album. It was a great record but I wasn’t sure if she meant to add all of it or just made a mistake. I never asked her because she got a bit prickly if I questioned anything to do with her music. I always thought she was a bit snobby about it; she still hasn’t really forgiven me for going to that Little Mix reunion gig last year.

It was pretty late by the time the stream started but it was coming from the East Coast in the States so we must have been a few hours ahead. I had my screen divided between the music and a chat window with James. I didn’t really notice at first but after the first few songs I realised that he wouldn’t message me whilst she was singing, like he was at a real gig and didn’t want to talk during the songs. If I was honest I was finding him a bit too intense. It was getting a bit claustrophobic in the house as it was, I knew Cora was particularly finding it tough, and I was looking for an escape, a connection. In a way it wasn’t fair to try and judge how this might go when things went back to normal, everyone coped with the lockdowns differently, but then I guess that these periods of community quarantine were part of ‘normal’ now so maybe it wasn’t so unfair after all. I think I just wanted to imagine that if we ever really watched her play in concert that, at some point he’d reach for my hand and not let go until we were both clapping her back for an encore. It was late and I was tired. I left the laptop running but crawled into bed as she was finishing up another one I knew from my sister. It was another sad one but that was Hannah. I drifted off with the song’s coda whispering me down into sleep: anyway don’t be a stranger, don’t be a stranger.

I guess that was our first date.