Is She Really Going Out with Him?

Chapter 11

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“Anna, I need to go. Jesus, you smell terrible. Have a shower before Dan gets here, won’t you?” Lottie’s voice wakes me up.

“Dan’s here?” I come to asking, wondering why everything in the room is in the wrong place.

“Not yet. He’s coming to walk the kids to school. You said you had a work trip?”

“Work trip?” Shit. Will Havers is coming here, and so is Dan. No, no, no.

“Good night, was it?” Lottie says, grinning at me.

“Sorry I got in so late. What happened with Ethan?”

“He had a bad dream, so I suggested a sleepover. Don’t apologize. I’m glad you went out, tell me all about it later, now I have to run, I have a client meeting.” Lottie kisses me on the head just as Ethan comes in to tell me he can’t find his PE kit, quickly followed by Jess, who says she’s lost her violin music and then blames Ethan for moving it. I have a thumping headache, an acrid taste in my mouth, an urgent thirst, and a looming sense of remorse.

No time to shower or drink water. I look for violin music, throw PE kit in the dryer, start to make a packed lunch for Ethan, realize there’s no bread, try to make a lunch out of crackers and an apple, remember Ethan has gone off apples, adjudicate a fight over who has control of the music system, find a plaster to hide my tattoo—I can’t have that conversation right now—and answer a flurry of questions from Jess about where I was last night. I mumble, “Caleb called, he was lovely but too young. Um, four out of six.”

“There’s no milk,” Jess groans, picking up her phone from the sideboard.

“Jess, do you need to be on your phone over breakfast?” I ask.

“Everyone shares homework over WhatsApp, I’m checking what I need to hand in today!” she says, staring at me with unblinking eyes, as though this was the stupidest question imaginable.

“Why are you wearing that plaster?” Ethan asks.

“Just a graze,” I tell him, pulling down my sleeve. The doorbell rings; saved by the bell. This is why I shouldn’t drink. The prospect of talking to Dan about logistics with a brain that feels like spaghetti, especially now that he’s all smug and teetotal, is too much. But when I open the front door, it isn’t Dan, it’s Will. He’s standing on my doorstep, hands in his pockets, a huge smile on his fresh, well-rested, irritatingly perfect face.

“Morning!” he says, his voice chiming like the opening bars of a Christmas tune.

“I’m not ready,” I say with a frown. His eyes dart down, then he blinks rapidly before averting his gaze. It’s only then that I realize what I’m wearing; short gym shorts and an oversized tee that has been washed so many times it’s almost see-through.

“Don’t worry, I’m early,” he says, no apology. I can hardly leave him waiting on the doorstep, but the last thing I want to do is invite him into my home, to witness firsthand the chaos of my existence.

“I just need to get my kids to school…” I pause, then add with a heavy sigh, “Do you want to come in?” I hope he will take the sigh as a hint and offer to wait in the car, but he doesn’t. He takes off his long camel coat, hangs it on a hall peg, then strides past me into the kitchen.

“Jess, Ethan, this is my colleague Will,” I explain, grabbing a cardigan and pulling it on over my skimpy outfit. The children both stare at Will as though they’ve never seen an adult human male before.

“Hi?” Will says, raising his hand in a wave. “Sorry to intrude on breakfast.”

Jess looks back and forth between Will and me. I know what she’s thinking, she’s thinking, Why didn’t you tell us about this hot Ken doll you work with? , and I try to communicate with my eyes, “He might look pretty but he’s a pain in the arse.” It’s a lot of nuance for a look.

“Mum’s hungover,” Jess tells Will.

“Jess, I am not hungover,” I say sharply. “I am just insufficiently rested.”

“She had a date last night,” Ethan adds. “She woke me up moving furniture. The whole house was shaking.”

“The whole house was shaking?” says Will, raising an eyebrow at me, his eyes twinkling with delight.

My face burns with embarrassment, and I hide in the fridge, looking for milk that I know isn’t there. “Here, oat milk, vegan friendly,” I say, handing it to Jess for her cereal. There’s a pause as she considers the oat milk. I worry she’s going to launch into a rant about how I never buy enough milk for the week, but the vegan card works, and she happily pours it over her Shreddies. Then I suddenly remember the Sylvanian Families I found in the bin and feel like bursting into tears. I take a moment to pause, to stop what I’m doing and look at my daughter.

“Are you okay?” I ask softly, putting my arm around Jess and kissing her hair, but she just turns to gives me a strange look.

“Yes. Are you?” she asks, shaking her head, pausing her spoon in midair before lifting it to her mouth. Clearly, this isn’t the time to discuss it.

