A Hopeless Romantic

There is nothing more likely to induce embarrassment in a single girl than the obvious set-up at the wedding in front of friends. Laura smiled at Jason, and once more cast a fleeting glance around the room. Where was he?

‘Good, thanks, good,’ said Jason, as Jo nudged Paddy and grinned, much to Laura’s annoyance.

‘See the match on Wednesday?’ Paddy asked Jason, in an attempt at blokeish comradeship.

‘What match?’ said Jason.

‘Oh…’ Paddy said vaguely. ‘You know. The match. The big game.’

‘What, mate?’ Jason repeated, scratching his head.

‘Anyway, great to see you, mate,’ said Paddy, changing tack and banging Jason hard on the shoulder, so that he nearly doubled up. ‘So, Laura was just saying – Laura? Help me out here.’

Jason gazed at Paddy, perplexed. Laura looked wildly around her, searching for an escape, and then someone over Jason’s shoulder caught her eye.

‘Jason split up from Cath two months ago,’ Jo hissed in her ear, in a totally unconvincing stage whisper, as Laura gazed into the distance. It was him, of course it was him, she would know him anywhere. ‘You know, he’s living in Highbury now? Laura, you should –’

But Laura was no longer standing next to her, she had turned around to say hello to their friend Dan, who had appeared by her side. Vaguely she heard Jo’s tutting, vaguely she was aware that she should be making an effort.

For Jo hadn’t seen the look on Laura’s face after she was tapped on the shoulder by Dan. In fact, Jo and Paddy hadn’t been seeing quite a lot of things lately, and if they had, they would have been worried. Especially knowing Laura like they did.

‘You had a good evening, then?’ Dan was saying to Laura, smiling wickedly at her.

‘Yes, thanks,’ she replied, looking up at him, into his eyes. ‘Good speeches.’

‘Great,’ he said, shifting his weight so that he was fully facing her. It was a tiny movement, almost imperceptible to Jo, Paddy, or any of the other hundred and fifty people in that room, but it enclosed the two of them in together as tightly as if they were in a phone box.

Dan smiled at her again, as Laura pulled her shawl over her shoulder and she smiled back helplessly, feeling her stomach turn over at his sheer perfectness. His dark blond hair, the boyish curling crop which curled over his collar. His tanned, strong face, wide cheekbones, blue eyes, lazy smile. He reminded her of a cowboy, a farmhand from the Wild West. He was so relaxed, so easy to be with, so easy to be happy with, and Laura glowed as she gazed up at him, simply exhilarated at the prospect of a whole evening in his company – a whole evening, where anything could happen. Suddenly she could barely remember whose wedding it was.

He was here. She was here with Dan, and he was hers for the rest of the evening, and for those hours only she could indulge herself with the secret fantasy that they were a couple who’d been going out for years. Perhaps they were married already. Perhaps Jo and Chris had been the only witnesses at their beach wedding in Barbados two years ago. Dan in a sarong – he would suit a sarong, unlike most men. Her in a silk sundress, raspberry pink, her dark blonde hair falling loose behind her back. Some spontaneous locals and other couples gathered at the seashore, crying with joy at how perfect, how in love they obviously were, totally pole-axed by the strength of emotion, the purity of their love. Laura and Dan, Dan and Laura. Perhaps…

‘Laura!’ a voice said sharply. ‘Listen!’

Laura realised she was being prodded in the ribs. The lovely bubble of daydream in her head burst, and she tore herself away from Dan, and looked around to see Paddy glaring at her.

‘I was talking to you!’ he said, affronted. ‘I asked you a question four times!’

‘I’ll see you later,’ Dan murmured, shifting away from her. ‘Come and find me, yeah?’ and he very lightly ran his hand over her bare arm, a tiny gesture, but Laura shuddered, looked up at him fleetingly, even more sure than ever, then turned back to Paddy. As Dan moved off, he raised his glass to her, and smiled a regretful smile. Laura screamed inwardly, and turned away from him towards Paddy.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘What was it?’

‘Is this fob watch too much?’ said Paddy, fingering the watch hanging from his waistcoat. ‘I think it is. I’m not sure, but perhaps it overloads the outfit. What do you think?’

