‘Do you remember Stellan?’ I said.
‘Was he the guy who fitted your new taps a fortnight ago?’
‘Jesus no, Nari! I told you about him ages ago, back at uni when you and I first met? My first proper boyfriend, Stellan?’
The penny dropped and she was bubbling with intrigue. ‘The Hot Viking? Of course I remember you telling me about him. What’s his name, Stellan…?’
‘Virtanen.’
‘Ooh, fancy! What sort of name’s that again?’
‘Finnish, I guess? It means calm river, at least that’s what he told me on the night we met, and he wasn’t the type to embellish things. In fact he was so earnest and serious I doubt he could lie about anything.’
‘Calm river? I like it.’
‘That’s how we met. Did I never tell you about that night?’ I said, and she pulled a face that suggested she was unsure, so I filled her in. ‘It was my second year at uni, the first week of the autumn term, and I was handing out the name badges at a social event for the new intake of exchange students – I always was one for volunteering, if it meant I got to meet new people and wield a clipboard – and he arrived with his mates. I ticked his name off my guest list and told him I had a Scandinavian name too and we got talking. His parents were both Finnish, but there was some Swedish somewhere along the line, if I’m remembering correctly, and he’d always lived in Finnish Lapland. I had to tell him that no one in my family really knew much about our Scandi roots, only the name Magnusson remained. Anyway, it was all a bit stilted at first; he was so reserved and hard to talk to.’
‘That’s weird, I remember you reminiscing about him that night we did the flaming Sambucas, and you said he waswithout doubtthe hottest lover you’d ever had? It didn’t sound to me as though you had problems communicating, at least not in the bedroom.’
A harassed mother sitting behind Nari reached over to her pre-schooler son and covered his ears with her hands, shooting a scowl at me.
‘Keep your voice down, Nari! Yes, he was totally… what you said. I couldn’t figure out why he was so awkward with me, and the other girls for that matter, and yet he was so relaxed with his mates. When I asked him, he told me that where he was brought up the boys were always a bit shy and they’d wait till the girls came to them, and then usually nobody approached anybody.’
‘Really?That sounds awful!’ Nari was wrinkling her nose and spooning whipped cream from her steaming cup into her mouth.
‘It’s a thing apparently; the boys don’t get much practice chatting up girls, and I suppose that stayed with him into his twenties.’
‘So you helped him out, did you?’
Laughing, I’d kept my eyes cast down at my drink. ‘He didn’t need much help once we got to know each other, but it took a while for him to thaw.’
‘So… what about him?’
‘Oh! Well… when you sorted out our trip, I remembered he was from somewhere near Saariselkä. His family owned hotels and a husky dog centre there, I imagine they still do, they can’t be that old. And… I looked him up on Facebook and sent him a friend request.’
‘Nice work, Sylve! And what did he say? Was he pleased to hear from you? Is he married? Got kids? Is he still blisteringly hot and brooding? Not that I ever saw him, his exchange trip ended just a few weeks before I met you, right? I remember you crying about him the very first time I spoke to you at the undergrads’ Christmas lunch. But from what you told me, he was a real hottie…’
She was really enjoying this, I could tell. She was spilling mini marshmallows all over the bar and grinning madly. I took a long drink and left her in agony.
Eventually, feeling abashed because I realised I’d built this whole Stellan story up to a massive anticlimax, I had to admit, ‘He hasn’t responded, actually.’
‘Maybe he’s dead,’ Nari offered unhelpfully.
‘Right, well, thanks for that. Maybe he just doesn’t remember me?’
My mind instantly flitted to my dream and I wondered if it was possible for someone to forget the kind of connection we had. My heart sank at the thought that maybe he had it with everyone. Maybe he travelled across Europe giving every woman he met multiple orgasms and a lifetime of yearning memories.
‘I wish I hadn’t looked for him on Facebook now. The whole thing’s stupid and juvenile. It was, what, fifteen years ago now?’
‘What happened with him? Apart from the Sambuca night revelations, you haven’t talked about him for years. But he must have been pretty special to get you in a tizz like this.’
I’d tilted my mug towards Nari, showing her the froth at the bottom. ‘If I’m going to tell youthat, I’ll definitely need another one of these. Mint chocolate this time, please.’
And so, I told her. Thewholething.
I’ve always been pretty easy to read, a heart on my sleeve kind of girl, but Stellan really took the wind out of my sails when my inept teenage flirting didn’t seem to be getting me anywhere. I started to wonder if he liked girls at all, and then I was worried it was just me he didn’t like.
One night I asked him straight out whether he fancied me – we’d had quite a few drinks at the student bar – and he finally opened up and told me that hethoughtI’d been flirting with him but was worried he had his wires crossed and he didn’t want to disrespect me. By then, I’d been in his Friend Zone for weeks and was desperate for him to seriously disrespect me, but his concern was so sweet, and nothing like the other boys I’d been dating since I was seventeen (by which I mean snogging in dodgy nightclubs, and alright, that started when I was fifteen, but keep up with the story, please).