“Coffee?” I ask Will, filling the Nespresso machine with water.

“I’m good,” he says, half-raising a palm. It doesn’t feel like an “I’m good, I don’t want coffee,” it feels like an “I’m good, you’ve got your hands full and don’t look capable of doing an extra task.” As he raises his hand, I glimpse a monogrammed WH on the inside of his shirtsleeve. Is everything he owns monogrammed? It feels so tacky and at odds with his otherwise impeccable fashion sense.

“Do you write for the magazine too?” Ethan asks Will.

“Yes. I started out penning the food column, but recently I’ve been diversifying, taking on a more varied role to strengthen my portfolio.” I can’t help smiling because Will is talking to my seven-year-old as though he’s at a job interview.

“Do you get to eat loads? How come you’re not fat?” Ethan asks, and Will laughs.

“Ethan!” I cry, giving him a warning look.

“It’s a constant challenge,” Will says with a smile.

“Are you an expert on every food then?” Ethan asks. “Like, could you do a blind taste test with potatoes? I could do crisps, I’m brilliant at crisps.”

I hand Ethan a plate of toast, spread messily with peanut butter. “That’s not really what restaurant reviewers do,” I explain.

“I’d back myself in a blind potato test,” Will says, pushing out his chest to stand even taller.

“Will backs himself in most things,” I can’t help adding as I load the dishwasher with breakfast bowls, then set it running.

“Which is the best, Burger King or McDonald’s?” Ethan asks, and Will laughs again. It’s a warm, rich laugh that makes me think of hearty Irishmen drinking Guinness around a stone fireplace.

“Those are not the kind of restaurants Will writes about,” I explain. Ethan looks disappointed.

“I’d go to Burger King for the Whopper, then head over to McDonald’s for the fries and a Filet-O-Fish,” Will says, clapping his hands together once. Ethan looks delighted with this answer.

“Ethan, breakfast.” I nudge him as I rush around the kitchen throwing water bottles, homework, and snacks into book bags. Jess can sort herself out now, in terms of what she needs for school, but Ethan would go to school barefoot if I didn’t remind him to put his shoes on. I brush my hair back into a ponytail, painfully aware that Will is witnessing me in “frazzled mum mode.”

“This isn’t a normal morning,” I explain, rolling my eyes around the room before landing them on Will. “It’s not usually this crazy.”

“Yes, it is,” says Ethan.

“Mum can’t handle late nights,” Jess tells Will, as though she’s an adult confiding about her errant child. I have a fleeting image of Zeek, Coco, and Jasmine waking up this morning in their sprightly twenty-something-year-old bodies, having no one to sort out but themselves. I feel a brief pang of jealousy. Then I remember the state of their bathroom and the jealousy evaporates.

“I’m sorry about this,” I apologize again to Will, but he only looks amused. He’s bought a ticket for “Anna’s shit show life” and is enjoying his role as ghoulish voyeur.

“What’s your favorite color?” Ethan asks Will.

“Blue.”

“Favorite animal?” Ethan asks.

“Ethan,” I say, shaking my head, “stop interrogating him.”

“Bears.”

“Good one!” Ethan says, nodding.

“What’s yours?” Will asks him.

“Duck, then lemur, then armadillo. It was armadillos first, but then I changed it.”

“What’s your mum’s favorite?” Will asks.

“Cats,” Ethan says, turning up his nose as though this is boring.

“What are her favorite flowers?” Will asks.

“Peonies,” Jess tells him, and I look back and forth between them in bemusement.

The doorbell rings and I’m glad that for once, Dan isn’t running late.

“Morning,” Dan says as I open the door. He’s wearing a too-tight Aertex, tucked into chinos, and his face is unusually somber.

“Kids, Dad’s here!” I call back into the kitchen.

“You okay?” Dan asks, narrowing his eyes at me.

“Sure, why?” I run a hand over my face, worried there might be a stray blob of peanut butter hanging from one nostril. But before he can answer, the kids are in the hall throwing on their coats and shoes and I’m caught up in the cyclone of “leaving the house.”

“See you Sunday, Mum,” yells Jess.

“Love you,” says Ethan, enveloping my waist in a bear hug, as I cover his head with kisses. “Feel better.”

“Can you wait on the street for a second?” Dan asks Jess and Ethan once they’re out of the front door. “I need to have a word with your mother.”

This does not sound good. “This isn’t a great time,” I say, nodding toward the door, hoping my subtle head movement will convey that I have a colleague waiting in the kitchen who really does not need to hear whatever grievance Dan has this morning.