‘Ladies ’n’ gennlemen,’ came a bored-sounding voice from the back of the room. ‘Please make your way back into the Ballroom. Mr and Mrs Johnson are about to perform their first dance. Ah-thann yew, verrimuch.’

Laura looked wildly around her, as if trying to prioritise the many tasks on her mind. She glared at Paddy, who was still obviously waiting for an answer.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Laura wildly. ‘Far too much. I totally agree. In fact, it’s hideous,’ she said crossly. ‘You’d better take it off and throw it away. I’m going to the loo – see you in a minute,’ she finished, and hurried away.

Dan, Dan, Dan. Dan Floyd. Even saying his name made her feel funny. She muttered it on her way to the loo, feeling sick with nerves, but totally exhilarated. Laura had got it bad. She knew it was bad, and she knew if any of her friends found out they’d tell her it was futile, she should get over it, but she couldn’t help it. It was meant to be. She was powerless in the face of it, much as she’d tried not to be. Dan Floyd, looking like a ranger or an extra from Oklahoma!, calm, funny, and so sexy she couldn’t imagine ever finding any other man remotely attractive. Laura wanted him, plain and simple.

She had constructed a whole imaginary life for them, based around (because of the Oklahoma! theme) a small house in the Wild West with a porch, a rocking chair – for Laura’s granny Mary – corn growing as high as an elephant’s eye in the fields, and a golden-pink sunset every night. Mary would drink gins on the porch and dispense wise advice, and would sit there looking elegant. Dan would farm, obviously, but he would also do the sports PR job thing that he did. Perhaps by computer. Laura would – well, she hadn’t thought that far. How could she do her job in the prairie? Perhaps there were some dyslexic farmhands who’d never learnt to read properly. Yes.

Her friend Hilary was in the loos when she got there, washing her hands. ‘Oi,’ she said. ‘Hi.’

Laura jumped. ‘Oh. Hi!’ she said brightly. ‘Hey. Great speech, wasn’t it?’

‘Not bad,’ said Hilary, who didn’t much like public displays of affection, verbal or physical. She ran her hands through her hair. ‘That idiot Jason’s there, did you see?’

‘Yeah,’ said Laura. ‘He’s quite nice, isn’t he?’

‘Well,’ said Hilary, in a flat tone. ‘He’s OK. If you like that kind of thing.’

‘He’s split up from Cath,’ Laura said encouragingly.

‘Yeah, I know,’ Hilary replied coolly. ‘Hm. I might go and find him.’

‘OK. See you later,’ said Laura, and shut the door of the cubicle. She rested her pounding head against the cool of the white tiles. She was stressing out, and she couldn’t help it. It was the first time she’d seen Dan since they’d kissed, so fair enough. But she didn’t know what to do. Dan had got to her. The worst bit of all was, she didn’t just fancy him something rotten. She really liked him, too.

She liked the way he was always first to buy a round, that the corners of his blue eyes crinkled when he laughed, the rangy, almost bowlegged way he walked, his strong hands. She liked the way he rolled his eyes with gentle amusement when Paddy said something particularly Paddy-ish. She liked him. She couldn’t help it, she did. And she knew he liked her, that was the funny thing. She just knew, in the way you know. She had also come to know, in the last couple of months, that there was something going on between her and Dan. She just didn’t know what it was. But somehow, she knew tonight was the night.

Dan was a friend of Chris’s from university. He’d moved about five minutes away from Laura about six months ago, round the corner from Jo and Chris towards Highbury – and she’d known of him vaguely since Jo and Chris had got together. In July, Dan had started a new job, and more often than not Laura found herself on the tube platform with him in the morning. The first couple of times it was mere coincidence. Now, at the end of summer, it was almost a routine. They would buy a coffee from the stall on the platform and sit together in the second-to-last carriage, deserted in the dusty dog days of August, and go down the Northern line together until they got to Bank. And they would read Metro together and chat, and it was all perfectly innocent.

‘Dan? Oh yeah, we’re tube buddies,’ Laura would say nonchalantly, her heart thumping in her chest.

‘They’re transport pals,’ Chris and Jo would joke at lunch on Sundays. ‘Like an old married couple on the seafront at Clacton.’

‘Ha, ha, ha,’ Laura would mutter, and then she would blush furiously, biting her lip and shaking her hair forward over her face, burying herself in a newspaper. Not that they ever noticed – it’s extraordinary what people don’t notice right under their noses.

