Anika drops the losing lottery ticket onto the coffee table and picks up her mobile, remembering that Tina insisted on downloading her latest favourite app onto it when she last stopped round. It involved your friends creating your dating profile and selecting your potential matches. Anika bites her lip as she hits the icon for the app and sees the photos that her friends have chosen for her profile. The first picture is one Shameeka took on the members’ club rooftop. The bright blue sky behind her makes Anika’s newly pink curls pop, and she looks relaxed and happy. The woman in the image looks like her and not like her. The second picture is of Anika with a more unassuming top-knot, laughing and slyly giving the photographer the finger with a wink. It was taken at Tina’s birthday last year. She looks more guarded, but it’s still a good shot. Her smile down at her phone falters as she reads the bio the girls have written about her, though. It describes Anika asa homebody with a sick bodyand suggests that her potential suitorsshouldn’t let the reserved façade fool them. It’s not inaccurate necessarily, but the thought that her friends see her as a staid, straightlaced recluse has Anika somewhat in her feelings.
When she moves on to the matches, things start looking up. She’s heard bad stuff about the calibre of men on the apps, but each of the five on her match-list seem legitimately attractive. One guy is giving a full lightskin squint to camera, with another pic showing him rock-climbing topless. Hot but cringe – and there’s no way Anika is going to pretend to be interested in scaling a cliff face. She rejects a couple of others, one because his bio makes him sound like a gentle nudge would reveal a membership of the Young Black Conservatives, and another whose friends seem to be implying he’s a player, even if theyhave put him on the app to get him to settle down. One more gets binned because Anika isn’t interested in an age gap of over ten years her senior.That’s edging too far into my mother’s domain, she thinks with a wry smile.
It leaves one option on the virtual table and she’s saved the best for last. His first picture shows him smiling, leaning unselfconsciously against a tree with his arms folded, biceps bulging slightly. His skin is a shade or two darker than the bark behind him and his eyes sparkle. He looks like a bearded Trevante Rhodes. Anika can’t believe he’d even have use for a dating app. Surely women fall at this guy’s feet? In his second picture, he’s in a club in a low-key black T-shirt, and she can tell he’s at Plastic People – one of her favourite venues in London, which some absolute hero recently reopened after the lease became available again. The club is host to some of her favourite nights, so she’s hoping it means this guy has decent taste in music. Anika decides that’s as good a place as any to start. Opening up the chat function, she starts typing.
Hey, Mo. It’s my first time
Woah. God, no.
Hi, Mo, I hope you don’t mind
No, no, no.
Hi, Mo. Congratulate your friends on the picture selections, they’ve done you proud. Plastic People is my favourite club. What night were you at?
She reads it back again before she hits send. She doesn’t expect he’ll reply straight—
Ping!
Anika, hey. Glad you reached out, I was literally about to do the same. Props for the eagle-eye, that is Plastic. It was a Children of Zeus album release party from last month. Jamz Supernova was DJing. Great night.
OK, he’sseriouslytalking her language. It seems too good to be true that he’s this attractiveandhas great taste in music. She sends another couple of messages, but then slows down as she remembers Tina’s counselling about not seeming too eager. But fuck it. She’s not in the mood to beat around the bush.So to speak.
Nice. So, Mo, whereabouts in London are you?
She hesitates, then amends the message to:
Whereabouts in London are you right now?
No, no. Wait.She needs to do this methodically.The diary.She reverts to her previous question. He lets her know that he lives in East and they exchange a little bit of banter about postcodes. Then she signs off for the night and walks purposefully through her flat, making a beeline for the diary. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she flips it open quickly and writes tomorrow’s date on the next blank page.
Saturday 21st July
It’s mad how it’s only a couple of weeks since I came out of the hospital and I’m feeling so much better already. My mind is clear and so is my skin. I feel strong, in control. And fucking horny. Which is just as well, because I had the opportunity to sort that out with Mo, the guy from T’s app – he came round tonight! Admittedly I had some slight reservations about inviting him at first because it could have been a touch perilous, but I was completely safe & secure the whole time – there was absolutely no need for any reservations onthat front. Mo was a gentleman in every possible way – not pushy, not arrogant, not corny …
OK, OK. That should do it for the failsafes.But she continues:
Most of all, I got absolutely everything I needed out of the encounter. Delicious.
‘God, Neeks,’ she whispers. She wants to laugh again. Is this projection weird, or unhealthy? No. This is good.
I deserve to get what I want. I’m beginning to understand that I don’t have to be afraid of making a choice or a decision. That’s for the old me. New Anika does for self! Things are going to work out for me this time. Beauty is going to come, even from pain. No more interruptions to that positive trajectory. Starting with the MIND-BLOWING shag with Mo! Truly Mo-tivational. hah.
‘Ugh.’ She laughs at her cheesiness. Of all the things she’s tried writing so far, this might be the riskiest and most ridiculous. Nevertheless, Anika is buzzing with anticipation as she tucks her pen inside the diary’s pages and lies back on her pillows.
If this works, then …
Then who knows what – or who – else she could get.
Chapter Fifteen
Saturday 21st July
The next evening, Anika stares at the steam drifting up from her kettle’s spout and out of habit nudges it from under the kitchen cabinets. She’s always paranoid a bloom of mould will form if she lets damp collect there.
She’s considering whether Mo thinks it’s weird that the only booze she has is the dregs of an old bottle of wine that’s resided on her windowsill since … Well, since even before all the stuff with her surgery. Instinctively, her hand goes to her stomach, edging under her T-shirt to feel the subtle scars there. She doesn’t typically keep much alcohol in the house. To be fair, none of what’s happening tonight is typical.
This is good. This is what you wanted. What you wrote about.