“Two a.m. is also not a good time, Anna.” Dan’s hard stare shifts to something resembling pity. “I know you’re struggling with this, but you can’t call me at all hours of the night. It’s not fair on me and it’s certainly not fair on Sylvie.”

“I called you?” I ask weakly. I don’t remember calling him, but since I don’t remember getting a tattoo, it stands to reason I could have made some phone calls too.

“Three voicemails, most of them unintelligible.” He pauses, sighs, then gives me his “disappointed” face. “If you’re finding things hard, maybe you shouldn’t drink so much. It’s not good for the children to see you so”—he pauses, weighing his words—“unhinged.”

“Unhinged?” I parrot.

“I can see how this might be challenging for you. But I don’t want to have to put a time window on when it’s appropriate for you to call me and when it’s not. I’m proud of how unboundaried we are. We put the work in and it’s better for everyone if we can all get along.”

What are these words coming out of Dan’s mouth? “Put the work in,” “unboundaried”? These are not words I have ever heard Dan say. Has he been having therapy? Before I can muster a response, Dan puts a hand on my shoulder, then leans in to say, “And I say this in the spirit of friendship, but you shouldn’t give up on your appearance. You need to show up for yourself.” He taps his heart, gives me another pitying, intense gaze, then bounds off down the steps in his too-snug chinos.

My body starts to tremble. I don’t know whether I’m shaking with rage, or hangover, or an infection from my unsterilized tattoo, but for a minute I’m unable to move because every part of me thrums. Putting a hand over my chest, I take five deep breaths to try to steady myself. Back in the kitchen, Will looks at the floor; I take that to mean he heard the whole conversation.

“Sorry about that. You weren’t meant to be here this early, so…” I trail off. “You’ll have to give me a minute.” I run upstairs, clamping my teeth to stop the tears. Running a brush through my hair, I wipe away last night’s mascara from beneath my eyes, have a quick shower, then throw on my favorite jeans and green silk blouse. Glancing in the mirror, I don’t think I look too bad, considering. There’s a flush to my cheeks from the hot shower, and my eyes look brighter than I feel. Grabbing the weekend bag I packed after dinner, I hurry back downstairs, aware I’m now keeping Will waiting.

“Ready?” I ask. Will is standing in the hall and opens the front door for me. He’s only being courteous, but even this irritates me. This is my house; I don’t need anyone opening my door for me. And I don’t need people coming into my house and telling me I look like shit. Will nods his head toward a sports car, an MG parked on the road. “It’s my dad’s, I borrowed it,” he explains. “I thought we could travel in style.”

“Cozy,” I say diplomatically. I’ve never understood people’s interest in vintage cars. They’re more likely to break, and they have none of the right sockets for charging your phone, but as I climb into the passenger seat, I’ll admit something about this car—the shape of it, the smell of old leather—conjures a spirit of adventure.

We travel in silence until we’re on the main road out of Bath. Will must sense my need for quiet as he doesn’t try to make small talk. Scrolling through my phone, I view my call history and sent e-mails, checking whether there is anything else I did last night that I need to apologize for. There’s an e-mail from Amazon confirming an online order for a toastie machine. Wow, drunk me cannot be trusted.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Will asks, his fingers tapping the steering wheel.

“About what?” I ask, putting my phone away.

“Whatever you like, your date last night, your patronizing ex-husband, the delightful spring weather we’re having. We have two hours of driving ahead, so possibly all three.”

“I’m good with the radio,” I say, twisting the old-fashioned dial, feeling a burn of irritation that he’s mentioned Dan. When it comes to family, even ex-family, it’s not anyone else’s place to criticize.

“Suit yourself,” Will says with the smallest shake of his head. The chatter of the radio feels too much for my throbbing skull, so I reach to turn it off.

“Sorry, I’m not good company this morning.”

Will points toward a backpack behind his seat. “Can you reach my bag?” he asks, and I stretch backward, then pull it onto my lap. “Open it,” he instructs me. Inside, I find a large thermos and two tin mugs. “Coffee,” he says. “It’s good.”

“Do you take your own coffee everywhere?” I ask, remembering he usually has a thermos on his desk at work.

“Life’s too short to drink bad coffee,” he says as I unscrew the cap and the most wonderful aroma fills the car.

“Oh, wow, that smells amazing,” I say, inhaling deeply.

“Do you want milk? I have hot milk in there too. I wasn’t sure how you took it.”

“I’ll just have it how it comes, thanks. Can I pour you one?”

“Black for me, thanks,” he says.