But to Laura it was obvious, straightforward. From the first time she’d recognised him on the tube platform, that sunny July day, and he had smiled at her, his face genuinely lighting up with pleasure – ‘Laura!’ he’d said, warmth in his voice. ‘What a nice surprise. Come and sit next to me.’ Through the sun and rain of August, September and October she would run down the steps to the tube platform, hoping he’d be there, not knowing what was going on between them. They had built up a whole lexicon of information. Just little things that you tell the people you see each day. She knew when his watch was being mended, what big meeting he had that day; and he knew when Rachel, her boss, was being annoying, and asked how her grandmother had been the previous day. Out of these little things, woven over each other, grew a web of knowledge, of intimacy, and one day Laura had woken up and known, known with a clarity that was shocking, that this was not just another one of her crushes, or another failed relationship that she couldn’t understand. She and Dan had something. And she was in love with him.

Oh, the level of denial about the whole thing was extraordinary, because you could explain it away in a heartbeat if you had to. ‘We go to work together, because we live round the corner from each other. It’s great – nice start to the day, you know.’ Whereas the truth was a little more complicated. The truth was both of them had started getting to the station earlier and earlier, so they could sit on the bench together with their coffees and chat for ten minutes before they got on the tube. And that was weird. Laura knew that. Yes, she was in denial about the whole thing. She knew that, too. It had got to the stage where something had to give – and she couldn’t wait.

Laura collected herself, breathed deeply, smoothed the material of her dress down, and came out of the loo to put on more lip gloss. She realised as she looked in the mirror that she was already wearing enough lip gloss to cause an oil slick – it was a nervous reflex of hers, to apply more and more when in doubt. She blotted some on the back of her hand, and strolled out of the door nonchalantly, looking for Paddy or Hilary, someone to chat to. It was strange, wasn’t it, she mused, that at her best friend’s wedding, knowing virtually everyone in the room, she could feel so exposed, so alone. That on such a happy day she could feel so sad. She shook her head, feeling silly. Look over there, she told herself, as Jo and Chris walked through the tables of the big ballroom, hand in hand, smiling at each other, at their friends and family. It was lovely. It was a privilege to see. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Hilary pinning Jason against a wall, yelling at him about something, her long, elegant hands waving in the air. Jason looked scared, but transfixed. Another man scared into snogging Hil, she thought. Well done, girl.

Someone handed her a glass of champagne. She accepted it gratefully and turned to see who it was.

‘Sorry,’ whispered Dan casually, though he didn’t bend towards her. He said it softly, intimately, and clinked his glass with hers. ‘I thought I’d better leave you to deal with Paddy’s sartorial crisis by yourself. Where did you go?’

‘Loo,’ said Laura, trying to stay calm, but it came out, much to her and Dan’s surprise, as a low, oddly pitched growl. He smiled. Laura smiled back, and ran her hand through her hair in a casual, groomed manner, but forgot the lipstick mark of gloss still adhering to the back of her hand. Her hair stuck to the gloss, and her hand became caught up in her hair as she flailed wildly around with her hand in the air, covered in hair.

‘Arrgh,’ said Laura, despair washing over her as she stood in front of Dan. Her hand was stuck. Dan took the champagne out of her other hand, put it on a table, held her wrist and slid her fingers slowly out of her hair. He smoothed it down, swiftly dropped a kiss on the crown of her head in a sweet, intimate gesture, and put his palm on the small of her back as he guided her through the room onto the terrace.

‘Thanks,’ whispered Laura, trying to walk upright and not cower with embarrassment. ‘I should go back out, to see the first dance, look…’

‘No problem,’ said Dan calmly. ‘In a minute. I just want to do this.’ And he slid his hand round her waist, drew him towards her, and kissed her. No one else was watching, they were all turned towards the dance floor where Mr and Mrs Johnson were dancing. They were alone on the terrace, just the two of them.

Dan pulled her towards him, his hands pressing on her spine, his lips gentle but firm on hers. He made a strange, sad sound in his throat, somewhere between a cry of something and a moan. Laura slid one arm around his neck and drew him further towards her. The other arm was by her side, she was still holding the champagne glass. It tilted, the champagne spilt, and neither of them noticed.