As I carefully pour two cups of the dark black liquid, I feel myself soften. I am not angry at Will, not today. It’s myself I’m angry with. “Thank you for the coffee, and for driving. I probably wouldn’t be safe on the roads this morning.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, and I turn to watch his face in profile as he drives. He really does have the most stupidly perfect features: a nose that’s delicate but masculine, a well-defined jaw, an expressive mouth, and a full, lustrous head of dark brown hair. It’s so neatly trimmed around his collar—I wonder how often he gets it cut. He starts humming “Build Me Up Buttercup” to himself but then stops, sensing my eyes on him. “What?” he asks, rubbing a palm self-consciously along his jawline.

“I’ve never seen you with a hair out of place. You’re always so put together.”

“?‘Put together’?” he asks, turning to narrow his eyes at me. “Are you trying to give me a compliment, Appleby?”

“No. I find it disconcerting. You look exactly the same, every day. I’ve never seen you look tired, or like you didn’t have time to shave, or like you slept through your alarm. It makes me think you might not be a real person.”

“I’m not, I’m a simulation,” he says, and I lift my hand to cover a smile. “You only get to see me wild and unshaven when you reach the next level of the game.” I don’t know quite what he means by this, but I feel myself blushing. “Are you going to tell me what you got up to last night, then?”

I decide I might as well tell him about my date, since he’ll need to write a column to complement it. “I went on a date with a waiter I met. He told me he was twenty-seven, but he turned out to be twenty-two.”

“Appleby, I’m shocked,” Will says, his voice soft and low. “How old did he think you were?”

“Thirty-three,” I admit, curling my body in on itself.

“You could be thirty-three,” he says, glancing across at me. “It must have gone well if you ended up ‘moving furniture’ with him.”

“I was not ‘moving furniture’ with him. I was genuinely moving furniture. By myself.”

“Likewise intriguing. Tell me the highlights,” Will suggests. “We can outline your column now.”

So, I sip Will’s delicious coffee and tell him all about last night, about the hash brownies—he feigns shock and disapproval—the bed full of bodies, and the forgotten phone calls to Dan; he bites his lip in sympathy. Finally I mention the accidental tattoo, which sets him off laughing, to the point where we have to pull the car into a lay-by.

“Show me this tattoo,” Will says, holding out his hand. I pull off the plaster and hand him my forearm. His fingers close around my wrist and he gently tugs my arm toward him so he can inspect it more closely. The sensation of his fingers around my wrist sends a tingle up my arm. I must still be fragile, overly sensitive to touch, because now I feel a wave of giddiness.

Will tuts, then says, “What will your mother say?”

I frown, pulling back my arm, cradling it protectively . I think I wanted him to like it, but I don’t know why when I’m not sure I even like it myself.

“So should I find an older woman online? Do we make this week’s column about age difference?”

“What’s your definition of ‘older’? Thirty-five?” I ask, and Will doesn’t respond. “What’s your usual cutoff? Twenty-three?”

“Thirty-three,” he tells me with a slight shake of his head, but I know this already. Kelly once showed me his Tinder profile. His search criteria are someone between twenty-three and thirty-three who’s over five foot eight and lives within a four-mile radius of Bath.

“What happens on the night of a woman’s thirty-fourth birthday that suddenly makes her so undatable?” I ask him as he pulls the car back out onto the road.

“Are you telling me you don’t have an age range? Didn’t you reject this guy last night for being too young?”

“Being a student is a totally different life stage, plus that’s a fifteen-year age gap. How old are you?”

“Thirty,” he says.

“Right, so you’re willing to consider women seven years younger than you but only three years older? Let me guess, they have to be six foot tall and a size eight too?”

“No, but I do prefer dating tall women. I’m six foot three, I don’t want to strain my neck constantly looking down at someone,” he says, which makes me laugh out loud.

“Ooh, diddums. Do you strain your liddle widdle neck when you talk to me?” I say in a baby voice.

“Talking while we’re sitting down is fine. If I was trying to kiss you while standing up, then I might,” he says. Despite the mischievous glint in his eye, the mention of kissing makes me look away. “How do you know seven years younger is my cutoff, anyway?”

Oops . “I might have seen your dating profile,” I admit. Will grins at this confession, and I chastise myself for making such a rookie mistake.

“Look, everyone has a set of criteria when it comes to dating,” Will tells me. “Whether it’s subconscious or explicit. Online, we’re forced to be specific, but we all have an idea of what we’re looking for.” He shakes his head. “You didn’t put a height range?”

“I put a normal range! Five foot eight is not within normal range for a woman.”

He turns to look at me, briefly pursing his lips, eyes heavy with a cool smugness. “You know, anyone would think you were upset about being outside my search criteria, Appleby.”

“Oh please, I am thrilled to be outside of your search criteria,” I say, shifting toward the passenger window, annoyed that his teasing makes me sink down in the chair and hide behind my coffee cup.

“I’d make an exception for you. You seem worth the neck strain,” Will says. I know he’s joking, but now I feel slightly giddy and curse my body for reacting this way.

“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but you aren’t my type either. I would not date a giraffe man-child,” I say primly. Then he catches my eye and we both start to laugh, though I’m not sure what’s so funny.

“The main flaw with online dating is you can’t convey sexiness. Maybe we could do a column on this,” Will says, his eyes back on the road. “Sexiness is indefinable. It has nothing to do with age or build or hair color. I saw this interview with Catherine Deneuve; she oozed sex appeal even in her seventies.”

“Plus it can’t measure where people are in their lives, how ready they are for a relationship.”

“Right, there’s no drop-down menu where you rate the state of your heart.”

I shift forward in my seat, warming to our discussion, drumming my fingers on my seat belt. “So, let’s say you meet the perfect Amazonian, twenty-six-year-old version of Catherine Deneuve. Then what? Are you looking for Mrs. Right or Miss Right Now?” I pose it playfully, but I am curious to hear what he says.

“That’s a big question,” Will says, the corners of his eyes creasing in contemplation as he taps his hand against the wheel. I notice how strong his hands look, as though he could rip a pineapple in half if he wanted to. Why am I thinking about ripping pineapples in half? That’s not a thing people do. “Why do you want to know?” Will asks, and I try to stop thinking about pineapples.

“We have a long car journey, and we’re cowriting a column about dating,” I say with a shrug. “I’m interested, as a journalist.”

“?‘As a journalist,’?” he says, his voice mockingly serious. “It would depend on the person. Ideally, I’d want to live a little more before I settled down. I don’t want a girlfriend just for the sake of it.” He pauses, the jokey tone absent now. “But if you meet your perfect woman, even if it’s not the perfect time, then you readjust your plans, don’t you?”

“There’s no such thing as a ‘perfect woman,’ Will,” I say, lifting my eyes to the sky.

“I said your perfect woman, not a perfect woman, like if I met ‘the one.’?”

“You seriously believe in ‘the one’?” I ask him.

“Yes, I do,” he says, turning to look at me, his eyes wide with uncharacteristic innocence. “Don’t you?”

I make a “pfff” sound and shake my head.

“Did you believe in ‘the one’ when you were married?” he asks, his voice gentle now.

“How long does it take you to decide whether or not someone is ‘the one’?” I ask, ignoring his question to me.

He pauses, glancing into the rearview mirror. “I think you know quite quickly whether something’s going to be mind-blowing. I am happy on my own, I don’t need to be with someone. So, I don’t tend to go on more than a couple of dates with anyone unless I can see it’s going to be something serious. Why is that so terrible?” he asks.

“It’s not,” I say, shifting in my chair, struck by the fact he used the same phrase I often use. “You epitomize men of your generation. You swipe and you swipe, looking for something better. There’s always someone hotter, younger, taller, smarter, thinner. All these apps are designed to create an itch you can never truly scratch. No one is ‘mind-blowing.’ It’s ridiculous to set your bar that high.”

“That’s not what I do,” he says, his jaw clenched as he rubs a palm up his neck, his eyes unwavering from the road ahead. “And whatever your judgy ex-husband did to make you so cynical, don’t project that onto me.” His words burn like oil spattering from a hot pan, making me physically flinch. “You shouldn’t let him talk to you like he did back there.” Will’s voice is softer now, and the pity is so much worse than the anger or the teasing.

“You know, I’m getting a second wave of hangover. I don’t think I want to talk anymore,” I say, pulling my earphones out of my bag, plugging them in, and then turning to face the window.

“Anna—” Will tries to say something, but I hold up a hand to stop him.

“Let’s just get there, shall we? Honestly, I really have got a headache.”

A hot arc of tears rises behind my eyes, and I focus all my energy on stopping them from spilling over. I have always tried to keep the drama of my home life away from work, and I hate that Will witnessed Dan talking to me like that, that he saw me as the victim I so desperately don’t want to be. I also don’t know why I’m airing such a strong opinion about Will’s dating policy. It’s not unreasonable, what he’s saying. Why shouldn’t he hold out for his perfect woman? It has nothing to do with me.